I answer: “Well, my daughter, what can I do? those are the manners of the day.”
“But such manners are infamous,” she replies, with truth. Never was the mercy of God needed as it is now, for this epoch of ours is terrible. One hears of nothing but quarrels, disputes, robberies, murders, and vices of all kinds; the old serpent, the devil, has shaken off his chains and reigns in the air. It behooves all good Christians to give themselves up to prayer.
The Princess of Wales writes me that the Countess of Shrewsbury [Madame spells the name Schoresburg] flung herself at the knees of the king to ask pardon for her brother, who is condemned to be hanged. The king replied that if he granted that pardon he should rouse the anger of the English, who would say the guilty man was spared because he was a foreigner, whereas were he English he would be hanged without pity. He deserved severe punishment, but I pity his sister; it is a dreadful thing for nobles to hang on a gibbet. Things are going from bad to worse in England, and I dare write nothing more upon that subject. All Paris says that King George intends to declare publicly that the Prince of Wales is not his son, and, to injure him still further, that he means to marry the Schulenberg, now Duchess of Munster. I told this to Lord Stair; he answered that nothing of the kind would happen, and I need not trouble myself.
In England, and in France too, the dukes and lords have such excessive pride that they think themselves above everybody; and if allowed to have their way they would consider themselves superior to the princes of the blood; some of them are not really nobles. I rebuked one of our dukes very neatly one day. As he was placing himself at the king’s table above the Prince de Deux Ponts I said, quite loud: “How comes M. le Duc de Saint-Simon to be pressing up to the Prince de Deux Ponts? does he want him to take one of his sons as page?” Everybody laughed so loud that he had to go away.
Paris, 1718.
Mme. de Berry has made my daughter a very pretty parting present; it is a commode, or rather a table with drawers, in which are all kinds of stuffs, scarfs, coiffures, etc., in the last fashion. The commode is decorated with gilt ornaments worth a thousand pistoles. My son gave his sister a necessaire, that is to say, a small square chest containing whatever is necessary for taking tea, coffee, and chocolate. The cups are in white porcelain with raised designs in gold and enamel.
My daughter has postponed her departure till Wednesday; the day will come soon enough, for whatever grieves us comes more surely and quickly than what gladdens us. The king owes a great deal of money to the Duc de Lorraine, and on account of that debt he has given him one hundred thousand francs to pay the costs of this journey.
The Prince of Wales has done a fine action, and if that does not touch the King of England nothing will ever restore peace between them. Emissaries went to the prince and urged him to put himself at the head of their party. He answered that never in his life would he belong to any party against his father and king. The King of England is a bad man; he had no consideration for his mother, who loved him tenderly, and without whom he never would have been King of England. None of her children, even the Queen of Prussia, whom she adored, ever treated her as they ought.
My Lorraine children are satisfied with me, and I with them. I am also more satisfied with my grand-daughter the Duchesse de Berry, who behaved very well to them. She has good judgment and she shows a disposition to return to religion and a disgust for vice. I hope that God will have pity upon her and grant her the mercy of a sincere conversion. If she had been properly brought-up she would have turned to better things, for she has capacity, and a good heart; also she has, undoubtedly, intellect, and is never captious. I tease her sometimes, and tell her she only fancies she likes hunting; for at bottom it is only a liking for change of place. She really cares for nothing but the death of the game, and she prefers that of a boar to a stag, because it procures her good blood-puddings and sausages. She amuses herself as much as she can; one day she hunts, another she drives, on a third she goes to a fair; sometimes to see the rope-dancers, or to the comedy or the opera; but always in a scarf, never in a gown with a body to it. She sometimes laughs about her figure and her waist. Her flesh is very firm, and her cheeks are as hard as stones.