asure to the gentlemen of the old
era, and they let the king perceive it.

King Louis felt this, and, in order to conciliate his court, he often
saw himself compelled to humiliate "the _parvenus_" who had forced
themselves among the former.

Incessant quarrelling and intriguing within the Tuileries was the
consequence, and Louis was often dejected, uneasy, and angry, in the
midst of the splendor that surrounded him.

"I am angry with myself and the others," said he on one occasion to an
intimate friend. "An invisible and secret power is ever working in
opposition to my will, frustrating my plans, and paralyzing my
authority."

"And yet you are king!"

"Undoubtedly I am king!" exclaimed Louis, angrily; "but am I also
master? The king is he who all his life long receives ambassadors, gives
tiresome audiences, listens to annihilating discourses, goes in state to
Notre-Dame, dines in public once a year, and is pompously buried in St.
Denis when he dies. The master is he who commands and can enforce
obedience, who puts an end to intriguing, and can silence old women as
well as priests. Bonaparte was king and master at the same time! His
ministers were his clerks, the kings his brothers merely his agents, and
his courtiers nothing more than his servants. His ministers vied with
his senate in servility, and his _Corps Legislatif_ sought to outdo his
senate and the church in subserviency. He was an extraordinary and an
enviable man, for he had not only devoted servants and faithful friends,
but also an accommodating church[37]."

[Footnote 37: Memoires d'une Femme de Qualite, vol. v., p. 35.]

King Louis XVIII., weary of the incessant intrigues with which his
courtiers occupied themselves, withdrew himself more and more into the
retirement of his palace, and left the affairs of state to the care of
M. de Blacas, who, with all his arrogance and egotism, knew very little
about governing.

The king preferred to entertain himself with his friends, to read them
portions of his memoirs, to afford them an opportunity of admiring his
verses, and to regale them with his witty and not always chaste
anecdotes; he preferred all these things to tedious and useless disputes
with his ministers. He had given his people the charter, and his
ministers might now govern in accordance with this instrument.

"The people demand liberty," said the king. "I give them enough of it to
protect them against despotism, without according them unbr