During the storm of applause that followed these words, I remembered that at breakfast I had seen in the _Charivari_ a cartoon of Girardin, with these words for a legend: “Mr. de Girardin commence à flotter avec le vent.”[28] So I got up, as soon as the hall was quiet again, and said, “Merci du compliment, bien que je ne puisse pas l’accepter dans toute la force du terme, attendu que je ne flotte pas avec le vent, moi!”[29] Indescribable effect. Hundreds of Americans and Englishmen cried, “The translation! The translation!” M. de Coquerel, curé de Ste. Madelaine, _translateur officiel_, gets up and begins: “The learned gentleman has said—” I interrupt him, politely begging permission to translate my words into English myself; in doing so I make an allusion to our Anglo-Saxon relationship, and arouse great enthusiasm. Now arose M. de Cormenin (Timon) to protest against Germany’s being _la nation la plus civilisée du globe_: only France, said he, could be so designated. “Let us put it to the test,” I cried.... “How is the greatness of a nation known? By its great men. Name me six of your great living men and I will wager that every German schoolboy knows their names; then I will mention six Germans who are their peers, and I will acknowledge myself beaten if you yourself can give me any tolerably satisfactory account of their importance.” So the matter was thrashed back and forth without its being possible to speak of it as a speech; I myself was farthest of all from having the idea that I had made one. But Fate often plays strange tricks with us. Szarvady, Wilhelmine Claus’s husband, was my guide through Paris, and we had agreed to dine at the Hotel Rougemont at six o’clock with some of his acquaintances. He had not been at the meeting, but had taken me to Victor Hugo’s the day before and had there learned that I was not going to make a speech. Great was his astonishment at reading in all the evening papers the most contradictory reports of the speech I did not make. John Lemoine in the _Journal des Débats_ was praising my fine English, and _Galignani’s Messenger_ remarked as follows about my French: “The learned gentleman delivered himself in a most exquisite French.” That is the only sentence which my memory retains as an attestation of my oratorical triumph. In Paris I was called _le drapeau vivant de l’Allemagne_ for a few days, and from there the phrase went over into all the German papers, where it kept its vogue for a few years. Now it is to be read only on a “triumph cup” which a fascinating young lady presented me; on it she had painted me as I then was, in my thirtieth year, with a full head of curly hair, slender, and vivacious. This young enthusiast afterwards married the famous Orientalist, Professor Matzstein, and is still living in Berlin.