Note 92 — Chapter XVII

Compare the characters of Fleur de Marie and Rigolette, in the Mystères de Paris. I know no other instance in which the two tempers are so exquisitely delineated and opposed. Read carefully the beautiful pastoral, in the eighth chapter of the first Part, where Fleur de Marie is first taken into the fields under Montmartre, and compare it with the sixth of the second Part, its accurately traced companion sketch, noting carefully Rigolette's "Non, je déteste la campagne." She does not, however, dislike flowers or birds: "Cette caisse de bois, que Rigolette appellait le jardin de ses oiseaux, était remplie de terre recouverte de mousse, pendant l'hiver. Elle travaillait auprès de la fenêtre ouverte, à-demi-voilée par un verdoyant rideau de pois de senteur roses, de capucines oranges, de volubilis bleus et blancs."