tragic scene narrated to me by Sir Robert Wilson as having taken place
there, when he had an interview with the Princesse de la Moskowa, after
the condemnation of her brave husband.

He told me, years ago, how the splendour of the decorations of the
_salon_--decorations meant to commemorate the military glory of the
Maréchal Ney--added to the tragic effect of the scene in which that
noble-minded woman, overwhelmed with horror and grief, turned away with
a shudder from objects that so forcibly reminded her of the brilliant
past, and so fearfully contrasted with the terrible present.

He described to me the silence, broken only by the sobs that heaved her
agonised bosom; the figures of the few trusted friends permitted to
enter the presence of the distracted wife, moving about with noiseless
steps, as if fearful of disturbing the sacredness of that grief to
offer consolation for which they felt their tongues could form no
words, so deeply did their hearts sympathise with it.

He told me that the images of these friends in the vast mirrors looked
ghostly in the dim twilight of closed blinds, the very light of day
having become insupportable to the broken-hearted wife, so soon to be
severed for ever, and by a violent death, from the husband she adored.
Ah, if these walls could speak, what agony would they reveal! and if
mirrors could retain the shadows replete with despair they once
reflected, who dare look on them?

I thought of all this to-day, until the tears came into my eyes, and I
almost determined not to hire the house, so powerfully did the
recollection of the past affect me: but I remembered that such is the
fate of mankind; that there are no houses in which scenes of misery