"MY MOTHER:
"You made me weep—I who await you every morning. I will say nothing to you, however; I will not beg you. If the health of my grandfather seems to you so feeble as to demand your presence, I know no prayer would take you away from your duty. Nor would I make the prayer, my angel mother!
"But exaggerate nothing, I pray you, and think your little Marie can not pass by the blue chamber without feeling a swelling of the heart. Apart from this grief which you cause her, she continues to be as happy as even you could wish.
"Her charming Prince is ever charming and ever her Prince! He takes her to see the monuments, the museums, the theatres, like the poor little provincial that she is. Is it not touching on the part of so great a personage?
"He is amused at my ecstasies—for I have ecstasies. Do not breathe it to my Uncle Des Rameures, but Paris is superb! The days here count double our own for thought and life.
"My husband took me to Versailles yesterday. I suspect that this, in the eyes of the people here, is rather a ridiculous episode; for I notice the Count did not boast of it. Versailles corresponds entirely with the impressions you had given me of it; for there is not the slightest change since you visited it with my grandfather.
"It is grand, solemn, and cold. There is, though, a new and very curious museum in the upper story of the palace, consisting chiefly of original portraits of the famous men of history. Nothing pleases me more than to see these heroes of my memory passing before me in grand procession—from Charles the Bold to George Washington. Those faces my imagination has so often tried to evoke, that it seems to me we are in the Elysian Fields, and hold converse with the dead:
"You must know, my mother, I was familiar with many things that surprised M. de Camors very much. He was greatly struck by my knowledge of science and my genius. I did no more, as you may imagine, than respond to his questions; but it seemed to astonish him that I could respond at all.
"Why should he ask me these things? If he did not know how to
distinguish the different Princesses of Conti, the answer is simple.
"But I knew, because my mother taught me. That is simple enough
too.