"I have been a minister in France and His Most Christian Majesty's Ambassador to Berlin, London and Rome. I am known personally to your Sovereign and to Prince Metternich." "You can't pass." "Shall I leave you a security? Will you give me a guard who will be responsible for me?" "You can't pass." "If I send an express to the Bohemian Government?" "As you please." I lost my patience; I began to wish the custom-house officer at the devil. As ambassador of a king on his throne, I should not have minded a few hours wasted; but as ambassador of a Princess in irons, I thought myself faithless to misfortune, a traitor to my captive Sovereign. The man was writing: the Baslese did not translate my monologue, but there are certain French words which our soldiers have taught Austria and which she has not forgotten. I said to the interpreter: "Explain to him that I am going to Prague to offer my devotion to the King of France." The custom-house officer, without interrupting his writing, answered: "Charles X. is not King of France for Austria." I retorted: "He is for me." These words flung back to the Cerberus seemed to make some impression on him; he eyed me up and down. I thought that his long annotation might, in the last result, be a favourable _visa._ He scrawled something on Hyacinthe's passport as well and returned the whole to the interpreter. It appeared that the _visa_ was an explanation of the reasons which did not permit him to allow me to continue my road, so that not only was it impossible for me to go to Prague, but my passport was stamped as bad for the other places to which I might repair. I climbed back into the calash and said to the postillion: "Waldmünchen." My return did not surprise the landlord of the inn. He spoke a little French; he told me that a similar thing had happened before: foreigners had been obliged to stop at Waldmünchen and to send their passports to Munich to be endorsed at the Austrian Legation. My host, a very worthy man, was the postmaster of the village and undertook to forward to the Grand Burgrave of Bohemia[537] the letter of which the following is a copy: [Sidenote: Letter to Count Von Chotek.] WALDMÜNCHEN, 21 _May_ 1833. "MONSIEUR LE GOUVERNEUR,