[95] In the preamble to this institution, the czar declared, that it was to perpetuate the memory of her love in his distressed condition on the banks of the river Pruth. He invested her with full power to bestow it on such of her own sex as she should think proper. The ensigns of this order are, a broad white riband, and wore over the right shoulder, with a medal of St. Catherine, adorned with precious stones, and the motto, 'Out of love and fidelity.' [96] Inhabitants of a small town of Hungarian Dalmatia, with a harbour, from whence the neighbouring sea takes the name of Golfo di Bickariga. [97] The conspiracy carried on in France by cardinal Alberoni, was discovered in a very singular manner. The Spanish ambassador's secretary, who used frequently to go to the house of one La Follon, a famous procuress of Paris, to amuse himself for an hour or two after the fatigues of business, had appointed a young nymph, whom he was fond of, to meet him there at nine o'clock in the evening, but did not come to her till near two o'clock in the morning. The lady, as may be supposed, reproached him with the little regard he paid to her charms, or his own promise; but he excused himself, by saying, that he had been obliged to stay to finish a long dispatch in ciphers, which was to be sent away that very night by a courier to Spain: so saying, he undressed and threw himself into bed, where he quietly fell asleep. In pulling off his clothes, he had, by accident, dropped a paper out of his pocket, which, by its bulk, raised in the nymph that curiosity so natural to her sex. She picked it up, and read it partly over, when the nature of its contents made her resolve to communicate them to La Follon: accordingly, she framed some excuse for leaving the room, and immediately went to the apartment of the old lady, and opened her budget. La Follon, who was a woman of superior understanding to most in her sphere, immediately saw the whole consequence of the affair; and, after having recommended to the girl, to amuse her gallant as long as possible, she immediately went to waken the regent, to whom she had access at all hours, for matters of a very different nature to the present. This prince, whose presence of mind was equal to every exigency, immediately dispatched different couriers to the frontiers; in consequence of which, the Spanish ambassador's messenger was stopped at Bayonne, and his dispatches taken from him; upon deciphering of which, they were found exactly to agree with the original delivered to the regent by La Follon: upon this the prince of Cellamar, the Spanish ambassador was put under an arrest, and all his papers seized; after which he was sent under a strong guard to the frontiers, where they left him to make the best of his way to his own country. Thus an event, which would have brought the kingdom of France to the verge of destruction, was frustrated by a votary of Venus, and a priestess of the temple of pleasure.