After a stay of seven weeks, Christian quitted Paris on December 9, in order to return to his own states. At Metz he allowed himself to be detained for three days by all sorts of festivities offered him by Maréchal d'Armentières, and proceeded thence to Strasburg, where he arrived on the 16th, and accepted an invitation from the Elector Carl Theodore of the Palatinate to travel _viâ_ Mannheim. On the 18th he arrived in the latter city, and was received with all imaginable ostentation. After visiting, on the following day, the Electoral Library, Academy of Sciences, Treasury, picture gallery, and cabinet of coins, and being presented by his host with a series of medals of the electors coined in Rhine gold, Christian continued his journey on the 28th to Hanau, in order to visit his two sisters. After four days' stay here, the king travelled through Cassel and Brunswick, and reached Hamburg on New Year's Day, where he was received with a royal salute. On January 4 he arrived at Altona, the first city in his dominions, and was welcomed by all possible demonstrations of joy. The children of the Orphan Hospital and other charities were ranged in two lines, with wax tapers in their hands, as his Majesty passed to the palace. All the houses were illuminated, and a grand emblematical firework, inscribed _optimo regi_, was played off, which was followed by a grand masked ball. Here, too, Christian received his last heavy discharge of verse, in the shape of a panegyric, from one Madame Wildin of Glückstadt, in which the lady, with extensive view, surveys mankind from Copenhagen to London and Paris. Her account of the English is so droll that room must be made for it:-- "De près vous avez visité Ce peuple penseur et sévère, Qu'entêtent le charbon de terre Et les vapeurs de liberté: Le quakre qui ne sourit guère, Le chapeau cloué sur son front, Découvrant votre esprit profond, Sous des dehors si faits pour plaire, Aura quitté son flegme austère: Le sang, plus qu'à demi gelé Du pâle consomptionaire Tout à coup aura circulé: Vous aurez vu de près ces crises, Ces trois pouvoirs sans cesse aux prises. Le sceptre Anglais est un roseau, Souvent plié par les orages: Qu'aurez vous dit à ce tableau, Vous absolu sur vos rivages?" From Altona the Danish monarch proceeded to Ahrensburg, and remained for two days on the estate of his marshal of the journey, Baron von Schimmelmann. After this short rest the journey was continued so hurriedly, that, on January 14, after an absence of seven months, he made his festal entry into his capital by the side of Queen Caroline Matilda, who drove out to Roeskilde to meet him. At night the whole city was illuminated, for the nation still expected a fortunate change at any moment, and would not be disabused, although their hope was constantly deceived. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 74: Brown's "Northern Courts," vol. i.]