The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Volume 1Edgeworth, Maria
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The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Volume 1
Edgeworth, Maria
Edgeworth, Maria, 1768-1849; Novelists, Irish -- 19th century -- Biography
We are now, my dear Aunt Mary, in a magnificent hotel in the fine
square, formerly Place Louis Quinze, afterwards Place de la Revolution,
and now Place de la Concorde. Here the guillotine was once at work night
and day; and here died Louis Seize, and Marie Antoinette, and Madame
Roland: opposite to us is the Seine and _La Lanterne._ On one side of
this square are the Champs Élysées.
_To_ MRS. MARY SNEYD.
PARIS, RUE DE LILLE,
_Oct. 31, 1802._
I left off at the Hôtel de Courlande. We were told there was a fine view
of Paris from the leads; and so indeed there is, and the first object
that struck us was the Telegraph at work! The first _voiture de remise_
(job-coach in plain English) into which we got, belonged to--whom do you
think?--to the Princess Elizabeth. The Abbé Edgeworth had probably been
in this very coach with her. The master of this house was one of the
King's guards, a Swiss. Our apartments are all on one floor. The day
after our arrival M. Delessert, he whom M. Pictet describes as a French
Rumford, invited us to spend the evening with his mother and sister. We
went: found an excellent house, a charming family, with whom we felt we
were perfectly acquainted after we had been in the room with them for
five minutes. Madame Delessert, [Footnote: The benevolence of the
generous Madame Delessert is said to be depicted in one of the stories
in Berquin's _Ami des Enfans._] the mother, an elderly lady of about
sixty, has the species of politeness and conversation that my Aunt
Ruxton has: I need not say how much I like her. Her daughter, Madame
Gautier, has fine large black eyes, very obliging and sensible, well
dressed, not at all naked: people need not be naked here unless they
choose it. Rousseau's _Letters on Botany_ were written for this lady; he
was a friend of the family. She has two fine children of eight and ten,
to whose education she devotes her time and talents. Her second brother,
François Delessert, about twenty, was educated chiefly by her, and does
her great credit, and what is better for her, is extremely fond of her:
he seems the darling of his mother, _François mon fils_ she calls him
every minute. In his countenance and manners he is something like Henry;
he has that sober kind of cheerfulness, that ingenuous openness, and
that modest, gentlemanlike ease which pleases without effort, and
without bustle. Madame Gautier does not live at Paris, but at a country
house at Passy, the Richmond of Paris, about two miles out of town. She
invited us to spend a day there, and a most pleasant day we passed. The
situation beautiful, the house furnished with elegance and good sense,
the society most agreeable. M. Delessert _père_, an old sensible man,
the rest of the family, and Madame de Pastoret, [Footnote: Madame de
Pastoret is the "Madame de Fleury" of Miss Edgeworth's story. She first
established infant schools in France.] a literary and fashionable lady,
with something of Mrs. Saunderson's best style of conversation: M. de
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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