"Congress at Augsburg" split upon formalities, preliminaries, and never even tried to meet: but France and England are actually busy.

Each Country has sent its Envoy: the Sieur de Bussy, a tricky gentleman, known here of old, is Choiseul's, whom Pitt is on his guard against; "Mr.Hans Stanley," a lively, clear-sighted person, of whom I could never hear elsewhere, is Pitt's at Paris: and it is in that City between Choiseul and Stanley, with Pitt warily and loftily presiding in the distance, that the main stress of the Negotiation lies.
Pitt is lofty, haughty, but very fine and noble; no King or Kaiser could be more.

Sincere, severe, though most soft-shining; high, earnest, steady, like the stars.

Artful Choiseul, again, flashes out in a cheerily exuberant way; and Stanley's Despatches about Choiseul ("CE FOU PLEIN D'ESPRIT," as Friedrich once christens him), about Choiseul and the France then round him, and the effects of Vellinghausen in society and the like,--are the liveliest reading one almost anywhere meets with in that kind.

[In THACKERAY, i.