Before I Was Nine Years Old I Daresay I Could Repeat -
Parrot, That Is - Several Hundreds Of Lines Of The AEneid.
This, and some elementary arithmetic, geography, and drawing,
which last I took to kindly, were dearly paid for by many
tears, and by temporarily impaired health.
It was due to my
pallid cheeks that I was removed. It was due to the
following six months - summer months - of a happy life that
my health was completely restored.
CHAPTER III
MR. EDWARD ELLICE, who constantly figures in the memoirs of
the last century as 'Bear Ellice' (an outrageous misnomer, by
the way), and who later on married my mother, was the chief
controller of my youthful destiny. His first wife was a
sister of the Lord Grey of Reform Bill fame, in whose
Government he filled the office of War Minister. In many
respects Mr. Ellice was a notable man. He possessed shrewd
intelligence, much force of character, and an autocratic
spirit - to which he owed his sobriquet. His kindness of
heart, his powers of conversation, with striking personality
and ample wealth, combined to make him popular. His house in
Arlington Street, and his shooting lodge at Glen Quoich, were
famous for the number of eminent men who were his frequent
guests.
Mr. Ellice's position as a minister, and his habitual
residence in Paris, had brought him in touch with the leading
statesmen of France. He was intimately acquainted with Louis
Philippe, with Talleyrand, with Guizot, with Thiers, and most
of the French men and French women whose names were bruited
in the early part of the nineteenth century.
When I was taken from Temple Grove, I was placed, by the
advice and arrangement of Mr. Ellice, under the charge of a
French family, which had fallen into decay - through the
change of dynasty. The Marquis de Coubrier had been Master
of the Horse to Charles X. His widow - an old lady between
seventy and eighty - with three maiden daughters, all
advanced in years, lived upon the remnant of their estates in
a small village called Larue, close to Bourg-la-Reine, which,
it may be remembered, was occupied by the Prussians during
the siege of Paris. There was a chateau, the former seat of
the family; and, adjoining it, in the same grounds, a pretty
and commodious cottage. The first was let as a country house
to some wealthy Parisians; the cottage was occupied by the
Marquise and her three daughters.
The personal appearances of each of these four elderly
ladies, their distinct idiosyncrasies, and their former high
position as members of a now moribund nobility, left a
lasting impression on my memory. One might expect, perhaps,
from such a prelude, to find in the old Marquise traces of
stately demeanour, or a regretted superiority. Nothing of
the kind. She herself was a short, square-built woman, with
large head and strong features, framed in a mob cap, with a
broad frill which flopped over her tortoise-shell spectacles.
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