We passed through the hamlet of Palaiseau, on our return to Paris; and saw in it the steeple where the magpie concealed the silver spoons he had stolen, and which occasioned the event from which the drama of La Pie Voleuse, known in so many languages, has had its origin.

The real story ended not so happily as the opera, for the poor girl was executed—­the spoons not having been discovered until after her death.  This tragedy in humble life has attached great interest to the steeple at Palaiseau, and has drawn many persons to the secluded hamlet in which it stands.

The Duc and Duchesse de Quiche returned from Luneville yesterday; and we spent last evening with them.  The good Duke de Gramont was there, and was in great joy at their return.  They all dine with us to-morrow; and Madame Craufurd comes to meet them.

Never have I seen such children as the Duc de Quiche’s.  Uniting to the most remarkable personal beauty an intelligence and docility as rare as they are delightful; and never did I witness any thing like the unceasing care and attention bestowed on their education by their parents.

Those who only know the Duc and Duchesse in the gay circles, in which they are universally esteemed among the brightest ornaments, can form little idea of them in the privacy of their domestic one—­emulating each other in their devotion to their children, and giving only the most judicious proofs of their attachment to them.  No wonder that the worthy Duc de Gramont doats on his grandchildren, and never seems so happy as with his excellent son and daughter-in-law.

Went to the Vaudeville Theatre last evening, to see the new piece by Scribe, so much talked of, entitled Avant, Pendant, et Apres.  There is a fearful vraisemblance in some of the scenes with all that one has read or pictured to oneself, as daily occurring during the terrible days of the Revolution; and the tendency of the production is not, in my opinion, calculated to produce salutary effects.  I only wonder it is permitted to be acted.

The piece is divided, as the title announces, into three different epochs.  The first represents the frivolity and vices attributed to the days of l’ancien regime, and the tableau des moeurs, which is vividly coloured, leaves no favourable impression in the minds of the audience of that noblesse whose sufferings subsequently expiated the errors said to have accelerated, if not to have produced, the Revolution.

Nothing is omitted that could cast odium on them, as a preparation for the Reign of Terror that follows.  The anarchy and confusion of the second epoch—­the fear and horror that prevail when the voices and motions of a sanguinary mob are heard in the streets, and the terrified inmates of the houses are seen crouching in speechless terror, are displayed with wonderful truth.

The lesson is an awful, and I think a dangerous, one, and so seemed to think many of the upper class among the audience, for I saw some fair cheeks turn pale, and some furrowed brows look ominous, as the scene was enacted, while those of the less elevated in rank among the spectators assumed, or seemed to assume, a certain fierte, if not ferocity, of aspect, at beholding this vivid representation of the triumph achieved by their order over the noblesse.