ight came
from one of the boats that fish the Loire at night, and which had
accidentally moored in front of my den. I got on board; the fisherman
carried me to the other side; I made my way across the country, reached
one of my garrisons, found the troops, fortunately, indignant at the
treatment which the king's colours had received; marched at the head of
two thousand men by daybreak, and by noon was in the Grande Place of
Nantz; proceeded to try a dozen of the ringleaders of the riot, who had
not been merely rebels, but robbers and murderers; and amid the
acclamations of the honest citizens, gave them over to the fate which
villains in every country deserve, and which is the only remedy for
rebellion in any. But my example was not followed; its style did not
please the ministers whom our king had been compelled to choose by the
voice of the Palais Royal; and as his majesty would not consent to bring
me to the scaffold for doing my duty, he compromised the matter, by an
order to travel for a year, and a passport for England."

* * * * *

"Toutes les belles dames sont, plus ou moins, coquettes," says that
gayest of all old gentlemen, the Prince de Ligne, who loved every body,
amused every body, and laughed at every body. It is not for me to
dispute the authority of one who contrived to charm, at once, the
imperial severity of Maria Theresa and the imperial pride of Catharine;
to baffle the keen investigation of the keenest of mankind, the
eccentric Kaunitz; and rival the profusion of the most magnifique and
oriental of all prime ministers, Potemkin.

Mariamne was a "belle dame," and a remarkably pretty one. She was
therefore intitled to all the privileges of prettiness; and, it must be
acknowledged, that she enjoyed them to a very animated extent. In the
curious memoirs of French private life, from _Plessis Les Tours_ down to
St Evremond and Marmontel--and certainly--more amusing and dexterous
dissections of human nature, at least as it is in France, never
existed--our cooler countrymen often wonder at the strange attachments,
subsisting for half a century between the old, who were nothing but
simple fireside friends after all; and even between the old and the
young. The story of Ninon and her Abbe--the unfortunate relationship,
and the unfortunate catastrophe excepted--was the story of hundreds or
thousands in every city of France fifty years ago. It arises from the
vividness of the na