Lay down first those principles which are absolutely necessary to form a skillful and successful negotiator,and form yourself accordingly.What are they?First,the clear historical knowledge of past transactions of that kind.That you have pretty well already,and will have daily more and more;for,in consequence of that principle,you will read history,memoirs,anecdotes,etc.,in that view chiefly.The other necessary talents for negotiation are:the great art of pleasing and engaging the affection and confidence,not only of those with whom you are to cooperate,but even of those whom you are to oppose:to conceal your own thoughts and views,and to discover other people's:to engage other people's confidence by a seeming cheerful frankness and openness,without going a step too far:to get the personal favor of the king,prince,ministers,or mistresses of the court to which you are sent:to gain the absolute command over your temper and your countenance,that no heat may provoke you to say,nor no change of countenance to betray,what should be a secret:to familiarize and domesticate yourself in the houses of the most considerable people of the place,so as to be received there rather as a friend to the family than as a foreigner.Having these principles constantly in your thoughts,everything you do and everything you say will some way or other tend to your main view;and common conversation will gradually fit you for it.You will get a habit of checking any rising heat;you will be upon your guard against any indiscreet expression;you will by degrees get the command of your countenance,so as not to change it upon any the most sudden accident;and you will,above all things,labor to acquire the great art of pleasing,without which nothing is to be done.Company is,in truth,a constant state of negotiation;and,if you attend to it in that view,will qualify you for any.By the same means that you make a friend,guard against an enemy,or gain a mistress;you will make an advantageous treaty,baffle those who counteract you,and gain the court you are sent to.Make this use of all the company you keep,and your very pleasures will make you a successful negotiator.Please all who are worth pleasing;offend none.
Keep your own secret,and get out other people's.Keep your own temper and artfully warm other people's.Counterwork your rivals,with diligence and dexterity,but at the same time with the utmost personal civility to them;and be firm without heat.Messieurs d'Avaux and Servien did no more than this.I must make one observation,in confirmation of this assertion;which is,that the most eminent negotiators have allways been the politest and bestbred men in company;even what the women call the PRETTIEST MEN.For God's sake,never lose view of these two your capital objects:bend everything to them,try everything by their rules,and calculate everything for their purposes.
What is peculiar to these two objects,is,that they require nothing,but what one's own vanity,interest,and pleasure,would make one do independently of them.If a man were never to be in business,and always to lead a private life,would he not desire to please and to persuade?
So that,in your two destinations,your fortune and figure luckily conspire with your vanity and your pleasures.Nay more;a foreign minister,I will maintain it,can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too.Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures;his views are carried on,and perhaps best and most unsuspectedly,at balls,suppers,assemblies,and parties of pleasure;by intrigues with women,and connections insensibly formed with men,at those unguarded hours of amusement.
These objects now draw very near you,and you have no time to lose in preparing yourself to meet them.You will be in parliament almost as soon as your age will allow,and I believe you will have a foreign department still sooner,and that will be earlier than ever any other body had one.If you set out well at one-and-twenty,what may you not reasonably hope to be at one-and-forty?All that I could wish you!
Adieu.