After a ball at the Polish Countess Orlowski's (the woman who is charmed with _Early Lessons_, etc.), where Fanny and Harriet were delighted with the children's dancing--they waltzed like angels, if angels waltz--after this ball I went with the Count and Countess de Salis and La Baronne--I was told that the first time it must be without my sisters--to the Duchesse d'Escars, who _receives_ for the King at the Tuileries: mounting a staircase of one hundred and forty steps. I thought the Count's knees would have failed while I leaned on his arm; my own ached. A long gallery, well lighted, opened into a suite of _little_ low apartments, most beautifully hung, some with silk and some with cashmere, some with tent drapery, with end ottomans, and lamps in profusion. These rooms, with busts and pictures of kings, swarmed with old nobility, with historic names, stars, red ribbons, and silver bells at their button-holes: ladies in little white satin hats and _toques_, with a profusion of ostrich or, still better, _marabout_ powder-puff feathers; and the roofs were too low for such lofty heads. After a most fatiguing morning at all the impertinent and pertinent dressmakers and milliners, we finished by the dear delight of dining with Madame Gautier at Passy. The drive there was delicious: we found her with her Sophie, now a matron mother with her Caroline, like what Madame Gautier and her Sophie were in that very room eighteen years ago. All the Delessert family that remain were assembled except Benjamin, who was detained by business in Paris. Madame Benjamin is very handsome, nearer the style of Mrs. Admiral Pakenham than anybody I know; François the same as you saw him, only with the additional crow's-feet of eighteen years, sobered into a husband and father, the happiest I ever saw in France. They have three houses, and the whole three terraces form one long pleasure-ground. Judas-tree, like a Brobdingnag almond-tree, was in full flower; lilacs and laburnums in abundance. Alexandre Delessert takes after the father--good, sensible, commercial conversation. He made a panegyric on the Jews of Hamburgh, who received him at their houses with the utmost politeness and liberality. This was _à propos_ of Walter Scott's Jewess, and, vanity must add, my own Jew and Jewess, who came in for more than their due share. Bank-notes were talked of: François tells me that the forging of bank-notes is almost unknown at Paris: the very best artists--my father's plan--are employed. Tuesday we were at the Louvre: many fine pictures left. Dined at home: in the evening to Madame de Pastoret's, to meet the Duchesse de Broglie: very handsome, little, with large soft dark eyes: simple dress, winning manner, soft Pastoret conversation: speaks English better than any foreigner I ever heard: not only gracious, but quite _tender_ to me.