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 the priests.” 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,” with the 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.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Preparations for Departure—Bordeaux—Imposition on the English—Greetings from the Women—Mausoleum of Louis XVI.