high to
low, far and wide, with his N., or his Bees or his Eagle--all of which
Louis XVIII is as busily employed in effacing, which alone will give him
ample employment: but to return to the books. Amongst the rest I
found--Shakespeare ... and a whole range of Ecclesiastical History,
which, if ever read, might account in some degree for his shutting up
the Pope as the existing representative of the animals who have
occasioned half the feuds and divisions therein recorded. There was a
Chapel, which he regularly attended on Sundays and Saints' days. His
State bed was a sort of State business, very uncomfortable, consisting
of 5 or 6 mattresses under a royal canopy with 2 Satin Pillows at each
end.

During his residence he never stirred beyond the gates, though I could
not discover that he was at all under restraint, or in any way looked
upon as a prisoner; we were told in England (what are we not told
there?) that he feared the people, who would have torn him in pieces;
this is an idle story. I rather suspect the people liked him too well,
besides which his Guards were there, and by them he is idolised. He
generally took exercise in a long and beautiful Gallery, called the
Gallery of Francis I., on both sides of which were busts of his great
Generals on panels ornamented with the N., and some name above alluding
to a victory; thus above one N. was _Nazareth_, which puzzled me at
first, but I afterwards heard he had cut up some Turks there; besides
the Gallery, he walked every day up and down a Terrace; he dined every
day in a miserable (I speak comparatively) little passage room without
any shew of state; he was affable to his attendants and is liked by
them. His abdication room is not one of the state apartments--it is a
shabby ante-room; I could almost fancy that in performing this
humiliating deed he had retired as far as possible from the Halls and
Saloons which were decorated by his hand, and had witnessed his Imperial
magnificence. Most of the Marshals were in the room, and it would have
been a tour indeed to have glided through the hearts of each when such
an extraordinary performance was transacting. It was in the great Court
before the Palace that he took his leave, not above 1,500 troops were
present. At such a moment to have heard such a speech, delivered with
the dignity and stage effect Buonaparte well knew how to give, must have
produced a strong effect--how great (how sad I had almost said) the
contrast!