sey,

their exits and entrances, · were perfect as if studied under Baptiste and Melle Mars. If they had been carved in wood to order, to fill for the satisfaction of the public eye the administration of public instruction, they could not have looked more soberly wise, more severely rational. What a well assorted couple, -que de dignité que de raison! - Voilà en effet, des gens de bien! One was tempted to exclaim when one saw them engaged in sober palaver with Charles X., "qui, ut rationem nullam afferrent, ipsâ auctoritate me frangerent!" Yet this was once the bon vivant Préfet of the empire; and that, the languid, fantastical femme incomprise!

Madame de la Bélinaye, the graceful woman to whom I had applied for release from my nightmare, was one of those charming creatures one seldom meets out of Paris, content to shine as an exquisite component segment of a circle, without ever seeking to detach herself from the canvas as a prominent feature. The ambition of a French beauty is to be "belle parmi les belles” — of an English beauty, to make other women look ugly. — An English beauty likes to eclipse, and longs to astonish. Madame de Bélinaye and others of her kind, would have been shocked at the idea of astonishing. A woman parfaitement comme il faut, should never appear where she is not too well assorted with the time and place, the season and the scene, to produce or wish to produce so vulgar a sensation.

On making her acquaintance, it never occurred to me to ask myself what might be her age, what her position in the world. She was so admirably dressed, her gauze turban so light, so fresh, si bien posé, — and the ringlets accompanying it were so silken, her form was so exquisitely moulded, her hand so slender and so well-gloved, that I was too enchanted with her tournure as a whole, to analyze its parts. She was thoroughly "charmante !" After all, why should not dress have its charm as well as any other accomplishment? People fall in love with a woman's singing or drawing; - purely artificial acquirements, addressing themselves to the eye or ear, and not a whit more indicative of refinement of taste than the fastidiousness which produces a chef d'œuvre of l'art de la toilette!

It is absurd to underrate an instinct so essential to the garnish of society. Look at the result of such contempt, in those figures of fun which disgrace the public places of England;-consolidated rainbows,-moving flower gardens, masses of flowers and feathers, heavy trinkets and dirty finery, who expend fortunes in haberdasher's shops for the express purpose of making themselves ridiculous.

Madame de la Bélinaye, I am convinced, had never been in a haberdasher's shop in her life! The few ornaments of her dress were so simple, so subdued, and owed their merit so entirely to their appropriateness to her compact figure and well-turned head, that one could not fancy her otherwise than one saw her at the moment. Her dress appeared intrinsically a portion of herself. — It was impossible to say, as one often does of English women, "how much better she would have been with, or without, so and so !"

-

It was the same with her conversation. No wonder the fable of the little Princess who dropped pearls and diamonds from her lips, had its origin in France! Everything that fell from her lips was either sparkling with liveliness, or bien arrondi, bien perlé, by its polite and gracious form. After talking with her a whole evening, it would have been difficult to recall a single sentence she had uttered. Yet at the time, every phrase seemed so distinct, every sentiment so graceful, that one fancied one must remember them forever. was, in short, a creation of four centuries of civilization,one of those fleet, sleek, slender products of the racing stud of refinement, the Newmarket founded by Francis I., with a king's plate for elegance of costume, manners, and conversation!

She

I am almost afraid that the night of my presentation to Madame de la Bélinaye, the face which hauuted my sleepless pillow was adorned by an aërial turban, and looked at me through two hazel eyes rather than through the grey orbs of my Sophronia. But it could not be helped!

My attention, however, was not wholly absorbed by this attractive woman. -There was a great deal to inter

est one at the Tuileries. The game of courtiership is always more exciting when there are combinations to be made; and the rival camps of the two daughters-in-law of the King, the childless Dauphine and the young mother of the heir presumptive was highly diverting. The severe prudery of the former, the thoughtless Italian gaiety of the latter, produced incessant disgusts, and endless jealousies; not the less irritating for the harness of family affection by which they were yoked together.

I sometimes fancied I could discover in the two royal sisters-in-law, the Elizabeth and Mary of other times. But Madame was wanting in the beauty, and the Dauphiness in the enlightenment, forming the best characteristics of the two queens; though I believe the same motive lay at the bottom of their antipathy: i. e. that the son of the one was to inherit the dominions of the other.

I cannot say that, either as Madame d'Angoulême or Dauphiness, I ever fancied the lady 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 everything 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 hunian 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 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 an 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 French women 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 !"

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"If she could only hear that any living man contemplated so terrible a breach of decorum !" cried her friend. "But Monsieur Danby is excusable. He is a foreigner. Everything is permitted to foreigners. He cannot be expected to be aware of the strictness of etiquette that prevails in the Hotel of the Ministre de l'Instruction Publique."

"You are to know," resumed Madame de la Bélinaye, "that Madame de St Gratien, who is honoured with the friendship and esteem of the Dauphiness, is one of the most exemplary women of the day. She goes to confession every third day; and would not touch the claw of a shrimp on Fridays. Nothing is too rigid for her. life is a series of macerations. I know not whether it be by way of penance, but she would not receive a morning visit from one of your abandoned sex, to conquer an Em

Her