I had drawn close to Prince Eugène. Most cruelly upset by the events in course of completion, he, as it were, instinctively turned to the past. His memory striding, so to speak, across the decade of Empire, went back with a sort of melancholy regret to the period of the Consulate, which to him was a period of happiness, for it had been that of hope. In truth, those four years constituted a remarkable period; everything seemed eager for a new birth, to emerge altered, if not purified, from the confusion into which the saturnalia of the Directorate had plunged it. At that moment nothing had acquired any stability, but those who had eyes to see perceived well enough that they were advancing with giant steps towards a social regeneration. There was a general, an irresistible, yielding to pleasure. It was not the licence which had preceded it; it was like the distant and expiring sound of that licence assuming a regular cadence day after day. Lavishness was extreme; gold seemed, as it were, to flow; military and administrative fortunes had been made so rapidly as to leave people virtually in doubt as to the real price which had been paid for them. Numberless _émigrés_ setting foot once more in their country, and finding their property practically unimpaired, made up by constant enjoyment for the cruel privations they had experienced in an alien land; others, happy to have escaped either that or proscription, followed suit, and freely scattered their fortunes, which they had been within an ace of losing for ever. Finally, as if everything conspired to the glorifying of that period, consider this further: that it counted, perhaps, the largest number of celebrated beauties. Not that chance had absolutely provided a most remarkable type of woman, but gold flung about by handfuls brought to the fore women who, if they had remained in an obscure position, would have probably passed unperceived; placed on pedestals, they borrowed from the world by which they were surrounded part of the brilliancy which dazzled the beholder. We reviewed all the joys of that remarkable period, and we naturally came to the recollection of the woman who was _the queen then_--Mme. Récamier. It was at her house that forgathered the best society of the time, and all that Paris held in the way of illustrious strangers. In her seemed incarnated the elegance and pomp of the moment. Prince Eugène had often been a guest at those receptions, which Europe has not yet forgotten. ‘That period,’ I said to the prince, ‘will always remain stamped on my memory, not only in virtue of the brilliance of its fêtes or the glamour of our military glory, but in virtue of a circumstance which formed an epoch in my existence. You know, prince, there are moments when fortune, weary as it were of taking you for its play-ball, suddenly lifts you from the depths of despair to the heaven of glory. At that time I had a very curious experience.’