Our years and our memories lie in regular and parallel strata at different depths of our life, deposited by the waves of time that pass over us in succession. It was from Metz, in 1792, that the column issued which was engaged under the walls of Thionville with our little corps of Emigrants. I am returning from my pilgrimage to the retreat of the banished Prince whom I served in his first exile. I then gave him a little of my blood; I have just been weeping with him: at my age, we have little left but tears.
In 1821, M. de Tocqueville[38], my brother's brother-in-law, was Prefect of the Moselle. The trees, no thicker than laths, which M. de Tocqueville planted, in 1820, at the gates of Metz now give shade. There is a scale to measure our days by; but man is not like wine, he does not improve when reckoned by vintages. The ancients used to steep roses in their Falernian; when an amphora of a hundred-year-old consulate was uncorked, it perfumed the banquet. The clearest intelligence might be mingled with old years, and no one would be tempted to get tipsy with it.
I had not been a quarter of an hour in the inn at Metz, when behold Baptiste coming in a great state of excitement: mysteriously he drew from his pocket a white paper parcel, containing a seal; M. le Duc de Bordeaux and Mademoiselle had charged him with that seal, telling him to give it me "only on French soil." They had been very anxious the whole night before my departure, fearing lest the jeweller would not have time to finish the work.
The seal has three faces: on one is engraved an anchor; on the second, the two words which Henry said to me at our first interview: "Yes, always!" on the third, the date of my arrival in Prague. The brother and sister begged me to wear the seal "for love of them." The mystery of this present, the order given by the two exiled children to hand me the token of their memory "only on French soil" filled my eyes with tears. The seal shall never leave me; I shall wear it "for love of Louise and Henry."
I would have liked to see, at Metz, the house of Fabert[39], the common soldier who became a marshal of France and who received the collar of the Orders, his nobility tracing its origin only to his sword.
The Barbarians our fathers, at Metz, butchered the Romans[40] surprised in the midst of the debauchery of a feast; our soldiers have waltzed, in the monastery of Alcobaça, with the skeleton of Iñez de Castro[41]: sorrows and pleasures, crimes and follies, fourteen centuries separate you and you are all alike completely past. The eternity commenced just now is as old as the eternity dating from the first death, the murder of Abel. Nevertheless, men, during their ephemeral appearance on this globe, persuade themselves that they are leaving some trace behind them: why, good Heaven, yes, every fly has its shadow!
I left Metz and passed through Verdun, where I was so unhappy and where Carrel's lonely friend lives to-day[42]. I skirted the heights of Valmy; I do not care to speak of it any more than of Jemmapes: I should be afraid lest I should find a crown there.
Châlons reminded me of a great weakness of Bonaparte, who banished beauty there[43]. Peace be with Châlons, which tells me that I still have friends!
At Château-Thierry, I found my idol, La Fontaine. It was the hour of the Angelus: Jean's wife was no longer there, and Jean had returned to Madame de La Sablière[44].