[Footnote 1:  “The chief of them.” Walpole himself explains in a note that he means the Dukes of Cumberland and Devonshire.]

I am glad you are going to have a great duke; it will amuse you, and a new Court will make Florence lively, the only beauty it wants.  You divert me with my friend the Duke of Modena’s conscientious match:  if the Duchess had outlived him, she would not have been so scrupulous.  But, for Hymen’s sake, who is that Madame Simonetti?  I trust, not that old painted, gaming, debauched Countess from Milan, whom I saw at the fair of Reggio!

I surprise myself with being able to write two pages of pure English; I do nothing but deal in broken French.  The two nations are crossing over and figuring-in.  We have had a Count d’Usson and his wife these six weeks; and last Saturday arrived a Madame de Boufflers, scavante, galante, a great friend of the Prince of Conti, and a passionate admirer de nous autres Anglois.  I am forced to live much with tout ca, as they are perpetually at my Lady Hervey’s; and as my Lord Hertford goes ambassador to Paris, where I shall certainly make him a visit next year—­don’t you think I shall be computing how far it is to Florence?  There is coming, too, a Marquis de Fleury,[1] who is to be consigned to me, as a political relation, vu l’amitie entre le Cardinal son oncle et feu monsieur mon pere.  However, as my cousin Fleury is not above six-and-twenty, I had much rather be excused from such a commission as showing the Tombs and the Lions, and the King and Queen, and my Lord Bute, and the Waxwork, to a boy.  All this breaks in upon my plan of withdrawing by little and little from the world, for I hate to tire it with an old lean face, and which promises to be an old lean face for thirty years longer, for I am as well again as ever.  The Duc de Nivernois called here the other day in his way from Hampton Court; but, as the most sensible French never have eyes to see anything, unless they see it every day and see it in fashion, I cannot say he flattered me much, or was much struck with Strawberry.  When I carried him into the Cabinet, which I have told you is formed upon the idea of a Catholic chapel, he pulled off his hat, but perceiving his error, he said, “Ce n’est pas une chapelle pourtant,” and seemed a little displeased.

[Footnote 1:  Cardinal Fleury, Prime Minister of France from 1727 to 1742.  Pope celebrated his love of peace—­

    Peace is my dear delight, not Fleury’s more;

and by his resolute maintenance of peace during the first seven years of his administration he had so revived the resources and restored the power of his country, that when the question of going to war with France was discussed in the Council of Vienna the veteran Prince Eugene warned the Ministers that his wise and prudent administration had been so beneficial to his country that the Empire was no longer a match for it.]