January 9th.

I had not sent away my letter, being so disappointed of a messenger, and now receive yours of December the thirtieth.  My house is most heartily at your service, and I shall write to Favre to have it ready for You.  You will see by the former part of this letter, that I do not think of being in England before the end of March.  All I dislike in this contract is the fear, that if I drive you out of my house, I shall drive you out of town; and as you will find, I have not a bed to offer you but my own, and Favre’s, in which your servant will lie, for I have stripped Arlington-street to furnish Strawberry.  In the mean time you will be comfortable in my bed, and need have no trouble about Favre, as he lodges at his wife’s while I am absent.  Let them know in time to have the beds aired.

I don’t understand one syllable of your paragraph about Miss Talbot, Admiral Cornish, and Mr. Hampden’s son.  I thought she was married, and I forget to whom.

(922) Lady Mary Montagu, third daughter and coheiress of John second Duke of Montagu, and last of that creation; married, 7th July 1730, George Montagu, fourth Earl of Cardigan.-E.

Letter 289 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.  Paris, Saturday night, Jan. 11, 1766. (page 457)

I have just now, Madam, received the scissors, by General Vernon, from Mr. Conway’s office.  Unluckily, I had not received your ladyship’s notification of them sooner, for want of a conveyance, and I wrote to my servant to inquire of yours how they had been sent; which I fear may have added a little trouble to all you had been so good as to take, and for which I give you ten thousand thanks:  but your ladyship is so exact and friendly, that it almost discourages rather than encourages me.  I cannot bring myself to think that ten thousand obligations are new letters of credit.  I have -seen Mrs. F *****, and her husband may be as happy as he will:  I cannot help pitying him.  She told me it is coulder here than in England; and in truth I believe so:  I blow the fire between every paragraph, and am quite cut off from all sights.  The agreeableness of the evenings makes me some amends.  I am just going to sup at Madame d’Aiguillon’s with Madame d’Egmont, and I hope Madame de Brionne, whom I have not yet seen; but she is not very well, and it is doubtful.  My last new passion, and I think the strongest, is the Duchesse de Choiseul.  Her face is pretty, not very pretty; her person a little model.  Cheerful, modest, full of attentions, with the happiest propriety of expression, and greatest quickness of reason and judgment, you would take her for the queen of an allegory:  one dreads its finishing, as much as a lover, if she would admit one, would wish it should finish.  In short, Madam, though you are the last person that will believe it, France is so agreeable, and England so much the reverse, that I don’t know when I shall return.