condition of these subject millions and the frequent exercise of such unbounded power flitted over my mind, I felt a pleasant consciousness that I was beyond the sphere of its influence, free as the birds in the air, at least from him, and I enjoyed that involuntary comparison of my freedom with the slavery of his subjects, which is in itself happiness, or something like it. [Sidenote: THE EMPEROR AT ASCOT.] The Emperor seems to have a keen eye for beauty, and most of the good-looking women were presented to him. He was very civil to M. de St. Aulaire (and so he had been to Van de Weyer the night before), and very civil to Lord Harrowby, Lord Granville, Lord Lansdowne, to Clarendon, whom he had known in Russia, and to Palmerston. Lord John Russell was not presented to him, which was very wrong and ill-managed. Of all men he ought to have made acquaintance with the remarkable leader of the Whig party; but the Queen had not asked him to her party the night before, so that he never approached the Emperor at all. His Majesty thanked Lord Melbourne for having come to the breakfast, and afforded him the opportunity of making his acquaintance. He went away early, and the departure was pretty; the Royal equipages, the escort of Lancers with their pennons glancing in the sun, the steps and balcony clustered over with women to speed the parting guest; and as he bade the Duke of Devonshire a kind farewell, and mounted his carriage, while the Russian Hymn struck up, and he took his departure for ever from the gay scene and brilliant assemblage, proceeding on the march of his high and hard destiny, while we all turned to our humble, obscure, peaceful, and uneventful occupations, it was an exhibition to stir the imagination and excite busy thoughts. [Sidenote: DEFEAT OF THE GOVERNMENT.]