In the very first train I got into I found myself opposite a big man wearing a moustache and imperial, with a huge walking stick between his legs, and was told he was the King, or rather Prince, Murat.  Next we passed a fine country property belonging to King Joseph Buonaparte, and involuntarily I thought of a certain passage in the works of Voltaire, where Candide meets all the dethroned kings at Venice.  There were others even then whose names I might have added to those of Murat and Joseph, and the number was to be increased before long.  “Special line of Paris goods,” we might almost say, in commercial phrase!  Has this sort of export trade answered with us?

I saw Philadelphia once more, as charming as ever.  There was a fine performance, that night, in the Chestnut Street Theatre, and I had sent to take places for it.  But when I arrived I saw a huge poster over the door—­“Prince de Joinville at 8.30,” and beat an instant and hasty retreat.  As soon as I got to Washington I repaired to the White House to pay my respects to General Tyler.  He was a blunt-spoken man with a big nose, who had successively filled the posts of governor of his own State (Virginia) and of President of the United States, in each case in consequence of the death of the actual incumbents, whose deputy he was.  He could not have done better in a hereditary monarchy!  Our time at Washington was taken up with an interchange of compliments of all sorts.  A dinner at the President’s, visits to and from the diplomatic corps, a huge reception, at which I shook hands at least three thousand times, at the White House.  And bouquets, too, in the “language of flowers!”

We paid a visit, too, to the Naval Arsenal.  A very nice little arsenal it was, in a bad situation, but admirably arranged, and only put in that particular place to serve as a sort of school of elementary instruction to the ignorance of Congress, and interest its members in naval matters.  When I say Congress, I should rather say the Chamber of Representatives.  In the United States the Senate is the body which has the real power, and which actually governs.  This assembly, very few in numbers, especially at the time of which I speak, chosen by the Chamber, and of which the members were almost invariably re-elected, had leisure to learn the necessities of administrative government and to become a permanent body, whose action was both lasting and intelligent, like the Council of Ten at Venice or the committee of the Comedie Franjaise.  But the Representative Chamber, full as it was of journalists, who had never studied anything beyond the art of attracting subscriptions to their papers, knew nothing whatever.  Luckily it only formed a second wheel in the Constitution, but, in spite of that fact, anything likely to add to its enlightenment was useful.

I left Washington highly gratified with my reception, but glad to have got it over, and carried away a most agreeable recollection of our minister, M. de Bacourt, a most delightfully witty man—­a family virtue, it would seem, to judge by his niece and grand-niece, Madame de Mirabeau and Madame de Martel (Gyp).