Lyons; but this belonged to a later period, his last visit to Auvergne,
the summer before the Revolution of July, and which called forth as
enthusiastic a display of popular affection as that which had greeted
his last visit to America. But the one which he seemed to prize most was
a very plain pair of eye-glasses, in a simple horn case, if my memory
does not deceive me, but which, in his estimation, neither gold nor
jewels could have replaced, for they had once belonged to Washington.
"He gave them to me," said the General, "on my last visit to Mount
Vernon."

He was an early riser, and his work began the moment he left his pillow.
First came his letters, always a heavy drain upon his time; for he had
been so long a public man that everybody felt free to consult him, and
everybody that consulted him was sure of a polite answer. Then his
personal friends had their claims, some of them running back to youth,
some the gradual accession of later years, and all of them cherished
with that genial and confiding expansiveness which was the great charm
of his private life, and the chief source, when he did err, of his
errors as a public man. Like all the men of Washington's school, he
was systematically industrious; and by dint of system and industry his
immense correspondence was seldom allowed to get the start of him.
Important letters were answered as they came, and minutes or copies of
the answers kept for reference. He seemed to love his pen, and to write
without effort,--never aiming, it is true, at the higher graces of
style, somewhat diffuse, too, both in French and in English, but
easy, natural, idiomatic, and lucid, with the distinctness of clear
conceptions rather than the precision of vigorous conceptions, and a
warmth which in his public letters sometimes rose to eloquence, and in
his private letters often made you feel as if you were listening instead
of reading.