circle had declared to him that I could not remain more than eight hours at Lanzut, and that to secure my obedience to this order, one of his commissaries should follow me to the castle, should enter into it with me, and should not quit me until I had left it.  My son had represented to this captain, that overcome as I was with fatigue, I required more than eight hours to repose myself, and that the sight of a commissary of police, in my weak state, might give me a very fatal shock.  To all these representations the captain replied with a brutality which is quite peculiar to German subalterns; nowhere also do you meet with that obsequious respect for power which immediately succeeds to arrogance towards the weak.  The mental movements of these men resemble the evolutions of a review day; they make a half turn to the right, and a half turn to the left, according to the word of command which is given to them.

The commissary intrusted with the inspection of me, fatigued himself in bowing to the very ground, but would not in the least modify his charge.  He got into a caleche, the horses of which followed me so close that they touched the hind wheels of my berline.  The idea of entering, escorted in this manner, into the residence of an old friend, into a paradise of delight, where I had been feasting my ideas by anticipation, with spending several days; this idea I say made me so ill, that I could not get the better of it; joined to that also was, I believe, the irritation of finding at my heels this insolent spy, a very fit subject, certainly, to outwit, if I had had the desire, but who did his duty with an intolerable mixture of pedantry and rigor*:  I was seized with a nervous attack in the middle of the road, and they were obliged to lift me out of my carriage, and lay me down on the side of the ditch.  This wretched commissary fancied that this was an occasion to take compassion on me, and without getting out of his carriage himself, he sent his servant to find me a glass of water.  I cannot express how angry I felt with myself for the weakness of my nerves; the compassion of this man was a last insult, which I would at least have wished to spare myself.  He set off again at the same time that I did, and I made my entry, along with him, into the court yard of the castle of Lanzut.  Prince Henry, not in the least suspecting any thing of the kind, came to meet me with the most amiable gaiety; he was at first frightened at the paleness of my looks, but when I told him, which I did immediately, what sort of guest I had brought with me, from that moment his coolness, firmness, and friendship for me did not belie themselves for a moment.  But can one conceive a state of things in which a commissary of police should plant himself at the table of a great nobleman like prince Henry, or rather at that of any person whatever, without his consent?