, sombre forests, heartaches, vows, sobs, tears and
kisses, little skiffs by moonlight, nightingales in shady groves,
'gentlemen' brave as lions, gentle as lambs, virtuous as no one ever
was, always well dressed, and weeping like fountains. For six months,
then, Emma, at fifteen years of age, made her hands dirty with books
from old lending libraries. With Walter Scott, later, she fell in love
with historical events, dreamed of old chests, guardrooms and
minstrels. She would have liked to live in some old manor-house, like
those long-waisted chatelaines who, in the shade of pointed arches,
spent their days leaning on the stone, chin in hand, watching a cavalier
with white plume galloping on his black horse from the distant
fields. At this time, she had a cult for Mary Stuart and enthusiastic
veneration for illustrious or unhappy women. Joan of Arc, Heloise, Agnes
Sorel, the beautiful Ferronniere, and Clemence Isaure stood out to her
like comets in the dark immensity of heaven, where also were seen, lost
in shadow, and all unconnected, St. Louis with his oak, the dying
Bayard, some cruelties of Louis XI., a little of St. Bartholomew's, the
plume of the Bearnais, and always the remembrance of the plates painted
in honor of Louis XIV.

"In the music-class, in the ballads she sang, there was nothing but
little angels with golden wings, madonnas, lagunes, gondoliers;--mild
compositions that allowed her to catch a glimpse athwart the obscurity
of style and the weakness of the music of the attractive phantasmagoria
of sentimental realities."

Now, you have not remembered this, when that poor country girl, having
returned to the farm and married a village physician, is invited to an
evening party at the Castle, to which you have sought to call the
attention of the judges to show that there was something lascivious in a
waltz she took part in. You have not called to mind this education when
this poor woman is charmed that an invitation comes to take her from her
husband's common fireside and lead her to the Castle, where she sees
fine gentlemen, beautiful ladies, and the old duke, who, they said, had
had great fortune at Court! The Government Attorney has shown some fine
emotions _a propos_ of Queen Marie-Antoinette! Assuredly there is not
one of us who would not share his thought; like him, we have trembled at
the name of this victim of the Revolution, but it is not with
Marie-Antoinette that we are concerned here, it is with