Antibes, 1st May.

We arrived at Antibes yesterday, my dear friend, and perhaps shall not leave it to-morrow; for the winds are quite contrary. Adelaide began yesterday to familiarise herself with precipices. We were seven hours and an half in performing the twelve leagues between Frejus and Antibes; for the roads are equally bad and dangerous. The mountain of Estrel, among others, is really frightful on account of its precipices. I observed Adelaide, astonished and pale, often fix her eyes upon me, as if to ask me if there were any danger. She would have been glad had I discovered her fears, but durst not confess them to me. I affected not to take notice of her emotions, and even contrived, by some indirect conversation, without her discovering my intentions, to create a desire in her to conceal her feelings; for the care of hiding our fears occupies the mind, and diminishes the excess of them: so that by degrees Adelaide recovered herself, and at length became tolerably composed. Upon the whole she is enchanted with travelling. All she sees astonishes and charms her; and nothing is comparable to the pleasure she takes in writing her journal; but, if she does not acquire a little more precision, this same journal will amount to thirty or forty volumes. Antibes already takes up eight pages of it; it is true, four of them contain a catalogue of flowers and plants in this neigh-bourhood; for we took a long walk this morning, and Adelaide was astonished to see the fields full of flowers, rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and bushes of althea, myrtle, yellow jessamine, and honeysuckle, &c.

You ask how we travel. – We, that is to say, Mons. d’ Almane, Miss Bridget, Dainville, my children, and myself, are all in my great coach, which you know; and we have a second carriage, in which are my women and Brunel. We always stop four hours a day, to dine and give our children various lessons.