The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 69

I have not above a note's worth to say; but as Lord Ossory sets out to-morrow, I just send you a line. The Dauphin, if he is still alive, which some folks doubt, is kept so only by cordials; though the Bishop of Glandeve has a.s.sured the Queen that he had G.o.d's own word for his recovery, which she still believes, whether her son is dead or not.

The remonstrance of the Parliament of Paris, on the dissolution of that of Bretagne, is very decent; they are to have an audience next week. They do not touch on Chalotais, because the accusation against him is for treason. What do you think that treason Is? A correspondence with Mr. Pitt, to whom he is made to say, that "Rennes is nearer to London than Paris." It is now believed that the anonymous letters, supposed to be written by Chalotais, were forged by a Jesuit--those to Mr. Pitt could not have even so good an author.

The Duke of Richmond is still at Aubign'e: I wonder he stays, for it is the hardest frost alive. Mr. Hume does not go to Ireland; where your brother finds he would by no means be welcome. I have a notion he will stay here till Your brother's return.

The Duc de Praslin, it is said, will retire at Christmas. As La Borde, the great banker of the court, is trying to retire too, my consul, who is much connected with La Borde, suspects that Choiseul is not very firm himself. I have supped with Monsieur de Maurepas, and another night, with Marshal Richelieu: the first is extremely agreeable and sensible; and, I am glad, not minister. The other is an old piece of tawdry, worn out, but endeavouring to brush itself up; and put me in mind of Lord Chesterfield, for they laugh before they know what he has said-- and are in the right, for I think they would not laugh afterwards.

I send Lady Ailesbury the words and music of the prettiest opera comique in the world. I wish I could send her the actors too.

Adieu!

December 9.

Lord Ossory put off his journey; which stopped this letter, and it will now go by Mr. Andrew Stuart.

The face of things is changed here; which I am impatient to tell you, that you may see it is truth, not system, which I pique myself on sending you. The vigour of the court has frightened the Parliaments. That of Pau has submitted. The procureurs, etc of Rennes, who, it was said, would not plead before the new commission, were told, that if they did not plead the next day they should be hanged without a trial. No bribe ever operated faster! I heard t'other day, that some Spanish minister, I forget his name, being dead, Squillace would take his department, and Grimaldi have that of the West Indies. He is the worst that could have it, as we have no greater enemy.

The Dauphin is certainly alive, but in the most shocking way possible; his bones worn through his skin, a great swelling behind, and so relaxed, that his intestines appear from that part; and yesterday the mortification was suspected.

I have received a long letter from Lady Ailesbury, for which I give her a thousand thanks; and would answer it directly, if I had not told you every thing I know. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Richmond are, I hear, at Fontainbleau: the moment they return, I will give the d.u.c.h.ess Lady Ailesbury's commission.

Letter 285 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(916) Paris, Dec. 5, 1765; but does not set out till the 11th.

(page 451)

Madam, Miss Hotham need not be in pain for what to say when she gives me an account of your ladyship; which is all the trouble I thought of giving her. If she could make those accounts more favourable, I should be better pleased; but I know what an untractable brute the gout is, and the joy it takes in plaguing every body that is connected with it. We have the sharpest frost here that ever lived; it has done me great good; and, if it has the same effect on your ladyship, I hope you are starved to death. Since Paris has begun to fill in spite of Fontainbleau, I am much reconciled to it, and, have seen several people I like. I am established in two or three societies, where I sup every night; though I have still resisted whist, and am more constant to my old flame loo during its absence than I doubt I have been to my other pa.s.sion.

There is a young Comtesse d'Egmont, daughter of Marshal Richelieu, so pretty and pleasing, that, if I thought it would break any body's heart in England, I would be in love with her.

Nay, Madam, I might be so within all rules here. I am twenty years the right side of red-heels, which her father wears still, and he has still a wrinkle to come before he leaves them off.

The Dauphin is still alive, but kept so only by cordials. The Queen and Dauphiness have no doubt of his recovery, having the Bishop of Glandeve's word for it, who got a promise from a vision under its own hand and seal. The Dauphin has certainly behaved with great courage and tranquillity, but is so touched with the tenderness and attention of his family, that he now expresses a wish to live.

If there is no talk in England of politics and parliaments, I can send your ladyship as much as you please from hence; or If you want English themselves, I can send you about fifty head; and I a.s.sure you, we shall still be well stocked. There were three card-tables at Lady Berkeley's.

(916) Now first collected.

Letter 286 To the Right Hon. Lady Hervey.

Paris, Jan. 2, 1766. (page 452)

When I came to Paris, Madam, I did not know that by New year's-- day I should find myself in Siberia; at least as cold. There have not been two good days together since the middle of October; however, I do not complain, as I am both well and pleased, though I wish for a little of your sultry English weather, all French as I am. I have entirely left off dinners, and the life I always liked, of lying late in bed, and sitting up late. I am told of nothing but how contradictory this is to your ladyship's orders; but as I shall have dull dinners and triste evenings enough when I return to England, all your kindness cannot persuade me to sacrifice my pleasures here, too. Many of my opinions are fantastic; perhaps this is one, that nothing produces gout like doing any thing one dislikes. I believe the gouts like a near relation, always visits one when one has some other plague. Your ladyship's dependence on the waters of Sunning-hill is, I hope, better founded; but in the mean time my system is full as pleasant.

Madame d'Aiguillon's goodness to me does not abate, nor Madame Geoffrin's. I have seen but little of Madame d'Egmont, who seems very good, and is universally in esteem. She is now in great affliction, having lost suddenly Monsieur Pignatelli, the minister at Parma, whom she bred up, and whom she and her family had generously destined for her grand-daughter, an immense heiress. It was very delicate and touching what Madame d'Egmont said to her daughter-in-law on this occasion:--"Vous voyez, ma ch'ere, combien j'aime mes enfans d'adoption!" This daughter-in-law is delightfully pretty, and civil, and gay, and conversable, though not a regular beauty like Madame de Monaco.

The bitterness of the frost deters me, Madam, from all sights; I console myself with good company, and still more, with being absent from bad. Negative as this satisfaction is, it is incredibly great, to me in a town like this, and to be sure every day of not meeting one face one hates! I never know a positive pleasure equal to it.

Your ladyship and Lord Holland shall laugh at me as Much as you please for by dread of being thought charming; yet I shall not deny my panic, for surely nothing is so formidable as to have one's limbs on crutches and one's understanding in leading-strings. The Prince of Conti laughed at me t'other day on the same account. I was complaining to the old blind charming Madame du Deffand, that she preferred Mr. Crawford to me: "What,"

said the Prince, "does not she love you?" "No, Sir," I replied, "she likes me no better than if she had seen me."

Mr. Hume carries this letter and Rousseau to England.(917) I wish the former may not repent having engaged with the latter, who contradicts and quarrels with all mankind, in order to obtain their admiration. I think both his means and his end below such a genius. If I had talents like his, I should despise any suffrage below my own standard, and should blush to owe any part of my fame to singularities and affectations. But great parts seem like high towers erected on high mountains, the more expose(] to every wind, and readier to tumble. Charles Townshend is blown round the compa.s.s; Rousseau insists that the north and South blow at the same time; and Voltaire demolishes the Bible to erect fatalism in its stead:--so compatible are the greatest abilities and greatest absurdities!

Madame d'Aiguillon gave me the enclosed letter for your ladyship.

I wish I had any thing else to send you; but there are no new books, and the theatres are shut up for the Dauphin's death; who, I believe, is the greatest loss they have had since Harry 1V.

(917) The Parliament of Paris having issued an arr'et against Rousseau, on account of his opinions, Mr. Hume was applied to by a friend in Paris to discover for him a retreat in England, whither he accompanied him. The plan finally concluded on was, that he should be comfortably boarded in the mansion of Mr.

Davenport, at Wooton, in the county of Derby; and Mr. Hume, by his interest with the Government, obtained for him a pension of one hundred pounds a-year. On his arrival in London, he appeared in public in his Armenian dress, and excited much general notice.-E

Letter 287 To John Chute, Esq.

Paris, Jan. 1766. (page 453)

It is in vain, I know, my dear Sir, to scold you, though I have Such a mind to it--nay, I must. Yes, You that will not lie a night at Strawberry in autumn for fear of the gout, to stay in the country till this time, and till you caught it! I know you will tell me, it did not come till you were two days in town.

Do, and I shall have no more pity for you this if I was your wife, and had wanted to come to town two months ago.

I am perfectly well, though to be sure Lapland is the torrid zone in comparison of Paris. We have had such a frost for this fortnight, that I went nine miles to dine in the country to-day, in a villa exactly like a green-house, except that there was no fire but in one room. We were four in a coach, and all our c.h.i.n.ks stopped with furs, and yet all the gla.s.ses were frozen.

We dined in a paved hall painted in fresco, with a fountain at one end; for in this country they live in a perpetual opera, and persist in being young when they are old, and hot when they are frozen. At the end of the hall sat shivering three glorious maccaws, a vast c.o.c.katoo, and two poor parroquets, who squalled like the children in the wood after their nursery-fire! I am come home, and blowing my billets between every paragraph, but can scarce move my fingers. However, I must be dressed presently, and go to the Comtesse de la Marche,(918) who has appointed nine at night for my audience. It seems a little odd to us to be presented to a princess of the blood at that hour-- but I told you, there is not a t.i.ttle In which our manners resemble one another; I was presented to her father-in-law the Prince of Conti last Friday. In the middle of the lev'ee entered a young woman, too plain I thought to be any thing but his near relation. I was confirmed in my opinion, by seeing her, after he had talked to her, go round the circle and do the honours of it.

I asked a gentleman near me if that was the Comtesse de la Marche? He burst into a violent laughter, and then told me it was Mademoiselle Auguste, a dancer!--Now, who was in the wrong?

I give you these as samples of many scenes that have amused me, and which will be charming food at Strawberry. At the same time that I see all their ridicules, there is a douceur in the society of the women of fashion that captivates me. I like the way of life, though not lively; though the men are posts, and apt to be arrogant, and though there are twenty ingredients wanting to make the style perfect. I have totally washed my hands of their savans and Philosophers, and do not even envy you Rousseau, who has all the charlatanerie of Count St. Germain(919 to make himself singular and talked of. I suppose Mrs. Montagu, my Lord Lyttelton, and a certain lady friend of mine, will be in raptures with him, especially as conducted by Mr. Hume. But, however I admire his parts, neither he nor any genius I have known has had common sense enough to balance the impertinence of their pretensions. They hate priests, but love dearly to have an altar at their feet; for which reason it is much pleasanter to read them than to know them. Adieu! my dear Sir!

Jan. 15.

This has been writ this week, and waiting for a conveyance, and as yet has got none. Favre tells me you are recovered, but you don't tell me so yourself. I enclose a trifle that I wrote lately,(920) which got about and has made enormous noise in a city where they run and cackle after an event, like a parcel of hens after an accidental husk of a grape. It has made me the fashion, and made Madame de Boufflers and the Prince of Conti very angry with me; the former intending to be rapt to the Temple of Fame by clinging to Rousseau's Armenian robe. I am peevish that with his parts he should be such a mountebank: but what made me more peevish was, that after receiving Wilkes with the greatest civilities, he paid court to Mr. Hume by complaining of Wilkes's visit and intrusion.(921) Upon the whole, I would not but have come hither; for, since I am doomed to live in England, it is some comfort to have seen that the French are ten times more contemptible than we are. I am a little ungrateful; but I cannot help seeing with my eyes, though I find other people make nothing of seeing without theirs. I have endless histories to amuse you with when we meet, which shall be at the end of March.

It is much more tiresome to be fashionable than unpopular; I am used to the latter, and know how to behave under it: but I cannot stand for member of parliament of Paris. Adieu!

(918) La Comtesse de la Marche, princess of Modena, married to the only son of the Prince de Conti. Le Comte de la Marche was the only one of the princes of the blood who uniformly sided with the court in the disputes with the Parliament of Paris.-E.

(919) The Comte de St. Germain had acquired a considerable military reputation in France by his conduct at Corbach in 1760; when he commanded the reserve, and saved the army by supporting the rear-guard and allowing the whole body to retire upon Ca.s.sel.

Considering himself ill-used by the Marshal de Broglio, his commander-in-chief, he obtained leave to retire from the French service, and entered that of Denmark, from which he retired into private life in 1774. From this retirement he was summoned by Louis XVI. upon the death of the Comte de Muy, minister-at-war.-E.

(920) The letter from the King of Prussia to Rousseau.-E.

(921) "One evening, at the Mitre, Johnson said sarcastically to me, 'It seems, Sir, you have kept very good company abroad-- Rousseau and Wilkes!' I answered with a smile, 'My dear Sir, you don't call Rousseau bad company: do you r(@ally think him a f bad man?' Johnson. 'Sir, if you are talking jestingly of this, I don't talk with you. If you mean to be serious, I think him one of the worst of men; a rascal, who ought to be hunted out of society, as he has been. Three or four nations have expelled him, and it is a shame that he is protected in this country.

Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign a sentence for his transportation than that of any felon who has gone from the Old Bailey these many years. Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations.' " Boswell, vol. ii. p. 314, ed.

1835.-E.

Letter 288 To George Montagu, Esq.

Paris, Jan. 5, 1766. (page 455)

Lady beaulieu acts like herself, and so do you in being persuaded that n.o.body will feel any satisfaction that comes to you with more transport than I do; you deserve her friendship, because you are more sensible to the grace of the action than to the thing itself; of which, besides approving the sentiment, I am glad, for if my Lady Cardigan(922) is as happy in drawing a straw, as in picking straws, you will certainly miss your green coat. Yet methinks you would make an excellent Robin Hood reform'e, with little John your brother. How you would carol Mr. Percy's old ballads under the greenwood tree! I had rather have you in my merry Sherwood than at Greatworth, and should delight in your picture drawn as a bold forester, in a green frock, with your rosy hue, gray locks, and comely belly. In short, the favour itself, and the manner are so agreeable, that I shall be at least as much disappointed as you can be, if it fails. One is not ashamed to wear a feather from the hand of a friend. We both scorn to ask or accept boons; but it is pleasing to have life painted with images by the pencil of friendship. Visions you know have always been my pasture; and so far from growing old enough to quarrel with their emptiness, I almost think there is no wisdom comparable to that of exchanging what is called the realities of life for dreams. Old castles, old pictures, old histories, and the babble of old people, make one live back into centuries, that cannot disappoint one. One holds fast and surely what is past. The dead have exhausted their power of deceiving; one can trust Catherine of Medicis now. In short, you have opened a new landscape to my fancy; and my Lady Beaulieu will oblige me as much as you, if she puts the long bow into your hands. I don't know but the idea may produce some other Castle of Otranto.

The victorious arms of the present ministry in Parliament will make me protract my stay here, lest it should be thought I awaited the decision of the event; next to successful enemies, I dread triumphant friends. To be sure, Lord Temple and George Grenville are very proper to be tied to a conqueror's car, and to drag then, slow lengths along;" but it is too ridiculous to see Goody Newcastle exulting like old Marius in a seventh consulship.

Don't tell it, but as far as I can calculate my own intention, I shall not set out before the twenty-fifth of March. That will meet your abode in London; and I shall get a day or two out of you for some chat at Strawberry on all I have seen and done here.

For this reason I will antic.i.p.ate nothing now, but bid you good-morrow, after telling you a little story. The canton of Berne ordered all the impressions of Helvetius's Esprit and Voltaire's Pucelle to be seized. The officer of justice employed by them came into the council and said, "Magnifiques seigneurs, apr'es toutes les recherches possibles, on n'a p'u trouver dans toute la ville que tr'es peu de l'Esprit, et pas une Pucelle."

Adieu! Robin and John.