From Paris.

We were no sooner arrived this morning than Adelaide ran hastily into her chamber, and in about a quarter of an hour returned, bringing a large box which I recollected in a moment. Here, Mamma, said she, blushing, I am going to part with every thing that can call to my mind the smallest remembrance … Therefore I bring you this little collection of pebbles and the pretty box of Acacia – That is filled with play-things belonging to Hermine. As I took the box from her, I thought I heard her utter a gentle sigh … I shall lock up this collection carefully, as I received it only as a deposit, which I have no doubt one day or other I shall return to her again.

Madame de *** died yesterday; she could not support the loss of her daughter! If there is any misfortune, for which we are not to be consoled; if there is any grief which our reason will not help us to conquer; it is doubtless that which Madame de *** has sunk under. She has fallen a victim to the most innocent and most natural of all affections, and this Lady, whose grief has carried her to her grave, whose fortune was half given away in charity, and who was in every respect so estimable, appeared reserved to many people. She neither boasted of her tenderness for her daughter, nor the pleasures of benevolence: she never amused herself with talking of it, but she really performed it. She neither prided herself on being a good mother, nor for being charitable; but she was both the one and the other, and she did not suppose she merited praise for doing what she thought her duty. When her daughter died, there were no accounts of affecting scenes and tragedy-speeches; her grief was not painted with eloquence! … At the time Madame de Blinville became a widow, we heard of nothing but the excess of her affliction; people repeated proofs of it, in the most interesting and pathetic terms.