pulled my hair about until I had to beg for mercy. The Emperor, looking
on, cried out, "Bravo, Madame!" and, gathering some flowers off the table,
handed them to me, saying: "Votre succes tenait a un cheveu, n'est-ce
pas?"

Supposing the curls had been false, how I should have felt!

I put on my head-dress again with the flowing tinsel threads, and, some
one sending for a brush, I completed this exhibition by showing them how I
curled my hair around my fingers and made this coiffure. I inclose the
article about this supper which came out in the _Figaro_ (copied into
a New York paper).

The Emperor and Empress not unfrequently take a great liking to
persons accidentally presented to them, invite them to their most
select parties, make much of them, and sometimes rousing a little
jealousy by so doing among the persons belonging to the Court. Of
the ladies officially foremost, the reigning favorites are Princess
Metternich, extremely clever and piquante, who invents the oddest
toilettes, dances the oddest dances, and says the oddest things; the
Marquise de Gallifet, whose past life is a romance, not altogether
according to the French proverb (fitting school-girl reading), but
who is very handsome, brilliant, merry, and audacious; and two others,
the handsome and dashing wives of men high in the employment of the
Emperor. These ladies spend enormous sums on their toilette, and are
perpetually inventing some merry and brilliant nonsense for the
amusement of the Empress. Among the persons from the "outside" most in
favor just now, in the inner circle of the court, is a very handsome
and accomplished American lady, the youthful wife of a millionaire,
possessing a magnificent voice, a very amiable temper, and wonderfully