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[221] to the esteem of my husband, and he was more than once invited to our house. Some literary employment was found for him, and finally, through influence exerted at Washington, a position as translator was secured for him in the State Department. He was at Newport during the summer that we passed at the Cliff House, and he it was who gave it the title of Hotel Rambouillet. His proved to be a character of remarkable contradictions, in which really noble and generous impulses contrasted with an undisciplined temper and an insatiable curiosity. While inveighing constantly against the rudeness of American manners, he himself was often guilty of great impoliteness. To give an example: At his boarding-house in Newport a child at table gave a little trouble, upon which the count animadverted with great severity. The mother, waxing impatient, said, ‘I think, count, that you have no right to say so much about table manners; for you yesterday broke the crust of the chicken pie with your fist, and pulled the meat out with your fingers!’

His curiosity, as I have said, was unbounded. Meeting a lady of his acquaintance at her door, and seeing a basket on her arm, he asked, ‘Where are you going, Mrs.——, so early, with that basket?’ She declined to answer the question, on the ground that the questioner had no concern in her errand.

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