and I was much surprized, that none of the Ladies, were helped by the gentlemen from that plate:  but my surprize was soon turned into astonishment! for the peaches suddenly burst forth, and played up the Saint’s name, (St. Ann) in artificial fire-works! and many pretty devices of the same kind, were whirled off, from behind the coaches of her visitors, to which they were fixed, as the company left the house, which had a pretty effect, and was no indelicate way of taking a French leave.

There is certainly among the French people of fashion an ease and good-breeding, which is very captivating, and not easily obtained, but by being bred up with them, from an early age; the whole body must be formed for it, as in dancing, while there is the pliability of youth; and where there is, as in France, a constant, early, and intimate correspondence between the two sexes.  Men would be fierce and savage, were it not for the society of the other sex, as may be seen among the Turks and Moors, who must not visit their own wives, when other men’s wives are with them.  In France, the Lady’s bed-chamber is always open, and she receives visits in bed, or up, with perfect ease.  A noble Lord, late ambassador to this country, told me, that when he visited a young and beautiful woman of fashion, (I think too it was a first visit after marriage) she received him sitting up in her bed; and before he went, her fille de chambre brought his Lordship Madame le Comtesse’s shift elegantly festooned, which his Lordship had the honour to put over the Lady’s head, as she sat in bed!—­nor was there, by that favour, the least indecency meant; it was a compliment intended; and, as such only, received.  Marks of favour of that sort, are not marks of further favours from a French Lady.

In this vast city of amusements, among the other arts, I cannot help pointing out to your particular notice, Richlieu’s monument in the Sorbonne, as an inimitable piece of modern sculpture[G] by Girardeau; and Madame la Valliere’s full-length portrait by le Brun:  She was, you know, mistress to Lewis the XIVth, but retired to the convent, in which the picture now is, and where she lived in repentance and sorrow above thirty years.[H]

   [G] VOLTAIRE says, this monument is not sufficiently noticed by
   strangers.

   [H] MADAME VALLIERE, during her retirement, being told of the death
   of one of her sons, replied, “I should rather grieve for his birth,
   than his death.”

The connoisseurs surely can find no reasonable fault with the monumental artist; but they do, I think, with le Brun; the drapery, they say, is too full, and that she is overcharged with garments; but fulness of dress, adds not only dignity, but decency, to the person of a fine woman, who meant (or the painter for her) to hide, not to expose her charms.