th daily transactions, which were much embarrassed by the
decadary calendar.

Bonaparte at length, however, consented to hear Mass, and St. Cloud was
the place where this ancient usage was first re-established. He directed
the ceremony to commence sooner than the hour announced in order that
those who would only make a scoff at it might not arrive until the
service was ended.

Whenever the First Consul determined to hear Mass publicly on Sundays in
the chapel of the Palace a small altar was prepared in a room near his
cabinet of business. This room had been Anne of Austria's oratory.
A small portable altar, placed on a platform one step high, restored it
to its original destination. During the rest of the week this chapel was
used as a bathing-room. On Sunday the door of communication was opened,
and we heard Mass sitting in our cabinet of business. The number of
persons there never exceeded three or four, and the First Consul seldom
failed to transact some business during the ceremony, which never lasted
longer than twelve minutes. Next day all the papers had the news that
the First Consul had heard Mass in his apartments. In the same way Louis
XVIII. has often heard it in his!

On the 19th of July 1801 a papal bull absolved Talleyrand from his vows.
He immediately married Madame Grandt, and the affair obtained little
notice at the time. This statement sufficiently proves how report has
perverted the fact. It has been said that Bonaparte on becoming Emperor
wished to restore that decorum which the Revolution had destroyed, and
therefore resolved to put an end to the improper intimacy which subsisted
between Talleyrand and Madame Grandt. It is alleged that the Minister at
first refused to marry the lady, but that he at last found it necessary
to obey the peremptory order of his master. This pretended resurrection
of morality by Bonaparte is excessively ridiculous. The bull was not
registered in the Council of State until the 19th of August 1802.

--[The First Consul had on several occasions urged M. de Talleyrand
to return to holy orders. He pointed out to him that that course
world be most becoming his age and high birth, and premised that he
should be made a cardinal, thus raising him to a par with Richelieu,
and giving additional lustre to his administration (Memoirs of the
Duke of Rovigo, vol. i. p. 426).

But M. de Talleyrand vindicated his choice, saying, "A clever wife
often compromis