“This same Jacotot was the grandfather of my old friend, whom you saw a few minutes since. Fate, that seems to jest with men's destinies, made them as successful at the fire of the kitchen as ever their ancestors were at that of a battery; and Monsieur Jacotot, our present host, has not his equal in Paris. Here for years the younger members of the royal family used to sup; this room was their favorite apartment; and one evening, when at a later sitting than usual the ruler of the feast was carried beyond himself in the praise of an admirable plat, he sent for Jacotot, and told him, whatever favor he should ask, he himself would seek for him at the hands of the king.
“This was the long-wished-for moment of the poor fellow's life. He drew from his bosom the title-deeds of his ancient name and fortune, and placed them in the prince's hand without uttering a word.
“'What! and are you a De Gency?' said the prince.
“'Alas! I shame to say it, I am.'
“'Come, gentlemen,' said the gay young prince, 'a bumper to our worthy friend, whom, with God's blessing, I shall see restored right soon to his fitting rank and station. Yes, De Gency! my word upon it, the next evening I sup here I shall bring with me his Majesty's own signature to these title-deeds. Make place, gentlemen, and let him sit down!'
“But poor Jacotot was too much excited by his feelings of joy and gratitude, and he rushed from the room in a torrent of tears.
“The evening the prince spoke of never came. Soon after that commenced the troubles to the royal family; the dreadful events of Versailles; the flight to Varennes; the 10th August,—a horrible catalogue I cannot bear to trace. There, yonder, where now the groups are loitering, or sitting around in happy knots, there died Louis the Sixteenth. The prince I spoke of is an exile: they call him Louis the Eighteenth; but he is a king without a kingdom.
“But Jacotot lives on in hope. He has waded through all the terrors of the Revolution; he has seen the guillotine erected almost before his door and beheld his former friends led one by one to the slaughter. Twice was he himself brought forth, and twice was his life spared by some admirer of his cuisine. But perhaps all his trials were inferior to the heart-burning with which he saw the places once occupied by the blood of Saint Louis now occupied by the canaille of the Revolution. Marat and Robespierre frequented his house; and Barras seldom passed a week without dining there. This, I verily believe, was a heavier affliction than any of his personal sufferings; and I have often heard him recount, with no feigned horror, the scenes which took place among the incroyables, as they called themselves, whose orgies he contrasted so unfavorably with the more polished excesses of his regal visitors. Through all the anarchy of that fearful period; through the scarce less sanguinary time of the Directory; through the long, dreary oppression of the consulate; and now, in the more grinding tyranny of the Empire, he hopes, ay, still hopes on, that the day will come when from the hands of the king himself he shall receive his long-buried rank, and stand forth a De Gency. Poor fellow! there is something noble and manly in the long struggle with fortune,—in that long-sustained contest in which he would never admit defeat.
“Such are the followers of the Bourbons: their best traits, their highest daring, their most long-suffering endurance, only elicited in the pursuit of some paltry object of personal ambition. They have tasted the cup of adversity, ay, drained it to the very dregs; they have seen carnage and bloodshed such as no war ever surpassed: and all they have learned by experience is, to wish for the long past days of royal tyranny and frivolity back again; to see a glittering swarm of debauchees fluttering around a sensualist king; and to watch the famished faces of the multitude, without a thought that the tiger is only waiting for his spring. As to a thought of true liberty, one single high and noble aspiration after freedom, they never dreamed of it.
“You see, my friend, I have no desire to win you over to the Bourbon cause; neither, if I could, would I make you a Jacobin. But how is this? Can it really be so late? Come, we have no time to lose: it is not accounted good breeding to be late in a visit at the Faubourg.”