He entered the service of Denmark: returning to France and in poverty, he lived in Alsace on the retired list; it was there that the king's summons came to find him out.

In his solitude M.de St.

Germain had conceived a thousand projects of reform; he wanted to apply them all at once.

He made no sort of case of the picked corps and suppressed the majority of them, thus irritating, likewise, all the privileged.

"M.