Iam entirely of your opinion, my dear child. When we make a point of doing our duty, there is no situation in which we are unable to attend to it. When the inclination leads us, we shall always find time.

I am told since your last lying-in you have learned to ride on horseback. I must own I have very little right to condemn this exercise, which I have been very fond of. But, however, you are sensible I renounced it entirely, when my attentions to you became really of use. I do not know an amusement more dangerous in every respect for women than this is, or which leads them to waste their time more. In the different rides about Paris you meet all the young men of fashion, and you know how often those meetings have been taken for assignations, and that this very circumstance ruined the character of Madame de Tervure. Besides, how is it possible you can employ yourself with your children, improve your understanding, or fulfil the duties of your station, if you ride on horseback three or four times a week? That is to say, if you pass those three days in the Bois de Boulogne, and in dressing and undressing yourself. I cannot finish this letter without adding some remarks on the manner in which you ought to conduct yourself in your new situation. First, you must never forget that your family desired and sollicited this place for you; and this remembrance will preserve you from the absurd custom of complaining of the duty imposed on you. It is a piece of affectation much in vogue to appear dissatisfied with the society of Princes, and to complain of the obligation we are under to go to Versailles. Although, by an inconsistency as striking as it is absurd, people would be in despair, were they to give up this task, which they pretend to be irksome, for that liberty which they boast of with so much emphasis.