means he thinks of using: a learned Englishman every morning, a French teacher after dinner, but above all the help of the fashionable world and good society. The war which broke out between France and England postponed this plan, and the young man did not make his début in Paris until 1751, when he was nineteen years old, and had finished his tour through Switzerland, Germany, and Italy.
Everything has been arranged by the most attentive of fathers for his success and well-being upon this novel scene. The young man is placed at the Academy with M. de la Guérinière; the morning he devotes to study, and the rest of the time is to be consecrated to the world. "Pleasure is now the last branch of your education," this indulgent father writes; "it will soften and polish your manners; it will incite you to seek and finally to acquire graces." Upon this last point he is exacting, and shows no quarter. Graces, he returns continually to them, for without them all effort is vain. "If they are not natural to you, cultivate them," he cries. He indeed speaks confidently; as if to cultivate graces, it is not necessary to have them already!
Three ladies, friends of his father, are especially charged to watch over and guide the young man at his début; they are his governantes: Madame de Monconseil, Lady Hervey, and Madame de Bocage.
