And then, as though he had reserved all his urbanity till the last, acting upon his own principle of “always waiting to the end,” he told me that he himself was on the point of hastening thither,—that I should see him no more in Paris,—that the place would not be far out of my road on my journey southwards; and the kindness of the tone, the friendly glance with which the words were accompanied, left me no doubt of their sincerity: so I accepted the invitation with the most joyful alacrity, and, before we parted, he himself had fixed the day for our meeting again—at Valençay! At Valençay! Here, then, was I about to accomplish by a mighty stride, to overleap by a single bound, many a weary league on the highway of politics; and moreover, to gain ease for the remainder of the dusty journey. So, with these pleasant illusions in my mind, it cannot be wondered at if I rather hastened than retarded my movements. With a heart beating high with expectation did I set forth on this pilgrimage. It had been one of my day-dreams, which I was about to convert into reality. I had so often longed to behold the great statesman in his retirement, and now I was about to see him in his hours of leisure and of _laisser-aller_, and to share with his chosen inmates all the treasures of his rich and varied store of reminiscences! I had heard that it was his great delight, when at Valençay, to call up the spirits of the shadowy past, and that here he seemed to live and breathe amongst them; that here he took no heed of to-day, or of what might befal on the morrow; that his soul was with the past—his thoughts were all of days gone by, and lingered not with the present. By turns abiding amid the courtly saloons of the days previous to the Revolution, he would tell of Madame de Boufflers and Marie Antoinette, and of the _folle vie_ led by the young, when he, too, was in his youth. Then the rude Conventional—the stern Republican—the warlike figures of the Empire—the pale, dim Silhouettes of the Restoration, would all arise, and pass in crowded array before his enchanted audience; with such grace and truth, too, were they all endowed, that sometimes the listener could believe that he had seen and heard the like, and that he too had been of them and among them. Valençay had ever been the favourite residence of the prince. It was here that he had ever preferred seeking relief from the political turmoil of the moment,—perhaps to repose after the fatigues of the last struggle,—perhaps to gain fresh courage and vigour for that which, with his unerring foresight, he knew to be inevitable. It was here that he sought the rest which he sometimes needed—it is here that, by his own desire, he now reposes for ever.