c H a p. not as a minifter. The occafion was to acquaintlxv. him with a converfation which he had lately hadi07°. with Puffendorf, the Swedifh agent , who hadpalled by the Hague in. the way from Paris tohis own country. The French minifters, Puffen-dorf faid , had taken much pains to perfuade him,that the Swedes would very ill find their accountin thofe meafures, which they had lately embraced:
• That Spain would fail them in all her promifesoffubfidies; nor would Holland alone be able tofupport them : That England would certainly failthem, and had already adopted counfels diredlyoppofite to thofe which by the triple league fhehad bound berfelf to purfue: And that the refolu-tion was not the lefs fixed and certain, becaufethe fecret was as yet communicated to very feweither in the French or Englilh court. WhenPuffendorf feemed incredulous, Turenne fhowedhim a letter from Colbert de Croffy, the French minifter at London ; in which, after mentioningthe fuccefs of his negociatious, and the favorabledifpofition of the chief minifters there, he added,“ And I have at laft made them fenfible of the“ full extent of his majefty’s bounty \ ” Fromthis incident it appears, that the infamous pradiceof felling themfelves to foreign princes, a pradice,which , notwithftanding the malignity of thevulgar , is certainly rare among men in highoffice , had not been fcrupled by Charles’s mi-nifters, who even obtained their mafter’s confentto this difhonorable corruption.
5 Temple, vol. ii. p. 179*