[209:1] The confidence with which the great aristocracy of birth mingled with whatever elements it thought fit, is perhaps the best evidence of the security it felt in the haughty and arbitrary exercise of its established privileges. With all this free equality of social intercourse, however, there must have been something yet left to which the mere guest was not admitted, and to which he never aspired. Without this, it seems impossible that Actors,—menials by the etiquette of the court, anathematized by the church, held incapable of giving evidence in some courts of law as persons of infamous profession,—should have been so much sought after and caressed. Thus the Le Kains, Fleurys, and Prévilles, among the men; the Sophy Arnoulds, Dumesnils, Clairons, among the women, many of them thorough profligates, are to be found haunting places surrounded by the highest lustre of adventitious rank, busying themselves with state secrets, mingling in family disputes, and always with the easy assurance of their profession. This state of matters could not have existed unless the aristocracy, notwithstanding the ease with which they permitted themselves to be approached, were able effectually to mark precisely the point where the advance was to stop, and could feel themselves among persons, who, like old family servants, never presume upon familiarity. In admitting to social intercourse, however, a person of Hume's dignity of character and position in literature, there could be no such reserves, and the intercourse must have been as really on terms of familiarity as it appeared to be.
[211:1] The following is a specimen, of a letter to Hume:—
Among other like distinctions, an author had offered to dedicate to her his Italian Grammar. She answered, "A moi, Monsieur; la dédicace d'une grammaire! à moi qui ne sais pas seulement l'orthographe." "C'était la pure vérité," subjoins Marmontel.
[213:1] This active lady visited Voltaire, and succeeded in getting access to him. It is said that the patriarch laboured hard to compose a quatrain in her praise, but that the muse would not attend for such a purpose. He solved the difficulty very ingeniously, by twisting some laurel twigs into a wreath, and placing it on her brow.
She writes to Hume, on 27th September, 1764, "Je vous présente monsieur un receuil de mes ouvrages nouvellement imprimé à Lyon, pour avoir l'honneur d'être dans la bibliothèque d'un homme qui fait l'honneur de notre siècle. Je vous supplie d'accepter ce faible don, et de vouloir bien faire passer le paquet que vous trouverez c'y joint au Marquis Caraccioli Ministre de Naples à Londres."—MS. R.S.E.
[214:1] The following note shows that there was some intercourse between them, though it was probably not very extensive.
"Madame la D. de Choiseul a très bien reçu les compliments de Mr. Hume. Elle se reproche de ne lui avoir point écrit. Elle m'a chargée de lui dire que s'il vouloit la venir voir aujourd'hui sur le midi et demy une heure[214:A] qu'il lui feroit beaucoup de plaisir. Madame du Deffand l'exhorte de ne pas manquer à y aller, et elle le prie de faire souvenir Madame de Choiseul de la promesse qu'elle lui a faite de la venir voir avant la visite qu'elle veut rendre à Madame L'Ambassadrice."—MS. R.S.E.
[214:A] Sic in MS.
[214:2] "Vous me faites un grand plaisir de m'apprendre que David Hume va en Ecosse; je suis bien aise que vous ne soyez plus à portée de le voir, et moi ravie de l'assurance de ne le revoir jamais. Vous me demanderez ce qu'il m'a fait? Il m'a déplu. Haïssant les idoles je déteste leurs prêtres et leurs adorateurs. Pour d'idoles, vous n'en verrez pas chez moi: vous y pourrez voir quelquefois de leurs adorateurs, mais qui sont plus hypocrites que dévots; leur culte est extérieur; les pratiques, les cérémonies de cette religion sont des soupers, des musiques, des opéras, des comédies, etc." Letters of the Marquise du Deffand, vol. i. p. 331.