to the mistress,--I mean the disgrace of her brother, the Prince of Beauvau, which happened during this journey of mine to Paris; and of which I was in a situation of knowing many secret particulars, Madame du Deffand being the confidant both of the brother and sister, as she had been before their rupture, continuing loyal to both sides, and by both esteemed as a woman void of intrigue. As they supped alternately at her house several times in a week, and as her friendship for me induced her to insist on my being admitted to their most private conferences, I was privy to the effusions of both parties: and, indeed, they had so little reserve before me, that one evening the Prince and Princess of Beauvau were so explicit on their situation and enemies, that I felt uneasy, and thinking myself an improper auditor of such secrets, I begged permission to retire, but the Princess reproved me sensibly, saying, “Your thinking these things improper for you to hear, is telling us that they are improper for us to speak.” I have already given the character of that Princess, and mentioned how deeply she had been concerned in the disgrace of the Duc de Choiseul, in whose fall she involved herself and her husband, who was a man of honour, very confined in his understanding, and acquired accomplishments, which were restrained to a pedantic purity in his own language, and who was a mixture of bashfulness and frankness, with signal courage and unbounded pride. To introduce his story, I must revert to the situation of his friend, the late Minister.