The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. 2 - Online Library of ...

Online Library of Liberty: The Diary and Letters of Gouverneur Morris, vol. 2
in the course of the contest. Before I close this letter I must testify the pleasure I felt
in reading the King’s speech. It is excellent. I am, my lord, very truly yours.”
“To-day [November 7th], on my return from a walk, I find my valet-de-chambre in
trouble; he has been summoned by the police, and thinks they mean to make a soldier
of him. I write to the English minister and to the Minister of the Police, and finally
give him a certificate, and all is settled. Mr. Scott tells me, de science certaine, that
Sir M. Eden has received advices from Lord Mallory at Paris by a messenger. This
thing is in itself indifferent, but Sir M. Eden takes pains to keep it a secret, which is an
affectation of mystery much misplaced; for it is one of those things which cannot be
concealed, and which the enemy must have known much earlier than he did. He has
received this day, and wishes to circulate, the news that the evacuation of Corsica is
countermanded.
“The courier whose arrival is to be kept secret walks about the town conversing with
the English of his acquaintance. I visit after dinner the Count de Pergin, Minister of
the Police, to thank him for not committing an act of outrageous oppression; for such
it would have been to have taken up a stranger, the servant of a stranger, and forced
him into military service. He has, however, made a very polite (though magisterial)
answer to my letter, and this it is which induces me to leave a card at his door, for he
is not at home.”
“Having begun this month with the study of German—a difficult enterprise especially
at my time of life—I appropriate my mornings to it. Dine [November 12th] at M. de
Schoenfeldt’s, whose cook was taken ill two days ago, when I was to have tasted the
productions of his art. He is since dead, but the dinner seems not to have suffered by
the demise of his authority and jurisdiction to a female successor. I learn that M.
Pellin, who was the faiseur of Mirabeau, dines every day with M. Thugut. This M.
Pellin has been painted to me as one of the most corrnpt men living. Voilà beau jeu
pour les Français. I presume that, when Mirabeau came over to the Court, Pellin was
so much let into the secret as that now they are obliged to treat him with attention.”
“This morning [November 13th] Sir M. Eden presents me to the Archduchesses,
sisters of the Emperor, and Madame of France. The elder Archduchess, who is
betrothed to the heir apparent of Naples, has a striking resemblance to the Queen of
France, which I mention to her, and she tells me that others have observed it. God
send she may not experience a similar fate; but she seems, at any rate, destined to a
wretched life, if that be true which is reported, viz., that her intended husband is but
just above idiocy. Madame of France strikes me by the strong resemblance she bears
to her father, Louis XVI., and I cannot help observing, when we leave her presence,
on the malignity which pursued her poor mother, and would have persuaded the world
that this was an offspring produced by her gallantries. Every trait gives the lie to that
aspersion.”
“Yesterday [November 14th] brought the account that the Austrian armies had
advanced towards Italy, and this day two couriers arrive, one of which brings news
that Davidovitch had beaten the French on the 7th, after an obstinate contest, a little
beyond Trent, and taken a thousand prisoners, with five pieces of cannon. The other
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