“‘Six years had elapsed since I had seen Madame Dubarri. I found her but little altered in appearance, and much subdued in manner—she was humbled to the very soul. It was evident that she was perishing with _ennui_, not with regret for the splendour in which she had lived, nor the power which she might have possessed, had she so willed, but for the gay and gallant company she had enjoyed, the laughter, the practical jokes, the _guerre pampan_—a game which she had introduced, and which was still played at court, although she was no longer allowed to be there to share in the mirth which it excited. Her lamentations at her _délaissement_, as she called the comparative solitude in which she lived, were at first most piteous; but, as of old, her griefs were soon forgotten in the delight of the moment, and she soon gave way, with all the frankness and _bonhomie_ of her character, to the unwonted delight imparted by the visit of two persons who could give her news of the court, and of what was said and what was done among those whom, so short a time before, she had ruled as queen, but whom she could not now either bribe or flatter into the slightest demonstration of courtesy. “‘You are, no doubt, curious to hear an opinion of Madame Dubarri’s beauty from the lips of one who has seen her both in the days of her prosperity and after her downfall. She was a person of small, almost diminutive stature, extremely frail and delicate in feature, which saved her from being vulgar; but, even from the first, she always wore that peculiarly _fané_ look, which she owed to a youth of dissipation, a maturity of unbounded indulgence. At the period of my visit, she was about six-and-thirty years of age, but, from her childlike form and delicacy of countenance, appeared much younger, and her _gambades_, and unrestrained gestures of supreme delight, on having, as she said, _quelqu’un à qui parler_, did not seem displaced. Although alone, and evidently not in expectation of visitors, her toilet was brilliant and _recherché_, the result of the necessity of killing time. The portrait, which is popular from the engraving, in which she is represented sipping coffee, is the best resemblance of her which has ever been attempted, and the likeness was most striking on this day, from her being attired in the same style as that represented in the picture. I could see that d’Aiguillon was charmed, and in spite of the clouds through which his reason had to make its way, he behaved in a discreet and gentlemanlike manner.