July 27, 2025 • 14 mins
Immerse yourself in Georgian England as depicted through the charming and witty letters of Horace Walpole, the 4th Earl of Orford. An active participant and keen observer of social and political life, Walpoles letters offer a vivid snapshot of the era. Virginia Woolf described him as a man who could beautifully capture every gift and foible of his time - his long life reflecting a panorama of houses, friends, wars, snuff boxes, revolutions, and lap dogs, all playing out against the serene blue sky. Join us as we delve into these valuable historical documents, brought to life by Barbara2.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section twelve of Horrors Smallpole's letters as election. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
His reception in Paris, the change in his own outlook,
the taste for philosophy, literature, and free thought in French society.
(00:23):
To George Montagu Esquire, Paris, September twenty second, seventeen sixty five.
The concern I felt at not seeing you before I
lived England might make me express myself warmly, but I
assure you it was nothing but concern, nor was mixed
with a grain of pouting. I knew some of your
reasons and guessed others. The latter grieved me heartily. But
(00:47):
I advise you to do as I do. When I
meet with ingratitude, I take a short leave, both of
it and its host. Formerly I used to look out
for indemnification somewhere else else, But having lived long enough
to learn that the reparation generally proved a second evil
of the same sort, I am content now to skin
(01:10):
over such wounds with amusements, which at least leave no scars.
It is true, amusements do not always amuse when we
bid them. I find it so here nothing strikes me.
Everything I do is indifferent to me. I like the
(01:30):
people very well, and their way of life very well,
but as neither were my object, I should not much
care if there were any other people, or it was
any other way of life. I am out of England
and my purpose is answered. Nothing can be more obliging
(01:50):
than the reception I meet with everywhere. It may not
be more sincere, and why should it than our cold
and bear civility tea, But it is better dressed and
looks natural. One asks no more. I've begun to sup
(02:10):
in French houses, and as Lady Hartford has left Paris
today shall increase my intimacies. There are swarms of English here,
but most of them are going to my great satisfaction.
As the greatest part are very young. They can no
more be entertaining to me than I to them. And
it was certainly not my countrymen that I came to
(02:31):
live with. Suppers please me extremely. I love to rise
and breakfast late, and to trifle away the day as
I like. There are sights enough to answer that end,
and shops, you know, are an endless field for me.
The city appears much worse to me than I thought
(02:52):
I remembered it. The French music is shocking, as I
knew it was. The French stage has fallen off. Though
in the only part I have seen le Cain, I
admire him extremely. He is very ugly and ill made,
and yet has an heroic dignity which Garrick wants, and
great fire du Menil I have not seen yet, but
(03:16):
Charllon in a day or two. It is the modification
that I cannot compare her with de Claren, who has
left the stage. Grand Valle I saw through a whole
play without suspecting it was he alas four and twenty
years makes strange havoc with us models. You cannot imagine
(03:37):
how this struck me. The Italian comedy now united with
their opera Comique, is their most perfect diversion. But alas Harlequin,
my dear favorite Harlequin, my passion makes me more melancholy
than cheerful. Instead of laughing, I sit silently reflecting how
(04:00):
everything loses charms when one's own youth does not lend
it guilding. When we are divested of that eagerness and
illusion with which our youth presents objects to us, we
are but the capital mortum of pleasure. Grave as these
(04:20):
ideas are, they do not unfit me for French company.
The present tone is serious enough in conscience. Unluckily, the
subjects of their conversation are duller to me than my
own thoughts, which may be tinged with melancholy reflections. But
I doubt, from my constitution will never be insipid. The
(04:43):
French affect philosophy, literature and freethinking. The first never did
and never will possess me. Of the two others. I
have long been tired. Freethinking is for oneself, surely not
for society. Besides, one has settled one's way of thinking,
(05:05):
or knows it cannot be settled. And for others I
do not see why there is not as much bigotry
and attempting conversion from any religion as to it. And
I am to day with a dozen savants, and though
all the servants were waiting, the conversation was much more unrestrained,
even on the Old Testament, than I would suffer at
(05:27):
my own table in England if a single footman was present.
For literature, it is very amusing when one has nothing
else to do. I think it rather pedantic in society,
tiresome when displayed professedly. And besides, in this country, one
is sure it is only the fashion of the day.
(05:51):
Their taste in it is worst of all. Could one
believe that when they read our authors Richardson and mister Hume,
shall be their favorites. The latter is treated here with
perfect veneration. His history so falsified in many points, so
partial in as many, so very unequal in its parts,
(06:13):
is thought the standard of writing. In their dress and equipage.
They are grown very simple. We English are living upon
their old gods and goddesses. I roll about in a
chariot decorated with cupids, and look like the grandfather of Anus.
(06:35):
Of their parliaments and clergy, I hear a good deal
and attend very little. I cannot take up any history
in the middle, and was too sick of politics at
home to enter into them here. In short, I have
done with the world, and only live in it rather
than in a desert. Like you. Few men can bear
(06:55):
absolute retirement, and we English worst of all, we grow
so humisom so obstinate and caprecious, and so prejudiced, that
it requires a fund of good nature like yours not
to grow morose company keeps our mind from growing to
coarse and rough. And though at my return I decide
(07:17):
not to mix in public, I do not intend to
be quite a recluse. My absence will put it in
my power to take up or drop as much as
I please. Three KitKat portraits Madame Chaffran, Madame de de Fran,
Madame de Bauffleur to mister Gray, Paris, January the twenty fifth,
(07:40):
seventeen sixty six. Madame Jeoffray, of whom you have heard much,
as an extraordinary woman with more common sense than I
almost ever met, with great quickness in discovering characters, penetration
in going to the bottom of them, and a pencil
that never fails. In a likeness seldom a favorable one,
(08:05):
she exacts and preserves spite of her birth and then
nonsensical prejudices about nobility, great court and attention. This she
acquires by a thousand the little arts and officers of friendship,
and by a freedom and severity, which seemed to be
her sole end of drawing a concourse to her pus.
(08:27):
She insists on scolding those she inveigles to her. She
has little taste and less knowledge, but protects artisans and authors,
and courts a few people to have the credit of
serving her dependence. She was bred under the famous Madame Tancaint,
who advised her never to refuse any man. For said
(08:50):
her mistress, though nine intent should not care a farthing
for you, the tenth may live to be an useful friend.
She did not adopt or reject the whole plan, but
fully retained the purport of the maxim. In short, she
is an epitome of empire, subsisting by rewards and punishments.
(09:16):
Her great enemy, Madame de de font was for a
short time mistress of the Regent, is now very old
and stone blind, but retains all her vivacity, wit, memory, judgment,
passions and agreeableness. She goes to operas, plays Suppers and Versailles,
gives suppers twice a week, has everything new read to her,
(09:41):
makes new songs and epigrams I admirably, and remembers every
one that has been made these fourscore years. She corresponds
with Voltaire, dictates charming letters to him, contradicts him, is
no bigot to him or anybody, and laughs both at
the the clergy and the philosophers. In a dispute into
(10:05):
which she easily falls. She is very warm and yet scarce,
ever in the wrong. Her judgment on every subject is
as just as possible, on every point of conduct, as
wrong as possible. For she is all love and hatred,
passionate for her friends to enthusiasm, still anxious to be loved.
(10:29):
I don't mean by lovers and a vehement enemy, but
openly as she can have no amusement for conversation. The
least solitude and now are insupportable to her, and put
her in the power of several worthless people who eat
her suppers when they can eat nobody's of higher rank,
(10:50):
wink to one another and laugh at her, hate her
because she has forty times more parts, and venture to
hate it because she is not rich. Ellipses, you must
not attribute my intimacy with Paris to curiosity alone. An
(11:11):
accident unlocked the doors for me. That Passe partout called
fashion has made them fly open. And what do you
think was that fashion? I myself, Yes, Like Queen Eleanor
in the Ballad, I sunk at Charing Cross and have risen.
In the Four Bull Saint Germain play sentre on Russo,
(11:36):
whose arrival here on his way to you, brought me
acquainted with many anecdotes conformable to the idea I had
conceived of him, got about, was liked much more than
it deserved, spread like wildfire, and made me the subject
of conversation. Rousseau's devotees were offended. Madame Buffleur, with a
(12:00):
tone of sentiment and the accents of lamenting humanity, abused
me heartily, and then complained to myself with the utmost softness.
I acted contrition, but had like to have spoiled all
by growing dreadfully tired of a second lecture from the
Prince of Conti, who took up the ball and made
(12:22):
himself the hero of a history wherein he had nothing
to do. I listened, did not understand half he said,
nor he neither forgot the rest, said yes when I
should have said no, yawned when I should have smiled,
and was very penitent when I should have rejoiced at
(12:42):
my pardon. Madame de Bouffleur was more distressed, for he
owned twenty times more than I had said. She frowned
and made him signs, but she had wound up his clack,
and there was no stopping it. The moment she grew angry.
The Lord of the house screw charmed, and it has
(13:02):
been my fault if I am not at the head
of a numerous sect. But when I left a triumphant
party in England, I did not come hither to be
at the head of a fashion. However, I have been
sent for about like an African prince or a learned
canary bird, and was in particular carried by fours to
(13:23):
the Princess of tom Maun, the Queen's cousin, who lives
in a charitable apartment in the Luxembourg, and was sitting
on a small bed hung with saints and Sobieski's, in
a corner of one of those vast chambers by two
blinking tapers. I stumbled over a cat, a footstool and
a chamber pot in my journey to her presence. She
(13:45):
could not find a syllable to say to me, and
the visit ended with her begging A lapdog thanked the Lord.
Though this is the first month, it is the last
week of my reign, and I shall resign my crown
with great satisfaction to a bouillis of chestnuts, which is
just invented, and his animals will be illustrated by so
(14:07):
many indigestions that Paris will not want anything else these
three weeks. I will enclose the fatal letter after I
have finished this enormous one, to which I will only
add that nothing has interrupted my saving your researches, but
the frost, the Ave de Maleb, has given me full
power to ransack Lifrey. I do not tell you that
(14:31):
by great accident, when I thought I nothing less, I
stumbled on an original picture of the Comte de Grament. Adieu.
You are generally in London in March. I shall be
there by the end of it. End of Section twelve.
Section twelve of Horrors Smallpole's letters as election. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
His reception in Paris, the change in his own outlook,
the taste for philosophy, literature, and free thought in French society.
(00:23):
To George Montagu Esquire, Paris, September twenty second, seventeen sixty five.
The concern I felt at not seeing you before I
lived England might make me express myself warmly, but I
assure you it was nothing but concern, nor was mixed
with a grain of pouting. I knew some of your
reasons and guessed others. The latter grieved me heartily. But
(00:47):
I advise you to do as I do. When I
meet with ingratitude, I take a short leave, both of
it and its host. Formerly I used to look out
for indemnification somewhere else else, But having lived long enough
to learn that the reparation generally proved a second evil
of the same sort, I am content now to skin
(01:10):
over such wounds with amusements, which at least leave no scars.
It is true, amusements do not always amuse when we
bid them. I find it so here nothing strikes me.
Everything I do is indifferent to me. I like the
(01:30):
people very well, and their way of life very well,
but as neither were my object, I should not much
care if there were any other people, or it was
any other way of life. I am out of England
and my purpose is answered. Nothing can be more obliging
(01:50):
than the reception I meet with everywhere. It may not
be more sincere, and why should it than our cold
and bear civility tea, But it is better dressed and
looks natural. One asks no more. I've begun to sup
(02:10):
in French houses, and as Lady Hartford has left Paris
today shall increase my intimacies. There are swarms of English here,
but most of them are going to my great satisfaction.
As the greatest part are very young. They can no
more be entertaining to me than I to them. And
it was certainly not my countrymen that I came to
(02:31):
live with. Suppers please me extremely. I love to rise
and breakfast late, and to trifle away the day as
I like. There are sights enough to answer that end,
and shops, you know, are an endless field for me.
The city appears much worse to me than I thought
(02:52):
I remembered it. The French music is shocking, as I
knew it was. The French stage has fallen off. Though
in the only part I have seen le Cain, I
admire him extremely. He is very ugly and ill made,
and yet has an heroic dignity which Garrick wants, and
great fire du Menil I have not seen yet, but
(03:16):
Charllon in a day or two. It is the modification
that I cannot compare her with de Claren, who has
left the stage. Grand Valle I saw through a whole
play without suspecting it was he alas four and twenty
years makes strange havoc with us models. You cannot imagine
(03:37):
how this struck me. The Italian comedy now united with
their opera Comique, is their most perfect diversion. But alas Harlequin,
my dear favorite Harlequin, my passion makes me more melancholy
than cheerful. Instead of laughing, I sit silently reflecting how
(04:00):
everything loses charms when one's own youth does not lend
it guilding. When we are divested of that eagerness and
illusion with which our youth presents objects to us, we
are but the capital mortum of pleasure. Grave as these
(04:20):
ideas are, they do not unfit me for French company.
The present tone is serious enough in conscience. Unluckily, the
subjects of their conversation are duller to me than my
own thoughts, which may be tinged with melancholy reflections. But
I doubt, from my constitution will never be insipid. The
(04:43):
French affect philosophy, literature and freethinking. The first never did
and never will possess me. Of the two others. I
have long been tired. Freethinking is for oneself, surely not
for society. Besides, one has settled one's way of thinking,
(05:05):
or knows it cannot be settled. And for others I
do not see why there is not as much bigotry
and attempting conversion from any religion as to it. And
I am to day with a dozen savants, and though
all the servants were waiting, the conversation was much more unrestrained,
even on the Old Testament, than I would suffer at
(05:27):
my own table in England if a single footman was present.
For literature, it is very amusing when one has nothing
else to do. I think it rather pedantic in society,
tiresome when displayed professedly. And besides, in this country, one
is sure it is only the fashion of the day.
(05:51):
Their taste in it is worst of all. Could one
believe that when they read our authors Richardson and mister Hume,
shall be their favorites. The latter is treated here with
perfect veneration. His history so falsified in many points, so
partial in as many, so very unequal in its parts,
(06:13):
is thought the standard of writing. In their dress and equipage.
They are grown very simple. We English are living upon
their old gods and goddesses. I roll about in a
chariot decorated with cupids, and look like the grandfather of Anus.
(06:35):
Of their parliaments and clergy, I hear a good deal
and attend very little. I cannot take up any history
in the middle, and was too sick of politics at
home to enter into them here. In short, I have
done with the world, and only live in it rather
than in a desert. Like you. Few men can bear
(06:55):
absolute retirement, and we English worst of all, we grow
so humisom so obstinate and caprecious, and so prejudiced, that
it requires a fund of good nature like yours not
to grow morose company keeps our mind from growing to
coarse and rough. And though at my return I decide
(07:17):
not to mix in public, I do not intend to
be quite a recluse. My absence will put it in
my power to take up or drop as much as
I please. Three KitKat portraits Madame Chaffran, Madame de de Fran,
Madame de Bauffleur to mister Gray, Paris, January the twenty fifth,
(07:40):
seventeen sixty six. Madame Jeoffray, of whom you have heard much,
as an extraordinary woman with more common sense than I
almost ever met, with great quickness in discovering characters, penetration
in going to the bottom of them, and a pencil
that never fails. In a likeness seldom a favorable one,
(08:05):
she exacts and preserves spite of her birth and then
nonsensical prejudices about nobility, great court and attention. This she
acquires by a thousand the little arts and officers of friendship,
and by a freedom and severity, which seemed to be
her sole end of drawing a concourse to her pus.
(08:27):
She insists on scolding those she inveigles to her. She
has little taste and less knowledge, but protects artisans and authors,
and courts a few people to have the credit of
serving her dependence. She was bred under the famous Madame Tancaint,
who advised her never to refuse any man. For said
(08:50):
her mistress, though nine intent should not care a farthing
for you, the tenth may live to be an useful friend.
She did not adopt or reject the whole plan, but
fully retained the purport of the maxim. In short, she
is an epitome of empire, subsisting by rewards and punishments.
(09:16):
Her great enemy, Madame de de font was for a
short time mistress of the Regent, is now very old
and stone blind, but retains all her vivacity, wit, memory, judgment,
passions and agreeableness. She goes to operas, plays Suppers and Versailles,
gives suppers twice a week, has everything new read to her,
(09:41):
makes new songs and epigrams I admirably, and remembers every
one that has been made these fourscore years. She corresponds
with Voltaire, dictates charming letters to him, contradicts him, is
no bigot to him or anybody, and laughs both at
the the clergy and the philosophers. In a dispute into
(10:05):
which she easily falls. She is very warm and yet scarce,
ever in the wrong. Her judgment on every subject is
as just as possible, on every point of conduct, as
wrong as possible. For she is all love and hatred,
passionate for her friends to enthusiasm, still anxious to be loved.
(10:29):
I don't mean by lovers and a vehement enemy, but
openly as she can have no amusement for conversation. The
least solitude and now are insupportable to her, and put
her in the power of several worthless people who eat
her suppers when they can eat nobody's of higher rank,
(10:50):
wink to one another and laugh at her, hate her
because she has forty times more parts, and venture to
hate it because she is not rich. Ellipses, you must
not attribute my intimacy with Paris to curiosity alone. An
(11:11):
accident unlocked the doors for me. That Passe partout called
fashion has made them fly open. And what do you
think was that fashion? I myself, Yes, Like Queen Eleanor
in the Ballad, I sunk at Charing Cross and have risen.
In the Four Bull Saint Germain play sentre on Russo,
(11:36):
whose arrival here on his way to you, brought me
acquainted with many anecdotes conformable to the idea I had
conceived of him, got about, was liked much more than
it deserved, spread like wildfire, and made me the subject
of conversation. Rousseau's devotees were offended. Madame Buffleur, with a
(12:00):
tone of sentiment and the accents of lamenting humanity, abused
me heartily, and then complained to myself with the utmost softness.
I acted contrition, but had like to have spoiled all
by growing dreadfully tired of a second lecture from the
Prince of Conti, who took up the ball and made
(12:22):
himself the hero of a history wherein he had nothing
to do. I listened, did not understand half he said,
nor he neither forgot the rest, said yes when I
should have said no, yawned when I should have smiled,
and was very penitent when I should have rejoiced at
(12:42):
my pardon. Madame de Bouffleur was more distressed, for he
owned twenty times more than I had said. She frowned
and made him signs, but she had wound up his clack,
and there was no stopping it. The moment she grew angry.
The Lord of the house screw charmed, and it has
(13:02):
been my fault if I am not at the head
of a numerous sect. But when I left a triumphant
party in England, I did not come hither to be
at the head of a fashion. However, I have been
sent for about like an African prince or a learned
canary bird, and was in particular carried by fours to
(13:23):
the Princess of tom Maun, the Queen's cousin, who lives
in a charitable apartment in the Luxembourg, and was sitting
on a small bed hung with saints and Sobieski's, in
a corner of one of those vast chambers by two
blinking tapers. I stumbled over a cat, a footstool and
a chamber pot in my journey to her presence. She
(13:45):
could not find a syllable to say to me, and
the visit ended with her begging A lapdog thanked the Lord.
Though this is the first month, it is the last
week of my reign, and I shall resign my crown
with great satisfaction to a bouillis of chestnuts, which is
just invented, and his animals will be illustrated by so
(14:07):
many indigestions that Paris will not want anything else these
three weeks. I will enclose the fatal letter after I
have finished this enormous one, to which I will only
add that nothing has interrupted my saving your researches, but
the frost, the Ave de Maleb, has given me full
power to ransack Lifrey. I do not tell you that
(14:31):
by great accident, when I thought I nothing less, I
stumbled on an original picture of the Comte de Grament. Adieu.
You are generally in London in March. I shall be
there by the end of it. End of Section twelve.
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