“What a grand thing it is to think of half a mile of pictures at the Louvre! Not but that there are a score under the old pepper-boxes in Trafalgar Square as fine as the best here. I don’t care for any Raphael here, as much as our own St. Catharine. There is nothing more grand. Could the Pyramids of Egypt or the Colossus of Rhodes be greater than our Sebastian? and for our Bacchus and Ariadne, you cannot beat the best you know. But if we have fine jewels, here there are whole sets of them: there are kings and all their splendid courts round about them. J. J. and I must come and live here. Oh, such portraits of Titian! Oh, such swells by Vandyke! I’m sure he must have been as fine a gentleman as any he painted! It’s a shame they haven’t got a Sir Joshua or two. At a feast of painters he has a right to a place, and at the high table too. Do you remember Tom Rogers, of Gandish’s? He used to come to my rooms—my other rooms in the Square. Tom is here with a fine carrotty beard, and a velvet jacket, cut open at the sleeves, to show that Tom has a shirt. I dare say it was clean last Sunday. He has not learned French yet, but pretends to have forgotten English; and promises to introduce me to a set of the French artists his _camarades_. There seems to be a scarcity of soap among these young fellows; and I think I shall cut off my mustachios; only Warrington will have nothing to laugh at when I come home. “The Colonel and I went to dine at the Café de Paris, and afterwards to the opera. Ask for _huitres de Marenne_ when you dine here. We dined with a tremendous French swell, the Vicomte de Florac, _officier d’ordonnance_ to one of the princes, and son of some old friends of my father’s. They are of very high birth, but very poor. He will be a duke when his cousin, the Duc d’Ivry, dies. His father is quite old. The vicomte was born in England. He pointed out to us no end of famous people at the opera—a few of the Fauxbourg St. Germain, and ever so many of the present people:—M. Thiers, and Count Molé, and Georges Sand, and Victor Hugo, and Jules Janin—I forget half their names. And yesterday we went to see his mother, Madame de Florac. I suppose she was an old flame of the Colonel’s, for their meeting was uncommonly ceremonious and tender. It was like an elderly Sir Charles Grandison saluting a middle-aged Miss Byron. And only fancy! the Colonel has been here once before since his return to England! It must have been last year, when he was away for ten days, whilst I was painting that rubbishing picture of the Black Prince waiting on King John. Madame de F. is a very grand lady, and must have been a great beauty in her time. There are two pictures by Gerard in her salon—of her and M. de Florac. M. de Florac, old swell, powder, thick eyebrows, hooked nose; no end of stars, ribbons, and embroidery. Madame also in the dress of the Empire—pensive, beautiful, black velvet, and a look something like my cousin’s.