arr. We
saw Lamartine also, and had much friendly intercourse with Scribe, and
with the kind good-natured Amedee Pichot. One day we visited in the Rue
du Bac the sick and ailing Chateaubriand, whom we thought like Basil
Montagu; found ourselves at the other extreme of opinion in the
sculpture-room of David d'Angers; and closed that day at the house of
Victor Hugo, by whom Dickens was received with infinite courtesy and
grace. The great writer then occupied a floor in a noble corner-house in
the Place Royale, the old quarter of Ninon l'Enclos and the people of
the Regency, of whom the gorgeous tapestries, the painted ceilings, the
wonderful carvings and old golden furniture, including a canopy of state
out of some palace of the middle age, quaintly and grandly reminded us.
He was himself, however, the best thing we saw; and I find it difficult
to associate the attitudes and aspect in which the world has lately
wondered at him, with the sober grace and self-possessed quiet gravity
of that night of twenty-five years ago. Just then Louis Philippe had
ennobled him, but the man's nature was written noble. Rather under the
middle size, of compact close-buttoned-up figure, with ample dark hair
falling loosely over his close-shaven face, I never saw upon any
features so keenly intellectual such a soft and sweet gentility, and
certainly never heard the French language spoken with the picturesque
distinctness given to it by Victor Hugo. He talked of his childhood in
Spain, and of his father having been Governor of the Tagus in Napoleon's
wars; spoke warmly of the English people and their literature; declared
his preference for melody and simplicity over the music then fashionable
at the Conservatoire; referred kindly to Ponsard, laughed at the actors
who had murdered his tragedy at the Odeon, and sympathized with the
dramatic venture of Dumas. To Dickens he addressed very charming
flattery, in the best taste; and my friend long remembered the enjoyment
of that evening.

There is little to add of our Paris holiday, if indeed too much has not
been said already. We had an adventure with a drunken coachman, of which
the sequel showed at least the vigour and decisiveness of the police in
regard to hired vehicles[133] in those last days of the Orleans
monarchy. At the Bibliotheque Royale we were much interested by seeing,
among many other priceless treasures, Gutenberg's types, Racine's notes
in his copy of Sophocles, Rousseau's music,