Dangerous Letters

Chapter Fourteen

Letter XXX

December 07, 17—

Dear Hannah,

I am now, my dearest friend, safely arrived at the Master's residence in P------ de R------, P----; and, I thank God, have not at all suffered in my health, nor (what is dearer to me) my young Mademoiselle Lette, by all our fatigues.

This city, which has the honour of being the Dauphin's residence, has answered all my expectation, and ideas of it, being even finer than I expected to find it; the streets are very grand, though admittedly quite dirtied – and narrow, so that one cannot fully observe the fronts of the palaces, though many of them very well deserve observation, being truly magnificent. They are built of fine white stone, and are excessive high. For as the town is too little for the number of the people that desire to live in it, the builders seem to have projected to repair that misfortune, by clapping one town on the top of another, most of the houses being of five, and some of them six stories.

I have discovered that, with the streets being so narrow, the rooms of ordinary houses are quite dark; and most are subject to crowding, with no house having fewer than five or six families in it. The apartments of the greatest ladies, and even of the ministers of state, are divided, but by a partition, from that of a tailor or shoemaker; and only nobility have been afforded two floors or more in any house, one for their own use, and one higher for their servants. Those that have houses of their own, let out the rest of them to whoever will take them; and thus the great stairs, (which are all of stone) are as common and as dirty as the street.

'Tis true, when you have once travelled through them, nothing can be more surprisingly magnificent than the apartments. They are commonly a suite of eight or ten large rooms, all inlaid, the doors and windows richly carved and gilt, and the furniture, such as is seldom seen in the palaces of sovereign princes in other countries. Their apartments are adorned with hangings of the finest tapestry of B-------s, prodigious large looking glasses in silver frames, fine ----- tables, beds, chairs, canopies, and window curtains of the richest G---- damask or velvet, almost covered with gold lace or embroidery. All this is made gay by pictures, and vast jars of ----- china, and large lustres of rock crystal. I have already had the honour of escorting Villette to dinners hosted by several of the first people of quality and, though I have only a servants view, I must do them the justice to say, the good taste and magnificence of their tables, very well answered to that of their furniture.

I have seen them once entertained with fifty dishes of meat all served in silver, and well dressed; the dessert proportionable, served in the finest china. But the variety and richness of their wines, is what appears the most surprising. The constant way is, to lay a list of their names upon the plates of the guests, along with the napkins; and I have counted several times to the number of eighteen different sorts, all exquisite in their kinds. I left the Master and young Mistress yesterday at Count S------------, the vice-chancellor's garden, where they stayed for dinner. I must own, I never saw a place so perfectly delightful as the ---------- of P----. It is very large, and almost wholly composed of delicious palaces. If the Dauphin found it proper to permit the gates of the town to be laid open, that the ----------- might be joined to it, he would surely have the largest and best built city in the whole of Europe. Count S-----------'s villa is one of the most magnificent; the furniture all rich brocades, so well fancied and fitted up, nothing can look more gay and splendid; not to speak of a gallery, full of rarities of coral, mother of pearl, and, throughout the whole house, a profusion of gilding, carving, fine paintings, the most beautiful porcelain, statues of alabaster and ivory, and vast orange and lemon trees in gilt pots. The dinner was perfectly fine and well ordered, and Villette said made still more agreeable by the good humour of the Count.