“The due meed of lying toasts were likewise bawled forth; vows for the ‘_Fraternity of Europe_,’ and ‘_Universal Union_,’ &c., with some few favourite names, were also shouted with much riot and applause. Disputes of the most animated kind, concerning the rival merits of divers of our public men, were also started and quelled, but never once was the subject with which every heart must have needs been full made the topic of a single observation. I observed that many, while loudest and most clamorous in their discourse, would cast a shuddering glance towards the chair which had so lately been filled with the violet robes and portly dignity of the Lord Archbishop, and which stood now empty and reproachful by my side; then, by a sudden effort turn away and grow more clamorous and noisy than before; but, as I have already said, not once was the subject of his miserable death alluded to in any one of the numberless speeches which were subsequently uttered. One would have thought that he had been forgotten on the instant, although his cover still remained upon the board, and his jewelled snuff-box still sparkled beside it. While yet the very presence of the man hovered round us, he was, to outward seeming, as much unthought of as though he had never been.” This story gave rise to others of the same nature, and many were the anecdotes related of sudden death, the summons which startles men in the midst of revelry and festival, at council-board or in the judgment-seat. Some of these are well known, others would have but small interest for the general reader, but one of the most curious was told by the prince himself with the piquant raciness in which he so much excelled, and which has graven the history in my memory. It happened during a time, too, which possessed a peculiar interest to me—a time which, in spite of its importance, has found but few chroniclers—the period of the occupation of Paris by the allied armies, and the visit of the sovereigns of Europe, in 1815. Men’s minds were so agitated by the crowding of events the one upon the other, by dread anticipations of what would come next, that public feeling was taken by surprise, and scarcely had time to set up its own standard, or leisure to record its own impressions; this I take to be the reason why so few of the memoirs of our day contain any special description of the state of society at that time.