He has no desire to be thought to take any interest whatever in public affairs; and is altogether regardless of the duties and responsibilities of his high office.

He lives, exclusively, in the society of fiddlers, eunuchs, and women: he has done so since his childhood, and is likely to do so to the last.

His disrelish for any other society has become inveterate: he cannot keep awake in any other.

In spite of average natural capacity, and more than average facility in the cultivation of light literature, or at least "_de faire des petits vers de sa focon_," his understanding has become so emasculated, that he is altogether unfit for the conduct of his domestic, much less his public, affairs.

He sees occasionally his prime minister, who takes care to persuade him that he does all that a King ought to do; and nothing whatever of any other minister.