e the favourite of the people of Paris and
the corrupter of the Comte d'Artois. She made the king purchase the
almost royal palace of St. Cloud, the favourite seat of the Duc
d'Orleans. Infamous insinuations against him were incessantly
transpiring from the half confidences of courtiers. He was accused of
having induced courtezans to poison the blood of the Prince de Lamballe,
his brother-in-law, and of having enervated him in debauches, in order
that he might be the sole heir of the immense property of the house of
Penthievre. This crime was the pure invention of malice.

Thus persecuted by the animosity of the court, the Duc d'Orleans was
more and more driven to retirement. In his frequent visits to England he
formed a close intimacy with the Prince of Wales, heir to the throne,
who took for his friends all the enemies of his father; playing with
sedition, dishonoured by debts, of scandalous life, prolonging beyond
the usual term those excesses of princes--horses, pleasure of the table,
gaming, women; abetting the intrigues of Fox, Sheridan and Burke, and
prefacing his advent to royal power by all the audacity of a refractory
son and a factious citizen.

The Duc d'Orleans thus tasted of the joys of liberty in a London life.
He brought back to France habits of insolence against the court, a taste
for popular disturbances, contempt for his own rank, familiarity with
the multitude, a citizen's life in a palace, and that simple style of
dress, which by abandoning the uniform of the French nobility, and
blending attire generally, soon destroyed all inequalities of costume
amongst citizens.

Then given up entirely to the exclusive care of repairing his impaired
fortune, the Duc d'Orleans constructed the _Palais Royal_. He changed
the noble and spacious gardens of his palace into a market of luxury,
devoted by day to traffic, and by night to play and debauchery--a
complete sink of iniquities, built in the heart of the capital--a work
of cupidity which antique manners never could forgive this prince; and
which, being gradually adopted like the forum by the indolence of the
Parisian population, was destined to become the cradle of the
Revolution. This Revolution was striding onwards. The prince awaited it
in supineness, as if liberty of the world had been but one more
mistress.

His well-known hatred against the court had naturally drawn into his
acquaintance all who desired a change. The Palais Royal was the elegant
cent