“Ah, my dear friend! how can I think that I must soon leave all those who love me so much, and whom I so dote on, without bitter regret?  Yes, I am too happy here to be as resigned as I ought to be to meet death.”

Saw Potier in the Ci-devant Jeune Homme last night.  It is an excellent piece of acting, from the first scene where he appears in all the infirmity of age, in his night-cap and flannel dressing-gown, to the last, in which he portrays tho would-be young man.  His face, his figure, his cough, are inimitable; and when he recounts to his servant the gaieties of the previous night, the hollow cheek, sunken eye, and hurried breathing of the “Ci-devant Jeune Homme” render the scene most impressive.

Nothing could be more comic than the metamorphose effected in his appearance by dress, except it were his endeavours to assume an air and countenance suitable to the juvenility of his toilette; while, at intervals, some irrepressible symptom of infirmity reminded the audience of the pangs the effort to appear young inflicted on him.  Potier is a finished actor, and leaves nothing to be wished, except that he may long continue to perform and delight his audience as last night.

Dined yesterday at the Countess d’Orsay’s, with a large family party.  The only stranger was Sir Francis Burdett.  A most agreeable dinner, followed by a very pleasant evening.  I have seldom seen any Englishman enjoy French society as much as the worthy baronet does.  He speaks the language with great facility, is well acquainted with its literature, and has none of the prejudices which militate so much against acquiring a perfect knowledge of the manners and customs of a foreign country.

French society has decidedly one great superiority over English, and that is its freedom from those topics which too often engross so considerable a portion of male conversation, even in the presence of ladies, in England.  I have often passed the evening previously and subsequently to a race, in which many of the men present took a lively interest, without ever hearing it made the subject of conversation.  Could this be said of a party in England, on a similar occasion?

Nor do the men here talk of their shooting or hunting before women, as with us.  This is a great relief, for in England many a woman is doomed to listen to interminable tales of slaughtered grouse, partridges, and pheasants; of hair breadth “’scapes by flood and field,” and venturous leaps, the descriptions of which leave one in doubt whether the narrator or his horse be the greater animal of the two, and render the poor listener more fatigued by the recital than either was by the longest chase.

A dissertation on the comparative merits of Manton’s, Lancaster’s, and Moore’s guns, and the advantage of percussion locks, it is true, generally diversifies the conversation.