Her

Madame de Rochfort is different from all the rest. 1 understanding is just and delicate; with a finesse of wit that is the result of reflection. Her manner is soft and feminine, and, though a savante, without any declared pretensions. She is the decent friend of Monsieur de Nivernois; for you must not believe a syllable of what you read in their novels. It requires the greatest curiosity, or the greatest habitude, to discover the smallest connexion between the sexes here. No familiarity, but under the veil of friendship, is permitted, and love's dictionary is as much prohibited, as at first sight one should think his ritual was. All you hear, and that pronounced with nonchalance, is, that Monsieur un tel has had Madame une telle. The Duc de Nivernois has parts, and writes at the top of the mediocre, but, as Madame Geoffrin says, is manqué par tout; guerrier manqué, ambassadeur manqué, homme d'affaires manqué, and auteur manqué —no, he is not homme de naissance manqué. He would think freely, but has some ambition of being governor to the Dauphin, and is more afraid of his wife and daughter, who are ecclesiastic fagots. The former out-chatters the Duke of Newcastle; and the latter, Madame de Gisors, exhausts Mr. Pitt's eloquence in defence of the Archbishop of Paris. Monsieur de Nivernois lives in a small circle of dependent admirers, and Madame de Rochfort is high-priestess for a small salary of credit.

The Duchess of Choiseul, the only young one of these heroines, is not very pretty, but has fine eyes, and is a little model in wax-work, which not being allowed to speak for some time as incapable, has a hesitation and modesty, the latter of which the court has not cured, and the former of which is atoned for by the most interesting sound of voice, and forgotten in the most elegant turn and propriety of expression. Oh! it

Madame de Rochefort, née Brancas.-E.

2 La Duchesse du Choiseul, née du Chatel. The husband appears to have been more attached to her than Walpole supposed; at least if we may judge from his will, in which he desires, that they may be buried in the same grave, and expresses his gratification at the idea of reposing by the side of one whom he had, during his lifetime, cherished and respected so highly.-E.

is the gentlest, amiable, civil little creature that ever came out of a fairy egg! So just in its phrases and thoughts, so attentive and good-natured! Everybody loves it but its husband, who prefers his own sister the Duchesse de Grammont,1 an Amazonian, fierce, haughty dame, who loves and hates arbitrarily, and is detested. Madame de Choiseul, passionately fond of her husband, was the martyr of this union, but at last submitted with a good grace; has gained a little credit with him, and is still believed to idolize him. But I doubt it- she takes too much pains to profess it.

I cannot finish my list without adding a much more common character-but more complete in its kind than any of the foregoing, the Maréchale de Luxembourg. She has been very handsome, very abandoned, and very mischievous. Her beauty is gone, her lovers are gone, and she thinks the devil is coming. This dejection has softened her into being rather agreeable, for she has wit and good-breeding; but you would

1 La Duchesse de Grammont, sister of the Duke of Choiseul, does not appear to have deserved the character which Walpole has here given of her. She was thus described, in 1761, by Mr. Hans Stanley, in a letter to Mr. Pitt:-"The Duchess is the only person who has any weight with her brother, the Duc de Choiseul. She never dissembles her contempt or dislike of any man, in whatever degree of elevation. It is said she might have supplied the place of Madame de Pompadour, if she had pleased. She treats the ceremonies and pageants of courts as things beneath her she possesses a most uncommon share of understanding, and has very high notions of honour and reputation." The crowning act of her life militates strongly against Walpole's views. When brought before the Revolutionary tribunal, in April 1794, after having been seized by order of Robespierre, she astonished her judges by the grace and dignity of her demeanour; and pleaded, not for her own life, but eloquently for that of her friend, la Duchesse du Chatelet: " Que ma mort soit decidée," she said; "cela ne m'étonne pas; mais," pointing to her friend," pour cet ange, en quoi vous a-t-elle offensé; elle qui n'a jamais fait tort à personne, et dont la vie entière n'offre qu'un tableau de vertu et de bienfaisance." Both suffered upon the same scaffold. It was this lady who was selected to be made an example of, from among many others who slighted Madame du Barri; and for this she was exiled to the distance of fifteen leagues from Paris, or from wheresoever the court was assembled.-E.

'La Maréchale Duchesse de Luxembourg, sister to the Duc de Villeroi. Her first husband was the Duc de Boufflers, by whom she had a son, the Duc de Boufflers, who died at Genoa of the smallpox. She afterwards married the Maréchal Duc de Luxembourg, at whose country-seat, Montmorency, Jean Jacques Rousseau was long an inmate.-E.

VOL. V.

K

swear, by the restlessness of her person and the horrors she cannot conceal, that she had signed the compact, and expected to be called upon in a week for the performance.

I could add many pictures, but none so remarkable. In those I send you, there is not a feature bestowed gratis or exaggerated. For the beauties, of which there are a few considerable, as Mesdames de Brionne, de Monaco, et d'Egmont, they have not yet lost their characters, nor got any.

open — and

You must not attribute my intimacy with Paris to curiosity alone. An accident unlocked the doors for me. That passepar-tout, called the fashion, has made them fly what do you think was that fashion? — I myself. — Yes, like Queen Elinor in the ballad, I sunk at Charing-cross, and have risen in the Fauxbourg St. Germain. A plaisanterie on Rousseau, whose arrival here in his way to you brought me acquainted with many anecdotes conformable to the idea I had conceived of him, got about, was liked much more than it deserved, spread like wild-fire, and made me the subject of conversation. Rousseau's devotees were offended. Madame de Boufflers, with a tone of sentiment, and the accents of lamenting humanity, abused me heartily, and then complained to myself with the utmost softness. I acted contrition, but had like to have spoiled all, by growing dreadfully tired of a second lecture from the Prince of Conti, who took up the ball, and made himself the hero of a history wherein he had nothing to do. I listened, did not understand half he said (nor he neither), forgot the rest, said Yes when I should have said No, yawned when I should have smiled, and was very penitent when I should have rejoiced at my pardon. Madame de Boufflers was more distressed, for he owned twenty times more than I had said: she frowned, and made him signs; but she had wound up his clack, and there was no stopping it. The moment she grew angry, the lord of the house grew charmed, and it has been my fault if I am not at the head of a numerous sect:- but, when I left a triumphant party in England, I did not come hither to be at the head of a fashion. However, I have been sent for about like an African prince or a learned canary-bird, and was, in particular, carried by force

to the Princess of Talmond,' the Queen's cousin, who lives in a charitable apartment in the Luxembourg, and was sitting on a small bed hung with saints and Sobieskis, in a corner of one of those vast chambers, by two blinking tapers. I stumbled over a cat, a foot-stool, and a chamber-pot in my journey to her presence. She could not find a syllable to say to me, and the visit ended with her begging a lap-dog. Thank the Lord! though this is the first month, it is the last week, of my reign; and I shall resign my crown with great satisfaction to a bouillie of chestnuts, which is just invented, and whose annals will be illustrated by so many indigestions, that Paris will not want anything else these three weeks. I will enclose the fatal letter after I have finished this enormous one; to which I will only add, that nothing has interrupted my Sévigné researches but the frost. The Abbé de Malesherbes has given me full power to ransack Livry. I did not tell you, that by great accident, when I thought on nothing less, I stumbled on an original picture of the Comte de Grammont. Adieu! You are generally in London in March: I shall be there by the end of it.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY HERVEY.

Paris, Feb. 3, 1766.

I HAD the honour of writing to your ladyship on the 4th and 12th of last month, which I only mention, because the latter went by the post, which I have found is not always a safe conveyance.

I am sorry to inform you, Madam, that you will not see

'The Princess of Talmond was born in Poland, and said to be allied to the Queen, Marie Leczinska, with whom she came to France, and there married a prince of the house of Bouillon.-E.

2

* Gray, in reference to this letter, writes thus to Dr. Wharton, on the 5th of March:-" Mr. Walpole writes me now and then a long and lively letter from Paris, to which place he went the last summer, with the gout upon him; sometimes in his limbs; often in his stomach and head. He has got somehow well, (not by means of the climate, one would think,) goes to all public places, sees all the best company, and is very much in fashion. He says he sunk, like Queen Eleanor, at Charing-cross, and has risen again at Paris. He returns again in April; but his health is certainly in a deplorable state." Works, vol. iv.

p. 79.-E.

Madame Geoffrin this year, as she goes to Poland in May. The King has invited her, promised her an apartment exactly in her own way, and that she shall see nobody but whom she chooses to see. This will not surprise you, Madam; but what I shall add, will; though I'must beg your ladyship not to mention it even to her, as it is an absolute secret here, as she does not know that I know it, and as it was trusted to me by a friend of yours. In short, there are thoughts of sending her with a public character, or at least with a commission from hence a very extraordinary honour, and I think never bestowed but on the Maréchale de Guèbriant. As the Dussons have been talked of, and as Madame Geoffrin has enemies, its being known might make her uneasy that it was known. I should have told it to no mortal but your ladyship; but I could not resist giving you such a pleasure. In your answer, Madam, I need not warn you not to specify what I have told you.

My favour here continues; and favour never displeases. To me, too, it is a novelty, and I naturally love curiosities. However, I must be looking towards home, and have perhaps only been treasuring up regret. At worst I have filled my mind with a new set of ideas; some resource to a man who was heartily tired of his old ones. When I tell your ladyship that I play at whisk, and bear even French music, you will not wonder at any change in me. Yet I am far from pretending to like everybody, or everything I see. There are some chapters on which I still fear we shall not agree; but I will do your ladyship the justice to own, that you have never said a syllable too much in behalf of the friends to whom you was so good as to recommend me. Madame d'Egmont, whom I have mentioned but little, is one of the best women in the world, and, though not at all striking at first, gains upon one much. Colonel Gordon, with this letter, brings you, Madam, some more seeds from her. I have a box of pomatums for you from Madame de Boufflers, which shall go by the next conveyance that offers. As he waits for my parcel, I can only repeat how much I am your ladyship's most obliged and faithful humble servant.