A wicked trick of Madame de Valentinois, sister-in-law of the Prince of
Monaco, was the cause of O-Morphi's disgrace. That lady, who was well
known in Paris, told her one day that, if she wished to make the king
very merry, she had only to ask him how he treated his old wife. Too
simple to guess the snare thus laid out for her, O-Morphi actually asked
that impertinent question; but Louis XV. gave her a look of fury, and
exclaimed,

"Miserable wretch! who taught you to address me that question?"

The poor O-Morphi, almost dead with fright, threw herself on her knees,
and confessed the truth.

The king left her and never would see her again. The Countess de
Valentinois was exiled for two years from the court. Louis XV., who knew
how wrongly he was behaving towards his wife as a husband, would not
deserve any reproach at her hands as a king, and woe to anyone who forgot
the respect due to the queen!

The French are undoubtedly the most witty people in Europe, and perhaps
in the whole world, but Paris is, all the same, the city for impostors
and quacks to make a fortune. When their knavery is found out people turn
it into a joke and laugh, but in the midst of the merriment another
mountebank makes his appearance, who does something more wonderful than
those who preceded him, and he makes his fortune, whilst the scoffing of
the people is in abeyance. It is the unquestionable effects of the power
which fashion has over that amiable, clever, and lively nation. If
anything is astonishing, no matter how extravagant it may be, the crowd
is sure to welcome it greedily, for anyone would be afraid of being taken
for a fool if he should exclaim, "It is impossible!" Physicians are,
perhaps, the only men in France who know that an infinite gulf yawns
between the will and the deed, whilst in Italy it is an axiom known to
everybody; but I do not mean to say that the Italians are superior to the
French.

A certain painter met with great success for some time by announcing a
thing which was an impossibility--namely, by pretending that he could
take a portrait of a person without seeing the individual, and only from
the description given. But he wanted the description to be thoroughly
accurate. The result of it was that the portrait did greater honour to
the person who gave the description than--to the painter himself, but at
the same time the informer found himself under the obligation of finding
the likeness very good; otherwise the