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Book, page 221 / 248 de la Valliere seem to have been her very intimate acquaintances. She was in all their secrets: showed us Madame de la Valliere's room, poor soul! all gilt--the gilding of her woe. This gilding, by accident, escaped the revolutionary destruction. In the high gilt dome of this room, the guide showed us the trap-door through which Louis XIV. used to come down. How they managed it I don't well know: it must have been a perilous operation, the room is so high. But my guide, who I am clear saw him do it, assured me his Majesty came down very easily in his arm-chair; and as she had great keys in her hand, and is as large nearly as Mrs. Liddy, I did not hazard a contradiction or doubt. Did you know that it was Prony who built the Pont Louis XVI.? Perronet was then eighty-four, and Prony worked under him. One night, when he had supped at Madame de Vinde's, he went to look at his bridge, when he saw--but I have not time to tell you that story. During Buonaparte's Spanish War he employed Prony to make logarithm, astronomical, and nautical tables on a magnificent scale. Prony found that to execute what was required would take him and all the philosophers of France a hundred and fifty years. He was very unhappy, having to do with a despot who _would_ have his will executed, when the first volume of Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ fell into his hands. He opened on the division of Labour, our favourite pin-making: "Ha, ha! voila mon affaire; je ferai mes calcules comme on fait les epingles!" And he divided the labour among two hundred men, who knew no more than the simple rules of arithmetic, whom he assembled in one large building, and there these men-machines worked on, and the tables are now complete. PARIS, _June 9._ All is quiet here now, but while we were in the country there have been disturbances. Be assured that, if there is any danger, we shall decamp for Geneva. _June 22._
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