n,
everywhere chalked up upon the walls and the houses are inscriptions
concerning 'L'Indivisibilite de la Republique.' How many subsequent
writings upon the wall did Mrs. Opie live to see! The English party find
rooms at a hotel facing the Place de la Concorde, where the guillotine,
that token of order and tranquillity, was then perpetually standing.
The young wife's feelings may be imagined when within an hour of their
arrival Opie, who had rushed off straight to the Louvre, returned with a
face of consternation to say that they must leave Paris at once. The
Louvre was shut; and, moreover, the whiteness of everything, the houses,
the ground they stood on, all dazzled and blinded him. He was a lost man
if he remained! By some happy interposition they succeed in getting
admission to the Louvre, and as the painter wonders and admires his
nervous terrors leave him. The picture left by Miss Edgeworth of Paris
Society in the early years of the century is more brilliant, but not
more interesting than Mrs. Opie's reminiscences of the fleeting scene,
gaining so much in brilliancy from the shadows all round about. There is
the shadow of the ghastly guillotine upon the Place de la Concorde, the
shadows of wars but lately over and yet to come, the echo in the air of
arms and discord; meanwhile a brilliant, agreeable, flashing Paris
streams with sunlight, is piled with treasures and trophies of victory,
and crowded with well-known characters. We read of Kosciusko's nut-brown
wig concealing his honourable scars; Massena's earrings flash in the
sun; one can picture it all, and the animated inrush of tourists, and
the eager life stirring round about the walls of the old Louvre.

It was at this time that they saw Talma perform, and years after, in her
little rooms in Lady's Field at Norwich, Mrs. Opie, in her Quaker dress,
used to give an imitation of the great actor and utter a deep 'Cain,
Cain, where art thou?' To which Cain replies in sepulchral tones.

We get among other things an interesting glimpse of Fox standing in the
Louvre Gallery opposite the picture of St. Jerome by Domenichino, a
picture which, as it is said, he enthusiastically admired. Opie, who
happened to be introduced to him, then and there dissented from this
opinion. 'You must be a better judge on such points than I am,' says
Fox; and Mrs. Opie proudly writes of the two passing on together
discussing and comparing the pictures. She describes them next standing
be