Maria Edgeworth

“ The three first days we were here M. de Prony and Count de Brennar were the only guests, the Count only for one day. M. de Prony is enough without any other person to keep the most active mind in conversation of all sorts, scientific, literary, humorous. He is less changed than any of our friends. His humour and good-humour are really delightful; he is, as Madame de Vindé says, the most harmless good creature that ever existed; and he has had sense enough to stick to science and keep clear of politics, always pleading "qu'il n'etait bon qu'à cela." ”

“ Hands are washed at the side-table; coffee is in the saloon: men and women all gathering round the table as of yore. But I should observe, that a great change has taken place; the men huddle together now in France as they used to do in England, talking politics with their backs to the women in a corner, or even in the middle of the room, without minding them in the least, and the ladies complain and look very disconsolate, and many ask, "If this be Paris?" and others scream ultra nonsense or liberal nonsense, to make themselves of consequence and to attract the attention of the gentlemen. ”

“ The drive there was delicious: we found her with her Sophie, now a matron mother with her Caroline, like what Madame Gautier and her Sophie were in that very room eighteen years ago. All the Delessert family that remain were assembled except Benjamin, who was detained by business in Paris. Madame Benjamin is very handsome, nearer the style of Mrs. Admiral Pakenham than anybody I know; François the same as you saw him, only with the additional crow's-feet of eighteen years, sobered into a husband and father, the happiest I ever saw in France. ”

“ One day he asked the master of the woods at Fontainebleau, "How many acres of wood are here?" The master, an honest man, stopped to recollect. "Bah!" and the under-master came forward and said any number that came into his head. Buonaparte immediately took the mastership from the first, and gave it to the second. "Qu'arrivait-il?" continued Prony; "the rogue who gave the guess answer was soon found cutting down and selling quantities of the trees, and Buonaparte had to take the rangership from him, and reinstate the honest hesitater."
Prony is, you know, one of the most absent men alive. ”

“ Harriet was on the off-side, and every now and then he turned to her in the midst of his anecdotes, and made her completely one of us; and there was such a prodigious noise nobody could hear but ourselves. Both Cuvier and Prony agreed that Buonaparte never could bear to have any answer but a decided answer. "One day," said Cuvier, "I nearly ruined myself by considering before I answered. He asked me, 'Faut-il introduire le sucre de betrave en France?' 'D'abord, Sire, il faut songer si vos colonies——' 'Faut-il avoir le sucre de betrave en France?' 'Mais, Sire, il faut examiner——' 'Bah! ”

“ Prony says that Buonaparte was not obstinate in his own opinion with men of science about those things of which he was ignorant; but he would bear no contradiction in tactics or politics.
May 29.
Madame Recamier has no more taken the veil than I have, and is as little likely to do it. She is still beautiful, still dresses herself and her little room with elegant simplicity, and lives in a convent [1] only because it is cheap and respectable. M. Recamier is living; they have not been separated by anything but misfortune. ”

“ Everybody, of every degree of rank or talent, who has read the Memoirs, speaks of them in the most gratifying and delightful manner. Those who have fixed on individual circumstances have always fixed on those which we should have considered as most curious. ”

“ Carriages come round about twelve, and we drive about seeing places in the neighbourhood—afterwards go to our own rooms or to the salon, or play billiards or chess. Dinner is at half-past five; no luncheon and no dressing for dinner. ”

“ And he divided the labour among two hundred men, who knew no more than the simple rules of arithmetic, whom he assembled in one large building, and there these men-machines worked on, and the tables are now complete. ”

“ She was at her easel, copying very well a portrait of Madame de Grignan, and it was a very agreeable half-hour. Lady de Ros and her daughter are very agreeable people. She has asked Fanny to meet her three times a week, at the Riding-House, where she goes to take exercise. ”