on that eventful moment I spent behind the screen; then
on my strange rencontre with my antagonist, and that still stranger
supper that followed it.

It was not, indeed, without certain misgivings, which I could neither
account for nor dismiss from my mind, that I reflected on the character
and conversation of my new associates. The tone of levity in which
they dared to speak of him whose name was to me something bordering on
idolatry,--the liberty with which they ventured to canvass his measures
and his opinions, even to ridiculing them,--were so many puzzles to
my mind; and I half reproached myself for having tamely listened to
language which now, as I thought over it, seemed to demand my notice.
Totally ignorant of all political intrigue,--unconscious that any party
did or could exist in France save that of the First Consul himself,--I
could find no solution to the enigma, and at last began to think that I
had been exaggerating to myself the words I had heard, and permitting my
ignorance to weigh with me, where with more knowledge I should have seen
nothing reprehensible. And if the spirit in which they discussed the
acts of Bonaparte differed from what I had been accustomed to, might it
not rather proceed from my own want of acquaintance with the usages of
society, than any deficiency in attachment on their sides? The prefet
was, of course, as an officer of the Government, no mean judge of what
became him; the abbe, too, as a man of education and in holy orders, was
equally unlikely to express unbecoming opinions; the Russian scarcely
spoke at all; and as for De Beauvais, his careless and headlong
impetuosity made me feel easy on his score. And so I reasoned myself
into the conviction that it was only the ordinary bearing and everyday
habit of society to speak thus openly of one who in the narrower limits
of our little world was deemed something to worship.

Shall I own what then I could scarcely have confessed to myself, that
the few words De Beauvais spoke at parting,--the avowed cousinship
with her they called "La Rose de Provence,"--did much to induce this
conviction on my mind? while his promise to present me was a pledge I
could not possibly believe consistent with any but right loyal thoughts
and honest doctrines. Still, I would have given anything for one friend
to advise with,--one faithful counsellor to aid me. But again was I
alone in the world; and save the short and not over-flattering reception
of my