graph to a friend who had asked for it. "In a week from this time I may be food for worms and writers of biographies."
She, who had once been leader of all that was most brilliant in the literary and artistic society of Paris, was now only able to receive one friend at a time, and then for not more than an hour or so:—"If you wish to see me at Meulan, take the Rouen Railway, Rue Saint Lazare, two steps from your house. Do you like country sunshine? take the eleven o'clock train; you will arrive at one. Only a pitiless two hours of conversation, and you must leave me. As soon as the north-east wind forsook the banks of the Seine, I had some days that were better. Unfortunately the improvement did not continue. You can boast of having une patraque d'amie."
Arsène Houssaye, in his sketch of Rachel, relates one or two conversations he had with her at this time:—
"'Alas!' she said to me, 'I have done with illusions. I see myself already in the tomb. You spoke at Rebecca's grave; you will speak also at mine.' Then an after-thought struck her. 'And yet no; say nothing, and prevent others from making speeches. Oblivion! you do not know the charm of being forgotten after a life spent before the public.'
"She spoke simply. Off the stage she had a horror of declamation, except when making fun.
"'You know my life and heart. It is not necessary to tell you I am not so bad as they would say. No one escapes his destiny. I was born away in the mountains, I hardly know where. I regret I did not live an obscure existence, like so many honest women who think of nothing but their children. Dragged by
