The king turned his back on M. de Montalivet and did not speak a word to him for a month after. What came of it? Versailles became more and more gloomy, and, after passing from melancholy to darkness, passed from darkness to funereal depths.
As to Saint-Germain, I do not know what became of it; but I have been assured that, since my departure, it has been seized with the spleen and simply shakes with agony. Now it was the knowledge of this vivifying quality which attracted Doligny to Florence. He said to himself: As Dumas is in Tuscany, Tuscany must have again become the department of the Arno, and we shall laugh and earn money. Doligny was mistaken: people laugh all over Italy; but they do not laugh at all in Tuscany. As to earning money there, I only knew the Comte de Larderette who made a fortune there; but his speculation had nothing literary about it.... I listened to Doligny's exposition of plans with a growing melancholy which could not fail to have discouraged him.
"Well," he asked me, "am I mistaken?"
"In what?"
"Do you not go to the court?"
"As little as I can; but I do go."
"Do you not go into society?"
"As little as possible; but, of course, I do see something of it."
"Have you no friends?"