Among the Frenchwomen in the West End was Madame de Boigne[214], amiable, witty, filled with talent, extremely pretty, and the youngest of them all; she has since, together with her father, the Marquis d'Osmond[215], represented the Court of France in England much better than my unsociability has done. She is writing now, and her talents will reproduce admirably all that she has seen[216]. Mesdames de Caumont[217], de Gontaut[218], and du Cluzel also inhabited the quarter of the exiled felicities, if at least I am mistaking Madame de Caumont and Madame du Cluzel, both of whom I had seen for a moment in Brussels. What is quite certain is that Madame la Duchesse de Duras[219] was in London at that time: I was not to know her till ten years later. How often in one's life one passes by that which would constitute its charm, even as the navigator cuts through the waters of a heaven-favoured land which he has only missed by one horizon and one day's sail! I am writing this on the banks of the Thames, and to-day a letter will go by post to tell Madame de Duras, on the banks of the Seine, that I have come across my first memory of her. * From time to time the Revolution sent us Emigrants of new kinds and opinions; different layers of exiles were formed: the earth contains beds of sand or clay left behind by the waves of the Deluge. One of those waves brought me a man whose loss I mourn to-day, a man who was my guide in literature, and whose friendship was both one of the honours and one of the consolations of my life.