[ 590 ] [DEC. 



THE MAN WITH THE APPETITE : 







A CASE OF DISTRESS. 



To the charitable and humane, and to those whom Providence has blessed with affluence. CRITIC. 



CHARCBS XII. was brave, noble, generous, and disinterested a com- 

 plete hero, in fact, and a regular fire-eater. Yet, in spite of these qualifi- 

 cations and the eulogiuras of his biographer, it is pretty evident to those who 

 impartially consider the career of this potentate, that he was by no means 

 of a sane mind. In short, to speak plainly, he was mad, and de- 

 served a strait-waistcoat as richly as any straw-crowned monarch in 

 Bedlam. A single instance, in my opinion, fully substantiates this, I 

 allude to his absurd freak at Frederickshall, when, in order to discover how 

 long he could exist without nourishment, he abstained from all kinds of 

 food for more than seventy hours ! Now, would any man in his senses 

 have done this ? Would Louis XVIII., for instance, that wise and ever- 

 to-be-lamented monarch ? Had it been the reverse^ indeed had Charles, 

 instead of practising starvation, adopted the opposite expedient, and endea- 

 voured to ascertain the greatest possible quantity of meat, fruit, bread, 

 wine, vegetables, &c. &c. he could have disposed of in any given time 

 why then it might have been something ! But to fast for three days! If 

 this be not madness ! Indeed, there is but one reason 1 could ever con- 

 ceive for a person not eating; and that is, when, like poor Count Ugolino 

 and his fnmiliy, he can get nothing to eat ! 



Charles, now, and Louis what a contrast ! The first despised the 

 pleasures of the table, abjured wine, and would, I dare say, just as soon 

 have been without "a distinguishing taste" as with it. Your Bourbon, on 

 the contrary, a five-mealed man, quaffing right Falernian night and day ; 

 and wisely esteeming the gratification of his palate of such importance, as 

 absolutely to send from Lisle to Paris a distance of I know not how many 

 score leagues at a crisis, too, of peculiar difficulty for a single pate!* 

 " Go," cried the illustrious exile to his messenger ; " dispatch, mon enfant! 

 Mount the tri-color ! Shout ViveleDiablel Any thing! But be 

 sure you clutch the precious compound ! Napoleon has driven me from 

 my throne; but he cannot deprive me of my appetite!" Here was cou- 

 rage ! I challenge the most enthusiastic admirer of Charles to produce a 

 similar instance of indifference to danger ! 



There is another trait in the character of Louis which equally demands 

 our admiration, and proves that the indomitable firmness may be sometimes 

 associated with the most sensitive and I had almost said infantine sen- 

 sibility. Of course, it will be perceived that I allude to the peculiar ten- 

 derness by which that amiable prince was often betrayed, even into tears, 

 upon occasions when ordinary minds would have manifested comparative 

 nonchalance. I have been assured that Louis absolutely wept once at 

 Hartwell, merely because oysters were out of season ! a testaceous 

 production, to which he was remarkably attached ;f so much so, indeed, 



* Ireland's Hundred Days." 

 f Whence his cognomen of Des Huilresby corruption, Dix-huit. 



