In answer to this interrogatory, I entered into an illustrative analysis of the faults of government, and of the consequences ensuing therefrom. Our conversation became warmer, and when, after having discussed the time present, we began to contemplate futurity, our thoughts were evolved with so much rapidity; we were carried so much further than we intended, that we ourselves were astonished, and we then both continued during a short interval in a kind of reverie. I was the first who broke silence. "Well," said I, "suppose the Emperor, after having questioned me, were to ask, Do you think the time of my re-appearance in France is arrived, what must I answer?"--"You will tell his Majesty that I could not dare to decide so important a question; but that he may consider it as a positive and incontestible fact that our present government (as you have well observed) has wholly lost the confidence of the people and of the army; that discontent has increased to the highest pitch; and that it is impossible to believe that the government can stand much longer against the universal dislike. You will add, that the Emperor is the only object of the regret and hope of the nation. He, in his wisdom, will decide what he ought to do."--"If he asks me whether this opinion is only yours, or whether Messrs. ******* all share in it, what shall I answer?"--"Tell him that since his abdication those persons have ceased to be in communication with each other, but that my opinion is conformable to the general opinion."--"I am now able to answer all the questions which the Emperor may ask. Adieu." We embraced each other repeatedly, and we parted. As soon as I had quitted M. X*** all that had passed between us filled my mind again. I now contemplated at leisure the mission which I was called upon to fulfil. I measured its extent, and weighed its consequences, and I could not help feeling astonished, and in some measure alarmed, by the result of this self-examination. So long as I merely intended to go to Elba for the sole purpose of offering my services to the Emperor, my journey appeared to be nothing out of the common course of things, and I thought that I should not have hesitated to declare to the government that I was going to rejoin my former benefactor, the Sovereign of my choice; but since the object of my journey had become so much more important; since, to use the words of M. X***, it might produce tremendous consequences, it seemed that the government would not fail to watch me; that it would dog me in my path, and endeavour to spy out all my words and actions.