I could bear no more. How I reached my inn I cannot remember. A severe fit of coughing overtook me as I ascended the stairs, and a small vessel gave way--a bad symptom, I believed; but the doctor of the place, whom my servant soon brought to my bedside, applied leeches, and I was better a few hours after.
The first use I made of strength was to write a brief note to the Duke, resigning the borough. The next post brought me his reply, full of compliment and assurance of esteem, accepting my resignation, and acknowledging his full concurrence in the reasons I had given for my step. The division was against him; and he half-jestingly remarked, it might have been otherwise if I had fought on his side.
The letter was civil throughout, but in that style that shews a tone of careless ease had been adopted to simulate frankness. I had had enough of his Grace, and of politics too!
So, all is settled!--I leave Paris to-morrow. I hate leave-takings, even where common acquaintanceship only is concerned. I shall just write a few lines to the Favancourts, with the volume of Balzac--happily I know no one else here--and then for the road!
Why this haste to set out, I cannot even tell to myself. I know, I feel, I shall never pass this way again; I have that sense of regret a last look at even indifferent objects suggests, and yet I would be "en route" There are places and scenes I wish to see before I go hence, and I feel that my hours are numbered.
And now for a moonlight stroll through Paris! Already the din and tumult is subsiding--the many-voiced multitude that throngs the streets long after the roll of equipage and the clattering hoofs of horses have ceased. How peacefully the long shadows are sleeping in the garden of the Tuileries! and how clearly sounds the measured tread of the sentinel beneath the deep arch of the palace!
Not a light twinkles along that vast façade, save in that distant pavilion, where a single star seems glistening--it is the apartment of the King, "The cares of Agamemnon never sleep;" and royalty is scarce more fortunate now than in the days of Homer.
Louis Philippe has a task not less arduous than had Napoleon to found a dynasty. There is little prestige any longer in the name of Bourbon; and the members of his family, brave and high-spirited though they be, are scarcely of the stuff to stand the storm that is brewing for them.