wished to play.  Joseph Bonaparte, who negociated the peace of Luneville, invited M. de C. to his charming country seat of Morfontaine, where I happened to meet him.  Joseph was extremely fond of rural occupation, and would walk with ease and pleasure in his gardens for eight hours in succession.  M. de C. tried to follow him, more out of breath than the Duke of Mayenne, whom Henry IV. amused himself with making walk about, notwithstanding his corpulence.  The poor man talked very much of fishing, among the pleasures of the country, because it allowed him to sit down; he absolutely warmed in speaking of the innocent pleasure of catching some little fish with the line.

When he was ambassador at Petersburg, Paul I. had treated him with the greatest indignity.  He and I were playing at backgammon in the drawing room at Morfontaine, when one of my friends came in and informed us of the sudden death of that Sovereign.  M. de C. immediately began making the most official lamentations possible on this event.  “Although I had reason to complain of him,” said he, “I shall always acknowledge the excellent qualities of this prince, and I cannot help regretting his loss.”  He thought rightly that the death of Paul was a fortunate event for Austria, and for Europe, but he had in his conversation, a court mourning, that was really quite intolerable.  It is to be hoped, that the progress of time will rid the world of the courtier spirit, the most insipid of all others, to say nothing more.

Bonaparte was extremely alarmed at the death of Paul, and it is said, that on that occasion he uttered the first—­Ah, my God! that was ever heard to proceed from his lips.  He had no reason, however, to disturb himself; for the French were then more disposed to endure tyranny than the Russians.

I was invited to general Berthier’s one day, when the first consul was to be of the party; and as I knew that he expressed himself very unfavourably about me, it struck me that he might perhaps accost me with some of those rude expressions, which he often took pleasure in addressing to females, even to those who paid their court to him; I wrote down therefore as they occured to me, before I went to the entertainment, a variety of tart and piquant replies which I might make to what I supposed he might say to me.  I did not wish to be taken by surprise, if he allowed himself to insult me, for that would have been to show a want both of character and understanding; and as no person could promise themselves not to be confused in the presence of such a man, I prepared myself before hand to brave him.  Fortunately the precaution was unnecessary; he only addressed the most common questions possible to me; and the same thing happened to all of his opponents, to whom he attributed the possibility of replying to him:  at all times, however, he never attacks, but when he feels himself much the strongest.  During supper, the first consul stood behind the chair of Madame Bonaparte, and balanced himself sometimes on one leg, and sometimes on the other, in the manner of the princes of the house of Bourbon.  I made my neighbour remark this vocation for royalty, already so decided.