I would, by all means, have you go now and then, for two or three days, to Marechal Coigny’s, at Orli; it is but a proper civility to that family, which has been particularly civil to you; and, moreover, I would have you familiarize yourself with, and learn the interior and domestic manners of, people of that rank and fashion.  I also desire that you will frequent Versailles and St. Cloud, at both of which courts you have been received with distinction.  Profit of that distinction, and familiarize yourself at both.  Great courts are the seats of true good-breeding; you are to live at courts, lose no time in learning them.  Go and stay sometimes at Versailles for three or four days, where you will be domestic in the best families, by means of your friend Madame de Puisieux; and mine, l’Abbe de la Ville.  Go to the King’s and the Dauphin’s levees, and distinguish yourself from the rest of your countrymen, who, I dare say, never go there when they can help it.  Though the young Frenchmen of fashion may not be worth forming intimate connections with, they are well worth making acquaintance of; and I do not see how you can avoid it, frequenting so many good French houses as you do, where, to be sure, many of them come.  Be cautious how you contract friendships, but be desirous, and even industrious, to obtain a universal acquaintance.  Be easy, and even forward, in making new acquaintances; that is the only way of knowing manners and characters in general, which is, at present, your great object.  You are ’enfant de famille’ in three ministers’ houses; but I wish you had a footing, at least, in thirteen and that, I should think, you might easily bring about, by that common chain, which, to a certain degree, connects those you do not with those you do know.

For instance, I suppose that neither Lord Albemarle, nor Marquis de St. Germain, would make the least difficulty to present you to Comte Caunitz, the Nuncio, etc.  ‘Il faut etre rompu du monde’, which can only be done by an extensive, various, and almost universal acquaintance.

When you have got your emaciated Philomath, I desire that his triangles, rhomboids, etc., may not keep you one moment out of the good company you would otherwise be in.  Swallow all your learning in the morning, but digest it in company in the evenings.  The reading of ten new characters is more your business now, than the reading of twenty old books; showish and shining people always get the better of all others, though ever so solid.  If you would be a great man in the world when you are old, shine and be showish in it while you are young, know everybody, and endeavor to please everybody, I mean exteriorly; for fundamentally it is impossible.  Try to engage the heart of every woman, and the affections of almost every man you meet with.  Madame Monconseil assures me that you are most surprisingly improved in your air, manners, and address:  go on, my dear child, and never think that you are come to a sufficient degree of