Ah! Si Bourbon ne regnoit pas sur nous,

Nous vous aurions choisi pour maître."

Really, it is difficult to decide whether France would have been a loser by the change.

After so many compliments had been paid him by the servants of Paris, King Christian wished to form the personal acquaintance of the most renowned academicians of the day, and hence invited twenty of them to dinner. Among them were d'Alembert, Diderot, Helvetius, Marmontel, la Condamine, Voisenon, &c. The king seated himself between Diderot and Helvetius, and spoke in terms of praise of the "Bijoux Indiscrets" of the one, and the "Œuvres Philosophiques" of the other, and delighted all his learned guests by his affability. Struensee was also at table, and through his clever remarks about French literature and the Empress of Russia, more especially attracted the admiration of his immediate neighbours, who were Baron von Grimm, the Saxe-Coburg Envoy and news-writer to Catharine II., the private secretary of the Duc d'Orléans, and the playwright Saurin.

On the 24th, the king visited the parliament, when he was received by the celebrated Advocate-General Séquier with a Latin speech, of which it is doubtful whether he understood much. After this, Christian paid a three days' visit to the Prince of Condé at Chantilly. This entertainment was probably the finest of all those given to Christian. As it was free to all persons, it was computed that there were at least six thousand guests present, and the concourse of nobility and gentry of both sexes to it was so prodigious, that the Rue St. Denis, which is longer than Holborn, was so filled with carriages from end to end, that there was no passage through it. The entertainment continued for three days and nights, during which open house was kept for all comers, without distinction. There was likewise a very grand hunt in the forest by torch-light. After a wild boar had been chased for a long while, a nobleman killed it with a bow and arrow.[83] The cost of this entertainment was defrayed by Louis XV., and a full account of all the festivities that took place was forwarded to the Empress of Russia by Grimm.

Such were Christian's public performances in Paris, but his private ones were of the same nature as in London, so far as the genius of the two countries admitted. Ladies of high rank, flattered by the homage of the monarch, while they despised the man, disputed the unenviable notoriety of his attentions; and in the court of Louis XV., which was immersed in gallantry, Christian found an example and sanction for every excess. The two kings frequently supped together en partie carrée, laying aside in mutual freedom and convivial mirth all stateliness and majesty. The time fixed for Christian's departure made him forget the trammels of royalty; and, in taking his leave of the French monarch, he declared Versailles and Paris, under his Majesty's auspices, the favourite abode of Apollo, Venus, and Minerva.[84]

Accompanied by the Comte de Noailles and the Prince de Poix, Christian witnessed, on Dec. 6, the display of the fountains at the royal palaces of Marly, Trianon, and Versailles; and, at the latter, was magnificently entertained by Louis XV. in farewell.

Before he left Paris, Christian VII. offered on his return to his states to raise a new cavalry regiment for the French service, and give the command of it to the Duc de Duras and his descendants in perpetuum. When Caroline Matilda heard of this, she wittily remarked that "the king was a very good Frenchman, but a very bad politician." This was communicated to Christian with many aggravating circumstances by the emissaries of the queen dowager. Another observation attributed to the queen on hearing of her husband's successes in Paris, that "if he had travelled incog., he would have returned to his dominions with a blank list of bonnes fortunes," was doubtless an invention of malice. Probably the offer of the regiment was declined; at any rate, no trace of it is to be found in the Danish archives.

All the poets who sang the praises of Chrétien l'adoré—and among the panegyrics I find the following neat exception to the rule of worthlessness, written by M. de Chamfort:—

"Peuple a qui sa présence est chère,