* The following passage is an extract from M. Barillon’s letters kept in the Dépôt des Affaires étrangères at Versailles. It was lately communicated to the author while in France. “Convention verbale arrêtée le 1 Avril 1681. Charles 2 s’engage à ne rien omettre pour pouvoir faire connoitre à sa majesté qu’elle avoit raison de prendre confiance en lui; a se dégager peu-à-peu de l’alliance avec l’Espagne, et à se mettre en état de ne point ètre contraint par son parlement de faire quelque chose d’opposé aux nouveaux engagemens qu’il prenoit. En conséquence, le roi promet un subside de deux millions la première des trois années de cet engagement, et 500,000 écus les deux autres se contentant de la parole de sa majesté Britannique, d’agir à l’égard de sa majesté conformement aux obligations qu’il lui avoit. Le Sr. Hyde demanda que le roi s’engagea à ne point attaquer les pays bas et même Strasbourg, térnoignant que le roi son maìtre ne pournoit s’empêcher de secourir les pais bas, quand même son parlement ne seroit point assemblé. M. Barillon lui répondit en termes généraux par ordre du roi, que sa majesté n’avoit point intention de rompre la paix, et qu’il n’engageroit pas sa majesté Britannique en choses contraires à ses véritables intérêts.” It is here we are to fix the point of the highest exaltation which the power of Lewis, or that of any European prince since the age of Charlemagne, had ever attained. The monarch most capable of opposing his progress was entirely engaged in his interests; and the Turks, invited by the malecontents of Hungary, were preparing to invade the emperor, and to disable that prince from making head against the progress of the French power. Lewis may even be accused of oversight, in not making sufficient advantage of such favorable opportunities, which he was never afterwards able to recall. But that monarch, though more governed by motives of ambition than by those of justice or moderation, was still more actuated by the suggestions of vanity. He contented himself with insulting and domineering over all the princes and free states of Europe; and he thereby provoked their resentment, without subduing their power. While every one who approached his person, and behaved with submission to his authority, was treated with the highest politeness, all the neighboring potentates had successively felt the effects of his haughty, imperious disposition. And by indulging his poets, orators, and courtiers in their flatteries, and in their prognostications of universal empire, he conveyed faster, than by the prospect of his power alone, the apprehension of general conquest and subjection.