On Sunday morning we went to the Belvedere to see the ceremony of the St. Leucio marriages;[36] as I went with the Duchess I was, of course, too late. They were over. The King as soon as he heard of our arrival came and met us upon the _perron_, and conducted us upstairs, where we found the Queen: her coming was an unexpected condescension on her part. The sight of the manufacturers enjoying the Festival was very pretty and gratifying. A thousand people were enjoying themselves among their families in their gala clothes, dining under the prettiest rustic arcades ornamented in the best possible taste: this number all fed, even existing, by the bounty of the King, and each pouring out the sincerest benediction upon him for his bounty. I wished this picture of happiness of his own creation might excite the disposition to extend the blessings of ease and security by encouraging industry in Calabria and other parts of his dominions, where the wretched peasant is ferocious from ignorance and sloth. He conversed with them with familiarity, and enquired into their family details, all of which he seemed perfectly acquainted with; scandal says their establishment answers the double purpose of seraglio and nursery. The Queen was, as she always is, very conversable and clever, but appears to have a most impetuous temper. We dined at 12, a very good dinner, all off his own farm; the wines were from his vineyard. The evening was not tedious, tho’ long; she brought all her children to us and shewed off their talents. At night the Court was illuminated, and the happy colonists danced tarantulas. We stayed till the Queen withdrew about 10 o’clock. She was very flattering in her compliments to me, and shook my hand with cordiality; her reason for liking me that I had been at Vienna and knew many of her old friends. [Sidenote: A ROYAL FARM] The next day we dined at Carditello with the King; it is a small hunting palace in the centre of his farm. The dinner was served upon a table of Merlin’s construction. No servants attend, but by pulling a bell your plate is pulled down and a clean one sent up; so with the dishes, and all you ask for. In short, it is exactly like a trap-door at a theatre. He showed us all his cows, hogs, and pigs, and his breed of stallions. He occasionally favours ladies with a sight of a strange operation to be performed upon them before women; but this we escaped. His carriages conveyed us to Capua, where we found our own. The Devonshires went on to Rome. Some arrangements required my return to Naples; Lady Plymouth drove me in her phaeton home.