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    MADAME SWJSTCHINE. 381

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    — I .— In Our Last Number We Reviewed Th...

    During this year a close correspondence was kept up _between Madame Swetehine and the Duchesse de Duras , full of the tender

    epistolarygossip of those days ; they give the reader a very _jxleasant idea of these great ladies and their circle , though too full of passing

    allusion to "bear extraction . The names of dukes and princesses , of churchmen and soldiers , statesmen and authors , are scattered thick

    as blackberries over every correspondence undertaken by Madame Swetehine ; Humboldt and Chateaubriand , Lafayette and the De

    Noailles enter the stage and pass off it , in the daily intercourse described in these letters by Madame de Duras . Humboldt is mentioned

    as having * crossed the channel for a fortnight to see his brother ; where he becomes a witness to ' the frightful grief in which the

    death of the poor young Princess Charlotte has plunged England . Those are fine public institutions in which such a loss is felt as a

    misfortune , without materially affecting the political condition of the country . Such a state of things is of itself a sufficient

    eulogiurn . on constitutional government / The years 1823 and 1824 found Madame Swetehine in Italy , and numerous letters describe her inrpressions of Home , Florence , and

    Turin ; they are , however , too much like those of all other travellers to warrant translation : and we proceed to her permanent

    establishment in Paris in the spring * of 1825 . It was at 71 , Rue Saint-Dominiquea long street running parallel with the Seine in the

    , Faubourg St . Germain , that General Swetehine fixed his residence ; and here for thirty years his wife assembled some of the best society

    in Paris . She sent to liussia for a selection of the pictures , bronzes , and articles in porcelain which had formed the collection of her father ,

    and fitted up a drawing-room and library overlooking the gardens of that and contiguous hotels ; and therein created a circle which

    had many distinct peculiarities compared to the salons of the day . It was neither a school of thought nor a literary coterie ; its charm

    "" and central link consisted in the sweet even nature of the hostess , in her fine sense and tact , and power of harmonising the most

    diverse natures . Masculine in her power of intellect , she was nevertheless always womanly in nature , and her abnegation of self was

    neither feigned nor studied . She lived first of all in the lives of others , then in public events , and only remembered herself after

    having been occupied by all the world ; she made people look at selfishness with disgust , merely by showing them the beauty of the

    opposite , virtue . She was eminently religious , without losing social breadth ; and a dear lover of science and knowledge for their

    intrinsic sakes , without any pretension for her own . As a politician she was firmly and profoundly monarchical , but

    ever on her guard against all tendencies to absolute power . She recognised two essential conditions of good government ; one , that

    the governing authority should possess a national and popular root , and should represent tlie people without in any way arrogating the

    right to absorb or confiscate it ; secondly , that the consecration of

    Madame Swjstchine. 381

    MADAME _SWJSTCHINE . 381

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1860, page 381, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081860/page/21/