there had not yet been time in the history of America for the fixing of inviolable canons. In some other respects the features of life in this new country were amusing. In a log cabin on the Ohio they found some good bronzes and a fine piano. When Beaumetz opened it, however, the owner had to ask him to spare them; the nearest tuner lived a hundred miles away, and had not called that year. Talleyrand makes it clear that he understands how these features of American life are inseparable from its newness and its pioneering character, but he feels the discord too keenly to enjoy it on its adventurous and picturesque sides. “If I have to stay here another year I shall die,” he wrote to Mme. de Staël. He appreciates the sincerity of their religious life after that of pre-Revolutionary Paris, but a country of thirty-two religions and only one sauce does not suit him. He wrote a long letter to Lord Lansdowne (February 1st, 1795), with the view of bringing about a better understanding between England and America. The independence of the States is settled for ever, he says; there is no question whatever of a reversion to the status of a British colony. Nevertheless, though feeling is at present averted from England and turning towards France, the link between the two nations is strong and natural. All the institutions of America and all its economic features (which he discusses at great length) compel it to look in friendly interest to England. In June and July he sent other brief notes to Lord Lansdowne. In June, moreover, he heard of the rout of the Jacobins at Paris. In the memoirs he affirms (and the most indulgent admiration fails to ascribe _this_ to a freak of memory) that the National Convention rescinded the decree against him “without any request on my part.” We have a copy of the petition he wrote to the Convention on June 16th, pressing for the removal of his name from the proscribed list. He urges that the reasons for putting him on the list were frivolous, but he had not been able to return to Paris to contest them, because “under the tyranny of Robespierre” the prisons were violated, and he would be executed without trial. It is probably about the same time that he wrote to Mme. de Staël, who quotes his words in a later letter to him.