for
fixing the remembrance of places likewise.

"The landscapes which she had loved in forbidden France, even the
apartments which she had inhabited, were executed in a manner that put
to shame the best amateur performances I had ever seen. There was a
minute attention to fidelity in them, too, which a recollection of her
present circumstances could not fail to bring home to the spectator's
heart.

"I know not when my interest would have cooled in this mansion of taste
and talent. Towards morning I was obliged to take my leave; and I doubt
if there were any individual who returned home by that bright moonlight,
without feeling that Hortense had been born some century and a half too
late. For an age of bigots and turncoats she, indeed, seemed unsuited.
In that of true poetry and trusty cavaliers, she would have been the
subject of the best rhymes and rencontres in romantic France.

"After this I saw her frequently, both at her own house and at Wolfberg,
and I never found any thing to destroy the impression which I received
on my introduction. Independently of the interest attached to herself,
she had always in her company some person who had made a noise in the
world, and had become an object of curiosity. At one time it was a
distinguished painter or poet; again, it was a battered soldier, who
preferred resting in retirement to the imputation of changing his
politics for advancement; then a grand duke or duchess who had undergone
as many vicissitudes as herself; and, finally, the widow of the
unfortunate Marshal Ney.

"There was something in the last of these characters, particularly when
associated with Hortense, more interesting than all the others. She was
a handsome, but grave and silent woman, and still clad in mourning for
her husband, whose death, so connected with the banishment of the
duchess, could not fail to render them deeply sympathetic in each
other's fortunes. The amusements provided for all this company consisted
of such as I have mentioned--expeditions to various beautiful spots in
the neighborhood, and music parties on the water. The last of these used
sometimes to have a peculiarly romantic effect; for on _fete_ days the
young peasant girls, all glittering in their golden tinsel bonnets,
would push off with their sweethearts, like mad things, in whatever
boats they could find upon the beach. I have seen them paddling their
little fleet round the duchess's boat with all the curiosity of savages
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