Little De Staal takes no notice; but continues gossiping
rapidly:]

"Yesterday Madame du Chatelet got into her third lodging: she could not
any longer endure the one she had chosen. There was noise in it, smoke
without fire:--privately meseems, a little the emblem of herself! As to
noise, it was not by night that it incommoded her, she told me, but by
day, when she was in the thick of her work: it deranges her ideas. She
is busy reviewing her PRINCIPLES"--NEWTON'S PRINCIPIA, no doubt, but De
Staal will understand it only as PRINCIPES, Principles in general:--"it
is an exercise she repeats every year, without which the Principles
might get away, and perhaps go so far she would never find them again
[You satirical little gypsy!]. Her head, like enough, is a kind of
lock-up for them, rather than a birthplace, or natural home: and that is
a case for watching carefully lest they get away. She prefers the high
air of this occupation to every kind of amusement, and persists in not
showing herself till after dark. Voltaire has produced some gallant
verses [unknown to Editors] which help off a little the bad effect of
such unusual behavior.

"SUNDAY, 27th. I told you on Thursday [no, you did n't; you only meant
to tell] that our Spectres were going on the morrow, and that the Piece
was to be played that evening: all this has been done. I cannot give you
much of Boursoufle [done by one Vanture]. Mademoiselle Piggery [DE
LA COCHONNIERE, Madame du Chatelet herself] executed so perfectly the
extravagance of her part, that I own it gave me real pleasure. But
Vanture only put his own fatuity into the character of Boursoufle, which
wanted more: he played naturally in a Piece where all requires to be
forced, like the subject of it."--What a pity none of us has read this
fine Farce! "One Paris did the part of MUSCADIN (Little Coxcomb), which
name represents his character: in short, it can be said the Farce was
well given. The Author ennobled it by a Prologue for the Occasion;
which he acted very well, along with Madame Dufour as BARBE (Governess
Barbara),--who, but for this brilliant action, could not have put up
with merely being Governess to Piggery. And, in fact, she disdained the
simplicity of dress which her part required;--as did the chief actress,"
Du Chatelet herself (age now forty-one); "who, in playing PIGGERY,
preferred the interests of her own face to those of the Piece, and
made her entry in all the splendor and elegant equ