spierre in society once," said the King to me. "It was
at a place called Mignot, near Poissy, which still exists. It belonged
to a wealthy cloth manufacturer of Louviers, named M. Decreteau. It
was in ninety-one or two. M. Decreteau one day invited me to dinner
at Mignot. I went. When the time came we took our places at table. The
other guests were Robespierre and Petion, but I had never before seen
Robespierre. Mirabeau aptly traced his portrait in a word when he said
that his face was suggestive of that of 'a cat drinking vinegar.' He was
very gloomy, and hardly spoke. When he did let drop a word from time to
time, it was uttered sourly and with reluctance. He seemed to be vexed
at having come, and because I was there.

"In the middle of the dinner, Petion, addressing M. Decreteau,
exclaimed: 'My dear host, you must get this buck married!' He pointed to
Robespierre.

"'What do you mean, Petion?' retorted Robespierre.

"'Mean,' said Petion, 'why, that you must get married. I insist upon
marrying you. You are full of sourness, hypochondria, gall, bad humour,
biliousness and atrabiliousness I am fearful of all this on our account.
What you want is a woman to sweeten this sourness and transform you into
an easy-going old fogey.'

"Robespierre tossed his head and tried to smile, but only succeeded in
making a grimace. It was the only time," repeated the King, "that I
met Robespierre in society. After that I saw him in the tribune of the
Convention. He was wearisome to a supreme degree, spoke slowly, heavily
and at length, and was more sour, more gloomy, more bitter than ever. It
was easy to see that Petion had not married him."

September 7, 1844.

Said the King to me last Thursday:

"M. Guizot has great qualities and immense defects. (Queerly enough,
M. Guizot on Tuesday had made precisely the same remark to me about the
King, beginning with the defects.) M. Guizot has in the highest degree,
and I esteem him for it profoundly, the courage of his unpopularity
among his adversaries; among his friends he lacks it. He does not know
how to quarrel momentarily with his partisans, which was Pitt's great
art. In the affair of Tahiti, as in that of the right of search, M.
Guizot is not afraid of the Opposition, nor of the press, nor of the
Radicals, nor of the Carlists, nor of the Legitimists, nor of the
hundred thousand howlers in the hundred thousand public squares of
France; he is afraid of Jacques Lefebvre. What