" The Palais Royal of the Duke of Orleans is actually
the entrance of the Palais Royal, the public walk to
which we go almost every evening, and which is guarded
by many sentinels. On the right I saw a large, fat, red-
coated man, through the ground window, whom I sup-
posed to be the porter of his Royal Highness : he opened
the door, and I took off my fur cap, and walked in with-
out ceremony. I gave him my card, and requested him
to send it up-stairs. He said Monseigneur w^as not in,
bat I might go into the antechamber, and I ascended
one of the finest staircases my feet had ever trod. They



T^he Duke of Orleans. 177

parted at the bottom, in a Founding form of about twenty-
four feet in breadth, to meet on the second-floor, on a
platform, lighted by a skylight, showing the beauties ol
the surrounding walks, and in front of which were three
doors, two of which I tried in vain to open. The third,
however, gave way, and I found myself in the outer ante-
chamber, with about twelve servants, who all rose up and
stood until I seated myself on a soft, red, velvet-covered
bench. Not a word was said to me, and I gazed on the
men and place with a strange sensation of awkwardness.
