"Monseigneur, you should remember, that you are not in our diocese, haranguing your chaplains. You forget also, that in France the age of quackery is over. There are no more dupes--have _you_ your passports ready?" This produced not even a sneer on the marble countenance of the adversary. "Monsieur de Sieyes," was the ready reply, "let me not hear _you_ talk of despair. Quackery will never be at an end in France. The true quack is a polypus; cut him into a thousand pieces, he only grows the faster;--he is a fungus, give him only a stone to cling to, and he covers it;--he is the viper, even while he hides in his hole, he is only preparing to bite in the sunshine; and when all the world think him frozen for life, he is only concocting venom for his summer exploits. Quacks will live, as long as there are dupes--as leeches will live, as long as there are asses' heels to hang on." He then rose, making a profound bow, with "Bon soir, Monsieur l'Abbe--never fear--dupes will be eternal." This produced some confusion and consternation among the friends of Sieyes. But a new scene of the night was announced, and all flowed towards the private theatre. I was yet to see more of this daring talker; but I was not surprised to hear next day, that he had left Paris at midnight, and was gone, no one knew whither. The capital might have been hazardous for him. Sieyes was probably above revenge; but there were those who would have readily taken the part upon themselves, and a _cidevant_ bishop would have made a showy victim. How he escaped even so far, is among the wonders of a life of wonder. I afterwards saw the fugitive, at the head of European councils, a prince and a prime minister; the restorer of the dynasty under which he fell, the overthrower of the dynasty under which he rose; bearing a charmed life, and passing among the havoc of factions, and even escaping from the wrecks of empire, more like an impalpable spirit than a man. But the change of his style was scarcely less remarkable than the change of his fortunes. He was then no longer the hot and heady satirist; he had become the sly and subtle scorner. No man said so many cutting things, yet so few of which any one could take advantage: he anatomized human character without the appearance of inflicting a wound; he had all the pungency of wit without its peril, and reigned supreme by a terror which every one pretended _not_ to feel. The change, after all, was only one of weapons; in the first period it was the knife, in the second the razor--and perhaps the latter was the more deadly of the two. The theatre was fitted up with the taste of a people more essentially theatrical than any other in the world. For not merely the eye, but the tongue, is theatrical; and not merely the stage, but every portion of private life. Every sentiment, every sound, is theatrical; and the stage itself is the only natural thing in the country, from Calais to Bayonne.