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giving any sign that he knew me. One might have said that misfortune was already beginning its work on this young head, which a great lesson of Providence had seemed to have adorned with a crown on his entrance into life, so as to give a fresh example of the vanity of human greatness. He was like one of those victims destined for sacrifice who are adorned with flowers. Although he had already spent six weeks with the persons to whom he had been confided, with whom I found him, he had not yet got accustomed to them, and seemed to look upon their faces, still strange to him, with distrust. I asked him in their presence if he had a message which I could take for him to his father. He looked at me in a sad and significant way, then gently freeing his hand from my grasp, he withdrew silently into the embrasure of a window some distance off. After having exchanged some words with the persons who were in the drawing-room, I approached the spot to which he had withdrawn, and where he was standing looking on with an attentive air. As I bent down to him to say farewell, struck with my emotion, he drew me towards the window, and looking at me with a touching expression, he whispered to me: 'M. Meva, you will tell him that I am still very fond of him!'"