July 27, 2025 • 16 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 Join us as we delve into these valuable historical documents, brought to life by Barbara2.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 fifteen of Horace Wappole's Letters A selection. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
A garden party at Strawberry Hill. A fete at Vauxhall
to George montagu Esquire, Arlington Street, May the eleventh, seventy
(00:20):
sixty nine. Strawberry has been in great glory. I have
given a festino there that will almost mortgage it. Last Tuesday,
all France dined there Monsieur m Madame de Chatlais de
de de Leoncourps, three more French ladies, whose names you
(00:42):
will find in the enclosed paper, eight other frenchmen, the
Spanish and Portuguese ministers. The holdernesses Fitzroys. In short, we
were four and twenty. They arrived at two at the
gates of the castle. Are received them dressed in the
cravat of Gibbons's carving, and a pair of gloves embroidered
(01:05):
up to the elbows that had belonged to James the First.
The French servants stared and firmly believed that this was
the dress of English country gentlemen. After taking a survey
of the apartments, we went to the printing house, where
I had prepared the enclosed verses with translations by Monsieur
(01:27):
de Lille, one of the company. The moment they were
printed off, I gave a private signal, and French horns
and clarionets accompanied this compliment. We then went to see
Pope's guatto and garden, and returned to a magnificent dinner
in the refectory. In the evening, we walked, had tea,
(01:49):
coffee and lemonade in the gallery, which was illuminated with
a thousand or thirty candles. I forget which and played
at Wisdom Loo till midnight. Then there was a cold supper,
and at one the company returned to town, saluted by
fifty nightingales, who, as tenants of the manor, came to
(02:12):
do honor to their lord. I cannot say last night
was equally agreeable. There was what they called a ridotto
alfresco at Foxhall, for which one paid half a guinea.
Though except some thousand more lamps and a covered passage
around the garden which took off from the garden hood,
(02:34):
there was nothing better than on a common night. Mister
Comway and I set off from his house at eight o'clock.
The tide and torrent of coaches was so prodigious that
it was half an hour after nine before we got
half way from Westminster Bridge. We then alighted, and after
(02:55):
scrambling under bellies of horses, through wheels and overposts and rails,
we reached the gardens, where there were already many thousand persons.
Nothing diverted me but a man in a turk's dress
and two nymphs in mask, arrayed without masks, who sailed
amongst the company, and which was surprising, seemed to surprise nobody.
(03:21):
It had been given out that people were desired to
come in fancy dress without masks. We walked twice round
and were rejoiced to come away, though with the same
difficulties as at our entrance, for we found three strings
of coaches all along the road, who did not move
half a foot in half an hour. There is to
(03:42):
be a rival mob in the same way at Ranelagh tomorrow,
For the greater the folly and imposition, the greater is
the crowd. I have suspended the vestimenta that were torn
off my back to the God of repentance. Shall stay
away adieu. I am not a word more to say
(04:06):
to you, yours ever back in Paris, plays Escort de
Madame de de frant To John Shooter, Squire, Paris, August
the thirtieth, seventeen sixty nine. I have been so hurried
with paying and receiving visits that I have not had
a moment's worth of time to write. My passage was
(04:29):
very tedious and lasted near nine hours for want of wind.
But I need not talk of my journey, for mister Maurice,
whom I met on the road, would have told you
that I was safe on terra firma judge of my
surprise at hearing four days ago that my Lord Dacre
and my lady were arrived here. They lodged within a
(04:50):
few doors of me. He has come to consult a
doctor Palm who has proscribed wine, and Lord Daker already
complains of the violence of his appetite. If you and
I had pommed him to eternity, he would not have
believed us. A man across the sea tells him the
(05:10):
plainest thing in the world, that man happens to be
called a doctor, and happening for novelty to talk common
sense is believed as if he had talked nonsense. And
what is more extraordinary. Lord Dacre thinks himself better, though
he is so. My dear old woman in square brackets,
(05:34):
Madame de Defart is in better health than when I
left her, and her spirits so increased that I tell
hers she will go mad with age. When they ask
her how old she is, she answers jessant emi en.
She and I went to the boulevard last night after supper,
and drove about there till two in the morning. We
(05:57):
are going to suppen the country this evening, and are
to go to morrow night at eleven to the puppet show.
A protegee of hers has written a piece for that theater.
I have not yet seen Madame de Barrys, nor can
I get to see her picture at the exposition of
the Louver. The crowds are so enormous that go thither
(06:19):
for that purpose. As royal curiosities are the least part
of my virtue, I wait with patience whenever I have
an opportunity. I visit gardens, chiefly with a view to
Rosette's having a walk. She goes nowhere else because there
is a distemper among the dogs the French court, the
(06:41):
pupils at Saint Cyr to George Montague, a squire, Paris,
September seventeenth, seventeen sixty nine. I am heartily tired, but
as it is too early to go to bed, I
must tell you how agreeably I have passed the day
I wished for. The same scenes strike us both, and
(07:04):
the same kind of visions has amused us both ever
since we were born. Well. Then, I went this morning
to verver Sailles with my niece, Missus Chumney, Missus Hart,
Lady Dembi's sister, and the Count de Grave, one of
the most amiable, humane and obliging men alive. Our first
(07:26):
object was to see Madame du Barrys. Being too early
for mass, we saw the Dauphin and his brothers at dinner.
The eldest is the picture of the Duke of Grafton,
except that he is more fair and will be taller.
He has a sickly air and no grace. The Count
de Provence has a very pleasing countenance, with an air
(07:49):
of more sense than the Count d'Artois, the genius of
the family. They already tell as many barn Maaux of
the latter, as of Nre Cartine Louis Catous. He is
very fat and the most like his grandfather of all
the children. You may imagine this royal mess did not
(08:10):
occupy as long. Thence to the chapel, where a first
row in the balconies was kept. Hers Madame du Barrys,
arrived over against us below without rouge, without powder, and
indeed saw aur Fessa Prilette an odd appearance, as she
was so conspicuous close to the altar and amidst both
(08:33):
court and people. She is pretty when you consider her,
yet so little striking that I never should have asked
who she was. There is nothing bold, assuming or affected
in her manner. Her husband's sister was along with her
in the tribune Above, surrounded by prelates, was the amorous
(08:57):
and still handsome King, and could not help smiling at
the mixture of piety, pomp and carnality. From chapel we
went to the dinner of the elder Madame. We were
almost stifled in the ante chamber, where their dishes were
heating over charcoal, and where we could not stir for
(09:19):
the press. When the doors are opened, everybody rushes in
princes of the blood, cordon bleau, abbe housemaids, and the
Lord knows who and what. Yet so used are their
highnesses to this trade, that they eat as comfortably and
hardly as your I could do in our own parlors.
(09:42):
Our second act was much more agreeable. We quitted the
court and a reigning mistress for a dead one and
a cloister. In short, I had obtained leave from the
Bishop of Chartres to enter into Saint cyr And, as
Madame de de Fond never leaves anything undone that can
give me satisfaction, she had written to the abbess to
(10:05):
desire I might see everything that could be seen there.
The bishop's order was to admit me Monsieur le grave
ed Dame de mar Company. I begged the abbess to
give me back the order that I might deposit it
in the archives of Strawberry, and she complied instantly. Every
(10:25):
door flew open to us, and the nuns vied in
attentions to please us. The first thing I had desired
to see was Madame de Maintenon's apartment. It consists of
two small rooms, a library and a very small chamber,
the same in which the csar saw her and in
which she died. The bed is taken away and the
(10:47):
room covered now with bad pictures of the royal family,
which destroys the gravity and simplicity. It is waine scotted
with oak, with plain chairs of the same covered with
dark blue damask. Everywhere else the chairs are of blue cloth.
The simplicity and extreme neatness of the whole house, which
(11:09):
is vast, are very remarkable. A large apartment above for
that I have mentioned, is on the ground floor, consisting
of five rooms and destined by Louis Cators for Madame
de Mantna is now the infirmary, with neat white linen
beds and decorated with every text of scripture by which
(11:31):
could be insinuated that the foundress was a queen. The
hour of vespers being come, we were conducted to the chapel,
and as it was my curiosity that it led us thither,
I was placed in the Mantainanon's own tribune. My company
in the adjoining gallery. The pensioners, two and two each
(11:54):
band headed by a nun, marched orderly to their seats
and sing the whole serve, which I confess was not
a little tedious. The young ladies, to the number of
two hundred fifty, are dressed in black with short aprons
of the same. The latter, and their stays bound with blue, yellow, green,
(12:15):
or red to distinguish the classes. The captains and lieutenants
have knots of a different color for distinction. Their hair
is curled and powdered, their coiffure a sort of French
round eared caps with white tippets, a sort of rough
and a large tucker. In short, a very pretty dress.
(12:40):
The nuns are entirely in black, with crape veils and
long trains, deep white handkerchiefs and forehead cloths, and a
very long train. The chapel is plain but very pretty,
and in the middle of the choir, under a flat
marble lies the found dress. Madame de Combille, one of
(13:02):
the nuns who are about forty, is beautiful as a madonna.
The abbess has no distinction, but a larger and richer
gold cross. Her apartment consists of two very small rooms.
Of Madame de Mantinon we do not see fewer than
twenty pictures. The young one, looking over her shoulder, has
(13:24):
a round face without the least resemblance to those of
her latter age. That in the Royal Mantle, of which
you know I have a copy, is the most repeated,
but there is another with a longer and leaner face,
which has by far the most sensible look. She is
in black with a high point head and band a
(13:45):
long train, and is sitting in a chair of purple velvet.
Before her knees stands her niece, Madame de Noais, a
child at a distance of your Valsailles or Saint cyr
I could not distinguish which We were shown some rich
reliquares and the Corpo Santa that was sent to her
(14:06):
by the Pope. We were then carried into the public
room of each class. In the first, the young ladies
who were playing at chess were ordered to sing to
us the choruses of Artagna. In another they danced minuets
and country dances, while Anne not quite so able as
(14:27):
since Cecilia played on a violin. In the others, they
acted before as the proverbs or conversations written by Madame
de Mantanon for their instruction. For she was not only
their foundress but their saint, and their adoration of her
memory has quite eclipsed the Virgin Mary. We saw their dormitory,
(14:50):
and saw them at supper, and at last her carry
to their archives, where they produced volumes of her letters
and where one of the nuns gave me a small
piece of paper with these sentences in her handwriting. I
forgot to tell you that this kind dame who took
to me extremely asked me if we had many convents
(15:10):
and relics in England. I was much embarrassed for fear
of destroying her good opinion of me, and so said
we had but few. Now. Oh, we went too to
the apothekeri, where they treated us with cordials, and where
one of the ladies told me inoculation was a sin,
(15:31):
as it was a voluntary detention from mass, and as
voluntary a cause of eating grass. A visit concluded in
the garden, now grown very venerable, where the young ladies
played at little games before us. After a stay of
four hours, we took our leave. I begged the abbess's blessing.
(15:53):
She smiled and said she doubted I should not place
much faith in it, humbly old gentlewoman, A very proud
of having seen Madame de Maintenon. Well, was I not
in the right to wish you with me? Could you
have passed a day more agreeably? End of Section fifteen
Section fifteen of Horace Wappole's Letters A selection. This is
a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
A garden party at Strawberry Hill. A fete at Vauxhall
to George montagu Esquire, Arlington Street, May the eleventh, seventy
(00:20):
sixty nine. Strawberry has been in great glory. I have
given a festino there that will almost mortgage it. Last Tuesday,
all France dined there Monsieur m Madame de Chatlais de
de de Leoncourps, three more French ladies, whose names you
(00:42):
will find in the enclosed paper, eight other frenchmen, the
Spanish and Portuguese ministers. The holdernesses Fitzroys. In short, we
were four and twenty. They arrived at two at the
gates of the castle. Are received them dressed in the
cravat of Gibbons's carving, and a pair of gloves embroidered
(01:05):
up to the elbows that had belonged to James the First.
The French servants stared and firmly believed that this was
the dress of English country gentlemen. After taking a survey
of the apartments, we went to the printing house, where
I had prepared the enclosed verses with translations by Monsieur
(01:27):
de Lille, one of the company. The moment they were
printed off, I gave a private signal, and French horns
and clarionets accompanied this compliment. We then went to see
Pope's guatto and garden, and returned to a magnificent dinner
in the refectory. In the evening, we walked, had tea,
(01:49):
coffee and lemonade in the gallery, which was illuminated with
a thousand or thirty candles. I forget which and played
at Wisdom Loo till midnight. Then there was a cold supper,
and at one the company returned to town, saluted by
fifty nightingales, who, as tenants of the manor, came to
(02:12):
do honor to their lord. I cannot say last night
was equally agreeable. There was what they called a ridotto
alfresco at Foxhall, for which one paid half a guinea.
Though except some thousand more lamps and a covered passage
around the garden which took off from the garden hood,
(02:34):
there was nothing better than on a common night. Mister
Comway and I set off from his house at eight o'clock.
The tide and torrent of coaches was so prodigious that
it was half an hour after nine before we got
half way from Westminster Bridge. We then alighted, and after
(02:55):
scrambling under bellies of horses, through wheels and overposts and rails,
we reached the gardens, where there were already many thousand persons.
Nothing diverted me but a man in a turk's dress
and two nymphs in mask, arrayed without masks, who sailed
amongst the company, and which was surprising, seemed to surprise nobody.
(03:21):
It had been given out that people were desired to
come in fancy dress without masks. We walked twice round
and were rejoiced to come away, though with the same
difficulties as at our entrance, for we found three strings
of coaches all along the road, who did not move
half a foot in half an hour. There is to
(03:42):
be a rival mob in the same way at Ranelagh tomorrow,
For the greater the folly and imposition, the greater is
the crowd. I have suspended the vestimenta that were torn
off my back to the God of repentance. Shall stay
away adieu. I am not a word more to say
(04:06):
to you, yours ever back in Paris, plays Escort de
Madame de de frant To John Shooter, Squire, Paris, August
the thirtieth, seventeen sixty nine. I have been so hurried
with paying and receiving visits that I have not had
a moment's worth of time to write. My passage was
(04:29):
very tedious and lasted near nine hours for want of wind.
But I need not talk of my journey, for mister Maurice,
whom I met on the road, would have told you
that I was safe on terra firma judge of my
surprise at hearing four days ago that my Lord Dacre
and my lady were arrived here. They lodged within a
(04:50):
few doors of me. He has come to consult a
doctor Palm who has proscribed wine, and Lord Daker already
complains of the violence of his appetite. If you and
I had pommed him to eternity, he would not have
believed us. A man across the sea tells him the
(05:10):
plainest thing in the world, that man happens to be
called a doctor, and happening for novelty to talk common
sense is believed as if he had talked nonsense. And
what is more extraordinary. Lord Dacre thinks himself better, though
he is so. My dear old woman in square brackets,
(05:34):
Madame de Defart is in better health than when I
left her, and her spirits so increased that I tell
hers she will go mad with age. When they ask
her how old she is, she answers jessant emi en.
She and I went to the boulevard last night after supper,
and drove about there till two in the morning. We
(05:57):
are going to suppen the country this evening, and are
to go to morrow night at eleven to the puppet show.
A protegee of hers has written a piece for that theater.
I have not yet seen Madame de Barrys, nor can
I get to see her picture at the exposition of
the Louver. The crowds are so enormous that go thither
(06:19):
for that purpose. As royal curiosities are the least part
of my virtue, I wait with patience whenever I have
an opportunity. I visit gardens, chiefly with a view to
Rosette's having a walk. She goes nowhere else because there
is a distemper among the dogs the French court, the
(06:41):
pupils at Saint Cyr to George Montague, a squire, Paris,
September seventeenth, seventeen sixty nine. I am heartily tired, but
as it is too early to go to bed, I
must tell you how agreeably I have passed the day
I wished for. The same scenes strike us both, and
(07:04):
the same kind of visions has amused us both ever
since we were born. Well. Then, I went this morning
to verver Sailles with my niece, Missus Chumney, Missus Hart,
Lady Dembi's sister, and the Count de Grave, one of
the most amiable, humane and obliging men alive. Our first
(07:26):
object was to see Madame du Barrys. Being too early
for mass, we saw the Dauphin and his brothers at dinner.
The eldest is the picture of the Duke of Grafton,
except that he is more fair and will be taller.
He has a sickly air and no grace. The Count
de Provence has a very pleasing countenance, with an air
(07:49):
of more sense than the Count d'Artois, the genius of
the family. They already tell as many barn Maaux of
the latter, as of Nre Cartine Louis Catous. He is
very fat and the most like his grandfather of all
the children. You may imagine this royal mess did not
(08:10):
occupy as long. Thence to the chapel, where a first
row in the balconies was kept. Hers Madame du Barrys,
arrived over against us below without rouge, without powder, and
indeed saw aur Fessa Prilette an odd appearance, as she
was so conspicuous close to the altar and amidst both
(08:33):
court and people. She is pretty when you consider her,
yet so little striking that I never should have asked
who she was. There is nothing bold, assuming or affected
in her manner. Her husband's sister was along with her
in the tribune Above, surrounded by prelates, was the amorous
(08:57):
and still handsome King, and could not help smiling at
the mixture of piety, pomp and carnality. From chapel we
went to the dinner of the elder Madame. We were
almost stifled in the ante chamber, where their dishes were
heating over charcoal, and where we could not stir for
(09:19):
the press. When the doors are opened, everybody rushes in
princes of the blood, cordon bleau, abbe housemaids, and the
Lord knows who and what. Yet so used are their
highnesses to this trade, that they eat as comfortably and
hardly as your I could do in our own parlors.
(09:42):
Our second act was much more agreeable. We quitted the
court and a reigning mistress for a dead one and
a cloister. In short, I had obtained leave from the
Bishop of Chartres to enter into Saint cyr And, as
Madame de de Fond never leaves anything undone that can
give me satisfaction, she had written to the abbess to
(10:05):
desire I might see everything that could be seen there.
The bishop's order was to admit me Monsieur le grave
ed Dame de mar Company. I begged the abbess to
give me back the order that I might deposit it
in the archives of Strawberry, and she complied instantly. Every
(10:25):
door flew open to us, and the nuns vied in
attentions to please us. The first thing I had desired
to see was Madame de Maintenon's apartment. It consists of
two small rooms, a library and a very small chamber,
the same in which the csar saw her and in
which she died. The bed is taken away and the
(10:47):
room covered now with bad pictures of the royal family,
which destroys the gravity and simplicity. It is waine scotted
with oak, with plain chairs of the same covered with
dark blue damask. Everywhere else the chairs are of blue cloth.
The simplicity and extreme neatness of the whole house, which
(11:09):
is vast, are very remarkable. A large apartment above for
that I have mentioned, is on the ground floor, consisting
of five rooms and destined by Louis Cators for Madame
de Mantna is now the infirmary, with neat white linen
beds and decorated with every text of scripture by which
(11:31):
could be insinuated that the foundress was a queen. The
hour of vespers being come, we were conducted to the chapel,
and as it was my curiosity that it led us thither,
I was placed in the Mantainanon's own tribune. My company
in the adjoining gallery. The pensioners, two and two each
(11:54):
band headed by a nun, marched orderly to their seats
and sing the whole serve, which I confess was not
a little tedious. The young ladies, to the number of
two hundred fifty, are dressed in black with short aprons
of the same. The latter, and their stays bound with blue, yellow, green,
(12:15):
or red to distinguish the classes. The captains and lieutenants
have knots of a different color for distinction. Their hair
is curled and powdered, their coiffure a sort of French
round eared caps with white tippets, a sort of rough
and a large tucker. In short, a very pretty dress.
(12:40):
The nuns are entirely in black, with crape veils and
long trains, deep white handkerchiefs and forehead cloths, and a
very long train. The chapel is plain but very pretty,
and in the middle of the choir, under a flat
marble lies the found dress. Madame de Combille, one of
(13:02):
the nuns who are about forty, is beautiful as a madonna.
The abbess has no distinction, but a larger and richer
gold cross. Her apartment consists of two very small rooms.
Of Madame de Mantinon we do not see fewer than
twenty pictures. The young one, looking over her shoulder, has
(13:24):
a round face without the least resemblance to those of
her latter age. That in the Royal Mantle, of which
you know I have a copy, is the most repeated,
but there is another with a longer and leaner face,
which has by far the most sensible look. She is
in black with a high point head and band a
(13:45):
long train, and is sitting in a chair of purple velvet.
Before her knees stands her niece, Madame de Noais, a
child at a distance of your Valsailles or Saint cyr
I could not distinguish which We were shown some rich
reliquares and the Corpo Santa that was sent to her
(14:06):
by the Pope. We were then carried into the public
room of each class. In the first, the young ladies
who were playing at chess were ordered to sing to
us the choruses of Artagna. In another they danced minuets
and country dances, while Anne not quite so able as
(14:27):
since Cecilia played on a violin. In the others, they
acted before as the proverbs or conversations written by Madame
de Mantanon for their instruction. For she was not only
their foundress but their saint, and their adoration of her
memory has quite eclipsed the Virgin Mary. We saw their dormitory,
(14:50):
and saw them at supper, and at last her carry
to their archives, where they produced volumes of her letters
and where one of the nuns gave me a small
piece of paper with these sentences in her handwriting. I
forgot to tell you that this kind dame who took
to me extremely asked me if we had many convents
(15:10):
and relics in England. I was much embarrassed for fear
of destroying her good opinion of me, and so said
we had but few. Now. Oh, we went too to
the apothekeri, where they treated us with cordials, and where
one of the ladies told me inoculation was a sin,
(15:31):
as it was a voluntary detention from mass, and as
voluntary a cause of eating grass. A visit concluded in
the garden, now grown very venerable, where the young ladies
played at little games before us. After a stay of
four hours, we took our leave. I begged the abbess's blessing.
(15:53):
She smiled and said she doubted I should not place
much faith in it, humbly old gentlewoman, A very proud
of having seen Madame de Maintenon. Well, was I not
in the right to wish you with me? Could you
have passed a day more agreeably? End of Section fifteen
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