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Did you ever see the first poems of Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry, Les Cris de l'Ame? She used to read them to her very intimate friends, in white, with her hair a good deal down her back. They had some success. Dubufe having painted her as a Duchess, Scheffer depicted her as a Muse.
If the Duchess intended to ecraser Miss Newcome by the superior magnificence of her toilet, she was disappointed. Miss Newcome wore a plain white frock on the occasion, and resumed, Madame d'Ivry said, her role of ingenue for that night.
Being one of the managers of the entertainment, Lord Kew returned to it after conducting Lady Anne and her daughter to their carriage, and now danced with great vigour, and with his usual kindness, selecting those ladies whom other waltzers rejected because they were too old, or too plain, or too stout, or what not. But he did not ask Madame d'Ivry to dance.
At first, M. d'Ivry, that well-conserved nobleman who never would allow that he was not young, exhibited no sign of doubt regarding his own youth except an extreme jealousy and avoidance of all other young fellows. Very likely Madame la Duchesse may have thought men in general dyed their hair, wore stays, and had the rheumatism.
We may be sure the Duchesse d'Ivry offered to condole with her upon Kew's mishap the day after the news arrived at Baden; and, indeed, came to visit her. The old lady had just received other disquieting intelligence. She was just going out, but she bade her servant to inform the Duchess that she was never more at home to the Duchesse d'Ivry.
That pretty figure and complexion which still appear so captivating in M. Dubufe's portrait of Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry, have long existed it must be owned only in paint. "Je la prefere a l'huile," the Vicomte de Florac said of his cousin. "She should get her blushes from Monsieur Dubufe those of her present furnishers are not near so natural."
The Queen of Scots was surrounded by the chief part of her court, saving of course MM. Castillonnes and Punter absent on service. "How we pity you, madame!" Blackball and Loder, Cruchecassee and Schlangenbad, assumed sympathetic countenances. Trembling on her cane, the old Countess glared out upon Madame d'Ivry. "I pray you, madame," she said in French, "never again to address me the word.
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.
When her gentleman came, she put me to the door; then she gave me tapes, o oui, she gave me tapes! I cry no more; she has so much made to cry M. le Duc, that it is quite enough of one in a family." So Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry did not weep, even in print, for the loss of her pretty little Antoinette; besides, she was engaged, at that time, by other sentimental occupations.
Lord Kew, however, had been seen walking with her in public, and particularly attentive to her during her brief appearance in the ballroom; and the old Dowager, who regularly attended all places of amusement, and was at twenty parties and six dinners the week before she died, thought fit to be particularly gracious to Madame d'Ivry upon this evening, and, far from shunning the Duchesse's presence or being rude to her, as on former occasions, was entirely smiling and good-humoured.
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