and spirits in confusion.  I agree with you, that " they don’t pique themselves upon understanding sense, any more than Deutralities!” The grand journey to Flanders(706) is a little -it a stand:  the expense has been computed at two thousand pounds a day!  Many dozen of embroidered portmanteaus full of laurels and bays have been prepared this fortnight.  The Regency has been settled and unsettled twenty times:  it is now said, that the weight of it is not to be laid on the Prince.  The King is to return by his birthday; but whether he is to bring back part of French Flanders with him, or will only have time to fetch Dunkirk, is uncertain.  In the mean time, Lord Carteret is gone to the Hague; by which jaunt it seems that Lord Stair’s journey was not conclusive.  The converting of the siege of Prague into a blockade makes no great figure in the journals on this side the water and question-but it is the fashion not to take towns that one was sure of taking.  I cannot pardon the Princess for having thought of putting off her `epuisements and lassitudes to take a trip to Leghorn, “pendant qu’on ne donnoit `a manger `a Monsieur le Prince son fils, que de la chair de chevaux!” Poor Prince Beauvau!(707) I shall be glad to hear he is safe from this siege.  Some of the French princes of the blood have been stealing away a volunteering, but took care to be missed in time.  Our Duke goes with his lord and father-they say, to marry a princess of Prussia, whereof great preparations have been making in his equipage and in his breeches.

Poor Prince Craon! where did De Sade get fifty sequins.  When I was at Florence, you know all his clothes were in pawn to his landlord; but he redeemed them by pawning his Modenese bill of credit to his landlady!  I delight in the style of the neutrality maker(708)-his neutralities and his English arc perfectly of a piece.

You have diverted me excessively with the history of the Princess Eleonora’s(709) posthumous issue-but how could the woman have spirit enough to have five children by her footman, and yet not have enough to own them.  Really, a woman so much in the great world should have known better!  Why, no yeoman’s dowager could have acted more prudishly!  It always amazes me, when I reflect on the women, who are the first to propagate scandal of one another.  If they would but agree not to censure what they all agree to do, there would be no more loss of characters among them than amongst men.  A woman cannot have an affair, but instantly all her sex travel about to publish it, and leave her off:  now, if a man cheats another of his estate at play, forges a will, or marries a ward to his own son, nobody thinks of leaving him off for such trifles.

The English parson at Stosch’s, the archbishop on the chapter of music, the Fanciulla’s persisting in her mistake, and old Count Galli’s distress, are all admirable stories.(710) But what is the meaning of Montemar’s writing to the Antinora?—­I thought he had left the Galia for my illustrissima,(711) her sister. lord!  I am horridly tired of that romantic love and correspondence!  Must I answer her last letter? there were but six lines—­what can I say?  I perceive, by what you mention of the cause of his disorder, that Rucellai does not turn out that simple, honest man you thought him-come, own it