In France, even before the Revolution, less regard was paid to the decisions of a court of law, than to public opinion. That tyrant of our modern days had already seized the throne, and his legitimate authority and divine right were never doubted by the most anti-monarchical of the sons of liberty. The only check on the insolence of the noblesse, and the only compensation for the venality of the judges, was found in a recourse to the printer. A marquis was made to imitate the manners of a gentleman by fear of an epigram; a defeated party in a lawsuit consoled himself by satirizing the court; and from Voltaire down to Palissot, all the people who could write, and could borrow ink and paper, had pen in hand, ready to appeal from prejudiced juries, overbearing nobles, or even lettres de cachet and the Bastile itself, to the reading, talking, gossiping, laughing, quick-witted, cold-hearted citizens of Paris. The consequence was that the whole city was overrun with pamphlets. Ministers of state, marshals, and princes of the blood, were as busy as any Grub-street garretteer. Literary squabbles employed the lifetime of all the literary men—and some of them, indeed, are only known by their squibs and lampoons on their more popular brethren. But so great at last seems to have been the rage for calling in the public, that it was not even expelled from the consulting chambers of counsel learned in the law. If a case came before an advocate that gave any scope for his talents as a pamphleteer, his opinion immediately took the shape of a little historiette, and in a few days was in print. The attorney was no less literary in getting up his brief; and innumerable were the sage labours of avocats and procureurs which rushed into type before the trial was over, and did duty, very much to the reader's satisfaction, as a tale of fashionable life. In fact, a very amusing collection might be made, of the memorials of counsel which appeared in Paris about the middle of last century. The writings, for instance, which secured the fame of witty Beaumarchais among the gossips of the capital, were not the Barber of Seville, or his comedies, but the briefs which he composed in his lawsuit with the Goezmans and the Sieur Bertrand. All the laughers were on his side; and though he was beat in the trial, his triumph was complete; for it was not in the nature of Parisian public opinion to believe a man guilty who was so prodigal of bon-mots; or that the opposite party had right or justice on their side, whose pleadings were as uninteresting as a sermon. But Beaumarchais was not the only author who owed his notoriety to his legal proceedings. One of the great lyric poets of France, who is placed by his countrymen upon the same level as Pindar—Denis Leonchard Lebrun—was the town-talk for several years, during his action against his wife for the restitution of conjugal rights. And as his MÉmoire, or pleading, gives a view of French life at the period, (1774,) of a grade in society omitted in the MÉmoires and Souvenirs of dukes and princesses, we propose to give some account of it, and also of the hero of the process, whose strange eventful history was not drawn to a close till 1807. He was born in 1729, in the house of the Prince de Conti, in whose service his father was. His talents soon recommended him to the notice of the prince; and, before he was thirty, he had established his reputation as a poet of the first order by an ode on the earthquake at Lisbon. Acknowledged as a man of genius, and feared as a man of wit—for his epigrams were even more celebrated than his lyrics—and placed in easy circumstances by the kindness of his master, who bestowed on him the title and salary of his "SecrÉtaire des Commandemens," nothing seemed wanting to his felicity but a wife to share his glory; and, accordingly, in the year 1760, he married. If we believe his own account, he was the happiest of Benedicts for fourteen years; but all of a sudden, without warning, without reason, and (though she was a poetess) without even rhyme, his household gods were broken, and all his happiness engulfed. It was a second edition of the Lisbon earthquake. The opposite party denied the fourteen years' felicity, and talked wonderful things about cuffs and kicks bestowed on the spouse—and maledictions of more force than elegance; but both sides agree that the matter came to a crisis when a certain Sieur Grimod—a sort of Cicisbeo—Platonic of course—was requested to leave the house, and discontinue his visits to Madame Lebrun. This simple proceeding let loose all the winds of heaven; poor Lebrun was pounced upon by the whole female sex. Even his old mother turned against him; even his sister, a sour vestal of thirty-seven, sided with her injured sister-in-law; and what had the wretched poet to say for himself? He suspected nothing improper—a good easy man—he adored his "Fanny"—he wanted her to come back—but that horrid fellow Grimod!—he would not have Grimod within his door. So Fanny would not go within it either; and off to the avocat rushed Lebrun, to force her to come back by legal process; and off went Madame, accompanied of course by the Sieur Grimod, to her avocat, to resist the demand; and then followed paper upon paper—love, regrets, promisings, courtings, on one side; hatred, defiance, and foul names, ad libitum, on the other. And, finally, the whole case was put into a MÉmoire, with the help of Monsieur Hardoin de la Regnerie, avocat; and every tea-table—but there was no tea in those days—every card-table in Paris was as well able to decide the cause as the Parliament itself.

The MÉmoire commences with some general reflections on the advantages possessed by a pretty woman, in all cases of a quarrel with a man. And when, in addition to her prettiness, she has the art to appear ill-used, there is no resisting her attacks. A halo of sympathy gathers round her, while a cloud envelopes the unfortunate antagonist; and people at last think that they are performing an act of pure and disinterested justice, when they kick him into the Seine. Impressed with this disagreeable conviction, (from which we gather that Madame Lebrun was a handsome woman, while the husband was nothing to boast of—at all events compared to the Sieur Grimod,) he hurries on to the facts—and they rather alter the appearance of affairs.

It was in the year 1760, as we have said, that the Sieur Lebrun married the Demoiselle de Surcourt. Interest and ambition had nothing to do with the match. Love was the only fastener of the bond. The Sieur Lebrun and the Demoiselle de Surcourt had been acquainted—had been lovers—for three years. And that passion, born of a sympathy of tastes and sentiments, had grown in mystery—a secret correspondence was its aliment and interpreter—a delicious correspondence—where the Demoiselle de Surcourt knew how to combine the sallies of imagination with the soft outpourings of the soul, or the burning expressions of her love! Pardon the Sieur Lebrun if he transcribes a few passages from her letters; Madame Lebrun, above all, ought to excuse him. It is not betraying her secrets; it is recalling her to herself, and to a sentiment she would never have forsworn, if she had been allowed to follow the dictates of her heart:—

"If it is flattering to be loved by those we love, it is still more so when the loved object is you, my dear Misis. 'Twould make me vain to think I pleased you really as much as you say I do; but I feel my happiness too truly to give way to pride on account of it. Is it true, then, that you think of me, and prefer my remembrance to the gaieties of society? Ah! why am I not in the room where you remain for my sake? You make me wish more—I wish I could be with you wherever you think of me. You are right in saying our hearts are made for one another; they have the same sentiments, they burn with the same fires. That charming harmony is the work of love; but nature had created a sympathy between them that seems to tell us they were made to love and to be united. Yes, my dear Misis, they must love for ever; but in the mean time will you consent to languish in absence and constraint? I would not remind you of your unhappiness, since you have interdicted me from the subject, if you did not complain yourself; and your complaints make me wretched. They reveal to me your sufferings, and awaken all my affection. Do you think, if I had an opportunity of seeing you, that I would not seize it? Ah! you ought to feel assured of all I would do for you if I had it in my power. But we can't help hoping what we desire so much. Reproach me, therefore, no more; tell me rather again that you are convinced of my affection, and promise to love me all your life. I ought to be sure of it already; but every time you reproach me, I make you repeat the promise by way of expiating your fault. Good-night, my dear Misis; I hope you will think of me in your dreams. Why must I say good-night so far from you?"

Of the same period is the following:—

"What! you scold me in sober truth! You write me a scrap of a letter—in the coldest, gravest style. Yes—you were sad—I see you were. Do you fancy that the lecture you gave me makes up for my grief at losing you? Ah! if I had not recalled your eyes glowing with love, and all our mutual endearments, I should have been angry with you. How strange that your very recollection pleads your excuse! Whatever may be your fault, you have but to show yourself to be forgiven. But do not presume, upon this confession, to add to your faults. Alas! if ever you deserve a punishment, its bitterness will all belong to me. Fortune befriended us when last we met; but don't you find time pass too quickly when we are together? I have always a thousand things to say to you; it is not, perhaps, the shortness of the time—it is, that the more I say to you the more I wish to say. In the same way, the more kisses I give you, the more I wish to give; all the feelings you inspire are in extremes. How you ought to love me if you wish your tenderness to equal mine! And since it is always on the increase, how cruel that we can never give way to the sentiments we feel, and express them to each other! What pleasure we are deprived of, dear Misis! why are you not beside the couch where I am now writing? Our silence alone would be more eloquent than all our letters. The kisses I would give you would no longer be in dreams, though my happiness would perhaps make me think it one. Adieu! the more I think of it, the more I feel the misery of being separated from you. It is near one o'clock. Are you in bed yet? Think of me!"

This secret correspondence lasted for three years; but, at last, a letter was opened by a servant, and the secret was discovered by the Sieur de la Motte, who passed for the Demoiselle de Surcourt's uncle, and with whom she lived. The Sieur Lebrun had but to whisper marriage, and all would have been arranged. Under other circumstances the word would have been easy—but there was a bar between them: the Demoiselle de Surcourt was of illegitimate birth. Love, however, laughed at the obstruction. The Sieur Lebrun hurried to the house of De la Motte; demanded the hand of the lady he loved; and the Demoiselle de Surcourt became his wife. The marriage contract will prove his disinterestedness. The portion he obtained was small; consisting but of eighteen hundred francs a-year. The Sieur Lebrun, secretary of the domains of the Prince de Conti, with two thousand livres a-year, might have looked higher—at all events he might have bargained for a settlement in his favour; but, so far from that, he made no claim upon her fortune, but settled all he had upon her. Is this the man whom Madame Lebrun accuses of having married her from interested motives?

Alas, sometimes, for the marriages which have been preceded by too violent a love!—illusion gives place to sad reality. The boy and girl love without having learned to know each other; and cease to love when that knowledge comes! But the attachment of the Sieur and Madame Lebrun experienced no revolution of the kind. Fourteen years passed away in uninterrupted union. Though converted into a husband, the Sieur Lebrun did not cease to be Misis; the wedded De Surcourt continued to be "Fanny"—charming names—ingenious disguises—chosen by two lovers to perpetuate the memory of the times of courtship!

More than three hundred letters, written by Madame Lebrun during that time, were in the hands of her husband—irrefragable proofs of their mutual affection; but she has found means to get away the greater part of them; enough, however, remain to make his justification complete. Never was a union more harmonious—a wife more petted and indulged. It seemed that felicity, resting on such foundations, could never be disturbed; but one single moment was sufficient to overturn the work of seventeen years!

The Sieur and Madame Lebrun had been intimate for some years with a certain Sieur Grimod, who held an appointment from the king, and lived as if his office was of great value. The Sieur Lebrun is not astonished that his wife was pleased with the acquaintance, for he prized it very highly himself; but a time came when he thought it better for all parties that it should cease. The Sieur Lebrun believes in his wife's virtue as in his own existence. What! if he had not that belief, would he be here to reclaim her by course of law? But it is not enough for a woman to have the reality of virtue—she must have the appearance also; and every man has a right to be in that respect a CÆsar. Already some indiscretions of Madame Lebrun, which the openness and purity of her mind could alone render excusable—her portrait drawn without her husband's knowledge for the Sieur Grimod—a letter from that individual to the lady, written in a style such as no one would use towards a lady he respected—had begun to inspire the Sieur Lebrun with a certain coolness. The whisperings at last, unjust as they were, no doubt, of a malicious public—the advice of his friends—his own susceptibility, made it imperative on him to come to a rupture, in which Madame Lebrun should have been glad to join. And here is the letter he wrote to the Sieur Grimod:—

This 15th January 1774.

And the Sieur Grimod immediately replied—

After two such polite epistles, the reader would naturally expect that the Sieur Lebrun and the Sieur Grimod, with their respective wives, would toss their heads at each other when they met in the street, and give the cut direct with the utmost unanimity. But another glance into the MÉmoire will soon convince him of his mistake. The Sieur Lebrun may probably look vastly majestic, and pass the Sieur Grimod with a contemptuous jerk; but sorry are we to say that Madame Lebrun joins in no such dignified proceeding. She cuts the magnanimous Lebrun instead; she stirs up against him the wrath and indignation of all his friends and relations; she continues her intimacy with the Sieur Grimod; and, as a finish to her connubial obedience, she goes one morning with three hackney coaches, and carries off every article of furniture the unhappy little man possesses. A pleasant specimen of a wife of the middle class in the year 1774! A duchess could scarcely be more sublime. Now, who was this Sieur Grimod, and what manner of rank was his considered? He had nothing to do with the noblesse; he kept no shop; he had no private fortune; but he was one of the true causers of the French Revolution, the rascally collectors of taxes, the underlings of the atrocious fermiers gÉnÉraux, who wrung the last farthing from the already oppressed peasant, and made the whole realm of France as sterile, hopeless, and wretched, as a nation must inevitably become, if it is allowed to be the prey of an O'Connell in every parish. His nominal salary was under a hundred a-year; but we shall see the style he lives in, as we get on in the account—his country-houses—his carriages, and even his politenesses to Madame Lebrun; and we shall hear in every one of these luxurious enjoyments the sharpening of the guillotine axe. Madame Lebrun the wife, Madame Lebrun the mother, and Mademoiselle the sister, are all in the same story. The old lady, whose virtuous indignation towers above her sex, has no patience for the insufferable tyrant who won't let his wife see her best friends, ("qui vouloit l'empÊcher de voir ses bons amis.") They trump up all manner of stories against him; and even maintain, in their first paper of accusation, that he threshed and kicked his tender-hearted spouse, and put her in bodily fear. But when the magistrate looked at our diminutive friend, and compared his powers of threshing and kicking with the tall majestic figure and full chest of the complainant, he dismissed the charge "avec une sorte d'indignation," as the Sieur Lebrun triumphantly declares; and we think the magistrate was quite justified in so doing. No, no—the Sieur Lebrun was bad enough, as you shall hear in the sequel; but he never had the cruelty, not to mention the courage, to attack so stately a woman as his wife. But, alas! from the magistrate's decision there lay a power of appeal. The three ladies—with the help, no doubt, of the irresistible Sieur Grimod—carried the cause into a higher court. They brought it before the bailliage of the Temple; but the Sieur Lebrun had some misgivings as to the impartiality of the court, and he carried it before the judges at the ChÂtelet. In this court, Grimod and his party knew they had no chance, suffered the case to go against them by default, and finally appealed to the Grande Chambre. And the Sieur Lebrun did all this to get back a woman that had robbed, and pillaged, and slandered him, and preferred her bon ami the Sieur Grimod, and her bonne amie the Dame Grimod, to her Misis, in spite of his ode on the earthquake at Lisbon, and his being ranked by the Parisian critics as a little above Pindar.

Well, to it they go, reply, replication, rejoinder—till at last we are verily persuaded the little man tried to get her into his power again for the express purpose of murdering her at his leisure. And what our verdict in such a case, if we had been upon the jury, would have been, we are not prepared to say.

The lady, in the course of her accusations, proved too much. She brought witnesses to state, that for the whole fourteen years of her wedded life she had been thumped and bullied worse than Cinderella; accused of trying to poison her lord and master; and, in short, had led a life of perfect misery. Oho! cries the Pindar of the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, you are a pretty woman to talk of misery and ill-treatment for fourteen years! Why, never was such a merry, happy, careless being in France. For fourteen years you did nothing but amuse yourself and worship me, as a good wife ought. I buried myself in my books, and wrote astonishing odes and epigrams, corresponded with Voltaire, and discovered grand-daughters of Corneille, and got up subscriptions for their benefit; and all the while you attended every party, went to all the theatres, and never missed a single masquerade. No, 'twas when I forbade the visits of Grimod——But at that name his eloquence leaves him, and he descends to facts. There is one fact, he says, against which the whole plot of this separation will fall to pieces. It is the harmony which always reigned between man and wife till about six weeks before she went away. The witnesses of the Sieur Lebrun to this fact are indubitable. They are her own letters—those, be it understood, which she left behind, or rather, which she was not able to carry away with her. By the perusal of some of her notes before marriage, we have seen the vivacity of sentiment which united the Demoiselle de Surcourt to the Sieur Lebrun. That vivacity is traceable, in all its force, in a letter she wrote to him after the marriage, when he had left her for a short time in the August of 1760.

"I heard yesterday from my dear Misis. I have not heard to-day. It brings back all my uneasiness. Has he slept well to-night? is he not fatigued? I hope he has nothing else to complain of but ennui. My dear Misis, I do not doubt that you think of your dear Fanny, of her grief, her love, her impatience. Tell me the day, then, the day I so long for, that is to bring you back to me again. All my thoughts turn only to you. Nothing has any interest for me that is not in some way or other connected with you. I rejoice in seeing the fine weather, for I think you can now enjoy a walk. I hate the heat, for it keeps you from exercise, and may make you ill. The moment I feel the slightest zephyr, I long to send it to you. I wish there was even a tempest for your sake. I would make the very elements do your bidding. I wish that every thing in nature may only serve to make you happy, my dear Misis. How much does she not owe him, since he has painted her so well? He makes her still more beautiful by the light of his own soul—that soul fired at once by genius and by love. You write such beautiful things, and I can't see them! I have no pleasure in life. I have no consolation left, but the hope of our meeting soon. To-day I passed the morning with your mother. She pities me. We spoke of nothing but you. She told me some anecdotes of your childhood that amused me much. You must have been interesting even then. At four years old, I really believe I should have fallen in love with you. I like every thing that belongs to you; I feel as if they brought me nearer to yourself. She and your sister send you a thousand loves, and your brother also, who supped here this evening. They talked a great deal of Homer, Greek, Latin, &c. My dear aunt and uncle were delighted with him, and think him very clever. It is now midnight. I am in my couch—my solitary couch—far from thee. Alas! nothing which you see where you now are can remind you of love. Love dwells not in palaces. I have nothing but your heart to rely on to recall me to your mind. Adieu, my dear Misis—adieu, my little man! I send you a thousand kisses. Ah! Why am I not in your arms?

"This morning, when I was just going to seal my letter, Murgi brought me yours. Ah, how sorry I am! I feel more than ever that my heart is not made for these lengthened separations. No, I can't exist absent from what I adore. I tried to reason myself into submission for five days; but how am I to endure the fifteen that it will be now? Pity me, dear Misis. It is delightful to me to see that your regret is equal to mine; but the more you make me love you, the greater is my grief. If any thing could lessen the sorrow caused me by your letter, it is to hear that you are well. The assurance of that gives me one grief less. Take care of yourself, for my sake. I can't understand how the letter I wrote you on Sunday has not reached you yet. Write to me often, if 'tis but one word. I embrace you again—Your Fanny."

Thanks to the wise precaution of Madame Lebrun, there is a blank of seven years in her correspondence with her husband. But if we lose the pleasure of reading a multitude of letters worthy of those we have transcribed, the cause of the Sieur Lebrun is no loser by the omission; for we find, at the end of those seven years, the Dame Lebrun still unchanged—a clear proof that no change has, in the interval, taken place in the Sieur Lebrun. Voici, continues the MÉmoire—behold the letter she wrote to him on the 17th September 1767, from the country-house of—who do you think?—the Sieur Grimod.

"I flatter myself, my dear little man, that I shall have a good report of your health. I am told you started in first-rate condition; no doubt the open air, and the pleasures of such agreeable society, will keep you in good case. I need not wish you any new enjoyments. I have only to congratulate you on those you possess. Let me enter into them, for the description of yours will make me more fully appreciate my own. I hope, at the same time, you will perceive that there is a something wanting, and that you will have the same feelings on the subject as I have. The country agrees with me admirably, and I am in wonderful health. We walk a great deal, and musicate ('musiquons') a great deal more. We lay all the elements under contribution for our amusement. We have a gondola for our water parties, a swing for the air, and we only want TorrÆus and his Acheron to take a trip through fire. We have made parties to go fishing, and we intend making one to go fowling with nets and looking-glasses, as it is so beautifully described by a poet of my acquaintance, (the Sieur Lebrun himself.) I hope the same accident won't happen to us that befell the bird-catcher in the fable. It is for you to be on your guard, if you enter into such amusements; for love keeps constantly prowling in the scenes frequented by the Graces. We are, therefore, in safety here, in spite of his wings. We expect the family of M. and Madame Grimod at the beginning of next month. They have charged me to invite you to come, and take your place on the famous jonquil sofa. They send you a thousand compliments, and expect you early next month. We have half made up our minds to go and see the king hunt at St Hubert. Adieu, my dear little man! I embrace you with all my heart. Write me immediately. My respects to the ladies, and a thousand remembrances to M. le Comte de Turpin, and M. le Comte de Brancas. Tell him that I was highly flattered by his indignation, though it was altogether unjust. We return you your brilliant 'epistle.' We have answered it with a song; don't lose it. The invalid (Julia) sends you a lot of messages."

Poetry itself was employed by the Dame Lebrun to paint the feelings with which her husband had the happiness to inspire her.

The proofs brought of this latter assertion are very convincing; but before we give extracts from the poetical declarations of her connubial bliss, let us see what a curious insight this gives us, into the style of life among French poetasters and their wives in the middle of last century. We have seen that the irate Lebrun had a settled income of about a hundred and eighty pounds a-year, equal, with little pickings and stealings, to perhaps three hundred pounds at the present time. His wife, evidently a clever, brisk coquette, sends friendly messages to two of the first nobles in France, the Count de Turpin and the Count de Brancas, and in the house of the latter nobleman the Sieur Lebrun is domiciled at the time she writes. In the meanwhile, she is spending months at a time in the country mansion of the too fascinating Grimod, whom we have presented to the reader as a sub-collector of taxes. A sub-collector of taxes! Wait till the next payments are due for the income-tax, and watch the countenance of the respectable individual who will give you his receipt. Is that a man to awake jealousy in the soul of Pindar, or get up private theatricals, or even take a prominent part in an acted charade? His soul is set upon a hot beefsteak, and he thinks strong ale. He wouldn't give twopence for all the poets in England, and still less for their wives. But the Sieur Grimod is made of different metal. Less lead, but a great deal more brass—more polished, but less useful—a pinchbeck imitation of the lords and ladies who were waltzing, flirting, acting proverbs, and writing pasquinades, at the very moment when the first great throes of the "portentous doom" were beginning to shake France to her foundations, and the cloud was gathering that was to fall down in the blood and horror of the Revolution. A sub-collector of taxes! in his country-house—with his friends' wives about him, in addition to his own—giving parties of the most gorgeous magnificence—splendid masques in honour of a birthday, like Comus at Ludlow Castle—bird-huntings, where ladies, with attendant squires, sallied forth in fanciful array, armed with silken nets to catch the prey, after having wiled them from the trees by blinding them with polished mirrors—horns sounding, and music stationed in woody dells—and all carried on with a grandeur like the cavalcades of the duke and duchess in Don Quixote. A sub-collector of taxes, we say, doing all this, shows very clearly that some change or other was needed; and we will only say, that the moment we see similar proceedings going on in the same rank of life in England, we shall emigrate to some happy island—not Tahiti—where poets and poetesses, and sub-collectors of taxes, are utterly unknown. We shall extract from the mÉmoire—which, we again remind the reader, is a strictly legal document, though rather different from the dull concerns our Solons in Lincoln's Inn are the authors of—at some length; for we shall gain a very tolerable idea of the interior arrangements of a maison de campagne, on a fÊte-day in 1768.

The day of St Denis was usually chosen by the Dame Lebrun for a charming party, to which she lent all the charms of her muse. In that which she gave on the eve of St Denis, at the house of the Sieur Grimod, she had introduced all the deities of Olympus to pay compliments to her husband. First appeared Love and the Graces; then Flora, then Diana—who all sang songs in character. Apollo followed, who presented his lyre to the Sieur Lebrun, and said—

After Apollo, Pomona immediately came; it was the character which the Dame Lebrun had reserved for herself; and her couplet would have been out of place in any person's mouth but her own—

The divertisement ended with a dance of Bacchus and Bacchantes. The Sieur Grimod enacted the part of Bacchus in full costume, with his head ornamented with a cap and bells!

We suspect the head of the counsel assisting in getting up this memorial had been so long surmounted with a wig, that he did not remark upon the absurdity of the masquerade of the Sieur Grimod. A cap and bells on the head of wild Bacchus! It is evident, even from the couplet chanted by the fascinating sub-collector of taxes, that he appeared in a very different character from the youthful conqueror of India; though we confess that heads, of which a cap and bells would be the fittest covering, are not altogether unknown among the heroes and conquerors of the gorgeous East. It is clear, from the verses, that the great Grimod appeared, "for this night only," in the character of Folly.

Well may the learned barrister close his account of this festival with the remark—that the life of the Dame Lebrun was a continued series of amusements; and this cruel husband, when he was not the object or the cause of her pleasures, was at least made the confidant of them all. As a proof of this confidence, a history is given of certain proceedings in the ninth year of their marriage, in which it will be seen that the Bacchus of the divertisement is not kept entirely in the background. In the month of February, in 1769, she paid a visit to Havre to see the sea. To show the terms they were on, it would be necessary to quote the letters of the Dame Lebrun at full length. It will be seen how unreservedly she entered into the pleasures of the place, and how minutely she recorded them all to a man, whom she well knew that her descriptions would enable to share them as if he had been at her side. But in the absence of the entire correspondence, which it would be tedious to transcribe, we content ourselves with copying out the passages, where the friendship and intimacy that then united the husband and wife are most strongly marked.

"We arrived in perfect health, my dear friend, on Tuesday, at two o'clock. I trust you also are flourishing. Take care of yourself, and write me how you are. M. and Madame Grimod, as also M. Sieuve, charge me with a thousand messages. M. Grimod insists on your coming as soon as possible, that you may see the sea. I also wish you could see it. In looking at it, I have often thought on the effect it would have on you; and I should be delighted if you could enjoy the prospect along with me. I tell you I now eat fish as you do. This very day I have eaten a dozen oysters, a bit of skate, some smelts, and some fresh cod—I think I shall finish by devouring all the fish in the sea. I wish I could send you some of the oysters of this place: they are as large as your hat. Adieu, my dear friend; I embrace you from my heart. I have told you all I have seen, and I will tell you all that may occur worth talking of when I arrive. Friendly regards to Julia. I hope to find her in good health, and that she has taken care of yours."

With a wonderful knowledge of the effects of small type, the poetical Lebrun and his counsellor have printed the "Advice to Julia" in italics. What! the Dame Lebrun send friendly regards ("bien des amitiÉs") to Julia! Why, isn't this the woman they trump up a story about, as having been a perpetual source of jealousy to the neglected wife, and monopolizing all the tenderness and pretty speeches of the once faithful and still too conquering Misis? For our own part, we think it is a shocking instance of female audacity, for the devourer of such boat-loads of fish, and the visiter of M. and Madame Grimod, to affect jealousy of Julia or any one else. Let her be contented with her Grimods and oysters, and leave Julia to listen to the harpings of Apollo in peace. We have another letter, dated a few days after the first, and still from Havre.

"I received your letter, my dear friend, when I was on board a ship, and read it on deck. We laughed amazingly at your epigrammatic witticisms; your reputation is already established here. You are known as a man of genius; so you may judge if they listened to your letter. M. Grimod, from the first, has been the trumpeter of your talents and wit; and the best of the joke is, that on the strength of his descriptions of you, they insist on believing that I am a person of infinite cleverness as well. I am delighted to hear such good accounts of your health. I was anxious to hear how you were. M. Grimod insists that I travel merely for curiosity, and not for the sake of health; and this moment, let me tell you in a parenthesis, he interrupts me to say he is sure I am writing my best, I look so pleased in writing to you. To-morrow we are going to breakfast in a ship, where the captain gives us a collation of all fine things, among others chocolate; then we prepare to go to Rouen where we shall stop two or three days to see the lions. We do nothing but go out, change the scene, dress ourselves, and pack up our trunks. It is a delightful life; we have scarcely time to breathe. But in spite of that, I am grown very fat. I eat like four, and can't do without oysters. I wished to bring you some present from this part of the country, but there is nothing remarkable except the fish. Adieu, my dear friend! I shall be delighted in relating all my experiences when we meet. I hope some day you will visit these beautiful scenes, or others as beautiful; and that the house-dove will take its flight to see all the beauties of nature, which he knows so well how to paint. You will see that there is no danger, and that I shall come back to you without any accident to my wings."

Now, be it known that the last sentence is an allusion to an incident in Lebrun's poem, De la Nature, of which some specimens had been published before this time, but which the grief brought on him by his wife's behaviour prevented his finishing—a great loss, says the disinterested author, to the world, for it was a transcendant work! In the month of April of the same year, the house-dove also took its flight. The Sieur Lebrun took a journey to Marseilles, and the tender solicitudes of his wife accompanied him.

After a few of her usual enquiries about his health, and recommendations to enjoy himself as much as he could among "les habitans aimables de cette ville," she pays him a few compliments.

"I beg you to say in rhymed prose, to M. Menier, a thousand things for me, which will become beautiful spoken by your lips, and heard by his ears. I am as much astonished as pleased with your punctuality in writing. Every post-day we are all on the look-out. Madame Grimod begs her compliments—and so do all the family, whom I delight with the reading of your letters. They are so witty and clever! If you employ much of your time in writing them, we spend a great deal of ours in reading them."

But the trips of the year 1769 are not over yet. Scarcely, says the MÉmoire, had the Sieur Lebrun returned from Marseilles, when the Dame Lebrun set off, in company with M. Grimod, to visit it. She spent six weeks there, during which she wrote several letters to her husband, and cherished his answers as before. But we shall not follow the example of the MÉmoire, in repeating all these tit-for-tat endearments, but pursue our own object, which is to trace the style of occupation of people of their rank. And here we must observe, that, as far as we see in this process, the whole occupation of the Grimods and others was to make tours for their pleasure, and get up fÊtes for their amusement. Wherever they are, there is always something or other going on—a breakfast, a dance, or a masquerade; and in spite of the protestations of the Dame Lebrun, of her sorrow at being separated from her little man, it is evident she never allows her grief to have any effect upon her appetite. It rather seems as if, in all her distresses, she applied to the cook, and measured the extent of her sufferings by the quantity she could dispatch at a meal.

"How delighted I should be with but one quarter of an hour of your charming conversations with Madame la Comtesse de Brancas! But from intellectual feasts like that, I am doomed here to the most rigorous abstinence; and, to make up for it, I am forced to throw myself on the mullets, sardines, sprats, and tunnies, with the wines of Cyprus and Syracuse; so that I have always the body full and the mind empty. You sent me an admirable piece of wit. I laughed at it amazingly, and wished to read it to some of the people here; but I soon perceived that their appreciation of letters is limited to letters of exchange. In spite of that, they are never tired of praising you, and holding forth about your talents."

In a letter of the 25th October, after a very spirited description of a marriage-feast, and a dance to the sound of tambourines, she says:—

"We have been oppressed with the innumerable kindnesses of all this amiable family. One after another, every body was full of regrets that you were not of the party, declaring that a man of such wit and genius as you was exactly made for society. If ever you return to this country, you will be splendidly received....

"Amuse yourself as much as you can. Go and dine often with your friends. I should be sorry if I thought you were alone. Don't be surprised at my scrawl. I danced all last night, and had got to bed very late. It is now eleven o'clock, and I am obliged to be dressed by one so, you see, I have not much time to spare."

And her letter of the 22d November brings us to the end of the year '69, and also of her residence at Marseilles. Even the MÉmoire grows tired of the gaieties of the Dame Lebrun, and passes over a long detail of dinners, suppers, balls, and fÊtes, to tell us that, "fatiguÉe de bonne chÈre," and "lassÉe de plaisirs," she wrote to her husband, who was contenting himself with a Welsh rabbit and Julia at home—"One would need four stomachs in this county. I envy your frugality, and long for the little, quiet suppers we used to have at the fireside."

Now, this regret for the domestic broiled bones—though evidently caused by a momentary surfeit—is dwelt upon by the enraptured Lebrun as a triumphant disproof of the accusations of cruelty and violence, brought against him by the Grimods and his charming wife. "She regrets their quiet suppers! And yet we are told by the Dame Lebrun, and some of her witnesses, that these quiet suppers never passed off without the most horrible altercations, or nearly being stained with blood from murderous blows!" From all we can make out, this accusation of the "petit homme" attempting to pummel the lady with four stomachs, and capacity for oyster-eating that must have thrown the late Mr Dando into despair, is nothing more than an attempt to make the whole affair ridiculous, and allow the conduct of the defendant to escape the obloquy it deserved, under cover of the laughter excited by so ludicrous an image. If there were any "coups meurtriers" in the case, we will venture the long odds that the mark of them was left in the ogles, or other undefended portions of the countenance of the Sieur Lebrun. She is constantly complaining of delicate health; and yet undergoes more fatigue than a washerwoman. We have now traced her for nearly ten years. She must by this time be two or three-and-thirty; and yet, we will venture to say, no girl of eighteen ever panted so earnestly for her first ball, as the Dame Lebrun did for six or seven of those entertainments every week. We can imagine no greater misery to her, than one of the quiet suppers she talks of; and if, in the agony of her disgust, she occasionally gave the Sieur Lebrun a slap in the face, we have not the slightest doubt he deserved it, and that she enjoyed the rest of the evening with the soothing conviction in her own mind that she was a much-injured woman, and had vindicated the honour of her sex. We have seen, from one of her letters, that it took her two hours to dress—that she thought nearly as much of eating and drinking as even of Monsieur Grimod; and we shall shortly perceive, that clothes, and love, and gluttony, don't interfere with the powers of poetical compliment, and that her husband—perhaps on the principle of poetry succeeding best in fiction—is still the object of them.

The St Denis's Day of 1770, says the MÉmoire, was celebrated, like the former ones, by a fÊte, designed and composed by the Dame Lebrun. The room represented a lawn, with a grove, fountains, &c. Naiads, hidden in the reeds, chanted these lines in honour of her husband:—

In the next year, another fÊte owed its Éclat to the talents of the Dame Lebrun; but the object of it was no longer the Pindaric poet, but the sub-collector of taxes. But as it was impossible to keep the Sieur Lebrun entirely away from any of the haunts of the Muses, he was enlisted in the corps of subject personages, and performed the Co-too to the Sieur Grimod in the character of a satyr! And this was the more in keeping, as the scene was a wood, and the hero of the entertainment enacted the part of a sort of Orson, under the name of Sylvanus. In 1772, the gaieties of the Dame Lebrun suffered no abatement, except from an attack of illness; and, for the recovery of her health, she spent the greater portion of the year at the country-house of the Sieur Grimod—sometimes with her husband, says the MÉmoire, and sometimes without. The following spring was passed, as usual, in balls and masquerades. The house of the Sieur Grimod was again the scene of a splendid entertainment; but, on this occasion, the object of the fÊte was neither the Sieur Bacchus, nor the Sieur Sylvain, but Madame Lebrun herself. The indefatigable Bacchus, however, if not the principal personage of the day, was the chief performer. There was a procession in boats. The Sieur Lebrun did the honours of the enchanted island to his wife. Dressed as a sailor, he conducted her, disguised as Flora, in an ornamented barge, all festooned with garlands, and illuminated with coloured lamps. It was a truly fairy scene, and the Dame Lebrun did not at that time look on the composer of the spectacle as a malignant cobold, the enemy of her repose.

In January 1774, she wrote letters to her husband as full of gaiety, and as expressive of affection, as any of the others; and on the 5th of March she sued for a separate maintenance! Such is the history, contained in a lawyer's brief, of fourteen years of the wedded life of a French family of the middle rank, or rather below it. And from incidents contained in the account, we perceive that this actual labour of enjoyment, these balls, and fÊtes, and entertainments of all kinds, were the usual mode of life of most of the people they associated with. Imagine the same scenes going on in England;—women, after thirteen or fourteen years of marriage, going dressed up as heathen goddesses in boats, and being attended round enchanted isles by Bacchuses and Orsons, dressed in shaggy skins, and chanting doggerel till echo was dead beat! Bacchus, a secretary, at a salary of a hundred a-year—Orson, a sub-collector of taxes! But more than all—let us think that the fault of the Sieur Lebrun does not seem to have consisted, in the eyes of his mother and sister, in allowing the intimacy between his wife and the friends, but in putting a stop to it. When such things are the fashion in England, let us prepare for the National Convention.

The demand of the Sieur Lebrun for restitution of conjugal rights, was rejected; he appealed against the decision, wrote bitter epigrams on the judges, and celebrated his wife in some elegies worthy of Tibullas, under the name of Fanny. From court to court he carried his cause, his epigrams, and his elegies; till finally, in 1781, the Parliament decided against him, and the Dame Lebrun was freed for ever from the matrimonial claim, and the little suppers beside the garret fire. But not for ever was Grimod free from the vengeance of the virtuous Lebrun. And not for the last time was heard the shrill voice of the complaining husband by the fastidious ears of Fanny. A few years passed on—Louis the Sixteenth was hurried to the scaffold—the golden locks of Marie Antoinette were defiled with the blood and sawdust, which Young France regarded as the most acceptable offering to the goddess of liberty; and who is that sharp-featured little man, sitting in the front row of the spectators of those heaven-darkening murders, with a red cap on his head, and a many-stringed harp in his hand, chanting the praises of the murderers, and exciting the drunken populace to greater horrors? Lebrun. Yes, the French Pindar is appointed poet-laureate to the guillotine, and has apartments assigned him at the national cost in the Louvre. Whenever an atrocity is to be committed, an ode is published, "by order of authority," to raise the passions of the people to the proper pitch. When the atrocity is over, another ode is ordered to celebrate the performers, and congratulate the people on their triumph. When Grimod was brought before the Convention as one of the oppressors of the people, and parasites of the aristocracy—a woman, old and trembling, was leaning on his arm—his personal crimes, if any, were so little known, that he was on the point of being dismissed from the bar for want of an accuser. Pindar, in his red cap, with his many-stringed harp in his hand, was there; and all Helicon glowed like molten lead in his vindictive heart when he looked at the miserable pair. "What sentence shall we pass on the person called Grimod, ci-devant sub-collector of taxes, and the woman beside him, who has aided and abetted him in several attempts to escape from the censorship of the Committee of Public Safety?" The accused looked timidly round, in hopes that no answer would be returned to this routine enquiry, in which case their safety would have been assured; but red-capped Pindar struck his hand hurriedly over the chords, and cried, in the shrill sharp tones, that both the prisoners remembered too well, "A la mort! À la mort!" and in ten minutes their bodies were lying headless, side by side, amidst the hootings and howlings of ten thousand demons, exemplifying to astonished Europe the perfection of civilization and philanthropy. Little more needs to be said of the Sieur Lebrun. He lived through the dangers of the Revolution; wrote odes and satires indiscriminately on friend and foe; worshipped power to the last, and was the sycophant, and would have been the murderer, of Napoleon, as he had been of Louis and Robespierre; and died at last in receipt of a pension from the state, member (like Lord Brougham) of the National Institute of France; and had his panegyric pronounced on him by his successor, as if he had united the virtues of Aristides to the genius of Homer. Whereas, we take him to have been the true type of the Frenchman of his time—a monkey, till he got the taste of blood, and then a tiger.

[3]In case we should have done injustice to the poetical inspiration of the Dame Lebrun, we give the originals—