It would be easy for me here to cite some strange instances of this new taste; but I already feel that I have wandered from my own path, and owe an apology to my reader for invading precincts which scarce become me. Yet may I observe here,--and the explanation will serve once for all,--I have been more anxious in this “true history” to preserve some passing record of the changeful features of an eventful period in Europe, than merely to chronicle personal adventures, which, although not devoid of vicissitudes, are still so insignificant in the great events by which they were surrounded. The Consulate, the Empire, and the Restoration were three great tableaux, differing in their groupings and color, but each part of one mighty whole,--links in the great chain, and evidencing the changeful aspect of a nation crouching beneath tyranny, or dwindling under imbecility and dotage. I have said the English were the vogue in Paris; and so they were, but especially in those _salons_ which reflected the influence of the Court, and where the tone of the Tuileries was revered as law. Every member of the Government, or all who were even remotely connected with it, at once adopted the reigning mode; and to be _à l'Anglaise_ became now as much the type of fashion as ever it had been directly the opposite. Only such as were in the confidence of Fouché and his schemes knew how hollow all this display of friendly feeling was, or how ready the Government held themselves to assume their former attitude of defiance when circumstances should render it advisable. Among those who speedily took up the tone of the Imperial counsels, the _salons_ of the Hôtel Glichy were conspicuous. English habits, as regarded table equipage; English servants; even to English cookery did French politeness extend its complaisance; and many of the commonest habitudes and least cultivated tastes were imported as the daily observances of fashionable people _outremer_. In this headlong Anglomania, my English birth and family (I say English, because abroad the petty distinctions of Irishman or Scotchman are not attended to) marked me out for peculiar attention in society; and although my education and residence in France had well-nigh rubbed off all or the greater part of my national peculiarities, yet the flatterers of the day found abundant traits to admire in what they recognized as my John Bull characteristics. And in this way, a blunder in French, a mistake in grammar, or a false accentuation became actually a _succès de salon_. Though I could not help smiling at the absurdity of a vogue whose violence alone indicated its unlikeliness to last, yet I had sufficient of the spirit of my adopted country to benefit by it while it did exist, and never spent a single day out of company.