The State carriage of Louis Philippe was a big blue coach drawn by eight horses. The interior was of gold coloured damask. On the doors was the King’s monogram surmounted by a crown, and on the panels were royal crowns. The roof was bordered by eight little silver crowns. There was a gigantic coachman on the box and three lackeys behind. All wore silk stockings and the tri-colour livery of the d’Orleans.

The King would enter the carriage first and seat himself in the right hand corner. Then the Duke de Nemours would take his place beside the King. The three other princes would follow and seat themselves, M. de Joinville opposite the King, M. de Montpensier opposite M. de Nemours, and M. d’Aumale in the middle.

The day the King attended Parliament, the grand deputations from both Houses, twelve peers and twenty-five deputies chosen by lot, awaited him on the grand staircase of the Palais Bourbon. As the sessions were nearly always held in winter, it was very cold on the stairs, a biting wind made all these old men shiver, and there are old generals of the Empire who did not die as the result of having been at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at the cemetery at Eylau, at the storming of the grand redoubt at Moskowa and under the fire of the Scottish squares at Waterloo, but of having waited in the cold upon these stairs.

The peers stood to the right and the deputies to the left, leaving the middle of the stairs clear. The staircase was partitioned off with hangings of white drill with blue stripes, which was a poor protection against draughts. Where are the good and magnificent tapestries of Louis XIV. They were indeed royal; wherefore they were taken down. Drill is a common material and more pleasing to the deputies. It charms and it freezes them.

The Queen arrived first with the princesses, but without the Duchess d’Orleans, who came separately with the Count de Paris. These ladies walked quickly upstairs, bowing to right and left, without speaking, but graciously, followed by a swarm of aides-de-camp and grim turbaned old women whom M. de Joinville called “the Queen’s Turks”—Mmes. de Dolokieu, de Chanaleilles, etc.

At the royal session of 1847, the Queen gave her arm to the Duchess de Montpensier. The princess was muffled up on account of the cold. I could see only a big red nose. The three other princesses walked behind, chatting and laughing. M. Anatole de Montesquiou came next in the much worn uniform of a major-general.

The King arrived about five minutes after the Queen; he walked upstairs even more quickly than she had done, followed by the princes running like schoolboys, and bowed to the peers on the right and the deputies on the left. He tarried a moment in the throne-room and exchanged a few greetings with the members of the two deputations. Then he entered the large hall.

The speech from the throne was written on parchment, on both sides of the sheet, and usually filled four pages. The King read it in a firm, well modulated voice.

Marshal Soult was present, resplendent with decorations, sashes, and gold lace, and complaining of his rheumatism. M. Pasquier, the Chancellor, did not put in an appearance. He had excused himself on the plea of the cold and of his eighty years. He had been present the year before. It was the last time.

In 1847 I was a member of the grand deputation. While I strolled about the waiting room, conversing with M. Villemain about Cracow, the Vienna treaties and the frontier of the Rhine, I could hear the buzzing of the groups around me, and scraps of conversation reached my ears.

COUNT DE LAGRANGE.—Ah! here comes the Marshal (Soult).

BARON PEDRE LACAZE.—He is getting old.

VISCOUNT CAVAIGNAC.—Sixty-nine years!

MARQUIS DR RAIGECOURT.—Who is the dean of the Chamber of Peers at present?

DUKE DE TREVISE.—M. de Pontecoulant, is he not?

MARQUIS DE LAPLACE.—NO, President Boyer. He is ninety-two.

PRESIDENT BARTHE.—He is older than that.

BARON D’OBERLIN.—He no longer comes to the Chamber.

M. VIENNET.—They say that M. Rossi is returning from Rome.

DUKE DE FESENZAC.—Well, I pity him for quitting Rome. It is the finest and most amiable city in the world. I hope to end my days there.

COUNT DE MONTALEMBERT.—And Naples!

BARON THENARD.—I prefer Naples.

M. FULCHIRON.—Yes, Naples, that’s the place. By the by, I was there when poor Nourrit killed himself. I was staying in the house next to his.

BARON CHARLES DUPIN.—He took his life? It was not an accident?

M. FULCHIRON.—Oh! it was a case of suicide, sure enough. He had been hissed the previous day. He could not stand that. It was in an opera composed expressly for him—“Polyceucte.” He threw himself from a height of sixty feet. His voice did not please that particular public. Nourrit was too much accustomed to sing GlÜck and Mozart. The Neapolitans said of him: “Vecchico canto.”

BARON DUPIN.—Poor Nourrit! why did he not wait! Duprez has lost his voice. Eleven years ago Duprez demolished Nourrit; to-day Nourrit would demolish Duprez.

MARQUIS DE BOISSY.—How cold it is on this staircase.

COUNT PHILIPPE DE SEGUR.—It was even colder at the Academy the other day. That poor Dupaty is a good man, but he made a bad speech.

BARON FEUTRIER.—I am trying to warm myself. What a frightful draught! It is enough to drive one away.

BARON CHARLES DUPIN.—M. FranÇais de Nantes had conceived this expedient to rid himself of those who came to solicit favours and abridge their solicitations: he was given to receiving people between two doors.

M. Thiers at this time had a veritable court of deputies about him. After the session he walked out in front of me. A gigantic deputy, whose back only I could see, stepped aside, saying: “Make way for historical men!” And the big man let the little man pass.

Historical? May be. In what way?