But we had scarcely sat down to the supper which Mordecai's hospitality and his daughter's taste had provided for us--and a most costly display of plate and pine-apples it was--when our entertainer was called out of the room by a new arrival. After some delay, he returned, bringing in with him a middle-aged officer, a fine soldierly-looking figure, in the uniform of the royal guard. He had just arrived from France with letters for some of the party, and with an introduction to the Jew, whom I now began to regard as an agent of the French princes. The officer was known to the whole table; and the enquiries for the fate of their friends and France were incessant and innumerable. He evidently suppressed much, to avoid "a scene;" yet what he had to tell was sufficiently alarming. The ominous shake of the Jew's head, and the changes of his sagacious visage, showed me that he at least thought the evil day on the point of completion. "Living," said he, "at this distance from the place of events which succeed each other with such strange rapidity, we can scarcely judge of any thing. But, if the king would rely more on his peasantry and less on his populace, and more on his army than either, he might be king of France still." "True!--true!" was the general acclamation. "He should have clung to his noblesse, like Henri Quatre," said a duke. "He should have made common cause with his clergy," said a prelate, with the physiognomy of one of Titian's cardinals. "Any thing but the Tiers Etat," was uttered by all, with a general voice of horror. "My letters of this evening," said Mordecai, "tell me that the _fête_ at Versailles has had dangerous consequences." "_Ciel_!" exclaimed a remarkably handsome woman of middle age, with the "air noble" in every feature. "Pardon me, it must be an error. I was present. It was the most brilliant of all possible réunions. It was a pledge to the salvation of France. I hear the sound of 'Richard, O mon Roi!' in my ear at this moment. When, oh when, shall I hear it again!" She burst into a passion of tears. The name was electric. All began that very charming air at the moment. Sobs and sighs stole in between the pauses of the harmony. Their rich and practised voices gave it the sweetness and solemnity of a hymn. Fine eyes were lifted to heaven; fine faces were buried in their clasped hands; and the whole finished like the subsidence of a prayer. But madame la duchesse was full of her subject, and we were full of curiosity. We implored her to give us some idea of a scene, of which all Europe was thinking and talking. She required no importunity, but told her tale with the majesty of a Clairon. It was at first all exclamation. "O my king!--O my unhappy but noble queen!--O my beloved but noble France! _O Richard! O mon Roi!--Le monde vous abandonné!_" She again wept, and we again sympathized.