aying nothing and implying all
things, to tell. Guiseard fixed his deep sallow eye on me, without a
word: at that moment he reminded me exactly of one of the
Inquisitors--the deep, dark-visaged men whom the matchless pencil of
Velasquez has immortalized.

Varnhorst burst out into a laugh.

"What, Guiseard," said he, "are you reconnoitring the ground before you
make the attack? Your royal highness, I think we ought to vindicate our
country to this English gentleman, by assuring him that the colonel is
not a cardinal in disguise."

The colonel merely smiled, which seemed an effort for his cloistered
physiognomy; the duke laughed, and began a general conversation upon all
possible topics--England forming the chief; the royal family--the
court--the theatres--parliament--the people--all whirled over with the
ease and rapidity of one turning the leaves of an album; here a verse
and there a portrait--here a sketch of a temple, and there an outline of
a cottage--the whole pretty, and as trifling as pretty, and cast aside
at the first moment when any thing better worth thinking of occurred.

In the midst of our gaiety, in which the duke had completely laid down
his sceptre, and taken his full share, the great clock of the chateau
tolled one. The table was instantly swept of supper--the valets
withdrew. I heard the tread of a sentinel at the door of the apartment;
and the duke, instantly changing from the man of fashion to the
statesman, began to enter into the questions then so deeply disturbing
all the cabinets of Europe.

I found the duke a very superior man to what I had conceived of him. He
was frank and free, spoke of the intentions of the Allies in the most
open manner, and censured the errors which they had already committed,
with a plainness which I had not expected to find out of London. He had
evidently made himself master of a great variety of knowledge, and with
the happy but most unusual power of rendering it all applicable to the
point in question. My impressions of him and his order, imbibed among
the prejudices of England and the libels of France, was that of
frivolity and flutter--an idle life and a stagnant understanding. I
never was more surprised at the contrast between this conception and the
animated and accomplished prince before me. He seemed to know not merely
the persons of all the leading men of Europe--which might have naturally
been the case with one who had visited every capital--but to be
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