It was a light and cheerful apartment, looking out into the fosses surrounding the château, which, at that season of the year, were all gay with verdure and flowering shrubs; then far away the view extended over the park, at the end of which the dark forest encircles the landscape with a belt of sombre hue, and shuts out the distant horizon. The room contained but little furniture, and that all of the antique cast, in use at the time of the Empire, hard and angular, stiff and naked. The large leathern chair for the prince, which stood in the centre of the room beside an old-fashioned dressing-table, upon which were already spread the divers utensils for his approaching toilet, although giving my _English_ prejudices a slight _inquietude_, yet awoke certain pleasurable reminiscences of the court of Louis Seize and the _toilette du matin_ of the beaux and _muscadins_ of ’89. Near these stood a mahogany bureau, upon which his secretary wrote while the prince dictated the correspondence even amid the elaborate manœuvres of two valets-de-chambre, which kept him for the moment in a state of discomfort and subjection.
The walls were hung round with portraits. C. told me that they were, without exception, those of _friends_, and I examined the collection with the greatest interest. They were arranged without any attempt at order, neither by age nor date, merely according to the shape of the frame, and the size of the panel, and it was curious to observe the confusion to which such an arrangement had given rise; Alexander the autocrat and Mirabeau the democrat hung side by side, while Fréron and Voltaire gazed at each other with that peculiar smirk which has been so happily denominated the “painter’s smile.” I was struck with the vast number of female portraits, of all ages and denominations, which met the eye; there was a beautiful crayon drawing of Madame de Genlis with her harp, and another of Madame de Staël with her book and pencil, and a full-length painting of Madame Roland hung opposite to one of Madame de Lamballe. I glanced over the collection with most intense interest; it was the romantic chapter of the life of M. de Talleyrand, one with which diplomacy and politics had nought to do. “How I should love you to tell me the history of the individuals whose representations are assembled here,” said I to C., who was watching me as I walked leisurely round; “what admirable illustrations to your ‘Vie Anecdotique’ they would furnish!”