A stranger event than a revolution in politics has happened at Paris. The Cardinal de Rohan is committed to the Bastile for forging the Queen's hand to obtain a collar of diamonds;[1] I know no more of the story: but, as he is very gallant, it is guessed (here I mean) that it was a present for some woman. These circumstances are little Apostolic, and will not prop the falling Church of Rome. They used to forge donations and decretals. This is a new manoeuvre. Nor were Cardinals wont to be treated so cavalierly for peccadilloes. The House of Rohan is under a cloud: his Eminence's cousin, the Prince of Guemené,[2] was forced to fly, two or three years ago, for being the Prince of Swindlers. Our Nabobs are not treated so roughly; yet I doubt they collect diamonds still more criminally.

[Footnote 1: "A collar of diamonds." The transaction here referred to—though, strangely enough, it is looked on as one that had a political interest—was, in fact, a scheme of a broken-down gambler to swindle a jeweller out of a diamond necklace of great value. The Court jeweller had collected a large number of unusually fine diamonds, which he had made into a necklace, in the hope that the Queen would buy it, and the Cardinal de Rohan, who was a member of one of the noblest families in France, but a man of a character so notoriously profligate, that, when he was ambassador at Vienna, Maria Teresa had insisted on his recall, was mixed up in the fraud in a manner scarcely compatible with ignorance of its character. He was brought to trial with the more evident agents in the fraud, and the whole history of the French Parliaments scarcely records any transaction more disgraceful than his acquittal. For some months the affair continued to furnish pretext to obscure libellers to calumniate the Queen with insinuations not less offensive than dangerous from their vagueness; all such writers finding a ready paymaster in the infamous Duc d'Orléans.]

[Footnote 2: The Prince de Guemenée, a very profligate and extravagant man, by 1782 had become so hopelessly embarrassed that he was compelled to leave Paris, and consequently the Princess, his wife, who ever since the birth of Louis XVI. had held the office of "Governess of the Royal Children," a life-appointment, was forced to resign it, much to the pleasure of the Queen, who disapproved of her character, and bestowed the office on Mme. de Polignac, and when, at the beginning of the Revolution, she also fled from Paris, on Mme. de Tourzel. But, in truth, under Marie Antoinette the office was almost a sinecure. She considered superintendence of the education of her children as among the most important of her duties; and how judiciously she performed it is seen in an admirable letter of hers to Mme. de Tourzel, which can hardly be surpassed for its discernment and good-feeling. (See the Editor's "Life of Marie Antoinette," iii. 55.)]

Your nephew will be sorry to hear that the Duke of Montrose's third grandson, Master William Douglas, died yesterday of a fever. These poor Montroses are most unfortunate persons! They had the comfort this spring of seeing Lord Graham marry: the Duchess said, "I thought I should die of grief, and now I am ready to die of joy." Lady Graham soon proved with child, but soon miscarried; and the Duke and Duchess may not live to have the consolation of seeing an heir—for we must hope and make visions to the last! I am asking for samples of Ginori's porcelain at sixty-eight! Well! are not heirs to great names and families as frail foundations of happiness? and what signifies what baubles we pursue? Philosophers make systems, and we simpletons collections: and we are as wise as they—wiser perhaps, for we know that in a few years our rarities will be dispersed at an auction; and they flatter themselves that their reveries will be immortal, which has happened to no system yet. A curiosity may rise in value; a system is exploded.

Such reflections are applicable to politics, and make me look on them as equally nugatory. Last year Mr. Fox was burnt in effigy; now Mr. Pitt is. Oh! my dear Sir, it is all a farce! On this day, about a hundred years ago (look at my date), was born the wisest man I have seen.[1] He kept this country in peace for twenty years, and it flourished accordingly. He injured no man; was benevolent, good-humoured, and did nothing but the common necessary business of the State. Yet was he burnt in effigy too; and so traduced, that his name is not purified yet!—Ask why his memory is not in veneration? You will be told, from libels and trash, that he was the Grand Corruptor.—What! did he corrupt the nation to make it happy, rich, and peaceable? Who was oppressed during his administration? Those saints Bolingbroke and Pulteney were kept out of the Paradise of the Court; ay, and the Pretender was kept out and was kept quiet. Sir Robert fell: a Rebellion ensued in four years, and the crown shook on the King's head. The nation, too, which had been tolerably corrupted before his time, and which, with all its experience and with its eyes opened, has not cured itself of being corrupt, is not quite so prosperous as in the day of that man, who, it seems, poisoned its morals. Formerly it was the most virtuous nation on the earth!

[Footnote 1: He means his own father, the Prime Minister from 1720 to 1741.]

Under Henry VIII. and his children there was no persecution, no fluctuation of religion: their Ministers shifted their faith four times, and were sincere honest men! There was no servility, no flattery, no contempt of the nation abroad, under James I. No tyranny under Charles I. and Laud; no factions, no civil war! Charles II., however, brought back all the virtues and morality, which, somehow or other, were missing! His brother's was a still more blessed reign, though in a different way! King William was disturbed and distressed by no contending factions, and did not endeavour to bribe them to let him pursue his great object of humbling France! The Duke of Marlborough was not overborne in a similar and more glorious career by a detestable Cabal!—and if Oxford and Bolingbroke did remove him, from the most patriot motives, they, good men! used no corruption! Twelve Peerages showered at once, to convert the House of Lords, were no bribes; nor was a shilling issued for secret services; nor would a member of either House have received it!

Sir R. Walpole came, and strange to tell, found the whole Parliament, and every Parliament, at least a great majority of every Parliament, ready to take his money. For what?—to undo their country!—which, however, wickedly as he meant, and ready as they were to concur, he left in every respect in the condition he found it, except in being improved in trade, wealth, and tranquillity; till its friends who expelled him, had dipped their poor country in a war; which was far from mending its condition. Sir Robert died, foretelling a rebellion, which happened in less than six months, and for predicting which he had been ridiculed: and in detestation of a maxim ascribed to him by his enemies, that every man has his price, the tariff of every Parliament since has been as well known as the price of beef and mutton; and the universal electors, who cry out against that traffic, are not a jot less vendible than their electors.—Was not Sir Robert Walpole an abominable Minister?

29th.

P.S.—The man who certainly provoked Ireland to think, is dead—Lord
Sackville.[1]