still felt those secret pangs of bitter
disappointment and the fever of unsatisfied desire, but he was both too
unselfish and too proud to show what he suffered. There are some of us
who keep our dark thoughts and secret, hopeless longings in the
background, as the maimed and diseased beggars are kept off the streets
in Paris, and only let them come from their hiding-places at long
intervals, like the beggars again, who crawl forth once or twice a year
to solicit alms and pity. Although Mr. Morris knew Calvert so well, his
impetuous nature could never quite comprehend the calm fortitude, the
silent endurance of the younger man, and so, when he saw him apparently
amused and distracted by the society to which he had been introduced,
and by the thousand gayeties of town life, he left him in September and
returned for a brief stay in Paris, happy in the belief that the young
man was already half-cured of his passion.

He was back again in December with a budget of news from France. "The
situation grows desperate," he said to Calvert. "I told Montmorin and
the Due de Liancourt that the constitution the Assemblee had proposed is
such that the Almighty Himself could not make it succeed without
creating a new species of man. The assignats have depreciated, just as
I predicted, the army is in revolt, and the ministers threatened with la
lanterne. 'Tis much the fashion in Paris, let me tell you. But murder,
duelling, and pillage--they sacked the hotel of the Duc de Castries the
other day because his son wounded Charles de Lameth in a duel--are
every-day occurrences now. Lafayette is in a peck of trouble, and
received me with the utmost coldness. He knows I cannot commend him, and
therefore he feels embarrassed and impatient in my society. I am
seriously pained for d'Azay, too. I met him at Montmorin's, and he
confessed to me that he knew not how to steer his course. He is
horrified at the insane measures of the Jacobins, he has cut himself
loose from his own class, and is beginning to doubt Lafayette's wisdom
and powers. He is in a hopeless situation. He told me that Montmorin had
asked that Carmichael be appointed to the court of France, but that he
and Beaufort and other of my friends had insisted on my appointment.
'Tis a matter of indifference to me. Whoever is appointed--Short,
Carmichael, Madison, or myself--will have no sinecure in France. Unhappy
country! The closet philosophers who are trying to rule it are
absolutely be