has this advantage; it saves Us the trouble We used to have, of
dismissing Our Secretaries of State. Our Council is a perfect inn-parlor,
whither public opinion sometimes sends strange travelers; however, We
can always find a place for Our faithful adherents."

This ironical speech was introductory to a rescript giving Monsieur de
Fontaine an appointment as administrator in the office of Crown lands.
As a consequence of the intelligent attention with which he listened
to his royal Friend's sarcasms, his name always rose to His Majesty's
lips when a commission was to be appointed of which the members were
to receive a handsome salary. He had the good sense to hold his tongue
about the favor with which he was honored, and knew how to entertain
the monarch in those familiar chats in which Louis XVIII. delighted as
much as in a well-written note, by his brilliant manner of repeating
political anecdotes, and the political or parliamentary tittle-tattle
--if the expression may pass--which at that time was rife. It is well
known that he was immensely amused by every detail of his
Gouvernementabilite--a word adopted by his facetious Majesty.

Thanks to the Comte de Fontaine's good sense, wit, and tact, every
member of his numerous family, however young, ended, as he jestingly
told his Sovereign, in attaching himself like a silkworm to the leaves
of the Pay-List. Thus, by the King's intervention, his eldest son
found a high and fixed position as a lawyer. The second, before the
restoration a mere captain, was appointed to the command of a legion
on the return from Ghent; then, thanks to the confusion of 1815, when
the regulations were evaded, he passed into the bodyguard, returned to
a line regiment, and found himself after the affair of the Trocadero a
lieutenant-general with a commission in the Guards. The youngest,
appointed sous-prefet, ere long became a legal official and director