d little more than make a
distant bow to this group, but the Queen manifesting a desire to say
something to our party, Mr. M'Lane and myself approached them. She first
addressed my companion in French, a language he did not speak, and I was
obliged to act as interpreter. But the Queen instantly said she
understood English, though she spoke it badly, and begged he would
address her in his own tongue. Madame Adelaide seemed more familiar with
our language. But the conversation was necessarily short, and not worth
repeating.

Queen Amelie is a woman of a kind, and, I think, intelligent
countenance. She has the Bourbon rather than the Austrian outline of
face. She seemed anxious to please, and in her general air and carriage
has some resemblance to the Duchess of St. Leu.[3] She has the
reputation of being an excellent wife and mother, and, really, not to
fall too precipitately into the vice of a courtier, she appears as if
she may well deserve it. She is thin, but graceful, and I can well
imagine that she has been more than pretty in her youth.

[Footnote 3: Hortense.]

I do not remember a more frank, intelligent, and winning countenance
than that of Madame Adelaide, who is the King's sister. She has little
beauty left, except that of expression; but this must have made her
handsome once, as it renders her singularly attractive now. Her manner
was less nervous than that of the Queen, and I should think her mind had
more influence over her exterior.

The Princess Louise (the Queen of Belgium) and the Princess Marie are
pretty, with the quiet subdued manner of well-bred young persons. The
first is pale, has a strikingly Bourbon face, resembling the profiles on
the French coins; while the latter has an Italian and classical outline
of features, with a fine colour.

They were all dressed with great simplicity; scarcely in high dinner
dress; the Queen and Madame Adelaide wearing evening hats. The
Princesses, as is uniformly the case with unmarried French girls of
rank, were without any ornaments, wearing their hair in the usual
manner.

After the ceremonies of being presented were gone through, I amused
myself with examining the company. This was a levee, not a drawing-room,
and there were no women among the visitors. The men, who did not appear
in uniform, were in common evening dress, which has degenerated of late
into black stocks and trousers.

Accident brought me next to an old man, who had exactly that
revolutio