"I was thrown into some perplexity," says Mirabeau. "That the city gates would be shut was certain; it was even possible that the drawbridges of the island of Potsdam would be raised the moment death should take place, and should this happen my uncertainty would continue as long as it should please the new King. On the first supposition, how send off a courier? There were no means of scaling the ramparts or the palisadoes, without being exposed to a fray, for there are sentinels at every forty paces behind the palisadoes, and at every fifty behind the wall. What was to be done?... Had I been ambassador, the certain symptoms of mortality would have determined me to have sent off an express before death. For what addition was the word death? How was I to act in my present situation? It certainly was most important to serve, and not merely to appear to have served.... "I still had great reason to be diffident of the activity of our embassy. How did I act? I sent a man, on whom I could depend, with a strong and swift horse to a farm four miles from Berlin, from the master of which I had some days before received two pairs of pigeons, an experiment on the flight of which had been made; so that, unless the bridges of the isle of Potsdam were raised, I acted with certainty.... "After considering, I did not find we were rich enough to throw a hundred guineas away; I therefore renounced all my fine projects, which had cost me some thought, some trouble, and some louis; and I let fly my pigeons to my man with the word 'Return.' Have I done well or ill? Of this I am ignorant; but I had no express orders, and sometimes works of supererogation gain but little applause." The ambassadors were charged, during their residence abroad, to draw up a memorandum on the condition of the peoples and the governments to which they were accredited. This series of memoranda might be useful to the historian. To-day the same injunctions are issued, but scarcely one diplomatic agent complies with it. I had too little time in my embassies to finish off long studies; nevertheless, I made drafts for them; my patience for work was not entirely unfruitful. I find this commencement of a sketch of my investigations on Germany: