the new system. He meets with little pity, and yet has found
as much ingratitude as he had had power of doing service.

[Footnote 1: "_The chief of them._" Walpole himself explains in a note
that he means the Dukes of Cumberland and Devonshire.]

I am glad you are going to have a great duke; it will amuse you, and a
new Court will make Florence lively, the only beauty it wants. You
divert me with my friend the Duke of Modena's conscientious match: if
the Duchess had outlived him, she would not have been so scrupulous.
But, for Hymen's sake, who is that Madame Simonetti? I trust, not that
old painted, gaming, debauched Countess from Milan, whom I saw at the
fair of Reggio!

I surprise myself with being able to write two pages of pure English; I
do nothing but deal in broken French. The two nations are crossing over
and figuring-in. We have had a Count d'Usson and his wife these six
weeks; and last Saturday arrived a Madame de Boufflers, _scavante,
galante_, a great friend of the Prince of Conti, and a passionate
admirer _de nous autres Anglois_. I am forced to live much with _tout
ca_, as they are perpetually at my Lady Hervey's; and as my Lord
Hertford goes ambassador to Paris, where I shall certainly make him a
visit next year--don't you think I shall be computing how far it is to
Florence? There is coming, too, a Marquis de Fleury,[1] who is to be
consigned to me, as a political relation, _vu l'amitie entre le Cardinal
son oncle et feu monsieur mon pere_. However, as my cousin Fleury is not
above six-and-twenty, I had much rather be excused from such a
commission as showing the Tombs and the Lions, and the King and Queen,
and my Lord Bute, and the Waxwork, to a boy. All this breaks in upon my
plan of withdrawing by little and little from the world, for I hate to
tire it with an old lean face, and which promises to be an old lean face
for thirty years longer, for I am as well again as ever. The Duc de
Nivernois called here the other day in his way from Hampton Court; but,
as the most sensible French never have eyes to see anything, unless they
see it every day and see it in fashion, I cannot say he flattered me
much, or was much struck with Strawberry. When I carried him into the
Cabinet, which I have told you is formed upon the idea of a Catholic
chapel, he pulled off his hat, but perceiving his error, he said, "_Ce
n'est pas une chapelle pourtant_," and seemed a little displeased.

[Footnote 1: Cardinal Fleury, P