(221) Now first printed.  This elegant and fashionable actress was born in 1735, quitted the stage in 1799, and died in 1815.-E.

Letter 96 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  Paris, Sept 8, 1775. (page 140)

The delays of the post, and its departure before its arrival, saved me some days of anxiety for Lady Ailesbury, and prevented my telling you how concerned I am for her accident; though I trust, by this time, she has not even pain left.  I feel the horror you must have felt during her suffering in the dark, and on the sight of her arm;(222) and though nobody admires her needlework more than I, still I am rejoiced that it will be the greatest sufferer.  However, I am very impatient for a farther account.  Madame du Deffand, who, you know, never loves her friends by halves, and whose impatience never allows itself time to inform itself, was out of her wits, because I could not explain exactly how the accident happened, and where.  She wanted to write directly, though the post was just gone; and, as soon as I could make her easy about the accident, she fell into a new distress about her fans for Madame de Marchais, and concludes they have been overturned, and broken too.  In short, I never saw any thing like her.  She has made engagements for me till Monday se’nnight; in which are included I don’t know how many journeys into the country; and as nobody ever leaves her without her engaging them for another time, all these parties will be so many polypuses, that will shoot out into new ones every way.  Madame de Jonsac,(223) a great friend of mine, arrived the day before yesterday, and Madame du Deffand has pinned her down to meeting me at her house four times before next Tuesday, all parentheses, that are not to interfere with our other suppers; and from those suppers I never get to bed before two or three o’clock.  In short, I need have the activity of a squirrel, and the strength of a Hercules, to go through my labours—­not to count how many d`em`el`es I have had to raccommode, and how many m`emoires to present against Tonton,(224) who grows the greater favourite the more people he devours.  As I am the only person who dare correct him, I have already insisted on his being confined in the Bastile every day to after five o’clock.  T’other night he flew at Lady Barrymore’s face, and I thought would have torn her eye out; but it ended in biting her finger.  She was terrified:  she fell into tears.  Madame du Deffand, who has too much parts not to see every thing in its true light, perceiving that she had not beaten Tonton half enough, immediately told us a story of a lady, whose dog, having bitten a piece out of a gentleman’s leg, the tender dame in a great fright, cried out, “Won’t it make my dog sick?”

Lady Barrymore(225) has taken a house.  She will be glutted with conquests:  I never saw any body so much admired.  I doubt her poor little head will be quite overset.