He seemed to me put out (DECONTENANCE); and to break off conversation with me, he said he had to write to the King and Queen.

I ordered him pen and paper.

He wrote in my room; and spent more than a good hour in writing a couple of Letters, of a line or two each.

He then had all the Court, one after the other, introduced to him; said nothing to any of them, looked merely with a mocking air at them; after which we went to dinner.
"Here his whole conversation consisted in quizzing (TURLUPINER) whatever he saw; and repeating to me, above a hundred times over, the words 'little Prince,' 'little Court.' I was shocked; and could not understand how he had changed so suddenly towards me.

The etiquette of all Courts in the Empire is, that nobody who has not at the least the rank of Captain can sit at a Prince's table: my Brother put a Lieutenant there, who was in his suite; saying to me, 'A King's Lieutenants are as good as a Margraf's Ministers.' I swallowed this incivility, and showed no sign.
"After dinner, being alone with me, he said,"-- turning up the flippant side of his thoughts, truly, in a questionable way:--"'Our Sire is going to end (TIRE A SA FIN); he will not live out this month.