I dare not trust to Meyssonier’s report of his Rhenish, his Burgundy not having answered either his account or my expectations.  I doubt, as a wine merchant, he is the ‘perfidus caupo’, whatever he may be as a banker.  I shall therefore venture upon none of his wine; but delay making my provision of Old Hock, till I go abroad myself next spring:  as I told you in the utmost secrecy, in my last, that I intend to do; and then probably I may taste some that I like, and go upon sure ground.  There is commonly very good, both at Aix-la-Chapelle and Liege, where I formerly got some excellent, which I carried with me to Spa, where I drank no other wine.

As my letters to you frequently miscarry, I will repeat in this that part of my last which related to your future motions.  Whenever you shall be tired of Berlin, go to Dresden; where Sir Charles Williams will be, who will receive you with open arms.  He dined with me to-day, and sets out for Dresden in about six weeks.  He spoke of you with great kindness and impatience to see you again.  He will trust and employ you in business (and he is now in the whole secret of importance) till we fix our place to meet in:  which probably will be Spa.  Wherever you are, inform yourself minutely of, and attend particularly to the affairs of France; they grow serious, and in my opinion will grow more and more so every day.  The King is despised and I do not wonder at it; but he has brought it about to be hated at the same time, which seldom happens to the same man.  His ministers are known to be as disunited as incapable; he hesitates between the Church and the parliaments, like the ass in the fable, that starved between two hampers of hay:  too much in love with his mistress to part with her, and too much afraid of his soul to enjoy her; jealous of the parliaments, who would support his authority; and a devoted bigot to the Church, that would destroy it.  The people are poor, consequently discontented; those who have religion, are divided in their notions of it; which is saying that they hate one another.  The clergy never do forgive; much less will they forgive the parliament; the parliament never will forgive them.  The army must, without doubt, take, in their own minds at last, different parts in all these disputes, which upon occasion would break out.  Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it, too, by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.  This was the case of the Praetorian bands, who deposed and murdered the monsters they had raised to oppress mankind.  The Janissaries in turkey, and the regiments of guards in Russia, do the same now.  The French nation reasons freely, which they never did before, upon matters of religion and government, and begin to be ‘sprejiudicati’; the officers do so too; in short, all the symptoms, which I have ever met with in history previous to great changes and revolutions in government, now exist, and daily increase,