The house immediately to the west of Leicester House belonged to the Marquis of Aylesbury; but in 1698 it was occupied by the Marquis of Caermarthen, who was appointed by King William III. cicerone and guide to Peter the Great when he came in the January of that year to visit England. Peter's great qualities have long been done full justice to; but in the far-off January of 1698 he appeared to the English as by no means a very august-looking potentate; he had the manners and appearance of an unkempt barbarian, and his pastimes were those of a coal-heaver. His favourite exercise in the mornings was to run a barrow through and through Evelyn's trim holly-hedges at Deptford; and the state in which he left his pretty house there is not to be described. His chief pleasure, when the duties of the day were over, was to drink all night with the Marquis in his house at Leicester Fields, the favourite tipple of the two distinguished topers being brandy spiced with pepper; or sack, of which the Czar is reported to have drunk eight bottles one day after dinner. Among other sights in London, the Marquis took him to see Westminster Hall in full term. "Who are all these men in wigs and gowns?" he asked. "Lawyers," was the answer. "Lawyers!" he exclaimed. "Why, I have only two in my dominions, and when I get back, I intend to hang one of them." In January 1712 Leicester House, which was then occupied by the imperial resident, received another distinguished visitor in the person of Prince Eugene, one of the greatest captains of the age. In appearance he was a little sallow wizened old man, with one shoulder higher than the other. A soldier of fortune, whose origin was so humble as to be unknown, his laurels were stained neither by rapacity nor self-seeking; and in all the vicissitudes of his eventful life he bore himself like a hero, and a gentleman in the truest and fullest acceptation of the word. Dean Swift was also at this time in lodgings in Leicester Fields, noting with clear acute unpitying vision the foibles and failings of all around him, and writing to Stella from time to time after his cynical fashion, "how the world is going mad after Prince Eugene, and how he went to court also, but could not see him, the crowd was so great." A labyrinth of courts, inns, and stable-yards had gradually filled up the space between the royal mews and Leicester Fields; and between 1680 and 1700 several new streets were opened through these; one reason for the opening of them being the great influx of French refugees into London, on the occasion of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Many of these exiles settled in and around Leicester Fields, and for their use several chapels were built. The neighbourhood has ever since been a resort of French immigrants.