wood, and the hero of the entertainment
enacted the part of a sort of Orson, under the name of Sylvanus. In
1772, the gaieties of the Dame Lebrun suffered no abatement, except from
an attack of illness; and, for the recovery of her health, she spent the
greater portion of the year at the country-house of the Sieur
Grimod--sometimes with her husband, says the _Memoire_, and sometimes
without. The following spring was passed, as usual, in balls and
masquerades. The house of the Sieur Grimod was again the scene of a
splendid entertainment; but, on this occasion, the object of the fete
was neither the Sieur Bacchus, nor the Sieur Sylvain, but Madame Lebrun
herself. The indefatigable Bacchus, however, if not the principal
personage of the day, was the chief performer. There was a procession in
boats. The Sieur Lebrun did the honours of the enchanted island to his
wife. Dressed as a sailor, he conducted her, disguised as Flora, in an
ornamented barge, all festooned with garlands, and illuminated with
coloured lamps. It was a truly fairy scene, and the Dame Lebrun did not
at that time look on the composer of the spectacle as a malignant
cobold, the enemy of her repose.

In January 1774, she wrote letters to her husband as full of gaiety, and
as expressive of affection, as any of the others; and on the 5th of
March she sued for a separate maintenance! Such is the history,
contained in a lawyer's brief, of fourteen years of the wedded life of a
French family of the middle rank, or rather below it. And from incidents
contained in the account, we perceive that this actual labour of
enjoyment, these balls, and fetes, and entertainments of all kinds, were
the usual mode of life of most of the people they associated with.
Imagine the same scenes going on in England;--women, after thirteen or
fourteen years of marriage, going dressed up as heathen goddesses in
boats, and being attended round enchanted isles by Bacchuses and Orsons,
dressed in shaggy skins, and chanting doggerel till echo was dead beat!
Bacchus, a secretary, at a salary of a hundred a-year--Orson, a
sub-collector of taxes! But more than all--let us think that the fault
of the Sieur Lebrun does not seem to have consisted, in the eyes of his
mother and sister, in allowing the intimacy between his wife and the
friends, but in putting a stop to it. When such things are the fashion
in England, let us prepare for the National Convention.

The demand of the Sieur Lebrun for