ushered her in, as she passed the threshold he desired her majesty to stoop.  To which she replied, “For your master’s sake I will stoop, but not for the king of Spain.”  After the fire of London, this house was occupied by the doctors of civil law, &c. till 1672; and here the various courts of arches, admiralty, &c. were kept.  Being deserted by the family, the lower part was converted into shops of various descriptions; the upper part, like Babylon of old, is a nest of wild beasts, birds, and reptiles.  The present “march of intellect” will march away these bipeds and quadrupeds, and no doubt the noble Marquess of Exeter “would much rather have their room than their company.”

P. T. W.

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MANNERS & CUSTOMS OF ALL NATIONS.

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A DAY AT FONTAINBLEAU.—­THE ROYAL HUNT.

Having learned that the King and the Dauphin, with the Duc de Grammont, and the rest of the royal suite, were about to proceed to Fontainbleau, in order to enjoy the diversion of hunting, I resolved to be there to meet them, to see with my own eyes a royal personage of whom I had heard so much.  Accordingly I ordered post horses, and arrived in the town about six hours after his Most Christian Majesty.

After breakfasting on a cold partridge and some excellent coffee, I set out at eight o’clock for the forest.  Even at that hour—­a late one in France, when compared with England—­the roads were by no means thronged, and I could very plainly perceive that the major part of the equestrians were attached to the court, and that the pedestrians were either such as had been in the enjoyment of some of the good things of this life under the present family, or such as were in expectancy of them.  There was a third class, altogether composed of the mob, who, partly incited by the desire of plunder, the love of idleness, or an indistinct hope of obtaining the entrails of the deer, flocked in great numbers to witness the feats of the royal party.  Among this latter class, old men, old women, and very young boys predominated.

The forest of Fontainbleau is in itself beautiful in the extreme.  The various alleys formed by the manner in which the oak trees are planted, create an imposing and majestic coup d’oeil, which is only bounded almost by the horizon.  At the bottom and in the middle of these alleys were placed mounted gendarmes to restrain the intrusion of the populace, and to prevent them from coming—­such is French curiosity—­within shot of the hunters.  At the end of one of these alleys, to my left, the great body of the crowd was stationed, and at the top of it was an enclosed space, somewhat like a stand on a race course, on which the royal party took their station, while the carriages and servants remained quietly behind.  Across this stand, and within the enclosed space, were the roe-buck, fawns,