With the hope of pressing one of the family claims on the royal exchequer, the second son procured an extension of furlough and sped to Paris.

There at the close of 1787 he spent several weeks, hopefully endeavouring to extract money from the bankrupt Government.

It was a season of disillusionment in more senses than one; for there he saw for himself the seamy side of Parisian life, and drifted for a brief space about the giddy vortex of the Palais Royal.

What a contrast to the limpid life of Corsica was that turbid frothy existence--already swirling towards its mighty plunge! After a furlough of twenty-one months he rejoined his regiment, now at Auxonne.

There his health suffered considerably, not only from the miasma of the marshes of the river Saone, but also from family anxieties and arduous literary toils.