One day the king entered my apartment holding in his hand a letter.

"I am about to receive," said he, "a visit that will not give me
much pleasure. My brother of Denmark is traversing Europe, and
is about to come to France. ! what inconvenient
persons are your travelling kings! Why do they leave their
kingdoms? I think they are very well at home."

"Yes, sire, but there is an excuse for them: they are weary of
admiring your majesty at a distance, and wish for the happiness
of knowing you."

At this compliment the king rubbed his hands with a smile, which
he always did when he was satisfied, and then said,

"There is not in the hearts of foreign potentates the same
affection towards my person as you feel. It is not me but France
they wish to see. I remember that when very young I received a
visit from the czar Peter the Great, Peter the First I mean to
say. He was not deficient in sense, but yet behaved like a boor:
he passed his time in running over the academies, libraries, and
manufactories: I never saw such an ill-bred man. Imagine him
embracing me at our first interview, and carrying me in his arms
as one of my valets would have done. He was dirty, coarse, and
ill-dressed. Well, all the Frenchmen ran after him; one would
have supposed by their eagerness that they had never seen a
regal countenance."

"Yet there was no occasion to run very far to see the handsome
face of a king."