Why, Goneril would have blushed to practise upon the abdicated king at this rate, and the she-wolf Regan not have endured to play the pranks upon his fled wits, which thou hast made thy Quixote suffer in Duchesses' halls, and at the hands of that unworthy nobleman.

Their houses seem to have been what the salons of noble and fascinating duchesses were in France in the last two centuries.

To his house came the noted characters of the day,Mademoiselle de Scudéry the novelist, Marigny the songwriter, Hénault the translator of Lucretius, De Grammont the pet of the court, Chatillon, the duchesses de la Salière and De Sévigné, even Ninon de L'Enclos; all bright and fashionable people, whose wit and raillery were the admiration of the city.

I may tell you, Miss Cohenson, that I've seen two duchesses standing at the back of the aisle of St. Bede's, and glad to be.

There is a house or two in Town where you may meet on certain evenings, everybody; where duchesses and unfledged poets, bishops and red republican refugees, fox-hunting noblemen and briefless barristers who have taken to politics, are jumbled together for a couple of hours, to make what they can out of each other, to the exceeding benefit of them all.

Thus, at the time of a visit of Louis XI., then Dauphin, to the court of Brussels, to which place he went to seek refuge against the anger of his father, the Duchesses of Burgundy, of Charolais, and of Clèves, his near relatives, exhibited towards him all the tokens of submission and inferiority which he might have received from a vassal.

In their everyday intercourse with one another, kings, princes, dukes, and duchesses called one another monsieur and madame, adding the Christian name or that of the estate.

They got Lady Greswold to give their first concert, and enclosed programmes with the invitations, so hardly any of the Duchesses felt they could refuse, Octavia said, when they were certain of hearing the best singers for nothing; and it was a splendid plan, as many concerts have been spoilt by a rumour getting about that Melba was not really going to sing.

Duchesses burned to death!

"Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris Of wrongs from Duchesses and Lady Maries.

The generous God who wit and gold refines, And ripens spirits as he ripens mines, Kept dross for duchesses, the world shall know it, To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet.

After all, duchesses are but women and must love and suffer and be content or miserable like common mortals, and men should be the last to blame them for that divine necessity of their beingsthat of loving and being loved.

In spite of the negotiations already commenced with the Duke of Lorraine, hopes were even held out to the two sons of Elizabeth Farnese, Don Carlos and Don Philip, of obtaining the hands of the arch-duchesses, daughters of the emperor.

There are some English birds which we could not introduce into the feathered society of America, any more than we could import a score of British Dukes and Duchesses, with all their hereditary dignities and grand surroundings, into the very heart and centre of our democracy.

Never was royal blood or the inheritance of a crown threaded through divergent veins to its source with more care and pride than the lineage of these four-footed "princes" and "princesses," "dukes" and "duchesses," and "knights" and "ladies" of the stable and pasture.

Around the table stood the prisoners, these duchesses and marquises, these ladies of the court of Versailles who had preserved their aristocratic manners in the prison, and were even here so strictly observant of etiquette, that those of them who had enjoyed the honor of the tabouret in the Tuileries, were here accorded the same precedence, and all possible consideration shown them.

"The ladies of the old era still retained their tabouret, as well as their grand and little entrée to the Tuileries and the Louvre, and it would have been considered very arrogant if the duchesses of the new era had made claim to similar honors.

The old duchesses and princesses of the Faubourg St. Germain, with all their ancestors, prejudices, and pretensions, were enraged at hearing this everlasting praise of the charming queen, and endeavored to appease their wrath by renewed hostilities against its object.

He now openly declares his resolution to be a gentleman; says that his soul is too great for a counting-house; ridicules the conversation of city taverns; talks of new plays, and boxes and ladies; gives duchesses for his toasts; carries silver, for readiness, in his waistcoat-pocket; and comes home at night in a chair, with such thunders at the door, as have more than once brought the watchmen from their stands.

* There has lately been published one of the most impudent things that ever was printed; it is called "The Irish Register," and is a list of all the unmarried women of any fashion in England, ranked in order, duchesses-dowager, ladies, widows, misses, &c., with their names at length, for the benefit of Irish fortune-hunters, or as it is said, for the incorporating and manufacturing of British commodities.

There is a very good quarrel on foot between two duchesses: she of Queensberry sent to invite Lady Emily Lenox to a ball: her Grace of Richmond, who is wonderfully cautious since Lady Caroline's elopement

The other performers were: the two Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton, who danced little; Lady Effingham and Lady Egremont, who danced much; the six maids of honour; Lady Susan Stewart, as attending Lady Augusta; and Lady Caroline Russel, and Lady Jane Stuart, the only women not of the family.

Having done with all compliments, I have to offer certain articles that never failed to cause the brightest eyes to grow more brilliant, and at which duchesses have gazed with many longings.

" It makes one wonder which of our larger duchesses it was.

And far too large a number of my contemporaries distinguished and undistinguished have been moving in the same direction for it to be at all necessary to say that most assuredly my slowly maturing convictions were neither generated nor fostered by any "graciousness" or other influence of dukes or duchesses or great people of any sort.