Six years after that the little drama of the Lorrain Court was played out. Blind, and old, and deserted, Stanislas was not even sufficiently cared for to have some one handy to help when his silk dressing-gown caught fire. He died of his wounds--with an innocent _bon-mot_ on his lips. The Lorrains, who had been slow to welcome him, crowded round his sick bed and his hearse. He had done his work. In spite of his failings, his posings, his airs, and his frivolities, no one need grudge him that tribute of esteem. He had made the change from independence, dear as life itself to the Lorrains while under their own dukes, to incorporation with France very much easier. He had done much material good to the Duchy, and to literature he had rendered very useful service. His Court is forgotten now. His Palace is turned into a barrack; and the once gay capital has, but for its garrison, become a sleepy little provincial town, in which the presence of a stray stranger puts the police at once on the _qui vive_. The hop-trade and the manufacture of _dentelleries_ monopolize the attention of the inhabitants; and only rarely is it that some inquiring traveller comes to inspect with interest the spot on which was enacted the most important scene of what the late Comte d'Haussonville has aptly called "the great second act" of the _comédie_ of Voltaire's life--that act which, according to the same gifted author, might be named "L'amour de la science, et la science de l'amour." VII.--THE PRINCE CONSORT'S UNIVERSITY DAYS.[10] "Quarum virtutum laude hominum animas, dum in hac urbe morabaris, mirifice Tibi devinxisti."--_Address of the Senate of Bonn to Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, January, 28, 1840._ There are incidents in a man's life--sometimes important, sometimes insignificant--which impress themselves upon his mind as if graven in "with a pen of iron." Thirty-two years have now passed away, but I remember, as if it had happened only a few weeks ago, old "Senius" putting his weather-worn face into my bedroom at Bonn, on the memorable grey morning of mid-December, 1861, to make the melancholy announcement: "Uür Prinz is doht." "Dat war 'ne johde Heer," he added rather impressively.