Frenchmen and others without distinction. I thought this unjust, and
although I was not a Frenchman, I abolished it in favor of the French;
but I so rigorously demanded my right from persons of every other nation,
that the Marquis de Scotti, brother to the favorite of the Queen of
Spain, having asked for a passport without taking notice of the sequin: I
sent to demand it; a boldness which the vindictive Italian did not
forget. As soon as the new regulation I had made, relative to passports,
was known, none but pretended Frenchmen, who in a gibberish the most
mispronounced, called themselves Provencals, Picards, or Burgundians,
came to demand them. My ear being very fine, I was not thus made a dupe,
and I am almost persuaded that not a single Italian ever cheated me of my
sequin, and that not one Frenchman ever paid it. I was foolish enough to
tell M. de Montaigu, who was ignorant of everything that passed, what I
had done. The word sequin made him open his ears, and without giving me
his opinion of the abolition of that tax upon the French, he pretended I
ought to account with him for the others, promising me at the same time
equivalent advantages. More filled with indignation at this meanness,
than concern for my own interest, I rejected his proposal. He insisted,
and I grew warm. "No, sir," said I, with some heat, "your excellency may
keep what belongs to you, but do not take from me that which is mine; I
will not suffer you to touch a penny of the perquisites arising from
passports." Perceiving he could gain nothing by these means he had
recourse to others, and blushed not to tell me that since I had
appropriated to myself the profits of the chancery, it was but just I
should pay the expenses. I was unwilling to dispute upon this subject,
and from that time I furnished at my own expense, ink, paper, wax,
wax-candle, tape, and even a new seal, for which he never reimbursed me
to the amount of a farthing. This, however, did not prevent my giving a
small part of the produce of the passports to the Abbe de Binis, a good
creature, and who was far from pretending to have the least right to any