The envoy knew his business better than not to have secretly provided himself with copies of these documents, which he had already laid before his own government.
He affected, however, to feel hurt that he had been thus kept in ignorance of papers which he really knew by heart.

"After some pretended quarrel," said he, "for their not acquainting me therewith sooner, I did accept them, as if I had before neither seen nor heard of them." This then was the aspect of affairs in the provinces during the absence of the deputies in France.

It is now necessary to shift the scene to that country..