and the other;
hints of a fatal destiny, and a ruthless, lynx-eyed tyrant, who held
a demoniac grasp over the Duchess by means of certain secrets which he
knew: there were regrets that we had not known each other sooner: why
were we brought out of our convent and sacrificed to Monsieur le Duc?
There were frolic interchanges of fancy and poesy: pretty bouderies;
sweet reconciliations; yawns finally--and separation. Adolphe went out
and Alphonse came in. It was the new audience; for which the bell rang,
the band played, and the curtain rose; and the tragedy, comedy, and
farce were repeated.

Those Greenwich performers who appear in the theatrical pieces
above-mentioned, make a great deal more noise than your stationary
tragedians; and if they have to denounce a villain, to declare a
passion, or to threaten an enemy, they roar, stamp, shake their fists,
and brandish their sabres, so that every man who sees the play has
surely a full pennyworth for his penny. Thus Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry
perhaps a little exaggerated her heroines' parts liking to strike her
audiences quickly, and also to change them often. Like good performers,
she flung herself heart and soul into the business of the stage, and was
what she acted. She was Phedre, and if in the first part of the play
she was uncommonly tender to Hippolyte, in the second she hated him
furiously. She was Medea, and if Jason was volage, woe to Creusa!
Perhaps our poor Lord Kew had taken the first character in a performance
with Madame d'Ivry; for his behaviour in which part it was difficult
enough to forgive him; but when he appeared at Baden the affianced
husband of one of the most beautiful young creatures in Europe,--when
his relatives scorned Madame d'Ivry,--no wonder she was maddened and
enraged, and would have recourse to revenge, steel, poison.

There was in the Duchess's court a young fellow from the South of
France, whose friends had sent him to faire son droit at Paris, where he
had gone through the usual course of pleasure and studies of the young
inhabitants of the Latin Quarter. He had at one time exalted republican
opinions, and had fired his shot with distinction at St. Meri. He was a
poet of some little note--a book of his lyrics, Les Rales d'un Asphyxie,
having made a sensation at the time of their appearance. He drank great
quantities of absinthe of a morning; smoked incessantly; played roulette
whenever he could get a few pieces; contributed to a small jou