of a king or kaiser, (I humbly beg her pardon-I mean the premier ministre of a king or kaiser,) is only apprehensive lest we should discover how cheap, how very cheap, how dog cheap, how dirt cheap she holds us! I, for my part, maintain some trifling value in her estimation, because my wife is grand-niece to the minister of war! I cannot promise you that she will think as much of Mrs. Delaval.'

Heighho! I am really tired of those people! I am already what Mrs. Carrington calls "bored" I, who can scarcely remember feeling ennuyée during my whole exile at Ballyshumna! I certainly must be ill-I can hold out no longer.

November 14th.-A whole month without inscribing a line in my diary! Ill, and actually in danger, and at Baden without a creature remaining in the place, except a few sad, consumptive souls, whose bodies are evidently predestined to mingle with its dust. The attack of fever from which I have been suffering (the result, they say, of change of climate and diet; but they say so in utter ignorance of the moral influence of the real origin of all) has left me so wretchedly weak, that the mere spectacle of these miserable individuals crawling up and down the promenade under my windows disturbs me; and the moment I am strong enough to set forth on my way to Paris-en route! The Nivelles, who went yesterday, have ordered rooms for me at Strasburg and Nancy.

I was so overcome indeed, by the severity of my illness, that I could not interest myself as at any other period in the tidings from England which awaited Clarence on his return here from Stutgardt; not indeed that the poor fellow saw any cause for rejoicing in the news that his father had got him appointed attaché at Vienna, instead of allowing him to pass the winter at Paris. But he obeyed with a tolerable grace, and I have already received letters announcing his safe arrival, his presentation to the emperor, and a determination to be as merry and wise under his tribulations as circumstances will allow. I am sorry to lose my agreeable compagnon de voyage, but I feel that his father has judged rightly. Fortunately I have a great many friends about to spend the carnival in Paris.

NANCY.-How brightly beams this gay wood fire after the stoves of Germany, which produce upon one the effect of living in company with a person blind! The people here seem courteous and animated, after the living lumber by which I have lately been surrounded. Welcome--welcome, light-hearted France!

FONTAINEBLEU.-I have deviated from my road for a peep at this fine old historical palace, fraught with the reminiscences of le roi des preaux, and the “audiex de Napoleon." To-morrow afternoon I shall be in Paris, among new people and new pleasures; and the excitement of expectation seems to have effaced all remembrance of my tedious illness. I expect to find there despatches from England, containing letters of introduction from the Delavals and Lady Southam, which will be the means of procuring me agreeable society for the winter.

for

Once more then, I am on the threshold of a strange city! To a poor weak woman, the approach to Paris is more exciting than even the approach to London; London is the city of business-Paris of pleasure; London the emporium of sense-Paris of nonsense; London a wood of thriving timber-Paris a garden of evervarying flowers. London is the mighty throne whence the world is legislated--Paris the graceful temple whence it is civilized. London is the stern and helmeted Pallas-Paris the many-hued Iris. London is, in short, the capital for men, and Paris for women!

There we live, and move, and have a being worthy to be so called. There we still exercise an influence in society. There we are not only allowed to talk, but still strangers are earnestly called upon to listen. There, if I am to believe a thousand travelled men and women, we exercise the prerogative which, during the last century, rendered the reign of Louis XV. a reign of cotillons, and conducted the husband of Marie Antoinette to the scaffold.

Paris is, par excellence, moreover, the fountain head of fashion. When a well-dressed woman enters a London ballroom, it is instantly asserted that she receives from Paris all the appliances and means which render her irresistible; her coiffeur arrives from Paris every spring, and her shoes are forwarded by Melnotte in the despatch bag. Have you a pretty piece of trinketry on your ta

ble, or a handsome vase on your chimneypiece, every admiring visiter is sure to observe, "It is evidently Parisian." No one presumes to wear an artificial flower manufactured elsewhere than in the Rue de Richelieu, or to appear in a hat which has not le cachet d'Herbault.

And now I am at length arrived at this El Dorado of frivolity and fancy. The modes I used to receive with such glee in London I shall now snatch fresh from the mint; and whereas universal Europe derives her cooks, milliners, and dancing masters from this land of taste, I shall probably, for the first time, hail the perfection of la cuisine et les graces. (In grateful remembrance of George Hanton I yield precedence to the casserole !)

For some time to come, however, I will eat, drink, dress, and be merry, without committing to paper the commentations of my wondering ignorance. Let me be fairly orientée before I presume to tell myself what I think of la grande nation, which thinks so much of itself. Coleridge observes that Frenchmen are like grains of gunpowder, dirty and despicable singly, but tremendous in the mass; now as I happen highly to estimate a few separate grains, such as little Vanguyon and Monsieur de Nivelles, I may perhaps also reverse the philosopher's opinion, and despise the million.

**

*

Paris, December 27th, Rue de Rivoli.-I promised and vowed on the day of my arrival, that I would not commit to inscription a single observation till I had rubbed off my newness by a month's residence in this gay busy town. It is the custom to say that first impressions are the truest. Certainly not, as regards the phases of society in a strange country, where one is obliged to trust largely to the exposition of others. In Paris, for instance, more than in any place I ever visited, people see with the eyes of their clique; and political events have tended to create so many, and of such antipodal qualities, that little reliance is to be placed on such blind guides.

Par example!After despatching various letters of introduction which I had received from England, the two first visits I received were from the young Comtesse de Mérinville, daughter to one of Napoleon's parvenu generals, wife to a member of the present royal household; and the Marquise de Bretonvilliers, an ultra of the Faubourg St. Germain, descended from one of those beatific

holy Roman Empire families whose letters of nobility are dated from the ark.

First came my pretty countess, all grace and gayety, instructing me in the measures to be taken to secure a private presentation at the Tuileries; which, thanks to my poor father's former intimacy with Louis Philippe, will, I find, be easily accomplished.

"You would otherwise," said Madame de Merinville, "have been obliged to wait for the cohue of the first of January; when all your countrywomen who can.com. mand a satin gown thrust themselves into the palace, so as to render the ceremony of presentation most tedious to their majesties-most unsatisfactory to the better kind of English-and all for the satisfaction of figuring afterward at our mob balls of four thousand nobodies, given as a sugarplum to the National Guard, and to promote the interests of trade. The petits-bals de la cour you will find a quite different affair; and even now, at the queen's weekly receptions you will see tout ce qu'il-y-a de mieux de la société."

"With the exception, of course, of the Carlists ?" I observed, inconsiderately.

"The Carlists' cried Madame de Merinville, laughing immoderately. Mais c'est de l'histoire ancienne! Who talks of the Carlists now? They are as old as the Ligue! We have with us all those worth gaining over. Yon will even see in the queen's circle several of the set called exclusively les dames du petit château in the time of madame. As for the rest, they remain faisant la moue in their lumbering old hotels of the Faubourg; some because the court does not think it worth while to buy them above their value; others because they are still uncertain whether the present order of things is permanent."

"You will not allow them the honours of martyrdom !” said I.

"I have never esteemed the Carlists since that unlucky affair of Madame de Lucchesi Palli," she replied. "They were so indulgent to her foiblesse-so fierce against her marriage. They forgave her the child (even were it the offspring of a valet)-they have not yet forgiven her a mésalliance."

"Yet the family of Lucchesi Palli is one of the noblest in Sicily?"

"The mother of Henri V. ought not to have espoused

a subject. Du reste, it provokes them beyond measure that not a disparaging word can be said of our court of to-day. The domestic virtues of the king and queen, the elegance and propriety of the princesses, the distinguished air of the young princes, the high character of the various members of the household, are obstacles they cannot get over. Since the reign of Napoleon (the most magnificent since the days of Louis XIV.) never was the court of France so brilliant as now.. So many distinguished foreigners of all nations pass the winter in Paris; the troubles of Spain and Portugal-the cholera in Italy -the tyranny of St. Petersburg-the fogs of the Thames -secure us all that is illustrious and wealthy in Europe. Enfin, you will see and judge for yourself; and with the court and corps diplomatique you will have quite enough to occupy your engagements."

Next arrives my marquise, not half so well dressednot half so rayonnante-not half so gifted with the ease that places others at their ease; but endowed with a certain half-formal air of high breeding highly characteristic of the grande dame. She began with polite inquiries after my health, my journey, and the health and happiness of Lady Southam, from whom I had received my introduction to her acquaintance, and ended with a polite offer to present me to the whole of hers. Nothing could exceed her regret that I should have lodged myself in so detestable a quarter as the Rue de Rivoli.

I ventured a few apologetic words in favour of its cheerfulness, its atmosphere, its central position. "I find myself," said I, "in the neighbourhood of all my friends."

66

Yes; I believe the English lodge principally in this noisy trading quarter," she replied. "The sound of the omnibuses from morning till night would distract us who are accustomed to hotels entre cour et jardin. But I fancy in London you have no courtyards? You accustom yourselves at an early age to the rumbling of carts and coaches!"

I explained the advantage produced by our vaulted streets, and the area interposing between the vibration" of the carriage-way and the foundation of our houses.

"True-you have a subterranean story-your servants inhabit vaults; every country has its peculiarities. They sleep, too, poor creatures, I am told, under the leads! Quite Venetian!-condemned to the pozzi and