What has come to our ears regarding the life of Theodore previously to his arrival in Corsica, which, as we might expect from the nature of the man, is uncertain and contradictory, shows him to have been one of the most prominent and fortunate of the succession of adventurers who figured in the eighteenth century. The appearance of such men as Cagliostro, Saint Germain, Law, Theodore, Casanova, Königsmark is a counterpoise to these genuinely great contemporaries, Washington, Franklin, Paoli, Pitt, Frederick the Great, highly characteristic of the epoch. While these are busy laying the foundations of a new order of government and society, those, like fluttering storm-birds, give indications of the mighty elemental commotions which were secretly agitating the minds of that period. It is said that Theodore von Neuhoff became a page in the family of the famous Duchess of Orleans, and there formed himself to the complete and adroit courtier. His Proteus-nature hurried him into the most opposite extremes. In Paris, the Marquis of Courcillon procured him an officer's commission. He became a passionate gambler; he then fled from his creditors to Sweden, where he resided under the protection of Baron von Görtz, and formed connexions successively with the intriguing and adventurously ingenious ministers of that period—with Ripperda, Alberoni, and, finally, with Law;—men who, more or less, transferred into politics the same character of adventurer which distinguished our hero in private life. Theodore became Alberoni's confidant, and gained such great influence in Spain that he accumulated considerable property, till Alberoni was overthrown, when he again came to the ground. He now attached himself to Ripperda, and married one of the maids of honour in the Spanish court. Elizabeth Farnese of Spain, an accomplished mistress of every intrigue, had played a high game with a view to procure for her son, Don Carlos, an Italian kingdom; all this was gone about in a speculative and adventurous way. The world was then a great field for adventurers, and full of _parvenus_, aspiring pretenders, visionaries, and fortune-hunters. One may string together a whole list of them, and this in the field of politics alone. Don Carlos of Spain, Charles Stuart, Rakotzy, Stanislaus Leszcinski the creature of the great adventurer Charles XII. of Sweden; and, in addition to the statesmen already named, the _parvenus_ of Russia—a Menezikof, a Münnich, a Biron; Mazeppa and Patkul, too, stand at the head of the long line. It was also the epoch of female supremacy in Europe. We thus see on what ground our Theodore von Neuhoff stood. His wife was a Spaniard, but of Irish or English extraction, and a relation of the Duke of Ormond. She does not seem to have been a paragon of beauty. Theodore forsook her, and, one may suppose, not without carrying off her jewels and other articles of value.