The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford Volume III Part 71

She is false, artful, and insinuating beyond measure when it is her interest,(931) but indolent and a coward. She never had any pa.s.sion but gaming, and always loses. For ever paying court, the sole produce of a life of art is to get money from the King to carry on a course of paying debts or contracting new ones, which she discharges as fast as she is able. She advertised devotion, to get made dame du palais to the Queen; and the very next day this Princess of Lorrain was seen riding backwards with Madame Pompadour in the latter's coach. When the King was stabbed, and heartily frightened, the mistress took a panic too, and consulted D'Argenson,(932) whether she had not best make off in time. He hated her, and said, By all means. Madame de Mirepoix advised her to stay. The King recovered his spirits, D'Argenson was banished, and La Mar'echale inherited part of the mistress's credit. I must interrupt my history of ill.u.s.trious women with an anecdote of Monsieur de Maurepas, with whom I am much acquainted, and who has one of the few heads which approach to good ones, and who luckily for us was disgraced, and the marine dropped, because it was his favourite object and province. He employed Pondeveyle to make a song on the Pompadour:(933) it was clever and bitter, and did not spare Majesty. This was Maurepas absurd enough to sing at supper at Versailles.(934) Banishment ensued; and lest he should ever be restored, the mistress persuaded the King that he had poisoned her predecessor Madame de Chateauroux. Maurepas is very agreeable, and exceedingly cheerful; yet I have seen a transient silent cloud when politics are talked of.

Madame de Boufflers, who was in England(935) is a savants mistress of the Prince of Conti, and very desirous of being his wife. She is two women, the upper and the lower. I need not tell you that the lower is gallant, and still has pretensions.

The upper is very sensible, too, and has a measured eloquence that is just and pleasing--but all is spoiled by an unrelaxed attention to applause. You would think she was always sitting for her picture to her biographer. Madame de Rochfort(936) is different from all the rest. Her 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 savants, 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 s.e.xes here. No familiarity, but under the veil of friends.h.i.+p, 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 p.r.o.nounced with nonchalance, is, that Monsieur un tel has had Madame un telle. The Duc de Nivernois has parts, and writes at the top of the mediocre, but, as Madame Geoffrin says, is manqu'e par tout; guerrier manqu'e, amba.s.sadeur manqu'e, homme d'affaires manqu'e and auteur manqu'e--no, he is not homme de naissance manqu'e. 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 f.a.gots. The former outchatters the Duke of Newcastle; and the latter Madame de Gisors, exhausts Mr. Pitt's eloquence in defense 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 d.u.c.h.ess of Choiseul,(937) 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 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! Every body loves it but its husband, who prefers his own sister the d.u.c.h.ess de Grammont,(938) an Amazonian, fierce, haughty dame, who loves and hates arbitrarily, and is detested. Madame de Choiseul, pa.s.sionately 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 Mar'echale de Luxembourg.(939) 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 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.

You must not attribute my intimacy with Paris to curiosity alone.

An accident unlocked the doors for me. That pa.s.se-partout, called the fas.h.i.+on, has made them fly open-and what do you think was that fas.h.i.+on? 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 wildfire, 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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,(940) 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 footstool, 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 ill.u.s.trated by so many indigestions, that Paris will not want any thing else for 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 S'evign'e researches but the frost. The Abb'e de Malherbes has given me full power to ransack 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.(941)

(928) To the above portrait of Madame du Deffand it may be useful to subjoin the able development of her character which appeared in the Quarterly Review for May 1811, in its critique on her Letters to Walpole:--"This lady seems to have united the lightness of the French character with the solidity of the English. She was easy and volatile, yet judicious and acute; sometimes profound and sometimes superficial. She had a wit playful, abundant, and well-toned; an admirable conception of the ridiculous, and great skill in exposing it; a turn for satire, which she indulged, not always in the best-natured manner, yet with irresistible effect; powers of expression varied, appropriate, flowing from the source, and curious without research; a refined taste for letters, and a judgment both of men and books in a high degree: enlightened and accurate. As her parts had been happily thrown together by nature, they were no less happy in the circ.u.mstances which attended their progress and development. They were refined, not by a course of solitary study, but by desultory reading, and chiefly by living intercourse with the brightest geniuses of her age. Thus trained, they acquired a pliability of movement, which gave to all their exertions a bewitching air of freedom and negligence. and made even their last efforts seem only the exuberances or flowering-off of a mind capable of higher excellencies, but unambitious to attain them. There was nothing to alarm or overpower. On whatever topic she touched, trivial or severe, it was alike en badinant; but in the midst of this sportiveness, her genius poured itself forth in a thousand delightful fancies, and scattered new graces and ornaments on every object within its sphere. In its wanderings from the trifles of the day to grave questions of morals or philosophy, it carelessly struck out, and as carelessly abandoned, the most profound truths; and while it sought only to amuse, suddenly astonished and electrified by rapid traits of illumination, which opened the depths of difficult subjects, and roused the researches of more systematic reasoners. To these qualifications were added an independence in forming opinions, and a boldness in avowing them, which wore at least the semblance of honesty; a perfect knowledge of the world, and that facility of manners, which in the commerce of society supplies the place of benevolence."-E.

(929) m. de Pontdeveyle, the younger brother of the Marquis d'Argental, the friend of Voltaire and of the King of Prussia.

Their mother, Madame do Ferioles, was sister to the celebrated madame de Tencin and to the Cardinal of the same name. He died in 1774.-E.

(930) Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole of the 17th of March 1776, states the Malheurs de l'Amour to be the production of Madame de Tencin. She describes it as un roman bien 'ecrit, mais qui n'inspire que de la tristesse."-E.

(931) La Mar'ecchale de Mirepoix was the first woman of consequence who countenanced and appeared in public at Versailles with Madame du Barri; while, on the other hand, her brother, the Prince de Beauvau and his wife, gave great offence by refusing to see her or be of any of her parties. Her person is thus described by Madame du Deffand:--"Sa figure est charmante, son teint est 'eblouissant; ses traits, sans 'etre parfaits, sont Si bien a.s.sortis, que personne n'a l'air plus jeune et n'est plus jolie."-E.

(932) Le Comte d'Argenson was minister-at-war, and, after Damien's attempt upon the life of the King of France in 1757, was disgraced, and exiled to his country-house at Ormes in Poitou.

He was brother to the Marquis d'Argenson, who had been minister of foreign affairs, and died in 1756. He it was who is said to have addressed M. Bignon, his nephew, afterwards an academician, on conferring upon him the appointment of librarian to the King, "Mon neveu, voil'a une belle occasion pour apprendre 'a lire."-E.

(933) The following is the commencement of the song above alluded to by Walpole:--

"Une pet.i.te bourgeoise, Elev'ee 'a la grivoise, Mesurant tout k sa toise, Fait de la cour un tandis.

Le Roi, malgr'e son scrupule, Pour elle froidement br'ule.

Cette flamme ridicule Si Excite dans tout Paris, ris, ris, ris."

(934) Le Comte de Maurepas, who was married to a sister of the Duc de la Valli'ere, had been minister of marine, and disgraced, as Walpole says, at the instigation of the reigning mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Upon the death of Louis Quinze, he was immediately summoned to a.s.sist in the formation of the ministry of his successor.-E.

(935 See vol. iii. p. 218, letter 157.-E.

(936) Madame de Rochefort, n'ee Brancas.-E.

(937) La d.u.c.h.esse de Choiseul, n'ee 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 to 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.

(938) La d.u.c.h.esse 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 d.u.c.h.ess 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, the d.u.c.h.esse du Chatelet: "Que ma mmort soit d'ecid'ee," she said; "cela ne m''etonne pas; mais," pointing to her friend, "pour cet ange, en quoi vous a-t-elle offens'e; elle qui n'a jamais fait tort 'a personne; et dont la vie enti'ere 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 a.s.sembled.-E.

(939) La Mar'echale d.u.c.h.esse 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 small-pox. She afterwards married the Mar'echal Duc de Luxembourg, at whose country-seat, Montmorency, Jean Jacques Rousseau was long an inmate.-E.

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

(941) 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 fas.h.i.+on.

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.

Letter 293 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.

Paris, Feb. 3, 1766. )page 468)

I had the honour of writing to your ladys.h.i.+p 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 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 n.o.body but whom) she chooses to see. This will not surprise you, Madam; but what I shall add, will: though I must beg your ladys.h.i.+p 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 Mar'echale de Gu'ebriant. 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 ladys.h.i.+p; 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 every body, or every thing I see. There are some chapters on which I still fear we shall not agree; but I will do your ladys.h.i.+p 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, _fair)s 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 ladys.h.i.+p's most obliged and faithful humble servant.

Letter 294 To George Montagu, Esq.

Paris, Feb. 4, 1766. (page 469)

I write on small paper, that the nothing I have to say may look like a letter, Paris, that supplies tine with diversions, affords me no news. England sends me none, on which I care to talk by the post. All seems in confusion; but I have done with politics!

The marriage of your cousin puts me in mind of the two owls, whom the Vizier in some Eastern tale told the Sultan were treating on a match between their children, on whom they were to settle I don't know how many ruined villages. Trouble not your head about it. Our ancestors were rogues, and so will our posterity be.

Madame Roland has sent to me, by Lady Jerningham,(942) to beg my works. She shall certainly have them when I return to England; but how comes she to forget that you and I are friends? or does she think that all Englishmen quarrel on party? If she does, methinks she is a good deal in the right, and it is one of the reasons why I have bid adieu to politics, that I may not be expected to love those I hate, and hate those I love. I supped last night with the d.u.c.h.ess de Choiseul, and saw a magnificent robe she is to wear to-day for a great wedding between a Biron(943) and a Boufflers. It is of blue satin, embroidered all over in mosaic, diamond-wise, with gold: in every diamond is a silver star edged with gold, and surrounded with spangles in the same way; it is trimmed with double sables, crossed with frogs and ta.s.sels of gold; her head, neck, breast, and arms, covered with diamonds. She will be quite the fairy queen, for it is the prettiest little reasonable amiable t.i.tania you ever saw; but Oberon does not love it. He prefers a great mortal Hermione his sister. I long to hear that you are lodged in Arlington-street, and invested with your green livery; and I love Lord Beaulieu for his cudom. Adieu!

(942) Mary, eldest daughter, and eventually heiress, of Francis Plowden, Esq. by Mary eldest daughter of the Hon. John Stafford Howard, younger son of the unfortunate Lord Stafford, wife of sir George Jerningham.-E.

(943) The Duc de Lauzun, who upon the death of his uncle, the Mar'echal de Biron, became Duc de Biron, married the heiress and only child of the Duc de Boufflers, who died at Genoa. The marriage proved an unhappy one, and the d.u.c.h.ess twice took refuge in England at the breaking out of the French revolution; but having, in 1793, unadvisedly returned to Paris, she perished on the scaffold in one of the b.l.o.o.d.y proscriptions of Robespierre.

At the beginning of that revolution, the Duke espoused the popular cause, and even commanded an army under the orders of the legislative a.s.sembly; but in the storms that succeeded, being altogether unequal to stem the torrent of popular fury or direct its course, he fell by the guillotine early in 1794.-E.

Letter 295 To George Montagu, Esq.

Paris, Sunday, Feb. 23. (page 470)

I cannot know that you are in my house, and not say, you are welcome. Indeed you are, and I am heartily glad you are pleased there. I have neither matter nor time for more, as I have heard of an opportunity of sending this away immediately with some other letters. News do not happen here as in London; the Parliaments meet, draw up a remonstrance, ask a day for presenting it, have the day named a week after, and so forth. At their rate of going on, if Methusalem was first president, he would not see the end of a single question. As your histories are somewhat more precipitate, I wait for their coming to some settlement, and then will return; but, if the old ministers are to be replaced, Bastille for Bastille, I think I had rather stay where I am. I am not half so much afraid of any power, as the French are of Mr. Pitt. Adieu!

Letter 296 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.

Paris, Feb. 28, 1766. (page 470)

Dear sir, As you cannot, I believe, get a copy of the letter to Rousseau, and are impatient for it, I send it you: though the brevity of it will not answer your expectation. It is no answer to any of his works, and is only a laugh at his affectations. I hear he does not succeed in England, where his singularities are no curiosity.

Yet he must stay there, or give up all his pretensions. To quit a country where he may live at ease, and unpersecuted, will be owning that tranquillity is not what he seeks. If he again seeks persecution, who will pity him? I should think even bigots would let him alone out of contempt.

I have executed your commission in a way that I hope will please you. As you tell me you have a blue cup and saucer, and a red one, and would have them completed to six, without being all alike, I have bought one other blue, one other red, and two sprigged, in the same manner, with colours; so you will have just three pair, which seems preferable to six odd ones; and which, indeed, at nineteen livres a-piece, I think I could not have found.