"I knew this Lady Jersey, and it must be confessed that her face and whole appearance were so little indicative of her age, that it could not easily have been suspected. She had all the charms of early youth, heightened by all the grace of the most elegant manners; and I am bound to say, that, in the circles in which I saw her, she even possessed a sort of attractive kindness; whether the manners of her class render the disposition indulgent, or whether she did not in fact deserve all the reproaches with which she was loaded.
“The Prince of Wales seems to have possessed a peculiar faculty, a gift, which the English call the power of fascination. He is endowed with it in the highest degree; one would think that his will was sufficient to reclaim the attachment of the multitude, and as it were to corrupt public opinion. His history is full of those losses and returns of popularity; and, perhaps, it is the certainty of being able to command this sort of success that has so often led him, as his detractors say, to disregard public opinion. His enemies have asserted that he has carried this species of courage to absolute heroism. They have censured him for his hardihood in persisting, whilst lying himself under the reproach of an irregular life, in accusing his wife of that conduct of which he set the example; an inconsistency which ought, undoubtedly, to be attributed to the fatal suggestions of pernicious counsellors, inimical to his glory and tranquillity. It is at least certain, that the basest corruption, the aid of the laws, and the influence of the heir to the throne, were all employed against the Princess, and all in vain: a circumstance which, it is said, used to torment the Prince and expose him to ridicule. People laughed at his unprecedented ill-luck, in being unable to prove, with all his endeavours, what so many husbands would give so much to conceal. Hatred increased on every new defeat, and with it the sufferings of the victim. She was reduced, at last, to a sort of banishment, to a place a few miles from London; she was deprived of her daughter; she was insulted in the sight of the allied Sovereigns when they visited London. But the expression of the feelings of the multitude was always ready to avenge her, and it became necessary to get her to quit England; which she was induced to do voluntarily, by the aid, perhaps, of the perfidious insinuations of some pretended friend.”
Here the Emperor again interrupted me, saying that I was leaving out a very essential point. “When and how had the Prince attained the Royal authority? How had he arranged matters with the opposition? What had he done with those old friends?” “Sire,” I replied, "my information ends here. There was a time when political events induced your Majesty to cut off all intercourse between England and France. We no longer obtained the papers; we were prevented from receiving letters; the two nations had no longer any thing in common. There is, therefore, an actual blank in my intelligence, which I should be unwilling to fill up with mere conjectures. I understand, however, that after several recoveries and relapses of the old King, all parties at length agreed to consign the regency to the Prince of Wales, and place him in full possession of the sovereign authority. The long expected period of changes and of hopes was at length arrived. The gates of heaven were now to open, at length, to that opposition which had so long eulogised the Prince; to those old friends who had seemed from infancy to unite their fate with his. But, to the great and universal surprise of the nation, and through I know not what contrivance of Lord Castlereagh’s, nothing was altered. Those old ministers, who had so long been the objects of the Prince’s dislike and censure, kept their places, and those intimate and dearly beloved friends, who had so long been caressed, remained out of office.
"The opposition complained loudly; but they were laughed at, and told that when the wild Prince of Wales became a great King, his first care was to get rid of his old companions. The jest might be a very good one, but it was by no means applicable; for the greatest characters in the empire were at the head of this opposition; and they were far from being Falstaffs or profligates of that kind. From that instant they evinced a marked coolness towards the Prince: some would no longer see him; others refused his invitations, or repelled the advances which he made to them. It is said, however, that one of them suffered himself to be persuaded to go to dine in private with the Prince. The latter, recurring to his usual victorious weapons, endeavoured to prove to him, with his accustomed grace, that he could not have acted differently; and at length desired to be told of what his old friends could justly accuse him. The guest, whose heart was still swelling with indignation, seized the opportunity, and freely told him all his faults, with such warmth, that the Princess Charlotte, who was at table, and was perhaps secretly inclined towards the guest’s opinion, burst into tears. Lord Byron heard of this scene the next day, and consecrated the event in these celebrated verses:—
"Weep, daughter of a royal line,
A Sire’s disgrace, a realm’s decay;
Ah happy! if each tear of thine
Could wash a father’s fault away!
Weep, for thy tears are virtue’s tears,
Auspicious to these suff’ring isles;