The comtesse d’Egmont was one day observed to quit her house attired with the most parsimonious simplicity; her head being covered by an enormously deep bonnet, which wholly concealed her countenance, and the rest of her person enveloped in a pelisse, whose many rents betrayed its long service. In this strange dress she traversed the streets of Paris in search of adventures. She was going, she said, wittily enough, “to return to the cits what her father and brother had so frequently robbed them of.” Chance having led her steps to the rue St. Martin, she was stopped there by a confusion of carriages, which compelled her first to shelter herself against the wall, and afterwards to take refuge in an opposite shop, which was one occupied by a linen-draper. She looked around her with the eye of a connoisseur, and perceived beneath the modest garb of a shopman one of those broad-shouldered youths, whose open smiling countenance and gently tinged complexion bespoke a person whose simplicity of character differed greatly from the vast energy of his physical powers: he resembled the Farnese Hercules upon a reduced scale. The princess approached him, and requested to see some muslins, from which she selected two gowns, and after having paid for them, requested the master of the shop to send his shopman with them, in the course of half an hour, to an address she gave as her usual abode. The comtesse d’Egmont had engaged an apartment on the third floor of a house in the rue Tiquetonne, which was in the heart of Paris. The porteress of the dwelling knew her only as madame Rossin: her household consisted of a housekeeper and an old man, both devoted to a mistress whose character they well understood, and to whom they had every motive to be faithful. Here it was, then, that the lady hastened to await the arrival of the new object of her plebeian inclinations. Young Moireau (for such was the shopman’s name) was not long ere he arrived with his parcel. Madame d’Egmont was ready to receive him: she had had sufficient time to exchange her shabby walking dress for one which bespoke both coquetry and voluptuousness; the softness of her smile, and the turn of her features announced one whose warmth of passions would hold out the most flattering hopes of success to him who should seek her love. Madame Rossin and the young shopman were soon engaged in conversation, further animated by the bright glances sent direct from the eyes of madame to the unguarded heart of her admiring visitor. Emboldened by the graciousness of her manner, he presumed to touch her fair hand: the lady, in affected anger, rose, and commanded him to quit the house. The terrified youth fell at her feet, imploring pardon for his boldness, and then hastily quitted the room ere the feigned madame Rossin could pronounce the forgiveness he demanded. “The fool,” was (doubtless) the princess’s exclamation, “had he been brought up at court he would have conducted himself very differently.”