When war had broken out between the Porte and Russia, in spite of the efforts of the French ambassador to prevent the rupture, he continued to perform the part of a conciliator. It was by his intercession that the Russian ambassador, imprisoned contrary to the law of nations in the Seven Towers, was liberated, and placed on board a French frigate, commanded by the Prince de Rohan, which conveyed him to Trieste. And afterward, when Austria had determined to unite its forces with those of Russia to attack the common enemy of Christendom, Choiseul-Gouffier succeeded in preventing the imprisonment of its internuncio, whom he caused to embark with all his family and suite on board two French ships, which conveyed them to Leghorn. At the same time he effectually protected the Russian and Austrian prisoners detained in chains at Constantinople, and carefully caused to be distributed among them the provisions which their governments or families conveyed to them through his means. Several of these miserable beings he ransomed from captivity with his own money, particularly a young Austrian officer who had fallen into the hands of a cruel master, and who, resigned to his unhappy condition, appeared only to grieve for the affliction which the sad lot of their only son would cause his aged parents. His zeal for the interests of Turkey was not less remarkable. For not only did he in like manner protect the Turkish prisoners in Russia, but he caused French ships to transport provisions to Constantinople and the Black Sea, whose losses, when they incurred any, he made up out of his own private fortune. In the midst of those assiduous and important cares which the policy and critical position of the Ottoman empire required of him, he at no time lost sight of the commerce and other interests of his country. He moreover found leisure for the indulgence of his old classical tastes, and once more ran over, with the Iliad in his hand, the whole of the Troad and the other places celebrated by Homer. In addition to this, he despatched several artists to Syria and Egypt at his own expense, for the purpose of exploring and sketching ancient monuments, ruins, picturesque sites, and in general whatever was worthy of occupying the attention of the learned world. In 1791 he was appointed by the new government ambassador to the court of London; but as his political principles would not allow him to acknowledge the authority from which this nomination proceeded, he still continued at Constantinople, from whence he addressed all his despatches to the brothers of Louis XVI., then in Germany. This correspondence was seized during the following year by the French army in Champagne, and on the 22d of November, 1792, a decree of arrest was passed against him.