Holland, besides, told me that any excitement would be prejudicial. Here goes, then, for my excuse.... So! I’m glad I’ve done it. I feel myself once more free to lie at ease on this ottoman and dream away the hours undisturbed. “Holloa! what’s this, Legrelle?” “De la part de Madame la Comtesse, sir. How provoking!--how monstrously provoking! She writes me, ‘You really must come. I will not order dinner till I see you.--Yours, &c. B. de F------.’ What a bore! and what an absurd way to incur an attack of illness! There’s nothing for it, however, but submission; and to-morrow, if I’m able, I’ll leave Paris. “Legrelle, don’t forget to order horses for tomorrow at twelve.” “What route does monsieur take?” “Avignon--no, Strasbourg--Couilly, I think, is the first post. I should like to see Munich once more, or, at least, its gallery. The city is a poor thing, worthy of its people, and, I was going to say--no matter what! Germany, in any case, for the summer, as I am sentenced to die in Italy. I feel I am taking what the Irish call ‘a long day’ in not crossing the Alps till late in autumn!” How many places there are which one has been near enough to have visited and somehow always neglected to see! and what a longing, craving wish to behold them comes over the heart at such a time as this? What, then, is “this time,” that I speak it thus? ***** How late it is! De Vigny was very agreeable, combining in his manner a great deal of the refinement of a highly cultivated mind, with the shrewd perception of a keen observer of the world. He is a _Légitimiste_, I take it, without any hope of his party. This, after all, is the sad political creed of all who adhere to the “elder branch.” Their devotion is indeed great, for it wars against conviction. But where can an honest man find footing in France nowadays? Has not Louis Philippe violated in succession every pledge by which he had bound himself? Can such an example of falsehood so highly placed be without its influence on the nation? Can men cry “Shame!” on the Minister, when they witness the turpitude of the Monarch? But what hope does any other party offer?--None. Henri Cinque, a Bourbon of the _vieille roche_, gentle, soft-hearted, sensual, and selfish, who, if he returned to France to-morrow, would never believe that the long interval since the Three Days had been any thing but an accident; and would not bring himself to credit the possibility that the succession had been ever endangered.