"Our new Guests will make better sport: they are going to have their Comedy acted again [Comedy of THE EXCHANGE, much an entertainment with them]: Vanture [conceivable, not known] is to do the Count de Boursoufle (DE BLISTER or DE WINDBAG); you will not say this is a hit, any more than Madame du Chatelet's doing the Hon. Miss Piggery (LA COCHONNIERE), who ought to be fat and short."[L'ECHANGE, The Exchange, or WHEN SHALL I GET NARRIED? Farce in three acts: OEuvres, x. 167-222; used to be played at Cirey and elsewhere (see plenty of details upon it, exact or not quite so, IB. 7-9).]--Little De Staal then abruptly breaks off, to ask about her Correspondent's health, and her Correspondent's friend old President Henault's health; touches on those "grumblings and discords in the Army (TRACASSERIES DE L'ARMEE)," which are making such astir; how M. d'Argenson, our fine War-Minister, man of talent amid blockheads, will manage them; and suddenly exclaims:
"O my queen, what curious animals men and women are! I laugh at their manoeuvres, the days when I have slept well; if I have missed sleep, I could kill them. These changes of temper prove that I do not break off kind. Let us mock other people, and let other people mock us; it is well done on both sides.--[Poor little De Staal:
to what a posture have things come with you, in that fast-rotting Epoch, of Hypocrisies becoming all insolvent!]
"WEDNESDAY, 16th. Our Ghosts do not show themselves by daylight.
They appeared yesterday at ten in the evening; I do not think we shall see them sooner to-day: the one is engaged in writing high feats [SIECLE DE LOUIS XV., or what at last became such]; the other in commenting Newton. They will neither play nor walk: they are, in fact, equivalent to ZEROS in a society where their learned writings are of no significance.--[Pauses, without notice given: for some hours, perhaps days; then resuming:] Nay, worse still:
their apparition to-night has produced a vehement declamation on one of our little social diversions here, the game of CAVAGNOLE:
["Kind of BIRIBI," it would appear; in the height of fashion then.]
it was continued and maintained," on the part of Madame du Chatelet, you guess, "in a tone which is altogether unheard of in this place; and was endured," on the part of Serene Highness, "with a moderation not less surprising. But what is unendurable is my babble"-- And herewith our nimble little woman hops off again into the general field of things; and gossips largely, How are you, my queen, Whither are you going, Whither we; That the Maillebois people are away, and also the Villeneuves, if anybody knew them now; then how the Estillacs, to the number of four, are coming to-morrow; and Cousin Soquence, for all his hunting, can catch nothing; and it is a continual coming and going; and how Boursoufle is to be played, and a Dame Dufour is just come, who will do a character. Rubrics, vanished Shadows, nearly all those high Dames and Gentlemen; LA PAUVRE Saint-Pierre, "eaten with gout," who is she? "Still drags herself about, as well as she can; but not with me, for I never go by land, and she seems to have the hydrophobia, when I take to the water. [Thread of date is gone! I almost think we must have got to Saturday by this time:--or perhaps it is only Thursday, and Maillebois off prematurely, to be out of the way of the Farce? Little De Staal takes no notice; but continues gossiping rapidly:]
"Yesterday Madame du Chatelet got into her third lodging: she could not any longer endure the one she had chosen. There was noise in it, smoke without fire:--privately meseems, a little the emblem of herself! As to noise, it was not by night that it incommoded her, she told me, but by day, when she was in the thick of her work:
it deranges her ideas. She is busy reviewing her PRINCIPLES"--NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA, no doubt, but De Staal will understand it only as PRINCIPES, Principles in general:--"it is an exercise she repeats every year, without which the Principles might get away, and perhaps go so far she would never find them again [You satirical little gypsy!]. Her head, like enough, is a kind of lock-up for them, rather than a birthplace, or natural home:
and that is a case for watching carefully lest they get away.
She prefers the high air of this occupation to every kind of amusement, and persists in not showing herself till after dark.
Voltaire has produced some gallant verses [unknown to Editors]
which help off a little the bad effect of such unusual behavior.
"SUNDAY, 27th. I told you on Thursday [no, you did n't; you only meant to tell] that our Spectres were going on the morrow, and that the Piece was to be played that evening: all this has been done.
I cannot give you much of Boursoufle [done by one Vanture].
Mademoiselle Piggery [DE LA COCHONNIERE, Madame du Chatelet herself] executed so perfectly the extravagance of her part, that Iown it gave me real pleasure. But Vanture only put his own fatuity into the character of Boursoufle, which wanted more: he played naturally in a Piece where all requires to be forced, like the subject of it."--What a pity none of us has read this fine Farce!
