L _s._ _d._ Tea, coffee, and chocolate 1 4 0 Supper for self and servants 15 10 0 Bread and beer 3 0 0 Fruit 2 15 0 Wine and punch 10 8 8 Wax candles and charcoal 3 0 0 Broken glass and china 2 10 0 Lodging 1 7 0 Tea, coffee, and chocolate 2 0 0 Chaise and horses for the next stage 2 16 0 ------------ 44 10 8 The Duke paid his account without a murmur, only remarking that innkeepers at this rate should soon grow rich; but it was, doubtless, with great relief that he left Canterbury for Rochester, where he dined the next day for three guineas. News of this extraordinary bill was soon spread all over England. It was printed in the newspapers amid other marvels, disasters, and atrocities, and mine host of the "Red Lion," like Byron, woke up one morning to find himself famous. He would probably have preferred his native obscurity to the fierce light of publicity that beat upon him; for the country gentlemen, scandalized at his rapacity, boycotted his inn, and his brother innkeepers of Canterbury disowned him. The unfortunate man wrote to the _St. James's Chronicle_, endeavouring to justify himself, and complaining bitterly of the harm that had been wrought to his business by the constant billeting of soldiers upon him. But it was in vain to protest, and so bitter was the feeling against him that his trade fell off, and he was ruined in six months. [Illustration: THE DUC DE NIVERNAIS.] Meanwhile, the Duc de Nivernais was negotiating for peace at the Court of Saint James's; and, what with the difficulties of diplomacy and the rigours of the climate, he passed but a miserable time. "This country," he wrote, "is a cruel country for negotiation; one needs to have a body and a spirit of iron," and how little like iron was his frame may perhaps be judged from this portraiture of him, which shows a wistful-looking, hollow-cheeked elderly man, with nose and chin and eyes unnaturally prominent. The caricaturists took a mean advantage of his phenomenal leanness, and called him the "Duke of Barebones," and a Court witling made the cruel jest that "the French had sent over the preliminaries of an ambassador to conclude the preliminaries of a peace." He eventually _did_ conclude a peace, and, returning to Dover, left (how thankfully!) for France on May 22, 1763. Let us hope that, after all his trials with the English hotel-keepers and the English climate, he experienced a better passage across the Channel than when he first crossed it. XXXV [Sidenote: HENRY THE EIGHTH]