LONDON, May 10, O. S. 1751.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I received yesterday, at the same time, your letters of
the 4th and 11th, N. S., and being much more careful of my commissions
than you are of yours, I do not delay one moment sending you my final
instructions concerning the pictures. The man you allow to be a Titian,
and in good preservation; the woman is an indifferent and a damaged
picture; but as I want them for furniture for a particular room,
companions are necessary; and therefore I am willing to take the woman
for better for worse, upon account of the man; and if she is not too much
damaged, I can have her tolerably repaired, as many a fine woman is, by a
skillful hand here; but then I expect that the lady should be, in a
manner, thrown into the bargain with the man; and, in this state of
affairs, the woman being worth little or nothing, I will not go above
fourscore Louis for the two together. As for the Rembrandt you mention,
though it is very cheap, if good, I do not care for it. I love ‘la belle
nature’; Rembrandt paints caricatures. Now for your own commissions,
which you seem to have forgotten. You mention nothing of the patterns
which you received by Monsieur Tollot, though I told you in a former
letter, which you must have had before the date of your last, that I
should stay till I received the patterns pitched upon by your ladies; for
as to the instructions which you sent me in Madame Monconseil’s hand, I
could find no mohairs in London that exactly answered that description; I
shall, therefore, wait till you send me (which you may easily do in a
letter) the patterns chosen by your three graces.
I would, by all means, have you go now and then, for two or three days,
to Marechal Coigny’s, at Orli; it is but a proper civility to that
family, which has been particularly civil to you; and, moreover, I would
have you familiarize yourself with, and learn the interior and domestic
manners of, people of that rank and fashion. I also desire that you will
frequent Versailles and St. Cloud, at both of which courts you have been
received with distinction. Profit of that distinction, and familiarize
yourself at both. Great courts are the seats of true good-breeding; you
are to live at courts, lose no time in learning them. Go and stay
sometimes at Versailles for three or four days, where you will be
domestic in the best families, by means of your friend Madame de
Puisieux; and mine, l’Abbe de la Ville. Go to the King’s and the
Dauphin’s levees, and distinguish yourself from the rest of your
countrymen, who, I dare say, never go there when they can help it. Though
the young Frenchmen of fashion may not be worth forming intimate
connections with, they are well worth making acquaintance of; and I do
not see how you can avoid it, frequenting so many good French houses as
you do, where, to be sure, many of them come. Be cautious how you
contract friendships, but be desirous, and even industrious, to obtain a
universal acquaintance. Be easy, and even forward, in making new
acquaintances; that is the only way of knowing manners and characters in
general, which is, at present, your great object. You are ‘enfant de
famille’ in three ministers’ houses; but I wish you had a footing, at
least, in thirteen and that, I should think, you might easily bring
about, by that common chain, which, to a certain degree, connects those
you do not with those you do know.
For instance, I suppose that neither Lord Albemarle, nor Marquis de St.
Germain, would make the least difficulty to present you to Comte Caunitz,
the Nuncio, etc. ‘Il faut etre rompu du monde’, which can only be done by
an extensive, various, and almost universal acquaintance.
When you have got your emaciated Philomath, I desire that his triangles,
rhomboids, etc., may not keep you one moment out of the good company you
would otherwise be in. Swallow all your learning in the morning, but
digest it in company in the evenings. The reading of ten new characters
is more your business now, than the reading of twenty old books; showish
and shining people always get the better of all others, though ever so
solid. If you would be a great man in the world when you are old, shine
and be showish in it while you are young, know everybody, and endeavor to
please everybody, I mean exteriorly; for fundamentally it is impossible.
Try to engage the heart of every woman, and the affections of almost
every man you meet with. Madame Monconseil assures me that you are most
surprisingly improved in your air, manners, and address: go on, my dear
child, and never think that you are come to a sufficient degree of
perfection; ‘Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum’; and in
those shining parts of the character of a gentleman, there is always
something remaining to be acquired. Modes and manners vary in different
places, and at different times; you must keep pace with them, know them,
and adopt them, wherever you find them. The great usage of the world, the
knowledge of characters, the brillant dun ‘galant homme,’ is all that you
now want. Study Marcel and the ‘beau monde’ with great application, but
read Homer and Horace only when you have nothing else to do. Pray who is
‘la belle Madame de Case’, whom I know you frequent? I like the epithet
given her very well: if she deserves it, she deserves your attention too.
A man of fashion should be gallant to a fine woman, though he does not
make love to her, or may be otherwise engaged. On ‘lui doit des
politesses, on fait l’eloge de ses charmes, et il n’en est ni plus ni
moins pour cela’: it pleases, it flatters; you get their good word, and
you lose nothing by it. These ‘gentillesses’ should be accompanied, as
indeed everything else should, with an air: ‘un air, un ton de douceur et
de politesse’. Les graces must be of the party, or it will never do; and
they are so easily had, that it is astonishing to me that everybody has
them not; they are sooner gained than any woman of common reputation and
decency. Pursue them but with care and attention, and you are sure to
enjoy them at last: without them, I am sure, you will never enjoy anybody
else. You observe, truly, that Mr.------is gauche; it is to be hoped that
will mend with keeping company; and is yet pardonable in him, as just
come from school. But reflect what you would think of a man, who had been
any time in the world, and yet should be so awkward. For God’s sake,
therefore, now think of nothing but shining, and even distinguishing
yourself in the most polite courts, by your air, your address, your
manners, your politeness, your ‘douceur’, your graces. With those
advantages (and not without them) take my word for it, you will get the
better of all rivals, in business as well as in ‘ruelles’. Adieu. Send me
your patterns, by the next post, and also your instructions to Grevenkop
about the seal, which you seem to have forgotten.