t of the throne all the ambassadors of the civilised world in the
blaze of their rich costumes and manifold orders. In the gallery at the
left, yet more behind, the dresses and jewels of the dames d'honneur
and of the great officers of State. And when the Empress rose to depart,
certainly my fancy cannot picture a more queenlike image, or one that
seemed more in unison with the representation of royal pomp and power.
The very dress, of colour which would have been fatal to the beauty of
most women equally fair--a deep golden colour--(Valerie profanely called
it buff)--seemed so to suit the splendour of the ceremony and the day;
it seemed as if that stately form stood in the midst of a sunlight
reflected from itself. Day seemed darkened when that sunlight passed
away.

"I fear you will think I have suddenly grown servile to the gauds and
shows of mere royalty. I ask myself if that be so--I think not. Surely
it is a higher sense of greatness which has been impressed on me by the
pageant of to-day I feel as if there were brought vividly before me
the majesty of France, through the representation of the ruler she has
crowned.

"I feel also as if there, in that hall, I found a refuge from all the
warring contests in which no two seem to me in agreement as to the sort
of government to be established in place of the present. The 'Liberty'
clamoured for by one would cut the throat of the 'Liberty' worshipped by
another.

"I see a thousand phantom forms of LIBERTY--but only one living symbol
of ORDER--that which spoke from a throne to-day."

Isaura left her letter uncompleted. On the following Monday she was
present at a crowded soiree given by M. Louvier. Among the guests were
some of the most eminent leaders of the Opposition, including that
vivacious master of sharp sayings, M. P-------, whom Savarin entitled
"the French Sheridan;" if laws could be framed in epigrams he would be
also the French Solon.

There, too, was Victor de Mauleon, regarded by the Republican party with
equal admiration and distrust. For the distrust, he himself pleasantly
accounted in talk with Savarin.

"How can I expect to be trusted? I represent 'Common Sense;' every
Parisian likes Common Sense in print, and cries 'Je suis trahi' when
Common Sense is to be put into action."

A group of admiring listeners had collected round one (perhaps the most
brilliant) of those oratorical lawyers by whom, in France, the respect
for all laws has been so of