the Duc de Montebello, who kept great state and the most open house at the Rothschild palace, introduced our officers into the most delightful society of Naples, and there was a succession of parties and merry-makings.  By way of response, the admiral gave a very pretty afternoon party on board his three-decker, the Ocean, and I a ball on board the Belle-Poule.  I had found a goodly number of old acquaintances, besides my cousins of both sexes, and especially I frequented the society of a certain charming Tertullia, who held her daily court at the Palazzo Fernandina, a place of meeting which all of my generation at Naples must recollect.  It was a Spanish house, belonging to the Toledo family, numerous branches of which were represented in it, such as the Villafranca, the Alcanicez, the Bivona, the Sclafani, &c.  What charming women of every nationality one met there!  What pleasant parties we organised thence, with Isabella Colonna, Teresa Sclafani, and that exquisite creature Lauretta Acton, who afterwards became Madame Minghetti, and many another!  Now it would be a night ascent of Vesuvius, in eruption, and then again a moonlight excavation at Pompeii.  Show me the man who would not have fallen in love in such company, beneath that exquisite sky, environed and intoxicated by the indefinable enchantments in which the landscape and the very air you breathed were steeped!  But the signal to get under way is hoisted at the mainmast of the Ocean, and we must tear ourselves away from these delights, and start forth with hearts that are heavy, but full of sweetest memories.  And whither?  That is the Admiral’s secret!

A few days after our departure we were in the open sea, absorbed in professional duties and daily drills, when afar off we saw the smoke of a steamer.  Soon the vessel came in sight and hoisted signals for our admiral, who ordered the fleet to bring to.  The sea being calm, an officer from the steamer boarded the Ocean, and immediately afterwards we saw the admiral’s barge lowered, and he got into it and steered for the Belle-Poule.  Amid the general astonishment and numerous conjectures caused by this unusual incident, I received my chief at the companion-ladder.  He grasped my hand, squeezed it tight, drew me into the cabin, and said, “Your brother, the Duc d’Orleans, is dead, killed in a carriage accident.  My orders are to send you to Paris at once.”  The rough old sailor’s face betrayed his deep emotion.  But how shall I describe my own, under such a terrible and unexpected blow?  This world’s sorest sorrows are those that tear the human heart-strings, and mine was even more bitter than an ordinary grief, for I do not believe there ever was a more attached family than ours, and not only had I lost the most beloved of brothers, but the confidant, the guide and the companion of my whole life.  I seemed to see and feel the despair of my father, above all of my mother, and of my brothers and sisters, too, under this awful blow, and their sorrow added to my own.  For a moment I stood thunderstruck.  Then the admiral left me alone ....  I gave over my ship to my second in command, and within an hour I was on my way to Toulon, the gloomy faces round me betraying the general feeling that this was a public misfortune, and that the loss to France was very great.