urgh, 20th of August, 1776.

"Although I am certainly within a few weeks, dear Madame, and perhaps
within a few days, of my own death, I could not forbear being struck
with the death of the Prince of Conti--so great a loss in every
particular. My reflection carried me immediately to your situation in
this melancholy incident. What a difference to you in your whole plan
of life! Pray write me some particulars, but in such terms that you
need not care, in case of my decease, into whose hands your letter may
fall.... My distemper is a diarrhoea or disorder in my bowels, which
has been gradually undermining me for these two years, but within
these six months has been visibly hastening me to my end. I see death
approach gradually, without any anxiety or regret. I salute you with
great affection and regard, for the last time.

"David Hume."

Hume died five days after this letter was written.

The last years of her life she spent with her daughter-in-law, at
Auteuil, where she lived a happy life and received the best society of
Paris. When she died or under what circumstances is not known. During
the Revolution she lived in obscurity, busying herself with charitable
work; she was one of the few women of the nobility to escape the
guillotine, "This woman, who had kept the intellectual world alive
with her _esprit_ and goodness, of a sudden vanishes like a star from
the horizon; she lives on, unnoticed by everyone, and, in that new
society, no one misses her or regrets her death."

In order to fully appreciate the mistress of the eighteenth century,
her power and influence, her rise to popularity and social standing,
the general and accepted idea and nature of the sentiment called love
must be explained; for it was to the peculiar development of that
emotion that the mistress owed her fortune.

In the eighteenth century love became a theory, a cult; it developed a
language of its own. In the preceding age love was declared, it spoke,
it was a virtue of grandeur and generosity, of courage and delicacy,
exacting all proofs of decency and gallantry, patient efforts,
respect, vows, discretion, and reciprocal affection. The ideal was
one of heroism, nobleness, and bravery. In the eighteenth century this
ideal became mere desire; love became voluptuousness, which was to be
found in art, music, styles, fashions--in everything. Woman herself
was nothing more than the embodiment of voluptuousness; it made her
what she was, directi