MADAME: If you could possibly come at once I would wait for you until six o’clock. Excuse the earliness of the hour, but I have to be at the Chamber at nine in the morning, and as your note seems to be urgent, I am anxious to do all I can to be of service to you. COMTE DE KÉRATRY. I remembered a Comte de Kératry who had been introduced to me at my aunt’s house the evening I had recited poetry accompanied by Rossini. He was a young lieutenant, good-looking, witty, and lively. He had introduced me to his mother, a very charming woman, and I had recited poetry at her _soirées_. The young lieutenant had gone to Mexico and for some time we had kept up a correspondence, but this had gradually ceased, and we had not met again. I asked Mme. Guérard whether she thought that the prefect might be a near relative of my young friend’s. “It may be so,” she replied, and we discussed this in the carriage which was taking us at once to the Tuileries Palace, where the prefect had his offices. My heart was very heavy when we came to the stone steps. Only a few months previously, one April morning, I had been there with Mme. Guérard. Then, as now, a footman had come forward to open the door of my carriage, but the April sunshine had then lighted up the steps, caught the shining lamps of the state carriages, and sent its rays in all directions. There had been a busy, joyful coming and going of the officers, and elegant salutes had been exchanged. On this occasion the misty, crafty-looking November sun fell heavily on all it touched. Black, dirty-looking cabs drove up one after the other, knocking against the iron gate, grazing the steps, advancing or moving back, according to the coarse shouts of their drivers. Instead of the elegant salutations, I heard now such phrases as: “Well, how are you, old chap?” “Oh, the wooden jaws!” “Well, any news?” “Yes, it’s the very deuce with us!” etc., etc.... The palace was no longer the same. The very atmosphere had changed. The faint perfume which elegant women leave in the air as they pass was no longer there. A vague odor of tobacco, of greasy clothes, of hair plastered with pomatum made the atmosphere seem heavy. Ah, the beautiful French Empress! I could see her again in her blue dress embroidered with silver, calling to her aid Cinderella’s good fairy to help her on again with her little slipper. The delightful young Prince Imperial, too; I could see him helping me to place the pots of verbena and Marguerites, and holding in his arms, which were not strong enough for it, a huge pot of rhododendrons, behind which his handsome face completely disappeared. I could see the Emperor Napoleon III himself, with his half-closed eyes, clapping his hands at the rehearsal of the courtesies intended for him.