l you," answered Madame D'Anville; "they are brave, honest,
generous, mais ils sont demi-barbares."

CHAPTER XII.

Pia mater, Plus quam se sapere, et virtutibus esse priorem Vult, et ait
prope vera.--Horace.

Vere mihi festus atras Eximet curas.--Horace.

The next morning I received a letter from my mother.

"My dear Henry," began my affectionate and incomparable parent--

"My dear Henry,

"You have now fairly entered the world, and though at your age my advice
may be but little followed, my experience cannot altogether be useless.
I shall, therefore, make no apology for a few precepts, which I hope may
tend to make you a wiser and better man.

"I hope, in the first place, that you have left your letter at the
ambassador's, and that you will not fail to go there as often as
possible. Pay your court in particular to Lady--She is a charming
person, universally popular, and one of the very few English people to
whom one may safely be civil. Apropos, of English civility, you have, I
hope, by this time discovered, that you have to assume a very different
manner with French people than with our own countrymen: with us, the
least appearance of feeling or enthusiasm is certain to be ridiculed
every where; but in France, you may venture to seem not quite devoid of
all natural sentiments: indeed, if you affect enthusiasm, they will
give you credit for genius, and they will place all the qualities of the
heart to the account of the head. You know that in England, if you
seem desirous of a person's acquaintance you are sure to lose it; they
imagine you have some design upon their wives or their dinners; but in
France you can never lose by politeness: nobody will call your civility
forwardness and pushing. If the Princess De T--, and the Duchesse de
D--, ask you to their houses (which indeed they will, directly you have
left your letters), go there two or three times a week, if only for a
few minutes in the evening. It is very hard to be acquainted with great
French people, but when you are, it is your own fault if you are not
intimate with them.

"Most English people have a kind of diffidence and scruple at calling in
the evening--this is perfectly misplaced: the French are never ashamed
of themselves, like us, whose persons, families, and houses are never
fit to be seen, unless they are dressed out for a party.

"Don't imagine that the ease of French manners is at all like what we
call ease: you must not lounge o