Palais Royal. We go out to Saint-Cloud on horseback, we meet at the
minister's; and I contend that there was something conciliatory and
national in a Southern colonel offering to take Bigelow to see
Menken at the Gaîté, or when I saw some West Pointers and a nephew of
Beauregard's lighting the pipe of peace at a handsome tobacconist's
in the Rue Saint-Honoré. The consciousness that we have no longer a
nationality, and that nobody respects us, adds a singular calm, an
elevation, to our views. Composed as our cherished little society is
of crumbs from every table under heaven, we have succeeded in forming
a way of life where the crusty fortitude and integrity of patriotism
is unnecessary. Our circle is like the green palace of the magpies in
Musset's _Merle Blanc_, and like them we live "de plaisir, d'honneur,
de bavardage, de gloire et de chiffons."

[Illustration: THE FERRY.]

[Illustration: JOVE'S THUNDER.]

I confess that there was a period, between the fresh alacrity of a
stranger's reception in the Colony and the settled habits I have
now fallen into, when I was rather uneasy. A society of migrators, a
system woven upon shooting particles, like a rainbow on the rain,
was odd. Residents of some permanency, like myself, were constantly
forming eternal friendships with people who wrote to them in a month
or two from Egypt. In this way a quantity of my friendships were
miserably lacerated, until I learned by practice just how much
friendship to give. At this period I was much occupied with vain
conciliations, concessions and the reconciling of inconsistencies. A
brave American from the South, an ardent disciple of Calhoun, was a
powerful advocate of State Rights, and advocated them so well that