Hume to the Comtesse de Boufflers.
Wednesday, 28th of November, 1764.
You may believe that, ever since my return to Paris, I have kept my eyes and ears open with regard to every thing that concerns your affair. I find it is the general opinion of all those who think themselves the best informed, that a resolution is taken in your favour; and that the resolution will probably have place. But you do not expect surely, that so great an event will pass without censure. It would ill become my friendship to flatter you on this head. The envy and jealousy of the world would alone account for a repugnance in many. Nobody has been more generally known than you; both of late and in your early youth. Will so numerous an acquaintance be pleased to see you pass, from being their equal, to be so much their superior? Will they bear your uniting the decisive elevation of rank to the elevation of genius, which they feel, and which they would in vain contest? Be assured, that she is really and sincerely your friend, who can willingly yield you so great advantages.
But though I hear some murmurs of this kind, I have likewise the consolation to meet with several who entertain opposite sentiments. I was told of a man of superior sense, nowise connected with you, who maintained in a public company, that, if the report was true, nothing could give him a higher idea of the laudable and noble principles of your friend. The execution of his purpose, he said, could not only be justified, but seemed a justice due to you. The capital point is to interpose as few delays as possible. Time must create obstacles, and can remove none. While the matter seems in suspense, many will declare themselves with violence against you, and will render themselves irreconcilable enemies by such declarations. They might be the
first to pay court to you, had no leisure been allowed them to display their envy and malignity.
On the whole, I am fully persuaded, from what I hear and see, that the matter will end as we wish. But in all cases, I foresee, that, let the event be what it will, you will reap from it much honour and much vexation. Alas! dear madam, the former is never a compensation for the latter: especially to you, whose delicate frame, already shaken by an incident of much less importance surely, is ill calculated to bear such violent agitations. Pardon these sentiments if you think them mean. They are dictated by my friendship for you. I am indeed so mean as to wish you alive and healthy and gay in any fortune. A fine consolation for us truly, to see the epithet of princess inscribed on your grave, while we reflect that it contains what was the most amiable in the world? I propose to pay my respects to you the beginning of next week.
10th December, 1764.
It is needless to inform you, how much you employed my thoughts in this great crisis of your fortune, of your health, of your life itself. You could perceive, by undoubted signs, that I partook sincerely of the violent anxieties, by which I found you agitated; and that, after having endeavoured in vain to appease the tumult of your passions, I was at last necessitated myself to take part in your distress. My sympathy is not abated by absence. I find myself incapable almost of other occupation or amusement.
You still recur to my memory. The chief relief I have is in writing to you, and throwing together some thoughts, which occur to me, on your subject.
They are mostly the same which occurred in conversation, and which I have already suggested to you. They will acquire no additional authority at present in writing, except by convincing you that they are the result of my most mature reflections.