of their people ever presumed to
interfere on the score of morality with the favours and
honours conferred on those distinguished women? Nay, to come
down to a later period, has the Marquis Auguste Papon ever
heard of the loves of Louis XVIII and Madame de Cuyla, and
that after the monarch's restoration in 1814? Is he ignorant
of those of Napoleon himself and Mademoiselle Georges? Have
not almost all the royal family of England--even those of
the House of Hanover--been notorious for their connection
with celebrated women? Has he never heard of Mrs.
Walkinshaw, ostensible mistress of Charles Edward the
Pretender, of Lucy Barlow, mistress of Charles II, mother of
the Duke of Monmouth? Of Arabella Churchill and Katherine
Sedley, mistresses of James II? Of the Countess of Kendal,
mistress of George II, who was received everywhere in
English society? Or of George IV and the Marchioness of
C----? Of the Duke of York and Mary Anne Clark? Of the Duke
of Clarence and the amiable and respected Mrs. J----? And
last, not least, of the present King of Hanover and late
Duke of Cumberland, who labours even unto this hour under
suspicion of having murdered his valet Sellis, to conceal
his adultery with his wife? In what differs the King of
Bavaria from these?

[Illustration: _Lola Montez in caricature. "Lola on the Allemannen
Hound"_]

But even to descend lower into the social scale of those who
have occupied the attention of the world without incurring
its marked and impertinent censure, has the Marquis Auguste
Papon ever heard of the beautiful Miss Foote, who, first the
favourite of the celebrated Colonel Berkeley (a natural
brother of the Duke of Devonshire) and secondly of a
personal friend of the writer of this reply--the
celebrated Pea Green Hayne--became finally the charming and
amiable Countess of Harrington, one of the sweetest women
that ever were placed at the head of the Stanhope family or
graced a peerage?

Who, that ever once enjoyed the pleasure of knowing this
fairest flower in the parterre of England's aristocracy of
beauty, would, in a spirit of revenge and disappointed
avarice, have had the grossness to insult _her_ as the
Marquis of Papon--the depository of all her secrets--has
insulted the Countess of Landsfeld with