It was at this period that advice came of the Grand Signor having declared war against Russia, in consequence of the intrigues of the Duc de Choiseul at the Porte. France and the Czarina had long been on ill terms. She had thwarted the influence of that Court over the Northern Crowns, and mutual haughtiness had begotten mutual hatred. Choiseul, who, with the ambition of Richelieu, wanted his coolness and some of his art,--and who, though greater than the Cardinal by disdaining little revenge, thought great revenge spoke a great Minister, had conjured up this tempest, and soon had cause to lament his own work.[141] The arms of the Czarina, who had two hundred thousand of the best disciplined troops in Europe, ample provision of military stores, and a yearly saving of a fifth of her revenues, were not unlikely to miscarry against an unwieldy shattered empire, sunk in sloth and ignorance, and new to war from long disuse. It was not luxurious Bachas, the sudden weeds which shoot up to power in a seraglio, that Richelieu let loose on the Empire: it was Gustavus and his hardy Swedes. The event in both cases was suitable to the concoction. Catherine triumphed over the star of Choiseul, as Mr. Pitt had done. Even the rocks of little Corsica for some time kept at bay the armies of France. A still more contemptible enemy was undermining that enterprising Minister. Old Marshal Richelieu, who had preserved none of his faculties but that last talent of a decayed Frenchman--a spirit of backstairs intrigue, had contrived to give to his master at near sixty, what at twenty the King would not take from his recommendation,--a new mistress. On the death of Madame de Pompadour, his Majesty had declared that he was grown too old to expect love to his person, and therefore would have no more a favourite sultana. But, as if men only declare they know what is sensible in order to mark their folly in stronger colours, he now ran headlong into an amour that every circumstance attending it stamped with ridicule. The nymph was past twenty-six, and her charms, which were not striking, had lost more than their bloom. Nor had she ever risen to any distinction in her profession, but ranked with those wretched women who are the sport of the loosest debauchees, and the objects of the most casual amours. She had been entertained, not for his own pleasure, but to draw to his house young travelling Englishmen, by a Comte du Barry, who kept a gaming table, and who had exercised the same laudable industry in taverns here. Mademoiselle Lange was pitched upon by the Cabal of Choiseul’s enemies as the instrument of their plot, and of his downfall. To dignify this Helen with a title[142]--for Du Barry was a man of quality--his brother was ordered to marry her; and the other, from having been a pimp to Richelieu, ascended to be his associate in politics. Belle, first valet-de-chambre to the King, and who exercised the same function for his master as Du Barry for Richelieu, was prevailed on or bribed to present the new Countess to the Monarch.