However, these ladies, even if here a long time, do not attain the air and manner of French women; the magnetic atmosphere that envelops them is less brilliant and exhilarating in its attractions.
It was pleasant to my eye, which has always been so wearied in our country by the sombre masses of men that overcloud our public assemblies, to see them now in so great variety of costume, color, and decoration.
Among the crowd wandered Leverrier, in the costume of Academician, looking as if he had lost, not found, his planet.

French _savants_ are more generally men of the world, and even men of fashion, than those of other climates; but, in his case, he seemed not to find it easy to exchange the music of the spheres for the music of fiddles.
Speaking of Leverrier leads to another of my disappointments.

I went to the Sorbonne to hear him lecture, nothing dreaming that the old pedantic and theological character of those halls was strictly kept up in these days of light.

An old guardian of the inner temple, seeing me approach, had his speech all ready, and, manning the entrance, said with a disdainful air, before we had time to utter a word, "Monsieur may enter if he pleases, but Madame must remain here" (i.e.in the court-yard).

After some exclamations of surprise, I found an alternative in the Hotel de Clugny, where I passed an hour very delightfully while waiting for my companion.