frame of mind of a party at table is not the same as that of the same
persons returned to the drawing-room? The atmosphere is not heady, the
eye no longer contemplates the brilliant disorder of the dessert, lost
are the happy effects of that laxness of mood, that benevolence which
comes over us while we remain in the humor peculiar to the well-filled
man, settled comfortably on one of the springy chairs which are made
in these days. Perhaps we are not more ready to talk face to face with
the dessert and in the society of good wine, during the delightful
interval when every one may sit with an elbow on the table and his
head resting on his hand. Not only does every one like to talk then,
but also to listen. Digestion, which is almost always attent, is
loquacious or silent, as characters differ. Then every one finds his
opportunity.

Was not this preamble necessary to make you know the charm of the
narrative, by which a celebrated man, now dead, depicted the innocent
jesuistry of women, painting it with the subtlety peculiar to persons
who have seen much of the world, and which makes statesmen such
delightful storytellers when, like Prince Talleyrand and Prince
Metternich, they vouchsafe to tell a story?

De Marsay, prime minister for some six months, had already given
proofs of superior capabilities. Those who had known him long were not
indeed surprised to see him display all the talents and various
aptitudes of a statesman; still it might yet be a question whether he
would prove to be a solid politician, or had merely been moulded in
the fire of circumstance. This question had just been asked by a man
whom he had made a prefet, a man of wit and observation, who had for a
long time been a journalist, and who admired de Marsay without
infusing into his admiration that dash of acrid criticism by which, in