Our king was at Plessis, with little company but his archers, and the suspicions I mentioned before, against which he had carefully provided; for he allowed no person, of whom he had any suspicion, to remain either in the town or country; but he sent his archers not only to warn, but to conduct them away. No business was communicated to him but what was of great importance, and highly concerned him. To look upon him one would have thought him rather a dead than a living man. He was grown so lean, it was scarce credible: his clothes were now richer and more magnificent than they had ever been before; his gowns were all of crimson satin, lined with rich martens’ furs, of which he gave several away, without being requested; for no person durst ask a favour of him, or scarce speak to him of any thing. He inflicted very severe punishments to inspire dread, and for fear of losing his authority, as he told me himself. He removed officers, disbanded soldiers, retrenched pensions, and sometimes took them away altogether; so that, as he told me not many days before his death, he passed his time in making and ruining men; which caused him to be talked of more than any of his predecessors, and he did this that his subjects might take notice he was not yet dead; for few were admitted into his presence (as I said before), and when they heard of his vagaries, nobody was willing to believe he was sick. He also sent agents to all foreign courts. In England, their business was to carry on the treaty of marriage[103], and pay King Edward and his ministers of state their pensions very punctually. In Spain, their instructions were to amuse that court with fair words, and to distribute presents as they found it necessary for the advancement of his affairs. In remoter countries, where he had no mind his indisposition should be known, he caused fine horses or mules to be bought at any rate whatever; but this was not done in France. He had a mighty curiosity for dogs[104], and sent into foreign countries for them; into Spain for mastiffs; into Bretagne for greyhounds and spaniels; to Valentia for little shaggy dogs; and bought them at a dearer price than the people asked. He sent into Sicily to buy a mule of an officer of that country, and paid him double the value. At Naples he bought horses; and purchased strange creatures wherever they could be found, such as a sort of lions from Barbary[105] no bigger than foxes, and which are called adits. He sent into Sweden and Denmark for two sorts of beasts those countries afforded; one of them called an elk, of the shape of a stag, and the size of a buffalo, with short and thick horns; the other, called reindeers, of the shape and colour of a fallow deer, but with much larger horns; indeed I have seen reindeers with fifty-four horns; for six of each of which beasts he gave the merchants four thousand five hundred Dutch florins.[106] Yet, when all these rarities were brought to him, he never valued them, and