only companion.  As it is always understood that I have dined, no ceremony is used, but I take a seat at the chimney corner, while he goes on with his dinner.  His meals are quite frugal, though good; a poulet roti invariably making one dish.  There are two or three removes, a dish at a time, and the dinner usually concludes with some preserves or dried fruits, especially dates, of which he is extremely fond.  I generally come in for one or two of the latter.

All this time, the conversation is on what has transpired in the Chambers during the day, the politics of Europe, nullification in America, or the gossip of the chateau, of which he is singularly well informed, though he has ceased to go there.

The last of these informal interviews with General Lafayette, was one of peculiar interest.  I generally sit but half an hour, leaving him to go to his evening engagements, which, by the way, are not frequent; but, on this occasion, he told me to remain, and I passed nearly two hours with him.

We chatted a good deal of the state of society under the old regime.  Curious to know his opinions of their private characters, I asked a good many questions concerning the royal family.  Louis XVI. he described as a-well-meaning man, addicted a little too much to the pleasures of the table, but who would have done well enough had he not been surrounded by bad advisers.  I was greatly surprised by one of his remarks.  “Louis XVI,” observed Lafayette, “owed his death as much to the bad advice of Gouverneur Morris, as to any one other thing.”  You may be certain I did not let this opinion go unquestioned; for, on all other occasions, in speaking of Mr. Morris, his language had been kind and even grateful.  He explained himself, by adding, that Mr. Morris, coming from a country like America, was listened to with great respect, and that on all occasions he gave his opinions against democracy, advising resistance, when resistance was not only too late but dangerous.  He did not call in question the motives of Mr. Morris, to which he did full justice, but merely affirmed that he was a bad adviser.  He gave me to understand that the representatives of America had not always been faithful to the popular principle, and even went into details that it would be improper for me to repeat.  I have mentioned this opinion of Mr. Morris, because his aristocratical sentiments were no secret, because they were mingled with no expressions of personal severity, and because I have heard them from other quarters.  He pronounced a strong eulogium on the conduct of Mr. Crawford, which he said was uniformly such as became an American minister.

There is nothing, however, novel in these instances, of our representatives proving untrue to the prominent feeling of the country, on the subject of popular rights.  It is the subject of very frequent comment in Europe, and sometimes of complaint on the part of those who are struggling for what they conceive to be their just privileges; many of them having told me, personally, that our agents frequently stand materially in their way.