Let us revert to the captives of the Bastile. The destiny of John Herauld Gourville, who was born in 1625, was a singular one; he not only raised himself from a humble state to be the companion and friend of princes, but was appointed to be one of the representatives of his sovereign while in exile, and while a Parisian court of justice was hanging him in effigy as a convicted runaway peculator. After having received a scanty education, he was placed in an attorney’s office by his widowed mother. Having by his cleverness fortunately attracted the notice of the duke de la Rochefaucault, the author of the “Maxims,” that nobleman made him his secretary. During the war of the Fronde, Gourville displayed such talent and activity, that he acquired the warm friendship of his employer and the prince of Condé. His gratitude engaged him in many desperate adventures for their service, and the mode in which he raised the supplies for them was sometimes not much unlike that of a bandit; the moral code of the Frondeurs was not remarkable for its strictness. When Rochefaucault became weary of the inglorious contest in which he was an actor, Gourville negotiated the duke’s peace with the court; and in doing this he manifested so much ability and prudence, that Mazarin despatched him to Bordeaux, to treat with the prince of Conti. In this mission he was successful; and he was rewarded by being appointed commissary-general of the French army in Catalonia. At the close of the campaign of 1655, he returned to Paris, and Mazarin, who suspected that he came to intrigue for the prince of Conti, shut him up in the Bastile. In his Memoirs, Gourville candidly confesses that his six months’ imprisonment was insufferably wearisome, and that he could think of little else than how he should put an end to it. He was maturing a plan of escape, in concert with six other prisoners, when the cardinal relented, took him again into favour, and even prevailed on Fouquet to give him the lucrative place of receiver-general of the province of Guienne. In this office Gourville amassed an immense fortune, which he increased by his extraordinary good luck at play. When Fouquet fell, the whole of his subalterns were involved in his fall; but, far from deserting him in his calamity, Gourville nobly furnished 100,000 livres to assist in gaining over some of his enemies, and a still larger sum for the establishment of his son, the count de Vaux. He soon, however, became himself an object of impeachment, on a charge of peculation, and he deemed it prudent to quit France. At that moment there was certainly no chance of his obtaining a fair trial. After having visited England and Holland, he settled at Brussels. Though he was compelled to live in a foreign country, Gourville still preserved a strong affection for his native land, and he proved it, by influencing the princes of Brunswick and Hanover in favour of France. For this patriotic conduct Louis XIV. nominated him his plenipotentiary