Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth/Volume 2/Letter 5

To MRS. RUXTON.

PARIS, Nov. 1820.

Never lose another night's sleep, or another moment's thought on the Quarterly Review &mdash;I have never read and never will read it.

I write this merely to tell you that I have at last had the pleasure of seeing Madame la Comtesse de Vaudreuil, the daughter of your friend; she is an exceedingly pleasing woman, of high fashion, with the remains of great beauty, courteous and kind to us beyond all expectation. She had but a few days in Paris, and she made out two for us; she took us to the Conciergerie to see, by lamp-light, the dungeons where the poor Queen and Madame Elizabeth were confined, now fitted up as little chapels. In the Queen's is an altar inscribed with her letter to the King, expressing forgiveness of her enemies. Tears streamed from the eyes of the young Countess de Vaudreuil, the daughter-in-law, as she looked at this altar, and the place where the Queen's bed was. Who do you think accompanied us to this place? Lady Beauchamp, Lady Longford's mother, a great friend of Madame de Vaudreuil's, with whom we dined the next day, and who had procured for us the Duc de Choiseul's box at the Théâtre Français, when the house was to be uncommonly crowded to see Mademoiselle Duchenois in Athalie "avec tous les choeurs," and a most striking spectacle it was! I had never seen Mademoiselle Duchenois to perfection before.