owed to be seated; and, on the other, a vacant space for the
gentlemen, who stood. All these, you will understand, were considered
merely as spectators, not being supposed to be in the presence of the
king. The mere spectators were dressed as usual, or in common evening
dress, and not all the women even in that; while those within the
railings, being deemed to be in the royal presence, were in high court
dresses. Thus I stood for an hour within five-and-twenty feet of the
king, and part of the time much nearer, while, by a fiction of
etiquette, I was not understood to be there at all. I was a good while
within ten feet of the Duchesse de Berri, while, by convention, I was
nowhere. There was abundance of room in our area, and every facility of
moving about, many coming and going, as they saw fit. Behind us, but at
a little distance, were other rows of raised seats, filled with the best
instrumental musicians of Paris. Along the wall, facing the table, was a
narrow raised platform, wide enough to allow of two or three to walk
abreast, separated from the rest of the room by a railing, and extending
from a door at one end of the gallery, to a door at the other. This was
the place designed for the passage of the public during the dinner; no
one, however, being admitted, even here, without a ticket.

A gentleman of the court led your aunt to the seats reserved for the
female spectators, which were also without the railing, and I took my
post among the men. Although the court of the Tuileries was, when we
entered the palace, filled with a throng of those who were waiting to
pass through the Gallery of Diana, to my surprise, the number of persons
who were to remain in the room was very small. I account for the
circumstance, by supposing, that it is not etiquette for any who have
been presented to attend, unless they are among the court; and, as some
reserve was necessary in issuing these tickets, the number was
necessarily limited. I do not think there were fifty men on our side,
which might have held several hundred; and the seats of the ladies were
not half filled. Boxes were fitted up in the enormous windows, which
closed and curtained, a family of fine children occupying that nearest
to me. Some one said they were the princes of the house of Orleans; for
none of the members of the royal family have seats at the _grands
couverts_, as these dinners are called, unless they belong to the
reigning branch. There is but one Bourbon