ul to see as
little of each other as possible? A broken-off love-match, even
without complication of unworthy conduct on either side, is generally
an effective bar to further intercourse. But in this case the
intercourse is renewed on the very first opportunity, and never
dropped till the death of one of the persons concerned.

Two letters have been preserved of Gibbon and Madame Necker
respectively, nearly of the same date, and both referring to this
rather delicate topic of their first interviews after her marriage.
Gibbon writes to his friend Holroyd, "The Curchod (Madame Necker) I
saw in Paris. She was very fond of me, and the husband particularly
civil. Could they insult me more cruelly? Ask me every evening to
supper, go to bed and leave me alone with his wife--what impertinent
security! It is making an old lover of mighty little consequence. She
is as handsome as ever, and much genteeler; seems pleased with her
wealth rather than proud of it. I was exalting Nanette d'Illens's good
luck and the fortune" (this evidently refers to some common
acquaintance, who had changed her name to advantage). "'What fortune,'
she said with an air of contempt:--'not above twenty thousand livres a
year.' I smiled, and she caught herself immediately, 'What airs I give
myself in despising twenty thousand livres a year, who a year ago
looked upon eight hundred as the summit of my wishes.'"

Let us turn to the lady's account of the same scenes. "I do not know
if I told you," she writes to a friend at Lausanne, "that I have seen
Gibbon, and it has given me more pleasure than I know how to express.
Not indeed that I retain any sentiment for a man who I think does not
deserve much" (this little toss of pique or pride need not mislead
us); "but my feminine vanity could not have had a more complete and
honest triumph. He stayed two weeks in Paris, and I had him every day
at my house; he has become soft, yielding, humble, decorous to a
fault. He was a constant witness of my husband's kindness, wit, and
gaiety, and made me remark for the first time, by his admiration for
wealth, the opulence with which I am surrounded, and which up to this
moment had only produced a disagreeable impression upon me."
Considering the very different points of view of the writers, these
letters are remarkably in unison. The solid fact of the daily visits
is recorded in both. It is easy to gather from Madame Necker's letter
that she was very glad to show Mr. Gib