Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 1/Letter 38

R.L. EDGEWORTH to MISS CHARLOTTE SNEYD.

PARIS, Nov. 18, 1802.

Maria told you of M. and Madame de Pastoret; in the same house on another floor&mdash;for different families here have entire "apartments," you observe the word, in one house&mdash;we met M. and Madame Suard: he is accounted one of the most refined critics of Paris, and has for many years been at the head of newspapers of different denominations; at present he is at the head of La Publiciste. He is prudent, highly informed, not only in books, but in the politics of different states and the characters of men in all the different countries of Europe. Madame Suard has the remains of much beauty, a belle esprit, and aims at singularity and independence of sentiment. Would you believe it, Mr. Day paid his court to her thirty years ago? She is very civil to us, and we go to their house once a week: literati frequent it, and to each of them she has something to say.

At Madame de Pastoret's we met M. Degerando and M. Camille Jordan. Not Camille de Jourdan, the assassin, nor Camille Desmoulins, another assassin, nor General Jourdan, another assassin, but a young man of agreeable manners, gentle disposition, and much information; he lives near Paris, with his Pylades Degerando, who is also a man of much information, married to a pretty sprightly domestic woman, who nurses her child in earnest. Camille Jordan has written an admirably eloquent pamphlet on the choice of Buonaparte as first consul for life; it was at first forbidden, but the Government wisely recollected that to forbid is to excite curiosity. We three have had profound metaphysical conferences in which we have avoided contest and have generally ended by being of the same opinion. We went, by appointment, to Madame Campan's&mdash;she keeps the greatest boarding-school in France&mdash;to meet Madame Recamier, the beautiful lady who had been nearly squeezed to death in London. How we liked the school and its conductress, who professes to follow Practical Education, I leave to Maria to tell you. How we like Madame Recamier is easily told; she is certainly handsome, but there is nothing noble in her appearance; she was very civil. M. de Prony, who is at the head of the Engineers des Ponts et Chaussées&mdash;civil engineers&mdash;was introduced to us by Mr. Watt. I forgot to speak of him; he has just left Paris. M. de Prony showed us models and machines which would have delighted William. M. l'Abbé Morellet's niece next engaged our attention; she and her husband came many leagues to see us; and we met also Madame de Vergennes, Madame de Remusat, and Madame Nansoutit, all people of knowledge and charming manners. Madame Lavoisier and the Countess Massulski, General Kosciusko, Prince Jablounski, and Princess Jablounska, and two other Princesses, I leave to Maria. Mons. Edelcrantz, private secretary to the King of Sweden; Mons. Eisenman, a German; Mons. Geofrat, the guardian from Egypt of the Kings of Chaldea and seven Ibises; Mons. de Montmorenci&mdash;that great name: the Abbé Sicard, who dines here to-morrow; Mons. Pang, Mons. Bertrant, Mons. Milan, Mons. Dupont, Mons. Bareuil the illuminati man, and Mr. Bilsbury, I leave to her and Charlotte.