Think of regaining them, and to call upon the Duke of
Northumberland, for instance, as a descendant of a Norman invader, to give
up his property as unjustly acquired by his progenitors. We did not hold
long converse after this; his ideas and mine diverged too much from each
other.
The English are very much out of favour with the emigrants, as well on
account of the stripping of the Louvre as on account of not having shot all
the liberaux. They had the folly to believe that the Allied troops would
merely make war for the emigrants' interests, and after having put to death
a considerable quantity of those who should be designated as rebels and
Jacobins by them (the emigrants), would replace France in the exact
position she was in 1789, and then depart.
Poor Marshall Ney's fate is decided. He was sentenced to death, and the
sentence was carried into execution not on the Place de Grenelle as was
given out, but in the gardens of Luxemburgh at a very early hour. He met
his fate with great firmness and composure. I leave Paris to-morrow for
London.
[47] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, VI, 20, 7.
[48] Virgil, Aen., VI, 620 (temnere divos). - ED.
[49] Louis Wirion (1764-1810), an officer of gendarmerie,
commander-general of the place de Verdun since 1804, was accused in
1808 of having extorted money from certain English prisoners quartered
in Verdun (Estwick, Morshead, Garland, etc.). Wirion shot himself
before the end of the long proceedings, which do not seem to have
established his guilt, but had reduced him to misery and despair. - ED.
[50] Richard Brinsley Sheridan's (1751-1816) Pizarro, produced at Drury
Lane in 1799. - ED.
[51] Three brothers Zadera, all born in Warsaw, served in the Imperial
army. - ED.
[52] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso III, 2, i. - ED.
[53] These words mean, or are supposed to mean, in French and in Dutch: "I
don't understand" (je n'entends pas). - ED.
[54] Horace, Carm., IV, 2,39. - ED.
[55]John Chetwode Eustace (1762-1815), author of A Tour through Italy
(2 vol., London, 1813), the eighth edition of which appeared in
1841. - ED.
[56] Theodoric was a Goth, not a Lombard. - ED.
[57] Of course, Silva Beleni. - ED.
[58] Perhaps Clement Francois Philippe de Laage Bellefaye, mentioned in the
Souvenirs of Baron de Frenilly, p. 94. His large estates had been
confiscated in the Revolution. - ED.
AFTER
WATERLOO
PART II
CHAPTER VI
MARCH-JUNE,1816
Ball at Cambray, attended by the Duke of Wellington - An Adventure between
Saint Quentin and Compiegne - Paris revisited - Colonel Wardle and Mrs
Wallis - Society in Paris - The Sourds-Muets - The Cemetery of Pere La
Chaise - Apathy of the French people - The priests - Marriage of the Duke de
Berri.
March, 1816.
This time I varied my route to Paris, by passing thro' St Omer, Douay and
Cambray. At Cambray I was present at a ball given by the municipality. The
Duke of Wellington was there. He had in his hand an extraordinary sort of
hat which had something of a shape of a folding cocked hat, with divers red
crosses and figures on it, so that it resembled a conjurer's cap. I
understand it is a hat given to his Grace by magnanimous Alexander; St
Nicholas perhaps commissioned the Emperor to present it to Wellington, for
his Grace is entitled to the eternal gratitude of the different Saints, as
well as of the different sovereigns, for having maintained them
respectively in their celestial and terrestrial dominions; and it is to be
hoped, after his death, that the latter will celebrate for him a brilliant
apotheosis, and the former be as complaisant to him and make room for him
in the Empyreum as Virgil requests the Scorpion to do for Augustus:
...Ipse tibi jam brachia contrahit ardens
Scorpios, et coeli jusia plus parts reliquit.[59]
I met with an adventure in my journey from St Quentin to Compiegne, which,
had it happened a hundred years ago in France, would have alarmed me much
for my personal safety. It was as follows. I had taken my place at St
Quentin to go to Paris; but all the diligences being filled, the bureau
expedited a caleche to convey me as far as Compiegne, there to meet the
Paris diligence at nine the next morning. It was a very dark cold night,
and snowed very hard.
Between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, half way between St Quentin and
Compiegne, the axle tree of the carriage broke; we were at least two miles
from any village one way and three the other; but a lone house was close to
the spot where the accident happened. We had, therefore, the choice of
going forward or backward, the postillion and myself helping the carriage
on with our hands, or to take refuge at the lone house till dawn of day. I
preferred the latter; we knocked several times at the door of the lone
house, but the owner refused to admit us, saying that he was sure we were
gens de mauvaise vie, and that he would shoot us if we did not go away.
The postillion and I then determined on retrograding two miles, the
distance of the nearest village, and remaining there till morning. We
arrived there with no small difficulty and labour, for it snowed very fast
and heavily, and it required a good deal of bodily exertion to push on the
carriage. Arrived at the village, we knocked at the door of a small
cottage, the owner of which sold some brandy. He received me very civilly,
gave me some eggs and bacon for supper, and a very fair bed.
The next morning, after having the axle tree repaired, we proceeded on our
journey to Compiegne.
