“The Peace d’Amiens brought over a great number of Englishmen. ‘They are all malecontents,’ observed the ambassador Livingston; ‘some have expected to find France wild; they have found her flourishing: the others hoped to see here traces of liberty; all are disappointed.’ I was at Chavaniac when Charles Fox and General Fitzpatrick arrived in Paris. They wished to send for me, as I was one of the principal objects of their visit. I hastened to join them. M. and Madame Fox, Fitzpatrick, MM. John and Trotter, passed several days at La Grange. I met at Paris the Lords Holland and Lauderdale, the new Duke of Bedford, M. Adair, and M. Erskine, whom I pressed in vain to write regarding the jury of England and of France. ‘The first years of the Revolution,’ said they, ‘we had great hopes; but the excesses have ruined the good cause.’ “One day Fox, with his amiable goodness of heart, said to me in the presence of my son, that I should not be too much affected by an unavoidable delay. ‘Liberty will return,’ said he, ‘but not for us; for George, perhaps, and surely for his children.’” About this time La Fayette met with a severe injury, caused by a fall upon the ice. His hip-bone was broken, and the accident was followed by a long and painful illness. In 1803 President Jefferson offered to appoint La Fayette governor of the newly acquired territory of Louisiana. The land allotted to La Fayette as a former major-general in the American army was selected from the fertile fields of that territory. But notwithstanding La Fayette’s love for America, he felt constrained to remain in France, and therefore declined the kindly proffered honor. After Napoleon had been crowned emperor, he is reported to have said to his Council, one day: “Gentlemen, I know your devotion to the power of the throne. Every one in France is corrected; I was thinking of the only man who is not,—La Fayette. He has never retreated from his line. You see him quiet; but I tell you he is quite ready to begin again.” [Illustration: CHARLES FOX.] During the brief reign of Louis XVIII. and the banishment of Napoleon to Elba, La Fayette appeared only once at court. When the sudden return of Bonaparte startled the world, and the trembling King Louis saw his power depart, one of the king’s minister’s exclaimed: “All is lost! There is no endurance, no indignity, to which the king would not submit, to retain his throne.” “What!” said another; “even La Fayette?” “Yes,” replied the first; “even La Fayette himself.” When Napoleon again resumed the reins of power and re-established an hereditary peerage, La Fayette was pressed to take his seat by Joseph Bonaparte, who had been sent to the marquis by Napoleon; but La Fayette’s reply to the offered honor was consistent with all his former actions. “Should I ever again appear on the scene of public life, _it can only be as the representative of the people_.”