This servile vanity is not less natural or less common than the vanity of dominion.  Whoever feels himself incapable of command, at least desires to obey a powerful chief.  Serfs have been known to consider themselves dishonored when they became the property of a mere count after having been that of a prince, and Saint-Simon mentions a valet who would only wait upon marquises.

July 7th, seven o’clock P. M.—­I have just now been up the Boulevards; it was the opera night, and there was a crowd of carriages in the Rue Lepelletier.  The foot-passengers who were stopped at a crossing recognized the persons in some of these as we went by, and mentioned their names; they were those of celebrated or powerful men, the successful ones of the day.

Near me there was a man looking on with hollow cheeks and eager eyes, whose thin black coat was threadbare.  He followed with envious looks these possessors of the privileges of power or of fame, and I read on his lips, which curled with a bitter smile, all that passed in his mind.

“Look at them, the lucky fellows!” thought he; “all the pleasures of wealth, all the enjoyments of pride, are theirs.  Their names are renowned, all their wishes fulfilled; they are the sovereigns of the world, either by their intellect or their power; and while I, poor and unknown, toil painfully along the road below, they wing their way over the mountain-tops gilded by the broad sunshine of prosperity.”

I have come home in deep thought.  Is it true that there are these inequalities, I do not say in the fortunes, but in the happiness of men?  Do genius and authority really wear life as a crown, while the greater part of mankind receive it as a yoke?  Is the difference of rank but a different use of men’s dispositions and talents, or a real inequality in their destinies?  A solemn question, as it regards the verification of God’s impartiality.

July 8th, noon.—­I went this morning to call upon a friend from the same province as myself, who is the first usher-in-waiting to one of our ministers.  I took him some letters from his family, left for him by a traveller just come from Brittany.  He wished me to stay.

“To-day,” said he, “the Minister gives no audience:  he takes a day of rest with his family.  His younger sisters are arrived; he will take them this morning to St. Cloud, and in the evening he has invited his friends to a private ball.  I shall be dismissed directly for the rest of the day.  We can dine together; read the news while you are waiting for me.”

I sat down at a table covered with newspapers, all of which I looked over by turns.  Most of them contained severe criticisms on the last political acts of the minister; some of them added suspicions as to the honor of the minister himself.

Just as I had finished reading, a secretary came for them to take them to his master.

He was then about to read these accusations, to suffer silently the abuse of all those tongues which were holding him up to indignation or to scorn!  Like the Roman victor in his triumph, he had to endure the insults of him who followed his car, relating to the crowd his follies, his ignorance, or his vices.