My holidays after this time were spent with M. and Madame R——­, in whose society I remember frequently seeing a literary man of the name of Pelissier, a clever writer, a most amusing talker, and an admirable singer of Beranger’s songs.

Another visitor of their house was M. Rio, the eminent member of the French ultramontane party, the friend of Lammenais, Lacordaire, Montalembert, the La Ferronays, the hero of the Jeune Vendee, the learned and devout historian of Christian art.  I think my friend M. R——­ was a Breton by birth, and that was probably the tie between himself and his remarkable Vendean friend, whose tall, commanding figure, dark complexion, and powerful black eyes gave him more the appearance of a Neapolitan or Spaniard than of a native of the coast of ancient Armorica.  M. Rio was then a young man, and probably in Paris for the first time, at the beginning of the literary career of which he has furnished so interesting a sketch in the autobiographical volumes which form the conclusion of his “Histoire de l’Art Chretien.”  Five and twenty years later, while passing my second winter in Rome, I heard of M. Rio’s arrival there, and of the unbounded satisfaction he expressed at finding himself in the one place where no restless wheels beat time to, and no panting chimneys breathed forth the smoke of the vast, multiform industry of the nineteenth century; where the sacred stillness of unprogressive conservatism yet prevailed undisturbed.  Gas had, indeed, been introduced in the English quarter; but M. Rio could shut his eyes when he drove through that, and there still remained darkness enough elsewhere for those who loved it better than light.

During one of my holiday visits to M. R——­, a ball was given at his young gentlemen’s school, to which I was taken by him and his wife.  It was my very first ball, and I have a vivid recollection of my white muslin frock and magnificent ponceau sash.  At this festival I was introduced to a lad, with whom I was destined to be much more intimately acquainted in after years as one of the best amateur actors I ever saw, and who married one of the most charming and distinguished women of European society, Pauline de la Ferronays, whose married name has obtained wide celebrity as that of the authoress of “Le Recit d’une Soeur.”

I remained in Paris till I was between fifteen and sixteen years old, and then it was determined that I should return home.  The departure of Elizabeth P——­ had left me without competitor in my studies among my companions, and I was at an age to be better at home than at any school.

My father came to fetch me, and the only adventure I met with on the way back was losing my bonnet, blown from my head into the sea, on board the packet, which obliged me to purchase one as soon as I reached London; and having no discreeter guide of my proceedings, I so far imposed upon my father’s masculine ignorance in such matters as to make him buy for me a full-sized Leghorn flat, under the circumference of which enormous sombrero I seated myself by him on the outside of the Weybridge coach, and amazed the gaping population of each successive village we passed through with the vast dimensions of the thatch I had put on my head.