Madamede GENLIs discussed.

Windsor, Monday Evening.-Madame de la Fite, who calls upon me daily, though I am commonly so much engaged I can scarce speak to her for a moment, came to desire I would let her bring me M. Argant,(215) who was come to Windsor to show some experiment to the king.

Madame de la Fite has long pressed me with great earnestness to write to Madame de Genlis, whose very elegant little note to me I never have answered.  Alas! what can I do?  I think of her as of one of the first among women—­I see her full of talents and of charms—­I am willing to believe her good, virtuous, and dignified;—­yet, with all this, the cry against her is so violent and so universal, and my belief in her innocence is wholly unsupported by proof in its favour, or any other argument than internal conviction, from what I observed of her conduct and manners and conversation when I saw her in London, that I know not how to risk a correspondence with her, till better able to satisfy others, as well as I am satisfied Myself:  most especially, I dare not enter into such an intercourse through Madame de la Fite, whose indiscreet zeal for us both would lead her to tell her successful mediation to everybody she could make hear her.  Already she has greatly distressed me upon this subject.  Not content with continual importunity to me to write, ever since my arrival, which I have evaded as gently as possible, to avoid giving her my bumiliating reasons, she has now written Madame de Genlis word that I am here, belonging to the same royal household as herself; and then came to tell me, that as we were now so closely connected, she proposed our writing jointly, in the same letter.

All this, with infinite difficulty, I passed over,—­pleading my little time; which indeed she sees is true.  But when M. Argant was here, she said to me, in French, “M.  Argant will imme-

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diately wait upon Madame de Genlis, for he is going to Paris; he will tell her he saw us together, and he will carry her a letter’ from me; and surely Miss Burney will not refuse M. Argant the happiness of carrying two lines from one lady so celebrated to another?” I was quite vexed; a few lines answer the same purpose as a few sheets; since, once her correspondent, all that I am hesitating about is as completely over, right or wrong, as if I wrote to her weekly.

As soon as they left me, I hastened to my dear Mrs. Delany, to consult with her what to do.  “By all means,” cried she, “tell the affair of your difficulties whether to write to her or not, to the queen :  it will unavoidably spread, if you enter into such a correspondence, and the properest step you can take, the safest and the happiest, is to have her opinion, and be guided by it.  Madame de Genlis is so public a character, you can hardly correspond with her in private, and it would be better the queen should hear of such an intercourse from yourself than from any other.”