But to return from this digression to Helen Williams. This priestess of the Revolution has a nightly synod at her apartments, to which the political dramatists and _literati_ of the capital resort. Here she is in her glory. Perched like the bird of wisdom on her shrine, she snuffs up the mounting incense of adulation offered up by homicides and plunderers of the public. At the instant of inspiration she becomes convulsed like the Delphic Priestess. By an ingenious device she contracts her lips into the form of a pipe, and literally whistles out the words of the oracle she pronounces. The keeper of the archives is at hand to record what passes for the benefit of the booksellers. The instant each ruling party is overthrown, out come two or four little duodecimos, which this fanatical female calls “Anecdotes of the Founders of the French Revolution,” &c., in which she records all their _sayings_, and abuses in turn those whom she before received with smiles at her conversaziones. If you wish to become acquainted with a devil in the shape of a philosopher, a general, a legislator, a quiz or a thief, you will find any of these characters at Helen’s coteries. I mention Madame de Beccaria in this place by way of a contrast. She is the daughter of the celebrated Marquis de Beccaria, author of the book on Crimes and Punishments. Elegant in her manners, she is possessed of a pleasing person, and is modest, affable, and good-natured. Though a rigid Catholic, she does not pose as a saint, nor does she keep a coterie, or wish to take advantage of her father’s celebrity to collect around her the fops of philosophy. She had a great disappointment in her marriage. Her husband was an Italian nobleman, whose union with her has been annulled on account of his insanity. Madame de Beccaria[1] will go to England very shortly for the purpose of having her father’s writings translated there. She made me a present of her father’s portrait, assuring me that he never wrote an Italian work entitled _Saggio sopra la Politica e la Legislatione Romana_. Kosciusko has disappointed my expectations; perhaps I judge of him too rashly, but if in two hours’ conversation with _any_ man upon subjects most interesting, not a _spark_ of extraordinary light is emitted, I think it is but fair to conclude that such a man is not fit to move out of the common circle. According to my way of thinking, the negro General Toussaint is immeasurably his intellectual superior. But his valour and sufferings will always excite sympathy, and the cause in which he strove the interest of mankind. CONCLUSION We did not experience any difficulty in getting out of Paris, after our four months’ stay there.