The sessions of the legislative assembly had closed the day before my arrival, a circumstance I much regretted, as through his means I should have been enabled to have attended their sittings. The bankers of France are immensely rich, and almost command the treasury of the nation. Mons. P----, with the well-timed, silent submission of the flexible reed, in the fable, has survived the revolutionary storm, which by a good, but guiltless policy, has passed over him, without leaving one stain upon his honourable character, and has operated, like the slime of the Egyptian inundation, only to fructify, and increase his fortunes. He once however narrowly escaped. In the time of Robespierre, the Marquis de Chatelet, a few nights before his execution, attempted to corrupt his guards, and told them, if they would release him, Mons. P---- would give them a draft to any amount which they might choose then to name. The centinels rejected the bribe, and informed their sanguinary employer of the offer, who had the books of Mons. P---- investigated: he was in no shape concerned in the attempted escape; but hearing, with extraordinary swiftness, that the marquis, whose banker he had been, and to whom an inconsiderable balance was then due, had implicated him in this manner, he instantly with dexterity, removed the page which contained the last account of the unhappy nobleman, and also his own destiny, and thus saved his life. Mons. P---- is a widower; his daughter, an only child, is married to a wealthy general, a man of great bravery, and beloved by Bonaparte. I dined this day at the Restaurateur's in the Thuilleries, and found the effect of Madame H----'s charming civility to me. There were some beautiful women present, dressed after the antique, a fashion successfully introduced by David. This extraordinary genius was desirous of dressing the beaux of Paris after the same model; but they politely declined it, alleging that if Mons. David would at the same time create another climate, warmer, and more regular for them, they would then submit the matter to a committee of fashion. The women, though said, in point of corporal sufferance, to be able to endure less than men, were enchanted with the design of the artist, and, without approaching a single degree nearer to the sun, unmindful of colds, consumptions, and death, have assumed a dress, if such it can be called, the airiness of which to the eye of fancy, looked like the mist of incense, undulating over a display of beauty and symmetry, only to be rivalled by those exquisite models of grecian taste which first furnished them with these new ideas of personal decoration. The French ladies every morning anoint their heads with the antique oil, scented; their sidelocks are formed into small circles, which just touch the bosom; and the hair behind is rolled into a rose, by which they produce a perfect copy of the ancient bust. CHAPTER X.