These general descriptions, are, after all, very vague. Here I have written half a sheet with a picture in my mind of which you are getting no semblable idea. Language is a mere skeleton of such things. The _Academie Royale_ should be borne over the water like the chapel of Loretto, and set down in Broadway with all its lights, music, and people, to give you half a notion of the "_Bal en faveur des Pauvres_." And so it is with everything except the little histories of one's own personal atmosphere, and that is the reason why egotism should be held virtuous in a traveller, and the reason why one cannot study Europe at home.
After getting our American party places, I abandoned myself to the strongest current, and went in search of "lions." The first face that arrested my eye was that of the Duchess D'Istria, a woman celebrated here for her extraordinary personal beauty.
Directly opposite this lovely dutchess, in the other stage-box, sat Donna Maria, the young Queen of Portugal, surrounded by her relatives. The ex-empress, her mother, was on her right, her grandmother on her left, and behind her some half dozen of her Portuguese cousins. She is a little girl of twelve or fourteen, with a fat, heavy face, and a remarkably pampered, sleepy look. She was dressed like an old woman, and gaped incessantly the whole evening. The box was a perfect blaze of diamonds. I never before realized the beauty of these splendid stones. The necks, heads, arms, and waists of the ladies royal were all streaming with light. The necklace of the empress mother particularly flashed on the eye in every part of the house. By the unceasing exclamations of the women, it was an unusually brilliant show, even here. The little Donna has a fine, well-rounded chin; and when she smiled in return to the king's bow, I thought I could see more than a child's character in the expression of her mouth. I should think a year or two of mental uneasiness might let out a look of intelligence through her heavy features. She is likely to have it, I think, with the doubtful fortunes that seem to beset her.
I met Don Pedro often in society before his departure upon his expedition. He is a short, well-made man, of great personal accomplishment, and a very bad expression, rather aggravated by an unfortunate cutaneous eruption. The first time I saw him, I was induced to ask who he was, from the apparent coldness and dislike with which he was treated by a lady whose beauty had strongly arrested my attention. He sat by her on a sofa in a very crowded party, and seemed to be saying something very earnestly, which made the lady's Spanish eyes flash fire, and brought a curl of very positive anger upon a pair of the loveliest lips imaginable. She was a slender, aristocratic-looking creature, and dressed most magnificently. After glancing at them a minute or two, I made up my mind that, from the authenticity of his dress and appointments, he was an Englishman, and that she was some French lady of rank whom he was particularly annoying with his addresses. On inquiry, the gentleman proved to be Don Pedro, and the lady the Countess de Lourle, _his sister_! I have often met her since, and never without wondering how two of the same family could look so utterly unlike each other. The Count de Lourle is called the Adonis of Paris. He is certainly a very splendid fellow, and justifies the romantic admiration of his wife, who married him clandestinely, giving him her left hand in the ceremony, as is the etiquette, they say, when a princess marries below her rank. One can not help looking with great interest on a beautiful creature like this, who has broken away from the imposing fetters of a royal sphere, to follow the dictates of natural feeling. It does not occur so often in Europe that one may not sentimentalize about it without the charge of affectation.