But of all the happily blended contrasts which characterize the Prince, cordiality of condescension united to unmistakable majesty, inflexibility of decision to tenderness of heart, prudent cautiousness to chivalrous ardour-none is so remarkable, because none so rare as the union of sharpness and sincerity peculiarly his own. I do not believe the man exists clever enough to outwit Monseigneur, or even momentarily to deceive him. Nothing escapes him. He reads your very thoughts, and you feel that he does so. This he has in common with his grand-uncle Louis XVIII., and with his ancestor Henry IV., but he allies with it a candour of good faith, an immaculate purity of conscience, an invincible rectitude, which neither of these Sovereigns possessed, and which made me say in the commencement of this chapter, that the ruling virtue of Monseigneur was truth. In no human being have I ever seen these two qualities simultaneously developed to so remarkable a degree.

The Comte de Chambord is eminently Français par l'esprit, and his conversation when he admits you to the privilege of enjoying it en petit comité, is attractive and charming beyond description. Until then, he may be said to be rather reserved than otherwise. Anecdotical and spirituel as Louis XVIII. he is only prevented by the more modern forms of courtly breeding, from being as jovially gay as le Béarnais himself. Perhaps, unless it were for the uncompromising uprightness and sincerity of which I speak, Henri Quatre would be, of all his ancestors, the one whom the Prince resembles most; he has much of his acuteness, but you see at once that "Paris vaut bien une messe," could never have passed his lips.

Of the Comtesse de Chambord, I frankly avow that I

scarcely know how to speak. The impression she made upon me is so strong, the devotion I bear to her is so deep, that I find some difficulty in doing justice to her without being accused of exaggeration. The Archduchess Marie Therèse d'Este is said to be not handsome; but if beauty were to be judged by its effects, I do not know who could vie with her. The power she exercises over all who approach her, is fascination. I have never yet found any one who had either escaped, or who could explain it ; but so it is. Old men and young men, women, persons of all nations and all ranks, none can resist the charmfor that is it. It is le charme, as the French say; that nameless something which utterly defies definition.

Some of those who have not seen this incomparable Princess, and to whom I have tried to paint her, have thought that in extraordinary attentions on her part might

* A lady who had just come from Modena (whither she had been for the first time), was expressing her surprise to the Comtesse de Chambord at the impossibillty which existed of making the Modenese (even the people in the shops and streets) speak of her as anything save as: "Our Marie Thérèse," under which title their inquiries about her were incessant. Madame turned to me, and with a smile of tender remembrance given to her old and faithful friends : "It is true," said she in her sweet soft tones; "my brother is called the Duke,' my poor brother Ferdinand, they used to call the 'Principino,' my sister, they denominate the Infanta,' but me, they never can be persuaded into calling anything else than Marie Thérèse,' tout court, and the very peasants you meet with in the fields know of me under no other name. Je n'ai jamais pu savoir pourquoi," added Madame, with the adorable simplicity which she alone possesses.

"Ah!" thought I to myself, "How well I know why!"

"Our Marie Thérèse!" when shall we too, in France, say "notre Marie Thérèse !"

Most assuredly

lie a portion of the secret. But, no! Madame la Comtesse de Chambord was neither more nor other to me than to every one around her, but in a frequent approach, I learned to admire and love virtues, which are as uncommon as they are irresistible; and, like all the rest, I was subjugated by the nameless influence- le charme.

Madame is exceedingly tall; but to describe her figure, there is but one expression, and that looks like a pedantic one. Why is the word gracilis brought into neither French nor English? "Graceful" is not by any means the equivalent. "Graceful" may be modified; gracilis cannot be so. A woman may be playfully, or majestically graceful, but gracilis is the essence of grace itself. It is a word expressive only of itself alone: lithe as an osier twig, delicate as the ankle of a fawn, it an idea of anything most elegant, and kept apart from all touch too rude.

gives you at once most made to be

Such is the Comtesse de Chambord. Her head, which is extremely small, is placed upon a neck of exquisite slightness, and bends like a lilly upon its stem. Over her usually somewhat pallid complexion, when the least excitement animates her, there spreads a delicate flush, which doubles the soft lustre of her brown eyes. I have often asked myself whether the fascination she so universally exercises lay in the pure sweetness of those eyes, or in the delicious tones of her voice, and I can as little answer the question now as ever.

I could mention one Prince of a reigning German house celebrated for his devotion to beauty, who, whilst a guest at the Prussian Court, so raved about the Comtesse

de Chambord, that a lady who was listening could not help saying with a smile: "En vérité, ce que dit votre altesse Royale, est à rendre jalouse toute l'Allemagne princière."

You should hear, as I have done, the enthusiasm of General M.... (one of the most famous of Napoleon's officers in the armée d'Italie), when he speaks of "Marie Thérèse,"-as he calls her with affectionate respectwhom he has known from her childhood; or see the countenance of Radetzky light up with joy, when he receives some message of remembrance from her who bears the name dearest to an Austrian soldier.

Two French gentlemen of our acquaintance were presented to the Princess during our stay in Venice-one, was forty, the other, twenty-one; one a man of study, the other an élégant; both as different from each other as two people well could be, yet both, after having been spoken to for half an hour by the Comtesse de Chambord had, to my question: "Que pensez-vous de Madame ?" but one reply" Je me jetterais au feu pour elle !"

The only means I can devise for describing accurately the future Queen of France, is to say that she has all the power of beauty without possessing it.

"Intellectually and morally speaking," said to me one day the old General whom I have mentioned, and who is himself renowned for his intelligence; "there is no superiority which Marie Thérèse does not possess-she is one in ten million."

He was right-and whenever Marie Thérèse d'Este shall enter the royal walls of Versailles or the Tuileries, it will be to become, in but a very short space of time,

the object of an adoration such as she cannot yet conceive.*

There is in this family of Este, a power of devotion of a very rare kind. The Archduke Ferdinand, Madame's

brother, died a victim to it, some months ago.

When the Emperor Franz Josef ascended the throne, the Archduke Ferdinand was despatched to Berlin to announce the fact to the King of Prussia.

We shall never forget him here," said a lady of the Court, alluding to this visit. "He left upon us the impression of one of those Spanish knights of old Castille in whose very chivalry there was gravity; handsome as courteous, gentle as brave, but serious and even somewhat silent, we all felt that about the Archduke there was something extraordinary, though very charming."

Well! this young "flower of chivalry" (he was but twenty-eight) married his cousin, the Archduchess Elizabeth, who was but eighteen, and never did wedded love unite two hearts more closely, more entirely than these two. Last winter (it was towards the middle of December) it was remarked to the Archduke, who commanded the troops at Brunn, that the deaths from typhus in the military hospital, were so alarming in number, that it was to be feared there was some defect in the service of the

*To have the most accurate idea possible of the Comtesse de Chambord, it would suffice to read Bossuet's Discourse upon the Queen of Louis XIV., also a Maria Thérèse. There is not one line that does not seem written on purpose; for Madame, in the description the great orator gives of that illustrious Princess, of whom he says: "Above all, a true Christian, she fulfilled every duty without presumption, and was humble, not only in the midst of every greatness, but in the midst of every virtue.”