o which he had just entered was remarkable as belonging to
a man at once a savant, a politician, and an artist. Thus a large table
covered with a green cloth, and loaded with papers, inkstand, and pens,
occupied the middle of the room; but all round, on desks, on easels, on
stands, were an opera commenced, a half-finished drawing, a chemical
retort, etc. The regent, with a strange versatility of mind, passed in
an instant from the deepest problems of politics to the most capricious
fancies of painting, and from the most delicate calculations of
chemistry to the somber or joyous inspirations of music. The regent
feared nothing but ennui, that enemy against whom he struggled
unceasingly, without ever quite succeeding in conquering it, and which,
repulsed by work, study, or pleasure, yet remained in sight--if one may
say so--like one of those clouds on the horizon, toward which, even in
the finest days, the pilot involuntarily turns his eyes. The regent was
never unoccupied, and had the most opposite amusements always at hand.

On entering his study, where the council were to meet in two hours, he
went toward an unfinished drawing, representing a scene from "Daphnis
and Chloe," and returned to the work, interrupted two days before by
that famous game of tennis, which had commenced by a racket blow, and
finished by the supper at Madame de Sabran's.

A messenger came to tell him that Madame Elizabeth Charlotte, his
mother, had asked twice if he were up. The regent, who had the most
profound respect for the princess palatine, sent word that not only was
he visible, but that if madame were ready to receive him, he would pay
her a visit directly. He then returned to his work with all the
eagerness of an artist. Shortly after the door opened, and his mother
herself appeared.

Madame, the wife of Philippe, the first brother of the king, came to
France after the strange and unexpected death of Madame Henriette of
England, to take the place of that beautiful and gracious princess, who
had passed from the scene like a dream. This comparison, difficult to
sustain for any new-comer, was doubly so to the poor German princess,
who, if we may believe her own portrait, with her little eyes, her short
and thick nose, her long thin lips, her hanging cheeks and her large
face, was far from being pretty. Unfortunately, the faults of her face
were not compensated for by beauty of figure. She was little and fat,
with a short body and legs, an