st so far that the truth is only remembered and
repeated for the sake of the ridicule. The overturn of Mary of Medicis
into a river, where she was half-drowned, would never have been
remembered if Madame de Vernuel, who saw it, had not said 'la Reine
boit'. Pleasure or malignity often gives ridicule a weight which it does
not deserve. The versification, I must confess, is too much neglected and
too often bad: but, upon the whole, I read the play with pleasure.

If there is but a great deal of wit and character in your new comedy, I
will readily compound for its having little or no plot. I chiefly mind
dialogue and character in comedies. Let dull critics feed upon the
carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.

I am very glad you went to Versailles to see the ceremony of creating the
Prince de Conde 'Chevalier de l' Ordre'; and I do not doubt but that upon
this occasion you informed yourself thoroughly of the institution and
rules of that order. If you did, you were certainly told it was
instituted by Henry III. immediately after his return, or rather his
flight from Poland; he took the hint of it at Venice, where he had seen
the original manuscript of an order of the 'St. Esprit, ou droit desir',
which had been instituted in 1352, by Louis d'Anjou, King of Jerusalem
and Sicily, and husband to Jane, Queen of Naples, Countess of Provence.
This Order was under the protection of St. Nicholas de Bari, whose image
hung to the collar. Henry III. found the Order of St. Michael prostituted
and degraded, during the civil wars; he therefore joined it to his new
Order of the St. Esprit, and gave them both together; for which reason
every knight of the St. Esprit is now called Chevalier des Ordres du Roi.
The number of the knights hath been different, but is now fixed to ONE
HUNDRED, exclusive of the sovereign. There, are many officers who wear
the riband of this Order, like the other knights; and what is very
singular is, that these officers frequently sell their employments, but
obtain leave to wear the blue riband still, though the purchasers of
those offices wear it also.

As you will have been a great while in France, people will expect that
you should be 'au fait' of all these sort of things relative to that
country. But the history of all the Orders of all countries is well worth
your knowledge; the subject occurs often, and one should not be ignorant
of it, for fear of some such accident as happened to a solid