and the new administration, he lent his talents to the
assistance of the monarch by whom his impeachment was already resolved
on, and aided in the settlement of the civil list while he was in full
expectation of a criminal accusation.

The new Parliament met, and all doubt was over. An impeachment of the
late administration was decided upon. I was settling bills with my
little lawyer one morning, when Bolingbroke entered my room. He took
a chair, nodded to me not to dismiss my assistant, joined our
conversation, and when conversation was merged in accounts, he took up a
book of songs, and amused himself with it till my business was over
and my disciple of Coke retired. He then said, very slowly, and with a
slight yawn, "You have never been at Paris, I think?"

"Never: you are enchanted with that gay city."

"Yes, but when I was last there, the good people flattered my vanity
enough to bribe my taste. I shall be able to form a more unbiased and
impartial judgment in a few days."

"A few days!"

"Ay, my dear Count: does it startle you? I wonder whether the pretty
De Tencin will be as kind to me as she was, and whether _tout le monde_
(that most exquisite phrase for five hundred people) will rise now at
the Opera on my entrance. Do you think that a banished minister can
have any, the smallest resemblance to what he was when in power? By
Gumdragon, as our friend Swift so euphoniously and elegantly says, or
swears, by Gumdragon, I think not! What altered Satan so after his fall?
what gave him horns and a tail? Nothing but his disgrace. Oh! years, and
disease, plague, pestilence, and famine never alter a man so much as the
loss of power."

"You say wisely; but what am I to gather from your words? is it all over
with us in real earnest?"

"Us! with _me_ it is indeed all over: _you_ may stay here forever. I
must fly: a packet-boat to Calais, or a room in the Tower, I must choose
between the two. I had some thoughts of remaining and confronting my
trial: but it would be folly; there is a difference between Oxford and
me. He has friends, though out of power: I have none. If they impeach
him, he will escape; if they impeach me, they will either shut me up
like a rat in a cage, for twenty years, till, old and forgotten, I tear
my heart out with my confinement, or they will bring me at once to
the block. No, no: I must keep myself for another day; and, while they
banish me, I will leave the seeds of the true cause to grow u