"I had for a moment entertained the flattering hope of laying the tribute of my respect, this summer, at the feet of Madame la Duchesse de Saint-Leu: fortune, accustomed to baffle my plans, has deceived me once again. I should have been happy to thank you by word of mouth for your obliging letter; we should have spoken of a great glory and of France's future, two things, Monsieur le Comte, which touch you nearly. "CHATEAUBRIAND." Have the Bourbons ever written letters to me similar to those which I have just produced? Did they ever entertain the idea that I rose above this versifier or that pamphleteering politician? When, as a little boy, I used to wander, the companion of the herdsmen, over the heaths of Combourg, could I have believed that a time would come at which I should walk between the two highest powers on earth, powers now overthrown, giving my arm on one side to the family of St. Louis, on the other to that of Napoleon: hostile magnificences which alike lean, in the misfortune which brings them together, on the feeble and faithful man, the man scorned by the Legitimacy? Madame Récamier went to fix herself at Wolfsberg, a country-house occupied by M. Parquin[463], near Arenenberg, where Madame la Duchesse de Saint-Leu was living; I stayed two days at Constance. I saw all that there was to see: the market containing the public granary christened the "Hall of the Council," the so-called statue of Huss[464], the square in which Jerome of Prague[465] and John Huss were, they say, burnt; in fine, all the ordinary abominations of history and society. The Rhine, issuing from the lake, announces itself very much like a king: nevertheless it was not able to defend Constance, which was, if I am not mistaken, sacked by Attila[466], besieged by the Hungarians[467], the Swedes[468], and twice taken by the French[469]. Constance is the Saint-Germain of Germany: the old people of the old society have retired to it. When I knocked at a door to look for rooms for Madame de Chateaubriand, I came upon some canoness, a girl past her minority; some prince of an ancient house, an elector on half-pay: which went very well with the abandoned steeples and the deserted convents of the city. Condé's Army fought gloriously under the walls of Constance and seems to have left its ambulance there. I had the misfortune to meet a veteran Emigrant; he did me the honour to have known me in former times; he had more days than hairs; his words were endless; he was unable to contain himself and allowed his years to run. [Sidenote: Diner at Arenenberg.] On the 29th of August, I went to dine at Arenenberg.