my house, and
it is rare indeed that he is not present on these benevolent occasions.
He has discontinued his own soirees, too; and, having fewer demands on
his time, through official avocations, I gain admittance to him during
his simple and quiet dinners, whenever it is asked.

These dinners, indeed, are our usual hours of meeting, for the
occupations of the General, in the Chamber, usually keep him engaged in
the morning; nor am I commonly at leisure, myself, until about this hour
of the day. In Paris, every one dines, nominally, at six; but the
deputies being often detained a little later, whenever I wish to see
him, I hurry from my own table, and generally reach the Rue d'Anjou in
sufficient season to find him still at his.

On quitting the Hotel de l'Etat Major, after being dismissed so
unceremoniously from the command of the National Guard, Lafayette
returned to his own neat but simple lodgings in the Rue d'Anjou. The
hotel, itself, is one of some pretensions, but his apartments, though
quite sufficient for a single person, are not among the best it
contains, lying on the street, which is rarely or never the case with
the principal rooms. The passage to them communicates with the great
staircase, and the door is one of those simple, retired entrances that,
in Paris, so frequently open on the abodes of some of the most
illustrious men of the age. Here have I seen princes, marshals, and
dignitaries of all degrees, ringing for admission, no one appearing to
think of aught but the great man within. These things are permitted
here, where the mind gets accustomed to weigh in the balance all the
different claims to distinction; but it would scarcely do in a country,
in which the pursuit of money is the sole and engrossing concern of
life; a show of expenditure becoming necessary to maintain it.

The apartments of Lafayette consist of a large ante-chamber, two salons,
and an inner room, where he usually sits and writes, and in which, of
late, he has had his bed. These rooms are _en suite_, and communicate,
laterally, with one or two more, and the offices. His sole attendants in
town, are the German valet, named Bastien, who accompanied him in his
last visit to America, the footman who attends him with the carriage,
and the coachman (there may be a cook, but I never saw a female in the
apartments). Neither wears a livery, although all his appointments,
carriages, horses, and furniture, are those of a gentleman. One thi