“Had I not been already convinced of the utter impossibility which must ever exist of any individual of our day being able to do justice to the ‘Life of Prince Talleyrand,’ that evening’s conversation, in the old Perrault-looking drawing-room of Valençay, would have amply proved it. A volume might be filled with the anecdotes he told me merely relating to the first years of his youth—just at his _début_ in the fashionable world, before the revolution. He began with the _Séminaire_, recounting with peculiar delight the history of his intimate associates there—his prodigious memory seeming to grasp the most trifling details relating to each with as much vigour and freshness as though he were speaking of yesterday. Many were the curious customs, the picturesque observances, of the old place, the very tradition of which has since been lost, obliterated, and trodden under foot in the mire of the revolution, and of which he alone, in the whole world, was left the chronicler. “‘It cannot be denied,’ said he, in speaking of this establishment, ‘that vice and infidelity had crept in there as elsewhere, as how could it be otherwise, when all the talent and brilliancy which have dazzled youth in all ages were on the side of doubt and irreligion? And yet there were still some bright examples, some few specimens of a higher order of beings, gathered among us, whose light shone out yet brighter from amid the utter darkness by which they were surrounded. The histories of some of those young men would better serve as themes for novel or romance than for book of saintly lore; for the revolution dispersed them right and left, and sent them forth to the world, some to battle with their fierce, pent-up passions, others to struggle with their timid fears. “‘Not all the romance that ever was written could equal in interest the plain narration of some of the adventures which, in after life, befel my fellow-students. Some perished beneath the revolutionary axe, voluntary martyrs—others were found in the ranks of Napoleon’s army, wearing the epaulettes and moustaches of his _avant garde_, or caracoling among his voltigeurs. There still live some few who occupy posts of honour and of trust, which the government of Louis Dixhuit bestowed in utter ignorance of antecedents, while many of those who had mourned their bondage the most bitterly, lived to regret it, with yearning for the quiet which it yielded, and which they have lost for ever.