I expected to see Balzac's duchesses and _hommes de lettres_ on all sides of me, but there was nothing very noticeable, I think, though we found it agreeable enough.

We go on Friday evening to a Madame Mohl's, where we are to have some of the 'celebrities,' I believe, for she seems to know everybody of all colours, from white to red.

Then Mazzini is to give us a letter to George Sand--come what will, we must have a letter to George Sand--and Robert has one to Emile Lorquet of the 'National,' and Gavarni of the 'Charivari,' so that we shall manage to thrust our heads into this atmosphere of Parisian journalism, and learn by experience how it smells.

I hear that George Sand is seldom at Paris now.

She has devoted herself to play-writing, and employs a houseful of men, her son's friends and her own, in acting privately with her what she writes--trying it on a home stage before she tries it at Paris.