tinction," said Elnathan, after a long and calm
look through his _lorgnette_--in the style of that inspection which an
artist might give to a picture of acknowledged renown; or perhaps which
a Mahometan dealer might fix on an importation from Circassia; "but one
which," said he, dropping his glass, "I find it difficult to define."

"You have already," said I, "given Madame Roland her place at the head
of Republicans, let us suppose Madame de Fontenai the fine and
fastidious aristocrat. While this lovely being's elegance of manner, and
mixture of grace and dignity, would make an admirable figure at the head
of a French court, if such a thing were not now beyond all possibility."

"Are you aware," said the Jew, with sudden seriousness, "that a
prediction, or at least some extraordinary conjecture on the subject,
has gone the round of the circles. The tale is, that while she was still
a girl in the West Indies, one of the negro dispensers of fortune, an
Obi woman, pronounced that she should ascend a throne. I must, however,
add the _finale_ to qualify it--that she should die in an hospital."

"The scale," said I, "goes down too suddenly in that case: she had
better remain the beautiful and happy creature that she is. Yet a being
formed in this expressive mould was not meant either to live or die like
the rest of the world."

"True, in other countries," said Elnathan, with a glance round, as if a
_huissier_ was at his elbow; "but here the affair is different--or
rather, the course of nature is the scaffold. That beautiful woman has
lately had the narrowest escape from the Revolutionary committee; and I
can tell you that it is utterly impossible to know what to-morrow may
bring even to her. She is too lovely not to be an object of rivalry; and
a word may be death."

Such was my first sight of Josephine de Beauharnais.

This charming performance proceeded with infinite interest. But it
differed from the course which I have since seen it take. The scene next
showed Virginie in France. She was in the midst of all the animation of
Parisian life--no longer the simple and exquisite child of nature, but
the conscious beauty; still in all the bloom of girlhood, but exhibiting
the graces of the woman of fashion. Surrounded by the admiration and
adulation of the glittering world, she had given herself up to its
influence, until her early feelings were beginning to fade away. The
scene opened with a ball. Virginie, dressed in the