that he had the right to say when mentioning the
Bonapartes "my family."

It is known that the Bonaparte family is divided into two branches, the
Imperial family and the private family. The Imperial family had the
tradition of Napoleon, the private family had the tradition of Lucien: a
shade of difference which, however, had no reality about it.

My midnight visitor took the other corner of the fireplace.

He began by speaking to me of the memoirs of a very highminded and
virtuous woman, the Princess ----, his mother, the manuscript of which he
had confided to me, asking my advice as to the utility or the suitability
of their publication; this manuscript, besides being full of interest,
possessed for me a special charm, because the handwriting of the Princess
resembled my mother's handwriting. My visitor, to whom I gave it back,
turned over the leaves for a few moments, and then suddenly interrupting
himself, he turned to me and said,--

"The Republic is lost."

I answered,--

"Almost."

He resumed,--

"Unless you save it."

"I?"

"You."

"How so?"

"Listen to me."

Then he set forth with that clearness, complicated at times with
paradoxes, which is one of the resources of his remarkable mind, the
situation, at the same time desperate and strong, in which we were
placed.

This situation, which moreover I realized as well as he himself, was
this:--

The Right of the Assembly was composed of about 400 members, and the Left
of about 180. The four hundred of the majority belonged by thirds to
three parties, the Legitimist party, the Orleanist party, the Bonapartist
party, and in a body to the Clerical party. The 180 of the minority
belonged to the Republic. The Right mistrusted the Left, and had taken a
precaution against the minority.

A Vigilance Committee, composed of sixteen members of the Right, charged
with impressing unity upon this trinity of parties, and charged with the
task of carefully watching the Left, such was this precaution. The Left
at first had confined itself to irony, and borrowing from me a word to
which people then attached, though wrongly, the idea of decrepitude, had
called the sixteen Commissioners the "Burgraves." The irony subsequently
turning into suspicion, the Left had on its side ended by creating a
committee of sixteen members to direct the Left, and observe the Right;
these the Right had hastened to name the "Red Burgraves." A harmless
rejoinder. The result was that