Interpreting your ladyship's orders in the most personal sense, as respecting the dangers of the sea, I -write the instant I am landed. I did not, in truth, set out till yesterday morning at eight o'clock; but finding the roads, horses, postilions, tides, winds, moons, and Captain Fectors in the pleasantest humour in the world, I embarked almost as soon as I arrived at Dover, and reached Calais before the sun was awake;-and here I am for the sixth time in my life, with only the trifling distance of seven-and-thirty years between my first voyage and the present. Well! I can only say in excuse, that I am got into the land of Struldburgs, where one is never too old to be young, and where la b`equille du p`ere Barnabas blossoms like Aaron's rod, or the Glastonbury thorn. Now, to be sure, I shall be a little mortified, if your ladyship wanted a letter of news, and did not at all trouble your head about my navigation. However, you will not tell one so; and therefore I will persist in believing that this good news will be received with transport at Park-place, and that the bells of Henley will be set a ringing. The rest of my adventures, must be deferred till they have happened, which is not always the case of travels. I send you no Compliments from Paris, because I have not got thither, nor delivered the bundle which Mr. Conway sent me. I did, as Your ladyship commanded; buy three pretty little medallions in frames of filigraine, for our dear old friend. They will not ruin you, having cost not a guinea and a half; but it was all I could find that was genteel and portable; and as she does not measure by guineas, but attentions, she will be as much pleased as if you had sent her a dozen acres of Park-place. As they are in bas-relief, too, they are feelable, and that is a material circumstance to her. I wish the Diomede had even so much as a pair of Nankin!
Adieu, toute la ch`ere famille! I think of October with much satisfaction; it will double the pleasure of my return.
(217) Mr. Walpole reached Paris on the 19th of August and left it on the 19th of October.-E.
Letter 94 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Paris, August 20, 1775. (page 139)
I have been sea-sick to death: I have been poisoned by dirt and vermin; I have been stifled by beat, choked by dust, and starved for want of any thing I could touch: and yet, Madam, here, I am perfectly well, not in the least fatigued; and, thanks to the rivelled parchments, formerly faces, which I have seen by hundreds, I find myself almost as young as When I came hither first in the last century. In spite of my whims, and delicacy, and laziness, none of my grievances have been mortal: I have borne them as well as if I had set up for a philosopher, like the sages of this town. Indeed, I have found my dear old woman So well, and looking so much better than she did four years ago, that I am transported with pleasure, and thank your ladyship and Mr. Conway for driving me hither. Madame du Deffand came to me the instant I arrived, and sat by me whilst I stripped and dressed myself; for, as she said, since she cannot see there was no harm in my being stark.(218) She was charmed with your present; but was so Kind as to be so much more charmed with my arrival, that she did not think of it a moment. I sat with her till half an hour after two in the morning, and had a letter from her before MY eyes were open again. In short, her soul is immortal, and forces her body to bear it company.
This is the very eve of Madame Clotilde's(219) Wedding - but Monsieur Turgot, to the great grief of Lady Mary Coke, will suffer no cost, but one banquet, one ball, and a play at Versailles. Count Viry gives a banquet, a bal masqu`e, and a firework. I think I shall see little but the last, from which I will send your ladyship a rocket in my next letter. Lady Mary, I believe, has had a private audience of the ambassador's leg,(220) but en tout bien, et honneur, and only to satisfy her ceremonious curiosity about any part of royal nudity. I am just going to her, as she is to Versailles; and I have not time to add a word more to the vows of your ladyship's most faithful.
(218) Madame du Deffand had just completed her seventy-eighth year.-E.
(219) Madame Clotilde, sister of Louis XV1. Turgot was the new minister of finance, who, With his colleagues were endeavouring, by every practicable means, to reduce the enormous expenditure of the country.-E.
(220) Mr. Walpole alludes to the ceremony of the marriages of princesses by proxy.-E.
Letter 95 To Mrs. Abington(221)
Paris, September [1775.] (page 140)