1818] Dancing Lessons 115 



Elizabeth Wedgwood to her brother Harry Wedgwood. 



HOTEL DU MONT BLANC, RUE DE LA PAIX, 



April 8, 1818. 



. . . We are grown very grand people, we have been in 

 company with a Queen, sitting quite at our ease as if we 

 were as good as she, and not even rising when she came in 

 and went out. It was at Mme Recamier's, 1 to whom we 

 had letters from Miss Edgeworth, and she has been remark- 

 ably civil to us. She asked the Queen of Sweden on purpose 

 for us to see her and offered to present Mamma, but she 

 would not accept the honour. The Queen is a very plain 

 little woman, in a large bonnet and shawl. Mamma sat by 

 a very merry lady who has taken a fancy to her and is coming 

 to visit her. M. Sismondi was there, M. Benjamin Constant, 

 M. Chateauvieux, so we were quite among the literati. A 

 very chatty gentleman who talked English fell to the share 

 of Aunt Kitty and me, and went over now and then to Char- 

 lotte and would make her talk French, which she hates 

 doing. . . . 



I think Paris is a much more beautiful city than London, 

 though there is not that appearance of solid wealth as in the 

 many well-built streets of London; but we have nothing to 

 compare with the Place Louis Quinze for elegance. The 

 cleanness too is so delightful. 



Our great stay and support here is Mr Clifford, who comes 

 in at all hours, and we see him at least twice a day. We 

 have been doing our utmost to make him buy a new hat, 

 and I expect him to come in presently to shew his trans- 

 formation by a French hat. The girls [Fanny and Emma] 

 are very busy with their master. Mamma has been thinking 

 a little of putting them to a French school, which they 

 rather like the thoughts of, to my surprise. Mme Gautier 

 has promised to get us if she can to some French balls, and 

 accordingly we are taking some lessons of a Mulatto man in 



1 Mme Kecamier was at this time a woman of forty- one. For 

 more than twenty years her salon had been the resort of the brightest 

 wits of the time. She lived till 1849. 



