The house
was full of columns, statues, flowers, paintings, candelabra, and
servants in black dress-coats and short breeches; but everything about
the place looked so accidental and ephemeral that the Comte de
Saint-Brice, a very witty frequenter of the house, used to
say,--"Whenever I visit the place, I am always afraid of finding the
horses sold, the servants dismissed, the husband run away, the
drawing-room closed, and the house razed." The Comte de Saint-Brice's
fears must have been allayed on this evening. Everything was in its
place,--horses, servants, husband, drawing-room, house. Madame Emile de
Girardin was in full dress; the manuscript tragedy was in her lap. I
found in the drawing-room Monsieur Victor Hugo, Monsieur de Lamartine,
Monsieur Alfred de Musset, the three stars of our poetical heavens;
Monsieur Theophile Gautier, Monsieur Mery, Monsieur Paulin Limayrac, the
secondary planets; Madame George Sand, the great Amazon novelist; some
doctors, some artists, two or three actors from the French Comedy, and
some other gentlemen. At this period of time Madame Emile de Girardin
was forty-five years old.
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