"I am busy correcting the act establishing my 'Government' in Paris. You will have M. de Villèle as your colleague, as you asked, and the Marquis de La Tour-Maubourg and the Chancellor[264]." I thanked the King for his goodness, while wondering at the illusions of this world. Society crumbles to pieces, monarchies come to an end, the face of the earth is renewed, and Charles in Prague establishes a "government" in France, after "taking the opinion" of his Council! Let us not jeer overmuch: which of us but has his delusions? Which of us but feeds his budding hopes? Which of us but has his "government _in petto_," after "taking the opinion" of his passions? Raillery would ill beseem me, the man of dreams. These Memoirs, which I scribble as I run, are not they my "government," after "taking the opinion" of my vanity? Do not I think that I can speak very seriously to the future, which is as little at my disposal as France is at the orders of Charles X.? Cardinal Latil, wishing to escape the hubbub, had gone to spend a few days with the Duc de Rohan[265]. M. de Foresta[266] passed by mysteriously with his portfolio under his his arm; Madame de Bouille made me deep courtesies, like a party-person, with lowered eyes that tried to see through their lids; M. La Villate was waiting to receive his dismissal; there was no longer any question of M. Barrande, who cherished the hope of being restored to favour and was living in a corner in Prague. [Sidenote: The Dauphin.] I went to pay my court to the Dauphin. Our conversation was brief: "How does Monseigneur find himself at Butschirad?" "Getting oldish." "We're all doing that, Monseigneur." "How's your wife?" "Monseigneur, she has the tooth-ache." "Inflammation?" "No, Monseigneur: age." "You're dining with the King? We shall meet again." And we parted. PRAGUE, 28 and 29 _September._ I found myself free at three o'clock: they dined at six. Not knowing what to do with myself, I went for a walk through avenues of apple-trees worthy of Normandy. The fruit-crop from those mock orange-trees in good years amounts to the value of eighteen thousand francs. The calvilles are exported to England. They are not made into cider, as the Bohemian beer-monopoly is opposed to it. According to Tacitus, the Germans had words to express spring, summer and winter, but none for autumn, of which they knew neither the name nor the gifts: _nomen ac bona ignorantur._ Since Tacitus' time, a Pomona has come to dwell among them. Feeling very tired, I sat down on the steps of a ladder leaning against the trunk of an apple-tree. I was there in the Œil-de-bœuf of the _château_ of Butschirad or at the railing of the Council-chamber. Looking at the roof which covered the three generations of my Kings, I called to mind the complaint of the Arab Maoual: "Here we saw vanish below the horizon the stars which we love to see rise under the sky of our country."