We must give but a fragment, from Walpole's _catalogue raisonné_, of this Court of Paphos. It had been the King's object to make some women of rank introduce Madame du Barri at court; and he had found considerable difficulty in this matter, not from her being a woman of no character, but on her being a woman of no birth, and whose earlier life had been spent in the lowest condition of vice. The King at last succeeded--and these are the _chaperons_. "There was Madame de l'Hôpital, an ancient mistress of the Prince de Soubize! The Comtesse Valentinois, of the highest birth, very rich, but very foolish; and as far from a Lucretia as Madame du Barri herself! Madame de Flavacourt was another, a suitable companion to both in virtue and understanding. She was sister to _three_ of _the King's earliest mistresses_, and had aimed at succeeding them! The Maréchale Duchesse de Mirpoix was the last, and a very important acquisition." Of her, Walpole simply mentions that all her talents were "drowned in such an overwhelming passion for play, that though she had long and singular credit with the King, she reduced her favour to an endless solicitation for money to pay her debts." He adds, in his keen and amusing style--"That, to obtain the post of _dame d'honneur_ to the Queen, she had left off _red_ (wearing rouge,) and acted _dévotion_; and the very next day was seen riding with Madame de Pompadour (the King's mistress) in the latter's coach!" The editor settles the question of _her_ morality, too.--"She was a woman of extraordinary wit and cleverness, but totally _without character_." She had her morals by inheritance; for she was the daughter of the _mistress_ of the Duke of Lorraine, who married her to Monsieur de Beauvan, a poor noble, and whom the duke got made a prince of the empire, by the title of De Craon. Now, all those were females of the highest rank in France, ladies of fashion, the stars of court life, and the models of national manners. Can we wonder at the retribution which cast them out into the highways of Europe? Can we wonder at the ruin of the corrupted nobility? Can we wonder at the massacre of the worldly church, which stood looking on at those vilenesses, and yet never uttered a syllable against them, if it did not even share in their excesses? The true cause for astonishment is, not in the depth of their fall, but in its delay; not in the severity of the national judgment, but in that long-suffering which held back the thunderbolt for a hundred years, and even then did not extinguish the generation at a blow! [Footnote 33: _Memoirs of the Reign of King George the Third, by Horace Walpole. From the MSS. Edited, with Notes, by_ SIR D. LA MARCHANT, BART. London: Bentley.] A FEW PASSAGES CONCERNING OMENS, DREAMS, APPEARANCES, &c. IN A LETTER TO EUSEBIUS. No. II.