tal in New-Orleans to the purchase of
property and the improvement of her elegant hotel in Paris. The
Revolution of 1830 found the Countess a fierce Bourboniste, and produced
such apprehension of confiscation, and danger to her life and liberty,
that she concluded to return to New-Orleans. Here she found that her
property had greatly augmented in value, and after a short sojourn in
her native city, discovering that Louis Philippe's dynasty was an
unproscriptive one, she returned to Paris, where she resided until the
Revolution of 1848 again filled her with alarm for her large
possessions. Beside, she was well known to be a conspicuous Legitimiste
of the party of Henry V. Again she returned to New-Orleans, full of
horror of Red Republicanism and Socialism, and with disgust for the
fickleness of the French.

Directing her attention, with characteristic energy and ardor, to the
improvement of her property which incloses Jackson Square, the principal
public place in New-Orleans, she built some forty elegant houses, and
then assuming the government of the municipality, she succeeded in
inducing the authorities to cut down the old trees on the square, and to
have it laid off in the parterre style. The 'Woodman spare that tree'
sentiment strongly opposed this reform; but it was vain to resist the
Countess. The trees obstructed the view of her fine rows of houses, and
down they must come, and down they did come, very much to the
improvement of the city, and to the full justification of the taste and
good sense of the Countess.

After thus improving her property, and augmenting her resources, the
Countess thought she might trust herself again in Paris, though a
parvenu filled the throne which, in her view, was justly the property of
the elder branch of the Bourbons.

But before she left, an incident occurred which must close this
desultory sketch. It happened one day, while the Countess was in a
notary's office, for the purpose of signing some deeds, that a tall,
grave, and eccentric-looking old gentleman entered, and seeing the
notary engaged, took his seat to wait his turn. After completing her
signature of the deeds, the Countess, raising her eyes from the
parchment, perceived that she was the object of close and keen
observation of the eccentric old gentleman with the very brilliant and
piercing eyes. A single glance served to bring that face and form
distinctly back to her memory. Rushing up to the old gentleman, she
th