heard, nor do not know any ill of him, it intimates at best a neutral and insignificant, though innocent character.  Now I want, and you ought to endeavor, that ‘les agremens, les graces, les attentions’, etc., should be a distinguishing part of your character, and specified of you by people unasked.  I wish to hear people say of you, ’Ah qu’il est aimable!  Quelles manieres, quelles graces, quel art de Claire’!  Nature, thank God, has given you all the powers necessary; and if she has not yet, I hope in God she will give you the will of exerting them.

I have lately read with great pleasure Voltaire’s two little histories of ‘Les Croisades’, and ‘l’Esprit Humain’; which I recommend to your perusal, if you have not already read them.  They are bound up with a most poor performance called ‘Micromegas’, which is said to be Voltaire’s too, but I cannot believe it, it is so very unworthy of him; it consists only of thoughts stolen from Swift, but miserably mangled and disfigured.  But his history of the ‘Croisades’ shows, in a very short and strong light, the most immoral and wicked scheme that was ever contrived by knaves, and executed by madmen and fools, against humanity.  There is a strange but never-failing relation between honest madmen and skillful knaves; and whenever one meets with collected numbers of the former, one may be very sure that they are secretly directed by the latter.  The popes, who have generally been both the ablest and the greatest knaves in Europe, wanted all the power and money of the East; for they had all that was in Europe already.  The times and the minds favored their design, for they were dark and uniformed; and Peter the Hermit, at once a knave and a madman, was a fine papal tool for so wild and wicked an undertaking.  I wish we had good histories of every part of Europe, and indeed of the world, written upon the plan of Voltaire’s ‘de l’Esprit Humain’; for, I own, I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general:  one would think by them that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of emperors, kings, popes, generals, and ministers.

I have never seen in any of the newspapers any mention of the affairs of the Cevennes, or Grenoble, which you gave me an account of some time ago; and the Duke de Mirepoix pretends, at least, to know nothing of either.  Were they false reports? or does the French court choose to stifle them?  I hope that they are both true, because I am very willing that the cares of the French government should be employed and confined to themselves.

Your friend, the Electress Palatine, has sent me six wild boars’ heads, and other ‘pieces de sa chasse’, in return for the fans, which she approved of extremely.  This present was signified to me by one Mr. Harold, who wrote me a letter in very indifferent English; I suppose he is a Dane who has been in England.