Paris is likely to become increasingly difficult as a place of residence. Apart from the two great dynastic divisions which separate society, we shall now have to deal with all the factions caused by disappointed ambition, the Molé, Broglie, Guizot, and Dupin factions, and finally the Thiers faction. These will all be as bitterly hostile to one another as the Legitimists are to the Moderate Party. All these factions will never find any such common point of amalgamation as the Château might and should become; on the contrary, some object to the King, others to our house. Detestation and malignancy are mutual, but no one is willing to examine himself or to recognise that there are faults on all sides, and that the real causes of blame are to be found in himself. How strange is the blindness and how great the ill-faith of men, especially of those who are involved in public affairs and interests!
_Paris, March 4, 1836._--Yesterday, at the house of M. de Talleyrand, M. Mignet related that Marchand, a former _valet de chambre_ under the Emperor, proposed to publish a commentary upon the "Commentaries" of Cæsar, which Napoleon had dictated to him in the last weeks of his life in St. Helena. Marchand often spoke to M. Mignet of Napoleon's last moments, of the loneliness and emptiness of his life; in illustration, he said that one evening when the Emperor, who was then very ill, was in bed, he pointed to the foot of the bed and said to him: "Marchand, sit down there and tell me something." Marchand said to him: "Dear me, sire, what can I tell you who have done and seen so much?" "Tell me about your youth; that will be simple and true, and will interest me," replied the Emperor. There is something very pathetic about this little dialogue. What teaching might not Bossuet have drawn from these few words--Bossuet, who did not disdain to introduce the somewhat trivial anecdote of the fowl into the funeral oration upon the Palatine! Surely the greatest homage to Bossuet is the fact that every great misfortune, every triumph or failure, makes us turn towards the Eagle of Meaux, who alone could extol, lament, and immortalise them worthily.
_Paris, March 5, 1836._--Yesterday morning MM. Berryer and Thiers met at my house. I think it would have been impossible to have been present at a conversation more animated, sparkling, witty, surprising, kind, sincere, free, and true, or more devoid of all party spirit, than that which then arose between these two men, so different and so highly gifted. I also thought that it would never finish; they did not go until after six o'clock.
