Paris was no more able to resist her than London. "Votre milady Sarah a en un succes prodigieux; toute notre belle jeunesse en a eu la tete tournee, sans la trouver fort jolie, toutes les principantes et les divinites du temple l'ont recherchee avec une grande emulation. Je ne l'ai point vue assez de suite pour avoir pu bien demeler ce qu'on doit pensez d'elle; je la trouve aimable, elle est douce, vive et polie. Dans notre nation elle passerait pour etre coquette. Je ne crois pas qu'elle le soit; elle aime a se divertir; elle a pu etre flattee de tous les empressements qu'on lui a marquees, et je soupconne qu'elle s'y est livree plus pour l'apparence que par un gout veritable. Je lui ai soupconne quelques motifs cachees, et je lui crois assez d'esprit pour avoir trouve nos jeunes gens bien sots. Si vous etes de ses amies, elle vous dira ce qui en est."* * "Correspondance complete du Mme. du Deffand," vol. i. P87. The letters for the succeeding year contain frequent references to Carlisle's youthful passion. Lord Holland had taken his family abroad, and Charles James Fox, whose brilliant public career Carlisle had foretold in verse at Eton, was a congenial companion during a part of his continental travels. Carlisle at this epoch of his life is an interesting study. Here is a boy of nineteen voluntarily leaving home because of a fascinating woman; he is anxiously awaiting the delayed green ribbon, and his investiture by the King of Sardinia. He is in close association with the foremost men of that and a later day. For three days he is crossing the Alps, a journey filled with as many hopes or fears of adventure as could have befallen one a century earlier. At the time when the correspondence begins, Selwyn's friend, the third Duke of Grafton, was virtually Prime Minister, or as it was then termed, "principal Minister," for the personal ministerial responsibility of the head of the Government was, in the days of Chatham, Grafton, and North, less distinct and less recognised than in the nineteenth century. Chatham still held the office of Lord Privy Seal, which he had accepted on the formation of his Ministry in 1766. But by this time ill-health had rendered him unable to take any part in public affairs. In October, 1768, Chatham resigned office, and Grafton became the recognised head of a Ministry the policy of which he was incapable either of formulating or directing; and when in January, 1770, Grafton resigned office and handed over the Ministry to Lord North, it released him from a trying and irksome position. Kindly and shrewd in worldly affairs, and well intentioned as a politician, but wholly lacking in strength of purpose, the third Duke of Grafton was a man who obtained the goodwill and lost the respect of his contemporaries. Between Selwyn and him there existed a cordial friendship, of which there are many evidences in these letters.