ess gaiety, there were promenades in
Spring Gardens, or the Mall; sometimes the court beauties sallied forth
on horseback; at other times there were shows on the river, which then
washed the very foundations of Whitehall. There in the summer evenings,
when it was too hot and dusty to walk, old Thames might be seen covered
with little boats, filled with court and city beauties, attending the
royal barges; collations, music, and fireworks completed the scene, and
De Grammont always contrived some surprise--some gallant show: once a
concert of vocal and instrumental music, which he had privately brought
from Paris, struck up unexpectedly: another time a collation brought
from the gay capital surpassed that supplied by the king. Then the
Chevalier, finding that coaches with glass windows, lately introduced,
displeased the ladies, because their charms were only partially seen in
them, sent for the most elegant and superb _caleche_ ever seen: it came
after a month's journey, and was presented by De Grammont to the king.
It was a royal present in price, for it had cost two thousand livres.
The famous dispute between Lady Castlemaine and Miss Stuart, afterwards
Duchess of Richmond, arose about this _caleche_. The Queen and the
Duchess of York appeared first in it in Hyde Park, which had then
recently been fenced in with brick. Lady Castlemaine thought that the
_caleche_ showed off a fine figure better than the coach; Miss Stuart
was of the same opinion. Both these grown-up babies wished to have the
coach on the same day, but Miss Stuart prevailed.

The Queen condescended to laugh at the quarrels of these two foolish
women, and complimented the Chevalier de Grammont on his present. 'But
how is it,' she asked, 'that you do not even keep a footman, and that
one of the common runners in the street lights you home with a link?'

'Madame,' he answered, 'the Chevalier de Grammont hates pomp: my
link-boy is faithful and brave.' Then he told the Queen that he saw she
was unacquainted with the nation of link-boys, and related how that he
had, at one time, had one hundred and sixty around his chair at night,
and people had asked 'whose funeral it was? As for the parade of coaches
and footmen,' he added, 'I despise it. I have sometimes had five or six
_valets-de-chambre_, without a single footman in livery except my
chaplain.'

'How!' cried the Queen, laughing, 'a chaplain in livery? surely he was
not a priest.'

'_Pardon_, Madame, a p