Volume Ii Part 8 (2/2)
Flowers and fruits, if they come at all this year, must meet together as they do in a Dutch picture; our lords and ladies, however, couple as if it were the real _Gioventu dell' anno_. Lord Albemarle, you know, has disappointed all his brothers and my niece; and Lord Fitzwilliam is declared _sposo_ to Lady Charlotte Ponsonby. It is a pretty match, and makes Lord Besborough as happy as possible.
Masquerades proceed in spite of Church and King. That knave the Bishop of London persuaded that good soul the Archbishop to remonstrate against them; but happily the age prefers silly follies to serious ones, and dominos, _comme de raison_, carry it against lawn sleeves.
There is a new Inst.i.tution that begins to make, and if it proceeds, will make a considerable noise. It is a club of _both_ s.e.xes to be erected at Almack's, on the model of that of the men of White's. Mrs. Fitzroy, Lady Pembroke, Mrs. Meynell, Lady Molyneux, Miss Pelham, and Miss Loyd, are the foundresses. I am ashamed to say I am of so young and fas.h.i.+onable a society; but as they are people I live with, I choose to be idle rather than morose. I can go to a young supper, without forgetting how much sand is run out of the hour-gla.s.s. Yet I shall never pa.s.s a triste old age in turning the Psalms into Latin or English verse. My plan is to pa.s.s away calmly; cheerfully if I can; sometimes to amuse myself with the rising generation, but to take care not to fatigue them, nor weary them with old stories, which will not interest them, as their adventures do not interest me. Age would indulge prejudices if it did not sometimes polish itself against younger acquaintance; but it must be the work of folly if one hopes to contract friends.h.i.+ps with them, or desires it, or thinks one can become the same follies, or expects that they should do more than bear one for one's good-humour. In short, they are a pleasant medicine, that one should take care not to grow fond of. Medicines hurt when habit has annihilated their force; but you see I am in no danger. I intend by degrees to decrease my opium, instead of augmenting the dose.
Good night! You see I never let our long-lived friends.h.i.+p drop, though you give it so few opportunities of breathing.
_THE PRINCESS OF WALES IS GONE TO GERMANY--TERRIBLE ACCIDENT IN PARIS._
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
ARLINGTON STREET, _June_ 15, 1770.
I have no public event to tell you, though I write again sooner than I purposed. The journey of the Princess Dowager to Germany is indeed an extraordinary circ.u.mstance, but besides its being a week old, as I do not know the motives, I have nothing to say upon it. It is much canva.s.sed and sifted, and yet perhaps she was only in search of a little repose from the torrents of abuse that have been poured upon her for some years. Yesterday they publicly sung about the streets a ballad, the burthen of which was, _the cow has left her calf_. With all this we are grown very quiet, and Lord North's behaviour is so sensible and moderate that he offends n.o.body.
Our family has lost a branch, but I cannot call it a misfortune. Lord Cholmondeley died last Sat.u.r.day. He was seventy, and had a const.i.tution to have carried him to a hundred, if he had not destroyed it by an intemperance, especially in drinking, that would have killed anybody else in half the time. As it was, he had outlived by fifteen years all his set, who have reeled into the ferry-boat so long before him. His grandson seems good and amiable, and though he comes into but a small fortune for an earl, five-and-twenty hundred a-year, his uncle the general may re-establish him upon a great footing--but it will not be in his life, and the general does not sail after his brother on a sea of claret.
You have heard details, to be sure, of the horrible catastrophe at the fireworks at Paris.[1] Francees, the French minister, told me the other night that the number of the killed is so great that they now try to stifle it; my letters say between five and six hundred! I think there were not fewer than ten coach-horses trodden to death. The mob had poured down from the _Etoile_ by thousands and ten thousands to see the illuminations, and did not know the havoc they were occasioning. The impulse drove great numbers into the Seine, and those met with the most favourable deaths.
[Footnote 1: The Dauphin had been married to the Archd.u.c.h.ess Marie Antoinette on May 16th, and on May 30th the city of Paris closed a succession of b.a.l.l.s and banquets with which they had celebrated the marriage of the heir of the monarchy by a display of fireworks in the Place Louis XV., in which the ingenuity of the most fas.h.i.+onable pyrotechnists had been exhausted to outs.h.i.+ne all previous displays of the sort. But towards the end of the exhibition one of the explosives set fire to a portion of the platforms on which the different figures were constructed, and in a moment the whole woodwork was in a flame.
Three sides of the Place were enclosed, and the fourth was so blocked up with carriages, that the spectators, who saw themselves surrounded with flames, had no way to escape open. The carriage-horses, too, became terrified and unmanageable. In their panic-stricken flight the spectators trampled one another down; hundreds fell, and were crushed to death by their companions; hundreds were pushed into the river and drowned. The number of killed could never be precisely ascertained; but it was never estimated below six hundred, and was commonly believed to have greatly exceeded that number, as many of the victims were of the poorer cla.s.s--many, too, the bread-winners of their families. The Dauphin and Dauphiness devoted the whole of their month's income to the relief of the sufferers; and Marie Antoinette herself visited many of the families whose loss seemed to have been the most severe: this personal interest in their affliction which she thus displayed making a deep impression on the citizens.]
This is a slight summer letter, but you will not be sorry it is so short, when the dearth of events is the cause. Last year I did not know but we might have a battle of Edgehill[1] by this time. At present, my Lord Chatham could as soon raise money as raise the people; and Wilkes will not much longer have more power of doing either. If you were not busy in burning Constantinople, you could not have a better opportunity for taking a trip to England. Have you never a wish this way? Think what satisfaction it would be to me?--but I never advise; nor let my own inclinations judge for my friends. I had rather suffer their absence, than have to reproach myself with having given them bad counsel. I therefore say no more on what would make me so happy. Adieu!
[Footnote 1: Edgehill was the first battle in the Great Rebellion, fought October 23, 1642.]
_FALL OF THE DUC DE CHOISEUL'S MINISTRY._
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
STRAWBERRY HILL, _Sat.u.r.day evening, Dec._ 29, 1770.
We are alarmed, or very glad, we don't know which. The Duke de Choiseul is fallen! but we cannot tell yet whether the mood of his successors will be peaceable or martial. The news arrived yesterday morning, and the event happened but last Monday evening. He was allowed but three hours to prepare for his journey, and ordered to retire to his seat at Chanteloup; but there are letters that say, _qu'il ira plus loin_. The Duke de Praslin is banished too--a disagreeable man; but his fate is a little hard, for he was just going to resign the Marine to Chatelet, who, by the way, is forbidden to visit Choiseul. I shall shed no tears for Chatelet, the most peevish and insolent of men, our bitter enemy, and whom M. de Choiseul may thank in some measure for his fall; for I believe while Chatelet was here, he drew the Spaniards into the attack of Falkland's Island. Choiseul's own conduct seems to have been not a little equivocal. His friends maintained that his existence as a minister depended on his preventing a war, and he certainly confuted the Comptroller-General's plan of raising supplies for it. Yet, it is now said, that on the very morning of the Duke's disgrace, the King reproached him, and said ”Monsieur, je vous avois dit, que je ne voulois pas la guerre;” and the Duke d'Aiguillon's friends have officiously whispered, that if Choiseul was out it would certainly be peace; but did not Lord Chatham, immediately before he was Minister, protest not half a man should be sent to Germany, and yet, were not all our men and all our money sent thither? The Chevalier de Muy is made Secretary-at-War, and it is supposed Monsieur d'Aiguillon is, or will be, the Minister.
Thus Abis.h.a.g[1] has strangled an Administration that had lasted fourteen years. I am sincerely grieved for the d.u.c.h.ess de Choiseul, the most perfect being I know of either s.e.x. I cannot possibly feel for her husband: Corsica is engraved in my memory, as I believe it is on your heart. His cruelties there, I should think, would not cheer his solitude or prison. In the mean time, desolation and confusion reign all over France. They are almost bankrupts, and quite famished. The Parliament of Paris has quitted its functions, and the other tribunals threaten to follow the example. Some people say, that Maupeou,[2] the Chancellor, told the King that they were supported underhand by Choiseul, and must submit if he were removed. The suggestion is specious at least, as the object of their antipathy is the Duke d'Aiguillon. If the latter should think a war a good diversion to their enterprises, I should not be surprised if they went on, especially if a bankruptcy follows famine.
The new Minister and the Chancellor are in general execration. On the latter's lately obtaining the _Cordon Bleu_,[3] this epigram appeared:--
Ce tyran de la France, qui cherche a mettre tout en feu, Merite un cordon, mais ce n'est pas le cordon bleu.
[Footnote 1: Madame du Barri.--WALPOLE.]
[Footnote 2: Maupeou was the Chancellor who had just abolished the Parliaments, the restoration of which in the next reign was perhaps one of the causes which contributed to the Revolution.]
[Footnote 3: The _Cordon Bleu_ was the badge of the Order of St. Louis, established by Louis XIV.; the _cordon not_ blue was the hangman's rope.]
We shall see how Spain likes the fall of the author of the ”Family-compact.”[1] There is an Empress[2] will not be pleased with it, but it is not the Russian Empress; and much less the Turks, who are as little obliged to that bold man's intrigues as the poor Corsicans.
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