room is still present to me; the window where I passed the whole day, looking out for the messenger, a thousand painful details, which misfortune always draws after it, the extreme generosity of some friends, the veiled calculations of others, altogether put my mind in such a cruel state of agitation, as I could not wish to my greatest enemy.  At last this message, on which I still placed some hopes, arrived.  Joseph sent me some excellent letters of recommendation for Berlin, and bid me adieu in a most noble and touching manner.  I was obliged, therefore, to depart.  Benjamin Constant was good enough to accompany me; but as he also was very fond of Paris, I felt extremely for the sacrifice he made me.  Every step the horses advanced made me ill, and when the postillions boasted of having driven me quickly, I could not help sighing at the disagreeable service they were rendering me.  In this way I travelled forty leagues without being able to regain my self-possession.  At last we stopped at Chalons, and Benjamin Constant, rallying his spirits, relieved by his wonderful powers of conversation, at least for some moments, the weight which oppressed me.  Next day we continued our route as far as Metz, where I wished to stop to wait for news from my father.  There I passed fifteen days, and met one of the most amiable and intelligent men whom France and Germany combined could produce, M. Charles Villers.  I was delighted with his society, but it renewed my regret for that first of pleasures, a conversation, in which there reigns the most perfect harmony in all that is felt, with all that is expressed.

My father was extremely indignant at the treatment I had received at Paris; he considered that his family were in this manner proscribed, and driven as criminals out of that country which he had so faithfully served.  He recommended me to pass the winter in Germany, and not to return to him until the spring.  Alas! alas!  I calculated on then carrying back to him the harvest of new ideas which I was going to collect in this journey.  For several years preceding he was frequently telling me that my letters and conversation were all that kept up his connection with the world.  His mind had so much vivacity and penetration, that one was excited to think by the pleasure of talking to him.  I made observations to report to him,—­I listened, to repeat to him.  Ever since I have lost him, I see and feel only half what I did, when I had the object in view of giving him pleasure by the picture of my impressions.  At Frankfort, my daughter, then five years old, fell dangerously ill.  I knew nobody in that city, and was entirely ignorant of the language; even the physician to whose care I entrusted my child scarcely spoke a word of French.  Oh! how much my father shared with me in all my trouble! what letters he wrote me! what a number of consultations of physicians, all copied with his own hand, he sent me from Geneva!  Never were the harmony of sensibility and reason carried further; never was there any one like him, possessed of such lively emotion for the sufferings of his friends, always active in assisting them, always prudent in the choice of the means of being so; in short, admirable in every thing.  My heart absolutely requires this declaration, for what is now to him even the voice of posterity!