He And The Princess His Wife, Dine Every Day
With The King, To Save The Expense Of Two Tables.
What a mummery it
must be to treat as a king a being who has lost the majesty of
Man!
But even Count Bernstorff's morality submits to this standing
imposition; and he avails himself of it sometimes, to soften a
refusal of his own, by saying it is the WILL of the King, my master,
when everybody knows that he has neither will nor memory. Much the
same use is made of him as, I have observed, some termagant wives
make of their husbands; they would dwell on the necessity of obeying
their husbands, poor passive souls, who never were allowed TO WILL,
when they wanted to conceal their own tyranny.
A story is told here of the King's formerly making a dog counsellor
of state, because when the dog, accustomed to eat at the royal
table, snatched a piece of meat off an old officer's plate, he
reproved him jocosely, saying that he, monsieur le chien, had not
the privilege of dining with his majesty, a privilege annexed to
this distinction.
The burning of the palace was, in fact, a fortunate circumstance, as
it afforded a pretext for reducing the establishment of the
household, which was far too great for the revenue of the Crown.
The Prince Royal, at present, runs into the opposite extreme; and
the formality, if not the parsimony, of the court, seems to extend
to all the other branches of society, which I had an opportunity of
observing; though hospitality still characterises their intercourse
with strangers.
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