But the crowd pressed towards another object of curiosity, and I followed it, under the guidance of my Asmodeus, to a music room, splendidly fitted up, and filled with the most select orchestra of the capital. But it was an amateur that was there to attract all eyes and ears. "Madame de Fontenai," whispered the Jew, as he glanced towards a woman of a remarkably expressive countenance and statue-like form, half sitting, half reposing, on a sofa--surrounded by a group soliciting her for a "few notes, a suspiration, a _soupcon_"--of, as Elnathan observed, "one of the most delicious voices which had ever crossed the Pyrenees," and the Jew had all the habitual connoisseurship of his nation. At last the siren consented, and a harp was brought and placed before her, with the same homage which might have attended an offering to the Queen of Cyprus, in her own island, three thousand years ago; and rather letting her hand drop among the strings, than striking them, and rather breathing out her feelings, than performing any music of mortal composition, she sang one of the fantastic, but deep, reveries of passion of "the sweet south." SARABANDA. "Tus ojos y los mios Se miran y hablan. Pero los Corazones No se declaran. Mas te prevengo Que si tu no te explicas, Yo no te entiendo. "Las dudas de un amante No han de saberse, Que al decirlas se sabe. Que desmerecen. No--en el silencio No son pensamientos D'el mas aprecio."[14] The song closed in a burst of plaudits, as general and marked as if they had been given to a _prima donna_ in a theater, and she received them as if she was in a theatre. "You should be presented to Madame de Fontenai," was my guide's suggestion. "She is our reigning _celebrite_ at present, as Madame Roland is our _publicite_. You see we are nice in our distinctions.--I shall probably to-night show you another, a very handsome creature indeed, without half the talents of either, but with more admirers than both; who has obtained the title of our _felicite_." "I shall be delighted to be made known to her, but give me the _carte du pays_. Who or what is she?" "The daughter of Cabarus, the Spanish ambassador here some years ago. She is now a widow, rich, giving the most _recherche_ suppers, followed by all the world, and, as she declares, _persecuted_ by M. Tallien; who, as perseverance is nine-tenths of success in every thing, will probably succeed in making her Madame Tallien."