person in Europe. What a fool a great man is if he does not study to be
affable: weigh a prince's condescension in one scale, and all the
cardinal virtues in the other, and the condescension will outweigh them
all! The Regent of France ruined his country as much as he well could
do, and there was not a dry eye when he died!


* The term /roue/, now so comprehensive, was first given by the Regent
to a select number of his friends; according to them, because they would
be broken on the wheel for his sake, according to himself, because they
deserved to be so broken.--ED.


A day had now effected a change--a great change--in my fate. A new
court, a new theatre of action, a new walk of ambition, were suddenly
opened to me. Nothing could be more promising than my first employment;
nothing could be more pleasing than the anticipation of the change. "I
must force myself to be agreeable to-night," said I, as I dressed for
the Regent's supper. "I must leave behind me the remembrance of a /bon
mot/, or I shall be forgotten."

And I was right. In that whirlpool, the capital of France, everything
sinks but wit: /that/ is always on the surface; and we must cling to it
with a firm grasp, if we would not go down to--"the deep oblivion."



CHAPTER X.

ROYAL EXERTIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE.