Grisi in _Norma_ was "superb." "Persiani and P.Garcia sang a duet from _Tancredi_; it was divine! I think I like Garcia's voice better than any of them.

Nor could I think her ugly, as it is the fashion to call her, though it must be admitted that her mouth and teeth are alarming." Then there were brilliant receptions at the English Embassy (Lord Granville) and at the Austrian Embassy (Comte d'Appony).

My diary remarks that stars and gold lace and ribbons of all the Orders in Christendom were more abundant at the latter, but female beauty at the former.

I remember much admiring that of Lady Honoria Cadogan, and that of a very remarkably lovely Visconti girl, a younger sister of the Princess Belgiojoso.

But despite this perfect beauty, my diary notes, that it was "curious to observe the unmistakable superiority as a human being of the young English patrician." I remember that the "sit-down" suppers at the Austrian Embassy--a separate little table for every two, three, or four guests--were remarked on as a novelty (and applauded) by the Parisians.
Then at Miss Clarke's (afterwards Madame Mohl) I find Fauriel, "the first Provencal scholar in Europe," delightful, and am disgusted with Merimee, because he manifested self-sufficiency, as it seemed to my youthful criticism, by pooh-poohing the probability of the temple at Lanleff in Brittany having been aught else than a church of the Templars.
Then Arago reads an _Eloge_ on "old Ampere," of which I only remark that it lasted two hours and a half.