French from her. She hopes, by accompanying Monsieur de Moustier,
to improve her health, which is very feeble, and still more, to improve
her son in his education, and to remove him to a distance from the
seductions of this country. You will wonder to be told, that there are
no schools in this country to be compared to ours, in the sciences. The
husband of Madame de Brehan is an officer, and obliged by the times to
remain with the army. Monsieur de Moustier brings your watch. I have
worn it two months, and really find it a most incomparable one. It will
not want the little redressing which new watches generally do, after
going about a year. It costs six hundred livres. To open it in all its
parts, press the little pin on the edge, with the point of your nail;
that opens the crystal; then open the dial-plate in the usual way; then
press the stem, at the end within the loop, and it opens the back for
winding up or regulating.

De Moustier is remarkably communicative. With adroitness he may be
pumped of anything. His openness is from character, not from
affectation. An intimacy with him may, on this account, be politically
valuable. I am, dear Sir, your affectionate friend and servant.

TO JOHN JAY.

(Private.) PARIS, October 8, 1787.

DEAR SIR,--The Count de Moustier, Minister Plenipotentiary from the
Court of Versailles to the United States, will have the honor of
delivering you this. The connection of your offices will necessarily
connect you in acquaintance; but I beg leave to present him to you, on
account of his personal as well as his public character. You will find
him open, communicative, candid, simple in his manners, and a declared
enemy to ostentation and luxury. He goes with a resolution to add no
aliment to it by his example, unless he finds that the dispositions of
our countrymen require it indispensably. Permit me, at the same time,
to solicit your friendly notice, and through you, that also of Mrs.
Jay, to Madame la Marquise de Brehan, sister-in-law to Monsieur de
Moustier. She accompanies him, in hopes that a change of climate may
assist her feeble health, and also, that she may procure a more
valuable education for her son, and safer from seduction, in America
than in France. I think it impossible to find a better woman, more
amiable, more modest, more simple in her manners, dress, and way of
thinking. She will deserve the friendship of Mrs. Jay, and the way to
obtain hers, is to receive her