Chapter 351

Strawberry Hill, Thursday, Nov. 18, 1790. (page 461)

On Tuesday morning, after my letter was gone to the post, I received yours of the 2d (as I have all the rest) from Turin, and it gave me very little of the joy I had so much meditated to receive from a letter thence. And why did not it?-because I had got one on Saturday, which anticipated and augmented all the satisfaction I had allotted for Turin. You will find my Tuesday's letter, if ever you receive it, intoxicated with Chamberry; for which, and all your kind punctuality, I give you a million of thanks. But how cruel to find that you found none of my letters at Turin! There ought to have been two at least, of October the 16th and 19th. I have since directed one thither of the 25th; but alas! from ignorance, there was par Paris on none of them; and the Lord knows at how many little German courts they may have been baiting! I shall put par Paris on this; but beg you will tell me, as soon as you can, which route is the shortest and the safest; that is, by which you are most likely to receive them. You do me justice in concluding there has been no negligence of mine in the case; indeed, I have been ashamed of the multiplicity of my letters, when I had scarce any thing to tell you but my own anxiety to hear of your being quietly settled at Florence, out of the reach of all commotions. And how could I but dread your being molested by some accident, in the present state of France! and how could your healths mend in bad inns, and till you can repose somewhere? Repose you will have at Florence, but I shall fear the winter for you there: I suffered more by cold there, than by any place in my life; and never came home at night without a pain in my breast, which I never felt elsewhere, yet then I was very young and in perfect health. If either of you suffer there in any shape, I hope you will retire to Pisa.

My inquietude, that presented so many alarms to me before you set out, has, I find, and am grieved for it, not been quite in the Wrong. Some inconveniences I am persuaded you have sunk: yet the difficulty of landing at Dieppe, and the ransack of your poor harmless trunks at Bourgoin, and the wretched lodgings with which you were forced to take up at Turin, count deeply with me: and I had much rather have lost all credit as a prophet, since I could not prevent your journey. May it answer for your healths! I doubt it will not in any other respect, as you have already found by the voiturins. In point of pleasure, is it possible to divest myself so radically of all self-love as to wish you may find Italy as agreeable as you di formerly? In all other lights, I do most fervently hope there will he no drawbacks on your plan. Should you be disappointed in any way, you know what a warm heart is open to receive you back; and so will your own Cliveden(714) be too.

I am glad you met the Bishop of Arras,(715) and am much pleased that he remembers me. I saw him very frequently at my dear old friend's,.(716) and liked him the best of all Frenchmen I ever knew. He is extremely sensible, easy, lively, and void of prejudices. Should he fall in your way again, I beg you will tell him how sincere a regard I have for him. He lived in the strictest union with his brother, the Archbishop of Tours, whom I was much less acquainted with, nor know if he be living.

I have heard nothing since my Tuesday's letter. As I still hope its predecessors will reach you, I will not repeat the trifling scraps of news I have sent you in them. In fact, this is only a trial whether par Paris is a better passport than a direction without it; but I am grievously sorry to find difficulty of correspondence superadded to the vexation of losing you. Writing to you was grown my chief occupation. I wish. Europe and its broils were in the East Indies, if they embarrass us quiet folks, who have nothing to do with their squabbles. The Duchess of Gloucester, who called on me yesterday, charged me to give her compliments to you both. Miss Foldson(717) has not yet sent me your pictures: I was in town on Monday, and sent to reproach her with having twice broken her promise; her mother told my servant that Miss was at Windsor, drawing the Queen and Princesses. That is not the work of a Moment. I am glad all the Princes are not on the spot.

I think of continuing here till the weather grows very bad; which it has not been at all yet, though not equal to what I am rejoiced you have found. I have no Somerset or Audley-street to receive me: Mrs. Damer is gone too. The Conways remain at Park-place till after Christmas; It is entirely out of fashion for women to grow old and stay at home in an evening. They invite you, indeed, now and then, but do not expect to see you till near midnight; which is rather too late to begin the day, unless one was born but twenty years ago. I do not condemn any fashions, which the young ought to set, for the old certainly ought not; but an oak that has been going on in its old way for an hundred years, cannot shoot into a May-pole in three years, because it is the mode to plant Lombardy poplars.

What I should have suffered, if your letters, like mine, had wandered through Germany! I, you was sure, had written, and was in no danger. Dr. Price, who had whetted his ancient talons last year to no purpose, has had them all drawn by Burke, and the Revolution Club is as much exploded as the Cock-lane Ghost; but you, in order to pass a quiet winter in Italy, would pass through a fiery furnace. Fortunately, you have not been singed, and the letter from Chamberry has composed all my panics, but has by no means convinced me that I was not perfectly in the right to endeavour to keep you at home. One does not put one's hand in the fire to burn off a hangnail; and, though health is delightful, neither of you were out of order enough to make a rash experiment. I Would not be so absurd as to revert to old arguments, that happily proved no prophecies, if my great anxiety about you did not wish, in time, to persuade you to return through Switzerland and Flanders, if the latter is pacified and France is not; of which I see no likelihood.

Pray forgive me, if parts of my letters are sometimes tiresome; but can I appear only always cheerful when you two are absent, and have another long journey to make, ay, and the sea to cross again? My fears cannot go to sleep like a paroli at faro till there is a new deal, in which even then I should not be sure of winning. If I see you again, I will think I have gained another milleleva, as I literally once did; with this exception, that I was vehemently against risking a doit at the game of travelling. Adieu!

(714) Little Strawberry Hill, which he had then thus named.

(715) M. de Conzies. This amiable prelate declined, in 1801, the Parisian archiepiscopacy, proffered him by Buonaparte, and died in London, in December 1804, in the arms of Monsieur, afterwards Charles the Tenth.-E.

(716) Madame du Deffand.

)717 Afterwards Mrs. Mee.