I must mention first and foremost two charmingly romantic and coquettish damsels--Joséphine and Manette Thierry: Joséphine dark, rosy, with an ample figure and regular features, a perfect creature, whose beautiful teeth completed a ravishing whole. Manette, a dessert apple, a girl who was always singing to make herself heard, always laughing to show off her teeth, ever running to let her feet, her ankles, even the calves of her legs, be seen; Virgil's Galatea, whose very name she was ignorant of, flying to be pursued, hiding so as to be seen before she hid. What has become of them? I have seen them since, looking very miserable: one was at Versailles, the other in Paris--the fallen, faded fruits of that rosary on which I spelled out the first phrases of love. They were the daughters of an old tailor, and lived close to the church, which was only separated from them by the town hall. Louise Brézette lived nearly opposite them; I have already mentioned her. She was the niece of my dancing-master; a sturdy flower of fifteen, whom I had in my mind while I wrote my fictitious history of that _Tulipe noire_, the masterpiece of horticulture vainly sought after, vainly pursued, vainly expected by Dutch amateur gardeners. The hair of beautiful Madame Ronconi, which inspired one of Théophile Gautier's most wonderful articles, and which made coal look grey and the wings of a crow pale, when placed side by side with it, was not more black, more blue, more shiny than Louise Brézette's hair when it reflected the sun's rays from its dark and sombre depths as from the heart of polished metal. Oh! what a lovely blooming brunette she was, with her flesh as firm and bright as a nectarine's; her pearly teeth lighting up her face from under the faint ebony down on her coral lips! One could feel life and love bubbling up beneath, needing only the first passion to make everything burst forth into flame! This luxuriant young girl was religious, and, as such an organisation as hers must love something, she loved God. If you took a few steps towards the square, a little farther up the rue de Soissons, bearing to the left, there was a door and a window, comprising the whole frontage of a tiny house. In the window hung hats, collars, bonnets, lace, gloves, mittens, ribbons--the whole arsenal, in short, of womanly vanity; behind the door floated certain curtains, intended to prevent inquisitive glances from looking into the shop, but which, whether by some strange mischance, or from the obstinacy of the rod upon which they slid, or from the caprices of the wind, always left on one side or the other some impertinent aperture through which the passer-by could see into the shop and at the same time allowed those inside the shop to see out into the street. Above this door and this window the following inscription was painted in large letters:-- _Mesdemoiselles Rigolot, Milliners_