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12-28-44

THE

LADIES' CABINET,

OF

FASHION, MUSIC, AND ROMANCE.

THE PHILOSOPHER AND HIS PUPIL

A TALE.

THE Marquis de Touranges was a remarkable instance of the inconsistency of human nature in general, and of French human nature in particular; he had all, and more than all, that could render a reasonable man happy, yet his desires were still unsatisfied. That, says the reader, is not very wonderful. No, it is the common lot of human nature; but it is something uncommon for a man to make himself miserable in the midst of every earthly blessing, merely because he cannot have the portfolio of prime minister.

Such was the case with our good marquis. He had, in his own opinion, all the talents necessary to guide the helm of the state; he had also the personal favour of his sovereign, who had long distinguished him by his private friendship; but Louis XV., though himself no conjuror, had yet wisdom enough to know that nature had not cut out De Touranges for a prime minister. He liked his conversation, was pleased to have him near his person, took his advice in the choice of wines, his opinion on the merits of different sauces; said publicly that he should not know what to do without De Touranges; yet year after year passed, and the Marquis saw that this excess of favour, which filled the rest on the courtiers with envy, led eventually to nothing.

The Marquis asked himself in vain what could be the reason of it? Not any neglect of his, that was clear; for he had presented the king with memorials upon every branch connected with the administration, in which he had proved to demonstration, in his own opinion, that every thing was going to wreck and ruin, and that it was indispensably necessary for him to take the helm, or the vessel o. the state would be lost. The good tempered Louis received the memorials very graciously, put them in his pocket, and thought no more about them. If, at their next meeting, De Touranges ventured to point at any thing they contained, JULY, 1845.

B

the king generally evaded the subject by an abrupt transition to the merits of the new opera, or the beauty of the favourite's foot, or some other subject of equal importance.

Wearied out at length with suspense and disappointment, the Marquis took the resolution to retire to his country seat, in the hope that he was so necessary to the king that he would soon be recalled upon his own terms; and he swore to himself very devoutly that he would accept of nothing less than the portfolio ; no, the king might offer what he pleased, stars and ribbonds, even a dukedom, should have no effect in drawing him from his retreat; he would be minister, or he would stay where he was.

During some time he employed himself in collecting and arranging all the arguments that he meant to use to his royal master in support of his resolutiona very useless task as it turned out, for the king made no attempt to induce him to break it.

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The disappointment sat heavy upon him, and he would have been half dead between chagrin and ennui, had he not always preserved the humane and patriotic hope that affairs would continue to go from bad to worse, so as at last to force the monarch to employ him. Still this, for him a happy period, did not arrive. He next resolved to lower his high pretensions, and determined not to refuse even a share in the ministry, because, as he wrote to his correspondents in Paris, we must sacrifice everything to the good of our country. But this magnanimous resolution was unavailing; no share was offered to him.

He was sitting one day reflecting upon his misfortune, and puzzling his brains in vain to find out some means of compassing his desires; his apartment opened into the magnificent garden of the château; a burst of childish laughter made him raise his head, and he perceived his only daughter, Adrienne, flying up the walk opposite to which he was seated in full chase of a little butterfly.

The Marquis thought as much of his daughter as he could think of anything but the portfolio; but never had he, till that moment, been struck by her surpassing loveliness. Her attitudes, as she chased her expected prize, were full of grace, and displayed in the most striking manner the exquisite proportions of her nymph-like figure, while the glow that exercise had given to her check, and the pleasure that lighted up her regular and noble features, gave to her countenance a character of loveliness almost superhuman.

"Come and embrace me, Adrienne!" But Adrienne heard not; for at that moment she had secured her meditated prize, and in an instant she bounded into the saloon to present it to her father. She exhibited it with no small share of pride, running over at the same time the whole history of the chase, of which the marquis heard not a word. His thoughts were employed upon the object which he had been chasing all his life, and that he fancied he had now found an

effectual means to secure; what that means was the reader will learn if he has patience to go a little farther.

Coming out of his reverie, the Marquis embraced his daughter with more than usual tenderness; examined, for the first time in his life, the progress she was making in her studies, praised her diligence, and excited her to continue it.

We will take a peep before we go any further at the domestic arrangements of the Marquis at this period. He had lost his wife several years before, and at her dying request had retained her companion, Mademoiselle d'Anvers, as governess to his daughter. A worse choice could not have been made in a moral point of view. Mademoiselle d'Anvers was a hypocritical prude, who, under a devout exterior, concealed a cold and selfish heart. Destitute of true piety, her religion consisted in the observance of outward forms. Scrupulous in pupilling these, she arrogated to herself a character of sanctity which all her actions belied, for she was censorious, hard-hearted, and intolerant; in fact, she was calculated to render religion odious to a young and ardent mind; but she was, in reality, highly accomplished, and the Marchioness, a good but weak woman, gave her credit for the virtues she professed, and thought herself fortunate in finding such a guide and instructress for her daughter.

The Marquis' family, at the period of which we speak, consisted of his daughter, her governess, his sister-in-law, and his chaplain; the latter, L'Abbé de la Vilette, was a contrast to Mademoiselle d'Anvers; truly and unaffectedly pious, severe to himself, but indulgent almost to a fault to others; his life was a honour to the faith he professed, but his intellectual powers were never of the highest order, and, at the time of which we are speaking, they were already weakened by advancing years.

The sister-in-law of the Marquis was the daughter of a Dutch merchant; the immense riches of the father, and perhaps also the pretty face of the daughter, had tempted the Comte de Touranges, younger brother of the Marquis, to propose for her; it never occurred to him that his proposal would not be readily, and even thankfully accepted, for he never thought that a man who could not count his ancestors beyond his grand-father would reject the alliance of a De Touranges. What was his surprise and indignation, then, when the old merchant told him bluntly that no ruined spendthrift of a nobleman should ever have it in his power to dissipate the gold he had worked so hard to acquire. His daughter was free to choose, provided that her choice fell upon a man of her own rank in life; but the day that saw her in possession of a title would see her an alien to his heart and fortune.

The Comte burst into violent professions of love and despair. Mr. Von Bombruck interrupted him with a declaration that he had no time to listen to such nonsense, as he was obliged to go upon 'Change; and, not} choosing to leave the

Comte behind him in his house, he civilly told him to get out of it,-a command de Touranges was forced to obey. Determining to revenge himself by stealing the old man's daughter, in the hope, or rather the certainty, that when the thing was irrevocable, her father would reconcile himself to the sound of Madame la Comtesse, and pay her portion as a matter of course, he found no difficulty in succeeding with the lady, whose prejudices ran in the opposite direction to her papa's. She was enchanted with the prospects of becoming a comtesse, and still more so with having for a husband a handsome young officer, who was a notorious rake, and an incomparable dancer. All was speedily arranged; De Touranges obtained leave of absence, and carried off the pretty little Dutchwoman from her native city, Amsterdam, to Paris, from whence she wrote letter after letter in vain to her father, who died in less than year, and bequeathed all his fortune to an hospital; De Touranges did not long survive him; he died deeply involved, and pride, rather than love, induced his brother to pay his debts and provide for his widow.

The pension which he settled upon her was sufficient to support her in a genteel retirement; for it was impossible to introduce her in Paris as his sister inlaw. Her manners and appearance were completely Dutch, and her language, was a jargon that could neither be called Dutch nor French; but when the Marquis proposed retiring into the country, he thought she might be useful to keep his house in order, and he made her the offer, which was gladly accepted, of accompanying him. The Château de Touranges united in itself all that could render a country life delightful; but a country life was so little to the taste of the Marquis that, malgré his resentment for the want of consideration which his talents had met with, he would most probably have returned to Paris, had not his ennui been softened by the society of a fair neighbour, one of that despicable and heartless class who were then, as now, unfortunately but too common in France. The lady, the Baroness St. Clair, resided with her husband in the neighbourhood of the Marquis; she had married a fool for the purpose of being her own mistress, and no woman ever made a more licentious use of her liberty. The moment she heard of the arrival of the Marquis she determined to make him her captive, and, unfortunately for the peace of his future life, she succeeded but too well. He became blindly devoted to her, and their connexion was managed with so little circumspection, that it was soon talked of all over the country. But even his attachment to this syren could not put his long cherished plan out of the Marquis' head; nay, strange to say, this very plan was one of the means which the Baroness employed to subjugate him; for she not only listened to his endless details of the injustice with which he was treated with an appearance of the greatest interest, but she even proferred her aid to copy those political papers with which he was in the habit of still employing his leisure hours; and it was

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