_It is here we encounter that considerable lacuna in the Reminiscences to which reference was made in the “Introductory.” An examination of the MS. shows that the large section--of more than a hundred pages--which related to Mrs. Please’s experiences during the terrific period of the Revolution, and afterwards so far as the year_ ’98, _when the narrative is resumed, was at some time bodily removed, whether with a view to separate publication_ (_of which, however, no proof can be found_), _or through one of those intermittent panics of conscience to which the lady was subject, there is no evidence to show. While this breach is to be regretted--from her editor’s point of view, at least--it must be said that innumerable contemporary references to Madame “Se-Plaire” enable us in some measure not only to follow the career of that redoubtable adventuress_ (_pace M. le Comte de C----_), _but to supply to ourselves at least one presumptive reason for her shyness, on reflection, of perpetuating certain of its incidents. However, not to confuse matters, we will take our stepping-stones in the order of their placing._ _It appears, then, that Mrs. Please and her friends were conveyed safely in the Ambassador’s entourage, to Paris, where Madame the Ambassador’s wife received, during the few days of her stay in the French capital on her way to Italy, some salve to her hurt vanity in the reception accorded her at the Tuileries by the queen, who took the opportunity to intrust her with a letter to her sister of Naples. Whether elated, indirectly, by the royal condescension, or electrified by the state of the national atmosphere, or for whatever reason, Diana, it appears, decided to remain where she was. She even, there is some reason for believing, sought, in the character of a very loyal little_ moucharde, _to ingratiate herself with the queen, going so far as to imply that Lady Hamilton had taken this delicate means of placing in Her Majesty’s hands a counter-buff to Mr. Pitt, whom Miss Diana had often seen in my lord of Herring’s house in Berkeley Square, and whose sinister designs against France she was quite ready to quote--or invent._