Mr. Edgeworth's summary of events closed, I believe, last Thursday.
Friday we saw beauty, riches, fashion, luxury, and numbers at Madame
Recamier's; she is a charming woman, surrounded by a group of adorers
and flatterers in a room where are united wealth and taste, all of
modern execution and ancient design that can contribute to its
ornament--a strange _mélange_ of merchants and poets, philosophers and
parvenus--English, French, Portuguese, and Brazilian, which formed the
company; we were treated with distinguished politeness by our hostess,
who concluded the evening by taking us to her box at the Opera, where,
besides being in company with the most fashionable women in Paris, _we
were seen_ by Buonaparte himself, who sat opposite to us in a railed
box, through which he could see, but not be seen.
Saturday we saw the magnificent Salle of the Corps Legislatif, and in
the evening passed some hours in the agreeable society of Madame de
Vergennes and her daughters. Sunday we were very happy at home. Monday
morning, just as we were going out, M. Pictet was announced; we neither
heard his name nor distinctly recollected his looks, he is grown so fat
and looks so well, more friendly no man can be. I hope he perceives we
are grateful to him. The remainder of that day was spent in the gallery
of pictures, where we met Mr. Rogers, the poet, and Mr. Abercrombie. The
evening was spent with M. Pictet at his sister's, an agreeable,
well-informed widow, with three handsome daughters. Tuesday we went to
the National Library, where we were shown a large number of the finest
cameos, intaglios, and Roman and Greek medals, and many of the
antiquities brought from Egypt; and in the evening we had again the
pleasure of M. Pictet's company, and of the charming Madame de Pastoret,
who was so obliging as to drink tea with us. Yesterday we had the
pleasure of being at home, when several learned and ingenious men called
on us, and consequently heard one of the most lively and instructive
conversations on a variety of topics for three hours: as I think it is
Mr. Edgeworth's plan to knock you down with names, I will just enumerate
those of our visitors, Edelcrantz, a Swede, Molard, Eisenman, Dupont,
and Pictet the younger. After they went, we paid a short visit to the
pictures and saw the Salle du Tribunat and the Consul's apartments at
the Tuileries: on the dressing-table there were the busts of Fox and
Nelson. At our return home we saw the good François Delessert and
another man, who was the man who took Robespierre prisoner, and who has
since made a clock which is wound up by the action of the air on
mercury, like that which Mr. Edgeworth invented for the King of Spain.
He told us many things that made us stare, and many that made us shiver,
and many more that made us wish never to see him again.
In the evening we went to Madame Suard's. Don't imagine that these
ladies are all widows, for they have husbands, and in many instances the
husband _vaut mieux que la femme._ At Madame Suard's we met the famous
Count Lally Tolendal and the Duc de Crillon. This morning Maria has gone
with the Pictets to see the Abbé Sicard's deaf and dumb.
Mr. Edgeworth has not yet seen Buonaparte: he goes to-morrow to wait on
Lord Whitworth as a preliminary step. It is a singular circumstance that
Lord Whitworth, the new Ambassador, has brought to Paris the same
horses, and the same wife, and lives in the same house as the last
Ambassador did eleven years ago: he has married the widow of the Duke of
Dorset, who was here then.
In England many are the tales of scandal that have been related of the
Consul and all his family: I don't believe them. A lady told me it was
"vraiment extraordinaire qu'un jeune homme comme lui ait de moeurs si
exemplaires--et d'ailleurs on ne s'attend pas qu'un homme soit fidèle à
une femme qui est plus agée que lui: mais si agée aussi! Il aime la
soumission plus que la beauté: s'il lui dit de se coucher à huit heures,
elle se couche: s'il faut se lever à deux heures, elle se leve! Elle est
une bonne femme, elle a sauvé bien des vies."
Has Maria told you that she has had her _Belinda_ translated into French
by the young Count de Segur, an amiable young man of one of the most
ancient families of France, married to a grand-daughter of the
Chancellor d'Aguesseau? Many people support themselves by writing for
journals, and by translating English books, yet the price of literature
seems very low, and the price of all the necessaries of life very high.
The influx of English has, they say, doubled the price of lodgings and
of all luxuries.
MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. RUXTON.