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The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 16, February, 1859 by Various
page 51 of 299 (17%)
synecdoche for France.

The weather being fine, I proceeded to call on Mme. de St. Cyr. She
received me in her boudoir, and on my way thither I could not but
observe the perfect quiet and cloistered seclusion that pervaded the
whole house,--the house itself seeming only an adjunct of the still
and sunny garden, of which one caught a glimpse through the long open
hall-windows beyond. This boudoir did not differ from others to which I
have been admitted: the same delicate shades; all the dainty appliances
of Art for beauty; the lavish profusion of _bijouterie_; and the usual
statuettes of innocence, to indicate, perhaps, the presence of that
commodity which might not be guessed at otherwise; and burning in a
silver cup, a rich perfume loaded the air with voluptuous sweetness.
Through a half-open door an inner boudoir was to be seen, which must
have been Delphine's; it looked like her; the prevailing hue was a soft
purple, or gray; a _prie-dieu_, a book-shelf, and desk, of a dark West
Indian wood, were just visible. There was but one picture,--a sad-eyed,
beautiful Fate. It was the type of her nation. I think she worshipped
it--And how apt is misfortune! to degenerate into Fate!--not that the
girl had ever experienced the former, but, dissatisfied with life, and
seeing no outlet, she accepted it stoically and waited till it should be
over. She needed to be aroused;--the station of an _ambassadrice_, which
I desired for her, might kindle the spark. There were no flowers, no
perfumes, no busts, in this ascetic place. Delphine herself, in some
faint rosy gauze, her fair hair streaming round her, as she lay on a
white-draped couch, half-risen on one arm, while she read the morning's
_feuilleton_, was the most perfect statuary of which a room could
boast,--illumined, as I saw her, by the gay beams that entered at the
loftily-arched window, broken only by the flickering of the vine-leaves
that clustered the curiously-latticed panes without. She resembled in
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