woods; he remained sometime seated at our active but silent table; Madame Recamier wrote a little note with her beautiful hand to this jolly sportsman, in order that he might not be too much a stranger to the circle in which he was placed.  He excused himself from receiving it, assuring us that he could never read writing by day-light:  we laughed a little at the disappointment which the benevolent coquetry of our beautiful friend had met with, and thought that a billet from her hand would not have always had the same fate.  Our life passed in this manner, without any of us, if I may judge from myself, finding the time at all burdensome.

* M. de Salaberry.

The opera of Cinderella was making a great noise at Paris; I wished to go and see it represented at a paltry provincial theatre at Blois.  Coming out of the theatre on foot, the people of the place followed me in crowds from curiosity, more desirous of knowing me because I was an exile, than from any other motive.  This kind of celebrity which I derived from misfortune, much more than from talent, displeased the minister of police, who wrote sometime after to the prefect of Loir and Cher, that I was surrounded by a court.  “Certainly,” said I to the prefect* “it is not power at least which gives it me.”

* M. de Corbigny, an amiable and intelligent man.

I had always the intention of repairing to England by the way of America; but I was anxious to terminate my work on Germany.  The season was now advancing; we were already at the fifteenth of September, and I began to foresee that the difficulty of embarking my daughter with me would detain me another winter, in some town, I knew not where, at forty leagues from Paris.  I was then desirous that it should be Vendome, where I knew several clever people, and where the communication with the capital was easy.  After having formerly had one of the most brilliant establishments in Paris, I was now contented to anticipate considerable pleasure from establishing myself at Vendome; fate however denied me even this modest happiness.

On the 23d of September I corrected the last proof of Germany; after six years’ labor, I felt the greatest delight in putting the word End to my three volumes.  I made a list of one hundred persons to whom I wished to send copies, in different parts of France and Europe; I attached great importance to this book, which I thought well adapted to communicate new ideas to France; it appeared to me that a sentiment elevated without being hostile, had inspired it, and that people would find in it a language which was no longer spoken.