LONDON, April 26, O. S. 1756.
MY DEAR FRIEND: As your journey to Paris approaches, and as that period
will, one way or another, be of infinite consequence to you, my letters
will henceforward be principally calculated for that meridian. You will
be left there to your own discretion, instead of Mr. Harte’s, and you
will allow me, I am sure, to distrust a little the discretion of
eighteen. You will find in the Academy a number of young fellows much
less discreet than yourself. These will all be your acquaintances; but
look about you first, and inquire into their respective characters,
before you form any connections among them; and, ‘caeteris paribus’,
single out those of the most considerable rank and family. Show them a
distinguishing attention; by which means you will get into their
respective houses, and keep the best company. All those French young
fellows are excessively ‘etourdis’; be upon your guard against scrapes
and quarrels; have no corporal pleasantries with them, no ‘jeux de
mains’, no ‘coups de chambriere’, which frequently bring on quarrels. Be
as lively as they, if you please, but at the same time be a little wiser
than they. As to letters, you will find most of them ignorant; do not
reproach them with that ignorance, nor make them feel your superiority.
It is not their faults, they are all bred up for the army; but, on the
other, hand, do not allow their ignorance and idleness to break in upon
those morning hours which you may be able to allot to your serious,
studies. No breakfastings with them, which consume a great deal of time;
but tell them (not magisterially and sententiously) that you will read
two or three hours in the morning, and that for the rest of the day you
are very much at their service. Though, by the way, I hope you will keep
wiser company in the evenings.
I must insist upon your never going to what is called the English
coffee-house at Paris, which is the resort of all the scrub English, and
also of the fugitive and attainted Scotch and Irish; party quarrels and
drunken squabbles are very frequent there; and I do not know a more
degrading place in all Paris. Coffee-houses and taverns are by no means
creditable at Paris. Be cautiously upon your guard against the infinite
number of fine-dressed and fine-spoken ‘chevaliers d’industrie’ and
‘avanturiers’ which swarm at Paris: and keep everybody civilly at arm’s
length, of whose real character or rank you are not previously informed.
Monsieur le Comte or Monsieur le Chevalier, in a handsome laced coat, ‘et
tres bien mis’, accosts you at the play, or some other public place; he
conceives at first sight an infinite regard for you: he sees that you are
a stranger of the first distinction; he offers you his services, and
wishes nothing more ardently than to contribute, as far as may be in his
little power, to procure you ‘les agremens de Paris’. He is acquainted
with some ladies of condition, ‘qui prefrent une petite societe agreable,
et des petits soupers aimables d’honnetes gens, au tumulte et a la
dissipation de Paris’; and he will with the greatest pleasure imaginable
have the honor of introducing you to those ladies of quality. Well, if
you were to accept of this kind offer, and go with him, you would find
‘au troisieme; a handsome, painted and p----d strumpet, in a tarnished
silver or gold second-hand robe, playing a sham party at cards for
livres, with three or four sharpers well dressed enough, and dignified by
the titles of Marquis, Comte, and Chevalier. The lady receives you in the
most polite and gracious manner, and with all those ‘complimens de
routine’ which every French woman has equally. Though she loves
retirement, and shuns ‘le grande monde’, yet she confesses herself
obliged to the Marquis for having procured her so inestimable, so
accomplished an acquaintance as yourself; but her concern is how to amuse
you: for she never suffers play at her house for above a livre; if you
can amuse yourself with that low play till supper, ‘a la bonne heure’.
Accordingly you sit down to that little play, at which the good company
takes care that you shall win fifteen or sixteen livres, which gives them
an opportunity of celebrating both your good luck and your good play.
Supper comes up, and a good one it is, upon the strength of your being
able to pay for it. ‘La Marquise en fait les honneurs au mieux, talks
sentiments, ‘moeurs et morale’, interlarded with ‘enjouement’, and
accompanied with some oblique ogles, which bid you not despair in time.
After supper, pharaoh, lansquenet, or quinze, happen accidentally to be
mentioned: the Marquise exclaims against it, and vows she will not suffer
it, but is at last prevailed upon by being assured ‘que ce ne sera que
pour des riens’. Then the wished-for moment is come, the operation
begins: you are cheated, at best, of all the money in your pocket, and if
you stay late, very probably robbed of your watch and snuff-box, possibly
murdered for greater security. This I can assure you, is not an
exaggerated, but a literal description of what happens every day to some
raw and inexperienced stranger at Paris. Remember to receive all these
civil gentlemen, who take such a fancy to you at first sight, very
coldly, and take care always to be previously engaged, whatever party
they propose to you. You may happen sometimes, in very great and good
companies, to meet with some dexterous gentlemen, who may be very
desirous, and also very sure, to win your money, if they can but engage
you to play with them. Therefore lay it down as an invariable rule never
to play with men, but only with women of fashion, at low play, or with
women and men mixed. But, at the same time, whenever you are asked to
play deeper than you would, do not refuse it gravely and sententiously,
alleging the folly of staking what would be very inconvenient to one to
lose, against what one does not want to win; but parry those invitations
ludicrously, ‘et en badinant’. Say that, if you were sure to lose, you
might possibly play, but that as you may as well win, you dread
‘l’embarras des richesses’, ever since you have seen what an encumbrance
they were to poor Harlequin, and that, therefore, you are determined
never to venture the winning above two louis a-day; this sort of light
trifling way of declining invitations to vice and folly, is more becoming
your age, and at the same time more effectual, than grave philosophical
refusals. A young fellow who seems to have no will of his own, and who
does everything that is asked of him, is called a very good-natured, but
at the same time, is thought a very silly young fellow. Act wisely, upon
solid principles, and from true motives, but keep them to yourself, and
never talk sententiously. When you are invited to drink, say that you
wish you could, but that so little makes you both drunk and sick, ‘que le
jeu me vaut pas la chandelle’.
Pray show great attention, and make your court to Monsieur de la
Gueriniere; he is well with Prince Charles and many people of the first
distinction at Paris; his commendations will raise your character there,
not to mention that his favor will be of use to you in the Academy
itself. For the reasons which I mentioned to you in my last, I would have
you be interne in the Academy for the first six months; but after that, I
promise you that you shall have lodgings of your own ‘dans un hotel
garni’, if in the meantime I hear well of you, and that you frequent, and
are esteemed in the best French companies. You want nothing now, thank
God, but exterior advantages, that last polish, that ‘tournure du monde’,
and those graces, which are so necessary to adorn, and give efficacy to,
the most solid merit. They are only to be acquired in the best companies,
and better in the best French companies than in any other. You will not
want opportunities, for I shall send you letters that will establish you
in the most distinguished companies, not only of the beau monde, but of
the beaux esprits, too. Dedicate, therefore, I beg of you, that whole
year to your own advantage and final improvement, and do not be diverted
from those objects by idle dissipations, low seduction, or bad example.
After that year, do whatever you please; I will interfere no longer in
your conduct; for I am sure both you and I shall be safe then. Adieu!