the insinuated that the foundress was a queen. The hour of vespers being come, we were conducted to the chapel, and, as it was my curiosity that had led us thither, I was placed in the Maintenon's own tribune; my company in the adjoining gallery. The pensioners two and two, each band headed by a man, march orderly to their seats, and sing the whole service, which I confess was not a little tedious. The young ladies to the number of two hundred and fifty are dressed in black, with short aprons of the same, latter and their stays bound with blue, yellow, green or red, to distinguish the classes; the captains and lieutenants have knots of a different colour for distinction. Their hair is curled and powdered, their coiffeure a sort of French round-eared caps, with white tippets, a sort of ruff and large tucker: in short, a very pretty dress. The nuns are entirely in black, with crape veils and long trains, deep white handkerchiefs, and forehead clothes, and a very long train. The chapel is plain but very pretty, and in the middle of the choir under a flat marble lies the foundress. Madame de Cambis, one of the nuns, who are about forty, is beautiful as a Madonna. The abbess has no distinction but a larger and richer gold cross: her apartment consists of two very small rooms. Of madame de Maintenon we did not see fewer than twenty pictures. The young one looking over her shoulder has a round face, without the least resemblance to those of her latter age. That in the royal mantle, of which you know I have a copy, is the most repeated; but there is another with a longer and leaner face, which has by far the most sensible look. She is in black, with a high point head and band, a long train, and is sitting in a chair of purple velvet. Before her knees stands her niece madame de Noailles, a child; at a distance a view of Versailles or St. Cyr, I could not distinguish which. We were shown some rich reliquaires, and the corpo santo, that was sent to her by the pope. We were then carried into the public room of each class. In the first, the young ladies, who were playing at chess, were ordered to sing to us the chorusses of Athaliah; in another, they danced minuets and country dances, while a nun, not quite so able as St. Cecilia, played on a violin. In the others, they acted before us the proverbs or conversations written by madame de Maintenon for their instruction; for she was not only their foundress but their saint, and their adoration of her memory has quite eclipsed the Virgin Mary. We saw their dormitory, and saw them at supper; and at last were carried to their archives, where they produced volumes of her letters, and where one of the nuns gave me a small piece of paper with three sentences in her handwriting. I forgot to tell you, that this kind dame, who took to me extremely, asked me if we had many convents and many relics in England. I was much embarrassed for fear of destroying her good opinion of me, and so said we had but few now. Oh! we went to the apothecairie, where they treated us with cordials, and where one of the ladies told me inoculation was a sin, as it was a voluntary detention from mass, and as voluntary a cause of eating gras. Our visit concluded in the garden, now grown very venerable, where the young ladies played at little games before us. After a stay of four hours we took our leave. I begged the abbess's blessing; she smiled, and said, she doubted I should not place much faith in it. She is a comely old gentlewoman, and very proud of having seen madame de Maintenon. Well! was not I in the right to wish you with me? could you have passed a day more agreeably? I will conclude my letter with a most charming trait of madame de Mailly, which cannot be misplaced in such a chapter of royal concubines. Going to St. Sulpice, after she had lost the king's heart, a person present desired the crowd to make way for her. Some brutal young officers said, "Comment pour cette catin là!” She turned to them, and, with the most charming modesty said, "Messieurs, puisque vous me connoissez; priez Dieu pour moi :" I am sure it will bring tears into your eyes. Was not she the Publican, and Maintenon the Pharisee? Good night; I hope I am going to dream of all I have been seeing. As my impressions and my fancy, when I am pleased, are apt to be strong, my night, perhaps, may still be more productive of ideas than the day has been. It will be charming indeed, if madame de Cambis is the ruling tint. Adieu! Yours ever. 1 The viscountess de Cambise was niece of la marquise de Boufflers, and having fled to this country at the breaking out of the French Revolution, resided here until her death, which took place at Richmond in January 1809. The following portrait of her by mad. de la Valliere, is given in the letters of mad. du Deffand, vol. iii. p. 148. “Non, non, madame, je ne ferai point votre portrait; vous avez une manière d'être si noble, si fine, si piquante, si délicate, si séduisante; votre entillesse et vos grâces changent si souvent pour n'en être que plus aimable, me l'on ne peut saisir aucun de vos traits ni au physique ni au moral." [Ed.] To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, Oct. 13, 1769. I ARRIVED last night at eleven o'clock, and found a letter from you, which gave me so much pleasure, that I must write you a line, though I am hurried to death. You cannot imagine how rejoiced I am that lord North drags you to light again; it is a satisfaction I little expected. When do you come? I am impatient. I long to know your projects. I had a dreadful passage of eight hours, was drowned, though not shipwrecked, and was sick to death. I have been six times. at sea before, and never suffered the least, which makes the mortification the greater: but as Hercules was not more robust than I, though with an air so little Herculean, I have not so much as caught cold, though I was wet to the skin with the rain, had my lap full of waves, was washed from head to foot in the boat at ten o'clock at night, and stepped into the sea up to my knees. Qu'avois-je à faire dans cette galère? In truth, it is a little late to be seeking adventures. Adieu! I must finish, but I am excessively happy with what you have told me. Yours ever. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Strawberry-hill, Oct. 16, 1769. I ARRIVED at my own Louvre last Wednesday night, and am now at my Versailles. Your last letter reached me but two days before I left Paris, for I have been an age at Calais and upon the sea. I could execute no commission for you, and, in truth, you gave me no explicit one; but I have brought you a bit of china, and beg you will be content with a little present, instead of a bargain. Said china is, or will be soon, in the custom-house; but I shall have it, I fear, long before you come to London. 1 Lord North had appointed Mr. Montagu his private secretary. [Or.] I am sorry those boys got at my tragedy. I beg you would keep it under lock and key; it is not at all food for the public; at least not till I am food for worms, good Percy. Nay, it is not an age to encourage any body, that has the least vanity, to step forth. There is a total extinction of all taste: our authors are vulgar, gross, illiberal: the theatre swarms with wretched translations, and ballad operas, and we have nothing new but improving abuse. I have blushed at Paris, when the papers came over crammed with ribaldry, or with Garrick's insufferable nonsense about Shakspeare. As that man's writings will be preserved by his name, who will believe that he was a tolerable actor? Cibber wrote as bad odes, but then Cibber wrote the Careless Husband and his own life, which both deserve immortality. Garrick's prologues and epilogues are as bad as his Pindarics and pantomimes. I feel myself here like a swan, that after living six weeks in a nasty pool upon a common, is got back into its own Thames. I do nothing but plume and clean myself, and enjoy the verdure and silent waves. Neatness and greenth are so essential in my opinion to the country, that in France, where I see nothing but chalk and dirty peasants, I seem in a terrestrial purgatory that is neither town nor country. The face of England is so beautiful, that I do not believe Tempe or Arcadia were half so rural; for both lying in hot climates, must have wanted the turf of our lawns. It is unfortunate to have so pastoral a taste, when I want a cane more than a crook. We are absurd creatures; at twenty, I loved nothing but London. Tell me when you shall be in town. I think of passing most of my time here till after Christmas. Adieu ! TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Strawberry-hill, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 1769. I AM here quite alone, and did not think of going to town till Friday for the opera, which I have not yet seen. In compliment to you and your countess, I will make an effort, and be there on Thursday; and will either dine with you at your own house, or at your brother's; which you choose. This is a great favour, and beyond my lord Temple's journey to dine with my lord mayor. I am so sick of the follies of all sides, that I am happy to be at quiet here, and to know no more of them than what I am forced to see in the newspapers; and those I skip over as fast as I can. The account you give me of lady *** was just the same as I received from Paris. I will show you a very particular letter I received by a private hand from thence; which convinces me that I guessed right, contrary to all the wise, that the journey to Fontainbleau would overset monsieur de Choiseul. I think he holds but by a thread, which will snap soon. I am labouring hard with the duchess to procure the duke of Richmond satisfaction in the favour he has asked about his duchy ; but he shall not know it till it is completed, if I can be so lucky as to succeed. I think I shall, if they do not fall immediately. You perceive how barren I am, and why I have not written to you. I pass my time in clipping and pasting prints; and do not think I have read forty pages since I came to England. I bought a poem called Trincalo's Trip to the Jubilee; having been struck with two lines in an extract in the papers, And the ear-piercing fife, Alas! all the rest, and it is very long, is a heap of unintelligible nonsense, about Shakspeare, politics, and the Lord knows what. I am grieved that, with our admiration of Shakspeare, we can do nothing but write worse then ever he did. One would think the age studied nothing but his Love's Labour Lost, and Titus Andronicus. Politics and abuse have totally corrupted our taste. Nobody thinks of writing a line that is to last beyond the next fortnight. We might as well be given up to controversial divinity. The times put me in mind of the Constantinopolitan empire; where, in an age of learning, the subtlest wits of Greece contrived to leave nothing behind them, but the memory of their follies and acrimony. Milton did not write his Paradise Lost till he had outlived his politics. With all his parts, and noble In the second mayoralty of William Beckford. [Or.] 2 The duchess of Choiseul. [Or.] 3 Of Aubigné. [Or.] |