with wise activity, was soon to see the dawn of one of the most fruitful discoveries in science—­the electric telegraph, the first practical application of which dates from 1845.  The fine arts shone brilliantly under the encouragement of an enlightened ruler.  Eugene Delacroix sent splendid canvases, the Entree des Croises a Constantinople, among others, to the Versailles Museum, the generous and personal creation of King Louis Philippe.  Meissonier’s masterpieces were spreading his reputation far and wide, and near him clustered a swarm of great landscape painters—­Corot, Jules Dupre, Rousseau, Troyon.  Henriquel Dupont, that prince of engravers, was sending out wonderful proofs, such as Gustavus Vasa and the Hemicycle.  And what actors there were on the boards!  Not to mention the Theatre Italieri, with that incomparable trio Grisi, Lablache, and Mario—­ Parisians by adoption—­and then in the heyday of their talent; the Francais, the Porte-Saint-Martin, and the Gymnase, all offered us representations which approached very nearly to perfection.

The recollection of Le Menteur, as played in the Tuileries Theatre by Firmin, Samson, and Regnier, with Mdmes.  Plessy, Anai’s, and Augustine Brohan, is constantly with me.  At the Porte-Saint-Martin were Frederic Lemaltre and Madame Dorval, startling in their poignant truthfulness and dramatic power in that terrible drama Trente Ans, oil la Vie d’un Joueur.  And at the Gymnase we had Rose Cheri.

If I talk so much about theatres, it must be remembered that the theatre is one of our glories.  What other country has a Comedie Franchise—­an institution two centuries old, miraculously respected, so far, amidst all our ruins, by the hammer of the revolutionary destroyer.

I talk of theatres, too, because I spent many an evening in them.  The rest passed peacefully away in the “family drawing-room,” which well deserved its name, for we all met there, old and young, big and little, after the evening meal, which was always partaken of in common.

In that drawing-room, on the first floor of the Tuileries, between the Pavilion de Flore and the Pavilion de l’Horloge, my mother used to sit doing her fancy work at a round table lighted by shaded candles, with my aunt Adelaide, the young princesses, and the ladies-in-waiting near her.  The King sat on a window seat in the billiard-room adjoining the drawing-room, and there received the despatches brought him by his secretary, Baron Fain, and read the Times, the only newspaper he was in the habit of reading daily.  It was there the gentlemen visitors, chiefly diplomats, who wanted to speak to him, joined him; while the lady visitors sat round the Queen’s table, at which the conversation was general, if occasionally soporific.  It used to brighten up again with the arrival of any ladies whose wit or beauty attracted the men who had scattered about the drawing-room.  This was always the case on the appearance of Mesdames de St. Aulaire