Madame Roland has sent to me, by Lady Jerningham,(942) to beg my works.  She shall certainly have them when I return to England; but how comes she to forget that you and I are friends? or does she think that all Englishmen quarrel on party?  If she does, methinks she is a good deal in the right, and it is one of the reasons why I have bid adieu to politics, that I may not be expected to love those I hate, and hate those I love.  I supped last night with the Duchess de Choiseul, and saw a magnificent robe she is to wear to-day for a great wedding between a Biron(943) and a Boufflers.  It is of blue satin, embroidered all over in mosaic, diamond-wise, with gold:  in every diamond is a silver star edged with gold, and surrounded with spangles in the same way; it is trimmed with double sables, crossed with frogs and tassels of gold; her head, neck, breast, and arms, covered with diamonds.  She will be quite the fairy queen, for it is the prettiest little reasonable amiable Titania you ever saw; but Oberon does not love it.  He prefers a great mortal Hermione his sister.  I long to hear that you are lodged in Arlington-street, and invested with your green livery; and I love Lord Beaulieu for his cudom.  Adieu!

(942) Mary, eldest daughter, and eventually heiress, of Francis Plowden, Esq. by Mary eldest daughter of the Hon. John Stafford Howard, younger son of the unfortunate Lord Stafford, wife of sir George Jerningham.-E.

(943) The Duc de Lauzun, who upon the death of his uncle, the Mar`echal de Biron, became Duc de Biron, married the heiress and only child of the Duc de Boufflers, who died at Genoa.  The marriage proved an unhappy one, and the Duchess twice took refuge in England at the breaking out of the French revolution; but having, in 1793, unadvisedly returned to Paris, she perished on the scaffold in one of the bloody proscriptions of Robespierre.  At the beginning of that revolution, the Duke espoused the popular cause, and even commanded an army under the orders of the legislative assembly; but in the storms that succeeded, being altogether unequal to stem the torrent of popular fury or direct its course, he fell by the guillotine early in 1794.-E.

Letter 295 To George Montagu, Esq.  Paris, Sunday, Feb. 23. (page 470)

I cannot know that you are in my house, and not say, you are welcome.  Indeed you are, and I am heartily glad you are pleased there.  I have neither matter nor time for more, as I have heard of an opportunity of sending this away immediately with some other letters.  News do not happen here as in London; the Parliaments meet, draw up a remonstrance, ask a day for presenting it, have the day named a week after, and so forth.  At their rate of going on, if Methusalem was first president, he would not see the end of a single question.  As your histories are somewhat more precipitate, I wait for their coming to some settlement, and then will return; but, if the old ministers are to be replaced, Bastille for Bastille, I think I had rather stay where I am.  I am not half so much afraid of any power, as the French are of Mr. Pitt.  Adieu!