e Quotidienne are always the best informed."

He returned to the same subject October 6:--

"I am in despair at seeing the journals recounting hunt after hunt. I
know the effect that produces. I wanted to get at the source of these
mischievous reports, and M-- communicated to me confidentially that
these reports came to him from the court, and at such length that he
always cut them down three-fourths. In this case, it is for the King to
give orders."

Let us put beside this report the following passage from the Memoirs of
the Duke of Doudeauville:--

"I must justify Charles X. in this passion for the chase, so bitterly
laid up against him in that time when malice and bad faith seized on
everything that could injure him. Five whole days every week he
remained in his apartment, busy with affairs of state, working with the
ministers, examining by himself their different reports with a
sensitive heart, much soul, and more intellect than had been believed;
he had much reason and a very sound judgment. We were often astonished
at it in the Council, over which he presided, and which he prolonged
two, three, four, and five hours, without permitting himself the least
distraction or showing any sign of weariness. Often, in the most
difficult discussions, he would open up an opinion that no one had
conceived, and which, full of sagacity, smoothed every difficulty.

"Twice a week, and often only once, when the weather permitted, he went
hunting, perhaps gunning, perhaps coursing. It will be conceded that it
was a necessary exercise after such assiduous toil and occupations so
sedentary.

"I certify that this was the extent of the hunting of which calumny, to
ruin him, made a crime. Every time he went hunting, the Opposition
journals did not fail to announce it, which persuaded nearly all France
that he passed all his time in the distractions of this amusement."

The tide of detraction of the sovereign steadily rose. The Viscount de
La Rochefoucauld perceived it clearly. He wrote to the King, 13th
October, 1825:--

"The interior of France, as regards commerce, agriculture, industry,
wealth, offers a most striking spectacle. Let Charles X., as King and
father, rejoice in his work; but let him reflect that the lightest
sleep would be followed by a terrible awakening."

The 12th of January, 1826, when his father-in-law, the Duke Mathieu de
Montmorency, had just been named governor to the Duke of Bordeaux, M.
de La Rochefouca