That same evening I had M. le Prince de Talleyrand with me, and I was confounded by hearing him say, "So your royal highness has made Madame de Staël completely quarrel with me now?"
"Me! I never so much as pronounced your name."
"Notwithstanding that, she is convinced that I am the person who prevents your royal highness from employing her in your political relations, and that I am jealous of Benjamin Constant. She is resolved on revenge."
"A very great deal of mischief, monseigneur. She has numerous partisans; and if she declares herself Bonapartiste, we must look to ourselves."
"Oh, I shall take upon myself to prevent her going so far; but she will be Royalist no longer, and we shall suffer from that."
At this time I had not the remotest idea what a mere man, still less a mere woman, could do in France; but now I understand it perfectly, and if Madame de Staël was living--Heaven pardon me!--I would strike up a flirtation with her.
[7] This curious piece has recently appeared in the "Gazette de France," and has excited much remark. It is given out to be the production of Charles X. when Monsieur, and was communicated to M. Neychens by the Marquis de la Roche Jaqueline.
It was New-Year's night. An aged man was standing at a window. He raised his mournful eyes toward the deep-blue sky, where the stars were floating, like white lilies, on the surface of a clear, calm lake. Then he cast them on the earth, where few more hopeless beings than himself now moved toward their certain goal--the tomb. Already he had passed sixty of the stages which lead to it, and he had brought from his journey nothing but errors and remorse. His health was destroyed, his mind vacant, his heart sorrowful, and his old age devoid of comfort. The days of his youth rose up in a vision before him, and he recalled the solemn moment, when his father had placed him at the entrance of two roads, one leading into a peaceful, sunny land, covered with a fertile harvest, and resounding with soft, sweet songs; while the other conducted the wanderer into a deep, dark cave, whence there was no issue, where poison flowed instead of water, and where serpents hissed and crawled.
He looked toward the sky, and cried out in his agony, "O youth, return! O my father, place me once more at the entrance to life, that I may choose the better way!"