And France at its WORST or nearly so, with a Louis XV.

over it by way of demi-god--O Belleisle, what kind of France is this; shining in your grandiose imagination, in such contrast to the stingy fact: like a creature consisting of two enormous wings, five hundred yards in potential extent, and no body bigger than that of a common cock, weighing three pounds avoirdupois.

Cock with his own gizzard much out of sorts, too! It was "early in March" [Adelung, ii.

305.] when Belleisle, the Artificial Sun-god, quitted Paris on this errand.

He came by the Moselle road; called on the Rhine Kurfursts, Koln, Trier, Mainz; dazzling them, so far as possible, with his splendor for the mind and for the eye.
He proceeded next to Dresden, which is a main card: and where there is immense manipulation needed, and the most delicate trout-tickling; this being a skittish fish, and an important, though a foolish.