Peter, in the midst of all these alarms and jealousies, kept himself quiet, waiting with patience the event of all from time; and having established such good order throughout his vast dominions, as that he had nothing to fear, either at home or from abroad, he resolved to make a journey to France. Unhappily he did not understand the French language, by which means he was deprived of the greatest advantage he might have reaped from his journey; but he thought there might be something there worthy observation, and he had a mind to be a nearer witness of the terms on which the regent stood with the king of England, and whether that prince was staunch to his alliance. Peter the Great was received in France as such a monarch ought to be. Marshal Tessé was sent to meet him, with a number of the principal lords of the court, a company of guards and the king's coaches; but he, according to his usual custom, travelled with such expedition, that he was at Gournay when the equipages arrived at Elbeuf. Entertainments were made for him in every place on the road where he chose to partake of them. On his arrival he was received in the Louvre, where the royal apartments were prepared for him, and others for the princes Kourakin and Dolgorouki, the vice-chancellor Shaffiroff, the ambassador Tolstoy, the same who had suffered in his person that notorious violation of the laws of nations in Turkey, and for the rest of his retinue. Orders were given for lodging and entertaining him in the most splendid and sumptuous manner: but Peter, who was come only to see what might be of use to him, and not to suffer these ceremonious triflings, which were a restraint upon his natural plainness, and consumed a time that was precious to him, went the same night to take up his lodgings at the other end of the city in the hotel of Lesdiguiére, belonging to marshal Villeroi, where he was entertained at the king's expense in the same manner as he would have been at the Louvre. The next day (May 8, 1717.) the regent of France went to make him a visit in the before mentioned hotel, and the day afterwards the young king, then an infant, was sent to him under the care of his governor, the marshal de Villeroi, whose father had been governor to Lewis XIV. On this occasion, they, by a polite artifice, spared the czar the troublesome restraint of returning this visit immediately after receiving it, by allowing an interview of two days for him to receive the respects of the several corporations of the city; the second night he went to visit the king: the household were all under arms, and they brought the young king quite to the door of the czar's coach. Peter, surprised and uneasy at the prodigious concourse of people assembled about the infant monarch, took him in his arms, and carried him in that manner for some time.