Seventeen Years in Paris: A Chaplain's Story

by H. E. Noyes

“Most sincerely yours,

“EDMUND MONSON.”

Sir Edmund Monson left us at the close of 1904, to the sincere regret of all his friends. He was succeeded by the present Ambassador, the Right Hon. Sir Francis Bertie, K.C.M.G., etc., who came into residence in January, 1905.

The staff at the Embassy is continually changing, so that during my long chaplaincy in Paris I made the acquaintance of many, and the friendship of some now serving King and country in different parts of the world. It would, I think, be difficult to find in the public service a finer body of men than those in Diplomacy.

The journalist has no doubt minimised to some extent the work formerly done by the Diplomatist—as Sir Edmund Monson pointed out in one of his speeches. But the adjustment of international difficulties, and the solving of delicate questions continually arising—the “keeping of the buttons tight”—leaves a vast amount of work with which Diplomacy only can deal, and for which the careful technical training for that service alone supplies the knowledge.

One of the best-known figures at the Embassy is Sir Henry Austin Lee, C.B., etc., who has been many years attached to the Embassy, and is universally loved and respected. He has had, as is well known, a very distinguished career.

Among the many important appointments he has held, it will be remembered that he was attached to the late Marquis of Salisbury’s special Embassy to Constantinople in 1876, and the special Embassy during the Congress in Berlin in 1878, being assistant private secretary to the late Earl of Beaconsfield. He is now Commercial Attaché in Paris, and Councillor of the Embassy, and also Director and member of the Managing Committee of the Suez Canal Company. Sir Henry Lee takes the warmest interest in the British charities in Paris, and is Chairman of the Schools and member of the Committee of the British Charitable Fund. His marriage was the last held in the Embassy. I officiated with his brother at the ceremony. Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales (then Princess May) was present on the occasion, and H.R.H. the Duke of Teck one of the witnesses.

Sir Charles Ottley, Admiral Sir William May, and Capt. Morgan were Naval Attachés during my sojourn, and Major-General the Hon. Sir Reginald Talbot, the late Lt.-Col. W. F. Bonham, and Lt.-Col. H. C. Lowther, Military Attachés.

SIR HENRY AUSTIN LEE, K.C.M.G., C.B.