We Were To Have A Second Breakfast At About One O'clock In The
Day; So We Strolled Out To A Seat On The Terrace, Commanding A Fine
And Very Extensive Prospect.
Madame V. is the wife of an eminent lawyer, who held the office of
intendant of the civil list of Louis Philippe, and has had the
settlement of that gentleman's pecuniary affairs since his death.
At
the time of the _coup d'etat_, being then a representative, he
was imprisoned, and his wife showed considerable intrepidity in
visiting him, walking on foot through the prison yard, amongst the
soldiers sitting drunk on the cannon. At present Monsieur V. is
engaged in his profession in Paris.
Madame V. is a pleasant-looking French woman, of highly-cultivated
mind and agreeable manners; accomplished in music and in painting. Her
daughter, about fifteen, plays well, and is a good specimen of a
well-educated French demoiselle, not yet out. They are simply ciphers,
except as developed in connection with and behind shelter of their
mother. She performed some beautiful things beautifully, and then her
mother played a duet with her. We took a walk through the groves, and
sat on the bank, on the brow of a commanding eminence.
A wide landscape was before us, characterized by every beauty of
foliage conceivable, but by none more admirable, to my eye, than the
poplars, which sustain the same relation to French scenery that
spruces do to that of Maine. Reclining there, we could almost see,
besides the ancient territory of the Duke d'Orsay, the celebrated
valley of Chartreuse, where was the famous Abbey of Port Royal, a
valley filled with historic associations.
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