Mrs. Pit’s friend, Madame de Rochefort, is one of my principal attachments, and very agreeable indeed.  Madame de Mirepoix another.  For my admiration, Madame de Monaco—­but I believe you don’t doubt my Lord Hertford’s taste in sensualities.  March’s passion, Marechalle d’Estr`ees, is affected, cross, and not all handsome.  The Princes of the blood are pretty much retired, do not go to Portsmouth and Salisbury once a week, nor furnish every other paragraph to the newspapers.  Their campaigns are confined to killing boars and stags, two or three hundred in a year.  Adieu!  Mr. Foley is my banker; or it is still more sure if you send your letter to Mr. Conway’s office.

(901) Of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire.  See vol. ii. p. 211, letter 103.-E.

(902) Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh Earl and first Duke of Dorset:  he died on the 10th of October.  Lord George Sackville was his third son.-E.

Letter 278 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  Paris, Oct. 28, 1765. (page 440)

Mr. Hume sends me word from Fontainbleau, that your brother, some time in the spring of 1764, transmitted to the English ministry a pretty exact and very authentic account of the French finances;” these are his words:  and “that it will be easily found among his lordship’s despatches of that period.”  To the other question I have received no answer:  I suppose he has not yet been able to inform himself.

This goes by an English coachman of Count Lauragais, sent over to buy more horses; therefore I shall write a little ministerially, and, perhaps, surprise you, if you are not already apprised of things in the light I see them.

The Dauphin will probably hold out very few days.  His death, that is, the near prospect of it, fills the philosophers with the greatest joy, as it was feared he would endeavour the restoration of the Jesuits.  You will think the sentiments of the philosophers very odd stale news —­but do you know who the philosophers are, or what the term means here?  In the first place, it comprehends almost every body; and in the next, means men, who, avowing war against popery, aim, many of them, at a subversion of all religion, and still many more, at the destruction of regal power.  How do you know this? you will say; you, who have been but six weeks in France, three of which you have been confined to your chamber?  True:  but in the first period I went every where, and heard nothing else:  in the latter, I have been extremely visited, and have had long and explicit conversations with many, who think as I tell you, and with a few of the other side, who are no less persuaded that there are such intentions.  In particular.  I had two officers here t’other night, neither of them young, whom I had difficulty to keep from a serious quarrel, and who, in the heat of the dispute, informed me of much more than I could have learnt with great pains.