"Oh! then, we are to attribute to philosophy, that gravity, tristesse, and ennui, que vous nommez, blue devils," said la duchesse, with an arch smile, furtively directed to her coterie.

"Yes," answered milady; "we are superior to the gaiety that characterises your nation; we reflect, we feel, more than you do."

Enfin, you are philosophers, and we are "I admit that you

not," resumed la duchesse.

ought to possess much more philosophy than we do, for you expend so much less. Rarely, indeed, do you use any portion of this treasure: witness your oft-beginning, never-ending, murmurs against your weather, your climate, your ennui, and all the other inevitable ills to which people are subject; while we apply all the philosophy we can acquire to support, or forget them. We expend our philosophy like prodi

gals, and it adds to our enjoyments; you hoard yours like misers, and it gives you no advantage.

"You boast of your superior wisdom, and smile somewhat contemptuously at our frivolous gaiety while we envy not, but pity, your sombre gravity; as we believe that the people who support the ills of life with the most cheerfulness, and forget them with the greatest facility, are the happiest, and, consequently, the wisest. You are above this happiness, and we are superior to the ennui which sends half your nation wandering into every clime; as if locomotion could relieve a malady that arises in the discontented mind, which pursues you in all your migrations. Yet you assert that you travel to be amused; but, instead of finding interest, or amusement, in what you behold, you discover only faults. Every thing is compared with your own country, that country

whence your ennui drove you, and which, while in it, you decry, but the moment you desert it, you exalt. We, however, always find our belle France the best of countries, and, consequently, rarely leave it."

Notre bonne duchesse has a habit of never citing the arguments employed by her adversary, unless they are so weak as to be easily refuted; so, as she did not repeat what defence your compatriot made, I am led to conclude it was not so deficient in sense as the few phrases our friend selected for quotation might otherwise have induced us to suppose. The duchesse, however, more than insinuates that she silenced milady; - a a possibility, I think, less doubtful than the implied assertion that she also convinced her.

Notre chère Paris is so much changed since you left it, that it is hardly to be recognised. We royalists totally avoid a court where, at

the fêtes given, one may be jostled by one's coiffeur, modiste, and cordonnier, in the uniform of the national guard, profaning, by their presence, those salons which, since the restoration, have been sacred to the noblesse. With all our modern philosophy, such rencontres would be more than one of l'ancien régime could support: hence, we carefully abstain from the Tuileries, and have the credit of dévouement to the exiled family; while, if the truth were told, a horror of finding ourselves in mauvaise compagnie operates much more strongly in attaching us to the old order of things.

Of politics I shall say nothing, except that Louis Philippe proves the truth of your Shakspeare's assertion,

66

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

Florestan is still l'esclave de la Comtesse

D'Hauteville, who, I suspect, encourages his natural propensity to extravagance. I have lately seen her wear some very fine pearls, which, I am sure, were his gift; and I have observed certain symptoms of a derangement in his finances, that prove qu'il est géné. Pauvre Florestan! I retain a warm attachment to him, though I smile when I compare it with the ungovernable passion I felt when we were married. C'est malheureux que l'amour ne puisse pas durer! Apropos d'amour, le duc m'est toujours dévoué, which is a great consolation. His mother lately found a rich heiress for him; an acquisition that would have been very acceptable to his finances, which are not very flourishing but he would not hear of her proposal: -a rare example of attachment, in our days of selfishness.

I was almost tempted to pity your poor little friend Augusta, at being talked into a