TO THE SAME.
Paris, Dec., 1804.
I do not think I shall often go into public with that party, for we were stuffed eleven in a box, a thing as disagreeable as it is vulgar. We were ourselves nine—rather more than enough; but the Violent Gentleman introduced two odd women, whom the rest of the party hardly spoke to; one of them was a prettyish girl, whom he says he admires for her ‘mental Qualifications.’ [Make the Qua very broad, as he pronounces it.] She was certainly very humble to join a party where the women took no notice of her. I was very sorry to be jumbled with such heterogeneous matter; but the house was empty, else people must have laughed to see seven females in one box, like bees in a glass hive.
Mrs. F. gave me this day her two young ladies to take to the Bois de Boulogne. I found they knew, by name or sight, all the Parisian young men, without being acquainted with any. It is astonishing how some young ladies acquire this knowledge, and can class every marriageable man according to his exact species and order, without any help from personal acquaintance.
TO THE SAME.
Paris, July, 1805.
I could not resist blinding myself with Mad. de Sévigné, whom for the first time I really taste and admire. She gives one, in the pleasantest and most easily remembered way, a very clear idea of the difference of manners, hours, value of money, &c. &c., in her time, from what they are at present. This is a very subordinate merit to her feeling, wit, humour, and spirit; but still it is a merit, particularly to me, who can never remember such circumstances except when they are connected with something which interests or amuses. I have always said that love depends on the merit of the person who feels, not who inspires it. This is universally felt, though not always allowed. These letters which I have just read are a strong proof of it. They are filled from the beginning to the end with the praises of Mad. de Grignan’s perfections; yet one shuts the book quite indifferent about her, and really attached to Mad. de Sévigné, of whose character one knows but little, this all-pervading attachment excepted.
Have you a mind for a new French idiom? On my remonstrating with the hostess at Estampes for charging seven francs for the horses, she answered, ‘Madame, vous ne pensez pas que je vous étrange.’ Pray remember the new verb.