The stocking-weavers and silk-spinners around it,
consider me as a hypochondriac Englishman, about to write with a pistol
the last chapter of his history. This is the second time I have been in
love since I left Paris. The first was with a Diana at the Chateau de
Lay-Epinaye in Beaujolois, a delicious morsel of sculpture, by M. A.
Slodtz. This, you will say, was in rule, to fall in love with a female
beauty: but with a house! It is out of all precedent. No, Madam, it
is not without a precedent, in my own history. While in Paris, I
was violently smitten with the Hotel de Salm, and used to go to the
Tuileries almost daily to look at it. The _loueuse des chaises_,
inattentive to my passion, never had the complaisance to place a chair
there, so that, sitting on the parapet, and twisting my neck round to
see the object of my admiration, I generally left it with a torticollis.
From Lyons to Nismes I have been nourished with the remains of Roman
grandeur. They have always brought you to my mind, because I know your
affection for whatever is Roman and noble. At Vienne I thought of you.
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