s less brilliant
and exhilarating in its attractions.

It was pleasant to my eye, which has always been so wearied in
our country by the sombre masses of men that overcloud our public
assemblies, to see them now in so great variety of costume, color, and
decoration.

Among the crowd wandered Leverrier, in the costume of Academician,
looking as if he had lost, not found, his planet. French _savants_ are
more generally men of the world, and even men of fashion, than those
of other climates; but, in his case, he seemed not to find it easy to
exchange the music of the spheres for the music of fiddles.

Speaking of Leverrier leads to another of my disappointments. I went
to the Sorbonne to hear him lecture, nothing dreaming that the old
pedantic and theological character of those halls was strictly kept up
in these days of light. An old guardian of the inner temple, seeing
me approach, had his speech all ready, and, manning the entrance, said
with a disdainful air, before we had time to utter a word, "Monsieur
may enter if he pleases, but Madame must remain here" (i.e. in
the court-yard). After some exclamations of surprise, I found an
alternative in the Hotel de Clugny, where I passed an hour very
delightfully while waiting for my companion. The rich remains of other
centuries are there so arranged that they can be seen to the best
advantage; many of the works in ivory, china, and carved wood are
truly splendid or exquisite. I saw a dagger with jewelled hilt which
talked whole poems to my mind. In the various "Adorations of the
Magi," I found constantly one of the wise men black, and with the
marked African lineaments. Before I had half finished, my companion
came and wished me at least to visit the lecture-rooms of the
Sorbonne, now that the talk, too good for female ears, was over.
But the guardian again interfered to deny me entrance. "You can go,
Madame," said he, "to the College of France; you can go to this and
t'other place, but you cannot enter here." "What, sir," said I, "is
it your institution alone that remains in a state of barbarism?" "Que
voulez vous, Madame?" he replied, and, as he spoke, his little
dog began to bark at me,--"Que voulez vous, Madame? c'est la
regle,"--"What would you have, Madam? IT IS THE RULE,"--a reply which
makes me laugh even now, as I think how the satirical wits of former
days might have used it against the bulwarks of learned dulness.

I was more fortunate in hearing Arago, and h