air of refinement to an energetic and haughty head, the President of the
Council was causing to be designed under his eyes a Pierrette costume
for the duchess to wear at her next ball, and was giving his directions
with the same gravity with which he would have dictated the draft of a
new law.

"Let the frill be very fine on the ruff, and put no frills on the
sleeves.--Good-morning, Jenkins. I am with you directly."

Jenkins bowed, and took a few steps in the immense room, of which the
windows, opening on a garden that extended as far as the Seine, framed
one of the finest views of Paris, the bridges, the Tuileries, the
Louvre, in a network of black trees traced as it were in Indian ink upon
the floating background of fog. A large and very low bed, raised by
a few steps above the floor, two or three little lacquer screens with
vague and capricious gilding, indicating, like the double doors and the
carpets of thick wool, a fear of cold pushed even to excess, various
seats, lounges, warmers, scattered about rather indiscriminately, all
low, rounded, indolent, or voluptuous in shape, composed the furniture
of this celebrated chamber in which the gravest questions and the most
frivolous were wont to be treated alike with the same seriousness. On
the wall was a handsome portrait of the duchess; on the chimneypiece a
bust of the duke, the work of Felicia Ruys, which at the recent Salon
had received the honours of a first medal.

"Well, Jenkins, how are we this morning?" said his excellency,
approaching, while the costumier was picking up his fashion-plates,
scattered over all the easy chairs.

"And you, my dear duke? I thought you a little pale last evening at the