a finger in the right direction. ---- had a vein of drollery in him. I now for the first time beheld a peacock displaying his plumage. At one moment he was in full pride, and displayed it gloriously; at another he would halt, letting it drop, as if dejected. “Of what does that remind you?” said ----. “Of nothing,” said I; “_Honi soit qui mal y pense!_” for I threw the King’s motto at him, and then added that _I_ was a republican, _he_ a monarchist, and that if he dreamt of unholy comparisons where royalty was concerned I would certainly tell upon him, that it might be reported at his court. He quietly drew off from me, smiling, and I afterwards saw him slyly take another member of the corps to the same spot, to show him the same sight.’ Meanwhile, the contending parties in parliament wore about them the air of men who were called upon to do battle, and who, while resolved to accomplish their best, would have been glad to have effected a compromise which, at least, should save the honour of their principal. As Mr. Wilberforce remarked, there was a mutual desire to ‘avoid that fatal green bag.’ There were many difficulties in the way. The Queen, naturally enough, insisted on her name being restored in the Liturgy; and none of her friends would have consented for her, nor would she have done so for herself, that she should reside abroad without being introduced by the British ambassador to the court of the country in which she might take up her residence. The government manifested too clearly an intention not to help her in this respect, for they remarked that, though they might request the ambassador to present, they could not compel the court to receive her. They wanted her out of the way, bribed splendidly to endure an indelible disgrace. She was wise enough, at least, to perceive that to consent to such a course would be to strip her of every friend, and to shut against her the door of every court in Europe.