out a whaler from Havre, and had secured almost a monopoly of the oil-trade.  Some years afterwards I made a passage with his brother, and learned from him the history of this Yankee enterprise, which had filled two capacious purses, and substituted the harpoon for the pruning-knife, the whale-ship for the olive-orchard, in the very stronghold of the emblem of peace; and now the collier with his pickaxe has driven them both from the field.  But the Petit Hotel Montmorenci did not wait for the change.  Its broad court was never enlivened by gas.  Its tables and mantels were decked to the last hour with the alabaster whiteness of those pure wax tapers which shed such a soft light upon your book, and grew up into such formidable items in your bills.  A long passage—­one of those luxuries of rainy, muddy Paris, lined with stores that you cannot help lingering over, if for nothing else, to wonder at the fertility of the human brain when it makes itself the willing minister of human caprice—­covers the whole space which the hotel stood on, and unites the Neuve St. Marc with the once distant Boulevard.

As I passed the porter’s lodge, he handed me a letter.  The hand was one that I had never seen before; the address was in French; and the seal, red wax thinly spread, but something which had been put on it before it was cool had entirely effaced the impress:  as I afterwards learned, it was the profile of Washington.  I opened it, and judge my surprise and delight on reading the following words:—­

“Paris, Thursday.

“I am very sorry not to have had the pleasure to see you when you have called this morning, my dear Sir.  My stay in town will be short.  But you will find me to-morrow from nine in the morning until twelve.  I hope we shall see you soon at La Grange, which I beg of you to consider as your home, being that of your grandfather’s most intimate friend and brother-in-arms.

“Lafayette.”

It was nearly eleven when I reached the Rue d’Anjou and began for the first time to mount the broad stairway of a Parisian palace.  The General’s apartments were on the entresol, with a separate staircase from the first landing of the principal one; for his lameness made it difficult for him to go up-stairs, and the entresol, a half-story between the ground floor and the first story, when, as was the case here, high enough in the ceiling, is one of the freest and pleasantest parts of a French house.  His apartments comprised five rooms on a line,—­an antechamber, a dining-room, two parlors, and a bed-room, with windows on the street,—­and the same number of smaller rooms on a parallel line, with their windows on the court-yard, which served for his secretary and servants.  The furniture throughout was neat and plain:  the usual comfortable arm-chairs and sofas, the indispensable clock and mirror over the mantelpiece, and in each fireplace a cheerful wood-fire.  There were two or three servants in the antechamber, well-dressed, but not in livery; and in the parlor, into which I was shown on handing my card, two or three persons waiting for an audience.  Fortunately for me, they were there on business, and the business was soon despatched; and passing, in turn, into the reception parlor, I found myself in the presence of the friend of Washington and my grandfather.