Charles X. is tall, without being of a too heavy frame, flexible of movement, and decidedly graceful. By remembering that he is king, and the lineal chief of the ancient and powerful family of the Bourbons, by deferring properly to history and the illusions of the past, and by feeling _tant soit peu_ more respect for those of the present day than is strictly philosophical, or perhaps wise, it is certainly possible to fancy that he has a good deal of that peculiar port and majesty that the poetry of feeling is so apt to impute to sovereigns. I know not whether it is the fault of a cynical temperament, or of republican prejudices, but I can see no more, about him than the easy grace of an old gentleman, accustomed all his life to be a principal personage among the principal personages of the earth. This you may think was quite sufficient,--but it aid not altogether satisfy the _exigence_ of my unpoetical ideas. His countenance betrayed, a species of vacant _bonhommie_, rather than of thought or dignity of mind; and while he possessed, in a singular degree, the mere physical machinery of his rank, he was wanting in the majesty of character and expression, without which no man can act well the representation of royalty. Even a little more severity of aspect would have better suited the part, and rendered _le grand couvert encore plus grand_. The king seated himself, after receiving the salutations of the courtiers within the railing, taking no notice however, of those who, by a fiction of etiquette, were not supposed to be in his presence. The rest of the family occupied their respective places in the order I have named, and the eating and drinking began, from the score. The different courses were taken off and served by footmen and pages in the manner already described, which, after all, by substituting servants out of livery for pages, is very much the way great dinners are served, in great houses, all over Europe.