part I had taken in the excursion and the firing of the Dent

du Chat the states of King Charles-Albert were shut against me for six years."

I told in due place how, in 1835, I was shamefully driven out of Genoa and how triumphantly I returned there in 1838. May I be permitted a slight digression here on princes and ship captains?

I have noticed that, in general, neither of them like men of intellect. Indeed, if a man of cultivated mind find himself at a prince's table, at the end of ten minutes, without complete dumbness on his part, it is the man of mind who will be the true prince, to whom people will address their conversation, it is he who will be made to speak, it is he to whom they will listen. The prince by birth is completely annihilated--he no longer exists as such, and is only distinguishable from other guests in two ways: whilst other guests are talking he is silent; whilst they laugh he sulks. You will say, in such a case, if the cultured man is really clever he will keep silence in order to let the prince assert his princehood. But then the clever man will be no longer such--he will be a courtier. Numbers of clever men have been disgraced because of their abilities. Cite me one instance of a fool disgraced for his folly. It is the same with ship captains as with princes.

Whenever a clever man is on board and the weather is fine, the captain is nowhere. People crowd round the man of intellect, whilst the captain paces alone on the poop. It is true, that, if there is a storm the captain becomes captain once more, but only so long as the storm lasts. You tell me there are princes who have intellect. Of course! I have known, and still know, some; but their estate compels them to hide it. It was impossible to have a more charming, delicate or graceful mind than that of M. le duc d'Orléans; and yet no one could hide it better than he could. One day, when he had made one of those delightful repartees with which his conversation abounded when he had to do with artists, I asked him--

"_Mon Dieu,_ monseigneur, how is it that you, who are one of the wittiest men I know, have so little reputation for being a wit?"

He began to laugh.

"How delicious you are!" he said; "do you suppose I allow myself to show wit to everybody?"

"But, monseigneur, you show it to me, and at your very best too."

_"Parbleu!_ because I know you are equally witty, you are always as witty as, if not more than, I; but with imbeciles, my dear Monsieur Dumas!... I have enough to do to make them forgive me for being a prince, without giving them more to forgive by being a man of wit.... So it is agreed that, when you wish, not so much to give me pleasure as to do me a service, you must say that I am an imbecile!"

Poor dear prince!