Such was to be the case on the present evening, and such as we have described was the scene of splendour which opened upon the eyes of the Count de Morseiul as he entered the concert-room, and taking a seat at the end, gazed up the gallery, listening with pleasure to a calm and somewhat melancholy, but soothing strain of music. His mind, indeed, was too much occupied with painful feelings of many kinds for him to take any pleasure or great interest in the magnificence spread out before his eyes, which he had indeed often seen before, but which he might have seen again with some admiration, had his bosom been free and his heart at rest. At present, however, it was but dull pageantry to him, and the music was the thing that pleased him most; but when a gay and lively piece succeeded to that which he had first heard, he rose and walked on into the rooms beyond, striving to find amusement for his thoughts, though pleasure might not be there to be found. Although he was by no means a general frequenter of the Court, and always escaped from it to the calmer pleasures of the country as soon as possible, he was, of course, known to almost all the principal nobility of the realm, and to all the officers who had in any degree distinguished themselves in the service. Thus, in the very first room, he was stopped by a number of acquaintances; and, passing on amidst the buzz of many voices, and all the gay nothings of such a scene, he met from time to time with some one, whose talents, or whose virtues, or whose greater degree of intimacy with himself, enabled him to pause and enter into longer and more interesting conversation, either in reference to the present--its hopes and fears,--or to the period when last they met, and the events that then surrounded them. Although such things could not, of course, cure his mind of its melancholy, it afforded him some degree of occupation for his thoughts, till a sudden whisper ran through the rooms of "The King! The King!" and every body drew back from the centre of the apartments to allow the monarch to pass. Louis advanced from the inner rooms with that air of stately dignity, which we know, from the accounts both of his friends and enemies, to have been unrivalled in grace and majesty. His commanding person, his handsome features, his kingly carriage, and his slow and measured step, all bespoke at once the monarch, and afforded no bad indication of his character, with its many grand and extensive, if not noble qualities, its capaciousness, its ambition, and even its occasional littleness, for the somewhat theatrical demeanour was never lost, and the stage effect was not less in Louis's mind than in his person.