“Hunc to Romane caveito.”

Connect yourself, while you are in France, entirely with the French; improve yourself with the old, divert yourself with the young; conform cheerfully to their customs, even to their little follies, but not to their vices.  Do not, however, remonstrate or preach against them, for remonstrances do not suit with your age.  In French companies in general you will not find much learning, therefore take care not to brandish yours in their faces.  People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.  Conceal all your learning carefully, and reserve it for the company of les Gens d’Eglise, or les Gens de Robe; and even then let them rather extort it from you, than find you over-willing to draw it.  Your are then thought, from that seeming unwillingness, to have still more knowledge than it may be you really have, and with the additional merit of modesty into the bargain.  A man who talks of, or even hints at, his ‘bonnes fortunes’, is seldom believed, or, if believed, much blamed; whereas a man who conceals with care is often supposed to have more than he has, and his reputation of discretion gets him others.  It is just so with a man of learning; if he affects to show it, it is questioned, and he is reckoned only superficial; but if afterward it appears that he really has it, he is pronounced a pedant.  Real merit of any kind, ’ubi est non potest diu celari’; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it but a man’s exhibiting it himself.  It may not always be rewarded as it ought, but it will always be known.  You will in general find the women of the beau monde at Paris more instructed than the men, who are bred up singly for the army, and thrown into it at twelve or thirteen years old; but then that sort of education, which makes them ignorant of books, gives them a great knowledge of the world, an easy address, and polite manners.

Fashion is more tyrannical at Paris than in any other place in the world; it governs even more absolutely than their king, which is saying a great deal.  The least revolt against it is punished by proscription.  You must observe, and conform to all the ‘minutiae’ of it, if you will be in fashion there yourself; and if you are not in fashion, you are nobody.  Get, therefore, at all events, into the company of those men and women ‘qui donnent le ton’; and though at first you should be admitted upon that shining theatre only as a ‘persona muta’, persist, persevere, and you will soon have a part given you.  Take great care never to tell in one company what you see or hear in another, much less to divert the present company at the expense of the last; but let discretion and secrecy be known parts of your character.  They will carry you much further, and much safer than more shining talents.  Be upon your guard against quarrels at Paris; honor is extremely nice there, though the asserting of it is exceedingly penal.  Therefore, ’point de mauvaises plaisanteries, point de jeux de main, et point de raillerie piquante’.