In his Souvenirs of a Sexagenarian, the poet Arnault narrates that in June, 1789, while walking near the Swiss lake, at Versailles, he noticed a man lying down under a tree, apparently plunged in solitary and philosophic thought. "His face, which was not devoid of charm," he goes on, "struck me less by its beauty than by its expression, by a certain combination of indifference and malignity, which gave it a very singular air, as if it were the head of an angel animated by the mind of a devil. It was evidently of a fashionable man, who was accustomed to arouse more interest in others than he felt for them; of a man who, though young, was already sated with worldly pleasures. I should have inclined to suppose it was the face of some favorite colonel, had not the cut of the hair and the bands told me that it belonged to an ecclesiastic, and the pastoral cross assured me that this ecclesiastic was a bishop."

A year later, July 14, 1790, among the half-million spectators who covered the slope of the Champ de Mars was Arnault, watching the Festival of the Federation, when he saw on a hillock where mass was to be celebrated in the open air, a bishop advancing, a cope on his back, a mitre on his head, cross in hand, distributing floods of holy water with patriotic prodigality on the royal family, the court, the army, and the populace.

"What was my surprise," he goes on, "to recognize in him the prelate of Versailles! For a year I had heard the Bishop of Autun much talked about. His face explained to me his conduct; and his conduct his face."

Arnault must have been still more surprised to find, in 1797, Monseigneur the Bishop of Autun transformed into Citizen Talleyrand, the Minister of Foreign Relations of the French Republic. Such a metamorphosis was without parallel; it was an avatar.

How many things had happened since the Festival of the Federation! On the day after the September massacres Talleyrand had obtained a passport for England, signed by all the ministers, on Danton's motion. From London he continued, it was said, to maintain relations with this terrible leader, which, however, did not prevent his being accused and inscribed on the list of emigres at the end of 1792, on account of the discovery, in the celebrated iron wardrobe, of a letter in which he secretly offered his services to Louis XVI.

In London he was generally regarded as a dangerous person; and early in 1794 the Alien Bill was applied to him. He set sail on a Danish ship for the United States, and there awaited events.

After Robespierre's death he tried hard to get leave to return to France. His former vicar-general and acolyte at the mass of the Federation, Desrenaudes, solicited the favor of persons of influence. As M. Frederic Masson has said in his remarkable book, The Department of Foreign Affairs during the Revolution, the exile reminded his former mistresses of his good fortunes; Danton's friends, of his relations with their chief; the stock-jobbers of old times, of the speculations which had made him their master. Legendre was for him, and Madame de Stael, and Boissy d'Anglas. Madame de la Bouchardie sang to Chenier the Exile's Romanza, and Chenier decided to support, before the Convention in the meeting of September 4, 1795, the petition which Talleyrand had sent from Philadelphia, soliciting permission to return to France.

The Convention granted his request. He received a warm welcome in Paris on his return. Ladies who had formerly been leaders of fashion remembered his wit and his fine manners; their successors took him up out of curiosity. He became acquainted with one of the influential people of the day, Madame de Stael, who wanted him to be made a minister; but this, Carnot flatly opposed. "Don't let me hear a word about him," said the former member of the Committee of Public Safety. "He has sold his order, his king, his God. This Catelan of a priest will sell the whole Directory."

But Madame de Stael had more influence than Carnot; and the ex-Bishop of Autun was appointed Minister of Foreign Relations in July, 1797. His first thought -- for he had the gift of foresight, was to secure the good graces of the man of the future, of the commander-in-chief of the Army of Italy.

He wrote to him: "I have the honor of informing you, General, that the Executive Directory has just appointed me Minister of Foreign Relations. Naturally awed by the functions of which I feel the perilous importance, I need to reassure myself by reflecting what means and aids your glory brings to our negotiations. The mere name of Bonaparte is an ally able to remove every difficulty. I shall hasten to send to you all the views which the Directory shall charge me to transmit to you; and Fame, your ordinary means of communication, will often deprive me of the happiness of informing it of the manner in which you shall have carried them out."

When Bonaparte returned to Paris, Talleyrand was anxious to overreach him, to get possession of him, and determined to give a great entertainment in his honor, but he waited until Josephine should come. The former Viscountess of Beauharnais would well suit a place where met those of the old nobility who had come over more or less to the Revolution. Madame Bonaparte had a weakness for luxury, dress, and pleasure; in the drawing-room of the Minister of Foreign Relations she would feel herself in her element. Her grace and amiability would work wonders; she would modify the effect of her husband's rough, violent manners. She would recognize with emotion old friends who would hope to obtain honors and money through her influence. How delighted she would be to see arising again what she had thought forever lost -- the elegance, urbanity, the life of the drawing-room! Josephine reached Paris from Italy January 2, 1798. The ball of the Minister of Foreign Relations was set for the day following.

First a word about the ball-room. The ministry was the mansion of the Faubourg Saint Germain, the Hotel Gallifet, a rich and costly dwelling, still unfinished in 1786, so that its former owners had had scarcely time to get settled in it. It was in the rue du Bac, at the corner of the rue de Grenelle, between a courtyard and a garden; the mansion on the side of the court being adorned by a great open peristyle, consisting of Ionic columns thirty feet high. To the left another peristyle with Doric columns forms a covered passage leading to the grand staircase.

The facade towards the garden is adorned with Ionic columns; to the left is a gallery ninety feet long. Talleyrand prepared everything with a lavish hand. It was a magnificent ball: the grand staircase was covered with sweet-smelling plants, the musicians were placed in the cupola, decorated with arabesques, at the top of the staircase. All the walls of the drawing-rooms were painted over anew. A little Etruscan temple was built, in which was set the bust of Brutus, a present from General Bonaparte.

In the garden, which was illuminated by Bengal lights, were tents in which were soldiers from all the different corps of the Paris garrison. At length the ball began. The Minister did the honors with perfect grace: he had altered his political opinions, but not his manners. He was a Republican whose ways continued those of the Monarchy. He loved show and splendor, and had the cold politeness, the repose of good society, the indifference tinctured with malice, the exquisite tact, the delicate perceptions, which marked the men of the old regime.

He brought into a new world the manners of the Oeil de Boeuf and of the court of Versailles. This entertainment given by a former bishop, in an aristocratic dwelling, which had been made national property and turned into a ministry, was a sign of the times. For many years no show, pomp, and splendor had been seen. No one would imagine himself in the city of revolutionary dances, of red caps, of the scaffold. Perfumes took the place of the smell of blood, and the sufferings and perils of the past seemed but a bad dream. The pretty women, the flowers, the lights, one would have thought the happy days of Marie Antoinette had returned.

Madame Bonaparte was much impressed. She was looked at a great deal, but her husband produced infinitely more effect. The presence of the hero of Arcole, the signer of the peace of Campo Formio was the great attraction of the evening. His unusual, strongly marked face, his Roman profile, his eagle eye, aroused much more admiration than did any of the fashionable beauties. A glance, a word, the slightest token of attention on his part, was regarded as a great favor.

As he entered the ball-room he said to the poet Arnault: "Give me your arm; I see a great many who are ready to charge on me; so long as we are together, they won't dare to break in on our talk. Let us walk about the hall; you will tell me who all the masks are, for you know everybody."

There was a young girl approaching with her mother, matre pulchra, filia pulchrior, both dressed alike, in a dress of white crape, trimmed with two broad satin ribbons, and the edge bordered with a puff of the size of a thumb, in pink gauze worked with silver. Each wore a wreath of oak-leaves. The mother wore diamonds; the daughter, pearls: that was the only difference in their attire.

The mother was Madame de Permont; the daughter, the future Duchess of Abrantes. The Turkish Ambassador, a favorite with all the ladies, to whom all the theatre proprietors had given numerous entertainments to make money and escape failure, the Turk whose popularity had waned before that of the conqueror of Italy, was most enthusiastic over the beauty of Madame de Permont, who was a Comnena. "I told him," murmured Bonaparte, that you were a Greek."

Arnault, when the general had left his arm, sat down on a bench between two windows. Scarcely had he taken his place when Madame de Stael sat down beside him.

"It's impossible to approach your General," she said; "you must present me to him." She grasped the poet and led him straight to Bonaparte through the crowd that drew back, or rather, that she pushed back.

"Madame de Stael," said Arnault to the general, "declares that she needs some other introduction to you than her name, and asks me to present her to you. Allow me, General, to obey her."

The crowd gathered about and listened with great attention. Madame de Stael first overwhelmed the hero with compliments, and after giving him clearly to understand that he was in her eyes the first of men, she asked him, "General, what woman do you love best?"

"My wife," he answered.

"That is very natural; but whom do you esteem the most?"

"The one who is the best housekeeper."

"I can understand that. But who do you think is the first of women?"

"The one who has most children, Madame."

The company burst out laughing; and Madame de Stael, much discomfited, said very low to Arnault, "Your great man is a very odd man."

At midnight the orchestra played the Parting Song, and all the women made their way to the gallery and sat down at a table with three hundred places. Talleyrand proposed toasts, each one being followed by couplets composed by Despres and Despreaux, sung by Lays, Chenard, and Cheron. Between the songs, Dugazon told a comic story about a German baron, a sort of entertainment much admired at that time.

After the supper the ball went on again. Bonaparte took leave at one in the morning. Throughout the supper he kept close to his wife, paying attention to her alone. According to Girardin he was not sorry to have it said that he was much in love with her and excessively jealous.

The ball cost 12,730 francs, without counting the singers, the supper, and the police. It was a large sum for a ball, but it was money well spent. From this investment the ex-bishop of Autun was to draw large profits.

The entertainment of the Minister of Foreign Relations had been a union of the old and new society, a gracious and brilliant symbol of conciliation and fusion. Members of the Convention, regicides, Jacobins, had appeared there side by side with the great lords and ladies of other days. That is why it so pleased Bonaparte, who recalled it at Saint Helena, and said, "Minister Talleyrand's ball bore the stamp of good taste."

It was indeed a political and social event, a real restoration; a restoration of the manners and elegance of the old regime; the beginning of a new court. From beneath the democratic mask of Citizen Talleyrand was already peering the face of the Lord High Chamberlain; and Bonaparte, knowing that under every form of government the French would love luxury and show, festivities and pleasure, honors and decorations, was doubtless already dreaming of the future splendors of the Tuileries.