The King rose, paced to and fro for a few moments, as though violently agitated, then came and sat beside me and said:

“Look here, you made a remark to Villemain that he repeated to me. You said to him:

“‘The trouble between France and England a propos of Tahiti and Pritchard reminds me of a quarrel in a cafÉ between a couple of sub-lieutenants, one of whom has looked at the other in a way the latter does not like. A duel to the death is the result. But two great nations ought not to act like a couple of musketeers. Besides, in a duel to the death between two nations like England and France, it is civilization that would be slain.’

“This is really what you said, is it not?”

“Yes, Sire.”

“I was greatly struck by your observation, and this very evening I reproduced it in a letter to a crowned head, for I frequently write all night long. I pass many a night doing over again what others have undone. I do not say anything about it. So far from being grateful to me they would only abuse me for it. Oh! yes, mine is hard work indeed. At my age, with my seventy-one years, I do not get an instant of real repose either by day or by night. I am always unquiet, and how can it be otherwise when I feel that I am the pivot upon which Europe revolves?”