It was in truth a strange locality, that same old Place Royale. The Arnault family, with their grave manners and fashions, were perhaps the worthiest of the residents of any age; but it is not among them that we must look for striking anecdotes respecting passing modes. These are more plentifully furnished by the household chronicles of the more worldly people. The Marchioness de Sablé and the Countess de Maure were among these latter. They were next-door neighbours, and they daily sent each other little _billets_, remarkable for the aristocratic contempt which they showed for orthography; and little patterns of head-dresses, quite as remarkable for their grace and “killingness.” It happened one day that the Countess was sick, and thereupon the Marchioness resolved to pay her a visit of condolence, in state. She was poor and proud, and her pride and poverty were displayed in the circumstance of ceremony, so to speak, with which she waited on her much-afflicted friend. She could not, like an honest woman, put on her bonnet and carry a posset under the folds of her farthingale to the noble patient. _That_ would have been derogatory to both noble houses. Accordingly, she descended her grand and not over-clean staircase, beneath a canopy which consisted of nothing more than the top and vallance of her cook’s bedstead, upheld on crossed staves by two grooms, who bore their burden with uncovered heads, as though royalty were walking beneath the striped-linen canopy of the old cook’s couch. But it was a canopy, and so there was dignity therein, though it was rather of a dusty sort. While people were laughing at this illustration of pride in Paris, London was being sadly scandalized at a royal illustration of obstinacy. When William III. went to church, it was impossible to induce him to take off his hat. He might indeed doff it during the liturgy, but the preacher was no sooner in the pulpit than on went the ponderous beaver, and up fired the indignation of the beholders. William cared not a jot for their indignation. The Dutch wore their hats during Divine worship, and _he_ had not ceased to be a Hollander simply for having become a King of England. Besides, that ancient and scriptural people the Jews sat in their synagogues with their heads covered, and was not he their most religious and gracious king?—and did it not become him to follow the practices of a Biblical race, when the doing so tended to the increase of his comfort, and jumped with the inclination of his caprices? And so the broad hat was worn, and censure disregarded. In the middle of the last century, when actors at their benefits expected great houses, the pit was not only incorporated with the boxes, but a graduated building was erected on the stage for the superflux of audience. The consequences were sometimes ridiculous enough; _exempli gratiâ_:—