CHAPTER IV.

PARIS.--A FEMALE POLITICIAN AND AN ECCLESIASTICAL ONE.--SUNDRY OTHER
MATTERS.

THE ex-minister was received both at Calais and at Paris with the most
gratifying honours: he was then entirely the man to captivate the
French. The beauty of his person, the grace of his manner, his
consummate taste in all things, the exceeding variety and sparkling
vivacity of his conversation, enchanted them. In later life he has
grown more reserved and profound, even in habitual intercourse; and
attention is now fixed to the solidity of the diamond, as at that time
one was too dazzled to think of anything but its brilliancy.

While Bolingbroke was receiving visits of state, I busied myself in
inquiring after a certain Madame de Balzac. The reader will remember
that the envelope of that letter which Oswald had brought to me at
Devereux Court was signed by the letters C. de B. Now, when Oswald
disappeared, after that dreadful night to which even now I can scarcely
bring myself to allude, these initials occurred to my remembrance, and
Oswald having said they belonged to a lady formerly intimate with my
father, I inquired of my mother if she could guess to what French lady
such initials would apply. She, with an evident pang of jealousy,
mentioned a Madame de Balzac; and to this lady I now resolved to address
myself, with the faint hope of learning from her some intelligence
respecting Oswald. It was not difficult to find out the abode of one
who in her day had played no inconsiderable role in that 'Comedy of