dly for her, and the Marquise told her that she had
been only a few days before to pay her a visit.

Anxious to learn something of a woman who filled so distinguished a
position during the imperial dynasty, I questioned Madame de B----, and
learned that the Duchesse d'Abrantes, who for many years lived in a
style of splendour that, even in the palmy days of her husband's
prosperity, when, governor of Paris, he supported almost a regal
establishment, excited the surprise, if not envy, of his
contemporaries, is now reduced to so limited an income that many of the
comforts, if not the necessaries of life, are denied her.

"She supports her privations cheerfully," added the Marquise; "her
conversation abounds in anecdotes of remarkable people, and she relates
them with a vivacity and piquancy peculiar to her, which render her
society very amusing and interesting. The humanity, if not the policy,
of the Bourbons may be questioned in their leaving the widow of a brave
general in a state of poverty that must remind her, with bitterness, of
the altered fortunes entailed on her and many others by their
restoration."

When indemnities were granted to those whom the Revolution, which drove
the royal family from France, nearly beggared, it would have been well
if a modest competency had been assigned to those whose sons and
husbands shed their blood for their country, and helped to achieve for
it that military glory which none can deny it.

Went over the Luxembourg Palace and Gardens to-day. The only change in
the former since I last saw it, is that some pictures, painted by
French artists at Rome, and very creditable to them, have been added to
its collection.

I like these old gardens, with their formal walks and prim _parterres_;
I like also the company by which they are chiefly frequented,
consisting of old people and young children.

Along the walk exposed to the southern aspect, several groups of old
men were sauntering, conversing with an animation seldom seen in
sexagenarians, except in France; old women, too, many of them holding
lapdogs by a riband, and attended by a female servant, were taking
their daily walk; while, occasionally, might be seen an elderly couple
exhibiting towards each other an assiduity pleasant to behold,
displayed by the husband's arranging the shawl or cloak of his wife, or
the wife gently brushing away with her glove the silken threads left on
his sleeve by its contact with hers.

No littl