I called on M. Gallois, who unluckily was gone into the country for a few days; but I found Benjamin Constant at home and had a long conversation with him. He entirely denies the strange story of Madame de Staël’s conversion, for which I am satisfied there is no foundation. I have written to Murray, the bookseller, who received and has given circulation to the account, to desire that he will contradict the report.
Pray tell Mrs. Smith that the Parisian bonnets and headdresses seem to be more preposterous even than last year. The favourite amusement of the ladies is to slide down in cars, from great eminences, constructed for the purpose, called Montagnes Russes, for which a more complicated machinery is now substituted, called Les Montagnes, Suisses, or Aeriennes. Great gardens have just been opened with a large apparatus of this kind in the Champs Elysees.
