"Sylvia's Lovers." She came here to avoid hearing about it; for she is not like me, a parvenu in literature, who likes to talk and hear talk of her newly acquired notoriety, whether good or bad. It bothers her, and she gets enormous compliments here which she don't know how to pocket and thank for.

There are cartloads of stories about the masked balls at the Tuileries and other guinguettes here. . . . I suppose you know that tutoyering is usual under a mask, all respect being abolished.

I have not time for more.

M. M.

We reached Paris on March 29. These visits of my father's, of which this was destined to be the last, had every year increased in interest. Although he never ceased to regret the gaps which death had already made (such as those left by Tocqueville and others), still acquaintances became friends as time went on, and new ones were added. The kindness and hospitality shown to us in Paris can never be forgotten by the only surviving member of our party, and we saw so much of no one as of Madame Mohl. She came to stay with us in London in July, also for the last time in our old home, which was soon afterwards broken up.

The Dean of Westminster's marriage with Lady Augusta Bruce was a very important event for Madame Mohl. They had met for the first time at a dinner in the Rue du Bac, after which the dean said to his mother that he had seen the only woman he ever could marry. Madame Mohl was very proud of having had a hand in forming such a prosperous union. She was not pleased when her men-friends married women whom she did not know or did not like; in such cases the unhappy wife seldom gained any favour in her eyes. She wrote from Paris

DEAREST MINNIE,

Rue du Bac, December 12, 1863.

I shall ask for some Russian stamps for my nephews too by the same opportunity. My nephews and nieces fill every table-drawer

She

of my apartment with rubbish, or rather I do for them; one has a collection of stamps, one a collection of cyphers, another of seals, another of all of them, another of autographs, another begs for the cast off of each. The ladies made a commerce of stamps last summer in the Tuileries Gardens, when a policeman came up to Madame de Lavergne and turned her out, with many others, saying it was dishonouring the garden to make an exchange of it. went to her spouse in great dudgeon, complaining and whining till she made him go to the governor of the palace to get justice; but they got no redress, and the ladies are strictly forbidden all approach to every negotiation of the sort. She is so vexed! She showed me the matter of at least twelve different Russian stamps in her book, but they never put these on foreign letters; they are very different and like tesselated pavements.

I was very low at your pa not being so well in your last letter, and you asked me for an entertaining letter, as if they could be kept up in bottles in the cellar and poured out at will; and this brings to my mind that Lady Augusta wrote to me three weeks ago, to think of her on the 22nd of this month, as it was to be the day, and toast her; so I invited a few of our mutual friends for the purpose. Two days ago I heard it was to be on the 16th, and I altered the day to it; now I am told Lord Elgin is dead, but I can't help it, and shall make no more alterations; so the people will come, and we shall drink some champagne to her, married or not. It seems Arthur is as much in love as if he were twenty or rather, perhaps, as if he were a good deal older than he is; old passions are stronger than young ones. I should think the banns must have been published before the bad news came, and that they would not put it off. I wrote to Mary Stanley yesterday to know.

All my old haunts are stopped up; like a rat, I have no place to run into. To comfort myself I have been often to the Italian Opera ; there's a Madame Lagrange who really sings well, and a good tenor, though not comparable to Mario. There's a new play, "Montjoie" by Octave Feuillet, much talked of. I must find out whether there are any scènes scandaleuses before I can take my niece of sixteen, just out of her village; or if I can explain things by a secret marriage, as I did about Norma, whom I married to Pollione, without banns, long before the opera began. I was more bothered about Lucrezia Borgia; but she was a very wicked woman, and her son passed off

in the crowd of her crimes. If I had not the ridiculous stories of the Institut, and the candidatures, which Mr. Mohl picks up for me every day, I should grow mouldy over my books. Tell me something about Grota; she is my delight. Lavergne is very gentil; his book is very good. You ought to give an abstract of it in a review; it shows a wonderful spirit of progress in France ten or twelve years before the Revolution, when she made all the real reforms which have been attributed to those who pushed out the reformers. Adieu.

CHAPTER X.

1864-1866.

Dissipation of puffy ignorance-Renan-" Causeries Parisiennes "-Thinking prevents readiness-State of Germany-Schleswig Holstein-No society without eating-Terror of a revolution-Bals costumés-Morality of Madame Mohl's friends-Reception of emperor at the play-Prévost-Paradol's lectures interdicted-Respect for age in Paris-Bishop Jeune-Montalembert and RenanGuizot and Metternich-Death of young German-Death of Ampère-Sanson's lectures-Difficulty of composing parties-Ampère and Loménie-Visit of Queen Victoria to the deanery-Frystone-The fine arts-Julius Mohl on Petersthal-The Queen of Holland-Milan-The Manzonis-Tired of travelling-Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford "-Importance of occupation to womenLetters of sympathy-Love for Mr. Senior-Illness of Miss Carter-Duchess Colonna-Death of Miss Carter-Death of Lincoln-Lanfrey's "History of Bonaparte "Causeries Parisiennes"-Emancipation of the serfs-Of slaves -Effect of war-Scotland-Quiet life-Old books-Ida's visit-PetulanceVanity- Exhibition—“Shah Nameh"- German visitors - Liebreich — A troublesome funeral.

--

MADAME MOHL wrote to me very frequently and at great length in this year for the sake of amusing my father, who was very ill.

DEAR MINNIE,

Paris, January 22, 1864.

I have long been going to write, and I might have gone on so, but I want to know how your papa is; that is sufficient to overcome all dilatoriness. Mrs. Grant Duff told me kind messages from you, and added that you would write but that you were out of spirits. I am sure I don't wonder if he is ill, and after seeing those poor Thackeray girls. I was so sorry for them; will you tell them so? Really, it is too great a trial!

H

has been to Russia, stopped at Warsaw, and there he

* W. M. Thackeray died on December 24, 1863.

cooled his Polish passions, being somewhat disinflated by seeing some facts. Nothing takes away from a certain puffy state of ignorant admiration, which the public delight in, so much as seeing facts. You are no longer full of blubber, but have got some bone and sinew into you.

Lady Salisbury is here, and wants beyond measure to see Renan. As she showed me Queen Elizabeth's oak, I must give her a tit-for-tat, and ask him here. I dare not have him with most of my acquaintances; they look so sour at him, not for his heterodoxy but his politics. I have invited him to breakfast, but I'm like the lad who had a goat and a wolf and a cabbage to carry across the river; for I have a niece of sixteen, who, if she breakfasts with the arch-heretic, will talk of it in the family, and if they think I keep such company they won't let her come again. Now, I'm very fond of her, so I shall send her out. Miss Carter will help me; she is with me. Her statue of Miss Nightingale came unbroken, and is going to be made small and sold about, I hope, even in English farmhouses. I miss Madame de Circourt more and more, and Mrs. Hollond too. She is at Nice, and some say will never be able to winter anywhere else; however, I should say, by her letter to me, she is much better. Madame de Peyronnet is going on in great triumph in a sort of wellknown secrecy, no one ever talking to her of her articles.*

Adieu, dear Minnie. Pray tell me how Mr. Senior is. My kindest love to both, and believe in mine with all your might. Yours ever,

M. MOHL.

DEAREST MILADI,

To Lady William Russell.

February 23, 1864.

If I had written every time I thought of you, I might have done little else-even every time I quoted a bon-mot of yours to Mr. Mohl; but these bring no answers, so I must even turn thoughts into words, and do the contrary of the alchemist; for thoughts are gold, and few can turn them into words that are not dross. "Thinking makes a deep man, not a ready one." How often what Bacon says comes to my mind! I believe much thinking even

The "Causeries Parisiennes." Madame Mohl was a great admirer of all that Madame de Peyronnet wrote.