Julie, to whom I had lent the manuscript in order to initiate her in the labors of my life, had shown it to Monsieur M----, a clever man of her intimate acquaintance, for whose judgment she entertained the greatest deference. M. M---- was the worthy son of an illustrious member of the Constituent Assembly, had been the Emperor's private secretary, and was now a constitutional royalist. He was one of those whose minds are never youthful, who enter mature into the world, and die young, leaving a void in their epoch. M. M----, after reading my work, asked Julie who was the political man who had written those pages. She smiled, and confessed that they were the production of a very young man, who had neither name nor experience, and was quite unknown in the political world. M. M---- required to see me to believe. I was introduced to him, and he received me with kindness which afterwards ripened into a friendship, that remained unchanged until his death. My work was never printed; but M. M----, in his turn, introduced me to his friend, M. de Reyneval, a man of luminous understanding, open-hearted, and of an attractive and cheerful though grave and laborious mind, who was at that time the life of our foreign policy. He died, not long ago, while ambassador at Madrid. M. de Reyneval, who had read my work, received me with that encouraging grace and cordial smile which seems to overleap distance, and always wins at first sight the heart of a young man. He was one of those men from whom it is pleasant to learn, because they seem, so to speak, to diffuse themselves in teaching, and to give rather than prescribe. One learned more of Europe in a few mornings by conversing with this most agreeable man, than in a whole diplomatic library. He possessed tact, the innate genius of negotiations. I owe to him my taste for those high political affairs which he handled with full consciousness of their importance, but without seeming to feel their weight. His strength made everything easy, and his ready condescension seemed to infuse grace and heart into business. He encouraged my desire to enter on the diplomatic career, presented me himself to the Director of the Archives, M. d'Hauterive, and authorized him to allow me access to the collection of our treaties and negotiations. M. d'Hauterive, who had grown old over despatches, might be said to be the unalterable tradition and the living dogma of our diplomacy. With his commanding figure, hollow voice, his thick and powdered hair, his long, bushy eyebrows overshading a deep-set and dim eye, he seemed a living, speaking century. He received me like a father, and appeared happy to transmit to me the inheritance of all his hoarded knowledge; he made me read, and take notes under his own eye, and twice a week I used to study for a few hours under his direction. I love the memory of his green old age, which so prodigally bestowed its experience on a young man whose name he scarcely knew. M. d'Hauterive died during the battle of July, 1830, amid the roar of the cannon which annihilated the policy of the Bourbons and the treaties of 1815.