The trip was fruitful in incident.  The first happened at Bernay, the native town of the virtuous Dupont de l’Eure, one of those virtuous individuals who would virtuously have your head cut off sooner than drop the smallest iota of their vulgar and utopian ideas.  The prefect, M. Passy, had warned the King that amongst the addresses that would be read to him on his arrival there would be one which would give him a lecture.  Thus warned, we arrived, and having mounted a platform in the open air, with a verdant dome above it, the reception and the addresses began.  There was nothing very particular at first; at last a “President de Tribunal” advanced, and the way he made his bow with his prim look, and the curiosity which stretched every neck, told me at once that the King was to get the promised lecture.  It came, indeed, very studied, and very impertinent too.  Everybody listened in silence.  It was all about courtiers, the danger of listening to flatterers, and so forth.  As it ended, the heads of the president and his friends all came up with a “Take that, my fine fellow” look.

Then the King replied with the utmost politeness, thanking M. le President for the advice he had been good enough to give him.  “Flatterers and courtiers,” he said, “have indeed done much mischief, and, sad to say, the race is not yet extinct, for nowadays there are courtiers who are far more dangerous than the flatterers of princes and of kings—­those courtiers and flatterers of the people, who to buy a vain and contemptible popularity suggest to them dreams which are unrealizable and which bring them to misfortune,” &c.  On this head my father bestowed a well-directed hiding on the president, which was constantly interrupted by a running fire of applause, so that the worthy gentleman ended by not knowing which way to look.  Amongst other eminently French qualities, my father possessed the gift of repartee to the highest degree.  He always knew how to use it, though with a politeness and good nature which softened whatever might be too sharp about its sting.  This time the blow went home.  Our journey, thus begun, was continued amid constantly increasing cordiality and success.  It was a somewhat tiring manner of life.  We went by short stages, from one reception to another.  Everywhere the National Guard and the troops were under arms.  When they were in considerable numbers, we mounted horses, either lent or requisitioned beforehand.  In the evening, wherever we slept, there would be a great banquet, and generally a ball as well.  It was the duty of us young folk to lead the dancing—­a pleasant task enough, if we could have chosen our partners among the pretty women whom I was beginning to notice, in spite of my being only fourteen, and of whom there were many, especially at Grandville and St. Lo.  But our partners were given to us officially, and were chosen from the families of the authorities.  We exerted ourselves to be pleasant in spite of that.  I do not know whether I was succeeding too much or too little at a ball one night, but I saw the husband’s head suddenly appear between my partner and myself, with the observation, “Well, my wife’s not bad-looking, is she?” and he smacked his lips like a man who has eaten a good thing.