How can one regret such a general _Boute-feu_?

[Footnote 1: Choiseul was the Minister when the "Family Compact" of 1761 was concluded between France and Spain. The Duc de Praslin, who shared his fall, had been Secretary at War, and for some little time neither his office nor that of Choiseul was filled up, but the work of their departments was performed by Secretaries of State, the Duc d'Aiguillon, in spite of the contempt in which he was deservedly held, being eventually made Secretary for Foreign Affairs through the interest of Mme. du Barri (Lacretelle, iv. 256).]

[Footnote 2: "_An Empress._" The Empress-Queen Maria Theresa, who considered herself and her family under obligations to Choiseul for his abandonment of the long-standing policy of enmity to the house of Austria which had been the guiding principle of all French statesmen since the time of Henry IV., and for the marriage of her favourite daughter to the Dauphin.]

Perhaps our situation is not very stable neither. The world, who are ignorant of Lord Weymouth's motives, suspect a secret intelligence with Lord Chatham. Oh! let us have peace abroad before we quarrel any more at home!

Judge Bathurst is to be Lord Keeper, with many other arrangements in the law; but as you neither know the persons, nor I care about them, I shall not fill my paper with the catalogue, but reserve the rest of my letter for Tuesday, when I shall be in town. No Englishman, you know, will sacrifice his Sat.u.r.day and Sunday. I have so little to do with all these matters, that I came hither this morning, and left this new chaos to arrange itself as it pleases. It certainly is an era, and may be an extensive one; not very honourable to old King Capet,[1] whatever it may be to the intrigues of his new Ministers. The Jesuits will not be without hopes. They have a friend that made mischief _ante Helenam_.

[Footnote 1: Louis XV.--WALPOLE.]

_Jan._ 1, 1771.

I hope the new year will end as quietly as it begins, for I have not a syllable to tell you. No letters are come from France since Friday morning, and this is Tuesday noon. As we had full time to reason--in the dark, the general persuasion is, that the French Revolution will produce peace--I mean in Europe--not amongst themselves. Probably I have been sending you little but what you will have heard long before you receive my letter; but no matter; if we did not chat about our neighbour Kings, I don't know how we should keep up our correspondence, for we are better acquainted with King Louis, King Carlos, and Empresses Katharine and Teresa, than you with the English that I live amongst, or I with your Florentines. Adieu!

_PEACE WITH SPAIN--BANISHMENT OF THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT--MRS. CORNELYS'S ESTABLISHMENT--THE QUEEN OF DENMARK._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Feb._ 22, 1771.

Two days ago there began to be an alarm at the delay of the Spanish courier, and people were persuaded that the King of Spain had refused to ratify his amba.s.sador's declaration; who, on the warrant of the French King, had ventured to sign it, though expecting every hour to be recalled, as he actually was two days afterwards. However, the night before last, to the great comfort of Prince Ma.s.serano and our Ministers, the ratification arrived; and, after so many delays and untoward accidents, Fortune has interposed (for there has been great luck, too, in the affair), and peace is again established. With you, I am not at all clear that Choiseul was in earnest to make it. If he was, it was entirely owing to his own ticklish situation. Other people think, that this very situation had made him desperate; and that he was on the point of striking a hardy stroke indeed; and meditated sending a strong army into Holland, to oblige the Dutch to lend twelve men-of-war to invade us. Count Welderen,[1] who is totally an anti-Gaul, a.s.sured me he did not believe this project. Still I am very glad such a _boute-feu_ is removed.

[Footnote 1: The Dutch Minister in England. He married a sister of Sir John Griffin, Maid of Honour to Anne Princess of Orange.--WALPOLE.]

This treaty is an epoch; and puts a total end to all our preceding histories. Long quiet is never probable, nor shall I guess who will disturb it; but, whatever happens, must be thoroughly new matter, though some of the actors perhaps may not be so. Both Lord Chatham and Wilkes are at the end of their reckoning, and the Opposition can do nothing without fresh fuel.

The scene that is closed here seems to be but opening in France. The Parliament of Paris banished; a new one arbitrarily appointed;[1] the Princes of the Blood refractory and disobedient; the other Parliament as mutinous; and distress everywhere: if the army catches the infection, what may not happen, when the King is despised, his agents detested, and no Ministry settled? Some say the mistress and her faction keep him hourly diverted or drunk; others, that he has got a new pa.s.sion: how creditable at sixty! Still I think it is the crisis of their const.i.tution. If the Monarch prevails, he becomes absolute as a Czar; if he is forced to bend, will the Parliament stop there?

[Footnote 1: "_A new one appointed._" This is a mistake of Walpole's. A new Parliament was not, nor indeed could be, appointed; but Maupeou created six new Sovereign Courts at Arras, Blois, Chalons sur Marne, Clermont, Lyon, and Poitiers, at which "justice should be done at the sovereign's expense" (Lacretelle, iv. 264).]

In the mean time our most serious war is between two Operas. Mr. Hobart, Lord Buckingham's brother, is manager of the Haymarket. Last year he affronted Guadagni, by preferring the Zamperina, his own mistress, to the singing hero's sister. The d.u.c.h.ess of Northumberland, Lady Harrington, and some other great ladies, espoused the brother, and without a license erected an Opera for him at Madame Cornelys's. This is a singular dame, and you must be acquainted with her. She sung here formerly, by the name of the Pompeiati. Of late years she has been the Heidegger of the age, and presided over our diversions. Her taste and invention in pleasures and decorations are singular. She took Carlisle House in Soho Square, enlarged it, and established a.s.semblies and b.a.l.l.s by subscription. At first they scandalised, but soon drew in both righteous and unG.o.dly. She went on building, and made her house a fairy palace for b.a.l.l.s, concerts, and masquerades. Her Opera, which she called _Harmonic Meetings_, was splendid and charming. Mr. Hobart began to starve, and the managers of the theatres were alarmed. To avoid the act, she pretended to take no money, and had the a.s.surance to advertise that the subscription was to provide coals for the poor, for she has vehemently courted the mob, and succeeded in gaining their princely favour. She then declared her Masquerades were for the benefit of commerce. I concluded she would open another sort of house next for the interests of the Foundling Hospital, and I was not quite mistaken, for they say one of her maids, gained by Mr. Hobart, affirms that she could not undergo the fatigue of managing such a house. At last Mr. Hobart informed against her, and the Bench of Justices, less soothable by music than Orpheus's beasts, have p.r.o.nounced against her. Her Opera is quashed, and Guadagni, who governed so haughtily at Vienna, that, to pique some man of quality there, he named a minister to Venice, is not only fined, but was threatened to be sent to Bridewell, which chilled the blood of all the Caesars and Alexanders he had ever represented; nor could any promises of his lady-patronesses rehabilitate his courage--so for once an Act of Parliament goes for something.

You have got three new companions;[1] General Montagu, a West Indian Mr. Paine, and Mr. Lynch, your brother at Turin.

[Footnote 1: As Knights of the Bath.--WALPOLE.]

There is the devil to pay in Denmark. The Queen[1] has got the ascendant, has turned out favourites and Ministers, and literally wears the breeches, actual buckskin. There is a physician, who is said to rule both their Majesties, and I suppose is sold to France, for that is the predominant interest now at Copenhagen. The Czarina has whispered her disapprobation, and if she has a talon left, when she has done with the Ottomans, may chance to scratch the little King.

[Footnote 1: The Queen was Caroline Matilda, a sister of George III., and was accused of a criminal intimacy with Count Struenzee, the Prime Minister. Struenzee, "after a trial with only a slight semblance of the forms of justice" (to quote the words of Lord Stanhope), was convicted and executed; and the Queen was at first imprisoned in the Castle of Cronenburg, but after a time was released, and allowed to retire to Zell, Hanover, where she died in 1774.]

For eight months to come I should think we shall have little to talk of, you and I, but distant wars and distant majesties. For my part, I reckon the volume quite shut in which I took any interest. The succeeding world is young, new, and half unknown to me. Tranquillity comprehends every wish I have left, and I think I should not even ask what news there is, but for fear of seeming wedded to old stories--the rock of old men; and yet I should prefer that failing to the solicitude about a world one belongs to no more! Adieu!

_QUARREL OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS WITH THE CITY--DISSENSIONS IN THE FRENCH COURT AND ROYAL FAMILY--EXTRAVAGANCE IN ENGLAND._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 26, 1771.

You may wonder that I have been so silent, when I had announced a war between the House of Commons and the City--nay, when hostilities were actually commenced; but many a campaign languishes that has set out very flippantly. My letters depend on events, and I am like the man in the weather-house who only comes forth on a storm. The wards in the City have complimented the prisoners,[1] and some towns; but the train has not spread much. Wilkes is your only gun-powder that makes an explosion.

He and his a.s.sociates are more incensed at each other than against the Ministry, and have saved the latter much trouble. The Select Committees have been silent and were forgotten, but there is a talk now of their making some report before the session closes.

[Footnote 1: The prisoners were Crosby, the Lord Mayor, and Oliver, one of the aldermen, both members of Parliament. The selection of the Tower for their imprisonment was greatly remarked upon, because hitherto that had never been so used except for persons accused of high treason; while their offence was but a denial of the right of the House of Commons to arrest a liveryman within the City, and the entertaining a charge of a.s.sault against the messenger who had endeavoured to arrest him. These riots, which for the moment appeared likely to become formidable, arose out of the practice of reporting the parliamentary debates, a practice contrary to the Standing Orders of Parliament, pa.s.sed as far back as the reign of Elizabeth, but the violation of which had lately begun to be attempted.]

The serious war is at last absolutely blown over. Spain has sent us word she is disarming. So are we. Who would have expected that a courtesan at Paris would have prevented a general conflagration? Madame du Barri has compensated for Madame Helen, and is _optima pacis causa_. I will not swear that the torch she s.n.a.t.c.hed from the hands of Spain may not light up a civil war in France. The Princes of the Blood[1] are forbidden the Court, twelve dukes and peers, of the most complaisant, are banished, or going to be banished; and even the captains of the guard. In short, the King, his mistress, and the Chancellor, have almost left themselves alone at Versailles. But as the most serious events in France have always a ray of ridicule mixed with them, some are to be exiled _to_ Paris, and some to St. Germain. How we should laugh at anybody being banished to Soho Square and Hammersmith? The Chancellor desired to see the Prince of Conti; the latter replied, "Qu'il lui donnoit rendezvous a la Greve."[2]

[Footnote 1: The "Princes of the Blood" in France were those who, though of Royal descent, were not children of a king--such, for instance, as the Dukes of Orleans and Bourbon; and they were reckoned of a rank so inferior to the princes of the Royal Family, that, as Marie Antoinette on one occasion told the Duke of Orleans, in a well-deserved reproof for his factious insolence, Princes of the Blood had never pretended to the honour of supping with the King and herself. (See the Editor's "Life of Marie Antoinette," c. 10). Their offence, in this instance, was having protested against the holding and the proceedings of a _Lit de Justice_, which had been held on April 15th, about three months after the banishment of all the members of Parliament (Lacretelle, c. 13).]

[Footnote 2: La Greve was the place of execution in Paris.

Who has e'er been at Paris must needs know the Greve, The fatal retreat of th' unfortunate brave; Where honour and justice most oddly contribute To ease hero's pains by a halter and gibbet (PRIOR).]

If we laugh at the French, they stare at us. Our enormous luxury and expense astonishes them. I carried their Amba.s.sador, and a Comte de Levi, the other morning to see the new winter Ranelagh [The Pantheon] in Oxford Road, which is almost finished. It amazed me myself. Imagine Balbec in all its glory! The pillars are of artificial _giallo antico_.

The ceilings, even of the pa.s.sages, are of the most beautiful stuccos in the best taste of grotesque. The ceilings of the ball-rooms and the panels painted like Raphael's _loggias_ in the Vatican. A dome like the pantheon, glazed. It is to cost fifty thousand pounds. Monsieur de Guisnes said to me, "Ce n'est qu'a Londres qu'on peut faire tout cela."

It is not quite a proof of the same taste, that two views of Verona, by Ca.n.a.letti, have been sold by auction for five hundred and fifty guineas; and, what is worse, it is come out that they are copies by Marlow, a disciple of Scott. Both master and scholar are indeed better painters than the Venetian; but the purchasers did not mean to be so well cheated.

The papers will have told you that the wheel of fortune has again brought up Lord Holdernesse, who is made governor to the Prince of Wales. The d.u.c.h.ess of Queensberry, a much older veteran, is still figuring in the world, not only by giving frequent b.a.l.l.s, but really by her beauty. Reflect, that she was a G.o.ddess in Prior's days![1] I could not help adding these lines on her--you know his end:

Kitty, at Heart's desire, Obtained the chariot for a day, And set the world on fire.

This was some fifty-six years ago, or more. I gave her this stanza:

To many a Kitty, Love his car Will for a day engage, But Prior's Kitty, ever fair, Obtained it for an age!

And she is old enough to be pleased with the compliment.

[Footnote 1: Prior died in 1721.]

My brother [Sir Edward Walpole] has lost his son; and it is no misfortune, though he was but three-and-thirty, and had very good parts; for he was sunk into such a habit of drinking and gaming, that the first ruined his const.i.tution, and the latter would have ruined his father.

Shall I send away this short scroll, or reserve it to the end of the session? No, it is already somewhat obsolete: it shall go, and another short letter shall be the other half of it--so, good night!

_GREAT DISTRESS AT THE FRENCH COURT._

TO THE HON. H.S. CONWAY.

PARIS, _July_ 30, 1771.

I do not know where you are, nor where this will find you, nor when it will set out to seek you, as I am not certain by whom I shall send it.

It is of little consequence, as I have nothing material to tell you, but what you probably may have heard.

The distress here is incredible, especially at Court. The King's tradesmen are ruined, his servants starving, and even angels and archangels cannot get their pensions and salaries, but sing "Woe! woe!

woe!" instead of Hosannahs. Compiegne is abandoned; Villars Coterets[1]

and Chantilly crowded, and Chanteloup still more in fashion, whither everybody goes that pleases; though, when they ask leave, the answer is, "Je ne le defends ni le permets." This is the first time that ever the will of a King of France was interpreted against his inclination. Yet, after annihilating his Parliament, and ruining public credit, he tamely submits to be affronted by his own servants. Madame de Beauveau, and two or three high-spirited dames, defy this Czar of Gaul. Yet they and their cabal are as inconsistent on the other hand. They make epigrams, sing vaudevilles,[2] against the mistress, hand about libels against the Chancellor [Maupeou], and have no more effect than a sky-rocket; but in three months will die to go to Court, and to be invited to sup with Madame du Barri. The only real struggle is between the Chancellor [Maupeou] and the Duc d'Aiguillon. The first is false, bold, determined, and not subject to little qualms. The other is less known, communicates himself to n.o.body, is suspected of deep policy and deep designs, but seems to intend to set out under a mask of very smooth varnish; for he has just obtained the payment of all his bitter enemy La Chalotais'

pensions and arrears. He has the advantage, too, of being but moderately detested in comparison of his rival, and, what he values more, the interest of the mistress. The Comptroller-General[3] serves both, by acting mischief more sensibly felt; for he ruins everybody but those who purchase a respite from his mistress. He dispenses bankruptcy by retail, and will fall, because he cannot even by these means be useful enough. They are striking off nine millions from _la caisse militaire_, five from the marine, and one from the _affaires etrangeres_: yet all this will not extricate them. You never saw a great nation in so disgraceful a position. Their next prospect is not better: it rests on an _imbecille_ [Louis XVI.], both in mind and body.