A gentleman of the court led your aunt to the seats reserved for the female spectators, which were also without the railing, and I took my post among the men. Although the court of the Tuileries was, when we entered the palace, filled with a throng of those who were waiting to pass through the Gallery of Diana, to my surprise, the number of persons who were to remain in the room was very small. I account for the circumstance, by supposing, that it is not etiquette for any who have been presented to attend, unless they are among the court; and, as some reserve was necessary in issuing these tickets, the number was necessarily limited. I do not think there were fifty men on our side, which might have held several hundred; and the seats of the ladies were not half filled. Boxes were fitted up in the enormous windows, which closed and curtained, a family of fine children occupying that nearest to me. Some one said they were the princes of the house of Orleans; for none of the members of the royal family have seats at the _grands couverts_, as these dinners are called, unless they belong to the reigning branch. There is but one Bourbon prince more remote from the crown[11] than the Duc d'Orleans, and this is the Prince de Conde, or, as he is more familiarly termed here, the Duc de Bourbon, the father of the unfortunate Duc d'Enghien. So broad are the distinctions made between the sovereign and the other members of his family in these governments, that it was the duty of the Prince de Conde to appear to-day behind the king's chair, as the highest dignitary of his household; though it was understood that he was excused, on account of his age and infirmities. These broad distinctions, you will readily imagine, however, are only maintained on solemn and great state occasions; for, in their ordinary intercourse, kings nowadays dispense with most of the ancient formalities of their rank. It would have been curious, however, to see one descendant of St. Louis standing behind the chair of another, as a servitor; and more especially, to see the Prince de Conde standing behind the chair of Charles X.; for, when Comte d'Artois and Duc de Bourbon, some fifty years since, they actually fought a duel on account of some slight neglect of the wife of the latter by the former. [Footnote 11: 1827]