This woman forms the chief encumbrance to his settlement. M. de Luze, our companion, says, that she passes for wicked and quarrelsome, and tattling; and is thought to be the chief cause of his quitting Neufchâtel. He himself owns her to be so dull, that she never knows in what year of the Lord she is, nor in what month of the year, nor in what day of the month or week; and that she can never learn the different value of the pieces of money in any country. Yet she governs him as absolutely as a nurse does a child. In her absence his dog has acquired that ascendant. His affection for that creature is beyond all expression or conception.
I have as yet scarce seen any body except Mr. Conway and Lady Aylesbury.[305:1] Both of them told me, they would visit Jean Jacques, if I thought their company would not be disagreeable. I encouraged them to show him that mark of distinction.[305:2] Here I must also tell you of a good action which I did; not but that it is better to conceal our good actions. But I consider not my seeking _your_ approbation as an effect of vanity: your suffrage is to me something like the satisfaction of my own conscience. While we were at Calais, I asked him whether, in case the King of England thought proper to gratify him with a pension, he would accept of it. I told him, that the case was widely different from that of the King of Prussia; and I endeavoured to point out to him the difference, particularly in this circumstance, that a gratuity from the King of England could never in the least endanger his independence. He replied: "But would it not be using ill the King of Prussia, to whom I have since been much obliged? However, on this head (added he,) in case the offer be made me, I shall consult my father;" meaning Lord Marischal.[306:1] I told this story to General Conway, who seemed to embrace with zeal the notion of giving him a pension, as honourable both to the king and nation. I shall suggest the same idea to other men in power whom I may meet with, and I do not despair of succeeding.
P. S.--Since I wrote the above, I have received your obliging letter, directed to Calais. M. Rousseau says, the letter of the King of Prussia is a forgery; and he suspects it to come from M. de Voltaire.[306:2]