This double claim to immortality was worthy of the woman whose beauty was proverbial, and whom fortune had been pleased to guide from an obscure position to the summit of the most opulent and conspicuous nobility of Europe. Her history would constitute a remarkable episode of her own time if there were nothing in her life but the extraordinary fact of having been sold twice--in the first place by her mother, in the second by her husband. But when one has seen, as I have, the pomp of her fêtes, the unprecedented value of her precious ornaments, the grandeur of her palaces, and the extent of her power, then one becomes confounded at those elevations of fortune due to love--to nothing but love, that magician without a rival. Madame Potocka was born at Constantinople. It is well known that the great Greek families residing in that city have experienced all the vicissitudes of fortune as a consequence of revolutions. It is not surprising, therefore, to see in the Fanariote quarter the members of those ancient and princely races pass, at one fell stroke, from extreme opulence to extreme poverty, and often be obliged to engage in this or that profession, if not in a downright trade. In a small street, not far from the palace of Sweden, there lived a poor artisan, though he was an undoubted descendant of the Commenius family. He had several children, and among these a girl whose nascent beauty was the admiration of the whole of the neighbourhood, and the envy of all her companions. M. de B----, a French gentleman, secretary to the embassy, was one day slowly riding through the streets of Pera, accompanied by a janissary of the Palais de France. Near the tomb of the Comte de Bonneval, who became a Turkish subject, the rider perceived a group of children, and among them a young girl, between thirteen and fourteen, such as only the beautiful race of Greece can produce. Struck by her beauty, he gives her a sign to come up to him, and, a diplomatic functionary being a kind of power at Pera, the child obeys. The marquis gets off his horse, asks the child’s name, and begins to inquire about her family. ‘My name is Sophie,’ replies the child. ‘We are Greeks by origin, and from what my mother says, well born, but a series of misfortunes has reduced us to work for our living. My father is a baker.’ The marquis is absolutely dazzled by the child’s beauty, he is touched by the sound of her voice, he admires her mind, at once innocent and precocious. After a few other questions, he leaves Sophie, telling her, however, that he will expect her mother at the French Embassy. Next morning the poor woman is true to the appointment. Interrogated about her position, she confesses, amid bitter tears, that they are very poor, and that their labour is insufficient to keep the relentless creditors from the door. Thereupon the marquis proposes to take care of her daughter, to take her to France, and winds up by offering the mother fifteen hundred piastres to