Chapter 267

Paris, Oct, 6, 1765. (page 431)

I am glad to find that you grow just, and that you do conceive at last, that I could do better than stay in England for politics. "Tenez, mon enfant," as the Duchesse de la Fert`e said to Madame Staal;(883) "comme il n'y a que moi au monde qui aie toujours raison," I will be very reasonable; as you have made this concession to me, who knew I was in the right I will not expect you to answer all my reasonable letters. If you send a bullying letter to the King of Spain,(884) or to Chose, my neighbour here,(885) I will consider them as written to myself, and subtract so much from your bill. Nay, I will accept a line from Lady Ailesbury now and then in part of payment. I shall continue to write as the wind sets in my pen; and do own my babble does not demand much reply.

For so reasonable a person as I am, I have changed my mind very often about this country. The first five days I was in violent spirits; then came a dismal cloud of whisk and literature, and I could not bear it. At present I begin, very englishly indeed, to establish a right to my own way. I laugh, and talk nonsense, and make them hear me. There are two or three houses where I go quite at my ease, am never asked to touch a card, nor hold dissertations. Nay, I don't pay homage to their authors. Every woman has one or two planted in her house, and God knows how they water them. The old President HainaUlt(886) is the pagod at Madame du Deffand's, an old blind debauch`ee of wit, where I supped last night. The President is very near deaf, and much nearer superannuated. He sits by the table: the mistress of the house, who formerly was his, inquires after every dish on the table, is told who has eaten of which, and then bawls the bill of fare of every individual into the President's ears. In short, every mouthful is proclaimed, and so is every blunder I make against grammar. Some that I make on purpose, succeed: and one of them is to be reported to the Queen to-day by Hainault, who is her great favourite. I had been at Versailles and having been much taken notice of by her Majesty, I said, alluding to madame S`evign`e, La Reine est le plus grand roi du monde. You may judge if I am in possession by a scene that passed after supper. Sir James macdonald(887) had been mimicking Hume: I told the women, who, besides the mistress, were the Duchess de la Vali`ere,(888) Madame de Forcalquier,(889) a demoiselle, that to be sure they would be glad to have a specimen of Mr. Pitt's manner of speaking; and that nobody mimicked him so well as Elliot.(890) They firmly believed it, teased him for an hour, and at last said he was the rudest man in the world not to oblige them. It appeared the more strange, because here every body sings, reads their own works in public, or attempts any one thing without hesitation or capacity. Elliot speaks miserable French; which added to the diversion.

I had had my share of distress in the morning, by going through the operation of being presented to the royal family, down to the little Madame's pap-dinner, and had behaved as sillily as you will easily believe; hiding myself behind every mortal. The Queen called me up to her dressing-table, and seemed mightily disposed to gossip with me; but instead of enjoying my glory like Madame de S`evign`e, I slunk back into the crowd after a few questions. She told Monsieur de Guerchy of it afterwards, and that I had run away from her, but said she would have her revenge at Fontainbleau. So I must go thither, which I do not intend. The King, Dauphin, Dauphiness, Mesdames, and the wild beasts did not say a word to me. Yes, the wild beast, he of the Gevaudan. He is killed, and actually in the Queen's antechamber, where he was exhibited to us with as much parade as if it was Mr. Pitt. It is an exceedingly large wolf, and, the connoisseurs say, has twelve teeth more than any wolf ever had since the days of Romulus's wet nurse. The critics deny it to be the true beast; and I find most people think the beast's name is legion,--for there are many. He was covered with a sheet, which two chasseurs lifted up for the foreign ministers and strangers. I dined at the Duke of Praslin's with five-and-twenty tomes of the corps diplomatique; and after dinner was presented, by Monsieur de Guerchy, to the Duc de Choiseul. The Duc de Praslin is as like his own letters in D'Eon's book as he can stare; that is, I believe a very silly fellow. His wisdom is of the grave kind. His cousin, the first minister, is a little volatile being, whose countenance and manner had nothing to frighten me for my country. I saw him but for three seconds, which is as much as he allows to any one body or thing. Monsieur de Guerchy, whose goodness to me is inexpressible, took the trouble of walking every where with me, and carried me particularly to see the new office for state papers. I wish I could send it you. It is a large building, disposed like an hospital, with the most admirable order and method. Lodgings for every officer; his name and business written over his door. In the body is a perspective of seven or eight large chambers: each is painted with emblems, and wainscoted with presses with wired doors and crimson curtains. Over each press, in golden letters, the country to which the pieces relate, as Angleterre, Allemagne, etc. Each room has a large funnel of bronze with or moulu, like a column to air the papers and preserve them. In short, it is as magnificent as useful.

Prom thence I went to see the reservoir of pictures at M. de Marigny's. They are what are not disposed of in the palaces, though sometimes changed with others. This refuse, which fills many rooms from top to bottom, is composed of the most glorious works of Raphael, L. da Vinci, Giorgione, Titian, Guido, Correggio, etc. Many pictures, which I knew by their prints, without an idea where they existed, I found there.

The Duc de Nivernois is extremely obliging to me. I have supped at Madame de Bentheim's, who has a very fine house and a woful husband. She is much livelier than any Frenchwoman. The liveliest I have seen is the Duc de Duras:(891) he is shorter and plumper Lord Halifax, but very like him in the face. I am to sup with the Dussons(892) on Sunday. In short, all that have been in England are exceedingly disposed to repay any civilities they received there. Monsieur de Caraman wrote from the country to excuse his not coming to see me, as his Wife is On the point of being brought to bed, but begged I would come to them. So I would, if I was a man-midwife: but though they are easy On Such heads, I am not used to it, and cannot make a party of pleasure of a labour.

Wilkes arrived here two days ago, and announced that he was going minister to Constantinople.(893) To-day I hear he has lowered his credentials, and talks of going to England, if he can make his peace.(894) I thought by the manner in which this was mentioned to me, that the person meant to Sound me: but I made no answer: for, having given up politics in England, I certainly did not come to transact them here. He has not been to make me the first visit, which, as the last arrived, depends on him: so, never having spoken to him in my life, I have no call to seek him. I avoid all politics so much, that I had not heard one word here about Spain. I suppose my silence passes for very artful mystery, and puzzles the ministers who keep spies on the most insignificant foreigner. It would have been lucky if I had been as watchful. At Chantilly I lost my portmanteau with half my linen; and the night before last I was robbed of a new frock, waistcoat, and breeches, laced with gold, a white and silver waistcoat, black velvet breeches, a knife, and a book. These are expenses I did not expect, and by no means entering into my system of extravagance.

I am very sorry for the death of Lord Ophaly, and for his family. I knew the poor young man himself but little, but he seemed extremely good-natured. What the Duke of Richmond will do for a hotel, I cannot conceive. Adieu!

(883) See M`emoires de Madame de Staal (the first authoress of that name) published with the rest of her works, in three small volumes.-E.

(884) Mr. Conway was now secretary of state for the foreign department.-E.

(885) Louis XV.-E.

(886) Le Pr`esident Hainault, surintendant de la maison de Mademoiselle la Dauphine, membre de l'Acad`emie Fran`caise et de l'Acad`emie des Inscriptions, known by his celebrated work, the Abr`eg`e Chronologique de l'Histoire, de France, and from the excellent table which he kept, and which was the resort of all the wits and savans of the day. His cook was considered the best in Paris, and the master was worthy of his cook; a fact which Voltaire celebrates in the opening lines of the epitaph which he wrote for him--

"Hainault, fameux par vos soupers, Et votre Chronologic," etc.-E.

(887) Sir James Macdonald of Macdonald, the eighth baronet, who died at Rome on the 26th of July 1766, in the twenty-fifth year of his age, regretted by all who knew him. In the inscription on his monument, executed at Rome and erected in the church of Slate, his character is thus drawn by his friend Lord Lyttelton:--"He had attained to so eminent a degree of knowledge in mathematics, philosophy, languages, and in every branch of useful and polite learning, as few have acquired in a long life wholly devoted to study; yet to this erudition he joined, what can rarely be found with it, great talents for business, great propriety of behaviour, great politeness of manners: his eloquence was sweet, correct and flowing; his memory vast and exact; his judgment strong and acute." On visiting Slate, in 1773, Dr. Johnson observed to Boswell, that this inscription "should have been in Latin, as every thing intended to be universal and permanent should be." Upon this mr. Croker remarks,--"What a strange Perversion of language!--universal! Why, if it had been in Latin, so far from being universally understood, it would have been an utter blank to one (the better) half of the creation, and even of the men who might visit it, ninety-nine will understand it in English for one who could in Latin. Something may be said for epitaphs and inscriptions addressed, as it were, to the world at large--a triumphal arch -- the pillar at Blenheim--the monument on the field of Waterloo: but a Latin epitaph in an English church, appears, in principle, as absurd as the dinner, which the doctor gives in Peregrine Pickle, 'after the manner of the ancients.' A mortal may surely be well satisfied if his fame lasts as long as the language in which he spoke or wrote."-E.

(888) La Duchesse de la Vali`ere, daughter of the Duc d'Usez. She was one of the handsomest women in France, and preserved her beauty even to old age. She died about the year 1792, at the age of eighty.-E.

(889) The Comtesse de Forcalquier, n`ee Canizy. She had ben first married to the Comte d'Antin, son to the Comtesse de Toulouse, by a marriage previous to that with the Comte de Toulouse, one of the natural children of Louis Quatorze, whom he legitimated.-E.

(890) Sir Gilbert Elliot Of Minto. He was appointed a lord of the admiralty in 1756, treasurer of the chamber in 1762, keeper of the signets for Scotland in 1767, and treasurer of the navy in 1770. He died in 1777.-E.

(891) Le Duc de Duras, one of the gentlemen of the bedchamber at the court of France.-E.

(892) M. D'Usson, who had formerly been in England in a diplomatic capacity; see ant`e p. 219, letter 157. He was brother to the Marquis de Bonnac, the French ambassador at the Hague.-E.

(893) Wilkes's application for the embassy to Constantinople was an unsuccessful one. It will be seen in the Chatham Correspondence, that in February 1761, he had solicited of Mr. Pitt a seat at the board of trade. "I wish," he says, "the board of trade might be thought a place in which I could be of any service: whatever the scene is, I shall endeavour to have the reputation of acting in a manner worthy of the connexion I have the honour to be in; and, among all the chances and changes of a political world, I will never have an obligation in a parliamentary way but to Mr. Pitt and his friends." Vol. ii. p. 94.-E.

(894) After his outlawry.