o adhere to the life of privacy upon which he had entered. But
it is scarcely possible but that, under the circumstances, both he
and his brothers must have longed for the restoration of the
Bourbons, which would have enabled them to return to France and to
enter upon the enjoyment of their exalted rank and their vast
estates.

Still, the princes were subject to many humiliations and annoyances.
The partisan press, on both sides, assailed them with every species
of calumny. "The leading ministerial journals in London declared
openly that they suspected the sincerity of the young Duke of Orleans
in his late repentance; and that his past exemplary conduct should
not be accepted as any security against his future treachery."

But the emigrants in London generally, and the British Court,
assumed to place full reliance in the reconciliation between the
Bourbon and the Orleans branches of the royal family. All the arts of
flattery were employed to cement this union, and to lead the princes
to commit themselves irreparably to the royal cause. England, under
the ministry of William Pitt, was waging relentless warfare against
revolutionary France. On the 20th of February the princes were
invited to meet England's most renowned prime minister, and the most
implacable foe of republican institutions in France, at a
dinner-party, at the town mansion of the Count d'Artois. Lord
Grenville gave a magnificent entertainment in their honor, on the 1st
of March, 1800; and the next Sunday the exiles were presented to his
majesty George III. at a levee held especially for that purpose.[H]

[Footnote H: Life and Times of Louis Philippe, p. 22.]

On the 13th of March the Russian ambassador, Count Woronzo, following
in the train of these marked civilities, invited them to a princely
banquet, which was attended by all the aristocracy of London, at his
mansion in Harley Street; and on the 13th of March his Royal Highness
the Prince of Wales honored them by an invitation to Carlton House
to meet all the foreign ambassadors.

The Orleans princes were now fully introduced to fashionable life in
London. Their presence was deemed essential to the completeness of
any soiree or banquet. The Marchioness of Salisbury, then the
arbitress in London of fashion and elegance, invited the princes to
meet at her house four hundred guests of the highest rank and
distinction, among whom was the Prince of Wales. Then the Lady
Mayoress of the city, Lady Harvey