"There are a thousand circumstances, Sir, which every day make it a man's duty no longer to see the persons who have previously been most highly prized. I experience this myself in declining an acquaintance with you, which in other respects I greatly valued. You know better than any one else how much I lose by this step. Madame Lebrun unites her regrets to mine, and begs me to assure you, and also Madame Grimod, of her affectionate thanks, ('de ses plus tendres remercimens.') I have the honour to be, with perfect truth, and for the last time," &c. And the Sieur Grimod immediately replied-- "Your letter, Sir, did indeed surprise Madame Grimod and me, who believed ourselves among the number of your friends, after the many years we have had the honour to know you. We do not know the motives for so sudden a quarrel; if you were pleased with our society, we were no less so with yours. The number of true friends we retain, does not hinder us from regretting those we lose, in you and Madame Lebrun, to whom we beg you will express our regret. We have the honour," &c. After two such polite epistles, the reader would naturally expect that the Sieur Lebrun and the Sieur Grimod, with their respective wives, would toss their heads at each other when they met in the street, and give the cut direct with the utmost unanimity. But another glance into the _Memoire_ will soon convince him of his mistake. The Sieur Lebrun may probably look vastly majestic, and pass the Sieur Grimod with a contemptuous jerk; but sorry are we to say that Madame Lebrun joins in no such dignified proceeding. She cuts the magnanimous Lebrun instead; she stirs up against him the wrath and indignation of all his friends and relations; she continues her intimacy with the Sieur Grimod; and, as a finish to her connubial obedience, she goes one morning with three hackney coaches, and carries off every article of furniture the unhappy little man possesses. A pleasant specimen of a wife of the middle class in the year 1774! A duchess could scarcely be more sublime. Now, who was this Sieur Grimod, and what manner of rank was his considered? He had nothing to do with the noblesse; he kept no shop; he had no private fortune; but he was one of the true causers of the French Revolution, the rascally collectors of taxes, the underlings of the atrocious _fermiers generaux_, who wrung the last farthing from the already oppressed peasant, and made the whole realm of France as sterile, hopeless, and wretched, as a nation must inevitably become, if it is allowed to be the prey of an O'Connell in every parish. His nominal salary was under a hundred a-year; but we shall see the style he lives in, as we get on in the account--his country-houses--his carriages, and even his politenesses to Madame Lebrun; and we shall hear in every one of these luxurious enjoyments the sharpening of the guillotine axe.