The
present one (I do not know who he is) is demolishing the object to make
a good road to it. I thought of you again, and I was then in great good
humor, at the _Pont du Gard_, a sublime antiquity, and well preserved.
But most of all here, where Roman taste, genius, and magnificence excite
ideas analogous to yours at every step. I could no longer oppose the
inclination to avail myself of your permission to write to you, a
permission given with too much complaisance by you, and used by me with
too much indiscretion. Madame de Tott did me the same honor.
But she being only the descendant of some of those puny heroes who
boiled their own kettles before the walls of Troy, I shall write to her
from a Grecian, rather than a Roman canton: when I shall find myself,
for example, among her Phocaean relations at Marseilles.
Loving, as you do, Madam, the precious remains of antiquity, loving
architecture, gardening, a warm sun, and a clear sky, I wonder you have
never thought of moving Chaville to Nismes. This, as you know, has
not always been deemed impracticable; and, therefore, the next time a
_Surintendant des bailments du roi_, after the example of M.
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