ate with whom I had the honor of associating
frequently. He was a man about sixty years of age, who spoke French
well, and united in the highest degree German stolidity with the gravity
natural to age. In his youth he had lived in France, and part of his
education had been received at the College of Soreze; and I attributed
the friendship which he showed for me to the pleasure he experienced in
conversing about a country the memory of which seemed very dear to him.
I remember perfectly well to-day the profound veneration with which this
excellent man spoke to me of one of his former professors of Soreze, whom
he called Don Ferlus; and I must have had a defective memory indeed had I
forgotten a name which I heard repeated so often.

My Saxon friend was named M. Gentz, but was no relation of the diplomat
of the same name attached to the Austrian chancellery. He was of the
Reformed religion, very faithful in the performance of his religious
duties; and I can assert that I never knew a man with more simple tastes,
or who was more observant of his duties as a man and a magistrate. I
would not like to risk saying what were his inmost thoughts concerning
the Emperor; for he rarely spoke of him, and if he had anything
unpleasant to say it may be readily understood that he would not have
chosen me as his confidant. One day when we were together examining the
fortifications which his Majesty had erected at many points on the left
bank of the Elbe, the conversation for some reason happened to fall on
the secret societies of Germany, a subject with which I was perfectly
unacquainted. As I was questioning him in order to obtain information,
M. Gentz said to me, "It must not be believed that the secret societies
which are multiplying in Germany in such an extraordinary manner have
been protected by the sovereigns; for the Prussian government sees them
grow with terror, although it now seeks to use them in order to give a
national appearance to the war it has waged against you. Societies which
are to-day tolerated have been, even in Prussia, the object of bitter
persecutions. It has not been long, for instance, since the Prussian
government used severe measures to suppress the society called
'Tugendverein', taking the precaution, nevertheless, to disguise it under
a different title. Doctor Jahn put himself at the head of the Black
Chevaliers, who were the precursors of a body of partisans known under
the name of the Black Chasseurs, an