While that eccentric genius, Charles Townshend, whom no system could contain, is whirled out of existence, our more artificial meteor, Lord Chatham, seems to be wheeling back to the sphere of business—at least his health is declared to be re-established; but he has lost his adorers, the mob, and I doubt the wise men will not travel after his light.
You, my dear Sir, will be most concerned for the poor Duke of York,[1] who has ended his silly, good-humoured, troublesome career, in a piteous manner. He had come to the camp at Compiègne, without his brother's approbation, but had been received here not only with every proper mark of distinction, but with the utmost kindness. He had succeeded, too, was attentive, civil, obliging, lively, pleased, and very happy in his replies. Charmed with a Court so lively in comparison of the monastic scene at home, he had promised to return for Fontainebleau, and then scampered away as fast as he could ride or drive all round the South of France, intending to visit a lady at Genoa, with whom he was in love, whenever he had a minute's time. The Duc de Villars gave him a ball at his country-house, between Aix and Marseilles; the Duke of York danced at it all night as hard as if it made part of his road, and then in a violent sweat, and without changing his linen, got into his postchaise. At Marseilles the scene changed. He arrived in a fever, and found among his letters, which he had ordered to meet him there, one from the King his brother, forbidding him to go to Compiègne, by the advice of the Hereditary Prince. He was struck with this letter, which he had ignorantly disobeyed, and by the same ignorance had not answered. He proceeded, however, on his journey, but grew so ill that his gentlemen carried him to Monaco, where he arrived on the third, and languished with great suffering until the seventeenth. He behaved with the most perfect tranquillity and courage, made a short will, and the day before he died dictated to Colonel St. John, a letter to the King, in which he begged his forgiveness for every instance in which he had offended him, and entreated his favour to his servants. He would have particularly recommended St. John, but the young man said handsomely, "Sir, if the letter were written by your Royal Highness yourself, it would be most kind to me; but I cannot name myself." The Prince of Monaco, who happened to be on the spot, was unbounded in his attentions to him, both of care and honours; and visited him every hour till the Duke grew too weak to see him. Two days before he died the Duke sent for the Prince, and thanked him. The Prince burst into tears and could not speak, and retiring, begged the Duke's officers to prevent his being sent for again, for the shock was too great. They made as magnificent a coffin and pall for him as the time and place would admit, and in the evening of the 17th the body was embarked on board an English ship, which received the corpse with military honours, the cannon of the town saluting it with the same discharge as is paid to a Marshal of France. St. John and Morrison embarked with the body, and Colonel Wrottesley passed through here with the news. The poor lad was in tears the whole time he stayed….
[Footnote 1: The Duke of York was the King's younger brother.]
You tell me of the French playing at whist;[1] why, I found it established when I was last here. I told them they were very good to imitate us in anything, but that they had adopted the two dullest things we have, Whist and Richardson's Novels.
[Footnote 1: Walpole here speaks of whist as a game of but new introduction in Paris, though it had been for some time established with us. And the great authority on that scientific and beautiful game, the late Mr. James Clay, writing about twenty years ago, fixes "thirty or more years" before that date as the time when first "we began to hear of the great Paris players. There was," he says, "a wide difference between their system and our own," the special distinction being that "the English player of the old school never thought of winning the game until he saw that it was saved; the French player never thought of saving the game until he saw that he could not win it;" and "if forced to take his choice between these systems carried to their extremes." Mr. Clay "would, without hesitation, prefer the game of rash attack" (that is, the French system) "to that of over-cautious defence." And he assigns to a French player, M. Des Chapelles, "the credit of being the finest whist-player, beyond any comparison, the world has ever seen.">[
So you and the Pope are going to have the Emperor! Times are a little altered; no Guelphs and Ghibellines[1] now. I do not think the Caesar of the day will hold his Holiness's stirrup[2] while he mounts his palfrey. Adieu!
[Footnote 1: "Guelfs and Ghibellines." These two names were first heard in the latter part of the twelfth century, to distinguish the partisans of the Emperor and the Pope. "The Guelfs or Welfs were the ancestors of Henry the Proud, who, through his mother, represented the ancient Dukes of Saxony. The word Ghibelin is derived from Wibelung, a town in Franconia, from which the emperors of that time are said to nave sprung. The house of Swabia were considered in Germany as representing that of Franconia" (Hallam, "Middle Ages," ii. p. 101).]
[Footnote 2: "His Holiness's stirrup." This refers to the humiliation imposed on the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa by Pope Alexander III., as related by Byron in his note on "Childe Harold," c. iv. st. 12.]