The want of horses here was but a prelude to what we were to meet further on, for at Grenade we found that two carriages, which had preceded us, were waiting for the return of the postilions from Aire: so to make the best of it, we ordered our dinner and strolled out to the bridge over the Adoure, where we amused ourselves by talking all the nonsense that came into our heads, and watching some washerwomen washing sheets in the stream below. They do it with extreme dexterity, taking the largest sheet one can imagine, and after having folded it in their hands, with one sweep extend it flat upon the surface of the river; they then dip the end next them, and catching a little of the water pass it rapidly over the whole by drawing the sheet quickly to the bank. After having watched this proceeding for some time, we returned to dinner, which consisted principally of the legs of geese salted, a favourite dish all over this part of France; and then amused ourselves by scrutinizing the antics of a large black monkey in the inn-yard. I have an invincible hatred towards a monkey. It is too like humanity--a sort of caricature that nature has set up, to mock us little lords of creation. To see all its manlike, gentlemanlike ways of going on, gave me a bitter sense of humiliation. It is very odd, that we should thus dislike our next link in the grand chain of the universe. A PRIME MINISTER'S MONKEY. Il mio cuore gl'inalza un monumento dentro me stesso, tanto durevole quanto la mia vita. Aveva egli della bonta per me: ma e per chi mai non ne avea? GANGANELLI. Several years ago I went one day to dine with the Duc de R----. The world say that he was not the greatest of ministers, but he was much more--he was the most amiable of men. However, that does not signify, he is dead now: and if politicians have forgotten him, he at least made himself a memory in the affection of the good, and the gratitude of the poor. He lived at that time in the Rue de Bac; and as I knew him to be punctual, I got into the cabriolet exactly at nine minutes and three quarters before the time he had appointed; for I calculated that it would take me just so long to drive from the end of the Rue de la Paix to the Rue de Bac, allowing one minute for a stoppage, and half a minute for a call I had to make at ---- It does not signify where, for surely much mischief could not be done in half a minute.