of the crime. The more profound the mystery with which it has been surrounded, the more necessary it is to entirely penetrate it, and, after so many deeds which justly entitle Louis XIV. to admiration and gratitude, the more necessary also is it not to leave in obscurity, the only one perhaps where he has made use of the worst of violences, that which is aided by lying and hypocrisy. In 1699, Louis XIV. appointed the Marquis de Ferriol his ambassador at Constantinople. This post was beset with difficulties. To represent among Mussulmen a highly Catholic nation; and in a country divided among several dissenting Churches, to be the natural and appointed protector of a very small Latin minority, unceasingly aspiring to increase in number, and encouraged in proselytism by ardent and active missionaries; to restrain the often thoughtless zeal of these missionaries, and, moreover, to prevent this Latin minority from ceding to the offers of the German Empire and placing themselves under its protection;[220] to defend the interests of merchants, more and more exacting in their demands, often unjust in their complaints,[221] and whose encroachments met with opposition not only from the Turks, but especially from the English, the Genoese, and the Venetians; to act in the name of an extremely haughty monarch near a very touchy Government, and one still too much isolated and too much aloof from the great enterprises of Europe for it to give Louis XIV. credit for the as yet continued success of his arms and the brilliancy of his reign; to maintain the misunderstanding between the Germans and the Turks, by inducing the former to send assistance to the rebellious Hungarians, and to keep up the resentment of the Porte against the Venetians, but nevertheless without going to the extremity of causing it to break out in war; to live in the midst of manners altogether peculiar and in certain respects always barbarous, to imitate Asiatic luxury, and to submit to customs[222] which were sometimes extremely onerous; to assist at frequent and unexpected _révolutions de palais_, which would in a day upset the policy of the Divan and baffle every project: such was then the delicate task of the French ambassadors at Constantinople.