on one
occasion, and one alone, felt tempted to an act of despair.

Taking my lonely dinner in a tavern of the suburbs, the waiter handed
me a newspaper, which he had rescued for my behoof from the hands of
a group, eager, as all the world then was, for French intelligence.
My eye rambled into the fashionable column; and the first paragraph,
headed "Marriage in high life," announced that, on the morrow, were
to be solemnized the nuptials of Clotilde, Countess de Tourville,
with the Marquis de Montrecour, colonel of the French Mousquetaires,
&c. The paper dropped from my hands. I rushed out of the house; and,
scarcely knowing where I went, I hurried on, until I found myself out
of the sight or sound of mortal. The night was pitch-dark; there was
no lamp near; the wind roared; and it was only by the flash of the
foam that I discovered the broad sheet of water before me. I had
strayed into Hyde Park, and was on the bank of the Serpentine. With
what ease might I not finish all! It was another step. Life was a
burden--thought was a torment--the light of day a loathing. But the
paroxysm soon gave way. Impressions of the duty and the trials of
human nature, made in earlier years, revived within me with a
singular freshness and force. Tears gushed from my eyes, fast and
flowing; and, with a long-forgotten prayer for patience and humility,
I turned from the place of temptation. As I reached the streets once
more, I heard the trumpets of the Life Guards, and the band of a
battalion returning to their quarters. The infantry were the
Coldstream. They had been lining the streets for the king's
procession to open the sitting of Parliament. This was the 13th of
December--the memorable day to which every heart in Europe was more
or less vibrating; yet which I had totally forgotten. What is man but
an electrical machine after all? The sound and sight of soldiership
restored me to the full vividness of my nature. The machine required
only to be touched, to shoot out its latent sparks; and with a new
spirit and a new determination kindling through every fibre, I
hastened to be present at that debate which was to be the judgment of
nations.

My official intercourse with ministers had given me some privileges,
and I obtained a seat under the gallery--that part of the House of
Commons which is occasionally allotted to strangers of a certain
rank. The House was crowded, and every countenance was pictured with
interest and solemn anxiety. G