I have known many women, denizens of le grand monde, who have adorned it with equally brilliant talents, equally captivating beauty, equally sparkling wit and vivacity of intelligence.  And I have known many, denizens of the studious and the book world, gifted with larger powers of intellect, and more richly dowered with the results of thought and study But I do not think that I ever met with one who possessed in so large a degree the choice product resulting from conversance with both these worlds.  She was in truth a very brilliant creature.

Madame D’Henin I remember made us laugh heartily one evening by telling us the following anecdote.  At one of those remarkable omnium-gatherum receptions at the Tuileries, of which I have spoken in a former chapter, she heard an American lady, to whom Louis Philippe was talking of his American recollections and of various persons he had known there, say to him, “Oh, sire, they all retain the most lively recollections of your majesty’s sojourn among them, and wish nothing more than that you should return among them again!” The Duke of Orleans, who was standing behind the King, fairly burst into a guffaw.

There was a story current in Rome, in the days of Pius the Ninth, which may be coupled with this as a good pendant.  His Holiness, when he had occupied the papal throne for a period considerably exceeding the legendary twenty-five years of St. Peter, was one day very affably asking an Englishman, who had been presented to him, whether he had seen everything in Rome most calculated to interest a stranger, and was answered; “Yes indeed, your Holiness, I think almost everything, except one which I confess I have been particularly anxious to witness—­a conclave!”

Here are a few jottings at random from my diary, which may still have some little interest.

“Madame Le Roi, a daughter of General Hoche, told me (22nd January, 1840), that as she was driving on the boulevard a day or two ago, a sou piece was thrown with great violence at the window of her carriage, smashing it to pieces.  This, she said, was because her family arms were emblazoned on the panel.  Most of the carriages in Paris, she said, had no arms on them for fear of similar attacks.”

Then we were active frequenters of the theatres.  We go, I find, to the Francais, to see Mars, then sixty years old, in Les Dehors Trompeurs and in the Fausses Confidences; to the opera to hear Robert le Diable and Lucia di Lammermuir, with Persiani, Tamburini, and Rubini; and the following night to the Francais again, to see Rachel in Cinna.

I thought her personally, I observe, very attractive.  But that, and sundry other subsequent experiences, left me with the impression that she was truly very powerful in the representation of scorn, indignation, hatred, and all the sterner and less amiable passions of the soul, but failed painfully when her role required the exhibition of tenderness or any of the gentler emotions.  These were my impressions when she was young and I was comparatively so.  But when, many years afterwards, I saw her repeatedly in Italy, they were not, I think, much modified.