She was ugly and deformed, but
sensible, amiable, and rather rich. When he was ambassador to London,
with ten thousand guineas a year, the marriage was avowed, and he
relinquished his cross of Malta, from which he derived a handsome
revenue for life, and which was very open to advancement. Not long ago,
she died. His real affection for her, which was great and unfeigned, and
perhaps the loss of his order, for so short-lived a satisfaction, has
thrown him almost into a state of despondency. He is now here.
I send you a book of Dupont's, on the subject of the commercial treaty
with England. Though its general matter may not be interesting, yet
you will pick up, in various parts of it, such excellent principles and
observations, as will richly repay the trouble of reading it. I send
you, also, two little pamphlets of the Marquis de Condorcet, wherein is
the most judicious statement I have seen, of the great questions
which agitate this nation at present. The new regulations present a
preponderance of good over their evil; but they suppose that the
King can model the constitution at will, or, in other words, that his
government is a pure despotism.
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