The D(uke) of Orleans’s embassy here is universally considered as one devised for his own personal safety, and he is equally respected here and abroad.  The subject of his credentials and object of negotiation had no more in them than to say that his most Xtian Majesty desired to know how his brother the K(ing) of England did.  The answer to which was, very well, with thanks for his obliging enquiries.  The King speaks to the D(uke) of O(rleans) civilly, mais il en demeure la.  His behaviour to the Duc de Luxembourg(271) and to other Frenchmen of quality was more distinguished.  He talked yesterday to M. de Luxembourg for an hour and 17 minutes.  You know how exact we courtiers are upon these points.

Charles Fox was at Court, but was scarcely spoke to.  Il n’en fut pour cela plus rebute.  He stayed in the apartments till five in the afternoon.  Others of the Opposition were there.  Lord North came to Court with his son-in-law, Mr. D.(272) I must wait for a future opportunity of paying my court.  The Duke has finished his, I believe, for the present.  I expected to have found him here or in London.  He went again into Scotland last Friday, and will not be returned in a month, and this sans qu’il m’en ait averti.  Il faut avouer que notre Duc, a regard de tous les petits devoirs de la vie, est fort a son aise.  Me de Cambis is also come; il en fourmille, but all of them almost beggars; some few, I hear, have letters of credit.  Poor Me de Boufflers, as Lady Lucan writes me word, is dans un etat pitoyable.  But for the French, brisons la pour le present.

(270) Marie Charlotte Hippolyte de Saujon, Comtesse de Boufflers-Rouvel (1724-1800).  One of those remarkable women who in Paris at the end of the eighteenth century united a love of intellect and literature with a pleasure in society.  After being left a widow in 1764, she lived with the Prince de Conti.  She was a friend of Hume and Rousseau, the rival of Mme. du Deffand.  Her salon in the Temple was a meeting-place for a singular variety of persons, among whom she was known as Minerva the Wise.  Her daughter-in-law, the Comtesse Emilie de Boufflers, was guillotined in 1794.  She herself was imprisoned, but was released after the death of Robespierre.

(271) The Due de Luxembourg and his family escaped with difficulty to England, 300,000 livres being set on his head.  He arrived in London July 19, 1789.

(272) Sylvester Douglas, Lord Glenbervie.

(1789, Nov.?) 19, Thursday night, Richmond.—­I left London to come here to-day to dinner, as I have told you that I should, but I did not come away till I had seen Miss Gunning,(273) who told me that she should write to your Ladyship either to-day or to-morrow.  I found her gaie, fraiche, contente, and writing a letter, and when I began by saying, “So you persist then in leaving this very pretty room,” she smiled.  I think that she is perfectly satisfied with the option she has made, and I really think that