L'Estoile saw the death of the first Bourbon; I have just seen the fall of the last: ought I not to "close here the register of my melancholic pastimes and of my vain and curious researches?" Perhaps; "but so many new and curious researches have presented themselves through this signal mutation, that I pass to another register." Like L'Estoile, I lament the adversities of the Dynasty of St. Louis; nevertheless, I am obliged to admit, there mingles with my sorrow a certain inward satisfaction: I reproach myself with it, but I cannot prevent it; this satisfaction is that of the slave delivered from his chains. When I abandoned the career of a soldier and a traveller, I felt a certain sadness; now I feel joy, freed convict that I am of the galleys of the world and the Court Faithful to my principles and my oaths, I have betrayed neither liberty nor the King, I carry away neither wealth nor honours; I go as poor as I came. Happy to end a career which was hateful to me, I lovingly return to repose. Blessed be thou, O my native and dear independence, soul of my life! Come, bring me my Memoirs, that _alter ego_ whose confidant, idol and muse you are. The hours of leisure are fit for story-telling: a shipwrecked mariner, I shall continue to relate my shipwreck to the fishermen on shore. Returning to my primitive instincts, I become a free man and a traveller once again; I end my course as I began it. The closing circle of my days brings me back to the starting-point. On the road which I once took as a careless conscript, I am going to travel as an experienced veteran, with my furlough in my shako, the stripes of time upon my arm, a knapsack full of years upon my back. Who knows? Perhaps I shall, stage by stage, recover the reveries of my youth. I shall call many dreams to my help, to defend me against that horde of truths which are begotten in old days even as dragons hide themselves in ruins. It will depend but on myself to knot together again the two ends of my existence, to blend far-distant periods, to mingle illusions of different ages, since the Prince whom I met in exile on leaving my paternal home I now meet in banishment on my way to my last abode. I rapidly wrote the little introduction to this part of my Memoirs in the month of October of last year[331]; but I was unable to continue this labour, because I had another on my hands: this was the work[332] which concluded the edition of my Complete Works. From this work again I was diverted, first, by the trial of the ministers and, next, by the sack of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. [Sidenote: Trial of the ministers.]