"GENEVA, 1820. DEAR LADY MORGAN:... Baron Bonstetten came to see me to-day. You were the subject of our conversation: nothing but admiration. M. Sismondi has made my acquaintance--he is married too: I wonder that people of genius marry. I have been in such a state of melancholy as to wish myself dead a thousand times. What think you of a person advising me to turn Methodist? Have you read Lamartine's _Meditations poetiques_? There are some fine things in them, but he is too _larmoyant_ and of the bad school of politics. Miss Edgeworth is here: she came to see me, but we have not met. She has a great deal of good sense, which I particularly object to in my companions unless accompanied by genius.... They are so reasonable and unmoved in this place, their mornings devoted to the exact sciences, their evenings to whist! There have been some English, but I have seen little of them: they are cold, formal, affected--just my antipodes; therefore we should not please each other: they require a year to become acquainted, and I have too little left of life to waste on formalities.... In this birthplace of Calvinism I found no trace of its originator, either in actual relics or asceticism: it was rather the centre of folly and license." Baron Bonstetten, savant and philanthropist--whom Lady Morgan styles "that fresh, frisky old darling"--showed Mme. Bonaparte paternal kindness. In a morning visit she found him in his library examining letters. He said, "Asseyez vous un peu, mon enfant, en attendant que je finisse de ces papiers," and she sat for an hour reading letters from celebrities which he tossed to her--among others, perhaps inadvertently, from Mme. de Stael, proving the good baron's admiration for Corinne to have been "warmer than friendship if colder than love." At a ball at Bonstetten's, as Mme. Bonaparte entered the room, a stout, handsome man covered with orders eagerly exclaimed, "Qui est-ce? qui est-ce?"--"La premiere femme de Jerome Bonaparte," replied the princess Gallitzin. It was Duke William of Wuertemberg, uncle of Jerome's second wife. He requested a presentation, took both hands affectionately, and after conversing half an hour led her to his duchess, to whom he said afterward, "Mais, mon Dieu! que Jerome a manque son coup. Quelle grace, quelle beaute, quel esprit! Et ma pauvre niece! il faut etre juste; jamais ne pourrait-elle regner comme cette belle Americaine, qui par tout droit est vraiment la reine. Jerome a ete bete de la quitter."--"Ah," said Bonstetten, "si elle n'est pas reine de Westphalie, elle est au moins reine des coeurs."