hine, then the
first lady in France. The virtues of the Duchesse d'Angouleme were
properly appreciated by some of us, while I discovered that others
entertained for her any feelings but those of veneration and respect.
This diversity of opinion, on a subject of which one would think none
of us very well qualified to be judges, was owing to a circumstance of
such every-day occurrence as almost to supersede the necessity of
telling it, though the narrative would be rendered more complete by an
explanation.

{Dauphine = Crown Princess; Duchesse d'Angouleme = Marie Therese
Charlotte (1778-1851), the Dauphine, daughter of King Louis XVI and
wife of Louis Antoine of Artois, Duke of Angouleme, eldest son of King
Charles X--she lost her chance to become queen when her father-in-law
abdicated the French throne in 1830--Napoleon said of her that she was
"the only man in her family"}

It happened, while we lay in the bleaching grounds, that one half of
the piece extended into a part of the field that came under the
management of a legitimist, while the other invaded the dominions of a
liberal. Neither of these persons had any concern with us, we being
under the special superintendence of the head workman, but it was
impossible, altogether impossible, to escape the consequences of our
locales. While the legitimist read nothing but the Moniteur, the
liberal read nothing but Le Temps, a journal then recently established,
in the supposed interests of human freedom. Each of these individuals
got a paper at a certain hour, which he read with as much manner as he
could command, and with singular perseverance as related to the
difficulties to be overcome, to a clientele of bleachers, who reasoned
as he reasoned, swore by his oaths, and finally arrived at all his
conclusions. The liberals had the best of it as to numbers, and
possibly as to wit, the Moniteur possessing all the dullness of
official dignity under all the dynasties and ministries that have
governed France since its establishment. My business, however, is with
the effect produced on the pocket-handkerchiefs, and not with that
produced on the laborers. The two extremes were regular cotes gauches
and cotes droits. In other words, all at the right end of the piece
became devoted Bourbonists, devoutly believing that princes, who were
daily mentioned with so much reverence and respect, could be nothing
else but perfect; while the opposite extreme were disposed to think
that noth