officers of the household, below in a semicircle the guards in armour.
At each side on seats the members of the Diet, in a gallery on the left
sat the Queen and Princess Royal with their ladies. In another gallery
opposite the throne sat the Foreign Minister and strangers of
distinction. The King then delivered his speech to the Crown Prince, who
read it, silence being obtained by the chief minister striking his baton
three times on the ground (which reminds one of a beadle in a Roman
Catholic ceremony!).

The marshal of the ceremony also struck his baton three times on the
ground--the signal for the speakers from the Diet to deliver their
respective addresses, after which the whole procession left the Riks
Salon as it came.

'Carl Johan did the King to admiration, though he looked weary and
distressed.

'The Prince was more at his ease, he put one in mind of the pictures we
see of our old Saxon Kings, the crown being made to that shape.'

On November 17 my father received a summons from the King at 7 P.M., and
was most kindly received.

'He first conversed on Norway, and asked about the new road between
Norway and Sweden. "You, I think, have been in Egypt," said he, "the
Pasha is a most extraordinary man?" I replied, "One of the most
extraordinary men in the world." "Egypt is well governed, is it not?"
"Perhaps so, sire, to answer the Pasha's own ends, but horridly
tyrannised over, and the people dreadfully oppressed." "But they are a
barbarous people, and must be ruled with severity, are they not?" "True,