Paris 3 1 9 



inimitable Virgin and Child, by the same great master. A 

 Venus bathing, and a Magdalen, by Titian. Lucretia, by 

 Andrea del Sarto, Leda, by Paul Veronese, and also by Tin- 

 toretto. Mars and Venus, and several others, by Paul Veronese. 

 The naked figure of a woman, by Bonieu, a French painter, now 

 living, a pleasing piece. Some noble pictures, by Poussin and Le 

 Suer. The apartments must disappoint every one: — I did not 

 see one good room, and all inferior to the rank and immense 

 fortune of the possessor, certainly the first subject in Europe. 

 Dine at the Duke of Liancourt's: among the company was 

 Monsieur de Bougainville, the celebrated circumnavigator, 

 agreeable as well as sensible; the Count de Castellane and the 

 Count de Montmorency, two young legislators, as enrages as if 

 their names were only Bemave or Rabeau. In some allusions to 

 the constitution of England, I found they hold it very cheap in 

 regard to political liberty. The ideas of the moment relative 

 to plots and conspiracies were discussed, but they seemed very 

 generally to agree that however the constitution might, by such 

 means, be delayed, it was now absolutely impossible to prevent 

 its taking place. At night to the national circus as it is called, 

 at the Palais Royal, a building in the gardens or area of that 

 palace, the most whimsical and expensive folly that is easily to 

 be imagined : it is a large ballroom, sunk half its height under 

 ground ; and as if this circumstance were not sufficiently adapted 

 to make it damp enough, a garden is planted on the roof and a 

 river is made to flow around it, which, with the addition of some 

 spirting jets d'eau, have undoubtedly made it a delicious place 

 for a winter's entertainment. The expense of this gew-gaw 

 building, the project of some of the Duke of Orleans' friends, I 

 suppose, and executed at his expense, would have established an 

 English farm with all its principles, buildings, live stock, tools, 

 and crops, on a scale that would have done honour to the first 

 sovereign of Europe; for it would have converted five thousand 

 arpents of desert into a garden. As to the result of the mode 

 that has been pursued of investing such a capital, I know no 

 epithet equal to its merits. It is meant to be a concert, ball, 

 coffee, and billiard room, with shops, etc., designed to be some- 

 thing in the style of the amusements of our Pantheon. There 

 were music and singing to-night, but the room being almost 

 empty it was, on the whole, equally cold and sombre. 



i6th. The ideas of plots and conspiracies has come to such a 

 height as greatly to alarm the leaders of the revolution. The 

 disgust that spreads every day at their transactions arises more 



