[Landrecies, February 28, 1766

Sir,

If you could doubt that there is a single moment of my life in which I do not formulate wishes for your welfare, I would have sent you a congratulatory letter at the new year, as being the person in the world for whom I have the warmest and the most respectful attachment.
You do not believe me stupid enough to appreciate the foil which your friendship gives to my character, nor ungrateful enough to forget your kindness. My long silence must therefore be ascribed as a sacrifice to the fear of being importunate. Your letters are something so precious, that while prostrating myself before those which I receive I forbid myself to fatigue you with mine in order to deserve another from you from time to time — like those beggars to whom one gives alms when they do not demand them. I know that you live happily, that in spite of your anxieties you lose nothing of your ardour. I read with eagerness your ode on the death of the dauphin, your verses to la Clairon, your letters to the abbé de Voisenon, to the marquis de Villette, to the chevalier de Boufflers. I see that in your retirement you put to shame those who are the most active and who enjoy the best health; and that, in a word, you do not cease to prove yourself a unique and prodigious genius, created to be a delight and a light to the human race. I thank heaven for it! I congratulate myself upon having completed a year which has appeared so long to me on account of the distance at which I live from you, and upon having commenced this year, during which I count upon going to present my homage to you. My most agreeable plans have always Ferney for their object. A few hours of your society will soon make me forget the sad and painful days which I pass separated from all those dearest to me. For the last ten years you have been my strongest passion; for the last ten years your friendship and your wit have been the happiness of a life upon which, with this exception, I set little value. You cannot believe, sir, how much I have aged, and how little I am concerned about it; and, in truth, there can be very few men who love life, if to be happy in loving one must have a definite object in view. You have reasons for thinking otherwise, sir; each of your moments is devoted to immortality, but I — what can be the aim of my existence? If it is pleasure there is too little of it. If life is a passage, I find it very obscure. My battle-horse is the chapter of my duties. I persuade myself that I have some to fulfil, and I acquit myself of them with all my strength.

I am no longer at Lille. M. le duc de Choiseul, who does all the good he can to the nation, wished to favour us through our ruling passion — money. It was too dear in a large and handsome town. Here we are at Landrecies and Avesnes. A Swiss officer can dine and sup here very well for a louis per month. I am in garrison in this town, which prince Eugène and the Dutch formerly wished to capture in order to march to Paris. I will follow their example this winter — I shall not go there. I wish to complete my year of probation, not that I have any ambition — it is too late in life for that — but to try every rôle. If ever you compose a play in which there is a major I beg you to give the character to no one but me; I promise that you will be satisfied.

Yes, Sir, mme d'Hermenches was greatly enchanted with what she saw at your house during the stay of our Clairon, and she was much impressed by the continued flattering reception which you and mme Denis deigned to give her. I am impatient to be with you in order to fix my opinion on the sublimeness of la Clairon; up to the present she has astonished and impressed me much more than she has affected me; she is admirable, and has never made me weep. I would like you to hear la Dumesnil on the occasions when she does not descend to ridicule.

M. de Schouwalof will have been very happy if you had Egisthe played for him; he has for a long time past recited parts of it very well. He is much taken with you. He has taste, accomplishments, and many things which do honour, as you say, to the laws of his country, since they have changed its customs and belied the climate. I know m. de Woronzow; he writes to me occasionally from The Hague. He is amiable, and has, I believe, much solidity of character and judgment.

But, sir, have you up to the present found among the Russians who have surprised us that character and that genius which bears promise of making them some day equal to other nations? You are the only person who can enlighten me on this point, and I ask your indulgence for my question. They like what is made outside of their own home, and they imitate it. But will they ever have a proper taste of their own, a national good taste? Those whom we see groan because they are Russians; the idea of returning to their country makes them shudder. This sentiment is monstrous; other men, savages even, love their native country; if the laws have made Russia a country of philosophers, why do not these philosophers love their country? It is not that those whom we admire and who are franchised are nothing more than exotic plants in these climates?

With regard to that country, do you know, sir, that you have a daughter of Peter the great in your house of the rue du Chêne? Mme d'Haqueville makes this claim, and it was under this title that she went to St Petersburg to make herself known to her sister Elizabeth, who made no opposition. She would be there still, sustaining a distinguished position, if she had not taken part in the intrigues of the marquis de la Chetardie. The truth is that the emperor of all the Russias found mme de Mommort to his taste during his last journey to France; that she was confined nine months later, and that the child resembles a czar more than a Parisian. I was given this anecdote as being perfectly accurate, as well as the unworthy action of a certain author, the chevalier de la Morlière, during this journey from Russia, who compelled the daughter of mme d'Haqueville to retire to a convent.

Accept, sir, with your usual kindness, my very humble homage, and deign to honour with your remembrance the most grateful and the most zelous of your servants.

I offer my warmest respects to your niece.]