frequent occasions on which subsequently I saw Ristori produced an
impression on me very much the reverse. I remember thinking Ristori's
"Mirra" too good, so terribly true as to be almost too painful for the
theatre. I thought Rachel's "Marie Stuart" upon the whole her finest
performance, though "Adrienne" ran it hard.

Persiani, I note, supported by Lablache and Rubini, had a most
triumphant reception in _Inez de Castro_, while Albertazzi was very
coldly received in _Blanche de Castille_. Grisi in _Norma_ was
"superb." "Persiani and P. Garcia sang a duet from _Tancredi_; it was
divine! I think I like Garcia's voice better than any of them. Nor
could I think her ugly, as it is the fashion to call her, though it
must be admitted that her mouth and teeth are alarming."

Then there were brilliant receptions at the English Embassy (Lord
Granville) and at the Austrian Embassy (Comte d'Appony). My diary
remarks that stars and gold lace and ribbons of all the Orders in
Christendom were more abundant at the latter, but female beauty at the
former. I remember much admiring that of Lady Honoria Cadogan, and
that of a very remarkably lovely Visconti girl, a younger sister of
the Princess Belgiojoso. But despite this perfect beauty, my diary
notes, that it was "curious to observe the unmistakable superiority
as a human being of the young English patrician." I remember that the
"sit-down" suppers at the Austrian Embassy--a separate little table
for every two, three, or four guests--were remarked on as a novelty
(and applauded) by the Parisians.

Then at Miss Clarke's (afterwards Madame Mohl) I find Fauriel, "the
first Provencal scholar in Europe," delightful, and am disgusted with
Merimee, because he manifested self-sufficiency, as it seemed to my
youthful criticism, by pooh-poohing the probability of the temple
at Lanleff in Brittany having been aught else than a church of the
Templars.

Then Arago reads an _Eloge_ on "old Ampere," of which I only remark
that it lasted two hours and a half. Then there was a dinner at Dr.
Gilchrist's whose widow our old friend Pepe, who for many years had
always called her "Madame Ghee-cree," subsequently married. My notes,
written the same evening, remind me that "I did not much like the
radical old Doctor (his wife was an old acquaintance, but I had
never seen him before); he is eighty, and ought to know better. Old
Nymzevitch (I am not sure of the spelling), the ex-Chancellor of
Poland, dine