The social life of Paris still went on, though with ever less of gayety, as the gloom gathered round about. Going with Madame de Chastellux to dine with the Duchess of Orleans, Morris was told by her royal highness that she was "ruined," that is, that her income was reduced from four hundred and fifty thousand to two hundred thousand livres a year, so that she could no longer give him good dinners; but if he would come and fast with her, she would be glad to see him. The poor lady was yet to learn by bitter experience that real ruin was something very different from the loss of half of an enormous income.
On another occasion he breakfasted with the duchess, and was introduced to her father, with whom he agreed to dine. After breakfast she went out walking with him till nearly dinner-time, and gave him the full history of her breach with her husband, Egalité, showing the letters that had passed between them, complaining of his numerous misdeeds, and assuring Morris that what the world had attributed to fondness for her worthless spouse was merely discretion; that she had hoped to bring him to a decent and orderly behavior, but had finally made up her mind that he could only be governed by fear.
Now and then he indulges in a quiet laugh at the absurd pretensions and exaggerated estimates of each other still affected by some of the frequenters of the various salons. "Dine with Madame de Staël. The Abbé Sieyès is here, and descants with much self-sufficiency on government, despising all that has been said or sung on that subject before him; and madame says that his writings and opinions will form in politics a new era, like those of Newton in physics."
After dining with Marmontel, he notes in his Diary that his host "thinks soundly,"--rare praise for him to bestow on any of the French statesmen of the time. He records a _bon mot_ of Talleyrand's. When the Assembly had declared war on the emperor conditionally upon the latter's failing to beg pardon before a certain date, the little bishop remarked that "the nation was _une parvenue_, and of course insolent." At the British ambassador's he met the famous Colonel Tarleton, who did not know his nationality, and amused him greatly by descanting at length on the American war.