188 Mary Somerville. 



were remarkable for their domestic virtues, as well 

 as for high intellectual cultivation. The part the 

 Duke took in politics is so well known, that I need 

 not allude to it here. 



At some of these parties I met with Madame 

 Charles Dupin, whom I liked much. When* I went 

 to return her visit, she received us in her bed-room. 

 She was a fashionable and rather elegant woman, 

 with perfect manners. She invited us to dinner 

 to meet her brother-in-law, the President of the 

 Chamber of Deputies. He was animated and 

 witty, very fat, and more ugly than his brother, 

 but both were clever and agreeable. The President 

 invited me to a very brilliant ball he gave, but as it 

 was on a Sunday I could not accept the invitation. 

 "We went one evening with Madame Charles Dupin 

 to be introduced to Madame de Rumford. Her first 

 husband, Lavoisier, the chemist, had been guillotined 

 at the Revolution, and she was now a widow, but 

 had lived long separated from her second husband. 

 She was enormously rich, and had a magnificent 

 palace, garden, and conservatory, in which she gave 

 balls and concerts. At all the evening parties in 

 Paris the best bed-room was lighted up for reception 

 like the other rooms. Madame de Rumford was 

 capricious and ill-tempered ; however, she received 

 me very well, and invited me to meet a very large 



