GEORGE SELWYN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES. GILLY WILLIAMS TO GEORGE SELWYN. DEAR SELWYN, L'Hôtel du Parc Royal, Dec. 13, 1770. I AM vastly obliged to you for your letter. You cannot imagine how happy I always am to hear from England, especially the kind of news you write me. People are very good to endeavour to account for my journey to Paris: I am sure I have not been very well able to account for it myself. I am very glad to hear that Harry St. John goes this way to Minorca. I am afraid he will be very unhappy, but absence, perhaps, may be a good thing for him. I do not suppose, however, that he will set out unless war is declared. Within these three days, a report has got about that war was declared in England on the 5th, and that I brought this news over. VOL. III. 299249 B Madame du Deffand is very well, and desires me to tell you that she is convinced you have a heart inaccessible à l'amitié. She seems to like me rather better than she used. I do not mean that she ever had an aversion to me, but I always found myself treated in that set, as a jeune garçon, qui n'avoit point encore l'habitude du monde. Faith! there may have been some ground for it. I mean to invite myself to meet her on Sunday at Lord Harcourt's,* and I am to hear the messe de minuit at her house. There is the devil to pay here between the King and the Parliament. The King held a lit de justice last week, in order to cause an edict to be registered, which the Parliament has refused to register. The edict was to restrain the privilege of remonstrating in Parliament. They yesterday sent the premier Président to desire the King to annul the edict, or accept of all their resignations. The King's answer is not yet known. P.S. The King has refused to give an answer till the Parliament ait repris ses fonctions. * Simon, second Viscount, and first Earl of Harcourt, was twenty-seventh in paternal descent from Bernard, Lord of Harcourt, in Normandy. In 1751, he was appointed Governor to George the Third, then Prince of Wales; in 1761 he was nominated Ambassador Extraordinary, to demand the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburgh Strelitz, in marriage for that monarch; and, in 1772, was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He lost his life, on the 16th of September 1777, by falling into a well in his own park at Nuneham. His titles became extinct in 1830, on the death of his second son, William Harcourt, third Earl. THE HON. HENRY ST. JOHN TO GEORGE SELWYN. MY DEAR GEORGE, Paris, December 22nd, 1770. I ARRIVED here at five o'clock in the morning, last Sunday; had a fine passage of less than three hours; and travelled with the Prince de Nassau from Calais, without stopping till we got here, in the most abominable weather I ever saw. It scarce ever ceased raining during the two nights and one day we were on the road, and the servants were half dead with the soaking and fatigue they underwent. I must tell you a droll accident we met with on the road. The Prince and I were asleep in the chaise, and were waked with the noise of something cracking. On looking out of the window we found ourselves accroché to a waggon, with the wheel of our chaise buried in a large box that hung over the waggon. By the excessive despair and misery which the poor waggoner testified, on this unlucky rencontre, I guessed we had done some great mischief; and, on enquiry, found the waggon was loaded with glasses for Monsieur de Guigne in England, and that our wheel had run so deep into the box that we must have destroyed two or three at least, and we were half an hour before we could disentangle ourselves. I was heartily tired of my compagnon de voyage, and glad to get rid of him. I have executed your commissions to the best of my power, and with great pleasure. Madame Poirier says your tables will be ready in a fortnight, and sent you without fail. I have bought just such a pair of stone buckles as you wanted, at Tenière's, and I think your night-gown, à dauphine, is pretty it is of the colours you desired, and costs five louis and a half. Monsieur l'Auguste says you are very capricious in having refused having the box made so long, and at last determining on it. He says he cannot possibly make it in less than three months, having so much business on his hands, and that he will give you a lettre d'avis before he sends it to you. Chevalier Lambert has orders to pay all these things; your box, he tells me, will cost about sixty louis. I beg you will give my best compliments to Lord March, and tell him I have obeyed his orders in regard to his coat. I have chosen a pretty silk, as I think it, and a chenille embroidery, analogue to the fourrure, with olives, &c. Lord Robert does not know where he shall go, and is loaded already, he says, with commissions. I carried Madame Fagniani's letter to Madame Thierz, marchande de gaze. She said she could not make the gaze, according to the pattern she sent, in less than six weeks or two months; I did not therefore order it to be made, not knowing whether Madame Fagniani could wait; so that, if she chooses to have it made, she may by writing two words to the |