“It was just about this time that he met with a romantic adventure, which he cannot even now relate without emotion, and which has all the character of the events which compose the most pure and healthy of the novels of the period. He was one day returning from the _Bibliothèque_ of the Sorbonne to the Seminaire Saint Sulpice, laden with books and papers, when a violent storm of rain coming on, he was forced to seek shelter beneath a gateway in the Rue du Pot de Fer. The neighbourhood at that time was full of convents and ecclesiastical establishments—the Benedictines—the Carmelites—the Frères Minimes—the Cordeliers—all had houses or _succursales_, about the Place Saint Sulpice; so that you might have walked down whole streets of dark gloomy wall, without finding a single refuge from the rain—the convent doors being kept inhospitably closed, and the small space beneath the eaves being even more drenched than the middle of the street, from the dripping gutters which poured down upon the miserable wayfarer one continued sheet of water, certainly not so pure as that which fell straight from heaven. There was but a single space in the whole street where the passenger could hope for a dry footing, and young Talleyrand knew it well; a little archway, leading to the back-door of a convent of Benedictines—the name of which I forget—whose principal entrance was in the Rue de Vaugirard. “It was a long, narrow passage, so dark that it was impossible to perceive any one concealed there, and might have served admirably as a place of ambush for any lurking thief or assassin, who might have chosen to harbour in its gloomy recess. Here the youth had stood some time watching the rain—which continued to fall in torrents—still laden with his books, yet not daring to open one of them, fearful that the rest might fall into the mud—of course devoured with _ennui_, and stamping with impatience,—just, in fact, on the point of launching forth once more—if it were merely for the sake of changing his station for another more amusing,—when suddenly he became conscious of the presence of another person in the passage. He says that he was rather startled at first, but it did not belong either to his age or character to pass without investigation any circumstance which had arrested his attention: so clearing his throat with a successful effort, he called out manfully, ‘_Qui vive?_’ “The exclamation was answered by a faint and stifled cry, issuing from the very furthermost corner of the obscure passage. The young man ventured forward without hesitation, and discovered a dark and shapeless form huddled up in one corner of the threshold of the convent-door, whose outline, so dark was the place, was invisible, even at arm’s length. He was conscious that the form was that of a female, and he stretched out his hand, and said kindly,—‘What fear you?—are you in trouble?—why are you hidden thus? Let me assist you, if you are in pain.’