queen occupies another with the princess;
and the rest come flocking after, as it may happen. There are then
gondolas on the canal, and music; and at ten they come back, and
then there is a play; and twelve strikes, and they go to supper;
and thus rolls round the Saturday. If I were to tell you how often
you were asked after, how many questions were put to me without
waiting for answers, how often I neglected to answer, how little
they cared, and how much less I did, you would see the _iniqua
corte_ [wicked court] before you in all its perfection. However, it
never was so pleasant before, and everybody wishes it may last.

There is your picture. Picture, pure and simple, it is--comment none,
least of all, moralizing comment. The wish is sighed by "everybody,"
that such pleasant things may "last." Well, they did last the writer's
time. But meanwhile the French revolution was a-preparing. A hundred
years later it will come, with its terrible reprisals.

We have gone away from the usual translations to find the foregoing
extract in an article published forty years ago and more, in the
"Edinburgh Review." Again we draw from the same source--this time, the
description of a visit paid by a company of grand folks, of whom the
writer of the letter was one, to an iron-foundery:--

FRIDAY, 1st Oct. (1677).

Yesterday evening at Cone, we descended into a veritable hell, the
true forges of Vulcan. Eight or ten Cyclops were at work, forging,
not arms for AEneas, but anchors for ships. You never saw strokes
redoubled so justly, nor with so admirable a cadence. We stood in
the middle of four furnaces; and the demons came passing about us,
all melting in sweat, with pale faces, wild-staring eyes, savage
mustaches, and hair long and black,--a sight enough to frighten
less well-bred folks than ourselves. As for me, I could not
comprehend the possibility of refusing any thing which these
gentlemen, in their hell, might have chosen to exact. We got out at
last, by the help of a shower of silver, with which we took care to
refresh their souls, and facilitate our exit.

Once more:--

PARIS, 29th November (1679).

I have been to the wedding of Madame de Louvois. How shall I
describe it? Magnificence, illuminations, all France, dresses all
gold and brocade, jewels, braziers full of fire, and stands full of