Napoleon spent his last days in exile; Biennais took his departure for Belgium. The park was his Longwood; and, indeed, he himself saw invariable points of resemblance in the two destinies. Happily for those who frequented the Hôtel de France, he did not occupy his remaining years in dictating his memoirs to some Las Casas of the kitchen, but persevered to the last in the practice of his great art, and died, so to speak, ladle in hand. To me the Hôtel de France has many charms. I remember it, I shall not say how many years--its cool, delightful salon, looking out upon that beautiful little park whose shady alleys are such a resource in the evenings of summer; its lime-trees, beneath which you may sit and sip your coffee, as you watch the groups that pass and repass before you, weaving stories to yourself which become thicker and thicker as the shade deepens, and the flitting shapes are barely seen as they glide along the silent alleys, while a distant sound of music--some air of the Fatherland--is all that breaks the stillness, and you forget in the dreamy silence that you are in the midst of a great city. The Hôtel de France has other memories than these, too. I ‘m not sure that I shall not make a confession, yet somehow I half shrink from it. You might call it a love adventure, and I should not like that; besides, there is scarcely a moral in it--though who knows? CHAPTER X. A DILEMMA It was in the month of May--I won’t confess to the year--that I found myself, after trying various hotels in the Place Royale, at last deposited at the door of the Hôtel de France. It seemed to me, in my then ignorance, like a _pis aller_, when the postillion said, ‘Let us try the “France,”’ and little prepared me for the handsome, but somewhat small, hotel before me. It was nearly five o’clock when I arrived, and I had only time to make some slight change in my dress when the bell sounded for table d’hôte. The guests were already seated when I entered, but a place had been reserved for me, which completed the table. I was a young--perhaps after reading a little farther you’ll say a _very young_--traveller at the time, but was soon struck by the quiet and decorous style in which the dinner was conducted. The servants were prompt, silent, and observant; the guests, easy and affable; the equipage of the table was even elegant; and the cookery, Biennais! I was the only Englishman present, the party being made up of Germans and French; but all spoke together like acquaintances, and before the dinner had proceeded far were polite enough to include me in the conversation.