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niSTORY OP ENGLAND.

chap, let him have the pleasure of showing them his buildings,"nisi—pictures, and plantations, he took the unceremonious leaveof an old friend.

In a few hours the royal pair were informed that, as longas they would do the King of France the favour to accept ofhis hospitality, forty-five thousand pounds sterling a yearwould be paid them from his treasury. Ten thousand poundssterling were sent for outfit.

The liberality of Lewis, however, was much less rare andadmirable than the exquisite delicacy with which he labouredto sooth the feelings of his guests and to lighten the almostintolerable weight of the obligations which he laid upon them.He who had hitherto, on all questions of precedence, beensensitive, litigious, insolent, who had been more than onceready to plunge Europe into war rather than concede themost frivolous point of etiquette, was now punctilious indeed,but punctilious for his unfortunate friends against himself. Hegave orders that Mary should receive all the marks of respectthat had ever been paid to his own deceased wife. A questionwas raised whether the Princes of the House of Bourbon wereentitled to be indulged with chairs in the presence of theQueen. Such trifles were serious matters at the old court ofFrance. There were precedents on both sides: but Lewisdecided the point against his own blood. Some ladies ofillustrious rank omitted the ceremony of kissing the hem ofMary’s robe. Lewis remarked the omission, and noticed itin such a voice and with such a look that the whole peeragewas ever after ready to kiss her shoe. When Esther, justwritten by Racine, was acted at Saint Cyr, Mary had the seatof honour. James was at her right hand. Lewis modestlyplaced himself on the left. Nay, he was well pleased that, inhis own palace, an outcast living on his bounty should assumethe title of King of France, should, as King of France, quarterthe lilies with the English lions, and should, as King ofFrance, dress in violet on days of court mourning.

The demeanour of the French nobility on public oc-casions was absolutely regulated by their sovereign: but itwas beyond even his power to prevent them from thinking