From Paris he went to Blois, the capital of Loir-and-Cher, a small town about 110 miles south-west of Paris.  Here he had two advantages.  He found the French language spoken in its perfection; and as he had not a single countryman with whom to exchange a word, he was driven on his own resources.  He remained there a year, and spent his time well, studying hard, rising early, having the best French masters, mingling in society, although subject, as in previous and after parts of his life, to fits of absence.  His life was as pure as it was simple, his most intimate friend at Blois, the Abbe Philippeaux, saying:  “He had no amour whilst here that I know of, and I think I should have known it if he had had any.”  During this time he sent home letters to his friends in England—­to Montague, Colonel Froude, Congreve, and others[1]—­which contain sentences of exquisite humour.  Thus, describing the famous gallery at Versailles, with the paintings of Louis’ victories, he says:  “The history of the present King till the sixteenth year of his reign is painted on the roof by Le Brun, so that his Majesty has actions enough by him to furnish another gallery much longer than the first.  He is represented with all the terror and majesty that you can imagine in every part of the picture, and see his young face as perfectly drawn in the roof as his present one in the side.  The painter has represented His Most Christian Majesty under the figure of Jupiter throwing thunderbolts all about the ceiling, and striking terror into the Danube and Rhine, that lie astonished and blasted with lightning a little above the cornice.”

This is Addison all over; and quite as good is his picture of the general character of the French:  “’Tis not in the power of want or slavery to make them miserable.  There is nothing to be met with in the country but mirth and poverty.  Every one sings, laughs, and starves.  Their conversation is generally agreeable, for if they have any wit or sense, they are sure to shew it.  Their women are perfect mistresses in the art of shewing themselves to the best advantage.  They are always gay and sprightly, and set off the worst faces in Europe with the best airs.  Every one knows how to give herself as charming a look and posture as Sir Godfrey Kneller could draw her in.”

From Blois he returned to Paris, and was now better qualified, from his knowledge of the language, to mingle with its philosophers, savants, and poets.  He had some interesting talk with Malebranche and Boileau, the former of whom “very much praised Mr Newton’s mathematics; shook his head at the name of Hobbes, and told me he thought him a pauvre esprit.”  Here follows a genuine Addisonianism:  “His book is now reprinted with many additions, among which he shewed me a very pretty hypothesis of colours, which is different from that of Cartesius or Newton, though they may all three be true.”  Boileau, now sixty-four, deaf as a post, and full