In person St. Evremond had the advantage, being a Norman—­a race which combines the handsomest traits of an English countenance with its blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin.  Neither does the slight tinge of the Gallic race detract from the attractions of a true, well-born Norman, bred up in that province which is called the Court-end of France, and polished in the capital.  Your Norman is hardy, and fond of field-sports:  like the Englishman, he is usually fearless; generous, but, unlike the English, somewhat crafty.  You may know him by the fresh colour, the peculiar blue eye, long and large; by his joyousness and look of health, gathered up in his own marshy country, for the Norman is well fed, and lives on the produce of rich pasture-land, with cheapness and plenty around him.  And St. Evremond was one of the handsomest specimens of this fine locality (so mixed up as it is with us); and his blue eyes sparkled with humour; his beautifully-turned mouth was all sweetness; and his noble forehead, the whiteness of which was set off by thick dark eyebrows, was expressive of his great intelligence, until a wen grew between his eyebrows, and so changed all the expression of his face that the Duchess of Mazarin used to call him the ‘Old Satyr.’  St. Evremond was also Norman in other respects:  he called himself a thorough Roman Catholic, yet he despised the superstitions of his church, and prepared himself for death without them.  When asked by an ecclesiastic sent expressly from the court of Florence to attend his death-bed, if he ‘would be reconciled,’ he answered, ’With all my heart; I would fain be reconciled to my stomach, which no longer performs its usual functions.’  And his talk, we are told, during the fortnight that preceded his death, was not regret for a life we should, in seriousness, call misspent, but because partridges and pheasants no longer suited his condition, and he was obliged to be reduced to boiled meats.  No one, however, could tell what might also be passing in his heart.  We cannot always judge of a life, any more than of a drama, by its last scene; but this is certain, that in an age of blasphemy St. Evremond could not endure to hear religion insulted by ridicule.  ‘Common decency,’ said this man of the world, ’and a due regard to our fellow-creatures, would not permit it.’  He did not, it seems, refer his displeasure to a higher source—­to the presence of the Omniscient,—­who claims from us all not alone the tribute of our poor frail hearts in serious moments, but the deep reverence of every thought in the hours of careless pleasure.

It was now St. Evremond who taught De Grammont to collect around him the wits of that court, so rich in attractions, so poor in honour and morality.  The object of St. Evremond’s devotion, though he had, at the aera of the Restoration, passed his fiftieth year, was Hortense Mancini, once the richest heiress, and still the most beautiful woman in Europe, and a niece, on her mother’s side, of Cardinal