… renown. Foreign visitors to Paris flocked to participate in her celebrated evening repasts, where the art of conversation à la Française and the pleasures of refined sociability ruled. She received diplomats from all over Europe: … for Madame de Sévigné, whose letters, circulated from hand to hand or read publicly, were an extension of salon conversation, sustained by rumours, anecdotes, fait divers, and literary and philosophical ruminations. Walpole … I hold your judgement in high regard, I must therefore conclude that the fault lies with the translators.’ 6 To keep the conversation flowing between friends, the rules of sociability sometimes called for honeyed words. 4 . Horace Walpole’s …