Nor must you imagine that I grieve over my political and military prospects that were lost in the royal storm of ’30, when plebeian cannon riddled the Tuilleries and shattered a senile crown.  I was only sixteen, and hardly understood the lamentations of my father, whose daily refrain was, “My child, your future is destroyed.”

A man’s future lies in any honorable career.  If I have left the epaulettes of my ancestors reposing in their domestic shrine, I can bequeath to my children other decorations.

I have just returned from a ten years’ campaign against all nations, bringing back a marvellous quantity of trophies, but without causing one mother to mourn.  In the light of a conqueror, Caesar, Alexander, and Hannibal pale in comparison, and yet to a certainty my military future could not have gained me the epaulettes of these illustrious commanders.

You would not, my dear Edgar, suppose, from the gaiety of this letter, that I had passed a frightful night.

You shall see what becomes of life when not taken care of; when there is an unguarded moment in the incessant duel that, forced by nature, we wage with her from the cradle to the grave.

What a long and glorious voyage I had just accomplished!  What dangers I escaped!  The treacherous sea defeated by a motion of the helm!  The sirens to whom I turned a deaf ear.  The Circes deserted under a baleful moon, ere the brutalizing change had come!

I returned to Paris, a man with soul so dead that his country was not dear to him—­I felt guilty of an unknown crime, but reflection reduced the enormity of the offence.  Long voyages impart to us a nameless virtue—­or vice, made up of tolerance, stoicism and disdain.  After having trodden over the graveyards of all nations, it seems as if we had assisted at the funeral ceremonies of the world, and they who survive on its surface seem like a band of adroit fugitives who have discovered the secret of prolonging to-day’s agony until to-morrow.

I walked upon the Boulevard Italien without wonder, hatred, love, joy or sorrow.  On consulting my inmost thoughts I found there an unimpassioned serenity, a something akin to ennui; I scarcely heard the noise of the wheels, the horses—­the crowd that surrounded me.

Habituated to the turmoil of those grand dead nations near the vast ruins of the desert, this little hubbub of wearied citizens scarcely attracted my attention.

My face must have reflected the disdainful quietude of my soul.

By contemplative communion with the mute, motionless colossal faces of Egypt’s and Persia’s monuments, I felt that unwittingly my countenance typified the cold imperturbable tranquillity of their granite brows.

That evening La Favorita was played at the opera.  Charming work! full of grace, passion, love.  Reaching the end of Le Pelletier street, my walk was blocked by a line of carriages coming down Provence street; not having the patience to wait the passage of this string of vehicles, nor being very dainty in my distinction between pavement and street, I followed in the wake of the carriages, and as they did not conceal the facade of the opera at the end of the court, I saw it, and said “I will go in.”