‘This, my young friend, shows that bodily agility may be attended with excellent results, and that there is nothing in life like prompt resolution. A few years before the outbreak of the Revolution, I happened to be in Paris. In the happiness of the hour, and with the carelessness of youth, I had committed a few excesses; I had, moreover, forgotten the state of my finances, and my purse was as empty of coin as my heart was full of joy and my mind of illusion. Nevertheless, I was expected in Brussels the next day to dine with the archduchess-governess of the Southern Netherlands. A total stranger in the vast city, I felt sorely embarrassed. I was on terms of intimate friendship with Prince Max, the present King of Bavaria, at that time a colonel in the French service.[43] You are aware of his generous and devoted disposition. During the whole of his life he was willing to share with his friends whatever he possessed. Naturally I went to him, but our excellent Max was not at that period a king, and had no minister of finances to direct and to take care of his savings. It just happened that his purse was as light as mine. What was to be done? A post-boy is the most inexorable of men, and at each stage he comes pitilessly, though hat in hand, to claim his salary. I was told that my cousin, the Duc d’Aremberg, much more sober in conduct, was starting that same evening for Brussels. I immediately made up my mind what to do. “I shall be there before him,” I said; and without a moment’s delay I transformed myself into a forerunner, and, booted and spurred, presented myself at the posting-office. I told them to give me a horse, and set off at a gallop to the next stage to order relays. In that way I performed the journey to Brussels, always a few minutes in advance of him, and seeing to the providing of his horses all along the route. My cousin, who had not despatched a forerunner, was unable to make out the providential arrangement to which was due the promptitude that thus shortened his journey. At his arrival I told him the ruse, at which we both laughed heartily, and thanks to which I managed to dine with the archduchess.’ While talking, he had dressed himself. When he had finished putting on his uniform of colonel of trabans, and had hung half-a-dozen grand crosses and ribands of various orders upon his breast, he suddenly stopped.