"Ah, Monsieur le Comte, I came to make your acquaintance; your hills I will see at another time."
"Young man, you are wrong: these volcanic mountains are worthy of your deepest study; for myself, I am nothing but a broken-down old man. I have nothing here attractive to my friends. The spot is full of charms for myself, but not for others. I have so many old associations connected with it: 'tis my paternal estate: I had to fly from it during those terrible days, and I never thought to see it again: but now that I find myself once more restored to it, my unwillingness to quit the place increases every day. After all, you can learn more about Auvergne from your learned countryman, Poulett Scrope, than from me; my little work, by the way, is at your service if you will accept it: I am as a lamp going out, you find me flickering, and when next you pass this way, the light may be extinguished."
"True, sir; and it is from these expiring flames that the brightest sparks may be sometimes derived: at any rate I would know from you wherewith to trim my own lamp for future days."
"Alas," replied the Count, "the present generation are not willing to give credit to the last for all they have witnessed, for all they have undergone. Had you, like me, seen all the phases of the Revolution, from the time when I was sent as a deputy to the States-General from Auvergne, to the Reign of Terror, and then the time of exile, and if you could have felt the joys of returning to your longlost home again, you might indeed look back on your life with emotion--let me say with gratitude."
"Did you know many members of the literary and scientific world previous to the Revolution?"
"Oh yes, I was acquainted with Condorcet, Lavoisier, and many others of that stamp. Who shall say that, in the deaths of those great men, France did not lose more than she gained by all her boasted freedom? Ah yes, the men of those days were giants in intellect! there was a force of originality in them, a vividness of thought and expression, which we shall never witness again: and, allow me to say, there was a dignity surrounding them, and accompanying them, which, with all our pretended liberality and respect for science, we are far from attributing to their followers now. Those of us, the actors in some of those tremendous scenes who still survive, are but as the blasted oaks of the forest after the hurricane has swept by. Some few remain erect; but withered, scorched, and leafless: all the rest are prostrate, snapped off at the root--many in the full vigour of vegetation: all now rotting on the ground. It was a national tempest--a tornado--an earthquake; it was like an eruption from the very volcano in whose bosom we are now sitting and talking. The world never has seen, and perhaps never shall see, any thing half so terrible as our Revolution. My young friend, excuse me; perhaps you are a politician--and you are newly arrived in France: things are tending to something ominous even at the present day. M. de Polignac has just been summoned to office: the king is an easy good man--a perfect gentleman--and an honest one, too; but there are people near the throne who would be glad to see it tottering, and who are ready to take advantage of the least false step. Mark my words, sir, another year will produce something decisive in the history of France."