This queen could never please women, because she despised them one and all. PARIS, 1718. My last letters from England are to the 16th of January; everything is in a sad state there. They say in Paris that the refugees are doing their best to excite the king and the Prince of Wales against each other in the hope that a regent may be chosen by the parliament, and that the country will thus escape the authority of the prince. That seems very likely to be true; but it also seems to me that father and son ought to perceive the scheme and thus be led to reconciliation with each other; if not, great evils will result. There is no motive in the world which can justify a son in not submitting to a father, and when, moreover, that father is his king. I believe there has never existed any tenderness between them; our dear Electress used to say it was the son who was in fault. The dear Princess of Wales inspires me with such compassion that yesterday I wept over her. Her departure from Saint James' palace as Countess of Buckenburg [_sic_] was described to me; it was truly deplorable; she fainted several times when her three little princes, all in tears, took leave of her; that touched me deeply. The King of England, if I may dare to say so, treats her too harshly. She has done nothing to justify his forbidding her to see her children, whom she loves with such tenderness. Where can they be better brought up than beside so sensible and virtuous a mother? According to my ideas, the whole thing is very blamable. King George was always an artful, dissimulating egoist. I have known that for a long time. Whatever marks of friendship I gave him he never gave me any sign of confidence, and sometimes would scarcely speak to me. I had to drag his words from him, one by one, which is a very unpleasant thing to do; he is completely devoid of good natural feelings. I am not surprised that he takes no notice of you. He cares for no one; but it happens to him, as it does to such people, that in return nobody cares for him. He piques himself on not being civil; I saw this by the manners of those who frequented his Court in Hanover. It is not possible to meet any one more sulky and surly than young Count Platten; if he had not been warmly recommended to me by my aunt, and if his father and mother had not been my good friends, I would have let him be put in a place where he would have had time to make reflections and learn how to live; he fully deserved the Bastille, but serious reasons led me to save him. PARIS, 1718. My Lorraine children have arrived; my daughter was beside herself with an excess of joy. I do not find her much changed, but her husband is, dreadfully. He used to have a fine skin and now he has turned to a red-brown and he is stouter than my son. I can say now that my children are fatter than I.