I am sorry to inform you, Madam, that you will not see Madame Geoffrin this year, as she goes to Poland in May.  The King has invited her, promised her an apartment exactly in her own way, and that she shall see nobody but whom) she chooses to see.  This will not surprise you, Madam; but what I shall add, will:  though I must beg your ladyship not to mention it even to her, as it is an absolute secret here, as she does not know that I know it, and as it was trusted to me by a friend of yours.  In short, there are thoughts of sending her with a public character, or at least with a commission from hence—­a very extraordinary honour, and I think never bestowed but on the Mar`echale de Gu`ebriant.  As the Dussons have been talked of, and as Madame Geoffrin has enemies, its being known might make her uneasy that it was known.  I should have told it to no mortal but your ladyship; but I could not resist giving you such a pleasure.  In your answer, Madam, I need not warn you not to specify what I have told you.

My favour here continues ; and favour never displeases.  To me, too, it is a novelty, and I naturally love curiosities.  However, I must be looking towards home, and have perhaps only been treasuring up regret.  At worst I have filled my mind with a new set of ideas; some resource to a man who was heartily tired of his old ones.  When I tell your ladyship that I play at whisk, and bear even French music, you will not wonder at any change in me.  Yet I am far from pretending to like every body, or every thing I see.  There are some chapters on which I still fear we shall not agree; but I will do your ladyship the justice to own, that you have never said a syllable too much in behalf of the friends to whom you was so good as to recommend me.  Madame d’Egmont, whom I have mentioned but little, is one of the best women in the world, and, though not at all striking at first, fair)s upon one much.  Colonel Gordon, with this letter, brings you, Madam, some more seeds from her.  I have a box of pomatums for you from Madame de Boufflers, which shall go by the next conveyance that offers.  As he waits for my parcel, I can only repeat how much I am your ladyship’s most obliged and faithful humble servant.

Letter 294 To George Montagu, Esq.  Paris, Feb. 4, 1766. (page 469)

I write on small paper, that the nothing I have to say may look like a letter, Paris, that supplies tine with diversions, affords me no news.  England sends me none, on which I care to talk by the post.  All seems in confusion; but I have done with politics!

The marriage of your cousin puts me in mind of the two owls, whom the Vizier in some Eastern tale told the Sultan were treating on a match between their children, on whom they were to settle I don’t know how many ruined villages.  Trouble not your head about it.  Our ancestors were rogues, and so will our posterity be.