[107] Madame de Genlis mentions this fearsome monster in her Mémoires: 'Tout le monde a entendu parler de la hyène de Gévaudan, qui a fait tant de ravages.' The point of Walpole's allusion to Pitt is explained in one of his hitherto unpublished letters to Lady Mary Coke at this date: 'I had the fortune to be treated with the sight of what, next to Mr. Pitt, has occasioned most alarm in France, the Beast of the Gévaudan' (Letters and Journals, iii. [1892], xvii). In another letter, to Pitt's sister Ann, maid of honour to Queen Caroline, he says: 'It is a very large wolf, to be sure, and they say has twelve teeth more than any of the species, and six less than the Czarina' (Fortescue Corr., Hist. MSS. Commission, 13th Rept., App. iii., 1892, i. 147).
[108] Of Mad. de Forcalquier it is related that, entering a theatre during the performance of Gresset's Le Méchant, just as the line was uttered, 'La faute est aux dieux, qui la firent si belle,' the applause was so great as to interrupt the play. The point of this, in a recent repetition of the anecdote, was a little blunted by the printer's substitution of 'bête' for 'belle.'
[109] Louis-Jules-Barbon Mancini-Mazarini, Duc de Nivernais (1716-98), who had visited Twickenham three years earlier, when he was Ambassador to England. He was a man of fine manners, and tastes so literary that his works fill eight volumes. They include a translation of Walpole's Essay on Modern Gardening (see appendix at end). In his letters to Miss Ann Pitt at this date, Walpole speaks of the Duke's clever fables, by which he is now best remembered. Lord Chesterfield told his son in 1749 that Nivernais was 'one of the prettiest men he had ever known,' and in 1762 his opinion was unaltered. 'M. de Nivernais est aimé, respecté, et admiré par tout ce qu' il y a d'honnêtes gens à la cour et à la ville,' he writes to Madame de Monconseil. The Duke's end was worthy of Chesterfield himself, for he spent some of his last hours in composing valedictory verses to his doctor. (See 'Eighteenth Century Vignettes,' second series, pp. 107-137.)
[110] One of her logogriphes, or enigmas, is as follows:—
'Quoique je forme un corps, je ne suis qu'une idée;
Plus ma beauté vieillit, plus elle est décidée:
Il faut, pour me trouver, ignorer d'où je viens:
Je tiens tout de lui, qui reduit tout à rien.'
The answer is noblesse. Lord Chesterfield thought it so good that he sent it to his godson (Letter 166).
[111] Walpole to Gray, 25 January, 1766.