"_P.S._--I have this minute received your letter of the 5th of this month, in which you inform me of M. de Mérona's[234] arrival. I thank you for your good friendship; be sure that I have looked for nothing else in your letters. "CHATEAUBRIAND[235]." THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE COMTE DE SERRE[236] "PARIS, 23 _June_ 1824. "My dismissal, monsieur le comte, will have proved to you my inability to serve you; it but remains for me to express the wish to see you where your talents call you. I am retiring, happy to have contributed towards restoring to France her military and political independence, and to have introduced septenniality into her electoral system; it is not what I wanted it to be; the change of age was a necessary consequence of it; but at last the principle is laid down; time will do the rest, if, however, it do not undo it. I venture to flatter myself, monsieur le comte, that you have had no cause to complain of our relations; and I shall always congratulate myself on having met in business a man of your merit. "Receive, with my adieus, etc., "CHATEAUBRIAND." THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND TO THE COMTE DE LA FERRONAYS[237] "PARIS, 24 _June_ 1824. "Should you by chance still be in St. Petersburg, monsieur le comte, I will not end our correspondence without telling you of all the esteem and all the friendship with which you have inspired me: keep well; be happier than I, and believe that you will find me again in any circumstance of life. I am writing a line to the Emperor. "CHATEAUBRIAND." The reply to this farewell reached me in the early days of August. M. de La Ferronnays had accepted the functions of ambassador under my ministry; later, I, in my turn, became ambassador under the ministry of M. de La Ferronnays: neither of us thought himself to be rising or descending. Fellow-countrymen and friends, we mutually did each other justice. M. de La Ferronnays endured the harshest trials without complaining; he remained loyal to his sufferings and to his noble poverty. After my fall, he acted on my behalf at St. Petersburg, as I would have acted on his. An honest man is always sure of being understood by an honest man. I am happy to produce this touching evidence of the courage, the loyalty and the elevation of soul of M. de La Ferronnays. At the moment when I received this note, it was a very superior compensation to me for the capricious and hackneyed favours of fortune. It is only here, for the first time, that I think it right to violate the secrecy which friendship recommended to me. [Sidenote: Letter from La Ferronays.] THE COMTE DE LA FERRONAYS TO THE VICOMTE DE CHATEAUBRIAND "ST. PETERSBURG, 24 _July_ 1824.