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whist-table, not more disconcerted, perhaps, than a well-bred gentleman may be permitted to be when a handsome, fashionable, and spirituelle lady gives him a hard hit.
April 26.—The spring is so much advanced now, and is become so very beautiful, that we have indulged more than ever in driving through the neighborhood of Dresden, chiefly about the Grosse Garten and up the picturesque little valley of Plauen, but also upon the Elbe by Findlater's, and once out to Moreau's monument. . . . . The time and circumstances of Moreau's death will be judged of differently, of course, according to the different points of view from which they may be considered; but I cannot help regretting that one of the few elevated and respectable men formed by the French Revolution should have died in arms against his country; and I felt the other day that there was deep truth in the reply of a Frenchman to an English gentleman, who said, ‘Je viens de visiter le monument de votre compatriote, Moreau ’; to which the French gentleman replied, ‘Pardon, monsieur, il naetait pas mon compatriote, car moi je suis Francais.’. . . .
May 1.—To-day there was a Court, and I went to it and took the proper ceremonious leave of the royal family.
It was very full, because it is the last of the season, as they all go to Pillnitz tomorrow, and do not return till October.
The circle lasted a good while; the princesses were there, and it was plain they intended not only to be civil, but to be kind.
Our Charge d'affaires at Brussels, Mr. Legare, arrived at Dresden early this morning, to pass a few days.
We missed him when we were in Belgium, but he wrote to me soon afterwards that he would come and return our visit in Dresden.
May 4.— Mr. Legare left us this evening. . . . . We were sorry to part from him, for he is a man of very agreeable as well as remarkable powers, and he has literally been the whole of each day with us. . . . . His conversation is very rich, and was truly refreshing to us, after having been so long without the pleasure of good, solid English talk.
He is a good scholar, with a good and rather severe taste; a wise and deep thinker, who has reflected a great deal, and made up his opinions on a great number of subjects; and a politician who sees the weakness and defects of our government, and the bad tendencies of things among us, as clearly as any person I have ever talked with.
He seems to belong to the Jackson party, only from the circumstance that he was of the Union party in South Carolina; for his views
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