signal advantage, for it can only be displayed in the
conduct of the affairs of the great, and when discretion is the quality
required, a man who knows nothing can safely say nothing, and take
refuge in a mysterious shake of the head; in fact; the cleverest
practitioner is he who can swim with the current and keep his head well
above the stream of events which he appears to control, a man's fitness
for this business varying inversely as his specific gravity. But in this
particular art or craft, as in all others, you shall find a thousand
mediocrities for one man of genius; and in spite of Chatelet's services,
ordinary and extraordinary, Her Imperial Highness could not procure a
seat in the Privy Council for her private secretary; not that he would
not have made a delightful Master of Requests, like many another, but
the Princess was of the opinion that her secretary was better placed
with her than anywhere else in the world. He was made a Baron, however,
and went to Cassel as envoy-extraordinary, no empty form of words,
for he cut a very extraordinary figure there--Napoleon used him as a
diplomatic courier in the thick of a European crisis. Just as he had
been promised the post of minister to Jerome in Westphalia, the Empire
fell to pieces; and balked of his _ambassade de famille_ as he called
it, he went off in despair to Egypt with General de Montriveau. A
strange chapter of accidents separated him from his traveling companion,
and for two long years Sixte du Chatelet led a wandering life among
the Arab tribes of the desert, who sold and resold their captive--his
talents being not of the slightest use to the nomad tribes. At length,
about the time that Montriveau reached Tangier, Chatelet found himself
in the territory of the Imam of Muscat, had the luck to find an English
vessel just about to set sail, and so came back to Paris a year sooner
than his sometime companion. Once in Paris, his recent misfortunes, and
certain connections of long standing, together with services rendered
to great persons now in power, recommended him to the President of the
Council, who put him in M. de Barante's department until such time as a
controllership should fall vacant. So the part that M. du Chatelet once
had played in the history of the Imperial Princess, his reputation for
success with women, the strange story of his travels and sufferings, all
awakened the interest of the ladies of Angouleme.

M. le Baron Sixte du Chatelet infor