"How delighted I should be with but one quarter of an hour of your charming conversations with Madame la Comtesse de Brancas! But from intellectual feasts like that, I am doomed here to the most rigorous abstinence; and, to make up for it, I am forced to throw myself on the mullets, sardines, sprats, and tunnies, with the wines of Cyprus and Syracuse; so that I have always the body full and the mind empty. You sent me an admirable piece of wit. I laughed at it amazingly, and wished to read it to some of the people here; but I soon perceived that their appreciation of letters is limited to letters of exchange. In spite of that, they are never tired of praising you, and holding forth about your talents." In a letter of the 25th October, after a very spirited description of a marriage-feast, and a dance to the sound of tambourines, she says:-- "We have been oppressed with the innumerable kindnesses of all this amiable family. One after another, every body was full of regrets that you were not of the party, declaring that a man of such wit and genius as you was exactly made for society. If ever you return to this country, you will be splendidly received.... "Amuse yourself as much as you can. Go and dine often with your friends. I should be sorry if I thought you were alone. Don't be surprised at my scrawl. I danced all last night, and had got to bed very late. It is now eleven o'clock, and I am obliged to be dressed by one so, you see, I have not much time to spare." And her letter of the 22d November brings us to the end of the year '69, and also of her residence at Marseilles. Even the _Memoire_ grows tired of the gaieties of the Dame Lebrun, and passes over a long detail of dinners, suppers, balls, and fetes, to tell us that, "fatiguee de bonne chere," and "lassee de plaisirs," she wrote to her husband, who was contenting himself with a Welsh rabbit and Julia at home--"One would need four stomachs in this county. I envy your frugality, and long for the little, quiet suppers we used to have at the fireside."