re was another
side--fearful want and grievous poverty and the horrors of the
Revolution. Russia was too far away, and was still considered too
barbarous, for a brilliant court to flourish there. Prussia had the
prestige that Frederick the Great won for her, but she was still a
comparatively small state. Italy was in a condition of political chaos;
the banks of the Rhine were running blood where the Austrian armies
faced the gallant Frenchmen under the leadership of Moreau. But
England, in spite of the loss of her American colonies, was rich and
prosperous, and her invincible fleets were extending her empire over
the seven seas.

At no time in modern England has the court at London seen so much real
splendor or such fine manners. The royalist emigres who fled from
France brought with them names and pedigrees that were older than the
Crusades, and many of them were received with the frankest, freest
English hospitality. If here and there some marquis or baron of ancient
blood was perforce content to teach music to the daughters of tradesmen
in suburban schools, nevertheless they were better off than they had
been in France, harried by the savage gaze-hounds of the guillotine.
Afterward, in the days of the Restoration, when they came back to their
estates, they had probably learned more than one lesson from the
bouledogues of Merry England, who had little tact, perhaps, but who
were at any rate kindly and willing to share their goods with pinched
and poverty-stricken foreigners.

The court, then, as has been said, was brilliant with notables from
Continental countries, and with the historic wealth of the peerage of
England. Only one cloud overspread it; and that was the mental
condition of the king. We have become accustomed to think of George III
as a dull creature, almost always hovering on the verge of that
insanity which finally swept him into a dark obscurity; but Thackeray's
picture of him is absurdly untrue to the actual facts. George III. was
by no means a dullard, nor was he a sort of beefy country squire who
roved about the palace gardens with his unattractive spouse.

Obstinate enough he was, and ready for a combat with the rulers of the
Continent or with his self-willed sons; but he was a man of brains and
power, and Lord Rosebery has rightly described him as the most striking
constitutional figure of his time. Had he retained his reason, and had
his erratic and self-seeking son not succeeded him during his