George Selwyn : $b His letters and his lifeSelwyn, George Augustus
History
George Selwyn : $b His letters and his life
Selwyn, George Augustus
Selwyn, George Augustus, 1719-1791; Selwyn, George Augustus, 1719-1791 -- Correspondence
(270) Marie Charlotte Hippolyte de Saujon, Comtesse de
Boufflers-Rouvel (1724-1800). One of those remarkable women who in
Paris at the end of the eighteenth century united a love of
intellect and literature with a pleasure in society. After being
left a widow in 1764, she lived with the Prince de Conti. She was a
friend of Hume and Rousseau, the rival of Mme. du Deffand. Her salon
in the Temple was a meeting-place for a singular variety of persons,
among whom she was known as Minerva the Wise. Her daughter-in-law,
the Comtesse Emilie de Boufflers, was guillotined in 1794. She
herself was imprisoned, but was released after the death of
Robespierre.
(271) The Due de Luxembourg and his family escaped with difficulty
to England, 300,000 livres being set on his head. He arrived in
London July 19, 1789.
(272) Sylvester Douglas, Lord Glenbervie.
(1789, Nov.?) 19, Thursday night, Richmond.--I left London to come
here to-day to dinner, as I have told you that I should, but I did
not come away till I had seen Miss Gunning,(273) who told me that
she should write to your Ladyship either to-day or to-morrow. I
found her gaie, fraiche, contente, and writing a letter, and when I
began by saying, "So you persist then in leaving this very pretty
room," she smiled. I think that she is perfectly satisfied with the
option she has made, and I really think that she has reason to be
so, toutes choses bien considerees. If I had been a woman, and could
not have been my own mistress, I should have preferred subjection to
a husband, whom I approved of, to a Queen (sic). We talked a great
deal of the menage, and I am to take my chair and have my convert
there when I please; and it is (a) stipulation that not a petit pot
is to be added on my account. She is to be married, I find, at the
beginning of the new year, and she is to have immediately four
children, three boys and one girl. I should on her account have
liked it as well if she had begun sur nouveaux frais; but, it not
being so, I think that the three boys and one girl is a better
circumstance than if there had been more girls. He is really, as far
as I can judge of him, a very worthy man, and I believe will make
her a very good husband, and I have no doubt but that she will
receive from his family as much regard and attention as any other
woman would have had. When I left St. James's, I went in search of
Me de Boufflers, and found her at Grenier's Hotel, which looks to me
more like an hospital than anything else. Such rooms, such a crowd
of miserable wretches, escaped from plunder and massacre, and Me de
Boufflers among them with I do not know how many beggars in her
suite, her belle fille (qui n'est pas belle, par parenthese), the
Comtesse Emilie, a maid with the little child in her arms, a boy,
her grandson, called Le Chevalier de Cinque minutes, I cannot
explain to you why; a pretty fair child, just inoculated who does
not as yet know so much French as I do, but understood me, and was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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