oom by the deputies
to the keepers of Trianon, the King concluded that they were looking for
the scene enriched with paste ornaments, made in the reign of Louis XV.
for the theatre of Fontainebleau.

The King supposed that his Body Guards, on their return to the country,
after their quarterly duty at Court, related what they had seen, and that
their exaggerated accounts, being repeated, became at last totally
perverted. This idea of the King, after the search for the diamond
chamber, suggested to the Queen that the report of the King's propensity
for drinking also sprang from the guards who accompanied his carriage when
he hunted at Rambouillet. The King, who disliked sleeping out of his
usual bed, was accustomed to leave that hunting-seat after supper; he
generally slept soundly in his carriage, and awoke only on his arrival at
the courtyard of his palace; he used to get down from his carriage in the
midst of his Body Guards, staggering, as a man half awake will do, which
was mistaken for intoxication.

The majority of the deputies who came imbued with prejudices produced by
error or malevolence, went to lodge with the most humble private
individuals of Versailles, whose inconsiderate conversation contributed
not a little to nourish such mistakes. Everything, in short, tended to
render the deputies subservient to the schemes of the leaders of the
rebellion.

Shortly after the opening of the States General the first Dauphin died.
That young Prince suffered from the rickets, which in a few months curved
his spine, and rendered his legs so weak that he could not walk without
being supported like a feeble old man.

[Louis, Dauphin of France, who died at Versailles on the 4th of June,
1789, gave promise of intellectual precocity. The following particulars,
which convey some idea of his disposition, and of the assiduous attention
bestowed upon him by the Duchesse de Polignac, will be found in a work of
that time: "At two years old the Dauphin was very pretty; he articulated
well, and answered questions put to him intelligently. While he was at
the Chateau de La Muette everybody was at liberty to see him. The Dauphin
was dressed plainly, like a sailor; there was nothing to distinguish him
from other children in external appearance but the cross of Saint Louis,
the blue ribbon, and the Order of the Fleece, decorations that are the
distinctive signs of his rank. The Duchesse Jules de Polignac, his
governess, scarcely