Your two letters flew here together in a breath. I shall answer
the article of business first. I could certainly buy many things
for you here, that you would like, the reliques of the last age's
magnificence; but, since my Lady Holderness invaded the
custom-house with a hundred and fourteen gowns, in the reign of
that two-penny monarch George Grenville, the ports are so
guarded, that not a soul but a smuggler can smuggle any thing
into England; and I suppose you would not care to pay
seventy-five per cent, on second-hand commodities. All I
transported three years ago, was conveyed under the canon of the
Duke of Richmond. I have no interest in our present
representative; nor if I had, is he returning. Plate, of all
earthly vanities, is the most impassable: it is not Counerband in
its metallic capacity, but totally so in its personal; and the
officers of the custom-house not being philosophers enough to
separate the substance from the superficies, brutally hammer both
to pieces, and return you only the intrinsic: a compensation
which you, who are a member of Parliament, would not, I trow, be
satisfied with. Thus I doubt you must retrench your generosity
to yourself, unless you can contract into an Elzevir size, and be
content with any thing one can bring in one's pocket.
My dear old friend was charmed with your mention of her, and made
me vow to return you a thousand compliments. She cannot conceive
why you will not step hither. Feeling in herself no difference
between the spirits of twenty-three and seventy-three, she thinks
there is no impediment to doing whatever one will but the want of
eyesight. If she had that, I am persuaded no consideration would
prevent her making me a visit at Strawberry Hill. She makes
songs, sings them, remembers all that ever were made; and, having
lived from the most agreeable to the most reasoning age, has all
that was amiable in the last, all that is sensible in this,
without the vanity of the former, or the pedant impertinence of
the latter. I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people,
on all sorts of subjects, and never knew her in the wrong. She
humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds
conversation for every body. Affectionate as Madame de
S`evign`e, she has none of her prejudices, but a more universal
taste; and, with the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her
through a life of fatigue that would kill me, if I was to
continue here. If we return by one in the morning from supping
in the country, she proposes driving to the Boulevard or to the
Foire St. Ovide, because it is too early to go to bed. I had
great difficulty last night to persuade her, though she was not
well, not to sit up till' between two or three for the comet; for
which purpose she had appointed an astronomer to bring his
telescopes to the President Henault's, as she thought it would
amuse me. In short, her goodness to me is so excessive, that I
feel unashamed at producing my withered person in a round of
diversions, which I have quitted at home. I tell a story; I do
feel ashamed, and sigh to be in my quiet castle and cottage; but
it costs me many a Pang, when I reflect that I shall probably
never have resolution enough to take another journey to see this
best and sincerest of friends, who loves me as much as my mother
did! but it is idle to look forward--what is next year?-a bubble
that may burst for her or me, before even the flying year can
hurry to the end of its almanack! To form plans and projects in
such a precarious life as this, resembles the enchanted
castles"of fairy legends, in which every gate Was guarded by
giants, dragons, etc. Death or diseases bar every portal through
which we mean to pass; and, though we may escape them and reach
the last chamber, what a wild adventurer is he that centres his
hopes at the end of such an avenue! I am contented with the
beggars of the threshold, and never propose going on, but as the
gates open of themselves.
The weather here is quite sultry, and I am sorry to say one can
send to the corner of the street and buy better peaches than all
our expense in kitchen gardens produces. Lord and Lady Dacre are
a few doors from me, having started from Tunbridge more suddenly
than I did from Strawberry Hill, but on a more unpleasant motive.
My lord was persuaded to come and try a new physician. His faith
is greater than mine! but, poor man! can one wonder that he is
willing to believe? My lady has stood her shock, and I do not
doubt will get over it.
Adieu, my t'other dear old friend! I am sorry to say I see you
almost as seldom as I do Madame du Deffand. However, it is
comfortable to reflect that we have not changed to each other for
some five-and-thirty years, and neither you nor I haggle about
naming so ancient a term. I made a visit yesterday to the Abbess
of Panthemont, General Oglethorpe's niece,(1089) and no chicken.
I inquired after her mother, Madame de Meziers, and I thought I
might to a spiritual votary to immortality venture to say, that
her mother must be very old; she interrupted me tartly, and said,
no, her mother had been married extremely young. Do but think of
its seeming important to a saint to sink a wrinkle of her own
through an iron grate! Oh, we are ridiculous animals; and if
animals have any fun in them, how we must divert them.
(1089) Sister of the Princess de Ligne.
Letter 370 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Paris, Sept. 8, 1769. (page 555)
T'other night, at the Duchess of Choiseul's at supper, the
intendant of Rouen asked me, if we have roads of communication
all over England and Scotland'@--I suppose he thinks that in
general we inhabit trackless forests and wild mountains, and that
once a year a few legislators come to Paris to learn the arts of
civil life, as to sow corn, plant vines, and make operas. If
this letter should contrive to scramble through that desert
Yorkshire, where your lordship has attempted to improve a dreary
hill and uncultivated vale, you will find I remember your
commands of writing from this capital of the world, whither I am
come for the benefit of my country, and where I am intensely
studying those laws and that beautiful frame of government, which
can alone render a nation happy, great, and flourishing; where
lettres de cachet soften manners, and a proper distribution of
luxury and beggary ensures a common felicity. As we have a
prodigious number of students in legislature of both sexes here
at present, I will not anticipate their discoveries; but as your
particular friend, will communicate a rare improvement on nature,
which these great philosophers have made, and which would add
considerable beauties to those parts which your lordship has
already recovered from the waste, and taught to look a little
like a Christian country. The secret is very simple, and yet
demanded the effort of a mighty genius to strike it out. It is
nothing but this: trees ought to be educated as much as men, and
are strange awkward productions when not taught to hold
themselves upright or bow on proper occasions. The academy de
belles-lettres have even offered a prize for the man that shall
recover the long lost art of an ancient Greek, called le sieur
Orph`ee, who instituted a dancing-school for plants, and gave a
magnificent ball on the birth of the Dauphin of Thrace, which was
performed entirely by forest-trees. In this whole kingdom there
is no such thing as seeing a tree that is not well-behaved. They
are first stripped up and then cut down; and you would as soon
meet a man with his hair about his ears as an oak or ash. As the
weather is very hot now, and the soil chalk, and the dust white,
I assure you it is very difficult, powdered as both are all over,
to distinguish a tree from a hairdresser. Lest this should sound
like a travelling hyperbole, I must advertise your lordship, that
there is little difference in their heights; for, a tree of
thirty years' growth being liable to be marked as royal timber,
the proprietors take care not to let their trees live to the age
of being enlisted, but burn them, and plant others as often
almost as they change their fashions. This gives an air of
perpetual youth to the face of the country, and if adopted by us
would realize Mr. Addison's visions, and
"Make our bleak rocks and barren mountains smile."
What other remarks I have made in my indefatigable search after
knowledge must be reserved to a future opportunity; but as your
lordship is my friend, I may venture to say without vanity to
You, that Solon nor any Of the ancient philosophers who travelled
to Egypt in quest of religions. mysteries, laws, and fables,
never sat up so late with the ladies and priests and presidents
de parlement at Memphis, as I do here--and consequently were not
half so well qualified as I am to new-model a commonwealth. I
have learned how to make remonstrances, and how to answer them.
The latter, it seems, is a science much wanted in my own
country(1090)--and yet it is as easy and obvious as their
treatment of trees, and not very unlike it. It was delivered
many years ago in an oracular sentence of my namesake,
"Odi profanum vulgus, et arceo." You must drive away the vulgar,
and you must have an hundred and fifty thousand men to drive them
away with--that is all. I do not wonder the intendant of Rouen
thinks we are still in a state of barbarism, when we are ignorant
of the very rudiments of government.
The Duke and Duchess of Richmond have been here a few days, and
are gone to Aubign`e. I do not think him at all well, and am
exceedingly concerned for it; as I know no man who has more
estimable qualities. They return by the end of the month. I am
fluctuating whether I shall not return with them, as they have
pressed me to do, through Holland. I never was there, and could
never go so agreeably; but then it would protract my absence
three weeks, and I am impatient to be in my own cave,
notwithstanding the wisdom I imbibe every day. But one cannot
sacrifice one's self wholly to the public: Titus and Wilkes have
now and then lost a day. Adieu, my dear lord! Be assured that I
shall not disdain yours and Lady Strafford's conversation, though
you have nothing but the goodness of your hearts, and the
simplicity of your manners, to recommend you to the more
enlightened understanding of your old friend.
(1090) Alluding to the number of remonstrances, under the name of
petitions, which were presented this year from the livery of
London, and many other corporate bodies, on the subject of the
Middlesex election.
Letter 371 To George Montagu, Esq.
Paris, Sunday night, Sept. 17, 1769. (page 557)
I am heartily tired; but, as it is too early to go to bed, I must
tell you how agreeably I passed the day. I wished for you; the
same scenes strike us both, and the same kind of visions has
amused us both ever since we were born.
Well then: I went this morning to Versailles with my niece Mrs.
Cholmondeley, Mrs. Hart, Lady Denbigh's sister, and the Count de
Grave, one of the most amiable, humane, and obliging men alive.
Our first object was to see Madame du Barri.(1091) Being too
early for mass, we saw the Dauphin and his brothers at dinner.
The eldest is the picture of the Duke of Grafton, except that he
is more fair, and will be taller. He has a sickly air, and no
grace. The Count de Provence has a very pleasing countenance,
with an air of more sense than the Count d'Artois, the genius of
the family. They already tell as many bon-mots of the latter as
of Henri Quatre and Louis Quatorze. He is very fat, and the most
like his grandfather of all the children. You may imagine this
royal mess did not occupy us long: thence to the chapel, where a
first row in the balconies was kept for us. Madame du Barri
arrived over against us below, without rouge, without powder, and
indeed sans avoir fait sa toilette; an odd appearance, as she was
so conspicuous, close to the altar, and amidst both court and
people. She is pretty, when you consider her; yet so little
striking, that I never should have asked who she was. There is
nothing bold, assuming, or affected in her manner. Her husband's
sister was alone, with her. In the tribune above, surrounded by
prelates, was the amorous and still handsome King. One could not
help smiling at the mixture of piety, pomp, and carnality. From
chapel we went to the dinner of the elder Mesdames. We were
almost stifled in the antechamber, where their dishes were
heating over charcoal, and where we could not stir for the press.
When the doors are opened every body rushes in, princes of the
blood, cordons bleus, abb`es, housemaids, and the Lord knows who
and what. Yet, so used are their highnesses to this trade, that
they eat as comfortably and heartily as you or I could do in our
own parlours.
Our second act was much more agreeable. We quitted the court and
a reigning mistress, for a dead one and a cloister. In short, I
had obtained leave from the Bishop of Chartres to enter into St.
Cyr; and, as Madame du Deffand never leaves any thing undone that
can give me satisfaction, she had written to the abbess to desire
I might see every thing that could be seen there. The Bishop's
order was to admit me, Monsieur de Grave, et les dames de ma
compagnie: I begged the abbess to give me back the order, that I
might deposit it in the archives of Strawberry, and she complied
instantly. Every door flew open to us: and the nuns vied in
attentions to please us. The first thing I desired to see was
Madame de Maintenon's apartment. It consists of' two small
rooms, a library, and a very small chamber, the same in which the
Czar saw her, and in which she died. The bed is taken away, and
the room covered now with bad pictures of the royal family, which
destroys the gravity and simplicity. It is wainscotted with oak,
with plain chairs of the same, covered with dark blue damask.
Every where else the chairs are of blue cloth. The simplicity and
extreme neatness of the whole house, which is vast, are very
remarkable. A large apartment above, (for that I have mentioned
is on the ground-floor,) consisting of five rooms, and destined
by Louis Quatorze for Madame de Maintenon, is now the infirmary,
with neat white linen beds, and decorated with every text of
Scripture by which could be insinuated that the foundress was a
Queen. The hour of vespers being come, we were conducted to the
chapel, and, as it was my curiosity that had led us thither, I
was placed in the Maintenon's own tribune; my company in the
adjoining gallery. The pensioners two and two, each band headed
by a man, March orderly to their seats, and sing the whole
service, which I confess was not a little tedious. The young
ladies to the number of two hundred and fifty are dressed in
black, with short aprons of the same, the latter and their stays
bound with blue, yellow, green or red, to distinguish the
classes; the captains and lieutenants have knots of a different
colour for distinction. Their hair is curled and powdered, their
coiffure a sort of French round-eared caps, with white tippets, a
sort of ruff and large tucker: in short, a very pretty dress.
The nuns are entirely in black, with crape veils and long trains,
deep white handkerchiefs, and forehead cloths, and a very long
train. The chapel is plain but very pretty, and in the middle of
the choir under a flat marble lies the foundress. Madame de
Cambis, one of the nuns, who are about forty, is beautiful as a
Madonna.(1092) The abbess has no distinction but a larger and
richer gold cross: her apartment consists of two very small
rooms. Of Madame de Maintenon we did not see less than twenty
pictures. The young one looking over her shoulder has a round
face, without the least resemblance to those of her latter age.
That in the roil mantle, of which you know I have a copy, is the
most repeated; but there is another with a longer and leaner
face, which has by far the most sensible look. She is in black,
with a high point head and band, a long train, and is sitting in
a chair of purple velvet. Before her knees stands her niece
Madame de Noailles, a child; at a distance a view of Versailles
or St. Cyr, I could not distinguish which. We were shown some
rich reliquaries, and the corpo santo that was sent to her by the
Pope. We were then carried into the public room of each class.
In the first, the young ladies, who were playing at chess, were
ordered to sing to us the choruses of Athaliah; in another, they
danced minuets and country-dances while a nun, not quite so able
as St. Cecilia, played on a violin. In the others, they acted
before us the proverbs or conversations written by Madame de
Maintenon for their instruction; for she was not only their
foundress but their saint, and their adoration of her memory has
quite eclipsed the Virgin Mary. We saw their dormitory, and saw
them at supper; and at last were carried to their archives. where
they produced volumes of her letters, and where one of the nuns
gave me a small piece of paper with three sentences in her
handwriting. I forgot to tell you, that this kind dame, who took
to me extremely, asked me if we had many convents and many relics
in England. I was much embarrassed for fear of destroying her
good opinion of me, and so said we had but few now. Oh! we went
to the apothecaries where they treated us with cordials, and
where one of the ladies told me inoculation was a sin, as it was
a voluntary detention from mass, and as voluntary a cause of
eating gras. Our visit concluded in the garden, now grown very
venerable, where the young ladies played at little games before
us. After a stay of four hours we took our leave. I begged the
abbess's blessing; she smiled, and said, she doubted I should not
place much faith in it. She is a comely old gentlewoman, and
very proud of having seen Madame de Maintenon. Well! was not I
in the right to wish you with me? could you have passed a day
more agreeably!
I will conclude my letter with a most charming trait of Madame de
Mailly, which cannot be misplaced in such a chapter of royal
concubines. Going to St. Sulpice, after she had lost the King's
heart, a person present desired the crowd to make way for her.
Some brutal young officers said, "Comment, pour cette catin-l`a!"
She turned to them, and, with the most charming modesty said,
"Messieurs, puisque vous me COnnoissez, priez Dieu pour moi." I
am sure it will bring tears into your eyes. Was not she the
Publican, and Maintenon the Pharisee? Good night! I hope I am
going to dream of all I have been seeing. As my impressions and
my fancy, when I am pleased, are apt to be strong. My night
perhaps, may still be more productive of ideas than the day has
been. It will be charming, indeed, if Madame de Cambis is the
ruling tint. Adieu! Yours ever.
(1091) Madame du Barry, the celebrated mistress of Louis XV., was
born in the lowest rank of society, and brought up in the most
depraved habits; being known only by the name which her beauty
had acquired for her, Mademoiselle l'Ange. She became the
mistress of the Comte du Barry, (a gentleman belonging to a
family of Toulon, of no distinction, well known as Le Grand du
Barry, or, Du Barry le Rou`e,) and eventually the mistress of the
King; and, when the influence she exercised over her royal
protector had determined him to receive her publicly at court and
a marriage was necessary to the purpose, Du Barry le Rou`e
brought forward his younger brother, the Comte Guillaume du
Barry, who readily submitted to this prostitution of his name and
family.-E.
(1092) Madame du Deffand, in her letter to Walpole of the 10th of
May 1776, enclosed the following portrait of Madame de Cambise,
by Madame de la Valli`ere:--"Non, non, Madame, je ne farai point
votre portrait: vous avez une mani`ere d'`etre si noble, si fine,
si piquante, si d`elicate, si s`eduisaitte; votre gentilesse et
vos graces changent si souvent pour n'en `etre que plus aimable,
que l'on ne peut saisir aucun de vos traits ni au physique ni au
moral." She was niece of La Marquise de Boufflers, and, having
fled to England at the breaking out of the French Revolution,
resided here until her death, which took place at Richmond in
January 1809.-E.
Letter 372 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Oct. 13, 1769. (page 560
I arrived last night at eleven o'clock, and found a letter from
you, which gave me so much pleasure, that I must write you a
line, though I am hurried to death. You cannot imagine how
rejoiced I am that Lord North(1093) drags you to light again; it
is a satisfaction I little expected. When do you come? I am
impatient. I long to know your projects.
I had a dreadful passage of eight hours, was drowned, though not
shipwrecked, and was sick to death. I have been six times at sea
before, and never suffered the least, which makes the
mortification the greater: but as Hercules was not more robust
than I, though with an air so little Herculean, I have not so
much as caught cold, though I was wet to the skin with the rain,
had my lap full of waves, was washed from head to foot in the
boat at ten o'clock at night, and stepped into the sea up to my
knees. Q'avois-je `a faire dans cette gal`ere?(1094) In truth,
it is a little late to be seeking adventures. Adieu! I must
finish, but I am excessively happy with what you have told me.
Yours ever.
(1093) Lord North had appointed Mr. Montagu his private
secretary.
(1094) Walpole left Paris on the 5th of October. Early on the
morning of the 6th, Madame du Deffand thus wrote to him:-
-"N'exigez point de gaiet`e, contentez-vous de ne pas trouver de
tristesse: je n'envoyai point chez vous hier matin; j'ignore `a
quelle heure vous partites; tout ce que je sais c'est que vous
n'`etes plus ici." And again, on the 9th:--"Je ne respirerai `a
mon aise qu'apr`es une lettre de Douvres. Ah! je me ha`is bien
de tout le mal que je vous cause; trois journ`ees de route,
autant de nuits d`etestables, une embarquement, un passage, le
risque de mille accidens, voil`a le bien que je vous procure.
Ah! c'est bien vous qui pouvez dire en pensant de moi,
'Qu'allais-je faire dans cette gal`ere?'"-E.
Letter 373 To George Montagu, Esq.
Strawberry Hill, Oct. 16, 1769. (page 560)
I arrived at my own Louvre last Wednesday night, and am now at my
Versailles. Your last letter reached me but two days before I
left Paris, for I have been an age at Calais and upon the sea. I
could execute no commission for you, and, in truth, you gave me
no explicit one; but I have brought you a bit of china, and beg
you will be content with a little present, instead of a bargain.
Said china is, or will be soon, in the custom-house; but I shall
have it, I fear, long before you come to London.
I am sorry those boys got at my tragedy. I beg you would keep it
under lock and key; it is not at all food for the public; at
least not till I am "food for worms, good Percy." Nay, it is not
an age to encourage any body, that has the least vanity, to step
forth. There is a total extinction of all taste: our authors are
vulgar, gross, illiberal: the theatre swarms with wretched
translations, and ballad operas, and we have nothing new but
improving abuse. I have blushed at Paris, when the papers came
over crammed with ribaldry, or with Garrick's insufferable
nonsense about Shakspeare. As that man's writings will be
preserved by his name, who will believe that he was a tolerable
actor? Cibber wrote as bad odes, but then Cibber wrote The
Careless Husband and his own Life, which both deserve
immortality. Garrick's prologues and epilogues are as bad as his
Pindarics and pantomimes.(1095)
I feel myself here like a swan, that, after living six weeks in a
nasty pool upon a common, is got back into its own Thames. I do
nothing but plume and clean myself, and enjoy the verdure and
silent waves. Neatness and greenth are so essential in my
opinion to the country, that in France, where I see nothing but
chalk and dirty peasants, I seem in a terrestrial purgatory that
is neither town nor country. The face of England is so
beautiful, that I do not believe Tempe or Arcadia were half so
rural; for both lying in hot climates, must have wanted the turf
of our lawns. It IS unfortunate to have so pastoral a taste,
when I want a cane more than a crook. We are absurd creatures;
at twenty, I loved nothing but London.
Tell me when you shall be in town. I think of passing Most Of my
time here till after Christmas. Adieu!
(1095) Mr. J. Sharp, in a letter to Garrick, of the 29th of March
in this year, says--"I met Mr. Gray at dinner last Sunday: he
spoke handsomely of your happy knack of epilogues; but he calls
the Stratford Jubilee, Vanity Fair." See Garrick Correspondence,
vol. i. p. 337.-E.
Letter 374 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.