I muttered something about loving beauty in any shape, and admired a bouquet which she held in her hand.
The Baronne selected a flower, and asked me if it was not a peculiarly fine specimen. I assented; and the flower, not being redemanded, I did not return it. The conversation changed to other subjects, and shortly afterwards the Baronne took her leave with her husband. They left Paris next day for the Baron's family estate, and I have never seen them since.
I learned subsequently that some strange stories had obtained circulation respecting the previous life of the Baronne. Whatever they were, it is very certain that this or some other reason has made the profession of Bouquetière most inconveniently popular in Paris. Young ladies of all ages that can, with any degree of courtesy, be included in that category, and of all degrees of beauty short of the hunch-back, may be seen in all directions intruding their flowers with fatal pertinacity upon inoffensive loungers, and making war upon button-holes that never did them any harm. The youngest of young girls, I find, are being trained to the calling, who are all destined, I suppose, to marry distinguished foreigners from some distant and facetious country.
I should have mentioned before, that a friend calling upon me the morning after my meeting with the Baronne, saw the flower which she had placed in my hand standing in a glass of water on the table. An idea struck me: "Do you know anything of the language of flowers?" I asked.
"Something," was the reply.
"What, then, is the meaning of this?"
"Secrecy."
From the Antheneum
THE THREE ERAS OF OTTOMAN HISTORY[6]
So much has been said and written of late respecting the decline and decrepitude of the Ottoman Empire, that most persons believe that there is nothing to prevent a Russian army from marching up to the gates of Constantinople, and taking possession of the city, except the resistance which might be offered by the other powers of Europe to such an extension of the Russian dominions. Many of our readers will therefore be surprised to learn that the army of the Sultan is at present in a more efficient state than it has been for the last two centuries; and that in the event of a war breaking out between Russia and Turkey, the latter would probably be able to resist, single-handed, the attacks of her formidable and ambitions neighbor. This is the view which Mr. Skene endeavors to establish in the pamphlet before us; and from information which we have ourselves received from other quarters, we entirely agree with the conclusion to which Mr. Skene has come,—that "the power of conquest, possessed by the only state with which there appears the slightest possibility of a rupture taking place, is in general as notoriously exaggerated as that of defence on the part of Turkey is commonly undervalued." To enable the reader to obtain an accurate idea of the present condition of the Ottoman army, Mr. Skene gives a brief but able review of its history. He divides his narrative into three eras: the first contains an account of the military history of Turkey till the destruction of the Janissaries in 1825; the second comprises the period of transition, which followed the destruction of the Janissaries; and the third comprehends the formation of the Nizam, or the regular army of the present day. The annals of the first of these eras are, in fact, the history of the Turkish conquests, and of the decline of the empire.