n differences of opinion lately between William
and his sister-in-law. The guests, however, were amazed indeed when
the King rose and delivered a speech in which he raked up all his old
grievances against the Duchess of Kent, and complained of her and
denounced her as if he were the barrister, the hero of the old familiar
story, who, having no case, is advised to abuse the plaintiff's
attorney. The child Princess Victoria is said to have been so
distressed by some parts of this unexpected oration that she burst into
tears; but the Duchess, her mother, retained self-control, and sat as
composedly silent as if the King had been taking his part in some
dignified State ceremonial.

{118}

King William sometimes broke the conventionalities of royal deportment
in a quite different sort of way, in a way which undoubtedly shocked
the traditional sensibilities of the older officials of the Court, but
with which the lovers of modern and more simple manners are inclined
sometimes, perhaps, to have a sort of wilful sympathy. He would
sometimes insist on dropping some great royal visitor from abroad at
the door of his hotel, just as if he were an ordinary London resident
giving a lift in his carriage to a friend from the country. At the
most solemn State ceremonial he would bustle about irresponsibly, and
talk in a loud voice to any one who might seem to him at the moment to
be an attractive person with whom to have a pleasant chat. It might
happen that some great State functionary or some dignified ambassador
from a foreign capital, who ought to have been spoken to long before,
was kept waiting until the unconcerned sovereign had had his talk out
with some comparatively insignificant personage who had been known to
the King in former days, and whose appearance brought with it certain
early and jovial associations. Many of the King's minor offences in
this way seem now to the unconcerned reader about as venial as that by
which Marie Antoinette in her early Court days broke through the
established rules of etiquette among the ladies of her bedchamber by
snatching her chemise one morning with her own hands instead of
allowing it to pass in its regular order from the lowest to the highest
degree of the attendant women. But it certainly was perhaps a little
too much of a departure from the usages of a Court when the monarch,
about to sign an important document in the presence of his State
Council, flung down the quill with whic