The next evening, I was dining at a friend's house, where the guests belonged, for the most part, to the official and political world. When I related my adventure and expressed my astonishment at having met the sovereign making her own purchases in town, accompanied by a stern lady-in-waiting: "Did that surprise you?" I was asked. "It does not surprise us at all. One of our haughty princesses of the House of Savoy said, sarcastically, that we had gone back to the times when kings used to mate with shepherdesses. This was merely a disrespectful sally. The truth is that both our King and Queen have very simple tastes and that they like to live as ordinary people, in so far as their obligations permit them. Let me give you an instance in point; whenever they come to Milan--and they never stay for more than two or three days--they go to the royal palace, of course, but, instead of living in the state apartments and bringing a large number of servants, they prefer to occupy just a few rooms, have their meals sent in from the Ristorante Cova and order the dishes to be all brought up at the same time and placed on a sideboard. Then they dismiss the servants, shut the doors and wait upon themselves." In our sunny countries--I can speak for them, as a Corsican--we love pomp and ceremony. I seemed to observe in the friends who gave me this striking illustration of the royal simplicity a touch of bitterness, perhaps of regret. Remarks that came to my ears later led me to the conclusion that the aristocracy, if not the people, disapproved of their sovereign's democratic tendencies, which contrasted with the ways of the old court, of which Queen Margherita had been the soul and still remained the living and charming embodiment.