STRAWBERRY HILL, _Tuesday evening, eight o'clock, Oct._ 15, 1793.
Though I do not know when it will have its whole lading, I must begin my
letter this very moment, to tell you what I have just heard. I called on
the Princesse d'Hennin, who has been in town a week. I found her quite
alone, and I thought she did not answer quite clearly about her two
knights: the Prince de Poix has taken a lodging in town, and she talks
of letting her house here, if she can. In short, I thought she had a
little of an Ariadne-air--but this was not what I was in such a hurry to
tell you. She showed me several pieces of letters, I think from the
Duchesse de Bouillon: one says, the poor Duchesse de Biron is again
arrested[1] and at the Jacobins, and with her "une jeune étourdie, qui
ne fait que chanter toute la journée;" and who, think you, may that
be?--only our pretty little wicked Duchesse de Fleury! by her singing
and not sobbing, I suppose she was weary of her _Tircis_, and is glad to
be rid of him. This new blow, I fear, will overset Madame de Biron
again. The rage at Paris seems to increase daily or hourly; they either
despair, or are now avowed banditti. I tremble so much for the great and
most suffering victim of all, the Queen,[2] that one cannot feel so much
for many, as several perhaps deserve: but her tortures have been of far
longer duration than any martyrs, and more various; and her courage and
patience equal to her woes!
[Footnote 1: The Duchess, with scores of other noble ladies, was put to
death in the course of these two horrible years, 1793-94.]
[Footnote 2: Marie Antoinette was put to death the very next day. And I
cannot more fitly close the allusions to the Revolution so frequent in
the letters of the past four years than by Burke's description of this
pure and noble Queen in her youth: "It is now sixteen or seventeen years
since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness of Versailles; and
surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a
more delightful vision. I saw her, just above the horizon, glittering
like the morning star, full of life and splendour and joy. Oh! what a
revolution! and what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion
that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream, when she added titles
of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that
she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace
concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to
see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men and
cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their
scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult"
("Reflections on the French Revolution ").]
My poor old friend, the Duchesse de la Valière, past ninety and
stone-deaf, has a guard set upon her, but in her own house; her
daughter, the Duchesse de Chatillon, mother of the Duchesse de la
Tremouille, is arrested; and thus the last, with her attachment to the
Queen, must be miserable indeed!--but one would think I feel for nothing
but Duchesses: the crisis has crowded them together into my letter, and
into a prison;--and to be a prisoner among cannibals is pitiable indeed!
_Thursday morning, 17th, past ten._
I this moment receive the very comfortable twin-letter. I am so
conjugal, and so much in earnest upon the article of recovery, that I
cannot think of _a pretty thing_ to say to very pretty Mrs. Stanhope;
nor do I know what would be a pretty thing in these days. I might come
out with some old-fashioned compliment, that would have been very
genteel
In good Queen Bess's golden day, when I was a dame of honour.
Let Mrs. Stanhope imagine that I have said all she deserves: I certainly
think it, and will ratify it, when I have learnt the language of the
nineteenth century; but I really am so ancient, that as Pythagoras
imagined he had been Panthoides Euphorbus[1] in the Trojan war, I am
not sure that I did not ride upon a pillion behind a Gentleman-Usher,
when her Majesty Elizabeth went into procession to St. Paul's on the
defeat of the Armada! Adieu! the postman puts an end to my idle
speculations--but, Scarborough for ever! with three huzzas!
[Footnote 1: "_Euphorbus._" This is an allusion to the doctrine of
metempsychosis taught by the ancient philosopher Pythagoras of Samos,
according to which when a man died his soul remained in the shades below
suffering any punishment which the man had deserved, till after a
certain lapse of time all the taint of the former existence had been
worn away, when the soul returned to earth to animate some other body.
The passage referred to here by Walpole occurs in Ovid's
"Metamorphoses," xvi. 160, where Pythagoras is expounding his theory,
which is also explained to Aeneas by Anchises in the shades below
(Aeneid, vi. 745). But the two poets differ in more points than one.
According to Anchises, one thousand years are required between the two
existences; according to Pythagoras, not above four hundred or five
hundred. According to Anchises, before the soul revives in another body
it must have forgotten all that happened to it in the body of its former
owner. As Dryden translates Virgil--
Whole droves of minds are by the driving God
Compell'd to drink the deep Lethaean flood,
In large forgetful draughts to steep the cares
Of their past labours, and their irksome years;
That unremembering of its former pain
The soul may suffer mortal flesh again.
(Aeneid, vi. 1020).
Pythagoras, on the other hand, professes a distinct recollection of who
he was and what he suffered in his former life. He remembers that in the
time of the Trojan war (at the outside not five hundred years before his
time) he was a Trojan--Euphorbus, the son of Panthous--and that in the
war he was killed by Menelaus; and his memory is so accurate, that not
long before he had recognised the very shield which he had borne in the
conflict hanging up as a trophy in the temple of Juno at Argos.]
_EXPECTATIONS OF A VISIT TO STRAWBERRY BY THE QUEEN._