ew oral examination upon the poets of
the nineteenth century, and asked him what he thought of Lamartine's
clamorous debts, and Victor Hugo's foolish pride, and Alfred de Musset's
intemperate habits.

The worthy Amedee is launched! He will go and pay visits of indigestion;
appear one day at Madame such a one's, and at the houses of several
other "Madames." At first he will stay there a half-hour, the simpleton!
until he sees that the cunning ones only come in and go out exactly as
one does in a booth at a fair. He will see pass before him--but this
time in corsages of velvet or satin-all the necks and shoulders of his
acquaintances, those that he turned away from with disgust and those
that made him blush. Each Madame this one, entering Madame that one's
house, will seat herself upon the edge of a chair, and will always say
the same inevitable thing, the only thing that can be or should be said
that day; for example, "So the poor General is dead!" or "Have you heard
the new piece at the Francais? It is not very strong, but it is well
played!" "This will be delicious;" and Amedee will admire, above all
things, Madame this one's play of countenance, when Madame G------ tells
her that Madame B------'s daughter is to marry Madame C----'s nephew.
While she hardly knows these people, she will manifest as lively a joy
as if they had announced the death of an old aunt, whose money she is
waiting for to renew the furniture in her house. And, on the contrary,
when Madame D---- announces that Madame E----'s little son has the
whooping-cough, at once, without transition, by a change of expression
that would make the fortune of an actress, the lady of the house puts
on an air of consternation, as if the cholera had broken out the night
before in the Halles quarter.

Amedee is launched, I repeat it. He is still a little green and will
become the dupe, for a long time, of all the shams, grimaces, acting,
and false smiles, which cover so many artificial teeth. At first sight
all is elegance, harmony, and delicacy. Since Amedee does not know that
the Princess Krazinska's celebrated head of hair was cut from the heads
of the Breton girls, how could he suspect that the austere defender of
the clergy, M. Lemarguillier, had been gravely compromised in a love
affair, and had thrown himself at the feet of the chief of police,
exclaiming, "Do not ruin me!" When the king of society is announced, the
young Duc de la Tour-Prends-Garde, whose one