obstinate old men, or fanciful old women;-the Mrs. Makepeace, in short, of both the court and the city.

"But to attain this singular ascendancy," methinks we hear our readers resume, "this woman must have been extraordinarily beautiful; or backed by great advantages of birth and fortune?"

So far from it, that she is recorded to have been, from her earliest youth, the ugliest woman ever beheld. She knew it, and took pleasure in adverting on all occasions to her own unseemliness. "I am the only woman in the world," she used to say, "who have accepted with a courtesy those two grievous misfortunes, called ugliness and old age." With regard to her origin, Madame Pilau was the daughter of one obscure attorney, and married to another. She appears to have been born about the year 1580;-for at the coronation of Louis XIV., in 1654, at which she figured, she was more than seventy years of age. A small fortune, bequeathed to her by a certain Madame la Fosse, a rich widow of no great reputation, afforded her the means of mixing in society; and her gay humour and serviceable disposition, soon rendered her a general favourite! Her husband's residence was in the Rue St. Antoine, containing, at that time a considerable number of the hotels of the highest aristocracy, and closely adjoining the Place Royale; so that, inhabiting the most fashionable quarter of the town, she was in some sort intermingled with the great world.

The ladies of the Place Royale (the Grosvenor-square of Paris, during the reign of Louis XIII.) did not enjoy the most unsullied reputation; and if we are to believe the songs, and Pont Neufs of her day, Madame Pilau, who, from her extreme ugliness was exempt from all suspicion of gallantry, passed for being an evil counsellor to those younger and handsomer than herself. It was said or sung of the beautiful Madame de Maison, first, that she was no longer so cruel,

"Depuis qu'elle fût à St.Cloud
Avec Madame Pilau ;"

and of the celebrated Madame de Chalais we learn,

"Brian Sanpire

Et n'ose dire

A la Chalais qu'elle fait son martyre,

Un moment sans la voir lui semble une heure

Et Madame Pilau veut qu' il en meure."

The good lady herself, however, seems to have greatly resented, and completely exculpated herself from such accusations.

"It is not my fault," she observed publicly to the Bishop of Langres, at a great dinner at his house," that the morals of the Place Royale are at so low an ebb. When first admitted to the society of Madame de Rohan and her set, which I find remarkably agreeable, I soon saw that a woman who had so little birth or beauty to recommend her, would be voted insupportable if she set up for a rigid moralist, and was always intruding her lectures. Those who see me on terms of familiarity with these gay ladies, are charitable enough to suppose that I am at heart no better than the rest; whereas, if the truth were known, it would be found that I have kept more of them out of mischief, than they care to admit.”

On her own showing, however, we perceive that Madame Pilau's advice chiefly regarded the propriety of keeping up appearances. Prudence and not virtue was the one thing needful.

"Why in the world must you commit yourself by writing to your lover?" was her inquiry of Madame de Castille, and a circle of her giddy associates.

"Because without an interchange of letters, we should feel that we were entertaining them no better than chambermaids!" was their reply.

A correspondence was at that time an affair of first-rate pedantry. Most of these thoughtless women belonged eventually to the set of the Hotel Rambouillet; to deride whose pretensions to wit, Molière wrote his inimitable comedy of "Les Précieuses Ridicules."

Madame Pilau was a prodigious favourite with the Cardinal de Richelieu, who appreciated her strong natural sense, and was amused by her anecdotes concerning the great families of France. As far as her bon mots have reached our time, they consist in straightforward exposition of the plainest truths, in language far from refined. Anne of Austria, who often invited her into her private circle, used to laugh heartily at her sallies; and during a dangerous illness, by which the old lady was attacked fifteen years previous to her death, both the king and the queen-mother used to call daily at her door to make personal inquiries on their way from Vincennes to the Louvre.

Her bosom friend, the Princesse de Guéménée, used to say to the queen, "Make Madame Pilau divert your majesty with such and such an anecdote," alluding to various stories she had been heard to recount at the arsenal, which was the resort of all the wits and fashion of the day.

During the troubles of the Fronde, the inhabitants of the quarter St. Antoine were in the greatest consternation in the expectation of a blockade. Madame Pilau hurried to the President de Chévry for his advice, who assured her that the enemy would indeed force their entrance by the Porte St. Antoine, and that their cannon would be so placed as to sweep the whole street.

"Never mind," said Madame Pilau; "in that case, I will creep into the crooked cross-streets."

The President at length succeeded, however, in persuading her to decamp from her house; and as her husband had been many years bedridden, she took an affectionate leave of him previous to her departure.

"I am forced to take myself off to the other end of the town," said she. "You, my dear good man, have nothing to fear. When the troops come into your room, you have only to close your eyes and pretend to be dead."

This ruse perfectly succeeded. A few years afterwards Pilau departed this life in reality, leaving his widow in such easy circumstances, that she was thenceforward called "Pilau the Dowager."

She had one son who was of a devout turn of mind. They resided together; and instead of making a display of their wealth, gave away large sums in charity to the poor. When her son injured his health by the strictness of his devotional practices, Madame Pilau exclaimed,

"What can you mean, my dear Robert, by all these efforts? Do you want to go a step beyond paradise?"

In all respects, her son was a source of annoyance to her. Her house and establishment were models of neatness and elegance, and visited by the first society of the court; but the dirty habits of Robert Pilau often put matters into confusion.

"Don't worry yourself, mother; I shall improve as I grow older," said the sloven; and he was then in the fifty-third year of his age.

His mother once made him a present of a handsome winter mantle, which accorded so ill with the rest of his dress, that he was taken for a thief who had made away with a rich cloak, and so severely beaten in the street that his life was despaired of. Robert Pilau made it his last request that those by whom he had been injured might not be prosecuted. Being nearly as eccentric as his mother, he had made an enormous collection of invitations to funerals-the billets d'enterrement still in use among the French.

Madame Pilau was occasionally diverted in public, by overhearing exclamations of horror at her extreme ugliness.

"Ah! my pretty lady," she would reply, "I have worn better than you will. Such as I am now, I was at fifteen. Which of you, at seventy years of age, will be able to say as much?"

In the "Clélie" of Mademoiselle de Scudery, she figures under the name of Arricidie, as a person of singular philosophy, but the highest merit. On visiting the authoress a short time after the publication of the work she observed, "You must be indeed a woman of genius, for you have converted an old rag into cloth of gold."

Madame Pilau was frequently applied to by families of distinction. to undertake explanations requiring more than usual firmness and presence of mind. The Duchess d'Aumont used to say, "When Madame Pilau is no more, how will people ever obtain justice from their relations?" Nothing, however, would ever induce her to recommend a servant or a tradesperson; "offices," she said, "in which people were sure to disoblige all parties." Her functions, indeed, were of a far higher order. When the Duc de Tresmes, at eighty years of age, was on the point of death, no one could induce him to perform the customary offices of religion. His son, the Marquis de Gesvres, consequently addressed himself to Madame Pilau, who visited the sick man, and, though insulted by his physicians, who bade her "hold her preaching," persevered till she succeeded.

She was also frequently selected to undertake the charge of large sums of money for her friends. On one occasion she missed five hundred livres from a sum thus deposited, and thought proper to discharge a favourite servant, the only person besides herself who had access to it, and who chose to resent her inquiries. It afterwards appeared that the owner of the money had returned furtively, and carried off the missing sum, which he had placed in a small bag expressly for the purpose of theft, as remorse eventually urged him to confess. Madame Pilau immediately recalled her servant. "I paid you handsomely on dismissing you," said she, "that it might not be said I picked a quarrel with one of my household as a pretext for a shabby action. I now give you a pension for life of two hundred livres, in atonement of an Dec.-VOL. LVII. NO. CCXXVIII. 2 M

unjust suspicion; and if you choose to return to my service, I will double your wages."

When she was on a visit to the Princesse de Guéménée, at the Chateau of Meudon, Servieu, the surintendant des finances (a man enormously rich and equally influential), gave a magnificent entertainment, to which Madame Pilau accompanied her friends the Rohans. Servieu, enchanted to receive a person so universally known, made her unlimited offers of service.

"Keep your good intentions for those who are in need of them,” she replied." Robert Pilau and I are too well off to stand in need of you. All I request is, that whenever we meet, you will be as gracious as you are at Meudon, for you have nothing to fear from me. I am one of the few persons who never have any thing to ask of you; and am probably the only one in France who dare say so in such plain

terms."

One day, when visiting at the Hôtel de Chaulnes, the duchess did something to offend her. "Because you are a duchess, and I the wife of an attorney, you fancy yourself privileged to be impertinent," cried she; "but either you must treat me with the respect due to your guest, or I will never set foot in your house again. I am independent in mind and circumstances, and care very little to reckon a duchess more or less of my acquaintance." She had scarcely left the hotel when the Duchesse de Chaulnes wrote her a letter of apology couched in the handsomest terms.

Madame Pilau had a similar explanation with Chavigny, then one of the most influential men in the kingdom; who ever afterwards treated her with the utmost deference, and forestalled all her requests. The Cardinal de la Valette, however, whom she offended by her plain speaking, threatened to have her tied upon the bronze horse placed in the centre of the Pont Neuf.

During her widowhood, three different suitors pretended to the hand of Madame Pilau. "But I must do them the justice to add," she used to say in telling the story, "that all three have since died in the Pétites Maisons" (a lunatic asylum). One day the Abbé de Lenoncourt attacked her with ill-timed pleasantries in a large party. "May I inquire, sir, whether you have been condemned to be witty by a decree of parliament ?" said she. Nothing short of that can excuse your attempt." On another occasion the curé of a parish announced a series of sermons from the pulpit against dancing. Madame Pilau paid him a visit and advised him to desist. "You are talking of what you know nothing about," said she. "You have never been to a ball, I have; and can assure you that there is no sin in the matter worth mentioning."

Whenever any droll occurrence took place in Paris, Anne of Austria used to observe, "Madame Pilau would be worth hearing on that subject." On a certain occasion, the Cardinal de Richelieu, aware that Madame Pilau was acquainted with a thousand curious particulars of the life of the President de Chévry, one of the most irregular men of those irregular times, entreated her to favour him with a few anecdotes ; but not a syllable could be extorted from her, as she was apprehensive of doing an injury to the son of the president, who still survived.

A woman of fashion, who was confessing to her that she had a lover, a secretary of legation, seemed inclined to boast that this was a solitary error. "Ma mie!" replied the shrewd old lady, "I see nothing to be proud of. There is more distance between none and one, than between one and a thousand."

At eighty-six years of age, Madame Pilau was near coming to an untimely end, from lighting a taper at a poisoned candle, composed by some lackeys for the purpose of stupefying one of their comrades. The old lady was recovered with some difficulty by the prompt administration of an antidote. Louis XIV. sent his first physician, Monsieur Valot, to attend her during her illness.

Madame Pilau was known by sight by half the population of Paris. When the remains of the Cardinal de Richelieu were lying in state, there was a great confusion among the carriages at the gates of the Palais Royal, which caused much consternation among the ladies. Madame Pilau, who was old and infirm, found herself suddenly lifted off her legs, and carried in the arms of a well-dressed man through the whole suite of apartments. She was the only one of her party who saw any thing. On turning to thank her assistant, "You don't know me," said he, "but you once took an occasion of obliging me, as you have thousands; and I am happy in an opportunity of being useful in return."

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Once, as she was hurrying to a grand church solemnity at the Minimes of the Place Royale, her foot slipped, and she fell into the mud. Her servants wished her to return and change her dress. No, no!" said she, "There will scarcely be a vacant seat at church, and, in my present pickle, every one will be glad to get out of my way." By this means she obtained a seat.

When the Prince de Condé was attacking Paris, in 1652, "Your only object," said she to the prince," is to effect the ruin of Cardinal de Richelieu; and a pretty piece of work you are likely to make of it! All your efforts will only establish him more firmly in power. You put the queen in fear of you; who fancies that, but for the assistance of the cardinal, it would be all over with her."

Madame Pilau survived to an extreme old age: and as she had no capacity for reading or amusing herself at home, she became eventually a nuisance to her acquaintance. The above particulars concerning her are attested by the MSS. of her contemporary and friend, Des Réaux, extant in the Royal library of Paris.