en gone), and little dreaming what lies fifty
years ahead! King Louis's career of extraneous gallantries, which ended
in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, is now just beginning: think of that too; and of
her Majesty's fine behavior under it; so affable, so patient, silent,
now and always!--"In a little while, their Majesties go along the Great
Gallery to Chapel;" whither the Protestant mind cannot with comfort
accompany. [Busching, _Beitrage,_ ii. 59-78.]

This is the daily miracle done at Versailles to the believing multitude;
only that on New-year's day, and certain supreme occasions, the shirt
is handed by a Prince of the Blood, and the towel for drying the royal
hands by a ditto, with other improvements; and the thing comes out in
its highest power of effulgence,--especially if you could see high mass
withal. In the Antechamber and (OEil-de-Boeuf, Geusau), among hundreds
of phenomena fallen dead to us, saw the Four following, which have
still some life:--1. Many Knights of the Holy Ghost (CHEVALIERS DU SAINT
ESPRIT) are about; magnificently piebald people, indistinct to us, and
fallen dead to us: but there, among the company, do not we indisputably
see, "in full Cardinal's costume," Fleury the ancient Prime Minister
talking to her Majesty? Blandly smiling; soft as milk, yet with a flavor
of alcoholic wit in him here and there. That is a man worth looking at,
had they painted him at all. Red hat, red stockings; a serenely
definite old gentleman, with something of prudent wisdom, and a touch
of imperceptible jocosity at times; mildly inexpugnable in manner: this
King, whose Tutor he was twenty years ago, still looks to him as
his father; Fleury is the real King of France at present. His age is
eighty-seven gone; the King's is thirty (seven years younger than his
Queen): and the Cardinal has red stockings and red hat; veritably there,
successively in both Antechambers, seen by Geusau, January 1st, 1741:
that is all I know. 2. The Prince de Clermont, a Prince of the Blood,
"handed the shirt," TESTE Geusau. Some other Prince, notable to Geusau,
and to us nameless, had the honor of the "towel:" but this Prince de
Clermont, a dissolute fellow of wasted parts, kind of Priest, kind of
Soldier too, is seen visibly handing the shirt there;--whom the reader
and I, if we cared about it, shall again see, getting beaten by Prince
Ferdinand, at Crefeld, within twenty years hence. These are points first
and second, slightly noticeable, slightly if