should be glad to see me at his house in the country the next
morning. When I waited upon him accordingly, he said he had received
my two letters respecting my departure for America, assigning the ill
state of my health as the occasion of it, that I was already well
informed of the time her Imperial Majesty had fixed for my reception,
and of the reasons which influenced her in that respect; and that she
could not make any change in it; that if my health did not permit me
to wait for the event, in such a case it lay wholly with me to return.
I told him the cause which I had mentioned was the true cause, that my
health was in such a state the last fall, when I wrote to the
Congress, that I should not have remained over the winter, but from an
expectation that everything would have been settled during the winter,
so that I might have had an audience of her Majesty, and been ready to
return to America early in the spring, by which time I expected to
have received the permission of the Congress, that I wished only to
have the matter properly understood, that the permission of the
Congress was not owing to any transactions which had taken place here.

He then asked if I had received any answer from the Congress since the
communication of my mission. I replied, none at all, that if he would
be pleased to attend to dates, he would see it was impossible; that my
communication was made on the 24th of February, that the permission of
the Congress was dated on the 1st of April, between thirty and forty
days after; that the greater part of that time, my letter containing
the account of it, must have been on its way to Paris; that if my
letters reached them in two or three months it was very well; that six
months, sometimes nine, as was the present case, elapsed before I
could receive any answer from America, and that I did not receive her
Majesty's first answer, till near two months after the communication.

He seemed to be perfectly satisfied with this account, and said he was
very sorry my health would not permit me to remain here, that he
should have been very happy to have had the honor of seeing me in my
public character. I expressed again the great regret with which I
should depart, especially after having resided so long in the country
without having had an audience of her Imperial Majesty, which I should
have deemed the highest honor of my life. I told him, so convenient an
opportunity now offering directly from hence for B