select, continues from three till six. If couriers arrive, the king retires a moment to read the despatches and returns. There is always some music going on, to which he listens, and which has an excellent effect. He talks with such of the ladies as are accustomed to enjoy that honor.... At six the carriages are at the door. The king is in one of them with Madame de Montespan, Monsieur and Madame de Thianges, and honest d'Hendicourt in a fool's paradise on the stool. You know how these open carriages are made; they do not sit face to face, but all looking the same way. The queen occupies another with the princess; and the rest come flocking after, as it may happen. There are then gondolas on the canal, and music; and at ten they come back, and then there is a play; and twelve strikes, and they go to supper; and thus rolls round the Saturday. If I were to tell you how often you were asked after, how many questions were put to me without waiting for answers, how often I neglected to answer, how little they cared, and how much less I did, you would see the _iniqua corte_ [wicked court] before you in all its perfection. However, it never was so pleasant before, and everybody wishes it may last. There is your picture. Picture, pure and simple, it is--comment none, least of all, moralizing comment. The wish is sighed by "everybody," that such pleasant things may "last." Well, they did last the writer's time. But meanwhile the French revolution was a-preparing. A hundred years later it will come, with its terrible reprisals. We have gone away from the usual translations to find the foregoing extract in an article published forty years ago and more, in the "Edinburgh Review." Again we draw from the same source--this time, the description of a visit paid by a company of grand folks, of whom the writer of the letter was one, to an iron-foundery: FRIDAY, _1st Oct._ (1677). Yesterday evening at Cone we descended into a veritable hell, the true forges of Vulcan. Eight or ten Cyclops were at work, forging, not arms for AEneas, but anchors for ships. You never saw strokes redoubled so justly nor with so admirable a cadence. We stood in the midst of four furnaces; and the demons came passing about us, all melting in sweat, with pale faces, wild-staring eyes, savage mustaches, and hair long and black--a sight enough to frighten less well-bred folks than ourselves. As for me, I could not comprehend the possibility of refusing any thing which these gentlemen, in their hell, might have chosen to exact. We got out at last, by the help of a shower of silver, with which we took care to refresh their souls, and facilitate our exit. Once more: PARIS, _29th November_ (1679).