There is a great deal of curious matter for speculation in the accounts here so wittily given by M. de Bernard: but, perhaps, it is still more curious to think of what he has _not_ written, and to judge of his characters, not so much by the words in which he describes them, as by the unconscious testimony that the words all together convey. In the first place, our author describes a swindler imitating the manners of a dandy: and many swindlers and dandies be there, doubtless, in London as well as in Paris. But there is about the present swindler, and about Monsieur Dambergeac the student, and Monsieur Dambergeac the sous-préfet, and his friend, a rich store of calm internal _debauch_, which does not, let us hope and pray, exist in England. Hearken to M. de Gustan, and his smirking whispers about the Duchess of San Severino, who _pour son bonheur particulier_, etc. etc. Listen to Monsieur Dambergeac’s friend’s remonstrances concerning _pauvre Juliette_, who grew sick at the smell of a pipe; to his _naïve_ admiration at the fact that the sous-préfet goes to church: and we may set down, as axioms, that religion is so uncommon among the Parisians, as to awaken the surprise of all candid observers; that gallantry is so common as to create no remark, and to be considered as a matter of course. With us, at least, the converse of the proposition prevails: it is the man professing _ir_religion who would be remarked and reprehended in England; and, if the second-named vice exists, at any rate it adopts the decency of secrecy, and is not made patent and notorious to all the world. A French gentleman thinks no more of proclaiming that he has a mistress than that he has a tailor; and one lives the time of Boccaccio over again, in the thousand and one French novels which depict the state of society in that country. For instance, here are before us a few specimens (do not, madam, be alarmed, you can skip the sentence if you like) to be found in as many admirable witty tales, by the before-lauded Monsieur de Bernard. He is more remarkable than any other French author, to our notion, for writing like a gentleman: there is ease, grace, and _ton_ in his style, which, if we judge aright, cannot be discovered in Balzac, or Soulié, or Dumas. We have then--_Gerfaut_, a novel: a lovely creature is married to a brave, haughty Alsacian nobleman, who allows her to spend her winters at Paris, he remaining on his _terres_, cultivating, carousing, and hunting the boar. The lovely creature meets the fascinating Gerfaut at Paris; instantly the latter makes love to her; a duel takes place; baron killed; wife throws herself out of window; Gerfaut plunges into dissipation, and so the tale ends.