then after performing at the principal towns of France with decided success, she returned to Paris, and took her place as prima donna on the boards of the Grand Opera. At the conclusion of her engagement there, in 1850, she went to Florence, and studied under the best Italian professors of singing. In May, 1852, she came to England, and performed for the first time before the Queen and Prince Albert, as Rachel, in "La Juive," and completely established her fame as a great lyric artiste. "In all operas," says a contemporary critic, "in which a powerful soprano is required for strong passions, Madame Jullienne is invaluable. She is never fatigued, or, at all events, she has the ars celare artem, for, at the conclusion of a long and trying work, her voice seems to be as fresh and as vigorous as at the opening. She is yet but young in the profession, and her coming in contact with the refined school of Italian vocalisation cannot fail to develop ultimately the liberal gifts with which she has been endowed by nature, in a still higher degree. It has been already remarked, that, since her first night of singing at the Royal Italian Opera, her method has been much improved. We have heard her in all the characters of the French Grand Opera, Alice, Valentine, &c, and in Verdi's 'Jerusalem,' ('I Lombardi,') but we understand that her Norma has been also highly successful in the great towns in France. With the noble voice she possesses, and with the disposition to study and improve, a brilliant future presents itself to Madame Jullienne on the Italian lyric stage."
JUNOT, LAURA, DUCHESS D'ABRANTES,
Was born in Montpelier, 1785. Constantine Comnena, a scion of the imperial stock, emigrated from the Peloponnesus, in 1676. He was followed by a body of three thousand Greeks. After two years of wandering they settled in the island of Corsica, then a savage and uncultivated region, which they brought to some degree of culture and civilization, although the fierce and restless spirit of the native inhabitants kept them in a state of perpetual, sharp, yet petty warfare. When Corsica was sold to France, under Louis the Thirteenth, another Constantine, a man of approved valour and worth, was at the head of the Comnena family. He was the father of three sons, and a daughter, called Panona, who married a French-man by the name of Pernon. Upon the breaking out of the Corsican revolution, he was driven to seek shelter in France. From this union sprang the Duchess d'Abrantes. Destined to experience the most extraordinary vicissitudes, her very cradle was disturbed by the agitations which convulsed France at that period. In an autobiographical sketch, she speaks of her childish terrors, when, in the absence of her parents, she was placed at a boarding-school among strangers; the terrible days of September (1792) are particularly commemorated.
Her father, for whom she appears to have entertained a particularly tender affection, died while she was still a child: she also lost the sister nearest her own age—to these afflictions were added most straitened pecuniary circumtances. The latter difficulties, after a time, diminished, and Madame Pernon established herself comfortably in Paris, where her house soon became the resort of all the most noted men of that day. The attractions, personal and mental, of her daughter, were not undistinguished. A man of rank and wealth made an offer of his hand: he was old enough to be her grand-
