I am at Galan’s, at the Hotel de Bourbon, next door to where we used to lodge, what is now called l’Hotel de Danmark.  But I must remove, for one apartment will not do; we must have three; one for Monsieur le Marquis, another for the child and her people, and one for myself.  So I think I must go for the present to the Pare Royal.  Every kind of house has been offered to me, to induce . . .

(140) The Countess Dowager of Carlisle, whose proposed marriage to a foreign baron met with opposition from her family and friends.

(141) Armand Louis de Gontaut, Duc de Biron (1753-1794).  Though he joined the Revolutionists he perished on the scaffold,

(142) Admiral Lord Keppel (1725-1786), second son of second Earl of Albemarle.  He was a Whig in politics, and was First Lord of the Admiralty under the Rockingham Administration in 1782, and was soon after created a peer.  “I ever looked on Lord Keppell,” Burke said, “as one of the greatest and best men of his age.”

(1779,) Avril 18, Sunday night, Paris.(143)—­I wrote to you this morning, as I hope that you will know.  This afternoon I find tous mes projets pour le present sont suspendus.  I am obliged to set out to-morrow for Lyons.  It is so unexpected, that it is by much the greatest embarras I ever felt, and a monstrous exercise of expense to me.  But Mie Mie will be there to-morrow.  Les parens ont change d’avis, and I must go to Lyons to fetch (her).  God knows how much further I would go to conduct her safely, but I was made to believe there was no occasion for it.  I expected her here on Friday next, or on this day sevennight.  Combien de termps faut-il que je sois le jouet des caprices des autres?

Mrs. Webb also is not in a good state of health for travelling so far or so fast.  I have had a letter from Warner; he has seen the Baron, who was charged, I find, with a commission to you. . . .

I shall write to you from Lyons; but when I shall hear from you the Lord knows, and I want to hear how the children do.

Ma patience et ma perseverance sont inepuisables sur ce qui regarde Mie Mie.  Je me croyois tranquillement etabli ici.  J’aurai des entretiens avec la mere, qui ne sont pas toujours composes avec du miel.  “Helas!  Rende mi figlia mia.”  Voila ou j’en reviens.  Adieu.  Ayez un peu de pitie de tous mes embarras, qui ne finissent pas.

(143) See Chapter 1:  “In the spring it was arranged that the Marchesa Fragniani should bring Mie Mie to Paris . . .”

(1780,) Sept. 11, Monday morning, 7 o’clock, Matson.—­You will receive a long letter from me to-day; and this will come to you on Wednesday; so by these repeated courtesies you will see that I have no repugnance to writing, although you have, and that I am very well pleased to go on in my old way of scribbling, as long as I am convinced that it is agreeable to you.  But a line now and then is comfortable, for, as Lady Macbeth says, “the feast grows cold that is not often cheered,” or something of that sort; so a correspondence is awkwardly maintained, and is a contradiction in terms when it is on one side only.