CHAPTER XII: ANALYSIS OF MY LIFE.
I await death without fear and without impatience. My life has been a bad melo-drama on a grand stage, where I have played the hero, the tyrant, the lover, the nobleman, but never the valet.
CHAPTER XIII: THE BOUNTIES OF HEAVEN.
My great happiness consists in being independent of the three individuals who govern Europe. As I am sufficiently rich, meddle not with politics, and care very little for music, of course I have nothing to do with Rothschild, Metternich, or Rossini.
CHAPTER XIV: MY EPITAPH.
'Here lies, in hope of repose, an old deceased devil, with a worn-out spirit, an exhausted heart, and a used-up body. Ladies and Gentlemen, pass on!'
DEDICATORY EPISTLE TO THE PUBLIC.
Dog of a Public! discordant organ of the passions! thou who raisest thy minion to heaven, and then plungest him in the mire; thou who extollest and slanderest without knowing why; image of the tocsin; echo of thyself; absurd tyrant; offscouring of the meanest houses; extract of the most subtle poisons and of the most exquisite perfumes; representative of the devil among the human species; a fury masked in Christian charity!—Public! whom I feared in my youth, respected in my riper years, and despised in my old age; it is to thee that I dedicate my memoirs. Gentle Public! I am at last out of thy reach, for I am dead, and consequently deaf, blind, and mute. Mayest thou enjoy these advantages for thy own repose and for that of the human race!