1827.] Etiquette. 131 



and their court. This is certainly not the beau c6te of monarchical in- 

 stitutions ; nor can any thing more strongly mark the inadequacy of 

 restored legitimacy to the part it is called upon to sustain, than the 

 eagerness it has manifested to revive such worn-out pageants, to restore 

 " les grands charges" and to re-establish etiquettes, which have lost all 

 force of imposition with the conventional meaning which has ceased to be 

 assigned to them. Accustomed, as mankind has been, to witness dis- 

 cussions turning upon the fate of kingdoms, and deciding on the fortunes 

 of ancient and powerful dynasties, ..they cannot turn back, with any 

 complaicency, to the old diplomacy, intriguing for the right hand in a 

 procession, or stipulating for an arm-chair or a stool, at a state ceremony. 

 Those who have followed Napoleon over Egypt, or witnessed his 

 triumphant entry into the capitals of vanquished enemies, would scarcely 

 suppress a sneer at a monarch who should figure i a// Dieu, or, like 

 Louis XV., should take physic in state. Between the kings of France 

 and the German electors, precedence and etiquette w r ere in the old 

 times, make-bates sufficient to set courts by the ears, and to disturb the 

 equanimity of the very serene personages who inhabit them, beyond all 

 power of compromise. When the elector of Bavaria visited Paris, Louis 

 XIV. had no better expedient for bringing him in amicable contact with 

 the Dauphin, than by arranging a rencontre improvise in the gardens of 

 Meudon, and making them both, by the opposite doors, and at the same 

 instant of time, enter the calash in which they were to ride. Madame 

 de Maintcnon, or, as she was better named by the envious of her own day, 

 Madame de Maintenant, was a great stickler for state etiquette, like all 

 persons, who not being assured of their place in society, strive to make good 

 their ground by assertion and pretence. In her ambition to be treated as a 

 queen, she was reduced to very comical shifts, in order that she might 

 avoid the necessity of rising from her chair, on the entrance of persons, 

 who might not be disposed to accede to her " royalties." This probably 

 was her inducement jfor receiving in bed,* the Czar Peter, who visited 

 her at St. Cyr, after the death of the king. What a strange contrast this 

 scene must have afforded, between the representative of savage despotism, 

 and the type of all the " finoteri" of the " monarchic temporee par de 

 chansons!" What a subject for a picture !f The memoirs of Madame de 

 Montpensier are filled with never-ending contests for high-backed chairs, 

 and the honors of the door, and the endless disputes between " les princes 

 legitimes" and " les princes legi'limes,"" formed next to the bankruptcy 

 of law, the great knot, the dignus vindice nodus of the regent's admi- 

 nistration. The possession of the haut du pave, in like manner, set am- 

 bassadors in a flame, cost coachmen, too jealous of their master's honour, 

 their lives ; and endangered the peace of nations. Even as recently as 

 the epoch of the revolution, we find Segur, a man of sense and of parts, 

 assuming merit for having cheated the English ambassador, at Peters- 

 burgh, out of the post of honour at court, without compromising himself, 



* This ruse she*probably?borrowed from Cardinal de Richelieu, who adopted the same 

 expedient, to settle a dispute, which had nearly broken off the marriage of our Charles 

 the First with Henrietta of France. 



t It was, probably, to resent this slight in the would-be queen, that Peter treated her 

 with so much rudeness. " Le Czar," says Duclos, " en entrant, tira les rideanx des 

 fenctres, puis ceux du lit, la considera attentivement, et sortit nans dire wi mot, et 

 nans lui J'aire la moindre politesse. Mad. de M. jut, pour le mains, e'tonnee d'tine &e 

 e trail ge visite ct dut scntir la difference le dcs temps." Memoirs de Louis XV. 



S 2 



