whom Louis XVIII. used to call on state occasions his Antigone.-She appeared to me a hard disagreeable woman; and though willing, in compliance with the exhortations of the Faubourg St. Germain, to "respecter ses malheurs," I never could help feeling that to be so remarkably ugly was the greatest malheur of them all. It is as unpardonable a fault in a woman to be unsightly, as in a queen to have given no heirs to the throne.

That I should espouse the cause of the Princess who had the advantage of numbering Madame de la Bélinaye in her household, was inevitable;—a partizanship soon discovered,— for under such circumstances, the different members of the royal circle were as definitely ranged to a discerning eye, as the different pieces on a chess board:-the two colours,the two parties,—being utterly distinct, though inextricably mingled together by the chances

of the game.

Madame la Comtesse de St. Gratien was of

course a rigid Delphinian.

--

- Stiff in the

farthingale of prudery as whalebone could make her, Thérèse had no longer a monitor in her heart to bespeak indulgence for the frailties of her sex.-I swear I believe that women, like official men, have the faculty of dismissing every thing from their minds which they do not wish to remember; and that she had really forgotten there was ever a moment when she had fancied the bulbous Préfet a monster and Cecil Danby her better half. And yet, there is no saying! It was perhaps because conscious of a vulnerable heel that she had invested herself in such a tremendous pair of jackboots!

Of all those who bristled up against the pleasures of the little coterie of Madame, she was the fiercest.-Too loyal to conceive a fault in any royally descended personage, Madame de St. Gratien took refuge in pitying the Princess whom she could not presume to blame. -She pitied her for having such bad advisers, -for being surrounded with men without heads

and women without hearts; she pitied her for not being amenable to the prayers of the congregation or the good example of her illustrious sister-in-law ;—and above all, she pitied her for having such a frivolous woman in her confidence as that Madame de la Bélinaye. And the way in which Thérèse uttered the words "frivolous" and "that Madame de la Bélinaye,"―would have been a study for any actress intent upon distinguishing herself in the part of Lady Sneerwell.

One favourite gesture of Thérèse indeed, still lingered with Madame la Comtesse de St. Gratien;-she had possessed a wonderful knack of raising her eyes to heaven, in the paroxysms of morbid sensibility of the femme incomprise; and a very slight variation of expression enabled her to turn this to account in the paroxysms of prudery becoming the lady of l Instruction publique. It was wonderful how piously she uplifted her eyes, every time she mentioned the name of that Madame de la Bélinaye.

One is obliged to sit patient under the weight of many a powerful exhibition of human hypocrisy. But to me, one of the vilest crocodile's eggs which the corruptions of society have hatched into existence, is the plausibility with which the unconvicted Magdalens of the world shake their heads and point their fingers at

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those who, for example sake," they consider ought to be invested in sackcloth and ashes, or exhibited in a white sheet!-More than once, have I been almost moved to an outburst of bitter irony, by the severe morality poured forth upon me by such women as Madame la Comtesse de St. Gratien.

"If it be any object to you to stand well at the Tuileries," whispered Madame de la Bélinaye on the other hand, at a charming soirée the following night at Madame de Rimbault's, reviving all I had fancied of the brighter days of Parisian gaiety and grace,-" do not forget your promise of offering your respects to Madame de St. Gratien.-She is a person whom it is not safe to offend."

"I have no ambition here which she is likely to forward," replied I, gazing upon my fair admonitress with an expression of countenance intending to be as eloquent as Mirabeau.—

"If you have any friends then, whom you do not wish to expose to her virulence of tongue," resumed Madame de la Bélinaye, "for their sake, be not wanting in the common ceremonies of politeness."

"I will call upon her to-morrow morning," cried I, eagerly accepting what I trusted was a personal allusion.

"Call upon her to-morrow morning?”—ejaculated Madame de la Bélinaye,—with one of those expressive gestures by which Frenchwomen concentrate volumes into an elevation of the eyebrow or movement of the hand." Sidonie, ma belle !"-said she, turning towards a pretty Russian who sat beside her-" Monsieur Danby est il impayable !—He talks of paying a morning visit to Madame de St. Gratien!"