It is surmised, the French had their eye on Lorraine, not on Stanislaus, from the first.

For many centuries, especially for these last two,--ever since that Siege of Metz, which we once saw, under Kaiser Karl V.and Albert Alcibiades,--France has been wrenching and screwing at this Lorraine, wriggling it off bit by bit; till now, as we perceived on Lyttelton junior of Hagley's visit, Lorraine seems all lying unscrewed; and France, by any good opportunity, could stick it in her pocket.

Such opportunity sly Fleury contrived, they say;--or more likely it might be Belleisle and the other adventurous spirits that urged it on pacific Fleury;--but, at all events, he has got it.

Dilapidated Kehl yields straightway: [29th October, 1733.

_Memoires du Marechal de Berwick_ (in Petitot'e Collection, Paris, 1828), ii.