Drawn & Etched by A. Hervieu.
Soiree.
London. Published by Richard Bentley. 1835.
My parvenue duchess is very remarkable indeed. She steps out like a corporal carrying a message: her voice is the first, the last, and almost the only thing heard in the salon that she honours with her presence,—except it chance, indeed, that she lower her tone occasionally to favour with a whisper some gallant décoré, military, scientific or artistic, of the same standing as herself; and moreover, she promenades her eyes over the company as if she had a right to bring them all to roll-call.
Notwithstanding all this, the lady is certainly a person of talent; and had she happily remained in the station in which both herself and her husband were born, she might not perhaps have thought it necessary to speak quite so loud, and her bons mots would have produced infinitely greater effect. But she is so thoroughly out of place in the grade to which she has been unkindly elevated, that it seems as if Napoleon had decided on her fate in a humour as spiteful as that of Monsieur Jourdain, when he said—
"Votre fille sera marquise, en dépit de tout le monde: et si vous me mettez en colère, je la ferai duchesse."