PARIS, _Aug._ 30, 1769.
I have been so hurried with paying and receiving visits, that I have not
had a moment's worth of time to write. My passage was very tedious, and
lasted near nine hours for want of wind.--But I need not talk of my
journey; for Mr. Maurice, whom I met on the road, will have told you
that I was safe on _terra firma_.
Judge of my surprise at hearing four days ago, that my Lord Dacre and my
lady were arrived here. They are lodged within a few doors of me. He is
come to consult a Doctor Pomme who has prescribed wine, and Lord Dacre
already complains of the violence of his appetite. If you and I had
_pommed_ him to eternity, he would not have believed us. A man across
the sea tells him the plainest thing in the world; that man happens to
be called a doctor; and happening for novelty to talk common sense, is
believed, as if he had talked nonsense! and what is more extraordinary,
Lord Dacre thinks himself better, _though_ he is so.
My dear old woman [Madame du Deffand] is in better health than when I
left her, and her spirits so increased, that I tell her she will go mad
with age. When they ask her how old she is, she answers, "J'ai soixante
et mille ans." She and I went to the Boulevard last night after supper,
and drove about there till two in the morning. We are going to sup in
the country this evening, and are to go to-morrow night at eleven to the
puppet-show. A _protégé_ of hers has written a piece for that theatre. I
have not yet seen Madame du Barri, nor can get to see her picture at the
exposition at the Louvre, the crowds are so enormous that go thither for
that purpose. As royal curiosities are the least part of my _virtù_, I
wait with patience. Whenever I have an opportunity I visit gardens,
chiefly with a view to Rosette's having a walk. She goes nowhere else,
because there is a distemper among the dogs.
There is going to be represented a translation of Hamlet; who when his
hair is cut, and he is curled and powdered, I suppose will be exactly
_Monsieur le Prince Oreste_. T'other night I was at "Mérope." The
Dumenil was as divine as Mrs. Porter[1]; they said her familiar tones
were those of a _poissonnière_. In the last act, when one expected the
catastrophe, Narbas, more interested than anybody to see the event,
remained coolly on the stage to hear the story. The Queen's maid of
honour entered without her handkerchief, and her hair most artfully
undressed, and reeling as if she was maudlin, sobbed out a long
narrative, that did not prove true; while Narbas, with all the good
breeding in the world, was more attentive to her fright than to what had
happened. So much for propriety. Now for probability. Voltaire has
published a tragedy, called "Les Guèbres." Two Roman colonels open the
piece: they are brothers, and relate to one another, how they lately in
company destroyed, by the Emperor's mandate, a city of the Guèbres, in
which were their own wives and children; and they recollect that they
want prodigiously to know whether both their families did perish in the
flames. The son of the one and the daughter of the other are taken up
for heretics, and, thinking themselves brother and sister, insist upon
being married, and upon being executed for their religion. The son stabs
his father, who is half a Guèbre, too. The high-priest rants and roars.
The Emperor arrives, blames the pontiff for being a persecutor, and
forgives the son for assassinating his father (who does not die)
because--I don't know why, but that he may marry his cousin. The
grave-diggers in Hamlet have no chance, when such a piece as the Guèbres
is written agreeably to all rules and unities. Adieu, my dear Sir! I
hope to find you quite well at my return. Yours ever.
[Footnote 1: Mme. Dumenil, as has been mentioned in a former note, was
the most popular of the French tragic actresses at this time, as Mrs.
Porter was of the English actresses.]
_THE FRENCH COURT--THE YOUNG PRINCES--ST. CYR--MADAME DE MAILLY._