All this could not have been had not Guimard, with all her faults had more reserves of goodness than her earlier circumstances can have given opportunity for developing. Guimard had been grand; Guimard had been gay; but through it all Guimard must have been good in heart, full of sympathy and courage and generous charities of mind and soul; and Despréaux, gentle, wise, humorous, idealistic, honest, must have found her so, to speak and write of her as he always did, with ardour and a kind of boyish awe, even after she had passed away. No note of discord marred their married years, and when Guimard came to make her exit from the stage of life, silently, with nothing but ghostly memories of applause, her comrade, well we may be sure, waited only with impatience for his cue to follow her. GUIMARD SPEAKS (Ætat. 70) “Yes, ye may laugh at Mère Guimard, Laugh well, my girls, while laugh ye may! But none of ye will fare as far As I, who long have had my day. Time was when Paris all did pray Because I broke my arm! And yet Who now recalls my queen-like sway O’er those whom Death did not forget? “Time on my visage many a scar Hath graven deep. No longer gay My voice, that once could make or mar The Minister who failed to pay Just tribute to my charms. Decay My once slim, rounded limbs doth fret; And scarce my feet could tread their way O’er those whom Death did not forget. “Yet ere I dance to where they are, Take heed, my girls, the words I say! I had a power none might bar, A court that rivalled the array Of aught Versailles could best display, For at my Court Versailles was met! And still I triumph, old and grey, O’er those whom Death did not forget. ENVOI “‘Squelette des Grâces’ they called me! Yea, and now? Sans-graces! A mere ‘Squelette!’ But grace I _had_, and have, to-day O’er those whom Death did not forget.” CHAPTER XXII DESPRÉAUX, POET AND--HUSBAND OF GUIMARD There can be nothing more irksome to a man than to be known merely as the husband of his more famous wife.