I flatter myself you will like my sandals: they are my own invention, and my foot really shows them to advantage. You know I might say, as Du P----said of himself, “J’ai un pied dont la petitesse échappe à la vitesse de la pensée.” I thought my poor friend Mad. Dumarais would have died with envy, the other day, when I appeared in them at her ball, which, by-the-bye, was in all its decorations as absurd and in as bad taste as usual. For the most part these _nouveaux riches_ lavish money, but can never purchase taste or a sense of propriety. All is gold: but that is not enough; or rather that is too much. In spite of all that both the Indies, China, Arabia, Egypt, and even Paris can do for them, they will be ever out of place, in the midst of their magnificence: they will never even know how to ruin themselves nobly. They must live and die as they were born, ridiculous. Now I would rather not exist than feel myself ridiculous. But I believe no one living, not even le petit d’Heronville, knows himself to be an object of ridicule. There are no looking-glasses for the mind, and I question whether we should use them if there were. D’Heronville is just as you left him, and as much my amusement as he used to be yours. He goes on with an eternal galimatias of patriotism, with such a self-sufficient air and decided tone! never suspecting that he says only what other people make him say, and that he is listened to, only to find out what _some people_ think. Many will say before fools, what they would not hazard before wise men; not considering that fools can repeat as well as parrots. I once heard a great man remark, that the only spies fit to be trusted are those who do not know themselves to be such; who have no salary but what their vanity pays them, and who are employed without being accredited. But trève de politique!--My charming Olivia, I know, abhors politics, as much as I detest metaphysics, from all lips or pens but hers. Now I must tell you something of your friends here. O---- talks nonsense as agreeably as ever, and dances as divinely. ‘Tis a pity he cannot always dance, for then he would not ruin himself at play. He wants me to get him a regiment--as if I had any power!--or as if I would use it for this purpose, when I knew that my interesting friend Mad. Q----would break her poor little heart if he were to quit her. _Mon Coeur_ is as pretty as ever; but she is now in affliction. She has lost her dear little dog Corisonde. He died suddenly; almost in her arms! She will erect a monument to him in her charming _jardin Anglois_. This will occupy her, and then “Time, the comforter”--Inimitable Voltaire!