sunny
dwelling when the new-married pair and all the guests had returned to
Paris, and I helped poor Madame A---- and her old _cuisiniere_ and
_femme de charge_, both with tearful eyes, to replace the yellow
_velours d'Utrecht_ furniture in its accustomed position on the shiny
_parquet_ of the best _salon_, with the slippery little bits of
foot-rugs before the empty _bergeres_ and _canapes_.

My holidays after this time were spent with M. and Madame R----, in
whose society I remember frequently seeing a literary man of the name of
Pelissier, a clever writer, a most amusing talker, and an admirable
singer of Beranger's songs.

Another visitor of their house was M. Rio, the eminent member of the
French ultramontane party, the friend of Lammenais, Lacordaire,
Montalembert, the La Ferronays, the hero of the Jeune Vendee, the
learned and devout historian of Christian art. I think my friend M.
R---- was a Breton by birth, and that was probably the tie between
himself and his remarkable Vendean friend, whose tall, commanding
figure, dark complexion, and powerful black eyes gave him more the
appearance of a Neapolitan or Spaniard than of a native of the coast of
ancient Armorica. M. Rio was then a young man, and probably in Paris for
the first time, at the beginning of the literary career of which he has
furnished so interesting a sketch in the autobiographical volumes which
form the conclusion of his "Histoire de l'Art Chretien." Five and twenty
years later, while passing my second winter in Rome, I heard of M. Rio's
arrival there, and of the unbounded satisfaction he expressed at finding
himself in the one place where no restless wheels beat time to, and no
panting chimneys breathed forth the smoke of the vast, multiform
industry of the nineteenth century; where the sacred stillness of
unprogressive conservatism yet prevailed undisturbed. Gas had, indeed,
been introduced in the English quarter; but M. Rio could shut his eyes
when he drove through that, and there still remained darkness enough
elsewhere for those who loved it better than light.

During one of my holiday visits to M. R----, a ball was given at his
young gentlemen's school, to which I was taken by him and his wife. It
was my very first ball, and I have a vivid recollection of my white
muslin frock and magnificent _ponceau_ sash. At this festival I was
introduced to a lad, with whom I was destined to be much more intimately
acquainted in after years as one of