Again on the 4th November:—
‘It is positively stated that on Saturday last Lord Wellington complained to the King of the mortification and ill-treatment which various Englishmen have experienced and are daily experiencing in Paris, as well as of the lack of supervision shown by the French authorities in putting an end to these dangerous aggressions. It is a fact that at the Café Tortoni, the Opera, the restaurants, and in other public places, Englishmen are constantly affronted. These disorders are attributed to a troop of half-pay officers or to some turbulent men discharged from the Guard of Honour. It seems certain, moreover, that Lord Wellington has expressly enjoined the English who are in Paris to behave very circumspectly, and not to notice provocations which might disturb the harmony necessary between the two nations.’
And on 19th December:—
‘Every day there are fresh occasions of remarking the hatred of the Parisians for the English. Yesterday at the Salon the most violent language was used respecting them, and that to their faces.’
In flat contradiction, however, to the police bulletins, Wansey describes the Parisians as glad to see English visitors once more amongst them.[282] The British milord was good-naturedly burlesqued, as Weston tells us, in a farce called La Route de Paris. A provincial innkeeper welcomes milord and miladi. His bad French and her veil excite amusement. The lord asks for beefsteak for dinner. The lady is enchanted with everything. The lord cries ‘God dem, vive la paix,’ while the lady remarks that French and English have always been near enough to shake hands. The landlord rejoices that the lily after twenty years’ preservation in an English conservatory is as flourishing as ever. Birkbeck, moreover, testifies to the welcome given to Englishmen at Montpellier, which he attributed to the kindness shown to French prisoners in England. Yet Haydon relates that on the performance of Ducis’ Hamlet at the Comédie Française, the whole pit rose and applauded a line against England, shouting ‘Bravo, à bas les Anglais,’ and pointing to the English present.
If the French authorities looked askance on English visitors, it is but fair to say that some of the latter sympathised with Napoleon. Lord and Lady Holland were doubtless among them, for Lord Holland subsequently protested against the transportation to St. Helena, and Lady Holland, as already stated, forwarded books thither to the captive. They were not likely, when in Paris, to parade their anti-Bourbon sentiments, but Hervey Montmorency Morris was less scrupulous. He, on the 19th April 1814, presented his newly born infant at the mairie of the tenth arrondissement, and gave its name as Napoleon.[283] A young Irishman named Charles Honoré Lyster, describing himself as a student, a few months later landed at Toulon from Elba, and the authorities very naturally ordered him to be watched. Lord Oxford’s papers, moreover, were seized, and Wellington acknowledged that this was justified by his conduct and conversation, and by the Bonapartist correspondence of which he had taken charge.
I have spoken of Wellington, but it should be stated that the Embassy was at first filled by Sir Charles Stuart, afterwards Lord Stuart de Rothesay. He presented his credentials to Louis XVIII. on the 22nd June, but was soon transferred to The Hague. Wellington arrived with his troops from Spain on the 7th May, but went back to Madrid to see the Spanish dynasty restored, returned to England to take his seat in the Lords as Duke, and was then appointed ambassador. He presented his credentials on the 24th August, but with much greater pomp than Stuart. Three royal carriages, each drawn by eight horses, escorted from the Embassy his three carriages, each drawn by six horses. He was accompanied by Major Fremantle and Major Percy. On reaching the foot of the throne he made a profound reverence, whereupon the King rose, then sat down again, putting on his hat and motioning to Wellington and the princes of the blood to cover also. The crowd murmured at these honours, though they were also accorded to all the other ambassadors, while the ultra-royalists professed indignation at the Duke’s fixing a ball in honour of Queen Charlotte’s birthday for the 18th January 1814, as being a date too close to the 21st, the anniversary of Louis XVI.’s execution. They were also suspicious of his intimacy with the Duke of Orleans. He paid a visit to the Abbé Sicard’s deaf and dumb boys, who were not, however, dumb, for they articulated ‘Vive notre bon roi Louis XVIII.!’ The Duchess of Wellington was presented by the King with a Sèvres dinner-service. The British Government was very uneasy lest Wellington should be ‘kidnapped’—an euphemism for being murdered—in some military rising. Anxious, therefore, for him to leave, its first idea was to send him to America to command in the short war with the United States. He himself, however, wished to remain in Paris, thinking that his departure would weaken Louis XVIII. A mission to the Vienna Congress he considered a poor pretext, but the Government persisted, though allowing him to choose his own time for departure. General Macaulay meanwhile went back to London with alarming reports. Wellington, writing to Lord Liverpool on the 23rd October, said:—
‘It appears to me that Macaulay considers the danger of a revolt more certain and more likely to occur than I do, that is to say, he believes it certainly will occur within a very short period of time. I think it may occur any night, but I know of no fact to induce me to believe it is near, excepting the general one of great discontent and almost desperation among a very daring class of men.’
Macaulay feared that the royal family would be massacred and Wellington ‘detained.’ Wellington stayed, however, till the 22nd January. Meanwhile he was besieged with all sorts of applications. Hervey Montmorency Morris asked permission to return to Ireland, promising to be a loyal subject. Wellington demurred, suggesting that in spite of his good intentions he would fall back into the company of his old associates through the disinclination of loyalists to associate with him. Morris accordingly remained in the French army, was naturalised in November 1816, and remained in France till his death in 1839.
A man designating himself representative of De Beaune, who in 1790 negotiated a loan for the three English royal dukes, also called on Wellington. He stated that the bondholders were pressing him for payment of the principal and of the twenty years’ arrears of interest. Wellington forwarded his documents to London, but nothing more is heard of the affair. Impey was there again on the same errand as in 1802, and Long, ex-president of the Irish College, went over to seek restitution; but these claims all stood over till after the Hundred Days. The Scottish College, however, was restored to its owners, and on the 13th December Robertson, bishop-coadjutor of Dublin and inventor of a process of embossing books for the blind, solemnised a Te Deum there in the presence of numerous British ecclesiastics. Quintin Craufurd likewise sent in a statement of British claims to compensation, and he obtained the restitution of eighty pictures, engravings, and sculptures confiscated in 1792.