toys as they did over the radical paradoxes.
They must have to do with the march of
science as applied to the arts; and accordingly,
science in that application is brought
up-stairs into the boudoirs by powdered
laquais, and is there petted and coquetted
with. We have that pleasant story of the
king's little supper, where the chatter turned
upon some such practical question; when
that ancient fop, the Marshal Duke de Richelieu,
and divers ladies of quality were present.
Some practical question as to the composition
or origin of a common product of the
earth. The Marshal Duke had one notion
on the subject, some one else had another,
the King, perhaps, a third; when suddenly,
a sprightly lady suggests sending for the
Encyclopædia, that bulky emporium of arts
and sciences—at that present time under
seizure at all libraries and book-shops.
Excellent idea—most happy turn! The ludicrous
notion of the king's most excellent Majesty
consulting the dangerous book which the king's
most excellent police were busy hunting up
everywhere! The ladies were ready to expire
with laughter. By all means let them be
brought in. So, the huge quartos are carried
down, and distributed one to each person of
quality. The drollery of that night, we are
told, cannot be conceived. They were turning
over the pages, looking up little funny
points ever so long. For instance, the lady
of quality, who was curious about the
composition of her rouge, turned to the letter R,
and there found the whole history of that
drug explained in the most delightful way
possible. The Marshal Duke might be
curious about Mahon—his own glorious
conquest—and was startled at finding the whole
topography of the place set out in the most
surprising manner. It was altogether so
comic, so diverting, if you could but see the
joke!

The noble French court being in this
practical humour, it came to pass that two
ingenious brothers chanced to be working
out a certain great invention which would
thereafter be attended with important results.
This was the famous Moutgolfier Balloon:
the bare notion of which, in its crude state,
took the whole public by surprise. The
noble French court soon got wind of these
doings, and were frantic with mechanical
ardour to learn more. When would it be
ready? When perfected? What was it all
about? Montgolfier, was he of the canaille?
In a state of nature? You see, more
illustration of the diverting theory. The canaille
to think of inventing,—of flying! They only
want encouragement; this state of nature is
so deeply interesting. And the ladies of
quality turned to their Encyclopaedia, under
the letter G, to make out the properties of
gas.

Nobody can talk but of gas. The court is
wild concerning gas, or at least this strange
vapour that M. Montgolfier contrives to
extract from burning straw. A Swedish
gentleman (was it the favoured Fersen?),
when the subject is introduced, explains
singularly apropos a comic way they have
in his country of applying this gaseous
principle at some of their banquets. A
fine crystal dish would be brought in,
heaped high with what seemed rare and
tempting fruits; but, when the cover was
removed, the rare and tempting fruits would
float away over the heads of the guests,
being no other than little balloons, coloured
to the likeness of the fruits. By this happy
conceit were the Swedish guests sold utterly.
Great applause for the Swedish gentleman's
story,—the scientific people of quality
enraptured. Here was science applied to
practical purposes, indeed! A device très-
agréable, says a Frenchman describing it,
and very proper to be introduced in our
Versailles entertainments. One lady of
quality,—no other than Madame la
Marquise de Brantes,—grew so entêtée, on
the subject, that one Pingeron, savant of
the first order, member of all manner of
societies, was got to write her a long letter
(which became afterwards a bulky pamphlet),
setting out the whole rationale of the thing.
Not in popular shape, in philosophical sport,
—the rude edges of science being chipped off
and trimmed and smoothed down for ladies'
use—but with hard naked abstraction and
science in all her brain-wearying, unmanageable
deformity; to which work Madame la
Marquise, no doubt, went boldly; grappling
with it fearlessly, and retailing it thereafter
in her salons down in Avignon—for she was
of the provinces—to such miniature Grims
and Holbachs as she could lay hold of. She,
no doubt, mystified them with M. Pingeron's
jargon concerning one New ton, and le
Docteur Pringle of the Société Royale de
Londres,—to say nothing of M. James
Lowther and M. Cavendish. The ingenious
Frenchman explains to his noble correspondent,
how in the case of balloons the laws
of gravity seem to be suspended, which
otherwise, adds he with a true Frenchman's
turn, bear all things to the earth, by a sort
of attraction, fatal sometimes to the face and
features of your sweet children, when they
gambol too carelessly in your delicious garden
of Sorque. I shall now, Madame, do
myself the honour of explaining to you how
this is.

Follows then the explanation—to be
retailed, as was said before, by Madame.
Meantime, the balloon-fever spread; the
court was half crazy on the subject, and at
last it was resolved that Montgolfier himself
should be sent for, and an experiment, on a
grand scale, made before the eyes of the
King himself and the scientific quality.
M. Montgolfier accordingly set to work, and
under his direction prodigious preparations
were made. Workmen were busy, weeks
beforehand, fashioning the balloon and