The room was partially darkened. In the centre of it, on a large sofa,
reclined the King; he was dressed (though this, if I may so speak, I
rather remembered than noted) in a coat of black velvet, slightly
embroidered; his vest was of white satin; he wore no jewels nor orders,
for it was only on grand or gala days that he displayed personal pomp.
At some little distance from him stood three members of the royal
family; them I never regarded: all my attention was bent upon the King.
My temperament is not that on which greatness, or indeed any external
circumstances, make much impression; but as, following at a little
distance the Bishop of Frejus, I approached the royal person, I must
confess that Bolingbroke had scarcely need to have cautioned me not to
appear too self-possessed. Perhaps, had I seen that great monarch in
his /beaux jours/; in the plenitude of his power, his glory, the
dazzling and meridian splendour of his person, his court, and his
renown,--pride might have made me more on my guard against too deep, or
at least too apparent, an impression; but the many reverses of that
magnificent sovereign,--reverses in which he had shown himself more
great than in all his previous triumphs and early successes; his age,
his infirmities, the very clouds round the setting sun, the very howls
of joy at the expiring lion,--all were calculated, in my mind, to deepen
respect into reverence, and tincture reverence itself with awe. I saw
before me not only the majesty of Louis le Grand, but that of
misfortune, of weakness, of infirmity, and of age; and I forgot at once,
in that reflection, what otherwise would have blunted my sentiments of
deference, namely, the crimes of his ministers and the exactions of his
reign. Endeavouring to collect my mind from an embarrassment which
surprised myself, I lifted my eyes towards the King, and saw a
countenance where the trace of the superb beauty for which his manhood
had been celebrated still lingered, broken, not destroyed, and borrowing