at the court of Brunswick; while at the same moment his enemies at Paris obtained against him a degrading sentence from his judges! That not a love of justice, but a desire to extort money from him, gave rise to his being prosecuted, is made evident by Colbert having offered a pardon, at the price of 800,000 livres, which he afterwards reduced to 600,000. Gourville, however, either could not or would not purchase this costly commodity. He was subsequently employed as a diplomatist in Spain, and again in Germany; and at length in 1681, a free pardon was granted to him. From that time he led a tranquil life in the French capital, in habits of friendship with, and much beloved by, the most eminent men of genius and rank. At one period there was an intention of making him the successor of Colbert, as comptroller-general of the finances, an office for which he was well qualified; but he had ceased to be ambitious of dangerous honours, and was happy to avoid them. The length of time which his servants continued in his service, and the cordial manner in which he speaks of them, afford strong proofs of his kind-heartedness: never did a selfish or harsh master long retain a domestic. Haughtiness to inferiors is the miserable make-shift of a man who has no true dignity to support his pretensions. Gourville mentions four persons who had been with him for fifteen, seventeen, twenty-five, and thirty-two years. He died in 1703, at the age of seventy-eight. His Memoirs, which he composed in four months, to amuse himself while he was confined by a disease in the leg, are deservedly praised by Madame de Sévigné and Voltaire.