ful debater of France
since Mirabeau--figured among the chief ornaments of the _salons_ of De
Stael. Roland, and the showy and witty Theresa Cabarrus, and even the
flutter of La Fayette, the most tinsel of heroes, and the sullen
sententiousness of Robespierre, then known only as a provincial deputy,
furnished a background which increased the prominence of the grouping.

But the greatest wonder of France still escaped the general eye. At a ball
at the Hotel de Stael, I remember to have been struck with the energetic
denunciation of some rabble insult to the Royal family, by an officer whom
nobody knew. As a circle were standing in conversation on the topic of the
day, the little officer started from his seat, pushed into the group, and
expressed his utter contempt for the supineness of the Government on those
occasions, so strongly, as to turn all eyes upon him. "Where were the
troops, where the guns?" he exclaimed. "If such things are suffered, all
is over with royalty; a squadron of horse, and a couple of six pounders,
would have swept away the whole swarm of scoundrels like so many flies."
Having thus discharged his soul, he started back again, flung himself into
a chair, and did not utter another word through the evening. I little
dreamed that in that meagre frame, and long, thin physiognomy, I saw
Napoleon.

I must hasten to other things. Yet I still cast many a lingering glance
over these times. The vividness of the collision was incomparable. The wit,
the eccentricity, the anecdote, the eloquence of those assemblages, were
of a character wholly their own. They had, too, a substantial nutriment,
the want of which had made the conversation of the preceding age vapid,
with all its elegance.--Public events of the most powerful order fed the
flame. It was the creation of a vast national excitement; the rush of
sparks from the great electrical machine, turned by the hands of thirty
millions. The flashes were still but matters of sport and surprise. The
time was nigh when those flashes were to be fatal, and that gay lustre was
to do the work of conflagration.

I had now been a year in Paris, without returning, or wishing to return,
to London. A letter now and then informed me of the state of those who
still drew my feelings towards England. But I was in the centre of all
that awoke, agitated, or alarmed Europe; and, compared with the glow and
rapidity of events in France, the rest of Europe appeared asleep, or to
open