coat, stiff neckcloth,
and polished boots of the other, the veriest barbarian could have told
at a glance which was the 'last of the nobles,' and which the 'First
Citizen' of the Empire." (P. 343.)

This would be severe were it not sheer gossip, and gossip dictated by a
feeling of intense hostility to Louis Philippe, who committed the
unpardonable blunder of not bestowing any particular regard upon the
prince's secretary, though, with others, he had been specially
introduced to him. In that case, and if M. Colmache really was, as he
says, present in the chamber when this interview took place, we can only
express our surprise that his account of it is so meagre; for it is
impossible to believe that the last conversation between two men so
distinguished, and so closely united by the ties of mutual obligation,
should have been confined to a formal inquiry and a formal reply, which
is all we find in this volume. We are at a loss to know, also, why the
king should have been less of a gentleman and more of a tradesman in his
manners and appearance than M. de Talleyrand; for, if that has any thing
to do with the matter, he was as certainly _one_ of the "last of the
nobles," as his minister; and as we find nothing in M. Colmache's book
respecting this valedictory visit, which the journals had not
promulgated at the time of its occurrence, we are not only led to doubt
the fact of his having been present, but likewise to withhold all
confidence from his relation of its details. One reflection, however, he
does make, which, as read in 1850, is curious: "I had looked," he says,
"upon this visit as the farewell of the safely-landed voyager (landed,
too, amid storm and tempest), to the wise and careful pilot who had
steered him skillfully through rock and breaker, and now pushed off
alone amid the darkness, to be seen no more!" (P. 344.)

Alas for human wisdom in its most imposing forms! where is now the
"skillful pilot?" Dead, and his skill buried with him. And the "voyager"
whom he "steered" into a secure haven amid "storm and tempest?" A
fugitive and an exile, driven from the rickety throne which Talleyrand's
necromancy had conjured up by a wave of his wand, and which his
sagacious biographer obviously considered to be as stable as the globe
itself:

Fato profugus ...
Multum ille et terris jactatus, et alto.

The share which Talleyrand is alleged to have had in the murder of the
Duc d'Enghein, and which the Duke of Rovi