les fachera, sans vous faire tort.  Mes etats vous offrent une retraite paisible; je vous veux du bien, et je vous en ferai, si vous le trouvez bon.  Mais si vous vous obstiniez a rejetter mons secours, attendez-vous que je ne le dirai a personne.  Si vous persistez a vous creuser l’esprit pour trouver de nouveaux malheurs, choisissez les tels que vous voudrez.  Je suis roi, je puis vous en procurer au gre de vos souhaits:  et ce qui surement ne vous arrivera pas vis a vis de vos ennemis, je cesserai de vous persecuter quand vous cesserez de mettre votre gloire a l’etre.

Votre bon ami,

FREDERIC.

[Footnote 1:  Rousseau was always ready to believe in plots to mortify and injure him; and he was so much annoyed by this composition of Walpole’s, that, shortly after his arrival in England, he addressed the following letter to The London Chronicle:—­

“WOOTTON [IN DERBYSHIRE], March 3, 1766

“You have failed, Sir, in the respect which every private person owes to a crowned head, in attributing publicly to the King of Prussia a letter full of extravagance and malignity, of which, for those very reasons, you ought to have known he could not be the author.  You have even dared to transcribe his signature, as if you had seen him write it with his own hand.  I inform you, Sir, that the letter was fabricated at Paris, and what rends my heart is that the impostor has accomplices in England.  You owe to the King of Prussia, to truth, and to me to print the letter which I write to you, and which I sign, as an atonement for a fault with which you would doubtless reproach yourself severely, if you knew to what a dark transaction you have rendered yourself an accessory.  I salute you, Sir, very sincerely,

“ROUSSEAU.”]

The Princesse de Ligne, whose mother was an Englishwoman, made a good observation to me last night.  She said, “Je suis roi, je puis vous procurer de malheurs,” was plainly the stroke of an English pen.  I said, then I had certainly not well imitated the character in which I wrote.  You will say I am a bold man to attack both Voltaire and Rousseau.  It is true; but I shoot at their heel, at their vulnerable part.

I beg your pardon for taking up your time with these trifles.  The day after to-morrow we go in cavalcade with the Duchess of Richmond to her audience; I have got my cravat and shammy shoes.  Adieu!

A CONSTANT ROUND OF AMUSEMENTS—­A GALLERY OF FEMALE PORTRAITS—­MADAME GEOFFRIN—­MADAME DU DEFFAND—­MADAME DE MIREPOIX—­MADAME DE BOUFFLERS—­MADAME DE ROCHFORT—­THE MARECHALE DE LUXEMBURG—­THE DUCHESSE DE CHOISEUL—­AN OLD FRENCH DANDY—­M.  DE MAUREPAS—­POPULARITY OF HIS LETTER TO ROUSSEAU.

TO MR. GRAY.

PARIS, Jan. 25, 1766.