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my life which I feel a hundred times a-day. A thought occurs to me-sad, or gay, or indifferent—no matter, a recollection of something old, or an emotion at something new; I find myself saying, mechanically, "I must tell HER this," and then I recollect my loss, the illusion vanishes, and I say to myself, "the day of those soft intercourses is gone for ever." All this does not hinder my sleeping and eating, nor taking part in the conversation, nor even laughing when the occasion occurs; but the sad thought that she is gone "for ever" mixes itself with everything, and, like a drop of wormwood in food or drink, embitters the flavour without entirely destroying it.

And again: two months later

Hartwell, 13th March, 1811.-My grief has lost its sharpness, but it does not wear off; any trifle awakens it afresh. A bit of paper, accidentally marked with two letters by which I used to designate HER, has this morning painfully reminded me that I shall do so no more. The other day the Duke of Havre, on coming into the room before dinner, followed by the Duchess of Serent, whom I did not see, stepped aside, as he used to do for HER in happier times. This accident created a momentary illusion, the recovery from which was painful: but still more painful, and which I feel as an additional calamity, is, that the time is come which must divide me even from her dear remains. Wishes, which I could not resist, oblige me to send them to the tomb of her ancestors in Savoy. The removal will take place on Tuesday.. It cannot be helped-but I feel that I am again separated from her.

The Queen's remains were conveyed to a temporary resting-place in Westminster Abbey; and, as the war then raging prevented a free passage for transferring them to the mausoleum of her family, they were forwarded to the island of Sardinia to await an opportunity, where I afterwards saw the coffin in the splendid crypt of Cagliari Cathedral. Shortly after the departure of the corpse for London, the King wrote to his friend as follows

Hartwell, 1st April, 1811.—You know how much I love spring, how delighted I have always been with the first fine days, the first leaves, the first flowers: the delight is not destroyed, but that "drop of wormwood" mixes itself with it. When I breathe this genial air, I say it would have done HER so much good. We have a white camelia here, which has never flowered so brilliantly as this year. Alas! it reminds me that I had bought it for HER on her birth-day. That birth-day has since revolved. I softened the grief it revived by prayers for the departed. But do not imagine that I would get rid of this "drop of wormwood," for that can only be by forgetting her.

It has been already mentioned that Louis the Eighteenth landed at Yarmouth, in October 1807; and it may now be added, that he was conveyed from the Swedish frigate Freya to the shore, in Admiral T. M. Russell's barge, under the title of Count de Lille. On his landing he was received by the Port Admiral, Billy Douglas; Admiral Essington; Captain Richard Curry of the Roebuck, of 44 guns, the port flag-ship; and Mr. Brooks, of the Alien-office, London. The companions of his exile were the Dukes de Berri, d'Augoulême, and Grammont; Counts d'Avaray and de Blacas (afterwards Dukes); Counts Etienne de Dumas, and Nautouillet; Chev. de Rivière, the Abbés Fleurieu and Cormur, and M. M. Perronet, Estelle, &c. &c.

A ministerial discussion which took place during this occurrence, may have contributed to confirm the rumour alluded to on page 375. The circumstance is thus detailed by Beauchamp, Vie de Louis XVIII. p. 429:

They even knew that his embarkation was fixed for an early day in November. Already the King of Sweden (Gustavus Adolphus) had placed the Swedish frigate, the Freya, at the disposal of the King of France.

Though the foreign journals had made known to the public the King's intention of going to England, the English Government had not yet received any official advice of it, but merely a communication through an indirect means. George the Third and his ministers showed themselves so desirous of testifying every respect to the illustrious exile, that an express was sent to Edinburgh immediately, with orders to make the necessary preparations for receiving Louis XVIII. in Holyrood Palace. At the same time messengers were sent with instructions from the Swedish Ambassador to the Captain of the Freya, to all the ports where it was thought possible that the King might touch: he was ordered to anchor at Leith, there to disembark his august traveller, who would receive every attention, and find people ready to receive him and conduct him to Holyrood.

When the Freya anchored in Yarmouth Roads, Louis XVIII. learning the residence which was destined for him, declined going there, and disembarking at Leith; it was not, he said, an asylum that he came to seek, he had a safe one in Russia, where he had left the Queen and Madame Royale his niece. The object of his voyage was of an entirely political nature, having only his interests as King of France for its object. The King added that he would rather return to Russia than go to Scotland, or be treated otherwise than as a sovereign who came to claim the aid of Great Britain.

But the English ministers were not at all disposed to support the King's just pretensions. "If the head of the Bourbon family," said they, "consents to live among us in a manner conformable to his actual situation, he will find a safe and honourable asylum here; but we know too well the necessity of the unanimous support of the English people in the war in which we are engaged to compromise in any degree the popularity which has till now accompanied the progress of the war; we should be compromising it by imprudently taking a part which would give that war a new character and would discourage the nation. Does the situation of France and the continent," added the ministers, "now present any more chance for the re-establishment of the Bourbons than at any other epoch of this revolutionary war which we have kept up for so many years. Has England any reason for thinking that she will now be better seconded by the rest of Europe than she has been hitherto? On the contrary, the almost entire submission of the continent sanctions, in a way, the existing order of things in France. Certainly the moment for abandoning a wise and clearsighted policy would not be happily chosen.

In recognizing Louis XVIII. we should offer a fair opportunity to the enemies of the government to accuse us of introducing foreign interests into a war whose aspect hitherto has been wholly British.”

Thus the King's arrival in England caused a lively sensation there, as much proceeding from the interest which the legitimate King of France inspired, as from the manner in which the ministers of George III. looked at his situation. It was much to be regretted that the illustrious exile should be received at the moment when he landed in a hospitable country by discussions on the motives which brought him there, and by interpretations far from consoling.

However, after the King's formal refusal to go to Leith and thence to Edinburgh, his landing at Yarmouth was not opposed in any way, and orders were given that he should be treated with all proper

respect. The Count d'Artois and the other princes came to receive the august head of their house on his arrival. The interview was touching. Monsieur immediately made the King acquainted with the political situation of England, and the disposition of the ministers with regard to him.

The King felt that the circumstances in which Europe was then placed no longer pointed to the same undertakings, or prescribed the same declarations. Instructed by misfortune, having with advantage studied men and governments in the different circumstances in which he had been placed, this prince knew that a cause which had gone through so many reverses, and which appeared desperate in the eyes of prejudiced or superficial observers, required the greatest delicacy of management; he was convinced that, while preserving the noble aspirations which were still bound up with it, it was necessary to avoid representing them coloured by an exclusive and suspicious exaggeration.

The party immediately assembled at the house of the Admiral's Secretary, which stood contiguous to the spot; and here the Count had an interesting interview with Monsieur the Count d'Artois. Private carriages having been promptly furnished, Louis and his suite were conveyed to the house of Admiral Douglas to breakfast, where the illustrious guests, to their apparent gratification, were joined by Admiral Russell, Sir Samuel Hood, and several captains of the North Sea fleet. After a pleasing repast, the party started from Yarmouth for Gosfield, the seat of the Marquess of Buckingham, where they were welcomed with a truly hospitable reception. Meantime a ludicrous incident occurred. The King, grateful for the attention of the barge's crew who rowed him ashore, left behind a purse of fifteen guineas for the tars to drink his health. On the matter being explained to them, not one of them would touch a farthing; but they immediately transmitted a very characteristic letter to Admiral Russell, expressive of their sentiments on the occasion. The following is a literal copy, and the original was read by Louis with peculiar

glee:

PLEASE YOUR HONOUR,

Majestic, 6 day Nov. 1807.

We holded a Talk about that there 157. that was sent us, and hope no offence, your honour. We don't like to take it, because as how we knows fast enuff that it was the true King of France that went with your honour in the boat, and that he and our own noble King, God bless 'em both, and give every one his right, is good friends now; and besides that your honour gived a Order long ago, not to take no money from nobody, and we never did take none, and Mr. Leneve, that steared your honour and that there King, says he won't have no hand in it, and so does Andrew Young, the proper Coxen, and we hopes no cffence, so we all one and all begs not to take it at all. So no more at present from you honour's dutiful servants,

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For some time it remained unsettled as to where the royal family should pitch their tents, when at length an absurd report obtained, and has stubbornly maintained its ground in certain quarters, that the Marquess of Buckingham had kindly lent Hartwell House to the exiles. But neither the Marquess, nor any of his family, ever had any kind of possession of either the estate or the house, as may be seen in these pages: he was only the medium of hiring the premises from Sir George Lee. When Hartwell had been determined on as an appropriate residence for the strangers, the remainder of a lease of the mansion, granted by Sir William Lee some few years before to Sir William Young (see page 88), who had removed to the West Indies, was proposed to be conveyed to the Marquess of Buckingham and Louis the Eighteenth. But this not being acceded to on the part of Sir George Lee, who had then succeeded to the estate, it was subsequently let to the King at an annual rent of 500l.

In August 1808, the Queen, as Comtesse de Lille, arrived at Harwich from Russia, with a suite of seventy persons. These, as well as the King's party, together with their numerous attendants and servants, were all quartered on the Hartwell premises, where they were occasionally visited by the other French princes and emigrant nobles. The residents in the house and grounds generally amounted to about one hundred and forty in number; but they sometimes exceeded two hundred. So numerous a party required such extensive accommodation, that the halls, gallery, and larger apartments were ingeniously divided and subdivided into suites of rooms and closets,in some instances to the great disorder and confusion of the mansion. Every outhouse, and each of the ornamental buildings in the park that could be rendered capable of decent shelter, were densely occupied; and it was curious to see how the second and third class stowed themselves away in the attics of the house, converting one room into several by an adaptation of light partitions, all of which were remaining at my first visit to Hartwell. On the ledges and in the bows of the roof, they formed gardens which were stocked with plants, shrubs, and flowers, in boxes containing mould to the depth of eighteen or twenty inches; and they moreover kept fowls and pigeons there, so that the superstructure was thus loaded with many extra tons of weight. But all was well-conducted and cheerful, throughout a residence of six or seven years; and in the evenings there was much mirth, music, and dancing kept up at the cottages around.

It must, however, be confessed, that in effecting the transformations alluded to, no deference seems to have been paid either to the feelings or the interests of the worthy proprietor of the mansion. Small windows were pierced through the walls, fixtures needlessly unfixed, and the ornamental balustrades of the parapet removed in those parts where they interfered with the Adonis gardens, or with the prospect. At page 108, the whole-length portrait of Lady Elizabeth Lee, the mother of their friendly landlord, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, is mentioned; and so little did there appear among the occupants either of respect for the arts, or of homage to the sex, as regarded this admirably-executed likeness of a beautiful female, that all the time the royal family occupied the house, a French mirror of extraordinary magnitude was placed before the picture, so as completely to exclude it from view. Sir George, who was in every respect one of the best of men, bore all these unpleasant incidents with amiable philosophy. When led to refer to them, some time after the departure of his tenants, he observed with a smile-" Well, still I ought to be satisfied with the remuneration which the British Government awarded."

Here King Louis led so retired a life, that little was known of him beyond the limits of the mansion. Whenever he met any person in the grounds, he always returned their salute by taking off his hat, and he would often hold a light conversation in tolerably good English: and to one gentleman he pointed out, with much pleasantry, that each side of the great door-way of Hartwell House bore a fleur-de-lis in the old carving, as if in anticipation of his coming. The style in which he lived was unostentatious, and very suitable to the rank he assumed of Count. His Majesty, family, and suite, about twenty-five in number, generally dined together in the large dining-room; and once in about three weeks, the inhabitants of the adjacent parts were allowed to walk round the table during the repast, entering at one door and retiring by another, in conformity with the custom of the old French Court. The regular drawing-room being occupied as an apartment for sleeping and sitting in, by the Prince and Princess de Condé on their visits, the library was used as its substitute, with the King's sofa raised on a little dais, or eminence, and here he used to see company and hold small levées; but his Majesty's own rooms were the study and its adjoining strong closet (see Plate VI). The Marquis de Généthous, contemplating this site in 1824, wrote

Vrai Sage, soit qu'il perde ou porte la couronne,

Il fût pendant l'exil ce qu'il est sur le trône.

Madame Gonet, before-mentioned, stated that occasionally, when Louis was troubled with the gout, mass was celebrated in the dining-room, the altar being placed at the east end; and here occurred one of the gravest incidents in the eventful life of Louis. On Ladyday-25th March 1814-the royal family were at prayers, and Madame herself was seated near the middle window, which commands a view of the road leading from the lodge to the mansion. On a sudden she perceived two post-chaises, each drawn by four horses, rapidly approaching the house, with white flags displayed, a sight which provoked an exclamation from her in spite of the general solemnity of the room. The carriages contained certain Deputies from Bourdeaux, who brought intelligence that the Duc d'Angoulême had entered that city with Marshal Beresford's division of the English army, which had been received with enthusiasm; that the white cockade was displayed; and that Louis the Eighteenth was proclaimed.* Hardly was the excitement occasioned by these most joyous tidings moderated, ere Captain Slaughter, of the Royal Navy, conducted another party of Deputies to Hartwell, whom he had received off Dunkirk into the Archer sloop-of-war, charged to solicit the exile to return and take possession of his throne and kingdom. These gentlemen were ushered into the library, and the King signed the celebrated document said to have been suggested by the supple Talleyrand, stating that he accepted and would observe the Constitution of France.

* Wellington thought the Duke was heaving ahead rather too fast, and that the citizens of Bourdeaux-who had made no exertions or sacrifice in the cause-were taking a lead to which they were not entitled. This feeling prompted those manly "wiggings" which appear in the inimitable volumes of his Dispatches: if Napoleon had lived to peruse these, he had perhaps been spared the everlasting disgrace of bequeathing a legacy to the miscreant who attempted to murder his noble opponent.

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