St 
a i eae 
ET, 28.] TO THE MISSES TORREY. 165 
were introduced, a number of peers made some remarks 
which could not have been very flattering to them, the 
creation of a new batch just at this time having given 
much dissatisfaction to the old ones. Among others, 
I heard a little speech from the famous Marshal Soult. 
Lord Brougham, who is now in Paris, was present. I 
recognized him across the room by his homely face, 
which he is in the habit of twitching and contorting 
incessantly, as if it pained him. He seemed to listen 
with much attention. 
In the evening I paid a visit to Mr. Spach,! looked 
over plants and so forth until ten o’clock, returned 
shivering with cold, for the weather here is like March 
in New York. I am now sitting by a large fire, and 
yet I am shivering. 
Tuesday evening, April 9.— In the morning went 
to hear Mirbel? lecture at the Sorbonne; he speaks 
so distinctly that I understood him tolerably well in 
general. The lecture-room is old and incommodious, 
rather better, to be sure, than the accommodation for 
the students of the university in the olden time, when 
they used to sit upon straw spread in the streets, 
but certainly not very fine. I went afterward to the 
Ecole de Médecine; heard the professor of anatomy 
for a few minutes ; came away, saw two or three books 
that I wanted in a stall belonging to a shop, priced 
them ; found the price much higher than I intended 
to give, so I named the price I would give ; was amused 
with the perseverance of the very genteel madame, 
who reduced her price down to within seven francs o 
1 Edouard Spach, 1801-1879; native of Strasburg, many years 
keeper of the herbarium at the Jardin des Plantes. 
? Charles Francois Brisseau Mirbel, 1776-1854; one of the most 
distinguished vegetable anatomists of the age. His earliest publica- 
tion in 1801, 
