‘If I want tickets for your next plays, you will send me some!’ Do you think this a pleasant jest! Or that it is generous in you to insult the grief I feel at being separated from you? I am very sure I should prefer your childrens’ plays to the greatest part of those amusements I see here; for instance, to one I was present at yesterday. Mons. de Blesac, gave a very grand entertainment at his country-house. He had collected together about fifteen Ladies of the best quality, the greater part of whom were very young. It began by a beautiful illumination in the garden, and ended by acting two Comedies of a very different nature from yours’ you may have heard of them, because they are reckoned good ones of their kind; but are so indecent, that ten years ago, no woman of any delicacy would even confess she had read them. Ah, well! we saw them, at this time, performed before a hundred Gentlemen without any difficulty; and have even desired Mons. de Blesac to let them be played again. I confess to you, I had no idea of such licentiousness; and I wondered at the intrepidity of all these young Ladies, whilst the play lasted; who at other times affect to be so fearful and bashful even on entering a room. If I could, without an appearance of prudery, have declined going a second time, I certainly should have broke my engagement; for really my mind is not so corrupted as to make me prefer such pieces to French Comedies. Madame d’ Ostalis was invited to this entertainment, but would not go, which I very much approved of; and certainly, had I been only twenty years old, I should have done as she did, in spite of fashion, or the power of example.