I was afraid of her importuning Madame Ailesbury, who has a vast deal to see and do, and, therefore, I prepared Madame du Deffand, and told her Lady Ailesbury loves amusements, and that, having never been at Paris before, she must not confine her:  so you must pay for both—­and it will answer:  and- I do not, I own, ask this Only for Madame du Deffand’s sake, but for my own, and a little for yours.  Since the late King’s death she has not dared to write to me freely, and I want to know the present state of ’France exactly, both to satisfy my Own curiosity, and for her sake, as- I wish to learn whether her, pension, etc. is in any danger from the present ministry, some of whom are not her friends.  She can tell you a great deal if she will—­by that I don’t mean that she is reserved, or partial to, her Own country against ours—­quite the contrary; she loves me better than all France together—­but she hates politics; and therefore, to make her talk on it, you must tell her it is to satisfy me, and that I want to know whether she is well at court, whether she has any fears from the government, particularly Maurepas and Nivernois:  and that I am eager to have Monsieur do Choiseul and ma grandmaman, the Duchess, restored to power.  If you take it on this foot easily, she will talk to you with the utmost frankness and with amazing cleverness.  I have told her you are strangely absent, and that, if she does not repeat it over and over, you will forget every syllable; so I have prepared her to joke and be quite familiar with you at once.(133) She knows more of personal characters, and paints them better, than any body:  but let this be between ourselves, for I would not have a living soul suspect, that I get any intelligence from her, which would hurt her; and, therefore, I beg you not to let any human being know of this letter, nor of your conversation with her, neither English nor French.

Madame du Deffand hates les philosophes; so you must give them up to her.  She and Madame Geoffrin are no friends:  so, if you go thither, don’t tell her of it.  Indeed, you would be sick of that house, whither all pretended beaux esprits and faux savants go, and where they are very impertinent and dogmatic.

Let me give you one other caution, which I shall give to Lady Ailesbury too.  Take care of your papers at Paris, and have a very strong lock to your porte-feuille.  In the h`otels garnis they have double keys to every lock, and examine every drawer and paper of the English they can get at.  They will pilfer, too, whatever they can.  I was robbed of half my clothes there the first time, and they wanted to hang poor Louis to save the people of the house who had stolen the things.

Here is another thing I must say.  Madame du Deffand has kept a great many of my letters, and, as she is very old, I am in pain about them.  I have written to her to beg she will deliver them up to you to bring back to me, and I trust she Will.(134) If she does, be so good to take great care of them.  If she does not mention them, tell her before you come away, that I begged you to bring them; and if she hesitates, convince her how it would hurt me to have letters written in very bad French, and mentioning several people, both French and English, fall into bad hands, and, perhaps, be printed.