reating this matter with the
discrimination of a man of the world, and the delicacy of a gentleman,
he added that he entirely exonerated her from all of the coarse charges
that had proceeded from vulgar clamour, while he admitted that she had
betrayed a partiality for a young Swede[1] that was, at least,
indiscreet for one in her situation, though he had no reason to believe
her attachment had led her to the length of criminality.

[Footnote 1: A Count Koningsmarke.]

I asked his opinion concerning the legitimacy of the Duc de Bordeaux,
but he treated the rumour to the contrary, as one of those miserable
devices to which men resort to effect the ends of party, and as
altogether unworthy of serious attention.

I was amused with the simplicity with which he spoke of his own efforts
to produce a change of government, during the last reign. On this
subject he had been equally frank even before the recent revolution,
though there would have been a manifest impropriety in my repeating what
had then passed between us. This objection is now removed in part, and I
may recount one of his anecdotes, though I can never impart to it the
cool and quiet humour with which it was related. We were speaking of the
attempt of 1822, or the plot which existed in the army. In reply to a
question of mine, he said--"Well, I was to have commanded in that
revolution, and when the time came, I got into my carriage, without a
passport, and drove across the country to ----, where I obtained
post-horses, and proceeded as fast as possible towards ----. At ----, a
courier met me, with the unhappy intelligence that our plot was
discovered, and that several of our principal agents were arrested. I
was advised to push for the frontier, as fast as I could. But we turned
round in the road, and I went to Paris, and took my seat in the Chamber
of Deputies. They looked very queer, and a good deal surprised when they
saw me, and I believe they were in great hopes that I had run away. The
party of the ministers were loud in their accusations against the
opposition for encouraging treason, and Perier and Constant, and the
rest of them, made indignant appeals against such unjust accusations. I
took a different course. I went into the tribune, and invited the
ministers to come and give a history of my political life; of my changes
and treasons, as they called them; and said that when they had got
through, I would give the character and history of theirs. This set