AT MADAME DE HOUCHIEN'S. 353 



Alas ! what pitiless judges I have in your beautiful Al- 

 bion ! You will permit me, I hope, to complain a little 

 when you see how I am treated in the last number of the 

 ' Quarterly Review.' But I have well deserved it. 



" ' Humboldt.' " 



Our next and last extract from the diary is the most 

 Morganish of all. It shows us the sort of people with 

 whom Humboldt mingled in his lighter moments, and 

 with whom he amused himself, unbending his great 

 nature in the intervals of his labours. 



Towards the end of December, her ladyship, 

 after dining with the "Doctrinaires," a political set 

 of the day, set Morgan, who enjoyed an opera, serious 

 or comic, beyond everything else in the world, down 

 at the Opera Comique, and drove to the Faubourg St. 

 Honore to pay a visit to Madame de Houchien, who 

 received in the charming easy French style every 

 evening. 



" Madame de Houchien had been a dame d'atour of 

 the Empress Josephine, and her salon was Bonapartiste 

 tout pur. 



" Her compares this evening were no less than Denon, 

 Segur, and M. de Mortemar, the latter creating groups 

 out of a pack of cards scattered on the table. Well, the 

 moment I mentioned where I had come from, grande 

 hilarite ! 



"'Figurez vous,' said Madame de Houchien, 'the 

 author of that maudite ' France,' popped down among 

 these Solons and Lycurguses.' 



" They insisted on hearing how I had debuted, and my 

 irreverent question as to the religion a la mode was the 



