There is none of the affectation of avoiding subjects supposed to be uninteresting to women visible in the men here. They do not utter with a smile--half pity, half condescension,--"we must not talk politics before the ladies;" they merely avoid entering into discussions, or exhibiting party spirit, and shew their deference for female society by speaking on literature, on which they politely seem to take for granted that women are well informed. Perhaps this deferential treatment of the gentler sex may not be wholly caused by the good breeding of the men in France; for I strongly suspect that the women here would be very little disposed to submit to the _nonchalance_ that prompts the conduct I have referred to in England, and that any man who would make his horses or his field-sports the topic of discourse in their presence, would soon find himself expelled from their society. Frenchwomen still think, and with reason, that they govern the tone of the circles in which they move, and look with jealousy on any infringement of the respectful attention they consider to be their due. A few nights ago I saw the Duchesse de Guiche, on her return from a reception at court, sparkling in diamonds, and looking so beautiful that she reminded me of Burke's description of the lovely and unfortunate Marie-Antoinette. To-day I thought her still more attractive, when, wearing only a simple white _peignoir_, and her matchless hair bound tightly round her classically shaped head, I saw her enacting the part of _garde-malade_ to her children, who have caught the measles. With a large, and well-chosen nursery-establishment, she would confide her precious charge to no care but her own, and moved from each little white bed to the other with noiseless step and anxious glance, bringing comfort to the dear little invalid in each. No wonder that her children adore her, for never was there so devoted a mother. In the meridian of youth and beauty, and filling so brilliant a position in France, it is touching to witness how wholly engrossed this amiable young woman's thoughts are by her domestic duties. She incites, by sharing, the studies of her boys; and already is her little girl, owing to her mother's judicious system, cited as a model. It was pleasant to see the Duc, when released from his attendance at court, hurrying into the sick chamber of his children, and their languid eyes, lighting up with a momentary animation, and their feverish lips relaxing into a smile, at the sound of his well-known voice. And this is the couple considered to be "the glass of fashion and the mould of form," the observed of all observers, of the courtly circle at Paris! Who could behold them as I have done, in that sick room, without acknowledging that, despite of all that has been said of the deleterious influence of courts on the feelings of those who live much in them, the truly good pass unharmed through the dangerous ordeal?