534 The Life, Character, and [Nov. 



sieur, by poetically assuming the possession of virtue by Madame. The 

 peace of Amiens however came. The long existing distaste of our na- 

 tion to France and Frenchmen, suddenly gave way to admiration of 

 Bonaparte and Talleyrand. Many that were noble and intellectual 

 abandoned their native and foggy shores for the genial climate of France ; 

 an airing was given to long dormant Gallic vocabularies ; Fox in bad 

 French, and Erskine with no French at all, strove to launch heavy and 

 equivocal compliments to the liberal institutions of a state verging 

 rapidly to unmingled despotism. The blood then recently shed had 

 paled to the couleur de rose ; and the worsted yarn of British flattery was 

 exchanged for the threads of sole et or with which French foolery 

 led the wisest from their way. Talleyrand was too much of a lion to be 

 neglected, nor was he indifferent to foreign praise, and his table was at 

 the service of his English visitors. One day, however, as it has been 

 said, neglectful of the life's history of her who was there to do its 

 honours, or indifferent to the events by which it had been marked in 

 another quarter of the globe, Madame found herself, as unexpectedly as 

 awkwardly, in juxta-position with her Calcutta admirer, whom she had 

 formerly abandoned ; but the " Speak to me of Adam" settled an affair 



which had promised to disturb the order of the feast j and Sir 



even dared to recal to the fugacious memory of his quondam friend 

 circumstances more interesting haply to him than to his host. 



Experience has proved that where love, " free as air," becomes sub- 

 missive to human ties, it plays strange vagaries with its manacles ; 

 and that, if public decorum be promoted by the sanction of the church 

 being accorded to otherwise illicit engagements, the leaven of discord 

 ever embitters domestic arrangements. Gratitude is as rare, in such 

 cases, as a white crow, a silent wit, a riotous Scotchman, or a dis- 

 interested attorney ; and Madame Talleyrand was not reserved to 

 contradict the truth of the latter axiom at least by her example. In 

 fact, the ex-bishop and actual prince, if ever he again consulted the 

 fathers of the church, might have satisfactorily agreed to the unwise 

 proposition of Saint Chrysostom, " Quid est Mulier ? Nisi" a rule Nisi 

 made absolute in the case referred to ce amicitia inimica : ineffabilis 

 prena : necessarium malum : desiderabilis calamitas : domesticum peri- 

 culum : delectabile detrimentum : mali natura boni decore depicta." 

 The dogma of " What woman wills God wills," if not willingly coincided 

 in, on the one side, was attempted to be forcibly illustrated on the other ; 

 until, as the story went, Madame on her return from a soiree found her 

 house deserted, and the key gone Monsieur having adopted that 

 mode of suggesting his want of acquiescence in the deeds or sentiments 

 of his illustrious moiety. This system of blockade was quickly followed 

 by reprisals. The French Doctors'-Commons were resorted to, and the 

 prince and statesman condemned, if we remember well, to assure alimony 

 to his spouse : and they have since lived on those pleasing terms which 

 have been but now adopted by the Netherlands and the United Pro- 

 vinces, after a marriage concocted nearly as suddenly, unceremoniously, 

 and imperatively as that of the prince. 



Being required, in his official capacity, to present the deputation of 

 the small quondam republic of Geneva to his imperial master, Monsieur 

 de Talleyrand, sensibly alive to the ridiculous, could not but be amused 

 with the display of importance of the somewhile citizen kings, who, 

 allied against their will with la grande nation, failed not to impress upon 

 the latter the high advantages derived by the French people from their 



