We had sometimes caught a glimpse of the great actress, tending her geraniums and roses at the window, or going out to drive.  On the evening in question, a very large audience greeted the tragedienne, and she was received, with much enthusiasm.  She appeared in a tragedy of Racine, in which she had once been preeminently distinguished.  Magnificently dressed, and adorned with splendid jewels, trophies of her younger days, when her favors were sought by those who could afford to bestow such gifts, she did not look over thirty-five, though now more than twice that age.  I am no admirer of French tragedy, but I certainly thought Madame George still showed the remains of a great actress, and in some passages produced a decided impression.  Her tall, commanding figure, expressive eyes, and features of perfect regularity, must have given her every natural requisite for the higher walks of her profession.  As I watched her moving with majestic grace across the stage, irrepressible though trite reflections upon her early career passed through my mind.  What audiences she has played before, in the days of the first empire!  How many soldiers and statesmen, now numbered with the not-to-be-forgotten dead, have applauded her delivery of the same lines that we applaud to-night.  Napoleon and his brilliant military court, the ministers of foreign nations, students such as are here this evening, themselves since distinguished in various walks of life, have passed across the stage, and made their final exit, leaving Madame George still upon it.  And the not irreproachable old character herself—­what piquant anecdotes she could favor us with, would she but draw some memory-pictures for us!  Women in Europe, in losing virtue, do not always lose worldly prudence, as with us, and go down to infamy and a miserable old age.  Better, however, make allowance for the manners of the time—­French manners at that—­and contemplate the old lady from an historical point of view, regarding her with interest, as I could not help doing, as one of the few remaining links connecting the old Napoleon dynasty with the new.  How strange the closing of a life like hers!  Except for the occasional reaeppearance on the scene of her old triumphs, not oftener than once or twice a year, how quiet the life she now leads! what a contrast to the excitement and brilliancy that mark the career of a leading actress in the zenith of her reputation! Then, from the theatre she would drive in her splendid equipage through streets illuminated perhaps for some fresh victory gained by the invincible battalions of her imperial lover. Now, in a retired house, she probably sometimes muses over the past, pronouncing, as few with better reason can, ’all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,’ such changes has she witnessed in the fortunes of the great actors by whom she was once surrounded.  So here were the histories of two of the occupants of our court.  The others may have had experiences no less strange; and in many another court in this great city, from the stately inclosures of the Rue de Lille to the squalid dens of the Faubourg St. Antoine, (if the names have not escaped me,) lives well worth the telling are passing away.  Such is a great city.