As for the priests, there was the Abbé Halma, the same to whom M. Larose, his fellow-contributor on _la Foudre_, said, "Stuff, who is not fifty years of age? a few hobble-de-hoys, perhaps." Then came the Abbé Letourneur, preacher to the King; the Abbé Frayssinous, who at that time was neither Bishop, Count, Minister, nor Peer, and who wore a soutane, from which buttons were absent; and the Abbé Keravenant, Curé of St. Germain des Prés. To them must be added the Papal Nuncio, at that date Monsignore Macchi, Archbishop of Nisibi, afterwards Cardinal, and remarkable for his long pensive nose; and another Monsignore, whose titles ran as follow: Abbate Palmieri, domestic Prelate, one of the seven Prothonotaries sharing in the Holy See, Canon of the glorious Liberian Basilica, and advocate of the Saints, _postulatore Dei Santi_, an office relating to matters of canonization, and meaning very nearly, Referendary to the department of Paradise. Finally, two Cardinals, M. de la Luzerne, and M. de Cl---- T----. The Cardinal de Luzerne was an author, and was destined to have the honor a few years later of signing articles in the _Conservateur_ side by side with Chateaubriand; M. de Cl---- T----, was Archbishop of Toulouse, and frequently spent the summer in Paris with his nephew the Marquis de T----, who had been Minister of the Navy and of War. The Cardinal de Cl---- T---- was a merry little old gentleman, who displayed his red stockings under his tucked-up cassock. His specialty was hating the Encyclopædia and playing madly at billiards; and persons who on summer evenings passed along the Rue M----, where M. de Cl---- T---- then resided, stopped to listen to the sound of the balls and the sharp voice of the Cardinal crying to his Conclavist Monseigneur Cottret, Bishop _in partibus_ of Caryste, "Mark me a carom, Abbé." The Cardinal de Cl---- T---- had been introduced to Madame de T---- by his most intimate friend, M. de Roquelaure, ex-Bishop of Senlis and one of the Forty. M. de Roquelaure was remarkable for his great height and his assiduity at the Academy. Through the glass door of the room adjoining the library, in which the French Academy at that time met, curious persons could contemplate every Thursday the ex-Bishop of Senlis, usually standing with hair freshly powdered, in violet stockings, and turning his back to the door, apparently to display his little collar the better. All these ecclesiastics, although mostly courtiers as much as churchmen, added to the gravity of the salon, to which five Peers of France, the Marquis de Vib----, the Marquis de Tal----, the Marquis d'Herb----, the Vicomte Damb----, and the Duc de Val----, imparted the lordly tone. This Duc de Val----, though Prince de Mon----, that is to say, a foreign sovereign prince, had so lofty an idea of France and the Peerage, that he looked at everything through them. It was he who said, "The Cardinals are the French Peers of Rome, and the Lords are the