riez-vous qu'elle dise?" "Ah, quelquechose!"
cried Mademoiselle Mars, clasping her hands in the imagined distress of
the situation; "rien--deuxmots seulement. 'Ah, monsieur!' quand il dit,
'Rassurez-vous, madame, le duc n'est point blesse.'" "Eh bien! dites,
dites comme cela," cried De la Vigne, amazed at all the expression the
exquisite voice and face had given to the two words. And so the scene
was altered, and the long recital of D'Orval was broken by the
reproachful "Ah, monsieur!" of his wife, and seldom has the utterance of
such an insignificant exclamation affected those who heard it so keenly.
For myself, I never can forget the sudden, burning blush that spread
tingling to my shoulders at all the shame and mortification and anguish
conveyed in the pathetic protest of that "Ah, monsieur!" of Mademoiselle
Mars.

Dr. Gueneau de Mussy, who knew her well, and used to see her very
frequently in her later years of retirement from the stage, told me that
he had often heard her read, among other things, the whole play of "Le
Tartuffe," and that the coarse flippancy of the honest-hearted Dorinne,
and the stupid stolidity of the dupe Orgon, and the vulgar, gross,
sensual hypocrisy of the Tartuffe, were all rendered by her with the
same incomparable truth and effect as her own famous part of the heroine
of the piece, Elmire. On one of the very last occasions of her appearing
before her own Parisian audience, when she had passed the limit at which
it was possible for a woman of her advanced age to assume the appearance
of youth, the part she was playing requiring that she should exclaim "Je
suis jeune! je suis jolie!" a loud, solitary hiss protested against the
assertion with bitter significance. After an instant's consternation,
which held both the actors and audience silent, she added, with the
exquisite grace and dignity which survived the youth and beauty to which
she could no longer even pretend, "Je suis Mademoiselle Mars!" and the
whole house broke out in acclamations, and rang with the applause due to
what the incomparable artiste still was and the memory of all that she
had been.]

NEW YORK, February 21, 1833.

It is a long time since I have written to you, my dearest H----....
My work is incessant, ... and there is no end to the breathless
hurry of occupation we pass our days in. Here is already a break
since I began this letter, for we are now in Phil