I thought this unjust, and although I was not a Frenchman, I abolished it in favor of the French; but I so rigorously demanded my right from persons of every other nation, that the Marquis de Scotti, brother to the favorite of the Queen of Spain, having asked for a passport without taking notice of the sequin, I sent to demand it; a boldness which the vindictive Italian did not forget.As soon as the new regulation I had made, relative to passports, was known, none but pretended Frenchmen, who in a gibberish the most mispronounced, called themselves Provencals, Picards, or Burgundians, came to demand them.My ear being very fine, I was not thus made a dupe, and Iam almost persuaded that not a single Italian ever cheated me of my sequin, and that not one Frenchmen ever paid it.I was foolish enough to tell M.de Montaigu, who was ignorant of everything that passed, what I had done.The word sequin made him open his ears, and without giving me his opinion of the abolition of that tax upon the French, he pretended I ought to account with him for the others, promising me at the same time equivalent advantages.More filled with indignation at this meanness, than concerned for my own interest, I rejected his proposal.He insisted, and I grew warm."No, sir," said I, with some heat, "your excellency may keep what belongs to you, but do not take from me that which is mine; I will not suffer you to touch a penny of the perquisites arising from passports." Perceiving he could gain nothing by these means he had recourse to others, and blushed not to tell me that since I had appropriated to myself the profits of the chancery, it was but just I should pay the expenses.
I was unwilling to dispute upon this subject, and from that time Ifurnished at my own expense, ink, paper, wax, wax-candle, tape, and even a new seal, for which he never reimbursed me to the amount of a farthing.This, however, did not prevent my giving a small part of the produce of the passports to the Abbe de Binis, a good creature, and who was far from pretending to have the least right to any such right.
If he was obliging to me my politeness to him was an equivalent, and we always lived together on the best of terms.
On the first trial I made of his talents in my official functions, Ifound him less troublesome than I expected he would have been, considering he was a man without experience, in the service of an ambassador who possessed no more than himself, and whose ignorance and obstinacy constantly counteracted everything with which common-sense and some information inspired me for his service and that of the king.
The next thing the ambassador did was to connect himself with the Marquis Mari, ambassador from Spain, an ingenious and artful man, who, had he wished so to do, might have led him by the nose, yet on account of the union of the interests of the two crowns he generally gave him good advice, which might have been of essential service, had not the other, by joining his own opinion, counteracted it in the execution.The only business they had to conduct in concert with each other was to engage the Venetians to maintain their neutrality.
These did not neglect to give the strongest assurances of their fidelity to their engagement at the same time that they publicly furnished ammunition to the Austrian troops, and even recruits under pretense of desertion.M.de Montaigu, who I believed wished to render himself agreeable to the republic, failed not on his part, notwithstanding my representations, to make me assure the government in all my despatches, that the Venetians would never violate an article of the neutrality.The obstinacy and stupidity of this poor wretch made me write and act extravagantly: I was obliged to be the agent of his folly, because he would have it so, but he sometimes rendered my employment insupportable and the functions of it almost impracticable.For example, he insisted on the greatest part of his despatches to the king, and of those to the minister, being written in cipher, although neither of them contained anything that required that precaution.I represented to him that between the Friday, the day the despatches from the court arrived, and Saturday, on which ours were sent off, there was not sufficient time to write so much in cipher, and carry on the considerable correspondence with which Iwas charged for the same courier.He found an admirable expedient, which was to prepare on Thursday the answer to the despatches we were expected to receive on the next day.This appeared to him so happily imagined, that notwithstanding all I could say on the impossibility of the thing, and the absurdity of attempting its execution, I was obliged to comply during the whole time Iafterwards remained with him, after having made notes of the few loose words he spoke to me in the course of the week, and of some trivial circumstances which I collected by hurrying from place to place.
Provided with these materials I never once failed carrying to him on the Thursday morning a rough draft of the despatches which were to be sent off on Saturday, excepting the few additions and corrections Ihastily made in answer to the letters which arrived on the Friday, and to which ours served for answer.He had another custom, diverting enough, and which made his correspondence ridiculous beyond imagination.He sent back all information to its respective source, instead of making it follow its course.To M.Amelot he transmitted the news of the court; to M.Maurepas, that of Paris; to M.
