government to reconstruct. This scion of an old historical family
proved to be a very active wheel in the grand and magnificent
organization which we owe to Napoleon.

The councillor of State was soon called from his particular
administration to a ministry. Created count and senator by the
Emperor, he was made proconsul to two kingdoms in succession. In 1806,
when forty years of age, he married the sister of the ci-devant
Marquis de Ronquerolles, the widow at twenty of Gaubert, one of the
most illustrious of the Republican generals, who left her his whole
property. This marriage, a suitable one in point of rank, doubled the
already considerable fortune of the Comte de Serizy, who became
through his wife the brother-in-law of the ci-devant Marquis de
Rouvre, made count and chamberlain by the Emperor.

In 1814, weary with constant toil, the Comte de Serizy, whose
shattered health required rest, resigned all his posts, left the
department at the head of which the Emperor had placed him, and came
to Paris, where Napoleon was compelled by the evidence of his eyes to
admit that the count's illness was a valid excuse, though at first
that _unfatiguable_ master, who gave no heed to the fatigue of others,
was disposed to consider Monsieur de Serizy's action as a defection.
Though the senator was never in disgrace, he was supposed to have
reason to complain of Napoleon. Consequently, when the Bourbons
returned, Louis XVIII., whom Monsieur de Serizy held to be his
legitimate sovereign, treated the senator, now a peer of France, with
the utmost confidence, placed him in charge of his private affairs,
and appointed him one of his cabinet ministers. On the 20th of March,
Monsieur de Serizy did not go to Ghent. He informed Napoleon that he
remained faithful to the house of Bourbon; would not accept his