miliation of his country.

The next day, the commander of the ship which had brought the
intelligence called at the residence of the Duke of Orleans, and said
to him,

"I am directed by Admiral Lord William Bentinck, who is now at Genoa,
to wait upon your royal highness, and ascertain if you wish to return
to France. If so, my vessel and my personal services are at your
command. If you prefer to remain at Naples, I hope you may enjoy that
lasting happiness to which, by your eventful and virtuous life, you
are so eminently entitled."[N]

[Footnote N: During much of his exile, Louis XVIII. had occupied the
chateau of Hartwell, in the county of Buckingham, about fifty miles
from London.]

The duke pondered the fact that he was invited to return to Paris,
not by an envoy from the restored king, but by an officer in the
British navy. Still the prince resolved immediately to repair to
Paris. Taking an affectionate farewell of his wife and their infant
son, he embarked on board the English frigate, accompanied by a
single servant, and on the eighteenth of May, 1814, entered his
native city, from which he had so long been an exile. Louis XVIII.
was already there, having returned to Paris in the rear of the
bayonets and the batteries of foreign troops. It was his majesty's
expressed wish that the Palais Royal, the hereditary mansion of the
Orleans family, should be repaired and restored to its former owners.
During the republican and imperial rule, its numerous and spacious
apartments had been appropriated to private residences. The duke,
upon arriving in Paris, availed himself of temporary accommodations
in furnished apartments in the Rue Grange Bateliere. One of his first
steps was to repair incognito to the home of his fathers. The Swiss
servants who guarded the palace still wore the imperial livery. With
some reluctance they yielded to the importunities of the stranger,
and allowed him to penetrate the interior apartments.

"As he approached the grand staircase, the recollections of his
boyhood, the lustre of his ancient race, the agonies of mind he had
endured since he last beheld that spot, and gratitude to that
Providence which had spared him amidst such universal ruin,
completely overwhelmed him, and, falling prostrate on the tesselated
pavement, he imprinted a thousand kisses on the cold white marble,
while tears gushing from his eyes indicated, while they relieved, the
emotions with which he contended."[O]

[F