A striking instance of Johnson’s occasional impracticability occurred during this journey: 

“When we were at Rouen together,” says Mrs. Thrale, “he took a great fancy to the Abbe Kofiette, with whom he conversed about the destruction of the order of Jesuits, and condemned it loudly, as a blow to the general power of the church, and likely to be followed with many and dangerous innovations, which might at length become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundation of Christianity.  The gentleman seemed to wonder and delight in his conversation:  the talk was all in Latin, which both spoke fluently, and Mr. Johnson pronounced a long eulogium upon Milton with so much ardour, eloquence, and ingenuity, that the abbe rose from his seat and embraced him.  My husband seeing them apparently so charmed with the company of each other, politely invited the abbe to England, intending to oblige his friend; who, instead of thanking, reprimanded him severely before the man, for such a sudden burst of tenderness towards a person he could know nothing at all of; and thus put a sudden finish to all his own and Mr. Thrale’s entertainment from the company of the Abbe Roffette.”

In a letter dated May 9, 1780, also, Mrs. Thrale alludes to more than one disagreement in France: 

“When did I ever plague you about contour, and grace, and expression?  I have dreaded them all three since that hapless day at Compiegne, when you teased me so, and Mr. Thrale made what I hoped would have proved a lasting peace; but French ground is unfavourable to fidelity perhaps, and so now you begin again:  after having taken five years’ breath, you might have done more than this.  Say another word, and I will bring up afresh the history of your exploits at St. Denys and how cross you were for nothing—­but some how or other, our travels never make any part either of our conversation or correspondence.”

Joseph Baretti, who now formed one of the family, is so mixed up with their history that some account of him becomes indispensable.  He was a Piedmontese, whose position in his native country was not of a kind to tempt him to remain in it, when Lord Charlemont, to whom he had been useful in Italy, proposed his coming to England.  His own story was that he had lost at play the little property he had inherited from his father, an architect.  The education given him by his parents was limited to Latin; he taught himself English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.  His talents, acquirements, and strength of mind must have been considerable, for they soon earned him the esteem and friendship of the most eminent members of the Johnsonian circle, in despite of his arrogance.  He came to England in 1753; is kindly mentioned in one of Johnson’s letters in 1754; and when he was in Italy in 1761, his illustrious friend’s letters to him are marked by a tone of affectionate interest.  Ceremony and tenderness are oddly blended in the conclusion of one of them: