" What passed before her eyes was a very
old, white-haired man, with a regard deep and impenetrable. She added,
however, "I remember noting that everyone seemed to treat him with the
greatest awe." By that time, strange to say, he was one of the richest
and most respected men in France. Further, he had by his second marriage
entered one of the greatest families of the _ancien r?gime_, and
had actually been accepted as "one of us" by the inner hierarchy of the
French noblesse! He had even made his peace with the Church and become,
at any rate in all outward forms, perhaps _ex animo_, a devout
Catholic. What is even more astounding is that his second wife was as
devoted to him as was his first, and so, apparently, was he to her.
Fouch?, indeed, may be said to have been an expert in domestic felicity.
The man is as inexplicable as the Emperor to whom I have dared to
compare him. Only, unfortunately for us, Fouch? had no Tacitus to
chronicle his deeds of horror and his ineffable treacheries and his
complacent moderation in infamy. Would that the author of the Annals re-
incarnated could have given us pictures not only of Fouch? but of
Robespierre, Marat, Saint-Just, Camille Desmoulins, Fouquier Tinville,
and the rest!
Nothing was more fascinating than to hear Mme.
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