Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1879 — Coming Queens (of Hearts.) [ARTICLE]

Coming Queens (of Hearts.)

They are both young, spirituolle, blooming, and—were I from across the Atlantic I should say—perfectly lovely. As it is not thought In France consistent with the dignity of ladyhood ft* sovereign belles to suffer their likenesses to be set up to public sale, English professional beauties need not fear an eclipse of their photos in the print-shop windows. The coming Queens made their debut this season in the feshionable world on their wedding days. But as they were married when the Chamber was up, and the salons closed, their royalty h— not yet ooiained its full social recognition. Their Majesties (of Hearts) have all those temporal benedictions which French women, most desire, exeept old names and servants brought up in their own and their husbands' families. Ivy has not yet had time to climb about the palaces they inhabit, nor moss to give verdure to the fountains which play in the marble courts of their dwellings. They, however, may console themselves in surveying stately chambers, veneered all over with the frescoes and wainscoating of ancient chateaux. Our coming Queens (of Hearts) are Mme. Georges Cochery, nee Hunebelle. and Mme. Gaston Menier, nee Rodier. The former is la belle Gabrieile and the latter the no less beauteous Julie. I give the pas to Queen Gabrieile because she is to do the honors next winter at the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. Were she not, the precedence should be accorded to Queen Julie, who had by six weeks the start in getting married. Comparisons are said to be invidious. Do not believe they are. I, for my part, do not, but then I am, I know, a sad heretic. To compare is to discover contrasts and to give value. What a fearful tiling light would be if shadow did not dog its footsteps, and what a hideous thing is a polar winter when Aurora aud Apollo kept below the horizon? I may. after this short explanation of the heretical view 1 have been propounding, institute a parallel hetween the coining Queens. M, Cochery’s daughter-in-law is taller than M. Emile Menier’s, and might in England be deemed the making of a finer woman. She steps well, bears gracefully the graceless square train, bolds her head nobly, and her bright spirit seems content to be lodged in so fair a body. If she were thin, she would be a no leak admirable lay figure than Bara Bernhardt. But she was nursed on fat kine, and will be under no temptation to muffle up to the throat when called upon to receive company at the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs into which the Grand Hotel will probably be transformed. Pearls would harmonize with the soft neck of Mme. Georges Cochery. Mme. Gaston Menier is a pocket Venus. She is mignonne. Her skin is like alabaster, and Ido not rise aloft from plain prose to to hyberbole when I tell you that her features are delicate and regular, that piquancy is imparted to them by the faintest soupcon of a rstroussee curve in the nose, and that a mouth of the “Cherry Ripe”—as Vestris sang it—character breaks iuto smiles on the smallest provocation. Add to these charms a polished forehead, even and gently-arched - brows, long lashes, sparkling eyes, humid as those of a child in the milk-teeth period, a nicei? finished chiu, aud the neatest little figure in the world, and you may possibly call up before your miud’s eye a vision of Queen Julie. Do not, because I speak of a nicely-formed chin, imagine her face an oval one. Your ovalfaced beauty lias au over-crowded mouth. There is not room iu it for proper detention. If you doubt me, ask a dentist before you prouounce against me. Now Mme. Gaston Me-, mer’s thirty-two pearls are set with beautiflil evenness, from which you may draw the conclusion that her face is not ot the egg-sbape. I have often seen girls on the Prado in Madrid of her figure. She can boast of the neat wrists and ankles of a Spanish belle, the sparkle and the movement. Diamonds will become her, and she will have plenty of opportunities to wear them There was a dazzling show of these jewels in her corbeille de manage. At a ball last Spriug I was Queen Julie dance in a cotillion, and momentarily expected to see a goat with gilded horns and hoofs approach her. She held a tambourine aloft, and looked the picture of Esmeralda in “Notre Dame de Paris.” Queen Gabrieile is much more repose. It is said that she has made a love-match, for, though his expectations are great, M. Georges Cochery is, compared to here, no Croesus. M. Huunebelle, her father, owns as mauy streets in Chaillot as the Blessington family poeessed streets in Dubiiu; and that quarter of Paris is now a kind of French Belgravia. Where formerly the Chateau des Fleurs resounded to the noise of wild mirth and (lance-music, there are Rues Galilee r Kepler, Newton, Copernic, and so on inhabited by wealthy foreigners who hire expensive dwellings of the opulent M. Hunnebelle. The estate of this gentleman extended far west,Trocaderoward, in the parish of St. Pierre d« Chaillot. where Queen Gadrielle’s wedding took Diace. The little church of St. Pierre was not large enough to accommodate those who were invited, but the triends and acquaintances who were obliged to stand outside were at a reception at M. Hunnebelle’s town mansion and had an opportunity to obtain a close sight of the bride, and to shake hands with her aud besmiled on by her. .