Jaucourt,[200] a Tribune. Under the days of the Court he was distinguished for his galanterie and dévouement in affairs of intrigue. There is a famous anecdote of his losing his thumb not to betray a lady whose house he quitted by stealth at daybreak. The Swiss heard a noise at the gate, and shut it with violence; Jaucourt’s thumb was crushed, but he made no noise, and for many years the adventure was secret. He is now married, according to the licence allowed by the Revolution, to Mde. de la Châtre. He is an agreeable man, she is clever.
Abbé Casti.[201] I will not do to him what an injudicious panegyrist has done to Ariosto, whose epitaph is laden with an enumeration of his works. Suffice it to say that his last work is inferior to all his others—Gli animali parlanti, a poem as dull and as ill-conceived as Dryden’s Hind and Panther. Those discuss polemical questions, and Casti’s reason upon the abstract principles of Governt. He is very old, and worn out by every species of debauchery and excess; his eyes twinkle at times, and show a trace of his former life, but they are but rare scintillations.
Rumford, ye Yankee philanthropist. I have often named him elsewhere.
M. LE CHEVALIER
Le Chevalier,[202] a most cordial, warm-hearted, zealous man. He travelled to the plain of Troy with Sir Francis Burdett, and has written upon it, which has given rise to a fresh controversy. He is employed au Bureau des relations extérieures, merely from Talleyrand’s friendship for him. His language is not calculated to obtain him promotion in his career, nor is he trusted with anything, his place being a sinecure and more a pension than an employment.
Monteron,[203] [sic] one of the unfortunate Duke of Orléans’ set, a complete mauvais sujet, but an agreeable vaurien. He was one of the Dsse. de Fleury’s husbands, but has regained his liberty.
Markoff,[204] the Russian Ambassador, a rusé diplomat, scurvily treated by Bonaparte, who seems to make a point of saying offensive things before him.
M. de Grave,[205] an obliging driveller.
Abbé Dillon, brother of the Beau Dillon,[206] &c. Knew him in Paris in 1790, afterwards in Italy and England. A conceited bel esprit, with too much pretensions.
Calonne. One may say of him as Johnson did of Garrick, that his loss has removed a stock of harmless amusement from society. He was delightful; with all the freshness and vivacity of youth, he had the taste and refinement of riper years. Tho’ he allowed himself to range in the regions of fancy, when he ought to have been restrained by the strictness of veracity, yet he did it with such liveliness and wit that one compounded for the lost fact in hearing the facetious story. He was murdered by an unskilful physician a very short time after we quitted Paris.