PARIS, _Oct._ 3, 1765.
I don't know where you are, nor when I am likely to hear of you. I write
at random, and, as I talk, the first thing that comes into my pen.
I am, as you certainly conclude, much more amused than pleased. At a
certain time of life, sights and new objects may entertain one, but new
people cannot find any place in one's affection. New faces with some
name or other belonging to them, catch my attention for a minute--I
cannot say many preserve it. Five or six of the women that I have seen
already are very sensible. The men are in general much inferior, and not
even agreeable. They sent us their best, I believe, at first, the Duc de
Nivernois. Their authors, who by the way are everywhere, are worse than
their own writings, which I don't mean as a compliment to either. In
general, the style of conversation is solemn, pedantic, and seldom
animated, but by a dispute. I was expressing my aversion to disputes:
Mr. Hume, who very gratefully admires the tone of Paris, having never
known any other tone, said with great surprise, "Why, what do you like,
if you hate both disputes and whisk?"
What strikes me the most upon the whole is, the total difference of
manners between them and us, from the greatest object to the least.
There is not the smallest similitude in the twenty-four hours. It is
obvious in every trifle. Servants carry their lady's train, and put her
into her coach with their hat on. They walk about the streets in the
rain with umbrellas to avoid putting on their hats; driving themselves
in open chaises in the country without hats, in the rain too, and yet
often wear them in a chariot in Paris when it does not rain. The very
footmen are powdered from the break of day, and yet wait behind their
master, as I saw the Duc of Praslin's do, with a red pocket-handkerchief
about their necks. Versailles, like everything else, is a mixture of
parade and poverty, and in every instance exhibits something most
dissonant from our manners. In the colonnades, upon the staircases, nay
in the antechambers of the royal family, there are people selling all
sorts of wares. While we were waiting in the Dauphin's sumptuous
bedchamber, till his dressing-room door should be opened, two fellows
were sweeping it, and dancing about in sabots to rub the floor.
You perceive that I have been presented. The Queen took great notice of
me; none of the rest said a syllable. You are let into the King's
bedchamber just as he has put on his shirt; he dresses and talks
good-humouredly to a few, glares at strangers, goes to mass, to dinner,
and a-hunting. The good old Queen, who is like Lady Primrose in the
face, and Queen Caroline in the immensity of her cap, is at her
dressing-table, attended by two or three old ladies, who are languishing
to be in Abraham's bosom, as the only man's bosom to whom they can hope
for admittance. Thence you go to the Dauphin, for all is done in an
hour. He scarce stays a minute; indeed, poor creature, he is a ghost,
and cannot possibly last three months. The Dauphiness is in her
bedchamber, but dressed and standing; looks cross, is not civil, and has
the true Westphalian grace and accents. The four Mesdames, who are
clumsy plump old wenches, with a bad likeness to their father, stand in
a bedchamber in a row, with black cloaks and knotting-bags, looking
good-humoured, not knowing what to say, and wriggling as if they wanted
to make water. This ceremony too is very short; then you are carried to
the Dauphin's three boys, who you may be sure only bow and stare. The
Duke of Berry[1] looks weak and weak-eyed: the Count de Provence is a
fine boy; the Count d'Artois well enough. The whole concludes with
seeing the Dauphin's little girl dine, who is as round and as fat as a
pudding.
[Footnote 1: The Duc de Berri was afterwards Louis XVI.; the Comte de
Provence became Louis XVIII.; and the Comte d'Artois, Charles X.]
In the Queen's antechamber we foreigners and the foreign ministers were
shown the famous beast of the Gevaudan, just arrived, and covered with a
cloth, which two chasseurs lifted up. It is an absolute wolf, but
uncommonly large, and the expression of agony and fierceness remains
strongly imprinted on its dead jaws.
I dined at the Duc of Praslin's with four-and-twenty ambassadors and
envoys, who never go but on Tuesdays to Court. He does the honours
sadly, and I believe nothing else well, looking important and empty. The
Duc de Choiseul's face, which is quite the reverse of gravity, does not
promise much more. His wife is gentle, pretty, and very agreeable. The
Duchess of Praslin, jolly, red-faced, looking very vulgar, and being
very attentive and civil. I saw the Duc de Richelieu in waiting, who is
pale, except his nose, which is red, much wrinkled, and exactly a
remnant of that age which produced General Churchill, Wilks the player,
the Duke of Argyll, &c. Adieu!
_SUPPER PARTIES AT PARIS--WALPOLE WRITES A LETTER FROM LE ROI DE PRUSSE
À MONSIEUR ROUSSEAU._