'This remark did not make amends for the nuisance of hearing in good French what we all knew before, when what we wanted was to listen to new things, in a foreign accent. Among the very few words which the English general was allowed to put in, I caught one sentence which struck me. While the abbé took breath, or coughed, the warrior had just time to tell us, that the most awful day in the life of a commander is that in which he has gained a battle; because, before having passed a night on the ground, and being assured on the morrow of the departure of the enemy, the conqueror cannot even know whether he is not conquered. 'Everything has its cost in this world, and if every man told us his secret, we should see that the most dazzling triumphs are paid for at their full price. However that may be, I thought there was sense and good taste in the Duke's remark. It seemed as if he tried to make us forgive him for exciting our curiosity so much. 'Many people went away discouraged by the bad manners of M. de Pradt. The hero himself was thinking of a retreat, when Mme de Staël came to release him from the ambuscade into which he had fallen. She retained him near the door, and there was a grave conversation on the English constitution. Mme de Staël could not reconcile the idea of political liberty, with the prevalence of servile forms remaining in the individual relationships of a society so jealous of that liberty as England. '"Language and aristocratic customs do not annoy people living in a country that is really free," said the Duke. "We use these unimportant formulæ in compliment to the past, and preserve our ceremonies as we keep a memorial, even when it has lost its primitive destination." '"But is it true," asked Mme de Staël, "that your lord chancellor speaks to the king on his bended knee during the opening address or sitting of parliament?" '"Yes; quite true." '"How _does_ he do it?" '"He speaks to him kneeling, as I have told you." '"But how?" '"Must I shew you? You _will_ have it!" answered the Duke; and he threw himself at the feet of our Corinna. '"I wish everybody could see him," cried Mme de Staël. 'And everybody there did applaud with one accord. I would not answer for the same unanimity of approbation among the same people after they had reached the foot of the staircase. 'Everybody went away, only I stayed two hours with the mistress of the house and M. Schlegel, whose anger against the abbé did not wear out. These two hours Mme de Staël's conversation enchanted me, proving how much there is to attach us in one who can live at one and the same time so near and yet so far above the world.... I might pass many evenings in recounting in detail the conversation of this evening. There is more than matter for a book in a two hours' talk with Mme de Staël. I had better go to bed, that I may be able to tell you to-morrow all I can only leave you to guess at now.'[3]