The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 66

Letter 273 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

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 d.u.c.h.esse 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 G.o.d knows how they water them. The old President HainaUlt(886) is the paG.o.d 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 pa.s.sed after supper.

Sir James macdonald(887) had been mimicking Hume: I told the women, who, besides the mistress, were the d.u.c.h.ess 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 n.o.body 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 cha.s.seurs 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, t.i.tian, 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 pa.s.ses 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 auth.o.r.ess 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 d.u.c.h.esse 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 amba.s.sador at the Hague.-E.

(893) Wilkes's application for the emba.s.sy 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.

Letter 274 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.

Paris, Oct. 13, 1765. (page 434)

How are the mighty fallen! Yes, yes, Madam, I am as like the Duc de Richelieu as two peas; but then they are two old withered gray peas. Do you remember the fable of Cupid and Death, and what a piece of work they made with hustling their arrows together?

This is just my case: Love might shoot at me, but it was with a gouty arrow. I have had a relapse in both feet, and kept my bed six days but the fit seems to be going off; my heart can already go alone, and my feet promise themselves the mighty luxury of a cloth shoe in two or three days. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay,(895) who are here, and are, alas! to carry this, have been of great comfort to me, and have brought their delightful little daughter, who is as quick as Ariel. Mr. Ramsay could want no a.s.sistance from me: what do we both exist upon here, Madam, but your bounty and charity? When did you ever leave one of your friends in want of another? Madame Geotrrin came and sat two hours last night by my bedside: I could have sworn it had been my Lady Hervey,(896) she was so good to me. It was with so much sense, information, instruction, and correction! The manner of the latter charms me.

I never saw any body in my days that catches one's faults and vanities and impositions so quick, that explains them to one so clearly, and convinces one so easily. I never liked to be set right before! You cannot imagine how I taste it! I make her both my confessor and director, and beam to think I shall be a reasonable creature at last, which I had never intended to be.

The next time I see her, I believe I shall say, "Oh! Common Sense, sit down: I have been thinking so and so; is not it absurd?" for t'other sense and wisdom, I never liked them; I shall now hate them for her sake. If it was worth her while, I a.s.sure your ladyship she might govern me like a child.(897)

The Duc de Nivernois too is astonishingly good to me. In short, Madam, I am going down hill, but the sun sets pleasingly. Your two other friends have been in Paris; but I was confined, and could not wait on them. I pa.s.sed a whole evening with Lady Mary Chabot most agreeably: she charged me over and over with a thousand compliments to your ladyship. For sights, alas! and pilgrimages, they have been cut short! I had destined the fine days of October to excursions; but you know, Madam, what it is to reckon without one's host, the gout. It makes such a coward of me, that I shall be afraid almost of entering a church. I have lost, too, the Dumenil in Ph'edre and Merope, two of her princ.i.p.al parts, but I hope not irrecoverably.

Thank you, Madam, for the Taliacotian extract: it diverted me much. It is true, in general I neither see nor desire to see our wretched political trash: I am sick of it up to the fountain-head. It was my princ.i.p.al motive for coming hither; and had long been my determination, the first moment I should be at liberty, to abandon it all. I have acted from no views of interest; I have shown I did not; I have not disgraced myself- -and I must be free. My comfort is, that, if I am blamed, it will be by all parties. A little peace of mind for the rest of my days is all I ask, to balance the gout.

I have writ to Madame de Guerchy about Your orange-flower water; and I sent your ladyship two little French pieces that I hope you received. The uncomfortable posture in which I write will excuse my saying any more; but it is no excuse against my trying to do any thing to please one, who always forgets pain when her friends are in question.

(895) Allan Ramsay, the painter.

(896) Baron de Grimm, in speaking of Madame Geoffrin, says:-- "This lady's religion seems to have always proceeded on two principles: the one, to do the greatest quant.i.ty of good in her power; the other, to respect scrupulously all established forms, and even to lend herself, with great complaisance, to all the different movements of public opinion."-E.

(897) Gibbon, in a letter to his father, of the 24th of February 1763, says:--"Lady Hervey's recommendation to Madame Geoffrin was a most excellent one: her house is a very good one; regular dinners there every Wednesday, and the best company in Paris, in men of letters and people of fashion. It was at her house I connected myself with M. Helvetius, who, from his heart, his head, and his fortune, is a most valuable man."-E.

Letter 275 To George Montagu, Esq.

Paris, Oct. 16, 1765. (page 436)

I am here, in this supposed metropolis of pleasure, triste enough; hearing from n.o.body in England, and again confined with the gout in both feet: yes, I caught cold, and it has returned; but as I begin to be a little acquainted with the nature of its caresses, I think the violence of its pa.s.sion this time will be wasted within the fortnight. Indeed, a stick and a great shoe do not commonly compose the dress which the English come hither to learn; but I shall content myself if I can limp about enough to amuse my eyes; my ears have already had their fill, and are not at all edified. My confinement preserves me from the journey to Fontainbleau, to which I had no great appet.i.te; but then I lose the opportunity of seeing Versailles and St. Cloud at my leisure.

I wrote to you soon after my arrival; did you receive it? All the English books you named to me are to be had here at the following prices. Shakspeare in eight volumes unbound for twenty-one livres; in larger paper for twenty-seven. Congreve, in three volumes for nine livres. Swift, in twelve volumes for twenty-four livres, another edition for twenty-seven. So you see I do not forget your commissions: if you have farther orders, let me know.

Wilkes is here, and has been twice to see me in my illness. He was very civil, but I cannot say entertained me much. I saw no wit; his conversation shows how little he has lived in good company, and the chief turn of it is the grossest bawdy.(898) He has certainly one merit, notwithstanding the bitterness of his pen, that is, he has no rancour; not even against Sandwich, of whom he talked with the utmost temper. He showed me some of his notes on Churchill's works, but they contain little more than one note on each poem to explain the subject of it.

The Dumenil is still the Dumenil, and nothing but curiosity could make me want the Clairon. Grandval is grown so fat and old, that I saw him through a whole play and did not guess him. Not one other, that you remember on the stage, remains there.

It is not a season for novelty in any way, as both the court and the world are out of town. The few that I know are almost all dispersed. The old president Henault made me a visit yesterday: he is extremely amiable, but has the appearance of a superannuated baccha.n.a.l; superannuated, poor soul! indeed he is!

The Duc de Richelieu is a lean old resemblance of old General Churchill, and like him affects still to have his Boothbies.

Alas! poor Boothbies!

I hope, by the time I am convalescent, to have the Richmonds here. One of the miseries of chronical illnesses is, that you are a prey to every fool, who, not knowing what to do with himself, brings his ennui to you, and calls it charity. Tell me a little the intended dates of your motions, that I may know where to write at you. Commend me kindly to Mr. John, and wish me a good night, of which I have had but one these ten days.

(898) "I scarcely ever," says Gibbon, who happened to dine in the company of Wilkes in September 1762, "met with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge; but a thorough profligate in principle as in practice; his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and indecency."-E.