The King left Bruehl that same afternoon _en route_ for
Ehrenbreitstein, and Monsieur Maurice went away the next morning in a
post-chaise and pair, bound for Paris. He gave me, for a farewell gift, his
precious microscope and all his boxes of slides, and he parted from me with
many kisses; but there was a smile on his face as he got into the carriage,
and something of triumph in the very wave of his hand as he drove away.
Alas! how could it be otherwise? A prisoner freed, an exile returning to
his country, how should he not be glad to go, even though one little heart
should be left to ache or break in the land of the stranger?
I never saw him again; never--never--never. He wrote now and then to my
father, but only for a time; perhaps as many as six letters during three or
four years--and then we heard from him no more. To these letters he gave us
no opportunity of replying, for they contained no address; and although we
had reason to believe that he was a man of family and title, he never
signed himself by any other name than that by which we had known him.
We did hear, however, (I forget now through what channel) of the sudden
disgrace and banishment of His Majesty's Minister of War, the Baron von
Bulow.
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