There were philosophers and historians such as Sir James Mackintosh, who was anxious to explore the French archives, taking ten copyists with him; but these formidable preparations not unnaturally occasioned obstruction from a suspicious curator, Hauterive,[274] so that Wellington had to urge that no mischief could result from the disclosure of political secrets half a century old. Mackintosh’s son-in-law, Claudius James Rich, the traveller, accompanied him, and the transcripts then made are now in the British Museum. They are limited to the times of the Stuarts.
Archibald Alison, the future historian, accompanied by a fellow Scot and fellow historian, Patrick Fraser Tytler, also went in May 1814, returning by Flanders. It is not clear from their joint narrative whether both or Tytler alone went in the autumn to Aix, staying till the eve of Napoleon’s return.
There were three poets, Rogers, Moore, and Campbell, the last stopping at Rouen to see his brother Daniel, from whom he had parted at Hamburg in 1800. Mrs. Siddons took over her daughter Cecily, who did not continue her mother’s fame, but married a Scottish lawyer, George Combe. Kemble escorted her, with Mrs. Twiss, whose brother-in-law Richard had seen Paris in 1792. There was Mrs. Damer, the artist, of whom we have already heard and shall hear again. There was the more eminent sculptor Chantrey, who made the acquaintance of Canova. There was Curran, who had just resigned his judgeship, and Serjeant Best, not yet a judge. The Duke of Sussex had given Curran an introduction to the future Charles X. Everything he heard intensified his hatred of Napoleon.[275] There were military men like General Ramsay, Bruce, destined to assist in the escape of Lavalette, and Lord Cathcart, who had taken part in the expedition to Copenhagen and was subsequently Ambassador to St. Petersburg. Madame Junot, in whose house Cathcart was quartered, and who speaks highly of his courtesy, had also to receive Lord and Lady Cole, who sent for Eliza Bathurst. She was the handsome daughter of the diplomatist who so mysteriously disappeared. Another military visitor was Colonel William Carmichael Smyth, who had accompanied his father in 1802; but Count Nugent, though born in Ireland, was an Austrian officer. The Navy was represented by Sir Sidney Smith, who was bound for the Congress of Vienna to plead for the reinstatement of Gustavus IV. on the throne of Sweden. He also advocated an international expedition against the piratical Dey of Algiers, of which he would himself have taken the command. Nothing came of either scheme, but he got up a subscription dinner, attended by royal and other celebrities, the proceeds of which were devoted to the redemption of prisoners in Algiers. Science was represented by a Scottish professor, John (afterwards Sir John) Leslie, an Edinburgh Reviewer and eminent mathematician, who formed the habit of paying yearly visits to the Continent. There were philanthropists like Clarkson, who, as on his visit in 1789, was eager to obtain the consent of the new French Government to the abolition of the slave-trade, while Wilberforce and Zachary Macaulay, the historian’s father, were interesting themselves at home in the same cause, the latter sending over, or taking advantage of the presence of, his brother General Macaulay. Clarkson found sympathy from Lafayette, Bishop Grégoire, and Madame de Staël. The antiquary and connoisseur, James Millingen, passed through Paris on his way to or from Florence, as also William Stewart Rose, translator of Ariosto, friend of Ugo Foscolo, Walter Scott, and the Countess of Albany. He was destined to find a wife at Venice. There were painters like Stothard, Wilkie, and Haydon, to the last of whom we are indebted for the liveliest account of Paris, though this, like the rest of his journal, was not published till after his tragical death. He represents Wilkie as constantly exclaiming, ‘What a fool Napoleon was to lose such a country! dear, dear!’ Both Wilkie and Haydon sang ‘God save the King’ in the streets of Rouen, to the amazement or amusement of the townsmen, one of whom said they were English milords. In Paris Wilkie tried to sell his prints, and had frequent disputes at restaurants about change. Another note-taker was Thomas Raikes, brother of the founder of Sunday-schools, but unfortunately his diary does not begin till 1832. A third diarist was Henry Crabb Robinson, to whom street urchins at Dieppe shouted ‘Be off!’ and who in a Rouen theatre heard a line against England applauded. He spent five weeks in Paris without a moment’s ennui, yet left it without a moment’s regret, travelling to Boulogne in company with Copleston, ‘a very sensible, well-informed clergyman,’ just elected Provost of Oriel at Oxford, and destined to be Bishop of Llandaff. Stephen Weston and William Shepherd went doubtless with the intention of again reporting their adventures. William D. Fellowes found material for one of his books, and on another visit in 1817 he visited the old monastery of La Trappe. There were agriculturists like Morris Birkbeck of Wanborough. There were doctors like Hume, chief physician to the army, and Williams the oculist.
Among the aristocratic visitors were Viscount Ponsonby, afterwards Ambassador to Constantinople and Vienna, and the Duke and Duchess of Rutland, parents of the present Duke of Rutland, the Duke publishing his fortnight’s journal and receiving many attentions from Count Dillon. There were also the Earl of Charlemont, the Earl of Bradford, Lord Forbes, Lord Lucan, the Earl of Oxford, Lord Kinnaird, Lady Aldborough (who remained till after Waterloo), the Marquis and Marchioness of Lansdowne, the Marquis of Downshire, Lord Ilchester, Lord Hill, the Marquis and Marchioness of Bath, the Earl and Countess of Hardwicke, Lord and Lady Coventry, the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, Lord Binning (afterwards Earl of Haddington), Lord Compton, the Marquis of Exeter, Lord and Lady Ranelagh, the Duke of Portland, Lord Gosford, Lord Trimleston, the Earl and Countess Darnley, the Duke of Devonshire, his stepmother, Lord and Lady Morpeth, Lord Geo. Leveson-Gower, Sir John Sebright, M.P. for Hertfordshire, Lord Sunderland, grandson of the Duke of Marlborough, Sir John and Lady Stepney, Lady Augusta Cotton, Lord and Lady Holland, the Earl of Clare, Lord Carington, Lord Brownlow, Lady Bentinck, the notorious Lady Hamilton, the aged Duchess of Melfort with her son, the Marquis of Aylesbury, Lord Miltown, who, paralysed in his legs from childhood, went about in a chair, William Henry (afterwards Lord) Lyttelton, Lord Burghersh (as Earl of Westmorland he became a diplomatist), Lord Apsley, son and heir of Earl Bathurst, the Earl of Essex,[276] Sir John and Lady Knatchbull, Sir W. Clayton, Bagot (afterwards Sir Charles), and the Marquis of Clanricarde, who married Canning’s daughter, was famous for gymnastic feats, and was afterwards Ambassador to Russia, Postmaster-General, and Lord Privy Seal. Edward John Littleton, M.P. for Staffordshire, a classical scholar, was accompanied by his handsome wife, Hyacinth Mary, natural daughter of the Marquis Wellesley, but recognised by the Wellesley family. Lady Priscilla Wellesley, daughter of the Earl of Mornington, another but legitimate niece of Wellington, just of age and destined to be Lady Burghersh and Countess of Westmorland, was in time to see d’Artois enter Paris. She survived till 1879.[277] Lord Fitzroy Somerset, son of the Duke of Beaufort, in 1852 became Lord Raglan and was destined to die before Sebastapol. He married in August 1814 Wellington’s other favourite niece, Lady Emily Wellesley. The Earl of Harrowby was accompanied by Wellesley Pole and Gerald Wellesley, son of Sir Henry and afterwards Prebendary of Durham. Lord Aberdeen, Ambassador at Vienna, who had accompanied the Austrian army in its march into France, was one of the English diplomatists who signed the Treaty of Paris of May 1814. John William Ward, afterwards Viscount and Earl of Dudley, a contributor to the Quarterly and M.P. for Ilchester, was also in Paris on his way to Italy. He rated Napoleon above Alexander and Cæsar. Ward’s travelling companion from Calais was General Montagu Mathew, M.P. for Tipperary, brother of the Earl of Landaff and a strenuous advocate of Catholic Emancipation. Thompson, M.P. for Midhurst—it is not clear whether he was the ex-M.P. for Evesham, a captive in 1803—was second on the 9th February 1815 in a bloodless duel between Colonels Quentin and Palmer, the latter firing in the air after his antagonist had fired and missed.
We should not omit among the visitors Anne Perry, the wife of James Perry of the Morning Chronicle. Perry himself had spent a year in Paris in 1792, sending of course letters to his paper, and he may be regarded as the earliest of Paris correspondents. He had, moreover, for the previous twelve months obtained the services of a French barrister named Sanchamau, the translator of several English works. Sanchamau at first found a seat on sufferance in the Assembly, in the gallery allotted to the suppléants, that is to say, the men destined to fill up vacancies from death or other causes; but he applied on the 22nd January 1792 for a permanent seat in the new journalists’ gallery.[278] To return to Perry’s wife, she was captured by Algerian pirates on her way home from Lisbon, and although soon released, captivity and seventeen weeks of a boisterous sea aggravated her already precarious health. She expired at Bordeaux in February 1815, at the age of thirty-eight. We do not hear whether her husband attended her deathbed.
Even London shopkeepers went over for a week. John Scott, editor of the Champion, encountered one full of anti-French prejudices, ignorant of the language, unprovided even with a passport, and equipped only with Bank of England notes.[279]
To accommodate the visitors, an Anglican service was held in a chapel of the Protestant Oratoire, probably the upper room which was hired from about 1860 to 1885 by the Church of Scotland, and Galignani’s Messenger was started, an edition of which, after Waterloo and during the stay of the British garrison, was published at Cambrai.
‘The English at that time,’ says Madame de Chastenay, ‘almost did us the honours of Paris’; that is to say, they seemed hosts rather than guests, and after the first ball both sexes discarded their eccentric costumes. Yet they did not find themselves altogether welcome. The middle classes feared an English monopoly of trade, returned prisoners told stories of ill-treatment in England, and the populace resented the arrogance of conquerors. Miss Anne Carter must have been strangely mistaken in writing to her sister, ‘It is impossible to describe the enthusiasm with which we are everywhere received as English.’[280] Thomas Campbell, on the other hand, had been hooted at Dieppe, which he found incensed against the English, yet he does not speak of any incivility in Paris, where he danced attendance for nearly two months on Mrs. Siddons.[281]
A confidential police bulletin of the 17th October 1814 says:—
‘The attention of the police has been called to the multitude of English who inundate Paris, and whose obscure station occasions uneasiness as to their destination and intentions. It is remembered on this point that after the Treaty of Amiens the French Government made an official complaint that the London police had vomited (sic) six or seven hundred persons, the scum of England, who secretly influenced trade, public opinion, and police. We see collected here a number of disreputable people who appear to be without means of subsistence, and whose arrival from England seems an enigma.’