We took a carriage, and drove through the grounds to a new classical little palace, that crowns an eminence at their other extremity, a distance of a mile or two.  We went through this building, which is a little in the style of the Trianons, at Versailles; smaller than Le Grand Trianon, and larger than Le Petit Trianon.  This display of royal houses, after all, struck us as a little dis portioned to the diminutive size and poverty of the country.  The last is nothing but a maison de plaisance, and is well enough if it did not bring taxation with it; nor do I know that it did.  Most of the sovereigns have large private fortunes, which they are entitled to use the same as others, and which are well used in fostering elegant tastes in their subjects.

There is a watering-place near the latter house, and preparations were making for the King to dine there, with a party of his own choosing.  This reminded us of our own dinner, which had been ordered at six, and we returned to eat it.  While sitting at a window, waiting the service, a carriage that drove up attracted my attention.  It was a large and rather elegant post chariot, as much ornamented as comported with the road, and having a rich blazonry.  A single female was in it, with a maid and valet in the rumble.  The lady was in a cap, and, as her equipage drove up, appeared to be netting.  I have frequently met German families travelling along the highway in this sociable manner, apparently as much at home as when they were under the domestic roof.  This lady, however, had so little luggage, that I was induced to enquire who it might be.  She was a Princess of Hechingen, a neighbouring state, that had just trotted over probably to take tea with some of her cousins of Wurtemberg.

These quasi kingdoms are so diminutive that this sort of intercourse is very practicable, and (a pure conjecture) it may be that German etiquette, so notoriously stiff and absurd, has been invented to prevent the intercourse from becoming too familiar.  The mediatising system, however, has greatly augmented the distances between the capitals, though, owing to some accidental influence, there is still here and there a prince, that might be spared, whose territories have been encircled, without having been absolutely absorbed, by those who have been gainers by the change.  Bavaria has risen to be a kingdom of four millions of souls, in this manner; and the Dukes of Wurtemberg have become kings, though on a more humble scale, through the liberality or policy of Napoleon.  The kingdom of the latter contains the two independent principalities of Hohenzollern (spared on account of some family alliances, I believe) in its bosom.  One of the princes of the latter family is married to a Mademoiselle Murat, a niece of Joachim.