George Ticknor, Life, letters and journals of George Ticknor
George Hillard, Ed.

November 6.—I spent an hour this evening very agreeably at the Countess de Ste. Aulaire's,¹ where I found only her daughters and two or three gentlemen, this not being one of her evenings of reception, though I supposed it was when I went. Her character, her talents, and her graceful and winning manners plainly fit her for her place as the wife of a foreign ambassador; but, like all the French, she rejoices in the opportunity to come back to Paris. I talked with her about the elections and French politics, which are at this moment the absorbing subject. She is of course ministerial, but it was striking to see how much she fears the Chamber of Deputies, now grown, by the changes of the times, of great and preponderating consequence. No such opinions and feelings could have been expressed when I was here before; and I find them on all sides, though expressed with more reserve by such men as the Duke de Broglie and Count Mole than by a lady like Mad. de Ste. Aulaire.

On the case of Confalonieri she expressed herself with equal frankness; as did also Rossi, whom I visited this afternoon. The whole of that affair, indeed, is very discreditable to the French government, and especially to the King; but persons standing in the same relations of party and personal friendship to the President of the United States and his Cabinet, as the Duke de Broglie, Rossi, and Mad. de Ste. Aulaire do to the French throne and administration, would not have spoken out their opinions as freely and truly as these persons have spoken them out to me. This is a difference between the countries discreditable to us, and which I feel as a moral stain upon us.

November 7.—I spent some time this morning in the King's private library, originally Bonaparte's, and which I knew under Barbier as the library of Louis XVIII. It is an uncommonly comfortable and well-arranged establishment; better than any of the sort I know of, except the Grand Duke's at Florence, and larger than that. Jouy, the author of the ‘Hermite de la Chaussee d'antin,’ is the head of it, a hale, hearty, white-headed old gentleman of about sixty-five. Like everybody else, now, he talked about politics and the elections, and rejoiced at the success of the Ministry. He seemed to be throughout very content, and has occasion to be so. He made a good fortune by his periodicals, and admits very frankly that he wrote for that purpose; wrote as long as the booksellers would pay him well, and wrote a great deal too much. And he has now a good, easy place under government, where he occupies himself with his literary studies, and has settled all his arrangements for an agreeable old age.