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attachment to her unfortunate mother, for it afforded an opportunity of ascertaining the strength of the resemblance in each by comparing them together. They were much alike, and both proved the original to have been an admirable subject for the artist; as good a subject, indeed, as her history, which presents situations of simple dignity, more affecting, perhaps, than any thing of their class in modern days. I thought of Joséphine, when Napoleon placed the crown upon her head in the presence of countless myriads, who were content to be her slaves—the humility with which she is said to have knelt before him to receive her honours—the pride of heart which he confessed himself to have felt when he haïled her as an empress:—then what a contrast to behold the pair in their domestic privacy ; the husband confusedly seeking to unveil his purpose in words which might wound the least, and the meek wife fainting under the intelligence that her days were to be ended in unmerited mortification and divorce. Wasit, I thought, to be attributed to an unexpressed resentment of this treatment of her mother, that the house of Hortense exhibited not a vestige of Napoleon, nor, with the exception of her children, of any one of his race? The fact was singular, and considering her love for the fine arts, and particularly for the portraits of those whom she valued, could not have been without a reason. The one which struck me might not have been correct, but, if it was so, it was surely neïither devoid of greatness nor of tenderness.

In turning my eyes from the statue, the first thing that caught them was the house of Prince Eugène, built by him at a short distance, that he might share the solitude of his exiled sister, but which he never lived to inhabit. Here was another powerful claim to sympathy. She retires from a capricious world to make the best of it in the society of an affectionate brother ; and Fate, as though it took the part of her enemies, dries up this source of consolation likewise. Surely, I thought, there must be something extraordinary in this woman, who can retaliate the crosses of Fortune, and make herself happy in spite of them. Was it incapability of feeling ? Her attachment to those who had suffered in common with her, was a proof that she possessed feeling in no ordinary degree. Was it a dignity of endurance which the mass of human kind were not able to understand, because it was so far above them? If so, how pitiful was the triumph of those who outraged the memory she had left behind her, like the mantle on the horns of the beast, to be buffeted by blind and impotent malice !

I was drawn from my reverie by perceiving that the company in the other rooms was making a movément towards

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the theatre, which was formed in a building at a short distance from the house. It did infinite credit to the amateur artists, and was filled according to its deserts; for, to use the orthodox phrase, there was not even standing room, There must have been a gathering of the clans for leagues around, to produce so many pair of baronial whiskers; for the town of Constance, like all towns which have fallen under the Austrian dominion, was ruined and depopulated, as if the plague had been in it, and had scarcely a grandee to boast of.

The first piece represented was a scrap of sentimentality called ‘ L’Epreuve d'Amour ;’ mends to his mistress a variety of lovers by way of trying her attachment to him, and eventually, being satisfied by the ordeal, proposes himself. The heroïine was played by the duchess, and in a manner which made me speedily forget that it was the duchess, and not the actress, that I came to see. She had, indeed, a natural cast of melancholy, and a natural grace which rendered her little task no difficulty. Even when she was not speaking, one would have said that the stage had been her exclusive study; and the silent tremour with which she returned her hard-hearted lover’s picture, is associated with some of my choicest theatrical recollections. I regret that I have not the means of giving a few extracts from this dramaticle, for, whether from the habit which we have of thinking things good which have only been well said, or whether it really possessed intrinsic merit, 1 am inclined to think that it had something in it which would improve the breed of English farces amazingly. It certainly is a matter of congratulation that we have emerged from the whining days of Cumberland and his imitators : but still there is a field of simple and ever interesting Nature, which might spring up most becomingly between the territories of broad grins and bloody daggers. It would give a character of literature to what is now considered an achievement only fit for those who can do nothing else, and might, perhaps, be a stepping-stone towards Comedy herself, in all the pride of her five acts.

The next representation was of a brilliant bagatelle, entitled “ Le Coiffeur.” Before the curtain was drawn up I could not help feeling nervous for my little friend, who was to exhibit the result of three weeks’ palpitating anxiety, and some thirty miles travelling to rehearsals, in the principal female character. She was cruelly afraid at first, and looked as if she had not quite made up her mind whether she was most ashamed to act her part or to run away. She, however, soon became aware that she was thought bewitching, and played with a spirit, which not only won the heart of the young barber, but sundry others with which she had no business. For my own part, having had a bitter quarrel

in which the hero recom-

with her, in consequence of her insisting that Sir Hudson Lowe had poisoned Buonaparte, I found it absolutely necessary to humble myself and beg pardon.

After the play, we returned to the house, and found preparations made for dancing, which began with a waltz. I was told that some of the Germans performed their evolutions to perfection, but I cannot say that I admired this accomplishment so much in its native land, even as I did in England. It seemed that, to excel, it was necessary, in lieu of the swimming, and now and then not ungraceful motion of my esteemed countrywomen, to spin round like a tee-totum, with a wriggling sort of a hop, as if one leg were shorter than the other. I made a few unsuccessful attempts to distinguish myself, but was at last obliged to give in, for fear I should tear my partner to rags in the vain endeavour to keep step. By degrees, the folks grew giddy and made way for a quadrille, of which my previous failure rendered me rather shy. The ofiwm cum dignitate which I had promised myself, was not, however, to be enjoyed, for I was presently brought out of my corner by a highly flattering but somewhat appalling invitation to stand up with the Duchess. I was in fact the only Englishman of our party who had ventured to contend for honour upon the fantastic toe, and was invited, TI imagine, partly in sport, and partly from complaisance to my nation. As luck would have it, I represented my tribe without causing any particular accident, and, indeed, with considerable success, for a young Frenchman assured me that I really danced very wellthat was to say, not very well=not so well as a Frenchman, but quite well enough to please myself. I was not, however, inclined to break a lance with him, for he allowed the dancing of the Duchess to be quite good enough fo please other people. There was an absence of every thing French from it, It was a pastime and not a study with hér; and she moved with the freedom of youth, tempered with the dignity that became the matron. This unpretending and spontaneous grace of nature has always struck me as being the only beauty of dancing in private society, and certainly it is a beauty irresistible. It is, in fact, a pantomimic display of the mind, and as such is as decidedly above the doctrine of professors as it is in opposition to it.

In the intervals between the dances there was some singing, to the accompaniment of the piano. Here again Hortense was perfectly at home. She sang several songs, of which I afterwards found her to be the unacknowledged composer, and to which the reader has often listened with delight, with a feeling which, like her dancing, could never have been taught. Amongst these was the beautiful air of ‘ Partant pour la Syrie,” which will be à fair guarantee

MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE S$r.-LEU. 81

that I do not say too much for the rest. There were afterwards some well-bred endeavours to find à few English sohgs, which T am happy to say were unsuccessful. The French cannot understand our music, for it is altogether: the note of another species of bird. Moore and our other distinguished composers have made'no progress in proportion to their merits, and, in a hap-hazard meeting with one of our national: performances, it is odds but we have reason to be ashamed of it.

By this time the hour was getting late, and, as the company began to thin, the remainder were dispersed in little parties round the various tables of drawing-books and works of belles-lettres. T chanced to place my hand upon a splendid album, and had the farther good fortune to seat myself beside a beautiful young dame de compägnie of thé Duchess, who gave me the history of all the treasures I found therein. Whatever I found most remärkable, was still the work of Hortense. Of a series of small portraits, sketched by her in colour, the likeness of those of which I had seen ‘the subjects, would have struck me, though turned upside down: She had the same power and the same affectionate feeling for fixing the remembrance of placés likewise. Thé landscapes which she had loved in forbidden France, even the apartments which she had inhabited, were executed in a manner that put to shame the best amateur performances I had ever seen. There was a minute attention to fidelity in them too, which a recollection of her present circumstances could not fail to bring home to the spectator’s heart. There were, besides the labours of the Duchess, numerous admirable sketches by some of the best artists in France. I recollect oné in particular of a scene in which her taste for the picturesque and the melancholy must have been completely gratified. She was sitting amongst the ruins of Rome by moonlight; a party of friends reclining gracefully around her, and the poet Delavigne in front reciting a tragedy. In most people this situation would have been smiled at as somewhat romantic, but in Hortense it was perfectly in keeping. Ruin and tragedy had been too busy with her to let her seem out of place amongst them.

I know not when my interest would have cooled in this mansion of taste and talent. Towards morning I was obliged to take my leave, and I doubt if there was an individual who returned home by that bright moonlight without feeling that Hortense had been born some century and a half too late. For an age of bigots and turn-coats, she indeed seemed unsuited ; in that of true poesy and trusty cavaliers, she would have been the subject of the best rhymes and rencontres in romantic France.

After this I saw her frequently both at her own house and at Wolfsberg, and I never found any thing to destroy the impression which I received on my introduction. Independently of the interest attached to herself, she had always in her company some person who had made a noise in the world, and had become an object of curiosity—one while a distinguished painter or poet, and one while a battered soldier, who preferred resting in retirement, to the imputation of changing his politics for advancement ; then a grand duke or duchess, who had undergone, perhaps, as many vicissitudes as herself ; and finally, the widow of the unfortunate Marshal Ney. There was something in the last of these characters, particularly when associated with Hortense, more interesting than all the others. She was a handsome, but grave and silent woman, and still clad in mourning for her husband, whose death, so connected with the banishment of the Duchess, could not fail to render them deeply sympathetic in each other’s fortunes. What a melancholy comparison of retrospections, I used to think, must these two have made when none were by to listen to them! What late discoveries of the imperfection of plots (if indeed they were ever consulted in any) which could only succeed enough to render the situations of those who formed them worse than before! What anxious casuistry upon the justice of history as to events which are mysterious even to the age existing !

The amusements provided for all this company consisted of such as I have mentioned, expeditions to various beautiful spots in the neighbourhood, and music-parties on the water. The last of these used sometimes to have a peculiarly romantic effect; for, on féte-days, the young peasant-girls, all glittering in their golden-tinsel bonnets, would push off with their sweethearts, like mad things, in whatever boats they could find upon the beach. I have seen them paddling their little fleet round the Duchesss boat with all the curiosity of savages about a man-of-war, and filling up the intervals of softer music with a yell, which, provided you heard it a mile off, was harmonious in the extreme !

For the gentlemen there was likewise the chasse, at which they killed their time pleasantly enough, if they killed nothing else ; for, to confess the truth, I am grievously of opinion that the French are but cockney sportsmen, and the Germans no better. I witnessed a chasse in the neighbourhood, which had well nigh put an end to my dancing even well enough to please myself. Our party, as was usual there, consisted of somewhere between twenty and thirty shooters, who, with their prodigious game-bags strapped behind and before, looked exactly like old clothesmen. There was likewise a regiment of little hideous boys, dressed in cocked hats, and looking as grotesque as the devils in

MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE Sr.-LEU. 83

Der Freischutz. This corps of flibbertigibbits was marshalled into the farther end of a wood, to howl German and tinkle bells through it, till the game was frightened into fits. In the mean time, the gunners had stationed themselves at intervals along the other three sides, each commanding à little narrow path-way, so that, when an unfortunate roebuck came skeltering down, he might fire in his face and send him back to be terrified by somebody else. There happened to be plenty of game, so that, when the howling began, the guns went as merrily as crackers on the 5th of November. In the midst of the bustle à poor hare was making the best of her way close by me, and, my next neighbour providing against the possibility of being too late by banging off both barrels before he saw her, I had the satisfaction of perceiving that she got clear off. My fellow-sportsman, however, who was an old soldier, and thought no more of a fowling-piece than he did of a pop-gun, was determined to lose no credit for his dexterity— Voila, Monsieur, he shouted, ‘ voila un joli coup! j'ai tiré entre vos jambes sans vous toucher !”?

When the mélée was over, we made search for the killed and wounded, the sum-total of which was one of our chasseurs, who was indeed piteously peppered.

At length the time arrived for me to bid adieu to Switzerland. It was arranged that I should set out for Italy with a small party of my Wolfsberg friends; and, an evening or two before we departed, we paid a leave-taking visit to the Duchess. She expressed much polite regret at our intention, and gave us a cordial invitation to renew our acquaintance with her, in the winter, at Rome. Her care indeed to leave a good impression of her friendly disposition upon our minds was exceedingly gratifying. She professed to take an interest in the plans which each of us had formed, and, where her experience qualified her, gave us instructions for our travels. Her descriptions of the places and circumstances of her own, were given in a manner which convinced me that I had only seen the surface of a mind, which, with more intimate knowledge, grew more and more rich. She spoke of the beauties of nature with a quiet enthusiasm, which was pure poetry, and touched upon character and literature with all the power, but without the venom of the accomplished critic. If Hortense should ever occupy her leisure hours by writing her memoirs, they would form one of the most interesting works of the age.

When we rose to depart, the night being fine, she volunteered to walk part of the way home with us. She came about a quarter of a mile, to where she could command an uninterrupted view of the lake, above which the

84 MÉMOIRES SUR MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE Sr-LEU. | NE Ua L 1

moon was just then rising—a huge red ds “which. shot a burning « nm to her feet I will now bid you adieu” Fa

she said; and we left her to the ee: NE of ri whid :could not. pr pes seen could

not betray.. + «3 es PU CU, (ORNE, This was the last I saw, lab shall ever see, œ. the pare ne Sa 4 C4 my brief acquaintance with her & as see a vue pr Obs M 28 se er “his Re, ms.

mains. ge | 8. af n MPire-els EL RM our