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After a few moments of waiting one of the Duchess's men came with the request that Madame de Chastellux should bring the two gentlemen to her apartments. They found Her Royal Highness there surrounded by a small company.
She called forth every charm; she was all gaiety, wit, and smiles; she poured light and life upon conversation. As the Marquis de Chastellux said of some fascinating fair one "She had no expression without grace, and no grace without expression." It was delightful to our heroine to hear it said, "How charming Mrs. Bolingbroke can be when she pleases; when she wishes to captivate, how irresistible!
Turgot, and Voltaire in his way, had traced the growth of civilisation; the originality of Chastellux lay in concentrating attention on the eudaemonic issue, in examining each historical period for the purpose of discovering whether people on the whole were happy and enviable.
After all, duchesses are but women and must love and suffer and be content or miserable like common mortals, and men should be the last to blame them for that divine necessity of their beings that of loving and being loved. "She has heard much of you, Ned," went on Mr. Morris, "from Madame de Chastellux, from Lafayette, and lately from myself, and has expressed her desire to see you.
These ideas, my dear general, have rather started into any mind, than become fixed, and I thought I would communicate them. Most affectionately and respectfully yours, The Marquis de Laval Montmorency, one of the most illustrious families in France, is on his way to the camp. The Chevalier de Chastellux, a relation and friend of mine, major-general in the French army, is also coming.
Nor did their colonels reprove them for this; but, on the contrary, Brereton, finding six men from one company engaged in rolling a large rock out of the ditch and to the top of the rapidly waxing pile of earth in its rear, said approvingly: "Well done, boys. I've a wager with the Marquis de Chastellux that an American battery fires the first shot, and I see you intend that I shall win the bet."
Throughout this survey Chastellux does not, like Turgot, make any attempt to show that the race was progressing, however slowly. On the contrary, he sets the beginning of continuous Progress in the Renaissance here agreeing with d'Alembert and Voltaire. The intellectual movement, which originated then and resulted in the enlightenment of his own day, was a condition of social progress.
"I have lately," said he, in a letter to the Marquis of Chastellux, "made a tour through the lakes George and Champlain as far as Crown Point; then returning to Schenectady I proceeded up the Mohawk river to Fort Schuyler, crossed over to Wood creek, which empties into the Oneida lake and affords the water communication with Ontario.
As he looked, he was reminded in some fashion of the man Danton whom he had seen in the Café de l'Ecole the afternoon he had gone thither with Beaufort. "It is Monsieur de Mirabeau," said Madame de Chastellux. "There is something terrible in his face, as you say, but there is genius, also, I think," she added. "He has many talents and every vice, Madame," said Mr. Jefferson, coldly.
At the close of the session of January 21, 1847, at which the Chamber of Peers discussed Cracow and kept silent concerning the frontier of the Rhine, I descended the grand staircase of the Chamber in company with M. de Chastellux. M. Decazes stopped me and asked: "Well, what have you been doing during the session?" "I have been writing to Mme. Dorval." "What a fine disdain! Why did you not speak?"
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