e curiosity to
inquire how he had made out to tell Marie to do all this. "Why, I showed
her the cocoa, to be sure, and then told her to _boily vous-meme_."
There was no laughing at this, and so I went with the captain to a
_cafe_; after which we proceeded in quest of the _gullyteen_, which he
was particularly anxious to see.

My rides often extend to the heights behind Malmaison and St. Cloud,
where there is a fine country, and where some of the best views in the
vicinity of Paris are to be obtained. As the court is at St. Cloud, I
often meet different members of the royal family dashing to or from
town, or perhaps passing from one of their abodes to another. The style
is pretty uniform, for I do not remember to have ever met the king but
once with less than eight horses. The exception was quite early one
morning, when he was going into the country with very little _eclat_,
accompanied by the Dauphine. Even on this occasion he was in a carriage
and six, followed by another with four, and attended by a dozen mounted
men. These royal progresses are truly magnificent; and they serve
greatly to enliven the road, as we live so near the country palace. The
king has been quite lately to a camp formed at St. Omer, and I happened
to meet a portion of his equipages on their return. The carriages I saw
were very neatly built post-chaises, well leathered, and contained what
are here called the "officers of the mouth," alias "cooks and
purveyors." They were all drawn by four horses. This was a great
occasion--furniture being actually sent from the palace of Compiegne for
the king's lodgings, and the court is said to have employed seventy
different vehicles to transport it. I saw about a dozen.

Returning the other night from a dinner-party, given on the banks of the
Seine, a few miles above us, I saw flaring lights gleaming along the
highway, which, at first, caused nearly as much conjecture as some of
the adventures of Don Quixotte. My horse proving a little restive, I
pulled up, placing the cabriolet on one side of the road, for the first
impression was that the cattle employed at some funeral procession had
taken flight and were running away. It proved to be the Dauphine dashing
towards St. Cloud. This was the first time I had ever met any of the
royal equipages at night, and the passage was much the most picturesque
of any I had hitherto seen. Footmen, holding flaming flambeaux, rode in
pairs in front, by the side of the carria