the chamber, it was discovered that la belle Caryatide, as her friends call her, could not act on it, for the simple reason that she was a full head taller than the scenery; clever Madame de Skariatine, the daughter of the famous Count Schouvalof (the “Shoveloff” of our times), who, after being Russian ambassador half over Europe, turned Barnabite monk at Rome; Lady Dalling and Bulwer, the great duke of Wellington’s niece, and now the widow of one of England’s most illustrious statesmen; hospitable Marquise de St. Agnan, and her pretty daughter, Mademoiselle Henriette; and Princess Souvarow, ci-devant widow Apraxine, ci-devant widow Kisselof, the most fascinating of Russian princesses, and one of the greatest of female gamblers, who one night broke the bank at Monte Carlo for two hundred and fifty thousand francs, and lost them the next.  On the opposite side of the way, screening herself from observation, demurely clad in sober-colored attire, Madame Volnis passes along from some mission of charity.  This lady was once one of the most popular actresses on the French stage, and with Mademoiselle Mars and Rose Cheri was the idol of Paris—­Leontine Fay.  She was, if possible, a still greater favorite in St. Petersburg, where, on her retirement from the stage, she became French reader to the late czarina.  Since the death of the empress she has always resided at Nice, where she is distinguished for her exalted piety and extreme charity.  Even when on the stage this lady devoted her leisure to charitable works.  She was always remarked for her modesty of manner:  her dress was simplicity itself.  At the theatre she wore costumes rich and elegant, suited to the parts she enacted, but in society she invariably appeared in plain white muslin or dark silk.  It would be impossible to exaggerate her goodness.  Her whole life has been passed amongst the poor, in the minute fulfillment of her duties, and on her knees in church.  After acting one part of the evening, she would hasten, on the fall of the curtain, to pass the rest of it watching by the bedside of some poor wretch stricken low perhaps by some infectious disease.  During the war of 1870, Madame Volnis’s conduct was angelical.  If there was some awful operation to be performed upon any of the wounded soldiers sent to Nice from the field of battle, it was she who was present, who held the sufferer’s hand, and who consoled and cheered with the tenderness of a Sister of Charity—­of a mother.

As the austere figure of Leontine Fay passes away, hidden in a cloud of sunny dust raised by the wheels of a hundred carriages, another form comes upon the stage, radiant amongst the most brilliant, the observed of all observers—­Madame Rattazzi, nee Princess Bonaparte Wyse.  What a wonderful toilette is hers!  One fine afternoon she appeared upon the Promenade clad in a purple velvet robe, edged and flounced with canary-colored satin, looped up voluminously en panier, and adorned with big