You have indeed surprised me by your account of the strange credulity of poor King Louis’s escape in safety!  In these villages we heard of his flight late in the evening, and, the very next morning, of his being retaken.(814) Much as he, at least the Queen, has suffered, I am persuaded the adventure has hastened general confusion, and will increase the royal party; though perhaps their Majesties, for their personal safeties, had better have awaited the natural progress of anarchy.  The enormous deficiencies of money, and the total insubordination of the army, both apparent and uncontradicted, from the reports made to the National Assembly, show what is Coming.  Into what such a chaos will Subside, it would be silly to attempt to guess.  Perhaps it is not wiser in the exiles to expect to live to see a resettlement in their favour.  One thing I have for these two years thought probable to arrive—­a division, at least, a dismemberment of France.  Despotism could no longer govern so unwieldy a machine; a republic would be still less likely to hold it together.  If foreign powers should interfere, they will take care to pay themselves with what is `a leur biensance; and that, in reality, would be serving France too.  So much for my speculations! and they have never varied.  We are so far from intending to new-model our government and dismiss the Royal Family, annihilate the peerage, cashier the hierarchy, and lay open the land to the first occupier, as Dr. Priestley, and Tom Paine, and the Revolution Club humbly proposed, that we are even encouraging the breed of princes.  It is generally believed that the Duke of York is going to marry the Princess of Prussia, the King’s daughter by his first wife, and his favourite child.  I do not affirm it; but many others do.(815)

Thursday night, late.

Lady Di. has told me an extraordinary fact.  Catherine Slay-Czar sent for Mr. Fawkener(816) and desired he will order for her a bust of Charles Fox; and she will place it between Demosthenes and Cicero (pedantry she learnt from her French authors, and which our schoolboys would be above using); for his eloquence has saved two great nations from a war—­by his opposition to it, s’entend:  so the peace is no doubt made.  She could not have addressed her compliment worse than to Mr. Fawkener, sent by Mr. Pitt, and therefore so addressed; and who of all men does not love Mr. Fox, and Mr. Fox who has no vainglory, will not care a straw for the flattery, and will understand it too.  Good night!

(812) The Honourable Septimus West, uncle of the present Earl of Delawarr.  He died of consumption in October 1793.

(813) The great dinner at the Crown and Anchor tavern, in celebration of the anniversary of the French revolution.-E.

(814) The flight of the Royal Family of France to, and return from, Varennes.

(815) The marriage of the Duke of York with Frederica Charlotte Ulrica Catherine, eldest daughter of the King of Prussia, was solemnized, first in Prussia, on the 29th of September, and again in England, on the 23d of November, 1791.  For Walpole’s account of her Royal Highness’s visit to Strawberry Hill, see his letter to the Miss Berrys of the 25th of September, 1793.-E.