The Character of the French.
They are so occupied with the present good or evil, that they do not take the future into account; and they equally forget the insults and the favours they have received.
Their prudence is only speculative, the fortuitous success of random conjecture. They are very indifferent as to what is said or written respecting them; they are less cruel than selfish, and their liberality is merely parade.
If a nobleman or a gentleman disobeys the king in any thing that interests a third person, he is quit on receiving an injunction to obey in future; but if it is in a point wherein royalty alone is wounded, he is punished by a banishment from court for three or four months. This principle lost them the city of Pisa twice; once when D'Entraignes commanded the fort, and also when the French encamped there.
Nothing is done at the court of France
