ament before
the Revolution. He himself a councillor of State at the Grand Council
of 1787, when he was only twenty-two years of age, was even then
distinguished for his admirable memoranda on delicate diplomatic
matters. He did not emigrate during the Revolution, and spent that
period on his estate of Serizy near Arpajon, where the respect in
which his father was held protected him from all danger. After spending
several years in taking care of the old president, who died in 1794,
he was elected about that time to the Council of the Five Hundred, and
accepted those legislative functions to divert his mind from his grief.
After the 18th Brumaire, Monsieur de Serizy became, like so many other
of the old parliamentary families, an object of the First Consul's
blandishment. He was appointed to the Council of State, and received one
of the most disorganized departments of the government to reconstruct.
This scion of an old historical family proved to be a very active wheel
in the grand and magnificent organization which we owe to Napoleon.

The councillor of State was soon called from his particular
administration to a ministry. Created count and senator by the Emperor,
he was made proconsul to two kingdoms in succession. In 1806, when
forty years of age, he married the sister of the ci-devant Marquis
de Ronquerolles, the widow at twenty of Gaubert, one of the most
illustrious of the Republican generals, who left her his whole property.
This marriage, a suitable one in point of rank, doubled the already
considerable fortune of the Comte de Serizy, who became through his wife
the brother-in-law of the ci-devant Marquis de Rouvre, made count and
chamberlain by the Emperor.

In 1814, weary with constant toil, the Comte de Serizy, whose shattered
health required rest, resigned all his posts, left the department at
the head of which the Emperor had placed him, and came to Paris, where
Napoleon was compelled by the evidence of his eyes to admit that the
count's illness was a valid excuse, though at first that _unfatiguable_
master, who gave no heed to the fatigue of others, was disposed to
consider Monsieur de Serizy's action as a defection. Though the senator
was never in disgrace, he was supposed to have reason to complain of
Napoleon. Consequently, when the Bourbons returned, Louis XVIII., whom
Monsieur de Serizy held to be his legitimate sovereign, treated the
senator, now a peer of France, with the utmost confidence, placed