‘It will not be a full circle,’ she said; ’but I think your brother treats as a friend a young man who is there to make his first essai.’

‘M.  Darpent?’ I asked; and I was told that I was right, and that the young advocate had been writing a discourse upon Cicero which he was to read aloud to the fair critics and their friends.  Madame de Montausier added that his father was a counselor in the Parliament, who had originally been a Huguenot, but had converted himself with all his family, and had since held several good appointments.  She thought the young man, Clement Darpent, likely to become a man of mark, and she did not like him the less for having retained something of the Huguenot gravity.

The dinner was extremely pleasant; we followed it up by a walk in the beautifully laid out gardens; and after we had rested, the reception began, but only in the little green cabinet, as it was merely a select few who were to be admitted to hear the young aspirant.  I watched anxiously for the appearance of my family, and presently in came Eustace and Annora.  My mother had the migraine, and my brother had taken upon him, without asking leave, to carry off my sister!

I had never seen her look so well as she did, with that little spirit of mischief upon her, lighting her beautiful eyes and colouring her cheeks.  Madame de Rambouillet whispered to me that she was a perfect nymph, with her look of health and freshness.  Then M. Darpent came in, and his grave face blushed with satisfaction as he saw his friend, my Lord Walwyn, present.

His was a fine face, though too serious for so young a man.  It was a complete oval, the hair growing back on the forehead, and the beard being dark and pointed, the complexion a clear pale brown, the eyes with something of Italian softness in them, rather than of French vivacity, the brows almost as if drawn with a pencil, the mouth very grave and thoughtful except when lighted by a smile of unusual sweetness.  As a lawyer, his dress was of plain black with a little white collar fastened by two silken tassels (such as I remember my Lord Falkland used to wear).  It became him better than the gay coats of some of our nobles.

The circle being complete by this time, the young orator was placed in the midst, and began to read aloud his manuscript, or rather to recite it, for after the fire of his subject began to animate him, he seldom looked at the paper.

It was altogether grand and eloquent discourse upon the loyalty and nobility of holding with unswerving faith to the old laws and constitutions of one’s country against all fraud, oppression, and wrong, tracing how Cicero’s weak and vain character grew stronger at the call of patriotism, and how eagerly and bravely the once timid man finally held out his throat for the knife.  It might be taken as the very highest witness to the manner in which he had used his divine gift of rhetoric, that Fulvia’s first thought was to show her bitter hatred by piercing his eloquent tongue!  ‘Yes, my friends,’ he concluded, with his eyes glancing round, ’that insult to the dead was the tribute of tyranny to virtue!’