Louis XVIII.'s favorite minister was M. Decazes, a man who studied
the interests of the _bourgeoisie_; and the royal family at last made
the sovereign so uncomfortable by their disapproval of his policy
that he sought repose in the society and intimacy (the connection is
said to have been nothing more) of a Madame de Cayla, with whom
he spent most of his leisure time.

Before the Revolution, Louis XVIII. had been known sometimes as
the Comte de Provence, and sometimes as Monsieur. Though physically
an inert man, he was by no means intellectually stupid, for he
could say very brilliant things from time to time, and was very
proud of them; but he was wholly unfit to be at the helm of the
ship of state in an unquiet sea.

He had passed the years of his exile in various European countries,
but the principal part of his time had been spent at Hartwell,
about sixty miles from London, where he formed a little court and
lived a life of royalty in miniature. Charles Greville, when a
very young man, visited Hartwell with his relative, the Duke of
Beaufort, shortly before the Restoration. He describes the king's
cabinet as being like a ship's cabin, the walls hung with portraits
of Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette, Madame Elisabeth, and the dauphin.
Louis himself had a singular habit of swinging his body backward
and forward when talking, "which exactly resembled the heavings
of a ship at sea." "We were a very short time at table," Greville
adds; "the meal was a very plain one, and the ladies and gentlemen
all got up together. Each lady folded up her napkin, tied it round
with a bit of ribbon, and carried it away with her. After dinner we
returned for coffee and conversation to the drawing-room. Whenever
the king came in or went out of the room, Madame d'Angoulême made him