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are gone, and she thinks the devil is coming. This dejection has softened her into being rather agreeable, for she has wit and goodbreeding; but you would swear, by the restlessness of her person and the horrors she cannot conceal, that she had signed the compact, and expected to be called upon in a week for the performance.

I could add many pictures, but none so remarkable. In those I send you there is not a feature bestowed gratis or exaggerated. For the beauties, of which there are a few considerable, as Mesdames de Brionne, de Monaco, et d'Egmont, they have not yet lost their characters, nor got any.

You must not attribute my intimacy with Paris to curiosity alone. An accident unlocked the doors for me. That passe-par-tout called the fashion, has made them fly open-and what do you think was that fashion?--I myself.-Yes, like Queen Eleanor in the ballad, I sunk at Charing Cross, and have risen in the Fauxbourg St. Germain. A plaisanterie on Rousseau, whose arrival here in his way to you brought me acquainted with many anecdotes conformable to the idea I had conceived of him, got about, was liked much more than it deserved, spread like wild-fire, and made me the subject of conversation. Rousseau's devotees were offended. Madame de Boufflers, with a tone of sentiment, and the accents of lamenting humanity, abused me heartily, and then complained to myself with the utmost softness. I acted contrition, but had like to have spoiled all, by growing dreadfully tired of a second lecture from the Prince of Conti, who took up the ball, and made himself the hero of a history wherein he had nothing to do. I listened, did not understand half he said (nor he neither), forgot the rest, said Yes when I should have said No, yawned when I should have smiled, and was very penitent when I should have rejoiced at my pardon. Madame de Boufflers was more distressed, for he owned twenty times more than I had said she frowned, and made him signs; but she had wound up his clack, and there was no stopping it. The moment she grew angry, the lord of the house grew charmed, and it has been my fault if I am not at the head of a numerous sect:-but, when I left a triumphant party in England, I did not come here to be at the head of a fashion. However, I have been sent for about like an African prince, or a learned canary-bird, and was, in particular, carried by force to the Princess of Talmond,' the Queen's cousin, who lives in

The Princess of Talmond was born in Poland, and said to be allied to the Queen, Marie Leczinska, with whom she came to France, and there married a prince of the house of Bouillon.-WRIGHT.

a charitable apartment in the Luxembourg, and was sitting on a small bed hung with saints and Sobieskis, in a corner of one of those vast chambers, by two blinking tapers. I stumbled over a cat, a footstool, and a chamber-pot in my journey to her presence. She could not find a syllable to say to me, and the visit ended with her begging a lap-dog. Thank the Lord! though this is the first month, it is the last week of my reign; and I shall resign my crown with great satisfaction to a bouillie of chestnuts, which is just invented, and whose annals will be illustrated by so many indigestions, that Paris will not want anything else these three weeks. I will enclose the fatal letter' after I have finished this enormous one; to which I will only add, that nothing has interrupted my Sévigné researches but the frost. The Abbé de Malesherbes has given me full power to ransack Livry. I did not tell you, that by great accident, when I thought on nothing less, I stumbled on an original picture of the Comte de Grammont. Adieu! You are generally in London in March; I shall be there by the end of it."

1039. TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY HERVEY.

Paris, Feb. 3, 1766.

I HAD the honour of writing to your ladyship on the 4th and 12th of last month, which I only mention, because the latter went by the post, which I have found is not always a safe conveyance.

I am sorry to inform you, Madam, that you will not see Madame Geoffrin this year, as she goes to Poland in May. The King has invited her, promised her an apartment exactly in her own way, and that she shall see nobody but whom she chooses to see. This will not surprise you, Madam; but what I shall add, will; though I must beg your ladyship not to mention it even to her, as it is an absolute secret here, as she does not know that I know it, and as it was trusted to me by a friend of yours. In short, there are thoughts of sending her with a public character, or at least with a commission

The letter from the King of Prussia to Rousseau.-WALPOLE.

2 Gray, in reference to this letter, writes thus to Dr. Wharton, on the 5th of March: -"Mr. Walpole writes me now and then a long and lively letter from Paris, to which place he went the last summer, with the gout upon him; sometimes in his limbs; often in his stomach and head. He has got somehow well, (not by means of the climate, one would think,) goes to all public places, sees all the best company, and is very much in fashion. He says he sunk, like Queen Eleanor, at Charing-cross, and has risen again at Paris. He returns again in April; but his health is certainly in a deplorable state."- Works by Mitford, vol. iv. p. 79.-WRIGHT.

from hence-a very extraordinary honour, and I think never bestowed but on the Maréchale de Guébriant.' As the Dussons have been talked of, and as Madame Geoffrin has enemies, its being known might make her uneasy that it was known. I should have told it to no mortal but your ladyship; but I could not resist giving you such a pleasure. In your answer, Madam, I need not warn you not to specify what I have told you.

bear even Yet I am

There are

My favour here continues; and favour never displeases. To me, too, it is a novelty, and I naturally love curiosities. However, I must be looking towards home, and have perhaps only been treasuring up regret. At worst I have filled my mind with a new set of ideas; some resource to a man who was heartily tired of his old ones. When I tell your ladyship that I play at whisk, and French music, you will not wonder at any change in me. far from pretending to like everybody, or everything I see. some chapters on which I still fear we shall not agree; but I will do your ladyship the justice to own, that you have never said a syllable too much in behalf of the friends to whom you was so good as to recommend me. Madame d'Egmont, whom I have mentioned but little, is one of the best women in the world, and, though not at all striking at first, gains upon one much. Colonel Gordon, with this letter, brings you, Madam, some more seeds from her. I have a box of pomatums for you from Madame de Boufflers, which shall go by the next conveyance that offers. As he waits for my parcel, I can only repeat how much I am your ladyship's most obliged and faithful humble servant.

1040. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Paris, Feb. 4, 1766.

I WRITE on small paper, that the nothing I have to say may look like a letter. Paris, that supplies me with diversions, affords me no news. England sends me none, on which I care to talk by the post. All seems in confusion; but I have done with politics!

The marriage of your cousins puts me in mind of the two owls, whom the Vizier in some Eastern tale told the Sultan were treating on a match between their children, on whom they were to settle I

1 Sent with the character of Embassadress from Louis XIII. to the King of Poland. Mr. Walpole, in a subsequent letter, owns having been misinformed with respect to Madame Geoffrin; no such plan having ever been really in agitation.—BERRY.

don't know how many ruined villages. Trouble not your head about it. Our ancestors were rogues, and so will our posterity be.

Madame Roland has sent to me, by Lady Jerningham,' to beg my works. She shall certainly have them when I return to England; but how comes she to forget that you and I are friends? or does she think that all Englishmen quarrel on party? If she does, methinks she is a good deal in the right, and it is one of the reasons why I have bid adieu to politics, that I may not be expected to love those I hate, and hate those I love. I supped last night with the Duchess de Choiseul, and saw a magnificent robe she is to wear to-day for a great wedding between a Biron and a Boufflers. It is of blue satin, embroidered all over in a mosaic, diamond-wise, with gold: in every diamond is a silver star edged with gold, and surrounded with spangles in the same way; it is trimmed with double sables, crossed with frogs and tassels of gold; her head, neck, breast, and arms, covered with diamonds. She will be quite the fairy queen, for it is the prettiest little reasonable amiable Titania you ever saw; but Oberon does not love it. He prefers a great mortal Hermione his sister. I long to hear that you are lodged in Arlington-street, and invested with your green livery; and I love Lord Beaulieu for his cudom." Adieu!

1041. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

4

Paris, Feb. 9, 1766.

I CONGRATULATE the success of your labours as a Minister, though

1 Mary, eldest daughter, and eventually heiress, of Francis Plowden, Esq., by Mary eldest daughter of the Hon. John Stafford Howard, younger son of the unfortunate Lord Stafford, wife of Sir George Jerningham.-WRIGHT.

2 The Duc de Lauzun, who, upon the death of his uncle, the Maréchal de Biron, became Duc de Biron, married the heiress and only child of the Duc de Boufflers, who died at Genoa. The marriage proved an unhappy one, and the Duchess twice took refuge in England at the breaking out of the French revolution; but having, in 1793, unadvisedly returned to Paris, she perished on the scaffold in one of the bloody proscriptions of Robespierre. At the beginning of that revolution, the Duke espoused the popular cause, and even commanded an army under the orders of the legislative assembly; but in the storms that succeeded, being altogether unequal either to stem the torrent of popular fury or to direct its course, he fell by the guillotine early in 1794.-WRIGHT.

3 That is, his Montaguedom-his love for the Cues, as he called the Montagues. I may mention here that Walpole's correspondent is the only commoner Montaguburied with the Dukes of Manchester in their vault at Kimbolton. I saw his coffin there sound and dry in the summer of 1857.-CUNNINGHAM.

4 This relates to Sir Horace Mann's having, by order of his court, interposed to prevent the Pope from acknowledging the eldest son of the late Chevalier de St. George as King of England.-WALPOLE.

as an Englishman I am very indifferent about the matter. It is below such a nation as England to trouble its head whether an old mumper at Rome calls a wretched fugitive Rè d'Inghilterra or Principe di Galles. For the poor lad's followers it is important, and anything is lucky for them that prevents their going to Tyburn for him. To himself, indeed, it is cruel to be refused an empty title by an old Dervish for whom he lost the reality. Rome is the only spot on earth where he can exist decently, as at least he would take the pas of many saints. To call him Prince of Wales, and refuse him the kingship, is an absurdity worthy of an Irish patriarch. Here they assign many reasons for the refusal, as the jealousy of those fools the Roman nobility; apprehensions that the English would not go to Rome; as if they had never gone there in the father's time! tenderness to the Catholics in England, who are actually disturbed there by the Bishop of London, which they were not in the old Pretender's time, who was acknowledged; other fears, from the rashness and drunkenness of the young man's character; doubts on his faith, the best reason of all; and suspicions (the worst reason of all) that we have bribed the congregation of cardinals. I should be very indignant at the latter reason; but the rapacity of English members of Parliament reassures me.

There are rumours here of a coolness, even of quarrels, between this Court and the new Emperor, who it is said insists that Parma should be held as a fief of the empire, and demands restitution of Lorraine. It would not surprise me: France, as England has done, will find that the Court of Vienna obeys no law, observes no tie, but that of pride. As England and France are the two powers that can hurt one another the most, I wish them for ever connected. If this young German Cæsar begins already, I know where he will end-at impatience to reign over his mother's estates.

We are every day impatient for letters from England, where Mr. Pitt's conduct has occasioned great confusion. He has declared a little for some part of the Administration, but strongly against the Duke of Newcastle; violently against Lord Bute; peremptorily against the last Ministry, every one of whose acts he condemns; and, what is stronger than all, against the Parliament itself, which he says has taxed America without a right to do so, and by that act broke the original compact. His followers are exceedingly few; yet his name makes a sort of party, and you may be sure he has all the Americans with him. Lord Bute acts separately, as a fourth party -if he is allowed to do so, what becomes of the faith pledged to the

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