[110] In 1787 the Prince of Wales, after authorizing Fox to make a public denial of his rumoured marriage with Mrs. Fitzherbert, received an additional £10,000 a year, £161,000 to pay his debts, and £20,000 for the repair of Carlton House.
[111] A Treaty of Commerce and Navigation between Great Britain and France was signed at Versailles on September 26, 1786, and a Supplementary Convention was signed between the same powers on January 15, 1787. Both treaties were signed on behalf of Great Britain by William Eden.
[112] Jeanne Pauline Polier de Bottens, afterwards successively Madame de Crousaz, and Madame de Montolieu, was the daughter of the Pastor at Lausanne, and was descended from an ancient family in Languedoc which had emigrated at the time of the Reformation. She was a voluminous writer. One of her best-known works is a continuation of the Swiss Family Robinson. Madame de Genlis, who claims to have been the éditeur of Caroline de Lichtfield, tells the following story of Gibbon falling on his knees and proposing to Madame de Crousaz, afterwards Madame de Montolieu. She refused him. "M. Gibbon prit un air consterné, et cependant il restait à genoux, malgré l'invitation réitérée de se remettre sur sa chaise; il était immobile et gardait la silence. 'Mais, monsieur,' répéta Madame de Crouzas, 'relevez-vous donc.'—'Hélas! madame,' répondit enfin ce malheureux amant, 'Je ne peux pas.' En effet, la grosseur de sa taille ne lui permettait pas de se relever sans aide. Madame de Crouzas sonna, et dit au domestique qui survint: 'Relevez M. Gibbon'" (Souvenirs de Félicie, p. 279). Madame de Montolieu, it should be added, stated that the anecdote was entirely without foundation (Rossel, Histoire Littéraire de la Suisse, vol. ii. p. 275).
The same story is told in verse by George Colman the younger in "The Luminous Historian; or, Learning in Love" (Eccentricities for Edinburgh, pp. 67-91).
Caroline, par Madame de * * *, was published at Lausanne in 1786. At Paris, in the same year, a new edition appeared, under the title of Caroline de Lichtfield, avec des corrections considérables. It was translated into English by Thomas Holcroft, and published by the Minerva Press. The Lausanne edition has on the title-page the following lines, which may allude to Gibbon:—
"Idole d'un cœur juste et passion du sage,
Amitié que ton nom soutienne cet ouvrage;
Regne dans mes écrits, ainsi que dans mon cœur,
Tu m'appris à connaître, à sentir le bonheur."
(Voltaire, Mélanges de Poésies.)