"I have sought you vainly during the past few days. Come and spend a day
with me in the country. We have a lot to talk about. I am at Auteuil,
No. 4, Place d'Agueneau."

"Will the King come to-night?" I asked.

"I do not think so," he replied. "He is with Admiral de Mackau. There is
serious news. He will be occupied all the evening."

Then M. Guizot went away.

It was nearly ten o'clock, and I also was about to take my departure
when one of Madame Adelaide's ladies of honour, sent by the Princess,
came and told me that the King desired to speak with me and requested
that I would remain. I returned to the salon, which had become almost
empty.

A moment later, as ten o'clock was striking, the King came in. He wore
no decorations and had a preoccupied air. As he passed by he said to me:

"Wait until I have gone my round; we shall have a little more time when
everybody has left. There are only four persons here now and I have only
four words to say to them."

In truth, he only tarried a moment with the Prussian Ambassador and
M. de Lesseps, who had to communicate to him a letter from Alexandria
relative to the strange abdication of the Pacha of Egypt.

Everybody took leave, and then the King came to me, thrust his arm in
mine and led me into the large anteroom where he seated himself, and
bade me be seated, upon a red lounge which is between two doors opposite
the fireplace. Then he began to talk rapidly, energetically, as though a
weight were being lifted from his mind:

"Monsieur Hugo, I am pleased to see you. What do you think of it all?
All this is grave, yet it appears graver than it really is. But in
politics, I know, one has sometimes to take as much into account that
which appears grave as that which is grave. We made a mistake in taking
this confounded protectorate. * We thought we were doing something
popular for France, and we have done something embarrassing for the
world. The popular effect was mediocre; the embarrassing effect is
enormous. What did we want to hamper ourselves with Tahiti (the King
pronounced it Taete) for? What to us was this pinch of tobacco seeds
in the middle of the ocean? What is the use of lodging our honour four
thousand leagues away in the box of a sentry insulted by a savage and a
madman? Upon the whole there is something laughable about it. When all
is said and done it is a small matter and nothing big will come of it.
Sir Robert Peel has spoken thoughtlessly. He has act