I Accordingly Forwarded My
Portmanteau To Turin To The Care Of A Banker There, And Sallied Forth From
Geneva At Six O'clock On The Morning Of 1st August.
I stopped to dine at Frangy and reached Romilly at seven in the evening.
There is nothing worthy of remark at Romilly.
The next morning I stopped at
Aix to breakfast, and visited the bath establishment. The scenery is
picturesque on this route, and the whole road from Aix to Chambery is
aligned with remarkably fine large trees. At three in the afternoon I
arrived at Chambery, the capital of Savoy. It is a large handsome city,
situated in a fruitful valley, with a great many gardens and orchards
surrounding it. There is a strong garrison here. Among the many maisons de
plaisance in the environs of this city, the most distinguishable is the
villa of General De Boigne, who has passed the greatest part of his life in
India, in the service of Scindiah, one of the Mahratta chiefs;[73] and it
was by De Boigne's assistance that Scindiah, from being a petty chief, with
not more than three or four hundred horse, became the founder of a powerful
kingdom, comprized chiefly of the provinces of the Ganges and Jumna, torn
from the Mogol Empire, whose Sovereign fell into the hands of Scindiah.
Scindiah caused the Mogol Emperor's eyes to be put out, and kept him as a
state prisoner in Delhi, till the year 1805, when on the Mahrattas engaging
in war with the English, Scindiah was defeated by Lake and lost the greater
part of his conquests. De Boigne had quitted India in 1796, long before
this rupture took place, and at that time Scindiah had a fine regular army
of thirty battalions of 1,000 men, each disciplined, armed and equipped in
the European manner. He had likewise sixty squadrons of regular cavalry and
a formidable train of artillery. At Chambery I met with two French
voyageurs de commerce, who with that positiveness, which is often the
national characteristic, insisted that De Boigne owed his riches and
fortune to his treachery, in having betrayed and sold Tippoo Saib to the
English, when he was in Tippoo's service; and I find this is the current
report all over Savoy.
Now it is an accusation totally devoid of foundation, as I shall presently
show; and I took this opportunity of vindicating the reputation of De
Boigne, by simply stating that De Boigne could never have betrayd Tippoo,
since he was never in his service; 2dly, that he had, when in the service
of Scindiah, fought against Tippoo, when the Mahrattas coalesced with the
English against that Prince in 1792; and that had it not been for the
assistance given by the Mahrattas to the English (a most impolitic
coalition on the part of the Mahrattas, as it turned out afterwards),
Tippoo would not have been compelled to conclude so humiliating a treaty of
peace; 3dly, that De Boigne had quitted India in 1796, three years before
the second war and death of Tippoo in 1799. I stated, too, that I was
perfectly well acquainted with these particulars of De Boigne's career,
from having served six years in India, and from having been personally
acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Lucius Ferdinand Smith, who was
the ultimate friend of De Boigne and his lieutenant general in the service
of Scindiah; I added that I could not conceive how so unjust and unfounded
an aspersion on De Boigne's character could find currency.
I hope that what I said will be effectual towards doing away this injurious
report; but very probably it will not, for when the vulgar once imbibe an
opinion, it is difficult to eradicate it from their minds, and they are not
at all obliged to the person who endeavors to undeceive them, so that
General De Boigne's treachery and sale of Tippoo to the English will be
handed down to posterity among the Savoyards, as a fact of which it will be
as little permitted to doubt as of the treachery of Judas.
CHAMBERY, August 3d.
At the table d'hote this day I nearly lost all patience on hearing an
elderly English gentleman extolling the English Ministry to the skies, and
abusing the army of the Loire, calling them rebels and traitors. I stood up
in defence of these gallant men, and stated that the French Army in the
time of the Republic and of the Empire were the most constitutional of all
the European armies, since they were taken from and identified with the
people; and that it was this brotherly feeling for their fellow citizens
that induced them to join the standards of Napoleon, on his return from
Elba; that they only followed the voice of the nation; that all France was
indignant at the tergiversation and breach of faith on the part of the
restored Government, in a variety of instances; and that, had Napoleon and
the army been out of the question, the Bourbons would not have failed to be
upset, from the indignation their measures had excited among the people. He
then said that the Army of the Loire was a most dangerous body of men, and
that that was the reason why the Allies insisted on their being disbanded.
I replied that this was the highest compliment he could pay them, and the
greatest feather in their cap, since it went to prove, that as long as this
Army was in existence, neither the crowned despots, nor the Ultras thought
themselves safe; and that they could not venture to pursue their
anti-national projects, which were all directed towards depriving the
French people of all they had gained by the Revolution and bringing them
back to the blessings of the ancient regime. He could say nothing in
reply, but that he feared I had Jacobin principles, to which I made
rejoinder: "If these be Jacobin principles, I glory in them." Some
Sardinian officers, who were present, seemed to enjoy my argument, tho'
they said nothing; and one took me aside, when we quitted the table, and
said he rejoiced to see me take the old man in hand, as he disgusted them
every day by his tirades against the liberal party, and by his fulsome
adulations of the British Government.
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