The ball at Court on the King’s birth-night was disturbed by a quarrel for place between the Russian and French Ambassadors. France yields the precedence to nobody but to the Emperor of Germany; and the Comte du Châtelet, their Minister here, had received positive orders not to give place to the Russian. Du Châtelet was enough disposed to assume any airs of superiority: at Vienna, on a former embassy, he had embroiled his court with the Imperial by wrong-headed insolence. He was warm, captious, and personally brave. Count Czernichew was magnificent and ostentatious, but profuse of civilities and attentions, and no ways quarrelsome. He was sitting next to Count Seilern, the Imperial Ambassador. Du Châtelet came behind, and crowded himself in between them, taking place above Czernichew. This occasioned much pushing and struggling, and the Russian told the Frenchman he was very impertinent, and then quitted the bench. As they left the room when the ball was finished, Count Czernichew’s coach drawing up, he offered to set Du Châtelet at home, which was accepted; but, being entered, Du Châtelet proposed that they should decide the quarrel with their swords; and they endeavoured to go into St. James’s Park, but the gates were shut. It was said that Du Châtelet made apologies for his behaviour, and declared that he had meant no personal rudeness. On the other hand, he was allowed to have shown most spirit throughout the dispute; yet he was not without much anxiety how his conduct would be regarded at home, where it was rather wished to soften the Court of Russia, now beginning to triumph over the Turks. But Du Châtelet had two powerful mediators--the eagerness of the Duc de Choiseul to humble the Czarina, and his inclination for Madame du Châtelet, not only the favourite of his all-powerful sister, the Duchess de Grammont, but her secret rival with him. Madame du Châtelet was a handsome and very sensible woman, but of an indolence beyond example. The Duc de Choiseul liked her, and she was far from averse to him, yet had resisted his love and that liberality and power which had thrown every other French woman he had a mind to into his arms. Du Châtelet, indeed, had chosen not to leave her exposed to too great temptation; and, notwithstanding her extreme indifference, which here only served to give offence, had obliged her to attend him on his embassy.[227] Count Czernichew was recalled, with apparent dissatisfaction.[228] He was not fortunate in his embassies: he had been nominated to that of China, but the Chinese monarch forbade his approach, declaring he would have no alliance with a murderess. Du Châtelet’s intemperance in the King’s presence was very ill taken here, where his frowardness, and his wife’s disgusting coldness, had raised no prejudice in their favour. The King took every opportunity to distinguish the Russian by the most marked civilities; and it was proposed to signify the royal displeasure by acquainting the foreign Ministers _that there was no rank in the box allotted to them at the balls at Court; and that his Majesty gave that notice from having been extremely offended at what had passed_. Lord Hertford, as Lord Chamberlain, was to give the notice; but fearing it was too strongly worded not to give great disgust in France, he refused to make the notification, unless authorised by the Privy Council. On this the message was reconsidered, and the latter part was changed for the words _to prevent disagreeable altercations for the future_,--a medium still liable to ridicule; for how could a ball at Court be a private ball, when everybody was taken out to dance by the Lord Chamberlain according to their rank? It was, in effect, depriving the foreign ministers alone of rank on those occasions.[229]