Well, General La Fayette set out for Auvergne. General La Fayette, whom I knew intimately, and who was quite friendly in his inclinations towards myself, whom I hope to describe in his proper turn in the course of these Memoirs, without allowing the respectful homage of a young man and the sympathy of the friend to injure the impartiality of the historian--General La Fayette, I say, was born in 1757, at Chavagnac, near Brioude, and, some day before the close of the session of 1829, he had set out to visit the ancient land of the Arvernese. He had yielded to the wish of seeing his native land once more, a desire which moves our souls with such profound memories that it draws us to it throughout our whole life, and it is a remarkable fact that this attraction grows stronger as we near death, as though nature had implanted an imperious wish in man's heart to seek his burial-place near the spot where he was born. Now, General La Fayette was welcomed throughout that tour with joy and affection and respect, but without fanaticism. Banquets had been given him at Issoire and Clermont and Brioude; but none of them had had any sort of political significance until then: they were simply meetings of fellow-citizens, celebrating the return of one of their members, and nothing more. Suddenly, the news of a change of government became known, and the accession of M. de Polignac to power. From the very moment that the news of the change of government arrived, La Fayette's journey assumed a different complexion: it bore the aspect of an influential protest, and an almost religious hopefulness of tone. The general was at Puy--a remarkable coincidence--in the same town where the ancestors of M. de Polignac had formerly held sway, when, a couple of hours before the banquet took place that was being prepared in his honour, the people heard of the formation of the Ministry of 8 August; immediately they rallied excitedly round the famous traveller, pressing up to him with shouts of "Vive La Fayette!" and, at the repast, two hours later, the following pretty revolutionary toast was drunk:-- "The Chambre des députés, the _one and only hope_ of France!" The general intended to go to Vizille to see his granddaughter, wife of Augustin Périer, who lived in a château built in olden times by the Constable of Lesdiguières, an ancient feudal manor house, which was later turned into a factory and workshop. To go to Vizille--a historic town whose Government, with that of Bretagne, in 1788 was the first to offer opposition to the royal decrees--he had to pass through Grenoble. Moreover, pass through it he would; the general was just the man to go two or three leagues out of his way in order to cull the flower of popularity, which quickly fades and which, after forty years, was springing up as fresh the second time as the first.