I had formed an intimate connection with him after the example of our ambassadors.
Happy should I have been, if, when in the most disinterested manner I did all the service I could, I had known how to introduce sufficient order into all these little details, that I might not have served others at my own expense.

But in employments similar to that I held, in which the most trifling faults are of consequence, my whole attention was engaged in avoiding all such mistakes as might be detrimental to my service.

I conducted, till the last moment, everything relative to my immediate duty, with the greatest order and exactness.

Excepting a few errors which a forced precipitation made me commit in ciphering, and of which the clerks of M.Amelot once complained, neither the ambassador nor any other person had ever the least reason to reproach me with negligence in any one of my functions.

This is remarkable in a man so negligent as I am.