Digitised Manuscripts and Books

consummate tact most of the eminent statesmen, lawyers, men letters,artists, and beautiful and clever women of the day One of her constant visitors was General Changarnier, with whom kept up a daily correspondence after he was banished by Napoleon III. I have heard from the few persons who were pri- vileged to see her letters to him , and which she unfortunately destroyed when they were returned to her after his death, that they contained 1 only a most faithful and interesting record political ,literary, and social events of the day , but were written in a style which Madame de Sevigne might not have disclaimed. My Aunt was as much beloved as she esteemed in Paris. Heine pays her a graceful tribute in his memoirs, for when the poor stricken poet lay on his bed of ness she often ministered to his wants and charmed away sufferings with her sympathy and conversation . But to return to my personal reminiscences . The attrac- tions of Paris , as I have said, were small,and they paled into insignificance beside those of ‘old’ England. In my earliest childhood England was already the land of my dreams, to which tended myconception of all earthly bliss. My first recollection of the country I have now long made my home, is of junnersbury , my Grandmother's villa near Acton , where I was spoilt beyond all measure , not by my Grandmother only but by Uncles and Aunts . I revelled in the society of my J Once I was taken to see the famous giasshouses of Mrs Lawrence, the mother of Sir Trevor, and they much impressed me for at Frankfort ‘siass' was then unknown. How greatly I appreciated the contents of the Gunnersbury ‘'slass'ecan hardly be understood