children of the late king: the latter, closely leagued as they were with
Madame de Maintenon, could not be much disposed to consider the welfare
of Count Devereux; and my wishes, therefore, naturally settled on the
former. I was not doomed to a long suspense. Every one knows that the
very next day the Duke of Orleans appeared before Parliament, and was
proclaimed Regent; that the will of the late King was set aside; and
that the Duke of Maine suddenly became as low in power as he had always
been despicable in intellect. A little hubbub ensued: people in general
laughed at the Regent's /finesse/; and the more sagacious admired the
courage and address of which the /finesse/ was composed. The Regent's
mother wrote a letter of sixty-nine pages about it; and the Duchess of
Maine boxed the Duke's ears very heartily for not being as clever as
herself. All Paris teemed with joyous forebodings; and the Regent, whom
every one some time ago had suspected of poisoning his cousins, every
one now declared to be the most perfect prince that could possibly be
imagined, and the very picture of Henri Quatre in goodness as well as
physiognomy. Three days after this event, one happened to myself with
which my public career may be said to commence.

I had spent the evening at a house in a distant part of Paris, and,
invited by the beauty of the night, had dismissed my carriage, and was
walking home alone and on foot. Occupied with my reflections, and not
very well acquainted with the dangerous and dark streets of Paris, in
which it was very rare for those who have carriages to wander on foot, I
insensibly strayed from my proper direction. When I first discovered
this disagreeable fact, I was in a filthy and obscure lane rather than
street, which I did not remember having ever honoured with my presence
before. While I was pausing in the vain hope and anxious endeavour to
shape out some imaginary chart--some "map of the mind," by which to
direct my bewildered course--I heard a confused noise proceed from