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_Madame Colette Willy is in no way different from the description I sometimes havejust given of her. I am aware that certain folk, having met her insociety, insist upon making her somewhat complex. A little more, and theywould have ascribed to her the tastes of the mustiest symbolists--andone knows how far from pleasing are those Muses' robes, how odious theyellow bandeaux far above faces expressionless as eggs. Robes and bandeauxare to-day relegated to drawers in the Capitol at Toulouse, from whichthey will never be taken more, except when occasion calls for thehowling of official alexandrines in honor of M. Gaston Deschamps,Jaures, or Vercingetorix._

_Madame Colette Willy rises to-day on the world of Letters as thepoetess--at last!--who, with the tip of her slipper sends all thepainted, laureled, cothurned, lyre-carrying Muses--that, from Monseletto Renan, have roused the aspirations of classes in Rhetoric--rolling,from the top to the bottom of Parnassus._

_How charming she is thus--presenting her bull-dog and her cat with asmuch assurance as Diana would her hound, or a Bacchante her tiger._