form of a Pauline Bonaparte, and remain undistinguished in the crowd, if her chaperon lets her dress like a dowdy; and she may come of the gentlest blood, and be excluded from good company, if her lustre is clouded by the vulgarity of this all-important mistress of the ceremonies. If, indeed, a girl be rich, riches may excuse a good deal-even a frump of a dowager for a chaperon: but then, if that dowager understands not her business, or neglects what belongs to her calling, the heiress will as little fetch her value in the market as an old picture in the hands of a modest auctioneer.

A perfect chaperon is a character comprising so many qualifications, that unless nature and fortune combine to give the world assurance of the thing, it is ninety-nine times in the hundred un rôle manqué. The happiest dispositions may be rendered worthless, by want of sufficient influence in the beau monde; and all the advantages of rank, wealth, and fashion, may be thrown away upon an idiot, or a poco-curante. To be an efficient chaperon requires varied knowledge, quick perceptions, great presence of mind, perseverance, promptitude, and a perfect abnegation of self. A chaperon should be a little Machiavelli in her way; artful to plot herself, and clever at unravelling the plots of "fearful adversaries." She must understand all the different modes of setting matrimonial traps for "good men ;" and she must be vigilant to avoid falling into the traps of men who are not good. Her place in society must be decided, and her fashion undisputed. She must not owe her entré at Almack's to favour and intrigue; still less must she be excluded, like the Duchess of N- for irredeemable mauvais ton. Being in the world, she must know all who move in it: she must have a nose for an heir at his most distant approach; and nerve to cut a younger brother, or a marching ensign, under the most unpropitious circumstances. In dress, she should be a deeper connoisseur than a Victorine or an Herbot; and she must know how to combine to a nicety the maximum adaptation to personal peculiarities, with the minimum departure from the banalities of fashion. In ethics, she must be a second Aristotle; fully alive to the atrocity of cheese, and sensitively abhorrent of the vice of malt drink. She must be able to direct her charge in the minutest particulars of established etiquette. She must know how many grapes a lady should eat at the horticultural breakfast; and at what precise moment it is safe to enter an opera-box. Never should she suffer the female committed to her care to be entrapped into cordiality, even with a first cousin; nor allow her to indulge in the impropriety of refusing a glass of wine, when properly solicited.* Above all things, however, she must know how to regulate her own conduct, and to hit the precise line which separates the doing ample justice to her charge, from that obvious and indelicate pushing forward of beauties and pretensions, which at once marks her own roture, and sets all well-disposed beaux upon their self-defence. Forewarned is fore-armed; and nothing so effectually spoils a game, as too obviously to play the whole of it. The neglect of this golden rule is the besetting sin of underbred chaperons, especially with such as have passed their lives in a garrison-town, who are apt at every turn to exclaim to "Tom of ours," or "Will of yours," I can't think what you men are about!"

It is a great pity this custom is going out. The drinking wine with a lady was a marvellous help to bashful bachelors.

or, "It's a great shame you don't take to yourself a wife!"—or, "Look at that lovely creature, with her two thousand pounds, dying for a husband!" while the poor girl is ready to sink into the earth with confusion; and the said Tom or Will sneers and takes snuff, and drawls out "Tenth arn't connubial." This is showing your cards to the whole table, and wondering that you don't make the odd trick. Less common is the opposite fault of indifference to the matrimonial interests of the chaperonée, of awkwardly letting slip good opportunities, and losing a fish for want of giving him sufficient line. In such cases, much may be done by an appropriate dinner, a judicious dance to a piano-forte, or a well-timed pick-nick to Windsor Forest, just as the gudgeon rises to the hook. Many a fine girl is bolted, unsuspectingly, with a sandwich; and many a match that stuck in the throat, finally washed down with a glass of champagne.

It is a terrible oversight to commit a debutante to the care of a chaperon who has not yet resigned all remaining pretensions of her own. A dull suspense from all personal pleasures and pains is essential to the functions of a chaperon. Your middle-aged lady, if she cares to make herself agreeable, is ever an overmatch for the chits of girls, and infallibly throws them into the back ground: first, because she has more conversation; secondly, because it is of a freer description; thirdly, because she takes more pains to interest her man; fourthly, because there is more to be expected from her; and "lastly and to conclude," because she is a safer speculation. Let such a chaperon's intentions be as pure as friendship can desire, human nature will prevail, self will take the precedence, and female vanity will not abandon an innocent flirtation of its own, to draw out Missey, and fix the wandering attention of the beaux upon the silent doll who sits mum-chance and neglected at a corner of the sofa. For similar reasons your wit makes but an indifferent chaperon. She invites the men to admire her protégée, but she retains them to admire herself. Madame Recamier, beautiful as she was, had no chance in the society of her friend Madame de Stael; much less will a simpering, dancing, blushing beauty of sixteen, be able to make head against the attraction of brilliant conversation, even in a chaperon of five and forty. "Once, and but once," have I known a chaperon turn her wit to good account, using it always as subservient to the great end of her being; and only entrapping her listeners to provide partners for her young friends. In this she succeeded to admiration; and no female in the whole season wore out so many silk shoes as the much-envied protégées of this very vivacious lady. But the worst of all possible chaperons is a regular blue; for, none but the worst sort of men will venture to approach her. Dulness lies like lead upon her society. Even methodism is better than this; for provided a girl has but a little money, the Methodists are a "connubial" sect. There is indeed seldom a want of young parsons of all creeds, "pale, mild, and interesting," or fresh-coloured and presuming. A sectarian husband is better than no husband at all. With the blue-stocking chaperon, marriage is out of the question; unless a girl is fool enough to run off with the footman ; or, what is worse, with some hungry inditer of good matters, ycleped "gorgeous poetry." If love flies out of the window, when poverty comes in at the door, it will be glad to escape, even up the chimney, from the pedantry and pretension of a true Lady Di Indigo. It is also a desperate speculation to trust a girl to a chaperon who has daughters

of her own. Seldom, indeed, will such persons undertake the charge. Mothers have a rooted dislike to other people's married daughters, and feel no affront so sensibly as their getting the start in the market of Hymen. When the offer is made by a mother to take your daughter out " with her own girls," be sure that nothing is intended but to obtain a foil for them. Even on these terms, the intruder is not safe; for though maternal vanity will rest satisfied of the general superiority of its own precious brood, yet a girl seamed with the small-pox may have good teeth, or a fine voice, or she may dance well, or be engaging; and unspeakable is the jealousy which this will breed in the bosom of a genuine mamma, when displayed to the detriment of her own children. The rivalry of opera singers is nothing to that of mothers; and a chaperon, so situated, must be another Griselda to abstain from dressing the stranger with the sole view of heightening her daughters' charms by the force of contrast. At best the protégée is second only in consideration, and must be contented to sit still till her companions are all amply provided with partners. But if the men should show an unlucky preference, and bestow upon her an unforeseen exclusive attention, indifference will be turned to hate, and a thousand sly artifices will be tried to spoil her market. The part of a chaperon requires more virtue than can well be expected from humanity, even where no such sinister interest stands in the way. If it be hard for a young chaperon to play second fiddle, it is no less so for an old one to run the rounds of dissipation, and to sit up, night after night, without any personal object. Generally, persons thus circumstanced take refuge in cards. But this is by no means to be justified. A card-playing chaperon is as bad as no chaperon at all. While she is coquetting with great Cas, who knows but her young charge may fall into the possession of a country curate, or an attorney's clerk, who, to gratify his own vanity, will parade her through the whole room without mercy; and then her reputation for bon ton is gone for ever; to say nothing of the risk of a serious attachment, where the girl's education has been so far neglected, as not to have rooted out all natural affection. Not, however, but that cards, judiciously managed, may be turned to good account. They afford an excellent excuse for a convenient absence, when the charge is in proper hands, and it is desirable to give the man an opportunity. Voltaire, in the preface to his "Catiline," observes that "personne ne conspire aujourdhui, et tout le monde aime," a curious contrast with the present state of France, by the by. But if times are completely changed in that country, they are no less so in England; and, in a certain sense, we may say also in London, that "personne n'aime aujourdhui, et tout le monde conspire." There are more conspiracies to marry than love matches, -a thousand to one; and this makes the part of a chaperon the more difficult to discharge. The line to be observed in bringing out a girl differs materially, according to her fortune and expectations. Girls of wealth and consideration have a right to look high, and should never be suffered to derogate from that lofty, composed, and compassed demeanour, which belongs to the suprême bon genre. But where there are "no mopuses," and "my face is my fortune, Sir, said she," some dash is admissible. The dress may be a little flaunting, the behaviour a little free, and dancing after supper may be carried to a farther extent than is becoming in young women who can trust with safety to their three per cents, or have a husband snugly impounded

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within the ring-fence of their dirty acres. There is something ominous in the very word. For girls that have a desperate game to play, after supper dancing has its merit. Towards half-past two in the morning, caution is off its guard, and bashfulness begins to thaw. At that "witching hour," the most wary of coxcombs may so far commit himself as to justify a chaperon in asking the next morning, what are his precise intentions? This, however, is a position which requires the utmost circumspection. If the husband is not carried by a coup de main, Missey will soon be set down as a mere flirt; and then, matrimony and she will never enter into the same complex idea. There are always plenty of prudent mothers to point out the impropriety of such behaviour, in a market where every one is engaged in puffing her own wares, and decrying those of her neighbours. Lorsque vous entrez," says Madame Geoffrin, "dans un salon, que vôtre vanité fasse la révérence à celle des autres, si vous voulez avoir dans le monde quelque succès." This may do at Paris, where ladies do not "come out" till they are married: but if a chaperon were to act herself, or suffer her protégée to act on such a principle, she would ill discharge her professional duties. So far from doing the honours by other people's vanity, her especial business is to triumph over them all, and to avail herself of every opportunity to gain an advantage without the slightest reference to the feelings of others. If her pupil sings well, the chaperon's object is to obtain for her the monopoly of the piano-forte, though she reduce Pasta herself to silence. If her charge cannot sing, she should not scruple to interrupt Sontag, to make way for a waltz or a party at small plays. To place the girl in the proper carriage on a party of pleasure, or to seat her next the proper person at table, decency and the Red Book may be equally violated: and to obtain her end, she should out-manoeuvre a Napoleon. If the man to be seduced into matrimony has attached himself to another belle, the chaperon should break the obnoxious tête à tête by a well-conceived movement, and politely give him no peace till she has brought him into the desired contact with the object of her care. Nothing is so disgraceful to a chaperon as to have her charge remain long on hand; and if, after a winter or two, nothing is done, it remains only to change the scene. A large economy on such occasions is therefore the most profitable. It is a fit opportunity for launching an elegant carriage; for taking an elegant villa; for giving singularly elegant parties; and, in short, for doing every thing in the most elegant way. The only nicety in the case is, to provide that a bankruptcy does not precede the wedding-day. When such a misfortune is to be dreaded, let the chaperon set out on a Continental tour. It is wonderful how young men take to marrying at Florence and at Rome. There are no clubs, nor race-courses, nor fives-courts to draw them off on the Continent; and provided you can keep your man out of the clutches of foreign countesses of forty, and preserve them from the temptations of les coulisses, you are sure of your mark: besides, being abroad warrants such intimacy! When a skilful and fashionable chaperon has done her part, a small stock of accomplishments, &c. &c. will go very far. When once a girl becomes the fashion, she is asked to all parties, and is always noticed by the best men. This last advantage weighs more with marrying bachelors than all the beauty in the world. There are certain individuals whose attentions are so decisive of female reputation, that their fiat is fate; but

then, such men are not to be obtained without great means and sacrifices. Aunts have been known to intrigue with these favourites of fashion solely to obtain their notice of their nieces. These, it must be confessed, are pains-taking chaperons not to be met with every day. It is not necessary that such supreme gentlemen should themselves be disposed to commit matrimony. Indeed, they are not always the parties" possessed of every ingredient for making the married state happy" but, like too many of the clergy, generally mere "guideposts," pointing to the road they never take themselves. To have such men in her train is the glory of a chaperon; and with "their advice and their assistance," they rarely fail in obtaining an early match for the object of their attentions. Where this cannot be effected, the labour of the chaperon is proportionably arduous, and her dexterity more put to the proof. But the course of these exertions cannot be detailed in the fag-end of a long paper. Suffice it that, during the exercise of her functions, there is no life so little enjoying, no servitude so anxious as that of a chaperon; and I may add, no task so thankless. She has too often reason to say to herself, "All you have done has been but for a wayward (child), who, as others do, loves for her own ends, not for you." The chaperon makes more enemies in saving a froward girl from herself, and defeating the schemes of self-interested adventurers, than any friendship can compensate; and when she has provided and perfected a suitable match, the happy lady will still look back with complacency on the handsome young Irishman her friend had baffled, and owe her no kindness for her care. It is no wonder, then, that a perfect chaperon should be a rara avis. A mother's feelings alone afford sufficient motives for carrying them through the task; but then, how few mothers possess the required nous; and of these few, scarce one in ten has the rank, wealth and fashion necessary to give effect to her savoirfaire. M.

SKETCHES OF PARISIAN SOCIETY, POLITICS, & LITERATURE.

To the Editor of the New Monthly Magazine.

Paris, July 23, 1828.

THE recently published Memoirs of Count Stanislas de Girardin have been much read. The amiable author, who was a man of considerable fortune, died about a year ago. He was one of the most amusing members of our Chamber of Deputies. His witty and satirical eloquence always appeared to me to resemble that of Sheridan. M. de Girardin styled himself a pupil of J. J. Rousseau, because he had seen that celebrated man two or three times at his father's beautiful estate of Ermenonville, where M. Girardin's father had given him an asylum, and where he died in 1778.

Having lately described the young men of Paris, I may add, that the class of men between the age of thirty and sixty is characterized by an almost utter absence of transcendant talent. M. de Talleyrand, who is in his seventy-third year, is of course an exception. We have plenty of men who are entirely free from prejudice; for, in general, a Frenchman turned of thirty believes only what is well supported by proof. We have plenty of men of wit, who are exceedingly entertaining in the drawing-room, and who make very good speeches in the Chamber of Deputies. M. Stanislas de Girardin was one of the eight or ten men most distinguished for talent in Paris; yet his Memoirs, just published, and which are the production of his own pen, are exceedingly flat and uninteresting. M. Girardin relates events