The two companions—one the brother of the Earl of Ilchester, and the other of Lord Anson—were travelling in Syria together. They had passed through Aleppo, where the plague had then appeared, and were at the distance of several days' journey from it, congratulating themselves on their safety, when, owing to some error on the part of those who examined their firman, they were compelled to retrace their steps to Aleppo, where, condemned to become the inhabitants of a lazaretto until the imagined mistake could be corrected, they found themselves tete-a-tete.

The first two or three days passed without any thing to alarm the friends. Engaged in drawing maps for their intended route, and plans for the future, the hours glided away even cheerfully.

But this cheerfulness was not long to continue; for Mr. Anson, having one morning asked Mr. Strangways to hold the end of his shawl while he twisted it round his head as a turban, the latter observed, with a degree of horror and dismay more easily to be imagined than described, the fatal plague-spot clearly defined on the back of the neck of his unfortunate friend.

He concealed his emotion, well knowing that a suspicion of its cause would add to the danger of Mr. Anson, who, as yet, was unconscious of the fearful malady that had already assailed him. Totally alone, without aid, save that contained in their own very limited resources, what must have been the feelings of Mr. Strangways, as he contemplated his luckless companion?

He dreaded to hear the announcement of physical suffering, though he well knew it must soon come, and marked with indescribable anguish the change that rapidly began to be manifested in his friend. But even this most terrible of all maladies was influenced by the gallant spirit of him on whom it was now preying; for not a complaint, not a murmur, broke from his lips: and it was not until Mr. Strangways had repeatedly urged the most affectionate inquiries that he admitted he was not quite well.

Delirium quickly followed; but even then this noble-minded young man bore up against the fearful assaults of disease, and thought and spoke only of those dear and absent friends he was doomed never again to behold. It was a dreadful trial to Mr. Strangways to sit by the bed of death, far, far away from home and friends, endeavouring to cool the burning brow and to refresh the parched lips of him so fondly loved in that distant land of which he raved.

He spoke of his home, of those who made it so dear to him, and even the songs of infancy were again murmured by the dying lips. His friend quitted him not for a minute until all was over; and he was left indeed alone to watch, over the corpse of him whom he had tried in vain to save.

That Mr. Strangways should have escaped the contagion, seems little less than miraculous. I, who have known him so long and so well, attribute it to the state of his mind, which was so wholly occupied by anxiety for his friend as to leave no room for any thought of self.

Made no entry in my journal for two days, owing to a slight indisposition, which furnished an excuse for laziness.

Dined at Lointier's yesterday—a splendid repast given by Count A. de Maussion, in consequence of a wager, lost on a subject connected with the line arts. The party consisted of all those present at our house when the wager was made. The Duc and Duchesse de Guiche, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hare, the Duc de Talleyrand, Duc de Dino, Count Valeski, Mr. J. Strangways, and our own large family circle.

The dinner was the most recherche that could be furnished: "all the delicacies of the season," as a London paper would term it, were provided; and an epicure, however fastidious, would have been satisfied with the choice and variety of the plats; while a gourmand would have luxuriated in the quantity.

Nothing in the style of the apartments, or the service of the dinner, bore the least indication that we were in the house of a restaurant.

A large and richly furnished salon, well lighted, received the company before dinner; and in a salle a manger of equal dimensions, and equally well arranged, the dinner was served on a very fine service of old plate.

Count de Maussion did the honours of the dinner a merveille, and it passed off very gaily. It had been previously agreed that the whole party were to adjourn to the Porte St. Martin, at which Count de Maussion had engaged three large private boxes; and the ladies, consequently, with one exception, came en demi-toilette.

The exception was Mrs. Hare, who, not aware that at Paris people never go en grande toilette to the theatres, came so smartly dressed, that, seeing our simple toilettes, she was afraid of incurring observation if she presented herself in a rich dress with short sleeves, a gold tissue turban with a bird-of-paradise plume, and an aigrette of coloured stones; so she went to our house, with a few of the party, while I accompanied the rest to the theatre.

The piece was Faust, adapted from Goethe, and was admirably performed, more especially the parts of "Mephistopheles" and "Margaret," in which Madame Dorval acts inimitably. This actress has great merit; and the earnestness of her manner, and the touching tones of her voice, give a great air of truth to her performances. The prison-scene was powerfully acted; and the madness of "Margaret" when stretched on her bed of straw, resisting the vain efforts of her lover to rescue her, had a fearful reality.

The character of "Margaret" is a fine conception, and Goethe has wrought it out beautifully. The simplicity, gentleness, and warm feelings of the village maiden, excite a strong interest for her, even when worked upon by Vanity; that alloy which, alas for Woman's virtue and happiness! is too frequently found mixed up in the pure ore of her nature.

The childish delight with which poor "Margaret" contemplates the trinkets presented by her lover; the baleful ascendency acquired over her by her female companion; and her rapid descent in the path of evil when, as is ever the case, the commission of one sin entails so many, render this drama a very effective moral lesson.

Of all Goethe's works, Faust is the one I most like; and, of all his female characters, "Margaret" is that which I prefer. A fine vein of philosophy runs through the whole of this production, in which the vanity of human knowledge without goodness was never more powerfully exemplified.

"Faust," tempted by the desire of acquiring forbidden knowledge, yields up his soul to the evil one; yet still retains enough of the humanity of his nature to render him wretched, when her he loves, and has drawn ruin on, suffers the penalty of his crime and of her love.

Exquisitely has Goethe wrought out the effects of the all-engrossing passion of the poor "Margaret"—a passion that even in madness, still clings to its object with all woman's tenderness and devotion, investing even insanity with the touching charm of love. How perfect is the part when, endeavouring to pray, the hapless "Margaret" fancies that she hears the gibbering of evil spirits interrupting her supplications, so that even the consolation of addressing the Divinity is denied her!

But the last scene—that in the prison—is the most powerful of all. Never was madness more touchingly delineated, or woman's nature more truly developed;—that nature so little understood by those who are so prone to pervert it, and whose triumphs over its virtues are always achieved by means of the excess of that propensity to love, and to believe in the truth of the object beloved, which is one of the most beautiful characteristics in woman; though, wo to her! it is but too often used to her undoing.

The feelings of poor "Margaret" are those of all her sex, ere vice has sullied the nature it never can wholly subdue.

Mr. and Mrs. Hare left Paris to-day. I regret their departure; for she is lively and agreeable, and I have known him so long, and like him so well, that their society afforded me pleasure.

A large party at dinner, yesterday; among whom, was Mr. M——, who has acquired a certain celebrity for his bons mots. He is said to be decidedly clever, and to know the world thoroughly: appreciating it at its just value, and using it as if formed for his peculiar profit and pleasure. He is lately returned from England, where he has been received with that hospitality that characterises the English, and has gone a round of visits to many of the best houses.

He spoke in high terms of the hospitality he had experienced, but agreed in the opinion I have often heard Lord Byron give, that the society in English country-houses is any thing but agreeable.

I had heard so much of Mr. M——, that I listened to his conversation with more interest than I might have done, had not so many reports of his shrewdness and wit reached me. Neither seem to have been overrated; for nothing escapes his quick perception; and his caustic wit is unsparingly and fearlessly applied to all subjects and persons that excite it into action.

He appears to be a privileged person—an anomaly seldom innoxiously permitted in society: for those who may say all they please, rarely abstain from saying much that may displease others; and, though a laugh may he often excited by their wit, some one of the circle is sure to be wounded by it.

Great wit is not often allied to good-nature, for the indulgence of the first is destructive to the existence of the second, except where the wit is tempered by a more than ordinary share of sensibility and refinement, directing its exercise towards works of imagination, instead of playing it off, as is too frequently the case, against those with whom its owner may come in contact.

Byron, had he not been a poet, would have become a wit in society; and, instead of delighting his readers, would have wounded his associates. Luckily for others, as well as for his own fame, he devoted to literature that ready and brilliant wit which sparkles in so many of his pages, instead of condescending to expend it in bons mots, or reparties, that might have set the table on a roar, and have been afterwards, as often occurs, mutilated in being repeated by, others.

The quickness of apprehension peculiar to the French, joined to the excessive amour propre, which is one of the most striking of their characteristics, render them exceedingly susceptible to the arrows of wit; which, when barbed by ridicule, inflict wounds on their vanity difficult to be healed, and which they are ever ready to avenge.

But this very acuteness of apprehension induces a caution in not resenting the assaults of wit, unless the wounded can retort with success by a similar weapon, or that the attack has been so obvious that he is justified in resenting it by a less poetical one. Hence arises a difficult position for him on whom a wit is pleased to exercise his talent; and this is one of the many reasons why privileged persons seldom add much to the harmony of society.

Went last night to the Porte St. Martin, and saw Sept Heures represented. This piece has excited a considerable sensation at Paris; and the part of the heroine, "Charlotte Corday," being enacted by Madame Dorval, a very clever actress, it is very popular.

"Charlotte Corday" is represented in the piece, not as a heroine actuated purely by patriotic motives in seeking the destruction of a tyrant who inflicted such wounds on her country, but by the less sublime one of avenging the death of her lover. This, in my opinion, lessens the interest of the drama, and atones not for the horror always inspired by a woman's arming herself for a scene of blood.

The taste of the Parisians has, I think, greatly degenerated, both in their light literature and their dramas. The desire for excitement, and not a decrease of talent, is the cause; and this morbid craving for it will, I fear, lead to injurious consequences, not only in literature, but in other and graver things.

The schoolmaster is, indeed, abroad in France, and has in all parts of it found apt scholars—perhaps, too apt; and, like all such, the digestion of what is acquired does not equal the appetite for acquisition: consequently, the knowledge gained is as yet somewhat crude and unavailable. Nevertheless, the people are making rapid strides in improvement; and ignorance will soon be more rare than knowledge formerly was.

At present, their minds are somewhat unsettled by the recentness of their progress; and in the exuberance consequent on such a state, some danger is to be apprehended.

Like a room from which light has been long excluded, and in which a large window is opened, all the disagreeable objects in it so long shrouded in darkness are so fully revealed, that the owner, becoming impatient to remove them and substitute others in their place, often does so at the expense of appropriateness, and crowds the chamber with a heterogeneous melange of furniture, which, however useful in separate parts, are too incongruous to produce a good effect. So the minds of the French people are now too enlightened any longer to suffer the prejudices that formerly filled them to remain, and have, in their impatience, stored them with new ideas and opinions—many of them good and useful, but too hastily adopted, and not in harmony with each other to be productive of a good result, until time has enabled their owners to class and arrange them.

I am every day more forcibly struck with the natural quickness and intelligence of the people here: but this very quickness is a cause that may tend to retard their progress in knowledge, by inducing them to jump at conclusions, instead of marching slowly but steadily to them; and conclusions so rapidly made are apt to be as hastily acted upon, and, consequently, occasion errors that take some time to be discovered, and still more to be corrected, before the truth is attained.



CHAPTER X.

Made the acquaintance of the celebrated Dr. P——, today, at Madame C——'s. He is a very interesting old man; and, though infirm in body, his mind is as fresh, and his vivacity as unimpaired, as if he had not numbered forty instead of eighty summers.

I am partial to the society of clever medical men, for the opportunities afforded them of becoming acquainted with human nature, by studying it under all the phases of illness, convalescence, and on the bed of death, when the real character is exposed unveiled from the motives that so often shadow, if not give it a false character, in the days of health, render their conversation very interesting.

I have observed, too, that the knowledge of human nature thus attained neither hardens the heart nor blunts the sensibility, for some of the most kind-natured men I ever knew were also the most skilful physicians and admirable, surgeons. Among these is Mr. Guthrie, of London, whose rare dexterity in his art I have often thought may be in a great degree attributed to this very kindness of nature, which has induced him to bestow a more than usual attention to acquiring it, in order to abridge the sufferings of his patients.

In operations on the eye, in which he has gained such a justly merited celebrity, I have been told by those from whose eyes he had removed cataracts, that his precision and celerity are so extraordinary as to appear to them little short of miraculous.

Talking on this subject with Dr. P—— to-day, he observed, that he considered strength of mind and kindness of heart indispensable requisites to form a surgeon; and that it was a mistake to suppose that these qualities had any other than a salutary influence over the nerves of a surgeon.

"It braces them, Madame," said he; "for pity towards the patient induces an operator to perform his difficult task con amore, in order to relieve him."

Dr. P—— has nearly lost his voice, and speaks in a low but distinct whisper. Tall and thin, with a face pale as marble, but full of intelligence, he looks, when bending on his gold-headed cane, the very beau ideal of a physician of la Vieille Cour, and he still retains the costume of that epoch. His manner, half jest and half earnest, gives an idea of what that of the Philosopher of Ferney must have been when in a good humour, and adds piquancy to his narrations. Madame C——, who is an especial favourite of his, and who can draw him out in conversation better than any one else, in paying him a delicate and well-timed compliment on his celebrity, added, that few had ever so well merited it.

"Ah! Madame, celebrity is not always accorded to real merit," said he, smiling. "I have before told Madame that mine—if I may be permitted to recur to it—was gained by an artifice I had recourse to, and without which, I firmly believe I should have remained unknown."

"No, no! my dear doctor," replied Madame C——; "your merit must have, in time, acquired you the great fame you enjoy." The Doctor laughed heartily, but persisted in denying this; and the lady urged him to relate to me the plan he had so successfully pursued in abridging his road to Fortune. He seemed flattered by her request, and by my desire for his compliance with it, and commenced as follows:—

"I came from the country, Mesdames, with no inconsiderable claims to distinction in my profession. I had studied it con amore, and, urged by the desire that continually haunted me of becoming a benefactor to mankind—ay! ladies, and still more anxious to relieve your fair and gentle sex from those ills to which the delicacy of your frames and the sensibility of your minds so peculiarly expose you—I came to Paris with little money and few friends, and those few possessed no power to forward my interest.

"It is true they recommended me to such of their acquaintance as needed advice; but whether, owing to the season being a peculiarly healthy one, or that the acquaintances of my friends enjoyed an unusual portion of good health, I was seldom called on to attend them; and, when I was, the remuneration offered was proportioned, not to the relief afforded, but to the want of fame of him who lent it.

"My purse diminished even more rapidly than my hopes, though they, too, began to fade; and it was with a heavy heart that I look my pen to write home to those dear friends who believed that Paris was a second El Dorado, where all who sought—must find—Fortune.

"At length, when one night stretched on my humble bed, and sleepless from the cares that pressed heavily on my mind, it occurred to me that I must put some plan into action for getting myself known; and one suggested itself, which I next day adopted.

"I changed one of the few remaining louis d'or in my purse, and, sallying forth into one of the most popular streets, I wrote down the addresses of some of the most respectable-looking houses, and going up to a porter, desired him to knock at the doors named, and inquire if the celebrated Doctor P—— was there, as his presence was immediately required at the hotel of the Duc de ——.

"I despatched no less than twenty messengers through the different streets on the same errand, and having succeeded in persuading each that it was of the utmost importance that the celebrated Doctor P—— should be found, they persuaded the owners of the houses of the same necessity.

"I persevered in this system for a few days, and then tried its efficacy at night, thinking that, when knocked up from their beds, people would be sure to be more impressed with the importance of a doctor in such general request.

"My scheme succeeded. In a few days, I was repeatedly called in by various patients, and liberal fees poured into the purse of the celebrated Dr. P——. Unfortunately my practice, although every day multiplying even beyond my most sanguine hopes, was entirely confined to the bourgeoisie; and though they paid well, my ambition pointed to higher game, and I longed to feel the pulses of la haute noblesse, and to ascertain if the fine porcelain of which I had heard they were formed was indeed as much superior to the delf of which the bourgeoisie are said to be manufactured, as I was led to believe.

"Luckily for me, the femme de chambre of a grand lady fancied herself ill, mentioned the fancy to her friend, who was one of my patients, and who instantly advised her to consult the celebrated Dr. P——, adding a lively account of the extent of my practice and the great request I was in.

"The femme de chambre consulted me, described symptoms enough to baffle all the schools of medicine in France, so various and contradictory were they, and I, discovering that she really had nothing the matter with her, advised what I knew would be very palatable to her,—namely, a very nutritious regime, as much air and amusement as was possible in her position, and gave her a prescription for some gentle medicine, to prevent any evil effect from the luxurious fare I had recommended.

"I was half tempted to refuse the fee she slipped into my hand, but I recollected that people never value what they get for nothing, and so I pocketed it.

"In a few days, I was sent for to the Hotel—to attend the Duchesse de —— the mistress of the said femme de chambre. This was an event beyond my hopes, and I determined to profit by it. I found the Duchesse suffering under a malady—if malady it could be called—to which I have since discovered grand ladies are peculiarly subject; namely, a superfluity of embonpoint, occasioned by luxurious habits and the want of exercise.

"'I am very much indisposed, Doctor,' lisped the lady, 'and your prescription has done my femme de chambre so much good, that I determined to send for you. I am so very ill, that I am fast losing my shape; my face, too, is no longer the same; and my feet and hands are not to be recognised.'

"I drew out my watch, felt her pulse, looked grave, inquired—though it was useless, her embonpoint having revealed it—what were her general habits and regime; and then, having written a prescription, urged the necessity of her abandoning cafe au lait, rich consommes, and high-seasoned entrees; recommended early rising and constant exercise; and promised that a strict attention to my advice would soon restore her health, and with it her shape.

"I was told to call every day until further orders; and I, pleading the excess of occupation which would render my daily visits to her so difficult, consented to make them, only on condition that my fair patient was to walk with me every day six times around the garden of her hotel; for I guessed she was too indolent to persevere in taking exercise if left to herself.

"The system I pursued with her succeeded perfectly. I was then a very active man, and I walked so fast that I left the Duchesse every day when our promenade ended bathed in a copious perspiration; which, aided by the medicine and sparing regime, soon restored her figure to its former symmetry.

"At her hotel, I daily met ladies of the highest rank and distinction, many of whom were suffering from a similar cause, the same annoyance for which the Duchesse consulted me; and I then discovered that there is no malady, however grave, so distressing to your sex, ladies, or for the cure of which they are so willing to submit to the most disagreeable regime, as for aught that impairs their personal beauty.

"When her female friends saw the improvement effected in the appearance of the Duchesse by my treatment, I was consulted by them all, and my fame and fortune rapidly increased. I was proclaimed to be the most wonderful physician, and to have effected the most extraordinary cures; when, in truth, I but consulted Nature, and aided her efforts.

"Shortly after this period, a grand lady, an acquaintance of one of my many patients among the noblesse, consulted me; and here the case was wholly different to that of the Duchesse, for this lady had grown so thin, that wrinkles—those most frightful of all symptoms of decaying beauty—had made their appearance. My new patient told me that, hearing that hitherto my great celebrity had been acquired by the cure of obesity, she feared it was useless to consult me for a disease of so opposite a nature, but even still more distressing.

"I inquired into her habits and regime. Found that she took violent exercise; was abstemious at table; drank strong green tea, and coffee without cream or milk; disliked nutritious food; and, though she sat up late, was an early riser. I ordered her the frequent use of warm baths, and to take all that I had prohibited the Duchesse; permitted only gentle exercise in a carriage; and, in short, soon succeeded in rendering the thin lady plump and rosy, to the great joy of herself, and the wonder of her friends.

"This treatment, which was only what any one possessed of common sense would have prescribed in such a case, extended my fame far and wide. Fat and thin ladies flocked to me for advice, and not only liberally rewarded the success of my system, but sounded my praises in all quarters.

"I became the doctor a la mode, soon amassed an independence, and, though not without a confidence in my own skill—for I have never lost any opportunity of improvement in my profession—I must confess that I still retain the conviction that the celebrated Doctor P—— would have had little chance, at least for many years, of acquiring either fame or wealth, had he not employed the means I have confessed to you, ladies."

I cannot do justice to this spirituel old man's mode of telling the story, or describe the finesse of his arch smile while recounting it.

Mr. P.C. Scarlett, a son of our excellent and valued friend Sir James Scarlett[3], dined here yesterday. He is a fine young man, clever, well-informed, and amiable, with the same benignant countenance and urbanity of manner that are so remarkable in his father.

I remember how much struck I was with Sir James Scarlett's countenance when he was first presented to me. It has in it such a happy mixture of sparkling intelligence and good-nature that I was immediately pleased with him, even before I had an opportunity of knowing the rare and excellent qualities for which he is distinguished, and the treasures of knowledge with which his mind is stored.

I have seldom met any man so well versed in literature as Sir James Scarlett, or with a more refined taste for it; and when one reflects on the arduous duties of his profession—duties which he has ever fulfilled with such credit to himself and advantage to others—it seems little short of miraculous how he could have found time to have made himself so intimately acquainted, not only with the classics, but with all the elegant literature of England and France.

How many pleasant days have I passed in the society of Lord Erskine and Sir James Scarlett! Poor Lord Erskine! never more shall I hear your eloquent tongue utter bons mots in which wit sparkled, but ill-nature never appeared; nor see your luminous eyes flashing with joyousness, as when, surrounded by friends at the festive board, you rendered the banquet indeed "the feast of reason and the flow of soul!"

Mr. H—— B—— dined here yesterday, and he talked over the pleasant days we had passed in Italy. He is an excellent specimen of the young men of the present day. Well-informed, and with a mind highly cultivated, he has travelled much in other countries, without losing any of the good qualities and habits peculiar to his own.

Went to the Theatre Italien, last night, and heard Madame Malibran sing for the first time. Her personation of "Desdemona" is exquisite, and the thrilling tones of her voice were in perfect harmony with the deep sensibility she evinced in every look and movement.

I have heard no singer to please me comparable to Malibran: there is something positively electrical in the effect she produces on my feelings. Her acting is as original as it is effective; Passion and Nature are her guides, and she abandons herself to them con amore.

The only defect I can discover in her singing is an excess of fiorituri, that sometimes destroys the vraisemblance of the role she is enacting, and makes one think more of the wonderful singer than of "Desdemona." This defect, however, is atoned for by the bursts of passion into which her powerful voice breaks when some deep emotion is to be expressed, and the accomplished singer is forgotten in the impassioned "Desdemona."

Spent last evening at Madame C——'s, and met there la Duchcsse de la Force, la Marquise de Brehan, and the usual habitues de la maison. La Duchesse is one of l'ancien regime, though less ceremonious than they are in general said to be, and appears to be as good-natured as she is good-humoured.

The Marquise de B—— told me some amusing anecdotes of the Imperial Court, and of the gaiety and love of dress of the beautiful Princesse Pauline Borghese, to whom she was much attached.

The whole of the Buonaparte family seem to have possessed, in an eminent degree, the happy art of conciliating good-will in those around them—an art necessary in all persons filling elevated positions, but doubly so in those who have achieved their own elevation. The family of the Emperor Napoleon were remarkable for the kindness and consideration they invariably evinced for those who in any way depended on them, yet a natural dignity of manner precluded the possibility of familiarity.

The Marquise de B—— having mentioned the Duchesse d'Abrantes, Madame C—— inquired kindly for her, and the Marquise told her that she had been only a few days before to pay her a visit.

Anxious to learn something of a woman who filled so distinguished a position during the imperial dynasty, I questioned Madame de B——, and learned that the Duchesse d'Abrantes, who for many years lived in a style of splendour that, even in the palmy days of her husband's prosperity, when, governor of Paris, he supported almost a regal establishment, excited the surprise, if not envy, of his contemporaries, is now reduced to so limited an income that many of the comforts, if not the necessaries of life, are denied her.

"She supports her privations cheerfully," added the Marquise; "her conversation abounds in anecdotes of remarkable people, and she relates them with a vivacity and piquancy peculiar to her, which render her society very amusing and interesting. The humanity, if not the policy, of the Bourbons may be questioned in their leaving the widow of a brave general in a state of poverty that must remind her, with bitterness, of the altered fortunes entailed on her and many others by their restoration."

When indemnities were granted to those whom the Revolution, which drove the royal family from France, nearly beggared, it would have been well if a modest competency had been assigned to those whose sons and husbands shed their blood for their country, and helped to achieve for it that military glory which none can deny it.

Went over the Luxembourg Palace and Gardens to-day. The only change in the former since I last saw it, is that some pictures, painted by French artists at Rome, and very creditable to them, have been added to its collection.

I like these old gardens, with their formal walks and prim parterres; I like also the company by which they are chiefly frequented, consisting of old people and young children.

Along the walk exposed to the southern aspect, several groups of old men were sauntering, conversing with an animation seldom seen in sexagenarians, except in France; old women, too, many of them holding lapdogs by a riband, and attended by a female servant, were taking their daily walk; while, occasionally, might be seen an elderly couple exhibiting towards each other an assiduity pleasant to behold, displayed by the husband's arranging the shawl or cloak of his wife, or the wife gently brushing away with her glove the silken threads left on his sleeve by its contact with hers.

No little portion of the love that united them in youth may still be witnessed in these old couples. Each has lost every trace of the comeliness that first attracted them to each other; but they remember what they were, and memory, gilding the past, shews each to the other, not as they actually are, but as they were many a long year ago. No face, however fair,—not even the blooming one of their favourite granddaughter, seems so lovely to the uxorious old husband as the one he remembers to have been so proud of forty years ago, and which still beams on him with an expression of tenderness that reminds him of its former beauty. And she, too, with what complacency does she listen to his oft-repealed reminiscences of her youthful attractions, and how dear is the bond that still unites them!

Plain and uninteresting in the eyes of others, they present only the aspect of age; alas! never lovely: but in them at least other gleams of past good looks recall the past, when each considered the other peerless, though now they alone remember that "such things were, and were most sweet."

Their youth and their maturity have been passed together; their joys and their sorrows have been shared, and they are advancing hand in hand towards that rapid descent in the mountain of life, at whose base is the grave, hoping that in death they may not be divided.

Who can look at those old couples, and not feel impressed with the sanctity and blessedness of marriage, which, binding two destinies in one, giving the same interests and the same objects of affection to both, secures for each a companionship and a consolation for those days which must come to all, when, fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, the society of the young and gay can no longer charm them, and the present requires the recollections of the past to render it less cheerless; recollections only to be found in those who have grown old together?

Yonder old man, leaning on the arm of a middle-aged woman, who seems less like his housekeeper than his domestic tyrant, offers an example of the fate of those who have lived in what is commonly called a state of single blessedness. A youth and maturity of pleasure have been followed by an old age of infirmity.

He had a thousand pleasantries ready to utter on the subject of marriage whenever it was mentioned; could cite endless examples of unhappy couples (forgetting to name a single one of the happy); and laughed and shook his head as he declared that he never would be caught.

As long as health remained, and that he could pass his evenings in gay society, or at the theatres, he felt not the want of that greatest of all comforts, home; a comfort inseparable from a wife to share, as well as to make it. But the first attack of illness that confined him to his room, with no tender hand to smooth his pillow, no gentle voice to inquire into his wants, or to minister to them; no one to anticipate his wishes almost before he had framed them; no loving face to look fondly and anxiously on him; made him feel sensible, that though a bachelor's life of pleasure may pass agreeably enough during the season of health, it is a most cheerless and dreary state of existence when deprived of it.

The discovery is, alas! made too late. All that he had ever heard or urged against matrimony applies tenfold to cases where it is contracted in old age. He can still admire youth and beauty, but he knows that with such there can never exist any reciprocity with his own feelings.

The young beauty who would barter her charms for his wealth, would be, he knows, no suitable companion for his fire-side; and to wed some staid dame whose youth has been passed with some dear, kind, first husband—of whom, if not often speaking, she might in all human probability be sometimes thinking—has something too repugnant to his feelings to be thought of.

An elderly maiden with a lap-dog, or a parrot, would be even more insupportable; for how could one who has never had to consult the pleasure or wishes of aught save self be able to study his? No! it is now too late to think of marriage, and what, therefore, is to be done? In this emergency, a severe attack of rheumatism confines him to his chamber for many days. His valet is found out to be clumsy and awkward in assisting him to put on his flannel gloves; the housekeeper, who is called up to receive instructions about some particular broth that he requires, is asked to officiate, and suggests so many little comforts, and evinces so much sympathy for his sufferings, that she is soon installed as nurse.

By administering to his wants, and still more by flattery and obsequiousness, she soon renders herself indispensable to the invalid. She is proclaimed to be a treasure, and her accounts, which hitherto had been sharply scrutinised and severely censured, are henceforth allowed to pass unblamed, and, consequently, soon amount to double the sum which had formerly, and with reason, been found fault with. The slightest symptom of illness is magnified into a serious attack by the supposed affectionate and assiduous nurse, until her master, in compliance with her advice, becomes a confirmed hypochondriac, whom she governs despotically under a show of devoted attachment.

She has, by slow but sure degrees, alienated him from all his relatives, and banished from his house the few friends whom she believed possessed any influence over him. Having rendered herself essential to his comfort, she menaces him continually with the threat of leaving his service; and is only induced to remain by a considerable increase to her salary, though not, as she asserts, by any interested motive.

She lately informed her master, that she was "very sorry—very sorry, indeed—but it was time for her to secure her future comfort; and M. ——, the rich grocer, had proposed marriage to her, and offered a good settlement. It would be a great grief to her to leave so kind a master, especially as she knew no one to whom she could confide the care of him; but a settlement of 4000 francs a-year was not to be refused, and she might never again receive so good an offer."

The proposal of the rich grocer, which never existed but in her own fertile brain, is rejected, and her continuance as housekeeper and nurse secured by a settlement of a similar sum made on her by her master; who congratulates himself on having accomplished so advantageous a bargain, while she is laughing with the valet at his credulity.

This same valet, finding her influence to be omnipotent with his master, determines on marrying her secretly, that they may join in plundering the valetudinarian, whose infirmities furnish a perpetual subject for the coarse pleasantries of both these ungrateful menials.

She is now giving him his daily walk on the sunny side of the Luxembourg Gardens. See how she turns abruptly down an alley, in despite of his request to continue where he was: but the truth is, her Argus eyes have discovered his niece and her beautiful children walking at a distance; and, as she has not only prevented their admission to his house, but concealed their visits, intercepted their letters, making him believe they are absent from Paris and have forgotten him, she now precludes their meeting; while to his querulous murmurs at being hurried along, she answers that the alley she has taken him to is more sheltered.

It is true the invalid sometimes half suspects, not only that he is governed, but somewhat despotically, too, by the worthy and affectionate creature, whose sole study it is to take care of his health. He considers it hard to be debarred from sending for one of his old friends to play a party at picquet, or a game at chess with him, during the long winter evenings; and he thinks it would be pleasanter to have some of his female relatives occasionally to dinner: but as the least hint on these subjects never fails to produce ill-humour on the part of the "good Jeanette," who declares that such unreasonable indulgence would inevitably destroy the precious health of Monsieur, he submits to her will; and while wholly governed by an ignorant and artful servant, can still smile that he is free from being henpecked by a wife.



CHAPTER XI.

In no part of Paris are so many children to be seen us in the gardens of the Luxembourg. At every step may be encountered groups of playful creatures of every age, from the infant slumbering in its nurse's arms, to the healthful girl holding her little brother or sister by the hand as her little charge toddles along; or the manly boy, who gives his arm to his younger sister with all the air of protection of manhood.

What joyous sounds of mirth come from each group—the clear voices ringing pleasantly on the ear, from creatures fair and blooming as the flowers of the rich parterres among which they wander! How each group examines the other—half-disposed to join in each other's sports, but withheld by a vague fear of making the first advances—a fear which indicates that even already civilisation and the artificial habits it engenders, have taught them the restraint it imposes!

The nurses, too, scrutinise each other, and their little masters and misses, as they meet. They take in at a glance the toilettes of each, and judge with an extraordinary accuracy the station of life to which they appertain.

The child of noble birth is known by the simplicity of its dress and the good manners of its bonne; while that of the parvenu is at once recognised by the showiness and expensiveness of its clothes, and the superciliousness of its nurse, who, accustomed to the purse-proud pretensions of her employers, values nothing so much as all the attributes that indicate the possession of wealth.

The little children look wistfully at each other every time they meet; then begin to smile, and at length approach, and join, half-timidly, half-laughingly, in each other's sports. The nurses, too, draw near, enter into a conversation, in which each endeavours to insinuate the importance of her young charge, and consequently her own; while the children have already contracted an intimacy, which is exemplified by running hand-in-hand together, their clear jocund voices being mingled.

It is a beautiful sight to behold these gay creatures, who have little more than passed the first two or three years of life, with the roses of health glowing on their dimpled cheeks, and the joyousness of infancy sparkling in their eyes.

They know nought of existence but its smiles; and, caressed by doating parents, have not a want unsatisfied. Entering life all hope and gaiety, what a contrast do they offer to the groups of old men who must so soon leave it, who are basking in the sunshine so near them! Yet they, too, have had their hours of joyous infancy; and, old and faded as they are, they have been doated on, as they gambolled like the happy little beings they now pause to contemplate.

There was something touching in the contrast of youth and age brought thus together, and I thought that more than one of the old men seemed to feel it as they looked on the happy children.

I met my new acquaintance, Dr. P——, who was walking with two or three savans; and, having spoken to him, he joined us in our promenade, and greatly added to its pleasure by his sensible remarks and by his cheerful tone of mind. He told me that the sight of the fine children daily to be met in the Luxembourg Gardens, was as exhilarating to his spirits as the gay flowers in the parterre and that he had frequently prescribed a walk here to those whose minds stood in need of such a stimulant.

The General and Countess d'Orsay arrived yesterday from their chateau, in Franche-Comte. A long correspondence had taught me to appreciate the gifted mind of Madame, who, to solid attainments, joins a sparkling wit and vivacity that render her conversation delightful.

The Countess d'Orsay has been a celebrated beauty; and, though a grandmother, still retains considerable traces of it. Her countenance is so spirituelle and piquant, that it gives additional point to the clever things she perpetually utters; and what greatly enhances her attractions is the perfect freedom from any of the airs of a bel esprit, and the total exemption from affectation that distinguishes her.

General d'Orsay, known from his youth as Le Beau d'Orsay, still justifies the appellation, for he is the handsomest man of his age that I have ever beheld. It is said that when the Emperor Napoleon first saw him, he observed that he would make an admirable model for a Jupiter, so noble and commanding was the character of his beauty.

Like most people remarkable for good looks, General d'Orsay is reported to have been wholly free from vanity; to which, perhaps, may be attributed the general assent accorded to his personal attractions which, while universally admitted, excited none of the envy and ill-will which such advantages but too often draw on their possessor. There is a calm and dignified simplicity in the manners of General d'Orsay, that harmonises well with his lofty bearing.

It is very gratifying to witness the affection and good intelligence that reign in the domestic circles in France. Grandfathers and grandmothers here meet with an attention from their children and grandchildren, the demonstrations of which are very touching; and I often see gay and brilliant parties abandoned by some of those with whom I am in the habit of daily intercourse, in order that they may pass the evenings with their aged relatives.

Frequently do I see the beautiful Duchesse de Guiche enter the salon of her grandmother, sparkling in diamonds, after having hurried away from some splendid fete, of which she was the brightest ornament, to spend an hour with her before she retired to rest; and the Countess d'Orsay is so devoted to her mother, that nearly her whole time is passed with her.

It is pleasant to see the mother and grandmother inspecting and commenting on the toilette of the lovely daughter, of whom they are so justly proud, while she is wholly occupied in inquiring about the health of each, or answering their questions relative to that of her children.

The good and venerable Duc de Gramont examines his daughter-in-law through his eyeglass, and, with an air of paternal affection, observes to General d'Orsay, "How well our daughter looks to-night!"

Madame Craufurd, referring to her great age last evening, said to me, and a tear stole down her cheek while she spoke:

"Ah, my dear friend! how can I think that I must soon leave all those who love me so much, and whom I so dote on, without bitter regret? Yes, I am too happy here to be as resigned as I ought to be to meet death."

Saw Potier in the Ci-devant Jeune Homme last night. It is an excellent piece of acting, from the first scene where he appears in all the infirmity of age, in his night-cap and flannel dressing-gown, to the last, in which he portrays tho would-be young man. His face, his figure, his cough, are inimitable; and when he recounts to his servant the gaieties of the previous night, the hollow cheek, sunken eye, and hurried breathing of the "Ci-devant Jeune Homme" render the scene most impressive.

Nothing could be more comic than the metamorphose effected in his appearance by dress, except it were his endeavours to assume an air and countenance suitable to the juvenility of his toilette; while, at intervals, some irrepressible symptom of infirmity reminded the audience of the pangs the effort to appear young inflicted on him. Potier is a finished actor, and leaves nothing to be wished, except that he may long continue to perform and delight his audience as last night.

Dined yesterday at the Countess d'Orsay's, with a large family party. The only stranger was Sir Francis Burdett. A most agreeable dinner, followed by a very pleasant evening. I have seldom seen any Englishman enjoy French society as much as the worthy baronet does. He speaks the language with great facility, is well acquainted with its literature, and has none of the prejudices which militate so much against acquiring a perfect knowledge of the manners and customs of a foreign country.

French society has decidedly one great superiority over English, and that is its freedom from those topics which too often engross so considerable a portion of male conversation, even in the presence of ladies, in England. I have often passed the evening previously and subsequently to a race, in which many of the men present took a lively interest, without ever hearing it made the subject of conversation. Could this be said of a party in England, on a similar occasion?

Nor do the men here talk of their shooting or hunting before women, as with us. This is a great relief, for in England many a woman is doomed to listen to interminable tales of slaughtered grouse, partridges, and pheasants; of hair breadth "'scapes by flood and field," and venturous leaps, the descriptions of which leave one in doubt whether the narrator or his horse be the greater animal of the two, and render the poor listener more fatigued by the recital than either was by the longest chase.

A dissertation on the comparative merits of Manton's, Lancaster's, and Moore's guns, and the advantage of percussion locks, it is true, generally diversifies the conversation.

Then how edifying it is to hear the pedigrees of horses—the odds for and against the favourite winning such or such a race—the good or bad books of the talkers—the hedging or backing of the betters! Yet all this are women condemned to hear on the eve of a race, or during the shooting or hunting season, should their evil stars bring them into the society of any of the Nimrods or sportsmen of the day, who think it not only allowable to devote nearly all their time to such pursuits, but to talk of little else.

The woman who aims at being popular in her county, must not only listen patiently, but evince a lively interest in these intellectual occupations; while, if the truth was confessed, she is thoroughly ennuyee by these details of them: or if not, it must be inferred that she has lost much of the refinement of mind and taste peculiar to the well-educated portion of her sex.

I do not object to men liking racing, hunting, and shooting. The first preserves the breed of horses, for which England is so justly celebrated, and hunting keeps up the skill in horsemanship in which our men excel. What I do object to is their making these pursuits the constant topics of conversation before women, instead of selecting those more suitable to the tastes and habits of the latter.

There is none of the affectation of avoiding subjects supposed to be uninteresting to women visible in the men here. They do not utter with a smile—half pity, half condescension,—"we must not talk politics before the ladies;" they merely avoid entering into discussions, or exhibiting party spirit, and shew their deference for female society by speaking on literature, on which they politely seem to take for granted that women are well informed.

Perhaps this deferential treatment of the gentler sex may not be wholly caused by the good breeding of the men in France; for I strongly suspect that the women here would be very little disposed to submit to the nonchalance that prompts the conduct I have referred to in England, and that any man who would make his horses or his field-sports the topic of discourse in their presence, would soon find himself expelled from their society.

Frenchwomen still think, and with reason, that they govern the tone of the circles in which they move, and look with jealousy on any infringement of the respectful attention they consider to be their due.

A few nights ago I saw the Duchesse de Guiche, on her return from a reception at court, sparkling in diamonds, and looking so beautiful that she reminded me of Burke's description of the lovely and unfortunate Marie-Antoinette. To-day I thought her still more attractive, when, wearing only a simple white peignoir, and her matchless hair bound tightly round her classically shaped head, I saw her enacting the part of garde-malade to her children, who have caught the measles.

With a large, and well-chosen nursery-establishment, she would confide her precious charge to no care but her own, and moved from each little white bed to the other with noiseless step and anxious glance, bringing comfort to the dear little invalid in each. No wonder that her children adore her, for never was there so devoted a mother.

In the meridian of youth and beauty, and filling so brilliant a position in France, it is touching to witness how wholly engrossed this amiable young woman's thoughts are by her domestic duties. She incites, by sharing, the studies of her boys; and already is her little girl, owing to her mother's judicious system, cited as a model.

It was pleasant to see the Duc, when released from his attendance at court, hurrying into the sick chamber of his children, and their languid eyes, lighting up with a momentary animation, and their feverish lips relaxing into a smile, at the sound of his well-known voice. And this is the couple considered to be "the glass of fashion and the mould of form," the observed of all observers, of the courtly circle at Paris!

Who could behold them as I have done, in that sick room, without acknowledging that, despite of all that has been said of the deleterious influence of courts on the feelings of those who live much in them, the truly good pass unharmed through the dangerous ordeal?

Went to the Theatre des Nouveautes last night, where I saw La Maison du Rempart. The Parisians seem to have decided taste for bringing scenes of riot and disorder on the stage; and the tendency of such exhibitions is any thing but salutary with so inflammable a people, and in times like the present.

One of the scenes of La Maison du Rempart represents an armed mob demolishing the house of a citizen—an act of violence that seemed to afford great satisfaction to the majority of the audience; and, though the period represented is that of the Fronde, the acts of the rabble strongly assimilated with those of the same class in later times, when the revolution let loose on hapless France the worst of all tyrants—a reckless and sanguinary mob. I cannot help feeling alarmed at the consequences likely to result from such performances. Sparks of fire flung among gunpowder are not more dangerous. Shewing a populace what they can effect by brutal force is a dangerous experiment; it is like letting a tame lion see how easily he could overpower his keepers.

Mr. Cuthbert and M. Charles Laffitte dined here yesterday. Both are excellent specimens of their countries; the former being well-informed and agreeable, and the latter possessing all the good sense we believe to be peculiar to an Englishman, with the high breeding that appertains to a thoroughly well-educated Frenchman.

The advance of civilization was evident in both these gentlemen—the Englishman speaking French with purity and fluency, and the Frenchman speaking English like a born Briton. Twenty years ago, this would have been considered a very rare occurrence, while now it excites little remark. But it is not alone the languages of the different countries that Mr. Cuthbert and M. Charles Laffitte have acquired, for both are well acquainted with the literature of each, which renders their society very agreeable.

Spent last evening in the Rue d'Anjou, where I met Lady Combermere, the Dowager Lady Hawarden, and Mrs. Masters. Lady Combermere is lively and agreeable, un peu romanesque, which gives great originality to her conversation, and sings Mrs. Arkwright's beautiful ballads with great feeling.

Mr. Charles Grant[4] dined here yesterday. He is a very sensible man, possessing a vast fund of general information, with gentle and highly-polished manners. What a charm there is in agreeable manners, and how soon one feels at ease with those who possess them!

Spent, or mis-spent, a great portion of the day in visiting the curiosity shops on the Quai Voltaire, and came away from them with a lighter purse than I entered. There is no resisting, at least I find it so, the exquisite porcelaine de Sevres, off which the dainty dames of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth feasted, or which held their bouquets, or pot pourri. An etui of gold set with oriental agates and brilliants, and a flacon of rock crystal, both of which once appertained to Madame de Sevigne, vanquished my prudence.

Would that with the possession of these articles, often used by her, I could also inherit the matchless grace with which her pen could invest every subject it touched! But, alas! it is easier to acquire the beautiful bijouterie, rendered still more valuable by having belonged to celebrated people, than the talent that gained their celebrity; and so I must be content with inhaling esprit de rose from the flacon of Madame de Sevigne, without aspiring to any portion of the esprit for which she was so distinguished.

I am now rich in the possession of objects once belonging to remarkable women, and I am not a little content with my acquisitions. I can boast the gold and enamelled pincushion of Madame de Maintenon, heart-shaped, and stuck as full of pins as the hearts of the French Protestants were with thorns by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; to which she is said to have so greatly contributed by her counsel to her infatuated lover, Louis the Fourteenth. I can indulge in a pinch of snuff from the tabatiere of the Marquise de Rambouillet, hold my court-plaster in the boite a mouches of Ninon de l'Enclos, and cut ribands with the scissors of Madame de Deffand.

This desire of obtaining objects that have belonged to celebrated people may be, and often is, considered puerile; but confess to the weakness, and the contemplation of the little memorials I have named awakens recollections in my mind fraught with interest.

I can fancy Madame de Sevigne, who was as amiable as she was clever, and whose tenderness towards her daughter is demonstrated so naturally and touchingly in the letters she addressed to her, holding the flacon now mine to the nostrils of Madame de Grignan, in whose health she was always so much more interested than in her own.

I can see in my mind's eye the precise and demure Madame de Maintenon taking a pin from the very pincushion now before me, to prevent the opening of her kerchief, and so conceal even her throat from the prying eyes of the aged voluptuary, whose passions the wily prude is said to have excited by a concealment of a portion of her person that had, in all probability, ceased to possess charms enough to produce this effect, if revealed.

This extreme reserve on the part of the mature coquette evinced a profound knowledge of mankind, and, above all, of him on whom she practised her arts. The profuse display of the bust and shoulders in those days, when the ladies of the court left so little to the imagination of the amorous monarch on whose heart so many of them had designs, must have impaired the effect meant to have been achieved by the indelicate exposure; for—hear it ye fair dames, with whose snowy busts and dimpled shoulders the eyes of your male acquaintance are as familiar as with your faces!—the charms of nature, however beautiful, fall short of the ideal perfection accorded to them by the imagination, when unseen. The clever Maintenon, aware of this fact, of which the less wise of her sex are ignorant or forgetful, afforded a striking contrast in her dress to the women around her, and piquing first the curiosity, and then the passions, of the old libertine, acquired an influence over him when she had long passed the meridian of her personal attractions, which youthful beauties, who left him no room to doubt their charms, or to exaggerate them as imagination is prone to do, could never accomplish.

This very pincushion, with its red velvet heart stuck with pins, was probably a gift from the enamoured Louis, and meant to be symbolical of the state of his own; which, in hardness, it might be truly said to resemble. It may have often been placed on her table when Maintenon was paying the penalty of her hard-earned greatness by the painful task of endeavouring—as she acknowledged—to amuse a man who was no longer amusable.

Could it speak, it might relate the wearisome hours passed in a palace (for the demon Ennui cannot be expelled even from the most brilliant; nay, prefers, it is said, to select them for his abode), and we should learn, that while an object of envy to thousands, the mistress, or unacknowledged wife of le Grand Monarque, was but little more happy than the widow of Scarron when steeped in poverty.

Madame de Maintenon discovered what hundreds before and since have done—that splendour and greatness cannot confer happiness; and, while trying to amuse a man who, though possessed of sovereign power, has lost all sense of enjoyment, must have reverted, perhaps with a sigh, to the little chamber in which she so long soothed the sick bed of the witty octogenarian, Scarron; who, gay and cheerful to the last, could make her smile by his sprightly and spirituelles sallies, which neither the evils of poverty nor pain could subdue.

Perhaps this pincushion has lain on her table when Madame de Maintenon listened to the animating conversation of Racine, or heard him read aloud, with that spirit and deep pathos for which his reading was so remarkable, his Esther and Alhalie, previously to their performance at St.-Cyr.

That she did not make his peace with the king, when he offended him by writing an essay to prove that long wars, however likely to reflect glory on a sovereign, were sure to entail misery on his subjects, shews that either her influence over the mind of Louis was much less powerful than has been believed, or that she was deficient in the feelings that must have prompted her to exert it by pleading for him.

The ungenerous conduct of the king in banishing from his court a man whose genius shed a purer lustre over it than all the battles Boileau has sung, and for a cause that merited praise instead of displeasure, has always appeared to me to be indicative of great meanness as well as hardness of heart; and while lamenting the weakness of Racine, originating in a morbid sensibility that rendered his disgrace at court so painful and humiliating to the poet as to cause his death, I am still less disposed to pardon the sovereign that could thus excite into undue action a sensibility, the effects of which led its victim to the grave.

The diamond-mounted tabatiere now on my table once occupied a place on that of the Marquise de Rambouillet, in that hotel so celebrated, not only for the efforts made by its coterie towards refining the manners and morals of her day, but the language also, until the affectation to which its members carried their notions of purity, exposed them to a ridicule that tended to subvert the influence they had previously exercised over society.

Moliere—the inimitable Moliere—may have been permitted the high distinction of taking a pinch of snuff from it, while planning his Precieuses Ridicules, which, malgre his disingenuous disavowal of the satire being aimed at the Hotel Rambouillet, evidently found its subject there. I cannot look at the snuff-box without being reminded of the brilliant circle which its former mistress assembled around her, and among which Moliere had such excellent opportunities of studying the peculiarities of the class he subsequently painted.

Little did its members imagine, when he was admitted to it, the use he would make of the privilege; and great must have been their surprise and mortification, though not avowed, at the first representation of the Precieuses Ridicules, in which many of them must have discovered the resemblance to themselves, though the clever author professed only to ridicule their imitators. Les Femmes Savantes, though produced many years subsequently, also found the originals of its characters in the same source whence Moliere painted Les Precieuses Ridicules.

I can fancy him slily listening to the theme proposed to the assembly by Mademoiselle Scudery—the Sarraides, as she was styled—"Whether a lover jealous, a lover despised, a lover separated from the object of his tenderness, or him who has lost her by death, was to be esteemed the most unhappy."

At a later period of his life, Moliere might have solved the question from bitter personal experience, for few ever suffered more from the pangs of jealousy, and assuredly no one has painted with such vigour—though the comic often prevails over the serious in his delineations—the effects of a passion any thing but comic to him. Strange power of genius, to make others laugh at incidents which had often tormented himself, and to be able to give humour to characters in various comedies, actuated by the feelings to which he had so frequently been a victim!

I can picture to myself the fair Julie d'Angennes, who bestowed not her hand on the Duc de Montausier until he had served as many years in seeking it as Jacob had served to gain that of Rachel, and until she had passed her thirtieth year (in order that his passion should become as purified from all grossness, as was the language spoken among the circle in which she lived), receiving with dignified reserve the finely painted flowers and poems to illustrate them, which formed the celebrated Guirlande de Julie, presented to her by her courtly admirer.

I see pass before me the fair and elegant dames of that galaxy of wit and beauty, Mesdames de Longueville, Lafayette, and de Sevigne, fluttering their fans as they listened and replied to the gallant compliments of Voiture, Menage, Chapelain, Desmarets, or De Reaux, or to the spirituelle causerie of Chamfort.

What a pity that a society, no less useful than brilliant at its commencement, should have degenerated into a coterie, remarkable at last but for its fantastic and false notions of refinement, exhibited in a manner that deserved the ridicule it called down!



CHAPTER XII.

Spent last evening in the Rue d'Anjou: met there la Marquise de Pouleprie, and the usual habitues. She is a delightful person; for age has neither chilled the warmth of her heart, nor impaired the vivacity of her manners. I had heard much of her; for she is greatly beloved by the Duchesse de Guiche and all the De Gramont family; and she, knowing their partiality to me, treated me rather as an old than as a new acquaintance.

Talking of old times, to which the Duc de Gramont reverted, the Marquise mentioned having seen the celebrated Madame du Barry in the garden at Versailles, when she (the Marquise) was a very young girl. She described her as having a most animated and pleasant countenance, un petit nez retrousse, brilliant eyes, full red lips, and as being altogether a very attractive person.

The Marquise de Pouleprie accompanied the French royal family to England, and remained with them there during the emigration. She told me that once going through the streets of London in a carriage, with the French king, during an election at Westminster, the mob, ignorant of his rank, insisted that he and his servants should take off their hats, and cry out "Long live Sir Francis Burdett!" which his majesty did with great good humour, and laughed heartily after.

Went last night to see Mademoiselle Mars, in "Valerie." It was a finished performance, and worthy of her high reputation. Never was there so musical a voice as hers! Every tone of it goes direct to the heart, and its intonations soothe and charm the ear. Her countenance, too, is peculiarly expressive. Even when her eyes, in the role she enacted last night, were fixed, and supposed to be sightless, her countenance was still beautiful. There is a harmony in its various expressions that accords perfectly with her clear, soft, and liquid voice; and the united effect of both these attractions renders her irresistible.

Never did Art so strongly resemble Nature as in the acting of this admirable artiste. She identifies herself so completely with the part she performs, that she not only believes herself for the time being the heroine she represents, but makes others do so too. There was not a dry eye in the whole of the female part of the audience last night—a homage to her power that no other actress on the French stage could now command.

The style, too, of Mademoiselle Mars' acting is the most difficult of all; because there is no exaggeration, no violence in it. The same difference exists between it and that of other actresses, as between a highly finished portrait and a glaringly coloured transparency. The feminine, the graceful, and the natural, are never lost sight of for a moment.

The French are admirable critics of acting, and are keenly alive to the beauties of a chaste and finished style, like that of Mademoiselle Mars. In Paris there is no playing to the galleries, and for a simple reason:—the occupants of the galleries here are as fastidious as those of the boxes, and any thing like outraging nature would be censured by them: whereas, in other countries, the broad and the exaggerated almost invariably find favour with the gods.

The same pure and refined taste that characterises the acting of Mademoiselle Mars presides also over her toilette, which is always appropriate and becoming.

Accustomed to the agreeable mixture of literary men in London society, I observe, with regret, their absence in that of Paris. I have repeatedly questioned people why this is, but have never been able to obtain a satisfactory answer. It tells much against the good taste of those who can give the tone to society here, that literary men should be left out of it; and if the latter will not mingle with the aristocratic circles they are to blame, for the union of both is advantageous to the interests of each.

Parisian society is very exclusive, and is divided into small coteries, into which a stranger finds it difficult to become initiated. Large routes are rare, and not at all suited to the tastes of the French people; who comment with merriment, if not with ridicule, on the evening parties in London, where the rooms being too small to contain half the guests invited, the stairs and ante-rooms are filled by a crowd, in which not only the power of conversing, but almost of respiring is impeded.

The French ladies attribute the want of freshness so remarkable in the toilettes of Englishwomen, to their crowded routes, and the knowledge of its being impossible for a robe, or at least of a greater portion of one than covers a bust, to be seen; which induces the fair wearers to economise, by rarely indulging in new dresses.

At Paris certain ladies of distinction open their salons, on one evening of each week, to a circle of their acquaintances, not too numerous to banish that ease and confidence which form the delight of society. Each lady takes an evening for her receptions, and no one interferes with her arrangements by giving a party on the same night. The individuals of each circle are thus in the habit of being continually in each other's society; consequently the etiquette and formality, so genant among acquaintances who seldom meet, are banished.

To preserve the charm of these unceremonious reunions, strangers are seldom admitted to them, but are invited to the balls, dinners, or large parties, where they see French people en grande lenue, both in dress and manner, instead of penetrating into the more agreeable parties to which I have referred, where the graceful neglige of a demi-toilette prevails, and the lively causerie of the habitues de la maison supersedes the constraint of ceremony.

Such a society is precisely the sort of one that literary men would, I should suppose, like to mingle in, to unbend their minds from graver studies, and yet not pass their time unprofitably; for in it, politics, literature, and the fine arts, generally furnish the topics of conversation: from which, however, the warmth of discussion, which too frequently renders politics a prohibited subject, is excluded, or the pedantry that sometimes spoils literary causerie is banished.

French people, male and female, talk well; give their opinions with readiness and vivacity; often striking out ideas as original as they are brilliant; highly suggestive to more profound thinkers, but which they dispense with as much prodigality as a spendthrift throws away his small coin, conscious of having more at his disposal. Quick of perception, they jump, rather than march, to a conclusion, at which an Englishman or a German would arrive leisurely, enabled to tell all the particulars of the route, but which the Frenchman would know little of from having arrived by some shorter road. This quickness of perception exempts them from the necessity of devoting much of the time and study which the English or Germans employ in forming opinions, but it also precludes their being able to reason as justly or as gravely on those they form.

Walked in the gardens of the Tuileries to-day. What a contrast their frequenters offer to those of the Luxembourg! In the Tuileries, the promenaders look as if they only walked there to display their tasteful dresses and pretty persons.

The women eye each other as they pass, and can tell at a glance whether their respective chapeaux have come from the atelier of Herbault, or the less recherce magasin de modes of some more humble modiste. How rapidly can they see whether the Cashmere shawl of some passing dame owes its rich but sober tints to an Indian loom, or to the fabric of M. Ternaux, who so skilfully imitates the exotic luxury; and what a difference does the circumstance make in their estimation of the wearer! The beauty of a woman, however great it may be, excites less envy in the minds of her own sex in France, than does the possession of a fine Cashmere, or a garniture of real Russian sable—objects of general desire to every Parisian belle.

I met few handsome women to-day, but these few were remarkably striking. In Kensington Gardens I should have encountered thrice as many; but there I should also have seen more plain ones than here. Not that Englishwomen en masse are not better-looking than the French, but that these last are so skilful in concealing defects, and revealing beauties by the appropriateness and good taste in their choice of dress, that even the plain cease to appear so; and many a woman looks piquant, if not pretty, at Paris, thanks to her modiste, her couturiere, and her cordonnier, who, without their "artful aid," would be plain indeed.

It is pleasant to behold groups of well-dressed women walking, as only French women ever do walk, nimbly moving their little feet bien chausse, and with an air half timid, half espiegle, that elicits the admiration they affect to avoid. The rich and varied material of their robes, the pretty chapeaux, from which peep forth such coquettish glances, the modest assurance—for their self-possession amounts precisely to that—and the ease and elegance of their carriage, give them attractions we might seek for in vain in the women of other countries, however superior these last may be in beauty of complexion or roundness of contour, for which French women in general are not remarkable.

The men who frequent the gardens of the Tuileries are of a different order to those met with in the Luxembourg. They consist chiefly of military men and young fashionables, who go to admire the pretty women, and elderly and middle-aged ones, who meet in knots and talk politics with all the animation peculiar to their nation. Children do not abound in the walks here, as in the Luxembourg; and those to be seen are evidently brought by some fond mother, proud of exhibiting her boys and girls in their smart dresses.

The Tuileries Gardens, so beautiful in summer, are not without their attractions in winter. The trees, though leafless, look well, rearing their tall branches towards the clear sky, and the statues and vases seen through vistas of evergreen shrubs, with the gilded railing which gives back the rays of the bright, though cold sun, and the rich velvets of every hue in which the women are enveloped, giving them the appearance of moving parterres of dahlias, all render the scene a very exhilarating one to the spirits.

I observe a difference in the usages de moeurs at Paris, and in those of London, of which an ignorance might lead to give offence. In England, a lady is expected to bow to a gentleman before he presumes to do so to her, thus leaving her the choice of acknowledging his acquaintance, or not; but in France it is otherwise, for a man takes off his hat to every woman whom he has ever met in society, although he does not address her, unless she encourages him to do so.

In Paris, if two men are walking or riding together, and one of them bows to a lady of his acquaintance, the other also takes off his hat, as a mark of respect to the lady known to his friend, although he is not acquainted with her. The mode of salutation is also much more deferential towards women in France than in England. The hat is held a second longer off the head, the bow is lower, and the smile of recognition is more amiable, by which, I mean, that it is meant to display the pleasure experienced by the meeting.

It is true that the really well-bred Englishmen are not to be surpassed in politeness and good manners by those of any other country, but all are not such; and I have seen instances of men in London acknowledging the presence of ladies, by merely touching, instead of taking off, their hats when bowing to them; and though I accounted for this solecism in good breeding by the belief that it proceeded from the persons practising it wearing wigs, I discovered that there was not even so good an excuse as the fear of deranging them, and that their incivility proceeded from ignorance, or nonchalance, while the glum countenance of him who bowed betrayed rather a regret for the necessity of touching his beaver, than a pleasure at meeting her for whom the salute was intended.

Time flies away rapidly here, and its flight seems to me to mark two distinct states of existence. My mornings are devoted wholly to reading history, poetry, or belles lettres, which abstract me so completely from the actual present to the past, that the hours so disposed of appear to be the actual life, and those given up to society the shadowy and unreal.

This forcible contrast between the two portions of the same day, gives charms to both, though I confess the hours passed in my library are those which leave behind them the pleasantest reflections. I experienced this sentiment when in the hey-day of youth, and surrounded by some of the most gifted persons in England; but now, as age advances, the love of solitude and repose increases, and a life spent in study appears to me to be the one of all others the most desirable, as the enjoyment of the best thoughts of the best authors is preferable even to their conversation, could it be had, and, consequently to that of the cleverest men to be met with in society.

Some pleasant people dined here yesterday. Among them was Colonel Caradoc, the son of our old friend Lord Howden. He possesses great and versatile information, is good-looking, well-bred, and has superior abilities; in short, he has all the means, and appliances to boot, to make a distinguished figure, in life, if he lacks not the ambition and energy to use them; but, born to station and fortune, he may want the incitement which the absence of these advantages furnishes, and be content to enjoy the good he already has, instead of seeking greater distinction.

Colonel Caradoc's conversation is brilliant and epigrammatic; and if occasionally a too evident consciousness of his own powers is suffered to be revealed in it, those who know it to be well-founded will pardon his self-complacency, and not join with the persons, and they are not few, whose amour-propre is wounded by the display of his, and who question, what really is not questionable, the foundation on which his pretensions are based.

The clever, like the handsome, to be pardoned for being so, should affect a humility they are but too seldom in the habit of feeling; and to acquire popularity must appear unconscious of meriting it. This is one of the many penalties entailed on the gifted in mind or person.

January 1st, 1829.—There is always something grave, if not awful, in the opening of a new year; for who knows what may occur to render it memorable for ever! If the bygone one has been marked by aught sad, the arrival of the new reminds one of the lapse of time; and though the destroyer brings patience, we sigh to think that we may have new occasions for its difficult exercise. Who can forbear from trembling lest the opening year may find us at its close with a lessened circle. Some, now dear and confided in, may become estranged, or one dearer than life may be snatched away whose place never can be supplied! The thought is too painful to be borne, and makes one look around with increased affection on those dear to us.

The custom prevalent at Paris of offering an exchange of gifts on the first day of the new year was, perhaps, originally intended to banish the melancholy reflections such an epoch is calculated to awaken.

My tables are so crowded with gifts that I might set up a petit Dunkerque of my own, for not a single friend has omitted to send me a present. These gifts are to be acknowledged by ones of similar value, and I must go and put my taste to the test in selecting cadeaux to send in return.

Spent several hours yesterday in the gallery of the Louvre. The collection of antiquities, though a very rich, one, dwindles into insignificance when compared with that of the Vatican, and the halls in which it is arranged appear mean in the eyes of those accustomed to see the numerous and splendid ones of the Roman edifice. Nevertheless, I felt much satisfaction in lounging through groups of statues, and busts of the remarkable men and women of antiquity, with the countenances of many of whom I had made myself familiar in the Vatican, the Musee of the Capitol, or in the collection at Naples, where facsimiles of several of them are to be found.

Nor had I less pleasure in contemplating the personifications of the beau ideal of the ancient sculptors, exhibited in their gods and goddesses, in whose faultless faces the expression of all passion seems to have been carefully avoided. Whether this peculiarity is to be accounted for by the desire of the artist to signify the superiority of the Pagan divinities over mortals, by this absence of any trace of earthly feelings, or whether it was thought that any decided expression might deteriorate from the character of repose and beauty that marks the works of the great sculptors of antiquity, I know not, but the effect produced on my mind by the contemplation of these calm and beautiful faces, has something so soothing in it, that I can well imagine with what pleasure those engaged in the turmoils of war, or the scarcely less exciting arena of politics, in former ages, must have turned from their mundane cares to look on these personations of their fabled deities, whose tranquil beauty forms so soothing a contrast to mortal toils.

I have observed this calmness of expression in the faces of many of the most celebrated statues of antiquity, in the Aristides at Naples, I remember being struck with it, and noticing that he who was banished through the envy excited by his being styled the Just, was represented as unmoved as if the injustice of his countrymen no more affected the even tenour of his mind, than the passions of mortals disturb those of the mythological divinities of the ancients.

A long residence in Italy, and a habit of frequenting the galleries containing the finest works of art there, engender a love of sculpture and painting, that renders it not only a luxury but almost a necessary of life to pass some hours occasionally among the all but breathing marbles and glorious pictures bequeathed to posterity by the mighty artists of old. I love to pass such hours alone, or in the society of some one as partial, but more skilled in such studies than myself; and such a companion I have found in the Baron de Cailleux, an old acquaintance, and now Under-Director of the Musee, whose knowledge of the fine arts equals his love for them.

The contemplation of the chefs-d'oeuvre of the old masters begets a tender melancholy in the mind, that is not without a charm for those addicted to it. These stand the results of long lives devoted to the developement of the genius that embodied these inspirations, and left to the world the fruit of hours of toil and seclusion,—hours snatched from the tempting pleasures that cease not to court the senses, but which they who laboured for posterity resisted. The long vigils, the solitary days, the hopes and fears, the fears more frequent than the hopes, the depression of spirits, and the injustice or the indifference of contemporaries, endured by all who have ever devoted their lives to art, are present to my mind when I behold the great works of other times.

What cheered these men of genius during their toils and enabled them to finish their glorious works? Was it not the hope that from posterity they would meet with the admiration, the sympathy, denied them by their contemporaries?—as the prisoner in his gloomy dungeon, refused all pity, seeks consolation by tracing a few lines on its dreary walls, in appeal to the sympathy of some future inhabitant who may be doomed to take his place.

I seem to be paying a portion of the debt due by posterity to those who laboured long and painfully for it, when I stand rapt in admiration before the works of the great masters of the olden time, my heart touched with a lively sympathy for their destinies; nor can I look on the glorious faces or glowing landscapes that remain to us, evincing the triumph of genius over even time itself, by preserving on canvass the semblance of all that charmed in nature, without experiencing the sentiment so naturally and beautifully expressed in the celebrated picture, by Nicolas Poussin, of a touching scene in Arcadia, in which is a tomb near to which two shepherds are reading the inscription. "I, too, was an Arcadian."

Yes, that which delighted the artists of old, they have transmitted to us with a tender confidence that when contemplating these bequests we would remember with sympathy that they, like us, had felt the charms they delineated.



CHAPTER XIII.

Went to see the Hotel d'Orsay, to-day. Even in its ruin it still retains many of the vestiges of its former splendour. The salle a manger, for the decoration of which its owner bought, and had conveyed from Rome, the columns of the Temple of Nero, is now—hear it, ye who have taste!—converted into a stable; the salons, once filled with the most precious works of art, are now crumbled to decay, and the vast garden where bloomed the rarest exotics, and in which were several of the statues that are now in the gardens of the Tuileries, is now turned into paddocks for horses.

It made me sad to look at this scene of devastation, the result of a revolution which plunged so many noble families from almost boundless wealth into comparative poverty, and scattered collections of the works of art that whole lives were passed in forming. I remember Mr. Millingen, the antiquary, telling me in Italy that when yet little more than a boy he was taken to view the Hotel d'Orsay, then one of the most magnificent houses in Paris, and containing the finest collection of pictures and statues, and that its splendour made such an impression on his mind that he had never forgotten it.

With an admirable taste and a princely fortune, Count d'Orsay spared neither trouble nor expense to render his house the focus of all that was rich and rare; and, with a spirit that does not always animate the possessor of rare works of art, he opened it to the young artists of the day, who were permitted to study in its gallery and salons.

In the slate drawing-rooms a fanciful notion of the Count's was carried into effect and was greatly admired, though, I believe, owing to the great expense, the mode was not adopted in other houses, namely, on the folding-doors of the suite being thrown open to admit company, certain pedals connected with them were put in motion, and a strain of music was produced, which announced the presence of guests, and the doors of each of the drawing-rooms when opened took up the air, and continued it until closed.

Many of the old noblesse have been describing the splendour of the Hotel d'Orsay to me since I have been at Paris, and the Duc de Talleyrand said it almost realised the notion of a fairy palace. Could the owner who expended such vast sums on its decoration, behold it in its present ruin, he could never recognise it; but such would be the case with many a one whose stately palaces became the prey of a furious rabble, let loose to pillage by a revolution—that most fearful of all calamities, pestilence only excepted, that can befall a country.

General Ornano, his stepson Count Waleski, M. Achille La Marre, General d'Orsay, and Mr. Francis Baring dined here yesterday. General Ornano is agreeable and well-mannered. We had music in the evening, and the lively and pretty Madame la H—— came. She is greatly admired, and no wonder; for she is not only handsome, but clever and piquant. Hers does not appear to be a well-assorted marriage, for M. la H—— is grave, if not austere, in his manners, while she is full of gaiety and vivacity, the demonstrations of which seem to give him any thing but pleasure.

I know not which is most to be pitied, a saturnine husband whose gravity is only increased by the gaiety of his wife, or the gay wife whose exuberance of spirits finds no sympathy in the Mentor-like husband. Half, if not all, the unhappy marriages, accounted for by incompatibility of humour, might with more correctness be attributed to a total misunderstanding of each other's characters and dispositions in the parties who drag a heavy and galling chain through life, the links of which might be rendered light and easy to be borne, if the wearers took but half the pains to comprehend each other's peculiarities that they in general do to reproach or to resent the annoyance these peculiarities occasion them.

An austere man would learn that the gaiety of his wife was as natural and excusable a peculiarity in her, as was his gravity in him, and consequently would not resent it; and the lively wife would view the saturnine humour of her husband as a malady demanding forbearance and kindness.

The indissolubility of marriage, so often urged as an additional cause for aggravating the sense of annoyance experienced by those wedded but unsuited to each other, is, in my opinion, one of the strongest motives for using every endeavour to render the union supportable, if not agreeable. If a dwelling known to be unalienable has some defect which makes it unsuited to the taste of its owner, he either ameliorates it, or, if that be impracticable, he adopts the resolution of supporting its inconvenience with patience; so should a philosophical mind bear all that displeases in a union in which even the most fortunate find "something to pity or forgive." It is unfortunate that this same philosophy, considered so excellent a panacea for enabling us to bear ills, should be so rarely used that people can seldom judge of its efficacy when required!

Saw la Gazza Ladra last night, in which Malibran enacted "Ninetta," and added new laurels to the wreath accorded her by public opinion. Her singing in the duo, in the prison scene, was one of the most touching performances I ever heard; and her acting gave a fearful reality to the picture.

I have been reading the Calamities of Authors all the morning, and find I like the book even better on a second perusal—no mean praise, for the first greatly pleased me. So it is with all the works of Mr. D'Israeli, who writes con amore; and not only with a profound knowledge of his subjects, but with a deep sympathy, which peeps forth at every line, for the literary men whose troubles or peculiarities he describes.

His must be a fine nature—a contemplative mind imbued with a true love of literature, and a kindness of heart that melts and makes those of others melt, for the evils to which its votaries are exposed.

How much are those who like reading, but are too idle for research, indebted to Mr. D'Israeli, who has given them the precious result of a long life of study, so admirably digested and beautifully conveyed that in a few volumes are condensed a mass of the most valuable information! I never peruse a production of his without longing to be personally acquainted with him; and, though we never met, I entertain a regard and respect for him, induced by the many pleasant hours his works have afforded me.

Met the Princesse de Talleyrand last night at Madame C——'s. I felt curious to see this lady, of whom I had heard such various reports; and, as usual, found her very different to the descriptions I had received.

She came en princesse, attended by two dames de compagnie, and a gentleman who acted as chambellan. Though her embonpoint has not only destroyed her shape but has also deteriorated her face, the small features of which seem imbued in a mask much too fleshy for their proportions, it is easy to see that in her youth she must have been handsome. Her complexion is fair; her hair, judging from the eye-brows and eye-lashes, must have been very light; her eyes are blue; her nose, retrousse; her mouth small, with full lips; and the expression of her countenance is agreeable, though not intellectual.

In her demeanour there is an evident assumption of dignity, which, falling short of the aim, gives an ungraceful stiffness to her appearance. Her dress was rich but suited to her age, which I should pronounce to be about sixty. Her manner has the formality peculiar to those conscious of occupying a higher station than their birth or education entitles them to hold; and this consciousness gives an air of constraint and reserve that curiously contrasts with the natural good-humour and naivete that are frequently perceptible in her.

If ignorant—as is asserted—there is no symptom of it in her language. To be sure, she says little; but that little is expressed with propriety: and if reserved, she is scrupulously polite. Her dames de compagnie and chambellan treat her with profound respect, and she acknowledges their attentions with civility. To sum up all, the impression made upon me by the Princesse Talleyrand was, that she differed in no way from any other princess I had ever met, except by a greater degree of reserve and formality than were in general evinced by them.

I could not help smiling inwardly when looking at her, as I remembered Baron Denon's amusing story of the mistake she once made. When the Baron's work on Egypt was the topic of general conversation, and the hotel of the Prince Talleyrand was the rendezvous of the most distinguished persons of both sexes at Paris, Denon being engaged to dine there one day, the Prince wished the Princesse to read a few pages of the book, in order that she might be enabled to say something complimentary on it to the author. He consequently ordered his librarian to send the work to her apartment on the morning of the day of the dinner; but, unfortunately, at the same time also commanded that a copy of Robinson Crusoe should be sent to a young lady, a protegee of hers, who resided in the hotel. The Baron Denon's work, through mistake, was given to Mademoiselle, and Robinson Crusoe was delivered to the Princesse, who rapidly looked through its pages.