sh a chamber: "it is
not de fashion, it is not her business." I would not have kept her a day
longer, but found, upon inquiry, that I could not better myself, and
hair-dressing here is very expensive unless you keep such a madam in the
house. She sews tolerably well, so I make her as useful as I can. She is
more particularly devoted to mademoiselle. Esther diverted me yesterday
evening by telling me that she heard her go muttering by her chamber
door, after she had been assisting Abby in dressing. "Ah, mon Dieu, 'tis
provoking"--(she talks a little English).--"Why, what is the matter,
Pauline: what is provoking?"--"Why, Mademoiselle look so pretty, I so
_mauvais_." There is another indispensable servant, who is called a
_frotteur_: his business is to rub the floors.

We have a servant who acts as _maitre d'hotel,_ whom I like at present,
and who is so very gracious as to act as footman too, to save the
expense of another servant, upon condition that we give him a
gentleman's suit of clothes in lieu of a livery. Thus, with seven
servants and hiring a charwoman upon occasion of company, we may
possibly make out to keep house; with less, we should be hooted at as
ridiculous, and could not entertain any company. To tell this in our own
country would be considered as extravagance; but would they send a
person here in a public character to be a public jest? At lodgings in
Paris last year, during Mr. Adams's negotiation for a peace, it was as
expensive to him as it is now at housekeeping, without half the
accommodations.

Washing is another expensive article: the servants are all allowed
theirs, besides their wages; our own costs us a guinea a week. I have
become steward and bookkeeper, determined to know with accuracy what our
expenses are, to prevail with Mr. Adams to return to America if he finds
himself straitened, as I think he must be. Mr. Jay went home because he
could not support his family here with the whole salary; what then can
be done, curtailed as it now is, with the additional expense? Mr. Adams
is determined to keep as little company as he possibly can; but some
entertainments we must make, and it is no unusual thing for them to
amount to fifty or sixty guineas at a time. More is to be performed by
way of negotiation, many times, at one of these entertainments, than at
twenty serious conversations; but the policy of our country has been,
and still is, to be penny-wise and pound-foolish. We stand in
sufficient