It is out of my power to say precisely how long we remained in this
passive state in the hands of the manufacturer. It was some weeks,
however, if not months; during which our chief communications were on
the chances of our future fortunes. Some of our number were ambitious,
and would hear to nothing but the probability, nay, the certainty, of our
being purchased, as soon as our arrival in Paris should be made known,
by the king, in person, and presented to the dauphine, then the first lady
in France. The virtues of the Duchesse d'Angouleme were properly
appreciated by some of us, while I discovered that others entertained
for her any feelings but those of veneration and respect. This diversity of
opinion, on a subject of which one would think none of us very well
qualified to be judges, was owing to a circumstance of such every-day
occurrence as almost to supersede the necessity of telling it, though the
narrative would be rendered more complete by an explanation.

{Dauphine = Crown Princess; Duchesse d'Angouleme = Marie Therese
Charlotte (1778-1851), the Dauphine, daughter of King Louis XVI and
wife of Louis Antoine of Artois, Duke of Angouleme, eldest son of King
Charles X--she lost her chance to become queen when her father-in-
law abdicated the French throne in 1830--Napoleon said of her that
she was "the only man in her family"}

It happened, while we lay in the bleaching grounds, that one half of the
piece extended into a part of the field that came under the management
of a legitimist, while the other invaded the dominions of a liberal. Neither
of these persons had any concern with us, we being under the special
superintendence of the head workman, but it was impossible, altogether
impossible, to escape the consequences of our locales. While the
legitimist read nothing but the Moniteur, the liberal read nothing but Le
Temps, a journal then recently established, in the supposed interests of