y
so much dreaded, Les coups de boutoir du Roi.--[The literal meaning of the
phrase "coup de boutoir," is a thrust from the snout of a boar.]

Methodical in all his habits, the King always went to bed at eleven
precisely. One evening the Queen was going with her usual circle to a
party, either at the Duc de Duras's or the Princesse de Glumenee's. The
hand of the clock was slily put forward to hasten the King's departure by
a few minutes; he thought bed-time was come, retired, and found none of
his attendants ready to wait on him. This joke became known in all the
drawing-rooms of Versailles, and was disapproved of there. Kings have no
privacy. Queens have no boudoirs. If those who are in immediate
attendance upon sovereigns be not themselves disposed to transmit their
private habits to posterity, the meanest valet will relate what he has
seen or heard; his gossip circulates rapidly, and forms public opinion,
which at length ascribes to the most august persons characters which,
however untrue they may be, are almost always indelible.

NOTE. The only passion ever shown by Louis XVI. was for hunting. He was
so much occupied by it that when I went up into his private closets at
Versailles, after the 10th of August, I saw upon the staircase six frames,
in which were seen statements of all his hunts, when Dauphin and when
King. In them was detailed the number, kind, and quality of the game he
had killed at each hunting party during every month, every season, and
every year of his reign.

The interior of his private apartments was thus arranged: a salon,
ornamented with gilded mouldings, displayed the engravings which had been
dedicated to him, drawings of the canals he had dug, with the model of
that of Burgundy, and the plan of the cones and works of Cherbourg. The
upper hall contained his collection of geographical charts, spheres,
globes, and also his geographical cabinet. There were to be seen drawings
of maps which he had begun, and some that he had finished. He had a
clever method of washing them in. His geographical memory was prodigious.
Over the hall was the turning and joining room, furnished with ingenious
instruments for working in wood. He inherited some from Louis XV., and he
often busied himself, with Duret's assistance, in keeping them clean and
bright. Above was the library of books published during his reign. The
prayer books and manuscript books of Anne of Brittany, Francois I, the
later Va