I saw Mendoza secretly again; received from him additional intelligence; and, as I was not inclined to make a second experiment on the “elegant extract” of diplomacy, and escort of duchesses, I went, as soon as the nightfall concealed my visit, to the hotel of the Foreign Minister.  This was my first interview with the celebrated Dumourier.

He received me with the courtesy of a man accustomed to high life; and I entered on the purport of my visit at once.  He was perfectly astonished at my tidings.  He had known that strong resolutions had been adopted by the party opposed to the Cabinet; but was startled by the distinct avowal of its intention to overthrow the monarchy.  I was struck with his appearance, his quickness of conception, and that mixture of sportiveness and depth, which I had found characteristic of the higher orders of French society.  He was short in stature, but proportioned for activity; his countenance bold, but with smiling lips and a most penetrating grey eye.  His name as a soldier was at this period wholly unknown, but I could imagine in him a leader equally subtle and daring;—­he soon realized my conjecture.

We sat together until midnight; and over the supper-table, and cheered by all the good things which French taste provides and enjoys more than any other on earth, he gave full flow to his spirit of communication.  The Frenchman’s sentences are like sabre-cuts—­they have succession, but no connexion.

“I shall always converse with you, M. Marston,” said he, “with ease; for you are of the noblesse of your own great country, and I am tired of roturiers already.—­The government has committed dangerous faults.  The king is an excellent man, but his heart is where his head ought to be, and his head where his heart.—­His flight was a terrible affair, but it was a blunder on both sides; he ought never to have gone, or the government ought never to have brought him back.—­However, I have no cause to complain of its epitaph.  The blunder dissolved that government.  I have to thank it for bringing me and my colleagues into power.  Our business now is to preserve the monarchy, but this becomes more difficult from day to day.”

I adverted to the personal character of the royal family.

“Nothing can be better.  But chance has placed them in false position.—­If the king were but the first prince of the blood, his benevolence without his responsibility would make him the most popular man in France.—­If the queen were still but the dauphiness, she would be, as she was then, all but worshipped.  As the leader of fashion in France, she would be the leader of taste in Europe.—­Elegant, animated, and high-minded, she would have charmed every one, without power.  If she could but continue to move along the ground, all would admire the grace of her steps; but, sitting on a throne, she loses the spell of motion.”

“Yet, can France ever forget her old allegiance, and adopt the fierce follies of a republic?”