“The English ladies are scrupulously correct in their demeanour; they are, I do believe, the most excellent of wives and mothers; but oh! mamma, to be virtuous, is it necessary to be so ill-dressed? When we left the gentlemen to their wine, which is always done here, and which, I think, must be very beneficial to the wine-trade, we adjourned to a large cold room, where we sat in a circle, and had nothing to do but look at each other. I thought I had never seen so many bright colours so tastelessly put together. My hostess herself, a fresh, well-preserved woman of a certain age, wore a handsome set of amethysts with a purple dress—Amethysts and purple! great Heaven! It would have driven Célandine mad!
“It was dull—figure to yourself how dull—nine women waiting for their nine husbands, and not a subject in common except the probability of continued rain! Still we talked—it must be admitted we contrived to talk—and after a while the gentlemen appeared, and supper came; so the day was over at last, and next morning we were to go home. Believe me, I was not sorry.
“Yesterday we had a visitor, and imagine if he was welcome, since he brought me news of my dear mamma. He had seen Madame la Marquise passing the Palais Royal in her coach before she left Paris for Touraine. ‘How was she looking?’ ‘As she always does, avowedly the most beautiful lady in France.’ ‘Like a damask rose,’ says George, with a laugh at poor pale me. Our visitor did not speak to Madame, for he has not the honour of her acquaintance; ‘but it is enough to see her once in a season,’ said he, ‘and do homage from a distance.’
“Was not all this very polite, and very prettily expressed? Now can you guess who this admirer of yours may be? I will give you ten chances; I will give you a hundred. Monsieur de St. Croix! the priest who was my director at the convent, and who appeared so opportunely at the little white chapel above Port Welcome. Is it not strange that he should be here now? I have put him into the oak-room on the entresol, because it is warm and quiet, and he looks so pale and ill. He is the mere shadow of what he used to be, and I should hardly have known him but for his dark expressive eyes. So different from George, who is the picture of health, and handsomer, I think, than ever. He (I mean Monsieur de St. Croix) is very agreeable and full of French news. He is also an excellent gardener, and helps me out-of-doors almost every day, now that George is so much occupied. He says that the priests of his Order learn to do everything; and I believe if I asked him to dress an omelette, he would manage to accomplish it. At least, I am sure he would try. To-day he is gone to see some of his colleagues who have an establishment far up in the Dales, as we call them here, and George is out with his hawks, so I am rather dull; but do not think that is the reason I have sat down to write you this foolish letter. Next to hearing from you, it is my greatest pleasure to tell you all about myself, and fancy that I am speaking to you even at this great distance. Think of me, dear mamma, very often, for scarcely an hour passes that I do not think of you.”
The letter concluded with an elaborate account of a certain white dress, the result of a successful combination, in which lace, muslin, and cherry-coloured ribbons formed the principal ingredients, which George had admired very much—not, however, until his attention was called to it by the wearer—and which was put on for the first time the day of Monsieur de St. Croix’s arrival.
Madame de Montmirail received this missive in little more than a week after it was written, and replied at once.
Madame de Montmirail to Lady Hamilton.
“It rejoiced me so much to hear from you, my dear child. I was getting anxious about your health, your spirits, a thousand things that I think of continually; for my darling Cerise is never out of my mind. What you say of your society amuses me, and I can well imagine my shy girl feeling lost amongst an assemblage of awkward gentlemen and stupid ladies, far more than in a court ball at the Palais Royal, or a reception at Marly as it used to be; alas! as it will be no more. When you are as old as I am—for I am getting very old now, as you would say if you could see me closeted every morning over my accounts with my intendant—when you are as old as I am, you will have learned that there is very little difference between one society and another, so long as people are of a certain class, of course, and do not eat with their knives. Manner is but a trick, easily acquired if we begin young, but impossible to learn after thirty. Real politeness, which is a different thing altogether, is but good nature in its best clothes, and consists chiefly in the faculty of putting oneself in another person’s place, and the wish to do as one would be done by. I have often seen people with very bad manners exceedingly polite. I have also even oftener seen the reverse. If you do not suffer yourself to find these English tedious, you will extract from them plenty of amusement; and the talent of being easily entertained is one to be cultivated to the utmost.
“Even in Paris, they tell me to-day, such a talent would be most enviable; for all complain of the dulness pervading society, and the oppressive influence of the Court. I cannot speak from my own observation, for I have been careful to go nowhere while in the capital, and to retire to my estates here in Touraine as quickly as possible. I have not even seen the Prince-Marshal, nor do I feel that my spirits would be good enough to endure his importunate kindness. I hear, moreover, that he devotes himself now to Mademoiselle de Villeroy, the old Marshal’s youngest daughter; so you will excuse me of pique rather than ingratitude.