maintained within the limit of an income chiefly, perhaps entirely,
derived from literary profits.

Though he gave frequent dinners, it was but to few at a time, and without
show or pretence. Yet the dinners, though simple, were perfect of their
kind; and the host so contrived to infuse his own playful gayety into the
temper of his guests, that the feasts at his house were considered the
pleasantest at Paris. On this occasion the party extended to ten, the
largest number his table admitted.

All the French guests belonged to the Liberal party, though in changing
tints of the tricolor. _Place aux dames_! first to be named were the
Countess de Craon and Madame Vertot, both without husbands. The Countess
had buried the Count, Madame Vertot had separated from Monsieur. The
Countess was very handsome, but she was sixty; Madame Vertot was twenty
years younger, but she was very plain. She had quarrelled with the
distinguished author for whose sake she had separated from Monsieur, and
no man had since presumed to think that he could console a lady so plain
for the loss of an author so distinguished.

Both these ladies were very clever. The Countess had written lyrical
poems entitled "Cries of Liberty," and a drama of which Danton was the
hero, and the moral too revolutionary for admission to the stage; but at
heart the Countess was not at all a revolutionist,--the last person in
the world to do or desire anything that could bring a washerwoman an inch
nearer to a countess. She was one of those persons who play with fire in
order to appear enlightened.

Madame Vertot was of severer mould. She had knelt at the feet of M.
Thiers, and went into the historico-political line. She had written a