Page:Journal of Conversations with Lord Byron.pdf/71

 ing her defeat, and covering a retreat, a tolerable logician must have always discovered the scrapes she got into. Poor dear Madame de Staël! I shall never forget seeing her one day, at table with a large party, when the busk (I believe you ladies call it) of her corset forced its way through the top of the corset, and would not descend though pushed by all the force of both hands of the wearer, who became crimson from the operation. After fruitless efforts, she turned in despair to the valet de chambre behind her chair and requested him to draw it out, which could only be done by his passing his hand from behind over her shoulder, and across her chest, when, with a desperate effort, he unsheathed the busk. Had you seen the faces of some of the English ladies of the party, you would have been, like me, almost convulsed; while Madame remained perfectly unconscious that she had committed any solecism on la décence Anglaise. Poor Madame de Staël verified the truth of the lines -

She thought like a man, but, alas! she felt like a woman; as witness the episode in her life with Monsieur Rocca, which she dared not avow. (I mean her marriage with him,) because she was more jealous, of her reputation as a writer than a