me to the other side; I made my way across the country, reached one of my garrisons, found the troops, fortunately, indignant at the treatment which the king’s colours had received; marched at the head of two thousand men by daybreak, and by noon was in the Grande Place of Nantz; proceeded to try a dozen of the ringleaders of the riot, who had not been merely rebels, but robbers and murderers; and amid the acclamations of the honest citizens, gave them over to the fate which villains in every country deserve, and which is the only remedy for rebellion in any.  But my example was not followed; its style did not please the ministers whom our king had been compelled to choose by the voice of the Palais Royal; and as his majesty would not consent to bring me to the scaffold for doing my duty, he compromised the matter, by an order to travel for a year, and a passport for England.”

* * * * *

“Toutes les belles dames sont, plus ou moins, coquettes,” says that gayest of all old gentlemen, the Prince de Ligne, who loved every body, amused every body, and laughed at every body.  It is not for me to dispute the authority of one who contrived to charm, at once, the imperial severity of Maria Theresa and the imperial pride of Catharine; to baffle the keen investigation of the keenest of mankind, the eccentric Kaunitz; and rival the profusion of the most magnifique and oriental of all prime ministers, Potemkin.

Mariamne was a “belle dame,” and a remarkably pretty one.  She was therefore intitled to all the privileges of prettiness; and, it must be acknowledged, that she enjoyed them to a very animated extent.  In the curious memoirs of French private life, from Plessis Les Tours down to St Evremond and Marmontel—­and certainly—­more amusing and dexterous dissections of human nature, at least as it is in France, never existed—­our cooler countrymen often wonder at the strange attachments, subsisting for half a century between the old, who were nothing but simple fireside friends after all; and even between the old and the young.  The story of Ninon and her Abbe—­the unfortunate relationship, and the unfortunate catastrophe excepted—­was the story of hundreds or thousands in every city of France fifty years ago.  It arises from the vividness of the national mind, the quick susceptibility to being pleased, and the natural return which the heart makes in gratitude.  If it sometimes led to error—­it was the more to be regretted.  But I do not touch on such views.

As the Jew’s daughter had been rendered by her late adventure all but the affianced bride of Lafontaine, she immediately assumed all the rights of a bride, treated her slave as slaves are treated every where, received his friends at her villa with animation, and opened her heart to them all, from the old general downwards, even to me.  I never had seen a creature so joyous, with all her soul so speaking on her lips, and all her happiness so sparkling in her eyes.