Page:Maria Edgeworth (Zimmern 1883).djvu/78

66 took the peach which formed the base of the pyramid, and the rest fell immediately. "Rousseau," said she, "that is what yon always do with all cur systems: yon pull down with a single touch; hut who will build up what you pull down?" I asked if be was grateful for all the kindness shown to him? "No, he grateful; be bad a thousand had qualities, but I turned my attention from them to his genius and the good he had done mankind."

La Harpe was visited in his own home:—

An interesting visit was also paid to Madame de Genlis:—

She had previously written to say she would be glad to be personally acquainted with Mr. and Miss Edgeworth. She lives—where do you think?—where Sully used to live, at the Arsenal. Buonaparte has given her apartments there. Now, I do not know what you imagine in reading Sully's memoirs, but I always imagined that the Arsenal was one large building with a facade to it. like a very large hotel or a palace, and I fancied it was somewhere in the middle of Paris. On the contrary, it is quite in the suburbs. We drove on and on, and at last we came to a heavy archway, like what you see at the entrance to a fortified town. We drove under it for the length of three or four yards in total darkness, and then we found ourselves, as well as we could see by the light of some dim lamps, in a large square court surrounded by buildings: hero we thought we wore to alight. No such thing: tho coachman drove under another thick archway, lighted at the entrance by a single lamp. We found ourselves in another court, and still we went on, archway after archway, court after court, in all which reigned desolate silence. I thought the archways and the courts and the desolate silence would never end. At last tho coachman stopped, and asked for the tenth time where the lady lived. It is excessively difficult to find people in Paris; we thought the names of Madame de Genlis and the Arsenal would have been sufficient; but tho whole of this congregation of courts and gateways and houses is called the