e, too, I thought of you. I was sure you had seen with pleasure
the sublime triumphal arch of Marius at the entrance of the city. I went
then to the Arena. Would you believe, Madam, that in this eighteenth
century, in France, under the reign of Louis XVI., they are at this
moment pulling down the circular wall of this superb remain to pave a
road? And that too from a hill which is itself an entire mass of stone,
just as fit, and more accessible? A former intendant, a M. de Basville,
has rendered his memory dear to the traveller and amateur, by the
pains he took to preserve and restore these monuments of antiquity. The
present one (I do not know who he is) is demolishing the object to make
a good road to it. I thought of you again, and I was then in great good
humor, at the _Pont du Gard_, a sublime antiquity, and well preserved.
But most of all here, where Roman taste, genius, and magnificence excite
ideas analogous to yours at every step. I could no longer oppose the
inclination to avail myself of your permission to write to you, a
permission given with too much complaisance by you, and used by me with
too much indiscretion. Madame de Tott did me the same honor.

But she being only the descendant of some of those puny heroes who
boiled their own kettles before the walls of Troy, I shall write to her
from a Grecian, rather than a Roman canton: when I shall find myself,
for example, among her Phocaean relations at Marseilles.

Loving, as you do, Madam, the precious remains of antiquity, loving
architecture, gardening, a warm sun, and a clear sky, I wonder you have
never thought of moving Chaville to Nismes. This, as you know, has
not always been deemed impracticable; and, therefore, the next time a
_Surintendant des bailments du roi_, after the example of M. Colbert,
sends persons to Nismes to move the _Maison Quarree_ to Paris, that they
may not come empty-handed, desire them to bring Chaville with them to
replace it. _A propos_ of Paris. I have now been three weeks from there,
without knowing any thing of what has passed. I suppose I shall meet
it all at Aix, where I have directed my letters to be lodged, _poste
restante_. My journey has given me leisure to reflect on this _Assemblee
des Notables_. Under a good and a young King, as the present, I think
good may be made of it. I would have the deputies, then, by all means,
so conduct themselves as to encourage him to repeat the calls of this
Assembly. Their first step s