or
reflection. To obtain possession of a property belonging to my family,
I undertook a journey to, and a long residence in, Mexico; and although
successful in this, a subsequent misfortune deprived me of all I owned,
and left me actually in want. The good fortune which led me to take
service under your Majesty has, however, never deserted me, and I am
enabled once again to assume the station that belonged to me."

The King heard me with apparent pleasure, and after a few generalities
about Paris and my acquaintances, said: "His Royal Highness the Duc de
St. Cloud has asked me to appoint you on my personal staff. There is
not at the present a vacancy, but you shall be named as an extra
aide-de-camp in the meanwhile."

Overwhelmed by this distinction, I could only bow my gratitude in
silence; and, with an air and show of great devotion, I retired from the
royal presence. Thus did proper feeling suggest the truest politeness;
for had I been more assured, the chances were I should have endeavored
to say something, and consequently committed a very grievous breach of
etiquette.

The following day I received an invitation to dine at Court. The company
was numerous, and among them I discovered the young English attache who
had so insolently treated my demands on my first visit to Paris. With
what sovereign contempt did I now look down upon him! He was there,
exactly as I left him, muddling away in the petty details of his little
routine life,--signing a passport or copying a despatch, playing off the
airs of grand seigneur to couriers and laquais de place, while in the
same time I had won honors and rewards upon the field of battle, and now
stood while the Prince leaned upon my arm and chatted familiarly over
the assembled company. Nothing gave me a more confident sense of my own
standing in the world than the feeling with which I now regarded those
whom once I looked up to with a kind of awe. It is precisely as we
discover that the hills which in childhood we believed to be gigantic
mountains are mere hillocks, that in after life we find out how
indescribably small are many of those we used to think of as "high and
mighty."

I therefore sneered down my poor attache, and as I passed him, I believe
I even suffered my sabre to jar against his leg, not without hoping that
he might notice the slight, and seek satisfaction for it. In this I was
disappointed, and I left him, never to trouble my head more about him.

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