owers of
Hercules seem to be here exercised in raising a grasshopper from the
ground. The genius of Mons. le G----, unlike the world's charity, does
not begin at home, but seems more disposed to display its most
successful energies abroad. His roof, however, contains such a monument
of his goodness and generosity, that I must not pass it over. This
distinguished architect is one of those unfortunate beings who have been
decreed to taste the bitterness, very soon after the sweets of
matrimony. Upon discovering the infidelity of his lady, who is very
pretty and prepossessing, the distracted husband immediately sought a
divorce from the laws of his country. This affair happened a very short
time before the revolution afforded unusual acceleration and facilities
to the wishes of parties, who, under similar circumstances, wished to
get rid of each other as soon as possible. The then "law's delay"
afforded some cause of vexation to Mons. le G----, who was deeply
injured. Before his suit had passed through its last forms, the father
of his wife, who at the time of their marriage lived in great affluence,
became a bankrupt. In the vortex of his failure, all the means of
supporting his family were swallowed up. The generous le G----,
disdaining to expose to want and ignominy the woman who had once been
dear to him, would proceed no further. She is still his wife; she bears
his name, is maintained by him, and in a separate suite of apartments
lives under the same roof with him. But Mons. and Madame le G---- have
had no intercourse whatever with each other for eleven years. If in the
gallery or in the hall they meet by accident, they pass without the
interchange of a word. This painful and difficult arrangement has now
lost a considerable portion of its misery, by having become familiar to
the unfortunate couple.

In the valuable and curious cabinet of Mons. le G----, I found out,
behind several other casts, a bust of Robespierre, which was taken of
him, a short period before he fell. A tyrant, whose offences look white,
contrasted with the deep delinquency of the oppressor of France, is said
to be indebted more to his character, than to nature, for the
representation of that deformity of person which appears in
Shakspeare's portrait of him, when he puts this soliloquy in his lips:--

"I that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature, by dissembling Nature,
Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time,