“The prince paused for a moment, and I feared that he was about to fall into a reverie, as is sometimes the case when he has called up any touching souvenir of his early days; but presently he resumed:
“‘It was just such an evening as this, warm, glowing, early spring, when the fiery spirit of Mirabeau was passing away. The whole thing had been so sudden, so unlooked-for, that we could scarcely believe him in danger, before we learned that he was gone. It was the 2nd of April, and but two days before, he had come to fetch me, full of life and spirit, to dine in the Palais Royal with a party of friends, to talk over the proposition of a law of succession, which he had had for some time under consideration, and which it was his intention to present to the National Assembly. We walked together from my lodgings to the _restaurateur_ Robert’s, where dinner had been ordered. I thought, in the conversation concerning his _projet de loi_, that Mirabeau was somewhat more depressed than usual, and that his words came less freely and less flowing from his tongue. He certainly did complain of oppression and pain in his head, and, although the evening was far from sultry, he walked without his hat. I was particularly struck with the lassitude and weariness which he seemed to experience when we had arrived at our destination, and which could not be accounted for by our short slow walk from the Rue St. Honoré. He flung himself listlessly upon one of the benches beside the fountain in the middle of the garden of the Palais Royal, and said, sadly, that he was well pleased that our friends had not yet arrived at the rendezvous, for he was desirous of having a few moments’ private conversation with me, not, for once, about public affairs, but concerning his own. “Is it not strange,” said he, “that I, who am about to present to the Assembly a law, and to pronounce a speech, the result of long study, upon wills, should never during my whole life, have given one single thought to the making of my own? Do you not think that it’s growing high time to think of _every possibility_, with such strange proceedings going on around us—eh, my friend?”
“‘I was surprised at this sudden revolution in Mirabeau, for, of all men on earth, he had ever been one of the most thoughtless as to the future, caring little indeed even for the present, living _au jour le jour_, heeding not if the morrow never came; and I could only attribute his unwonted _accablement_ to over-exertion and fatigue. He had spoken much in the Assembly, and had, I well knew, passed many nights of late in the framing and preparation of other acts and decrees, to be brought forward before the close of the session.