Letter from Monsieur de Cros,... being an answer to Sir Wm Temple's memoirs... [1693‪]‬

I have been informed of the Calumnies that Sir W. T. hath caused to be Printed against me. I know very well that Sir W. is of great Worth, and deserves well; and that he hath been a long time employed, and that too upon important occasions; but I am as certain, that he had but a small share in the Secrecy of the late King Charles's Designs in the greatest part of the Affairs, for which he was employed, from 72, till 79, which is the main Subject of his Work. This Consideration alone might not perhaps have given me the curiosity, or at least, any great earnestness to read his Memoirs; and I might have very well judged that I could draw from them no sufficient light and insight for the discovery of so many Intrigues. Nay besides, I might have doubted whether or no these Memoirs might not have been his own Panegyrick upon himself, and the diminution and undervaluing of the real Worth and Glory of several Persons of Quality, and distinguished by their Merit; whose Fortune and Reputation Sir W. T. hath so much envied: for I am particularly acquainted with Sir W's Pride. He looks upon himself to have the greatest Reach, to be the wisest and ablest Politician of his Time; and a man may perceive abundance of Satyrical Reflexions scattered here and there in his Work against most illustrious Persons, and that he hath stuffed his Memoirs with his own Praise, and the fond over-weening Opinion he hath of himself. Without doubt this is quite different from that Sincerity and Modesty which reigns throughout the Memoirs of Villeroy, in the Negotiations and Transactions of Jeanin, in the Letters of Card. Dossat, those mighty and truly eminent Persons, esteemed as such by the greatest Princes of their Age; and even still are to this day, by the ablest Politicians, with much more Justice and Glory than Sir W's Book-Seller stiles him, One of the Greatest Men of this Age. It had been Sir W's duty to have regulated himself according to their most excellent Pattern.