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

[137] with Count Montalembert, and some of the Carlists, who came there I hardly know how. He bustled about, perhaps, a little too much for his dignity; but I think he knew his men and his vocation perfectly, and when I came away, between twelve and one o'clock, he seemed quite unwearied.

February 28.—I spent the greater part of the evening at Thierry's very agreeably. He takes a great interest in the movement of the French in Canada. ‘Ces noms Francais,’ he said to-night, ‘me vont au coeur!’ He is unlike his countrymen in many respects, but this is genuinely and completely French. He cannot endure the disgrace and defeat of men who bear such names.

The last of the evening I went to Lamartine's, but the atmosphere was altogether political. It is a pity. He is not a great poet, certainly, but he ought not to be absurd enough to fancy himself a politician.

March 3.—. . . . I dined to-day at Baron Delessert's. The party was not large, but among them was De Metz, the Judge of their Upper Court, who has been lately to the United States, at his own expense, merely to see our prisons, and printed a book about them since his return; Guizot; Remusat; and two or three other deputies.

Mad. Francois Delessert pleases me more the more I see of her, and the old Baron, with his uprightness, his solid wealth, his science and politics, is quite an admirable person. He reminds me of ‘the old courtier of the queen, and the queen's old courtier,’¹ so completely has he the air of belonging to the best of the old times.

But I talked chiefly to-day with De Metz, who is full of intelligence and talent, and one of those able, sound, conscientious magistrates of whom any country may be proud. Like Tocqueville, Julius, and Crawfurd, he returns having changed his opinion about solitary confinement, and now thinks the Philadelphia system preferable to the Auburn.

Between nine and ten I took Guizot in my carriage to Mad. de Broglie's, where we had, en tres petit comite, a very gay and brilliant talk, partly political and partly literary, in which the generally degraded tone of French letters at the present time was not spared.

On my way home I stopped at the Duchess de Rauzan's, where there were heaps of Carlists, the Bethunes, the Crillons, the Circourts, Count Bastard, . . . . and among the rest Jusuf, with his picturesque costume, and that sort of spare Arab beauty which Scott