had at last earned the right to return triumphantly to his country and to his home. He was dead! And yet it might have happened to him as it happened to Sheridan's dead body; poor Sheridan, who drank so much rum, brandy and absinthe that Lord Byron once said to him during an orgie-- "Sheridan! Sheridan! you drink enough alcohol to set fire to the very flannel vest you wear next your skin." And the prophecy was fulfilled: Sheridan drank so much that his flannel vest was scorched. Sheridan was dead; and he left both his pockets and his bottles empty. This did not prevent the highest people in the land from doing him honour, as he lay dead in his home, which had been stript bare of everything by his creditors. Those friends who had, perhaps, refused to lend him ten guineas the day before, gave him a royal burial. The coffin was just going to be borne to the hearse, when a gentleman clad in deep mourning from head to foot, and apparently overcome with grief, came into the room in which were assembled the most aristocratic gentlemen of the three kingdoms, and, advancing to the coffin, begged, as a particular favour, to be allowed to look for the last time on the features of his unfortunate friend. He was refused at first, but his entreaties were so vehement, his voice was so broken, he was so shaken with sobs, that they did not like to refuse such grief a hearing. The top of the coffin was unscrewed and the body of Sheridan uncovered. Then the expression on the face of the gentleman in mourning changed completely, and he drew out of his pocket an order for the seizure of the body and took possession of it. He was a bailiff. Mr. Canning and Lord Lydmouth took the man outside and settled the amount he claimed, namely, the sum of £480. CHAPTER V My mother comes to live with me--A Duc de Chartres born to me--Chateaubriand and M. de Villèle--Epistolary brevity--Re-establishment of the Censorship--A King of France should never be ill--Bulletins of the health of Louis XVIII.--His last moments and death--Ode by Victor Hugo--M. Torbet and Napoleon's tomb--La Fayette's voyage to America--The ovations showered upon him