CHAPTER XXVIII.
Toulouse—Mr. Macarthy’s Library—The Marquess of Buckingham—General Hope—Wellington’s Dukedom—The Theatre—A Romantic Story—Feeling towards the English—The Duke on the Russian Cavalry.Head-Quarters, Toulouse,May 11, 1814.
Toulouse—Mr. Macarthy’s Library—The Marquess of Buckingham—General Hope—Wellington’s Dukedom—The Theatre—A Romantic Story—Feeling towards the English—The Duke on the Russian Cavalry.
Head-Quarters, Toulouse,May 11, 1814.
My dear M——.
Thevery small number of sights which this town affords being exhausted, and Lord Wellington being still absent, we are in truth more dull than we should be in a country town in England. The only interesting subject of conversation now is, who goes to America, and who does not? Some of the regiments move to-day towards Bordeaux from hence for the purpose of embarking upon this new expedition, which I should think would all end in a mere demonstration. Lord Wellington is expected here to-morrow, and we shall then know what is to happen; and head-quarters will, I conclude, move immediately.
I have heard nothing since my last, and seen but one thing worth mentioning, and that is, Mr. Macarthy’s library, which the old father and grandfather have been sixty years collecting, and which is now to be sold on the father’s death for the benefit of the widow and nine children. This is the library for which the Duke of Devonshire offered 25,000l.sterling as it stands; but the bargain was never closed, as he wished the whole to be embarked at the risk of the owner, and they wanted tohave the money for it as it stands here, to be moved by the purchaser. The owner now talks of sending it to Paris, and having a public sale there by auction, thinking that emperors and kings will then bid against the Duke of Devonshire, Earl Spencer, and others of our book-loving nobles.
It contains a considerable number of fine copies of “Principes editiones,” filling one side of a large room all upon vellum. There is also Cardinal Ximenes’ polyglot edition of the Bible; his own copy—the only one on vellum; and a number of valuable books and some fine MSS. Amongst the rest is the first printed edition of the Psalms in 1457, of which we are told the only other perfect copy is in our king’s (George the Third’s) library; that Lord Spencer had only an imperfect copy, and that twelve thousand francs had been already offered for this one volume! So the world goes! This sum would furnish a handsome set of all the best French authors, and amusement for life; but many, you find, prefer a single black-letter volume, which one must go to school again to learn to read, and which, indeed, looks like a child’s great black-letter spelling book, or the books among the giant friends of Gulliver. A single page as a specimen would be as good to me as the whole, and thus five hundred curiosos would be gratified for a few guineas a-head; or a lottery would be still better—fifty pages for the highest prize, and a few lines for every one; no blanks! There would be another advantage in this, that it would be employment for some worthy collector for half his life to reassemble all the parts and put the book together again.
The Marquess of Buckingham has been here, and is now going to Tarbes and Barege, and then returns to see our great man. We hear the latter was at the review at Paris in his blue coat and round hat. This is quite like him, and upon a good principle; the marshals, the publicfunctionaries, the kings and the emperors, would have outdone anything he could have put on except this.
I am sorry not to have returned from Revel through Castelnaudary. Some of the officers did so, and by that means fell in with a division of the French army. The French officers were very civil, but told the same story—“If the Emperor had not deserted us, we never would have deserted him; and the men are of the same opinion; but as it was, there was nothing else to be done.” Colonels B—— and C—— went over to the second review at Montauban, where the Duke d’Angoulême reviewed Count Reille’s corps—two divisions. If I had known this had been permitted, I should have been very curious to be of the party. The men, it is said, were well equipped and in high order. The officers in general looked very shabby and unlike gentlemen.
Suchet was smiling and in high good humour, and very fine as he was here. Soult was only to be distinguished by a most enormous hat, and by a surly look, which is described as unpleasantly penetrating, and more bespeaking talent than amiability. He took little notice of the English officers, but the aides-de-camp and staff officers, both belonging to Soult and to the other Generals, did so when they learnt who they were, and appeared very earnest in their attentions and civilities. They went there in a carriage, but were splendidly mounted immediately; Colonel —— on Count Erlar’s led and caparisoned charger.
Thursday, 12th.—Lord Wellington not having yet returned, and of course nothing positive being known as to our destination, we have only those passing reports which the military men call “shaves.”
General Hope is, I fear, likely to suffer long from his wounds. He has astonished the Generals at Bayonne by making three of them presents each of an English horse out of his stud. It is an odd circumstance, but I believetrue, that the sort of notice we had of an intended sortie by the enemy at Bayonne, which was given by a deserter just before it took place, only did us mischief. The out-picquets were doubled, and as no picquets could stand the rush of four or five thousand men, we only lost so many more prisoners by this. The men were alarmed with the expectation of such an attack. The only fault spoken of in this business was the abandonment of the church of St. Etienne, which might and ought to have been maintained. The fifth division were but just on duty there, and scarcely knew their posts. General Hay met the men running back from it, and was stopping and leading them on again, telling them he would show them how to defend the church, when he was killed. Some of the muskets of our men were found there, broken by the French, and thrown away unfired. An English officer, with about twenty men, maintained himself in a house near the church the whole time, though it was much less defensible than the church.
Our position there, close under the works, it is said, was liable to such a sortie every night, and some well-informed persons wonder it did not take place sooner. General Hope’s eager courage led him into a situation where, I am told, no one could under ordinary circumstances remain the shortest time without almost a certainty of destruction. Even as it was, it is said that a party of Guards ought to have carried him off, as at first only four Frenchmen were near him when his horse fell, and the Guards then were close by. The French had made the outworks of the citadel very strong; they must have been stormed first, which would have cost us about twelve or fifteen thousand men. It would then have taken sixteen days to establish batteries on the crest of the glacis, the only possible way of breaching the citadel. The garrison, who are now excessively bold, and who have demanded rations for nineteen thousand twohundred men, say they should have even then stood a storming twice—in the citadel, and again in the town at last.
Making all due allowance for this gasconading, it is quite as well to have been saved the necessity of taking Bayonne. It would have taken all our transports about sixteen days to bring up materials for four days’ open trenches from Passages by land, and we must then, for the remainder of the time, have trusted to the uncertainty of the water communication. The object of the French sortie was supposed to be the destruction of our three stores of fascines and gabions, &c., which we had been six weeks and more cutting, collecting, and forming, and for which purpose we had stripped the environs for near five miles round the town. In that respect we were quite prepared for the whole siege, and it is remarkable enough that we remained nearly all that time sufficiently near the French works to form the first parallel, and that without making works to protect ourselves, because doing so would only have drawn down a fire which no works could have enabled us to live under, and there was nothing to be done but to remain as quiet as possible until the siege began. Had we withdrawn at all, the French having seen the importance of the ground, which we got as it were almost by accident, would have made it necessary to begin the siege by the storming of the works they would soon have made there. Thus we were obliged to keep what we had got, unless resolved to turn the whole into blockade. The French engineers admire our bridge very much, and say it will figure in military history; but their officers in general in Bayonne have hitherto been very sulky, and we are yet by no means friends. Very little accommodation is afforded us in any way.
We are infinitely obliged to Bonaparte for having lost his head, and blundered as he did latterly, andsuffered the Allies to enter Paris, and put an end to the war. Had he succeeded at Paris, or had Soult and Suchet united succeeded against us here, near the shores of the Mediterranean, where our next conflict would have been, you would have found, when a retreat became necessary, and that the French saw that way out of their difficulties, instead of a return to royalty, that we should have had the other party, and that a strong one, uppermost, and a cry the other way, with parties in our rear. Thinking, as we do, the French army, and a great part of the French nation, quite as much responsible and to blame as Bonaparte, for a considerable portion of the misery caused by France (for to effect this they were his willing agents so long as it was out of France, and only deserted him when he was in distress, and because his good fortune had left him, and by no means from principle)—thinking this, their excess of loyalty only disgusts us. Of course we are glad to promote it, but must despise the majority of the Bourbon shouters—a few honourable individuals, and a small party, of course, excepted.
Friday, 13th May.—Lord Wellington not yet returned, and the late very warm weather turned to a steady rain. The Paris papers of the 8th, received this morning, make Lord Wellington ambassador in France, and a Duke.
I was last night at the play to seeLa Reine de Golconde, an opera, with some pretty music. I mention this merely on account of a curious circumstance attending it. A French General, according to the story, fights for the deposed Queen and restores her. The troops of this French General and liberator were a part of the grenadier company of our Scotchsans culotteshere in their own costume; and as they marched past, commanded and headed by the French General in the full costume of a general officer of Bonaparte’s army, the house immediatelyapplauded the English heroes. The sensations of the French officers present must have been strange, and not very agreeable. These Scotchmen are considered by all the inhabitants (particularly of the town) as having had the principal share in their defeats in sight of the town. The mutes, bearers, and others in the procession were all English soldiers.
We have had no disturbances or quarrels here, and our officers seem all to have behaved with considerable propriety; in short, the inhabitants dread our departure, and the return of their own people. They say that all order ceases, and all security, the moment our side of the line of demarcation is passed. One furious old gentleman at thecaféthis morning said publicly, that he thought the only regret was, that the war had not lasted three months longer, to destroy the remainder of the French brigands; and that as for Soult, he should have been sent in here, that the women might cut pieces out of his flesh with their scissors, and that he might afterwards have been executed publicly for his conduct to this city.
Saturday, Post-day.—Lord Wellington returned in the middle of the night, and, having had a cold, that and the effects of his journey make him look rather thin. He has been so taken up with business that I only saw him for a moment. Report says that he leaves us again in a day or two. I shall, if possible, ask leave, on our arrival at Bordeaux, to be independent, and find my own way home: yet I believe it would be best to go home with the army.
Head-Quarters, Toulouse, May 21, 1814.—Immediately after my last, Lord Wellington left us for Madrid. Nearly every one has quitted the army; I mean the great men, generals, &c. We are reduced to a few quiet parties and have no events to observe upon, and see no strangers to write about; everything is tame and stupid and the weather growing hot makes us languid and idle.
Lord Wellington, on his return here, was absolutely overwhelmed with business, and every department was at work in a sort of confusion and hurry that has never happened before.
On Sunday, the Duke gave a splendid ball and supper at the Prefêt’s or Palais Royal, where everything went off much as usual. The ladies dressed well, and danced admirably; and the supper was not a matter of mere form with them. Their early dinners, and their greater exertion in dancing, make them certainly more voracious than our fair ones.
On Monday, the Marquess of Buckingham returned, and was introduced to his new cousin of Wellington. The latter seemed, I understand, not a little surprised at being embraced and saluted on the cheek by his new relative. He had not been in the habit of receiving those embracesà la mode Française, and, I take it, prefers very much the kind attentions of the fair ones here, with whom he is an universal favourite.
On Monday the Marquess of Buckingham dined with him, as well as a large party of French and English. I was of the number, and we all went to a concert of very moderate music in the evening at the Capitolium. The Duke at eight the next morning was off for Madrid. He intends to rejoin us at Bordeaux, and then to return through Paris, and to be in London about the 10th of June. This is a great deal too much, and I think almost impossible. These exertions make him look thin and rather worn; but he was very gay, and in excellent spirits whilst here.
The American party was all settled by him finally, and is all on the road to Bordeaux, or now there. It will be of about nine or ten thousand men, I should think, and strong in artillery. Our faithful six 18-pounders, which have marched all the way from Lisbon since this day twelvemonth! on roads which never have, I think, orwill see such animals again, were embarked yesterday on the Garonne, for Bordeaux, to be of the party; and their little grand-children, the mountain guns, go also. At first the expedition was by no means popular, but is now tolerably so, and the staff appointments have been of course much in request. Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who is the great manager of all this, and prime minister, has been very busy, and we have all the intrigues of a little court in miniature. Those who have been long here on the staff, and with high brevet rank, will feel much a return to their regimental duty and rank, and still more if their fate be half-pay? I hear of nothing except all this, and the schemes to get provided for. The regimental officers are those who like this new expedition the least.
On seeing the Duke of Wellington the last time, I said, I concluded he would wish me to go down to Bordeaux with the army. He answered, “Oh, yes, you had better.” We are already almost without Generals. We shall remain here, it is said, some days yet. The orders, however, are all given for our movement as soon after we receive official news of the garrison of Figueras having marched for France as possible. In the mean time all wounded, &c., are moving now. The cavalry also are to set out on their way overland to England as soon as the French Government have finally agreed to that arrangement. I should not at all dislike to march with this party. The Portuguese troops remain with the British until the Commissaries can part entirely with the mule transport. They then separate, taking all the mules and muleteers with them attached to different regiments for rations, &c., and set out through Spain for Portugal, a good three months’ trip, the weather growing warmer and warmer all the way, to the great enjoyment, I conclude, of the natives. At Almeida the muleteers have been promised to be paid all their arrears.
The British from hence are to encamp near Bordeaux, ready to be off as transports arrive. The Spaniards move out of France the first of all, at the signal of Figueras, to the joy of all parties. The Guards and troops at Bayonne are likely to be the last, for they are to remain until all stores, wounded, &c., are clear out of the Adour and St. Jean de Luz, &c. The people here will be very sorry to lose us, partly from the loss of the money spent here, and partly from their dread of those who will succeed us—their own countrymen.
I understand General Clausel was the only one of the French here who admitted the truth that they were fairly beaten into taking their King. The others feel it, but will not own it, and are very sulky in consequence; and in general not civil to our officers. Some of the French gens-d’armes are expected on Monday in this town to do duty, I believe, to levy taxes, &c. It is to be hoped that this will not lead to quarrels with our men.
The continuance of theDroits réunisis very unpopular, and, in my opinion, the effervescence of loyalty is somewhat subsiding already. We all expect disturbances also in Spain. I hope the Duke will resign his command, and have nothing to do with either party. It is said even the armies are divided, and ours here (Frere’s) is for the Cortes. What with Spain, Ireland, Norway, America, and perhaps the interior of France, the world will after all, it is feared, not be in that state of profound peace which was generally expected.
Yesterday and to-day I have received letters from you of the 3rd and 10th of May, and papers to the latter date, which contain precisely the same news as those from London through Paris. There seems to be nothing very important either way.
I have just got the papers relating to a most extraordinary story of a murder at Lisbon. It is a most complete novel, and would be incredibly romantic assuch. A Commissary named R—— had an English girl (a lady) who lived with him. Another Commissary named S——, his friend, had long been living in the same house with him. After a time Mr. R—— conceived that Mr. S—— was undermining the affections of the lady. He taxes her with it, she confesses, and says she has promised to live with S——, but swears nothing improper had ever passed. Mr. R—— persuades her to give up this scheme, stating how dishonourably S—— had betrayed him, his friend. He then tells this friend his discovery, and upbraids him. S—— says that the lady has been faithless to R——, and is the betrayer. R——, in despair, is going to quit the house, the lady, and the whole connexion; but he previously repeats to her what Mr. S—— told him. She solemnly denies it, and then goes out with S——. I should have mentioned that the three had just before this conversation ridden out together without speaking, and sat together at dinner without speaking or eating. The explanation between R—— and the lady then took place, immediately after which S—— and the lady went out of the house. Three pistol-shots are heard. R—— goes into the garden, finds his mistress shot dead. S—— ran by him into the house apparently wounded, his handkerchief to his head. He forced his way to a table-drawer, took out a razor, and cut his throat quite across. He still survived both wounds when the account came away, and deliberately confesses in writing that by the lady’s desire, by their joint consent and agreement, he was to kill both; her first, and then himself. This he endeavoured to accomplish, but in vain as to himself. Mr. R—— declines telling who the lady is, except in a court of justice, in order to prevent unnecessary pain to her friends in England.
I have been asked, “What is to be done?” and whether, if the delinquent is mad, I thought that he mustbe tried for the murder? It surely was very unfortunate that the poor man had not been left in the hands of the Portuguese surgeons and doctors, who pronounced him a dead man, and his wounds incurable. The skill of an English surgeon has unluckily enabled this unhappy being to stand the chance of either being hung or confined for life as a madman for the rest of his days.
The 22nd, Post-day.—I send you, being dull myself, a part of aGazette de France, which paper I take in regularly. Some part of theFranc parleuris well done. The same feelings exist here in the army. Were I a French officer I should feel in the same way.
We have now rain, and the weather cooler again: hitherto it has not been ever very unpleasantly hot, though at times above our summer heat, and with rain and without sun at 69°.
You ask me in your last letter about religion and manners here? The former seems again much what it was before the Revolution. The churches are in general well attended, but principally (as the case is all over the world, I believe,) by your sex in particular of all ages, by the very old of both sexes, who go there to make their peace; and the very young who are taken there by their older friends and relations. With regard to manners, the old French memoirs would still, I think, apply very tolerably to the description of their present state, except that the same things are done and said with rather more coarseness perhaps now than in old times.
Our cavalry have not moved yet, as the approval of the French Government has not arrived. They are intended to move in two columns, one up the Paris road, nearly through Cahors, &c.; the other more to the left, through Angoulême, Poictiers, and to unite at a town on the Seine.
Head-Quarters, Toulouse, May 27th, 1814.—My new friends and acquaintance fall off daily around me, and our party at head-quarters is continually on the decline.
I am not a little amused with the Toulouse paper of yesterday. We, the English, have been for these last six weeks praised to the skies, and treated as, and called the deliverers of Toulouse city and its inhabitants. Soult’s troops are now expected in here in a few days, and the gens-d’armes have actually arrived. The ToulouseGazette, therefore, exhorts the inhabitants to receive with open arms and to feast, and entertain those brave troops, whose courage and noble conduct they witnessed on the hills, above this city, when fighting for the defence of the inhabitants. They also assure the public, that the statement in an early number of theGazette, that Marshal Soult owed the safety of his retreat to the clemency of Lord Wellington, under whose guns the French troops filed off, was all an error and mistake (as it certainly was), and that the retreat was in fact as secure as the defence of the heights was noble and courageous. Had we had but about five thousand more men up, to cross the canal at once, this might have been another story. TheGazetteshould have waited until we were off.
I dined yesterday with a Monsieur Castellan, a gentleman of very good fortune, and who, I understand, has a good house, pictures, library, &c., at Paris, and lands in Normandy and elsewhere. He was formerly, at the commencement of the Revolution, Attorney-general to the Parliament of Toulouse, and on that account desired to be introduced to me, and gave us an excellent dinner. In 1781, he was a man who figured much here, and also in the English papers, on account of his early resistance to the orders of the Court, and being imprisoned in consequence. He was followed by all the inhabitants to his prison, and released in a short time by the triumph of his own party. He seems to be a good constitutionalist.
He mentioned several curious facts of Bonaparte’s tyranny, such as his putting persons to death without trial, and without inquiry. Two of these persons heknew in particular. They were chiefs of La Vendée. When all the hopes of that party were gone, terms were offered to these two men. One came in to sign them, when he was instantly shot. The other, in consequence, remained concealed three years in Normandy. At last he was told privately, that if he would retire from the country quietly, a passport should be given to him. He agreed, received his pass, and made for the coast; but when he arrived near the sea-side two gens-d’armes shot him.
This made a noise; the Juge de Paix began aprocès verbal, and the Préfet was active in endeavouring to apprehend the soldiers. The Judge and Préfet were not in the secret. Suddenly a senator came from Paris. The Préfet was suspended from his office, and the Juge de Paix enjoined at his peril not to stir a step in the business. Monsieur Castellan’s servant acted as clerk in theprocès verbalwhich had commenced, and the murder took place close to his estate in Normandy. He therefore, he said, knew the facts.
Another story, for the truth of which he vouched, and which from the circumstances appeared to be true, shows a little the state of Napoleon’s court and their morals. A young cousin of Monsieur de Castellan was the Emperor’s page—a very good-looking boy. At the carnival he was dressed as a girl at the play, and one of the grand chamberlains fell in love with him. The page continued the disguise and the joke every night during the carnival, and was courted and fêted with presents by the lover. At last the discovery was made, and the mortified chamberlain stopped the boy’s promotion in consequence, under the pretence that the page was ordered not to go to the play.
I wished very much to have had time during my visit to Monsieur Castellan to look over a very curious collection of original letters which he had in portfolios, and ofwhich I looked at one or two only. The most valuable were of the Valois family, and were numerous and confidential, coming to M. Castellan through a great-uncle, and derived from an ambassador of the family in Spain. There were several from Catherine de Medicis, mostly about the marriage of her daughters with the Spanish royal family, and which (as she had good occasion to do) she always finished by desiring might be burnt as soon as read.
The eldest daughter was first sent, being intended for the son, Don Carlos, but Philip the Second took a fancy to her, and though the son was in love, married her. An intrigue was suspected with the son, as the daughter was also in love with Don Carlos; the finale was, as history records and romance writers have improved upon, that Don Carlos and the lady suffered death. After this, and knowing, as she must have done, the cause, or at least the reports of all suspected, Catherine writes, saying that she must forget the mother in the Queen, and proposes to make up a match between King Philip and her youngest daughter. The writer desires the person addressed to get at the King’s mistress and his confessor, and to secure them both as friends to her plans. The remaining letters were those of eminent men, some from Rousseau, Voltaire, &c., and appeared to contain nothing particularly interesting.
A few days since I think I half made a convert of a fat silversmith’s lady here, of whom I was purchasing some articles. She asked me if we had a religion in England at all like theirs. I said, “Yes; very like.” “But,” said she (and that weighed very much with her), “you do not use these great silver cups, &c., in your country?” To this I replied, “Indeed we do, and want them much larger than you do in France, for with us we let every one taste that pleases of the wine, and you only let thepriests.” This rather staggered her, when the sale of the cups and sacramental plate came into her head.
May 28th, Saturday, Post-day.—Our cavalry have at last got leave to pass through France, and will commence their route on the 1st of June. It is probable that we shall move soon after. I have this moment received a packet from you, with papers and enclosures to the 16th, and having your letter now before me, will go through it in answer. The alarms you mention about the quarrels between the Allies, and the French, and the army, and the National Guards, seem to have been principally of English invention. We have heard little of this matter here, though I have no doubt that the French officers and soldiers are vexed and mortified, and as the Irish say sometimes, they would easily “pick a quarrel” just now, when they meet with any occasion. There is the same feeling here, only hitherto scarcely any officers of the army have arrived.
I witnessed last Sunday a quarrel between a gend’arme and a garde-urbaine, about cutting off some acacia blossoms in the public walk. The latter was disarmed at last, after a scuffle and fight, in which, from the noise and confusion, you would have supposed several limbs and lives would have been lost (as would have been the case in half the time in England), but in which in reality no one seemed to come out the worse. The gend’arme, however, was very neatly beaten at last, as two of the garde-urbaine overtook him again, and whilst one tried to wrest the conquered sword back again, the other cut the belt of the gend’arme, by which his own sword fell, and in recovering that he lost the trophy, with which the two lads made off in triumph.
An officer of the French regular army who was here by accident a few days since, saw the caricature of Bonaparte in a window, the face made up of “victimes,” withthe cobwebs, &c., introduced, which I conclude you have seen. He entered the shop in a rage, and desired the shopman to take it from the window, threatening to cut him down if he refused. It has not appeared in the window since, and the man when now asked for the print by an Englishman or Royalist, says, “They are all sold.”
The Duke of Wellington’s misfortune from the Cossack charge I have not heard of here. He came back most highly admiring and praising the Russian cavalry as in appearance the best in Europe, and saying there was scarcely a private horse in the regiment he saw for which a short time ago we should not willingly have given a hundred and fifty or two hundred guineas in Spain. The draught and artillery horses, also, though very small, and unlike those of the cavalry, he thought had great appearance of hardiness and activity. Some of your other stories concerning us here are really, in my opinion, mere inventions.
By-the-by, what inventions and scandal we shall have now to fill the newspapers and afford conversation for all our idlers! As soon as peace is signed, they will have little else but that to live upon; whilst the politician must pore over all the debates of the multiplied popular assemblies in modern Europe, which will all be aping our House of Commons.
Our clergy here were ten days ago praying for rain, and they have not sued in vain, for we have had it for this week in showers only, and in the English fashion, not like our mountain and St. Jean de Luz rain. We have also had tremendous storms of wind, which were not prayed for; and more than that, a bit of an earthquake, felt principally at Pau and in that vicinity, but, it is said, by some perceived here. It is not surprising that old Mother Earth should just at first shake a little at all that has passed lately; but I hope she will take it quietly,and be as peaceably inclined as her inhabitants now are. The recovery of the balance of Europe will be a fine subject for an essay. This superiority over the ancient associated states of Greece, which when once upset never could right themselves again, is a matter of considerable triumph for the moderns, and promises to check for some time another age of barbarism. I should say that one great cause of this has been the more general diffusion of knowledge amongst the middling classes. Public opinion and more fixed principles of the advantages of independence, have got the better at last of a system of universal tyranny of the most ingenious and complicated nature, and extending to every individual, and every hole and corner within its clutches. I must now seal up for the post.