as gone; we afterwards
found that he had not returned to his lodgings in the city, nor was he
ever after seen in Dresden. The bodies were committed to the earth, and
I returned to my home alone in the world.

It was several years after this--the awful death of my earliest, best
friend--that I arrived in Paris to exhibit, in the gallery of the
Luxembourg, an historical picture, upon which I had laboured for
years. I must be brief--my picture was exhibited, and my most sanguine
expectations surpassed by its success; and in a few short days the whole
scene of my early triumph was re-enacted. Praise and flattery poured in
upon me; and as in Dresden before, so now in Paris, I became the fashion
and the rage. But how changed was I! No longer exulting in my success,
and buoyant with hopes, I received all the adulation I met with, with
cold indifference and apathy.

Among the many attentions which my popularity had conferred upon me,
was an invitation to the Hotel de Rohan. The Duke, a most distinguished
connoisseur in painting, having seen and applauded my picture, waited
on me. Thus bound in duty, I went; and fatigued by the round of soulless
gaiety, in what I could no longer feel happy, or even forgetful, I was
retiring early, when the Duke met me and said,--

"Ah, monsieur, I have been looking for you. The Comtesse de Julliart has
desired me to present you to her; and when I tell you that she is the
most beautiful woman in Paris, I need not say how much you must prize
the honour among all the distinctions your talents have earned. Come
this way."

I followed mechanically--my heart took no interest in the scene--and I
only longed to be once more alone and unobserved. As I walked after
the Duke, he gave me a short account of the beautiful Countess, whom he
mentioned as the last descendant of an old and honoured family, supposed
to have been long since extinct, when she, a few months before, appeared
in Paris, and laid claim to the title. As she possessed unbounded
wealth, and had no great favours to ask any where, the Court were
charmed with her beauty, and readily admitted her claims, which some
were ill-natured enough to say were, perhaps, merely assumed without
foundation.

I took little interest in the story. My thoughts were far away, as they
ever were for many years, from every thing of the present; and 'twas
only as I heard the Duke announce my name, among a group who stood near
a sofa, that I remembered why I wa