My sister Julie.
There is nothing wanting to Julie's glory: the Abbé Carron has written her life; Lucile has mourned her death.
*
When I saw Julie again in Paris, she was in all the pomp of worldliness; she appeared covered with those flowers, adorned with those necklaces, veiled in those scented fabrics which St. Clement forbids the early Christian women. St. Basil wishes the middle of the night to be for the solitary what the morning is for the others, so that he may profit by the silence of nature. The middle of the night was the hour at which Julie went to parties at which her verses, recited with marvelous euphony by herself, formed the principal attraction.
Julie was infinitely handsomer than Lucile: she had soft blue eyes and dark hair, which she wore plaited or in large waves. Her hands and arms, models of whiteness and shape, added, by their graceful movements, something yet more charming to her already charming figure. She was brilliant, lively, laughed much, but without affectation, and, when she laughed, showed teeth like pearls. A crowd of portraits of women of the time of Louis XIV. resembled Julie, among others those of the three Mortemarts; but she had more elegance than Madame de Montespan[188].
Julie received me with the affection which one finds only in a sister. I had a sense of protection when pressed in her arms, her ribbons, her bouquet of roses, and her laces. Nothing replaces the attachment, delicacy and devotion of a woman; a man is forgotten by his brothers and friends, denied by his companions: but never by his mother, his sister, or his wife. When Harold was slain at the Battle of Hastings, none could point him out in the crowd of the dead; they had to seek the assistance of a young girl whom he loved. She came, and the unfortunate Prince was recognized by Edith the swan-necked:
Editha swaneshales, quod sonat collum cycni.
My brother took me back to my hotel; he ordered my dinner and left me. I dined alone, and went sadly to bed. I passed my first night in Paris regretting my moors and trembling before the dimness of my future.
At eight o'clock the next morning, my fat cousin arrived; he had already done five or six errands: