ciation, and, finally, prosperity and great- away. You cannot doubt, my dear cousin [writes the Duchesse de Lude shortly afterwards to the Princesse des Ursins] that having lived sixteen years with so estimable a woman as Madame de Maintenon, I am deeply moved by her death. You will recognize her disinterestedness by the fact that she possessed at her death only a sum of 16,000 francs, which was divided between Mesdames de Caylus and de Noailles. She had also about 12,000 francs' worth of silver, which also went between Mesdames de Caylus and de Noailles; the rest, as well as a red damask bed, went to Mademoiselle d'Aumale. As to her two estates, she had already settled them at her marriage on M. de Noailles. Only cation has shown us, therefore, new and 66 From The Cornhill Magazine. GRASSE: ITS PERFUMES AND PICTURES. "GUEUSE PARFUMEE,' or scented slut, is the nickname given to Grasse by the most eminent of its bishops. Two centuries have passed since then, and Grasse, though no longer a "Gueuse," has still an undisputed right to the title of the scented. Madame de Maintenon's correspondence, voluminous as it is, leaves us wholly in the dark as to her motives and conduct in relation to all the most important events of her life. We have ream upon ream about politics and St. Cyr, but as regards the Scarron marriage, the introduction to It is comforting in these days of chemMadame de Montespan, the acquaintance ical surprises, when bright colors and exwith the king-as to what part she played quisite flavors are extracted from the most in these turning-points in her career, we are without a syllable of information.' In repulsive substances, to know that the truth, personal reticence, and, above all, the flowers whose name they bear. A wares of the perfumer do still come from reticence of the heart, are from first to visit to Grasse must remove all doubt last the characteristics of Madame de from the mind of the most sceptical. Maintenon's correspondence. It is sel Flowers are the chief produce of the soil dom that the vibration of a woman's heart and the mainstay of the population. They is not somewhere or other perceptible in her letters. Through their "correspond-ground. Violets carpet the terraces under are grown on every available patch of ence mainly has the world become ac- the olive-trees, while on other terraces quainted with women such as Mesdames de Lafayette, de Sévigné, Angélique Ar- keeps its owner as busy as the poet fangrows the orange-tree. That "busy plant naud, de Lenclos, etc. women whose cied it was itself, for the leaves have to hearts, let it be noticed, whether moved be carefully syringed and wiped every now by human or religious emotion, were al- and again to keep it free from blight. lowed to beat normally. That is the main point. With Françoise d'Aubigné, "pru dence" having at the time of trust and enthusiasm reigned supreme, none of that spontaneous emanation of feeling which is the true "being" with the woman can be expected to spring forth even from her letters. M. Geffroy's highly interesting publiThe Ducheese de Lude had been lady-in-waiting to the Duchesse de Bourgogne, and consequently thrown much in the society of Madame de Maintenon. (Geffroy, vol. ii.. p. 395.) Out in the open country there are fields of jonquil, and of jessamine, and of the muscadine rose, that Rose of Provence, which excels all other roses in fragrance. But the rose and the jessamine lose much of their gracefulness in this field culture. No straggling sprays are allowed to wan der at their own sweet will; they are all caught and pinned down, bent over in hoops close to the ground. There is no scope left the flowers for wasting "their sweetness on the desert poisons from her native Italy. This taste reached its height under Louis Quinze, when Versailles was known as the "Cour parfumée," and etiquette required that every one pretending to fashion must have a different scent every day. Scents were one of the great extravagances of the age, and it is stated that the Pompadour spent on perfumes five hundred thousand francs a year. air" in this region. Every whiff of scent | Medici brought the taste for perfumes and has its money value, and all through the flowering season the stills of the seventy perfumers which the town can boast are busy extracting and bottling up this sweetness for the London and Paris markets. From earliest dawn picturesque figures, with huge discs of straw the size of cartwheels on their heads, and skirts whose roseate hue makes the roses themselves look dingy, are picking away for bare life in the flower fields. Of the violet gath- Grasse has other attractions to boast of erers nothing is to be seen save the hats. besides the flowers and the scenery. In They look like a row of targets set up for an old-fashioned house near. the Cour archery practice. It is only on closer in- there are some pictures which are well spection that you find a figure crouching worth a pilgrimage to visit. These are on all fours picking hard behind the shelter some masterpieces of Fragonard, who was of her headgear. As the flowers are a native of Grasse. He went to Paris picked they are carried in baskets into the and studied under Chardin, Vanloo, and town. The violets refuse to give up their Boucher. With Boucher he soon became scent, like the other flowers, to distillation. a favorite, because he could work fifteen Slabs of slate set in wooden frames are hours a day without fatigue. Fragonard spread thick with hog's lard to receive gained the Prix de Rome and set out to them. On this bed they are scattered, study the great masters. "If you take and the slates are then stacked one above them seriously, you are done for," was the other like the shelves of a cabinet. Boucher's parting warning, and Fragonard The flowers must be renewed three times acted upon it. He said that Raphael and a day, all through the flowering season. Michael Angelo frightened him. So he By that time the lard is permeated with went about a great deal, and saw a great the scent which can then be withdrawn deal of Italian life, but studied not at all. from it into spirit. The orange blossom Thus he returned to Paris with his style is the chief source of wealth in the dis- unaltered. He was a Frenchman to the trict. The season lasts a month, and dur- backbone, and threw himself heart and ing that time flower-picking is the business soul into all the pleasures of a frivolous of life on the farms. So strong is the age, that made the joys of life the chief scent that it sometimes overpowers the end of existence. He gained admission pickers, and brings on prolonged fainting to the Academy by one serious effort, fits. The famous neroli is the concen- which called forth a ponderous éloge from trated essence of the orange flower. A Diderot. But he found a shorter cut to kilogramme of blossom yields one gramme or a thousandth part of its weight in neroli, which is the chief ingredient in eau-de-Cologne. Sixty thousand francs' worth of neroli go to Cologne from Grasse yearly. To meet this demand two hundred thousand kilos of blossoms are used up. Much of the so-called attar of roses is made here also, and finds its way from Grasse to Paris vid Constantinople, where it is transferred to the familiar gilt glass bottles that seem to certify its Eastern origin. The productions of Grasse are the premières matières or raw materials of perfume. They are much manipulated in Paris before they reach the public, and the favorite bouquets are really produced by a cunning mixture of the esssences of many flowers. As the scent of flowers must be extracted where they grow, Grasse has a long lease of the monopoly of the perfume trade, which it has enjoyed ever since Catherine de' fame by becoming the favored lover of the celebrated danseuse Guimard. This Squelette des Graces, so called because she was ugly, black, and thin, had all the beau monde of Paris sighing at her feet. From among them she singled out Fragonard. He painted her as the dancing Muse, for her new theatre, which she called the Temple of Terpsichore. The portrait gave her great delight, and she invited friends to a private view. Meanwhile the lovers had had a quarrel, and Fragonard, out of pique, had effaced the smile of the Muse, and replaced it by the head of a Fury, with a striking likeness to the original. It was this startling caricature that Guimard found herself facing when the doors were thrown open and the work of Fragonard revealed. Rage at the mortifying sur prise made the likeness more striking, and the friends who came to admire could not restrain a laugh. The breach thus made was too wide to be healed, and the painter was discarded. But it mattered little to | and he would hold no communication with him now, for he had become the fashion. the intruder except through an interpreter, No boudoir of the period was complete without some work from his brush. His pictures were eagerly competed for, and his prices were absurdly high. When he was at the zenith of his fame, the Dubarry commissioned from him the pictures now at Grasse, for the decoration of a salon in her château at Luciennes. Fragonard painted them when on a visit to his native town. There are four large canvases to cover the walls and smaller pieces to put over the doors. The theme, as usual, is love. They set forth the four stages of a romance, said to be taken from the life of Louis Quinze. The figures are set in a garden scene, with the picturesque adjuncts of fountains and balustrades. The coloring is bright, the figures very graceful, and the execution full of freedom and vigor. The storm of the Revolution burst before the pictures were sent home, and they still hang in the house where they were painted, and from which they have never been removed. Thus the "ill wind" that destroyed art treasures all over France was the means of preserving those of Grasse. and the whole household were kept on tenter-hooks to avert the flare-up which they felt would come from a personal encounter with the count. Their mother took a different line. Her policy was one of conciliation. In mature middle age she learnt French that she might talk to the count in his own language. As for the children, they gathered a daily harvest of dainties from the count's dessert. If they could escape their father's eye they devoured these in safety, all except the ices which the anxious mother intercepted. Such things had never been seen in simple Frankfort before, and she felt sure that no human stomach could digest them. The count himself was an interesting study for young Goethe. He was a tall, dark, dignified man, more like a Spaniard than a Frenchman, giving a witty turn to his decisions in the quarrels daily brought before him, and yet subject to fits of gloom during which he would see no one, and which gave occasion to endless surmises. A whisper ran that a dark deed done in a moment of passion had marred his whole life and prospects. This dark mysterious Other pictures there are in the town, too, Count de Thoranne was a great lover of which, though of small merit in point of art. He found painting was cheap at art, are dear to all lovers of letters from Frankfort, and he resolved to have pictures having been painted under the very eyes painted for the walls of the family mansion of Goethe, when a boy in his father's at Grasse, sent home for the measurehouse at Frankfort. The French occupa- ments of the walls, and then set the best tion of Frankfort made a great impression artists in Frankfort to work upon the canon the poet's mind. It was his first vas. A room in the house was set aside glimpse of the world outside his quiet for the artists. There they painted busily, German home, and the vivid picture he and Goethe and the count seemed to have has drawn oft bears the stamp of truth passed most of their time there too in in its sharply touched-in lines. The free looking on. Each of these artists had his imperial city was accustomed to the sight specialty. One excelled in Dutch work of soldiers passing through to the seat of and could do fruit and flowers to perfec war. But on New Year's day, 1759, it was tion. The forte of another was sunny surprised by the arrival of a French army, Rhine scenery. A third went in for Remwhich did not pass through but coolly brandt effects, and gloried in Resurrection planted itself in the town by means of miracles and flaming villages and mills. billeting itself on the citizens. Goethe's Seekatz, the most eminent among them, father had just finished his new and hand- shone in rural life. His old people and some house, and to his extreme disgust children were lifelike, because they were the French singled it out as the headquar- done from life, but his young men were ters of the king's lieutenant. This digni- far too thin, and his young women just as tary had to keep the peace between the much too fat. The reason of this was that soldiers and the citizens, and decide all his wife, who was stout and middle aged, quarrels between them. Then began stir- insisted on sitting as his model. When ring times for the children of the house; the count found out the special gift of each the constant coming and going of both artist, the bright idea struck him that the parties kept their home buzzing like a bee-pictures would be vastly improved if each hive. The relations between the master of the house and his distinguished guest were very strained. Their father, though he spoke French well, hated the nation, one painted in them what he could do best. So he had cattle painted into a landscape finished by another hand. A third was employed to put in sheep, which he did so lavishly that the flock flowed over the edge. | one district from the tyranny of bandits and another from the tyranny of bishops, and conferred on the peasants of the Esterel the freedom of their forest. A frag. ment of the kitchen stair is all that is left to show that this fascinating woman for whom the troubadours sang and Giotto painted, the queen who won the adoration of Petrarch, the pupil of Boccaccio, and the bugbear of St. Catherine of Siena, once held her court in Grasse. The figure-painter was then told to add some travellers and a few shepherds; thus the piece became so crowded with living objects that they seemed to be choking for want of air even in the open country. This led to deadly quarrels among the painters, as each one accused the others of spoiling his work. At length this strange patchwork was finished and sent home to Grasse, where it still decorates one of the large, old-fashioned houses on the Place des Aires in the centre of the town. Near this historic house there is another which contains a salon decorated and furnished in the best taste of the style of Louis Quinze. This was the boudoir of Louise, Marquise de Cabris, one of that | strange family of Mirabeau who gave the world so much to talk about. In this satin lined nest perhaps she was surprised by the sudden visit of her scapegrace brother Honoré. He found the dulness of Manosque, whither he had been consigned by lettre de cachet, so intolerable, that he came down to Grasse to seek a little excitement. In a few days the whole town was in a ferment, and the brother and sister found themselves credited with an outrage on public decency of which, for once, they were guiltless. A libel on the ladies of Grasse placarded the walls. A gentleman of the neighborhood, M. de Mouans, openly said what every one thought, that this was the work of the dare-devil Mirabeaus. In revenge for this Mirabeau fell upon him, when he met him unprotected on the road, and beat him nearly to death, with his sister looking on. A lawsuit followed in which many scandals came out; it was found that the Marquis de Cabris and not his wife was the author of the squibs which had raised this storm in a teacup, whose consequences were to be wider than any of those concerned in it could imagine. For it was for his share in this affair that the nobles turned their backs on Mirabeau when he tried to secure their votes at Aix. This drove him to open the clothshop which qualified him as a deputy of the Tiers Etat, and made him the mouthpiece of the Revolution. On the same Place des Aires there stood formerly the palace of a queen, who held a front place in the history of her time. Queen Jeanne of Naples came to Grasse to avoid the revengers of her first husband, of whose death she was openly accused. In Provence she made herself popular, scattering her bounties with a lavish hand, gave a water conduit to one commune and a charter to another, freed | We must not leave Grasse without recalling the memory of Antoine Godeau, the greatest of her bishops. Godeau was drawn from the depths of provincial life by Conrart, who brought him to Paris to that literary gathering in his house in the Rue St. Martin which was denounced to Richelieu as a secret society. The cardinal took away its secrecy, and gave it importance by conferring on it the royal approval. He thus founded the Academy. Godeau was the darling of the Hötel Rambouillet, where he was known as the "nain de Mademoiselle Julie." His prose was the model of style. The highest praise that could be given to literary work was to call it "du Godeau." He took orders at the mature age of thirty-five, in hope of preferment, and the cardinal gave him the see of Grasse. For a short time it was united with Vence, but this union was so unpopular that Godeau resigned Grasse, and ended his days at Vence. Here he died from a fit of apoplexy as he was sing. ing the "Tenebræ" before the altar in Passion Week. Apart from association, Grasse has natural charms that win every heart. The climate and the scenery are both superb. But for the bigotry of one of the natives Grasse would long have held the place of Cannes as a winter resort. Lord Brougham would have settled here, but was refused the property he wished to buy on the gro tesque ground that he was a Protestant. He went on to Cannes, and became a pillar of the Church in the colony which he there founded. The great variety of walks and drives round Grasse prevents life from being monotonous. Antibes, with Vauban's fort, Vence with its Roman remains, Gourdon perched high on its rocky pinnacle above the Loup where the caves and clefts still echo the groans of hunted Huguenots, Tourette the stronghold of the Saracens, its rocky platform literally covered with aloes, are all within easy range, and offer tempting subjects for canvas or camera; while the geologist and botanist may find at every step rare treas ures to serve as mementoes of their ram. bles in this sunny land of flowers. From The Standard. a In all other respects the wasp is the equal, if not the superior of the bee. The IT is undeniable that the bee occupies latter is content to make its home in any a far higher position in the regard of man place that comes to hand. If a hive than does the wasp. The bee is held up should not be forthcoming, the bees will as an example to the young for its strict establish themselves in a hollow tree, in a attention to business, its forethought, and chimney, or in the roof of a house, and prudence. It has been made the object of then and there begin to build their combs much study; its habits and manners have and prepare for the reception of brood and been watched in hives specially con- honey. The wasp, on the other hand, structed; and the behavior of the bees more industriously sets to to build its own towards their queen and towards each house, walls and all, and the labor required other have been as minutely investigated for such an undertaking is enormous. and described, and are, indeed, almost as Wood, the material it uses, is obtained by well known as are the customs of the gnawing posts, gates, rails, or other timber ancient Greeks or Romans. The wasp, that has lost its sap. This is chewed up on the other hand, is regarded with abso- by the wasp's strong jaws into a paste and lute hostility. He is viewed as an idler, spread out with its tongue in layers finer as an irritable and hot-tempered creature, than tissue paper. Layer after layer is with no fixed aims and ends, prone to un-spread, until the house is made rain and provoked assaults, a disturber of picnics, weather tight, a model of symmetry, a maran intruder in the domestic circle vellous example of the result of patient and creature, in fact, to be promptly and sum- persevering labor, a white palace, by the marily put to death if opportunity offers side of which anything the bee can do is itself. This hasty and unjust conclusion but poor workmanship. The arrangement is, in fact, the result of man's natural self- inside the structure is at least equal to ishness. He does not really admire the that which the bee can accomplish in the bee because the bee stores up food for its most perfectly constructed hive. The winter use, but because he is able to plun- cells are as regular and as carefully arder that store, and to make it available for ranged, and it is kept with the same his own purposes. The squirrel, the field scrupulous care and cleanliness. It is mouse, and many other creatures lay up not necessary for the wasp to collect stores for winter; but, as man is not par- honey and pollen for the use of its brood, ticularly fond of dried nuts or shrivelled for these are fed upon insects, the juicy grain, he does not consider it necessary to caterpillar and the plump body of the profess any extreme admiration for the bluebottle being the morsels which they forethought of these creatures. The wasp mostly affect. In the capture of its prey is perfectly capable of storing up honey for the use of its young the wasp works for its winter use, did it see the slightest as assiduously as does the owl to gather occasion for doing so; but the wasp is not in field mice for the sustenance of its off. a fool. It knows perfectly well that its spring; and each capture, after being car. life is a short one; that it will die when ried to the nest, is stowed away in the cell the winter season approaches. Its in- with the egg, until it is full, and the enstinct doubtless teaches it that only a few trance is then securely sealed. The queen of the autumn-born females will survive to wasp is in point of activity, energy, and create new colonies in the spring, and intelligence far ahead of the queen bee. that as these females will pass the winter As soon as the latter leaves her cell, a in a dormant state in some snug recess perfect insect, she is waited upon by a beyond the reach of frost, there is no oc- crowd of workers, who provide her with casion whatever to prepare stores of food food, attend her every movement, and for their use. Did the wasp endeavor to forestall her every wish, and her functions emulate the bee, and store its cells with are confined solely to the laying of het honey, it would rightly be held up to de- eggs. The queen wasp, on the contrary rision as an idiot, as the only creature who is the founder as well as the mother of her imitates the folly of man in continuing to colony. When she wakes up from he work until the last to pile up riches for lethargy in the spring, she sallies out to others to enjoy after his death. If it is find a suitable spot for her future kingdom. admirable for the bee, who lives through Having fixed upon it, she proceeds to build the winter, to collect stores for his use her cells unaided. She has to feed herduring that time, it is no less admirable in self while engaged on this labor, and when the wasp, who dies before the winter, to a certain number of cells are completed avoid the absurd and ridiculous habit of she has then to store them with food suffi collecting stores which it cannot use. cient to support the young until, their sec |