“The dinner, then, was decided on; the day had arrived; and I was alone in my study, composing myself for the great struggle which was about to take place, when M. de la Bernardière came hurrying in, pale and breathless. ‘Well, we have committed a pretty blunder,’ said he; ‘only see; with all the “very clever men” by whom we are surrounded, what great fools we must be.’ He placed upon my desk an open letter which he had just received. It was from the secretary of the Archbishop of M—— to M. de la Bernardière, who was then supposed to be acting as _my_ secretary. A letter purporting to be written in the strictest confidence, from ‘one gentleman to another,’ from a secretary to a man of honour, holding the same important office, having the same ministerial functions to fulfil, &c.; containing a sort of mysterious warning; a kind of covert denunciation against the whole proceedings of the Consulte; a threat of failure in all our schemes; an assurance that all the ambitious views of France were perfectly understood; and the letter concluded by declaring that they would be unmasked if the Archbishop of M—— were not invited to the dinner! I must own that this announcement took us rather by surprise; we had reckoned upon the Archbishop of M—— as one of the firmest allies of France, and it was, indeed, by a most inconceivable _bévue_ that he had been left out. It must have occurred, no doubt, through some awkward mismanagement on the part of the servants; but, whatever the cause, and it was then too late to enter into any examination, it became evident that the remedy must be applied at once, and that the company of the archbishop must be secured without delay.