Well! but you, who have had a fever with fetes, had rather hear the history of the new soi-disante Margravine.  She has been in England with her foolish Prince, and not only notified their marriage to the Earl [of Berkeley] her brother, who did not receive it propitiously, but his Highness informed his Lordship by a letter, that they have an usage in his country of taking a wife with the left hand; that he had espoused his Lordship’s sister in that manner; and intends, as soon as she shall be a widow, to marry her with his right hand also.  The Earl replied, that he knew she was married to an English peer [Lord Craven], a most respectable man, and can know nothing of her marrying any other man; and so they are gone to Lisbon.  Adieu!

ARREST OF THE DUCHESSE DE BIRON—­THE QUEEN OF FRANCE—­PYTHAGORAS.

TO THE MISS BERRYS.

STRAWBERRY HILL, Tuesday evening, eight o’clock, Oct. 15, 1793.

Though I do not know when it will have its whole lading, I must begin my letter this very moment, to tell you what I have just heard.  I called on the Princesse d’Hennin, who has been in town a week.  I found her quite alone, and I thought she did not answer quite clearly about her two knights:  the Prince de Poix has taken a lodging in town, and she talks of letting her house here, if she can.  In short, I thought she had a little of an Ariadne-air—­but this was not what I was in such a hurry to tell you.  She showed me several pieces of letters, I think from the Duchesse de Bouillon:  one says, the poor Duchesse de Biron is again arrested[1] and at the Jacobins, and with her “une jeune etourdie, qui ne fait que chanter toute la journee;” and who, think you, may that be?—­only our pretty little wicked Duchesse de Fleury! by her singing and not sobbing, I suppose she was weary of her Tircis, and is glad to be rid of him.  This new blow, I fear, will overset Madame de Biron again.  The rage at Paris seems to increase daily or hourly; they either despair, or are now avowed banditti.  I tremble so much for the great and most suffering victim of all, the Queen,[2] that one cannot feel so much for many, as several perhaps deserve:  but her tortures have been of far longer duration than any martyrs, and more various; and her courage and patience equal to her woes!

[Footnote 1:  The Duchess, with scores of other noble ladies, was put to death in the course of these two horrible years, 1793-94.]

[Footnote 2:  Marie Antoinette was put to death the very next day.  And I cannot more fitly close the allusions to the Revolution so frequent in the letters of the past four years than by Burke’s description of this pure and noble Queen in her youth:  “It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness of Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision.  I saw her, just above the horizon, glittering like the