However, the glory of Mademoiselle de Camargo was extinguished by degrees. Like fashion that had patronized her, she passed away by degrees, never to return. When she insisted upon retiring, although she was only forty years of age, no one thought of preventing her: she was hardly regretted. There was no inquiry made as to whither she had gone; she was only spoken of at rare intervals, and then she was only alluded to as a memory of the past. She had become something of a devotee, and very charitable. She knew by name all the poor in her neighborhood. She occasionally was visited by some of the notabilities of a past day, forgotten like herself. In the _Amusements of the Heart and Mind_, a collection designed, as is well known, to form the mind and the heart, Mademoiselle de Camargo is charged with having had a thousand and more lovers! Without giving the lie to this accusation, can I not prove it false by relating, in all its simplicity, a fact which proves a profound passion on her part? A pretty woman may dance at the opera, smile upon numberless admirers, live carelessly from day to day, in the noisy excitement of the world; still, there will be some blessed hours, when the heart, though often laid waste, will flourish again all of a sudden. Love is like the sky, which looks blue, even when reflected in the stream formed by the storm. It is thus that love is occasionally found pure in a troubled heart. But, moreover, this serious passion of Mademoiselle de Camargo was experienced by her in all the freshness of her youth. One morning, Grimm, Pont-de-Veyle, Duclos, Helvetius, presented themselves in a gay mood, at the humble residence of the celebrated dancer. She was then living in an old house in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre. An aged serving-woman opened the door.—"We wish to see Mademoiselle de Camargo," said Helvetius, who had great difficulty in keeping his countenance. The old woman led them into a parlor that was furnished with peculiar and grotesque-looking furniture. The wainscoting was covered with pastels representing Mademoiselle de Camargo in all her grace, and in her different characters. But the parlor was not adorned by her portraits only; there was a _Christ on_ _the Mount of Olives_, a _Magdalen at the Tomb_, a _Veiled Virgin_, a _Venus_, the _Three Graces_, some _Cupids_, half concealed beneath some rosaries and sacred relics, and _Madonnas_, covered with trophies from the opera!