Pillnitz
will remain "damn'd to everlasting fame" as the place where the famous
treaty was signed, the object of which was to put down the French
Revolution, which Mr Pitt and the British ministry knew of and sanctioned,
tho' they pretended ignorance of it and professed to have no desire to
interfere with the affairs of France.
Every thing pleases me at Dresden except the beds. I wish it were the
fashion to use blankets and _edredons_ for the upper covering instead of
the _lits de plumes_; for they are too heavy and promote rather too intense
a perspiration, and if you become impatient of the heat, and throw them off
you catch an intense cold. You know how partial I am to the Germans, and
can even put up with their eternal smoking, tho' no smoker myself, but to
their beds I shall never be reconciled. A German bed is as follows: a
_paillasse_, over that a mattress, then a featherbed with a sheet fastened
to it, and over that again another featherbed with a sheet fastened to it;
and thus you lie between two featherbeds; but these are not always of
sufficient length, and you are often obliged to coil up your legs or be
exposed to have them frozen by their extending beyond the featherbeds; for
the cold is very great during the winter.
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