Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

358 THE PEINCESS LOUISA MAEY. [1710.
"If your majesty has the goodness to reply to my
letter, I beg you will employ Madame Catherine as your
secretary, for I shall be in despair if I were the cause of
fatiguing you for a moment. I am too happy at your
receiving my letters with the goodness you do, and also of
receiving answers to them. I fear I am tedious, but it
must be pardoned, for, when once I begin to write to your
majesty, I know not how to finish.
" I pray God that you may improve in strength, and be
in perfect health on Monday.
" I am, Madame, your majesty's
" Very humble and obedient
" Daughter and servant,
"Louise Maeie.
"From St. Germains, this 19th of September, 1710."*
In the summer of 1711, the widowed Queen, Mary
Beatrice, to avoid the expense of keeping up her melan-
choly imitation of queenly state at St. Germains, in the
absence of her son, who was then making an incognito tour
through some of the French provinces, withdrew with her
daughter, the Princess Louisa, to the convent of Chaillot.
They arrived on the 20th of July, and were received by
the abbess and nuns with the usual marks of respect.
The next day, they received letters from the Chevalier
St. George, giving an account of some of the most inte-
resting objects he had noticed during his travels. Among
other things, he mentioned having visited the silk factories
at Lyons, and how he had been struck with surprise at
seeing two thousand reels worked by one wheel. Ob-
servations, from which we learn that France was much
in advance of England, in machinery, in the beginning of
the last century ; and that looms worked by water, per-
* Chaillot Collection.