koned upon daily, nay, almost hourly; and against
such a rival as the venerable Princess Lieven, Mme. Recamier, spite of
all her arts and wiles, had no possible chance. However, she left
nothing untried, and when M. Guizot took a villa at Auteuil, whither
to repair of an evening and breathe the freshness of the half-country
air after the stormy debates of the Chambers, she also established
herself close by, and opened her attack on the enemy's outposts by a
request to be allowed to walk in the Minister's grounds, her own
garden being ridiculously small! This was followed by no end of
attentions directed towards Mme. de Meulan, M. Guizot's sister-in-law,
who saw through the whole, and laughed over it with her friends; no
end of little dancing _matinees_ were got up for the Minister's
young daughters, and no end even of sweet biscuits were perpetually
provided for a certain lapdog belonging to the family! All in vain!
We may judge, too, what transports of enthusiasm were enacted when the
Minister himself was _by chance (!)_ encountered in the alleys of
the park, and with what outpourings of admiration he was greeted, by
the very person who, of all others, was so anxious to become one of
his votaries. But, as we again repeat, it was of no use. M. Guizot
never consented to be one of the _habitues_ of the _salon_
of the Abbaye aux Bois. It should be remarked, also, that M. Guizot
cared little for anything out of the immediate sphere of politics, and
of the politics of the moment; he took small interest in what went on
in Art, and none whatever in what went on in the so-called "world"; so
that where a _salon_ was not predominantly political, there was
small chance of presenting Louis Philippe's Prime-Minister with any
real attraction. For this reason he was now and then to be met at the
house of Mme. de Chatenay, often at that of Mme. de Boigne, but
_never_ in any of the receptions of the ordinary run of men and
women of the world. _His own salon_, we again say,--the
_salon_ where he was what Chateaubriand was at the Abbaye aux
Bois,--was the _salon_ of the Princess Lieven; and to have ever
thought she could induce M. Guizot to be in the slightest degree
faithless to this _habit_ argues, on the part of Mme. Recamier,
either a vanity more egregious than we had even supposed, or an
ignorance of what she had to combat that seems impossible. To have
imagined for a moment that she could induce M. Guizot to frequent her
_reunions_