The villages seem in a state of decay, and the inhabitants poor, but the country upon the whole is in much better condition, in point of cultivation and appearance, than one could suppose after what has passed in the last twenty years. In one or two out-of-the-way places we were stared at, and followed like monsters or sights, but were everywhere well received by the people. At Sorège some French cavalry was quartered; but they were nearly all gone to the grand review before the Duke d’Angoulême. I should like to have been there also; but we understood it would not be liked, and that the Duke was to go without English altogether: this was quite right. I am told that the review went off well, and that Soult himself set a good example.
It is strange to think of our carrying off Bonaparte in a frigate; and his conversation with Augereau is curious after the address of the latter to his men. King Joseph is gone off and escaped; but no one need be much afraid of him now.
The style of nearly all the French chateaux is similar; all front and appearance.
On my return yesterday I dined with Mr. B—— and his French hosts, for I scarcely know whose dinner it was; I believe a joint effort. The wines were the patron’s, and very good. He is a man of fortune, a Monsieur de T——, and speaks English tolerably. The wife is a pleasing woman, and rather good-looking and young. They were very civil, and she sang and played in the evening very fairly. At least she had much execution and dash, if not feeling, in her playing. Like most of our young female players, she left out all the andantes and slow passages.
The furniture of the two or three rooms in which she lived was very splendid. Handsome carpets were alone wanting to make her own room in particular an elegant fine lady’s drawing-room in England. In some respects, particularly as to the gilding, there was both more show and taste than generally are seen with us. The pianoforte was particularly handsome; it was by Erard of Paris, and, though only a small one, cost a hundred louis d’or. The whole content of her room cost, it is said, a thousand louis d’or.
In the variety and materials of the ladies’ dresses here, there seems to be also a very considerable degree of luxury—more perhaps than with us.
We are now very dull, and as the Prince is still absent, do not even hear the “Vive le Roi!” or “Vivent les Bourbons!” &c., as usual. I was much amused yesterday at seeing pasted up at a country inn, a halfpenny print of the royal Duke d’Angoulême in his best, on horseback, and surrounded by a copy of most loyal verses singing his praises and those of the Bourbons, and the English, in the measure, and going to the music of the famous Marseillais hymn; in short, a sort of parody of that song, beginning “Allons enfans de la Garonne,” &c. What changes!
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.