c _tournure_ of heads and profiles, and the same elevated
character of _spirituelle_ beauty, that painters and sculptors always
bestow on the young Roman matron and the Gracchi.

The Duc seemed impressed with a sentiment almost amounting to solemnity
as he conducted his sons to Ste.-Barbe. He thought, probably, of the
difference between their boyhood and his own, passed in a foreign land
and in exile; while they, brought up in the bosom of a happy home, have
now left it for the first time. Well has he taught them to love the
land of their birth, for even now their youthful hearts are filled with
patriotic and chivalrous feelings!

It would be fortunate, indeed, for the King of France if he had many
such men as the Duc de Guiche around him--men with enlightened minds,
who have profited by the lessons of adversity, and kept pace with the
rapidly advancing knowledge of the times to which they belong.

Painful, indeed, would be the position of this excellent man should any
circumstances occur that would place the royal family in jeopardy, for
he is too sensible not to be aware of the errors that might lead to
such a crisis, and too loyal not to share the perils he could not ward
off; though he will never be among those who would incur them, for no
one is more impressed with the necessity of justice and impartiality
than he is.

CHAPTER XVI.

The approach of spring is already visible here, and right glad am I to
welcome its genial influence; for a Paris winter possesses in my
opinion no superiority over a London one,--nay, though it would be
deemed by the French little less than a heresy to say so, is even more
damp and disagreeable.

The Seine has her fogs, as dense, raw, and chilling, as those of old
Father Thames himself; and the river approximating closer to "the gay
resorts" of the _beau monde_, they are more felt. The want of draining,
and the vapours that stagnate over the turbid waters of the _ruisseaux_
that intersect the streets at Paris, add to the humidity of the
atmosphere; while the sewers in London convey away unseen and unfelt,
if not always unsmelt, the rain which purifies, while it deluges, our
streets. Heaven defend me, however, from uttering this disadvantageous
comparison to Parisian cars, for the French are too fond of Paris not
to be proud even of its _ruisseaux_, and incredulous of its fogs, and
any censure on either would be ill received.

The gay butterflies when they first expand th