_P. S._ I have not seen the Marquis for several days. He had informed me, at our very first meeting, that he was paying his court to a young lady of family, at his mother’s desire, who was impatient to see him married. He said, he could refuse his mother nothing, parcequ’elle étoit le meilleur enfant du monde: Besides, he said, the young lady was very pretty and agreeable, and he was over head and ears in love with her. He has told me since, that every thing was arranged, and he expected to be in a short time the happiest man in the world, and would have the honour of presenting me to his bride very soon. I shall let you know my opinion of the lady when I see her—But let her be what she will, I am sorry that F—— thinks of marrying so early in life; for a Frenchman of five and twenty, is not quite so sedate an animal as an Englishman of fifteen. LETTER VIII. Paris. There is an absolute penury of public news. I have nothing particular to inform you of concerning myself; but you hold me to my engagement: So here I am seated to write to you, without having as yet determined upon a subject, in hopes, however, that my pen may gather materials as it moves. In whatever light this prejudice in favour of monarchy may appear to the eye of philosophy; and though of all passions the love of a King, merely because he is a King, is perhaps the silliest; yet it surely ought to be considered as meritorious by those who are the objects of it. No people existing, or who did ever exist, have had so just a claim to the gratitude and affections of their sovereign, as the French. They rejoice in his joy, are grieved at his grief, proud of his power, vain of his accomplishments, indulgent to his failings. They cheerfully yield their own conveniences to his superfluities, and are at all times willing to sacrifice their lives for his glory. A King, one would imagine, must be a perfect monster of selfishness and insensibility, who did not love such subjects, and who did not bestow some time and attention to promote their happiness: Yet the French nation has not had a Monarch worthy of all this regard since the days of Henry IV. and of all their kings they used him the worst. Of the three brothers who immediately preceded him, the first was a sickly creature, as feeble in mind as in body; the second, a monster of superstition and cruelty; and the third, after a dawn of some brightness, allowed his meridian to be obscured by the grossest clouds of effeminacy and voluptuousness. Their Italian mother, who governed all the three, seems to have been perfectly unrestrained by any feelings of humanity or of conscience, and solely guided by motives of interest, and the most perfidious policy. The princes who have succeeded, as well as those who reigned before the fourth Henry, serve as foils which display his bright qualities with double lustre.