If to this day I have never taken advantage of your Majesty’s most generous encouragement,² Francis most Christian king, the fault was neither mine nor yours. There have been many other reasons against it hitherto; and in particular it is the confusion of the age we live in that has deprived me of this felicity.³ I always expected that in the long-continued storms of war there must be some quarter from which peace, like a spell of fine weather, would shine upon us. But never did I suppose myself to be one hair’s breadth less indebted to your generosity than...