Having a suitable room in my house on the Rue Gros Chenet, I conceived the idea of putting in a stage and giving plays. The spectators included all persons of distinction.

In all these gatherings I aimed at paying back the Russians and Germans in Paris a few of the favours they had so thoughtfully and amiably rendered me in their own country. Almost every day I saw Princess Dolgoruki, who had been such an angel to me in St. Petersburg. She enjoyed being in Paris very well. One evening I found the Viscount de Ségur at her house. I had often seen him before the Revolution; he was then young and fashionable, and made a thousand conquests through his personal graces. When I saw him again at the Princess's his face was expressionless and wrinkled; he wore a wig with symmetrical curls at each side, leaving his forehead bald. Another twelve years and the wig aged him so that I could barely recognise him excepting by his voice. Princess Dolgoruki came to see me the day of her presentation to Bonaparte. I asked her what she thought of the First Consul's court. "It is not a court," she replied, "but a power." The thing must of course have appeared to her in that light, being accustomed to the court of St. Petersburg, which is so large and brilliant, whereas at the Tuileries she found few women and a prodigious number of military men of all grades.

Among all the amusements that residence in Paris afforded me, I was none the less pursued by innumerable black thoughts, which assailed me even in the midst of pleasures. To put an end to such a painful state of mind, I determined to take a journey. More than once, while I was at Rome, the newspapers had had it that I was at London, but the fact was I had never seen that city. Accordingly, I resolved to go there.

CHAPTER XVI
Unmerry England

LONDON — ITS HISTORIC PILES — AND DULL SUNDAYS — AND TACITURN PEOPLE — PICTURES BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS — HIS MODESTY — HOW TO DRY PICTURES IN A DAMP CLIMATE — THE ARTISTIC VIEW OF A CERTAIN POPULAR BEAUTY — THE PRINCE OF WALES — HIS ALLEGED ATTENTIONS TO MME. LEBRUN — THE AUTHORESS LECTURES AN UNFRIENDLY CRITIC — NEWS OF ONE OF NAPOLEON'S "ATROCIOUS CRIMES."

I started for London on the 15th of April, 1802. I knew not a word of English. True, I was accompanied by an English maid, but the girl had long been serving me badly, and I was obliged to dismiss her very shortly after my arrival in London, because she did nothing but eat bread and butter all day. Luckily I had brought some one besides, a charming person to whom ill-fortune made the home she had found under my roof very precious. This was my faithful Adelaide, who lived with me on the footing of a friend, and whose attentions and counsels have always been most valuable to me.

On disembarking at Dover I was at first somewhat affrighted at the view of a whole population assembled on the shore. But I was reassured when informed that the crowd was simply composed of curious idlers, who were following their usual habits in coming down to see the travellers land.

The sun was going down. I at once hired a three-horse chaise, and made off forthwith, for I was not without apprehensions, seeing I had been told I might very likely encounter highwaymen. I took the precaution of putting my diamonds into my stockings, and was glad I had done so when I perceived two horsemen advancing toward me at a gallop. What capped the climax of my fears was to see them separate, in order—as I imagined—to present themselves at the two windows of my carriage. I confess I was seized with a violent fit of trembling, but that was the worst that happened.

Vast and handsome though London may be, that city affords less food for the artist's interest than Paris or the Italian towns. Not that you do not find a great number of rare works of art in England. But most of them are owned by wealthy private persons, whose country houses and provincial seats they adorn. At the period I mention, London had no picture gallery, that now existing being the result of legacies and gifts to the nation made within a few years. In default of pictures, I went to look at the public edifices. I returned several times to Westminster Abbey, where the tombs of the kings and queens are superb. As they belong to different ages they offer great attractions to artists and fanciers. I admired, among others, the tomb of Mary Stuart, in which the remains of that ill-fated Queen were deposited by her son, James I. I spent much time in that part of the church devoted to the sepulture of the great poets, Milton, Pope, and Chatterton. This last-named is known to have poisoned himself while dying of starvation, and I reflected that the money laid out upon rendering him these posthumous honours might have sufficed, when he was alive, to insure him comfortable days.

St. Paul's Cathedral is also very fine. Its dome is an imitation of that of St. Peter's, at Rome. At the Tower of London I saw a very interesting collection of armour, dating from the various centuries. There is a row of royal figures on horseback, among them Elizabeth, mounted on a courser and ready to review her troops. The London museum contains a collection of minerals, birds, weapons and tools from the South Sea Islands, due to the famous Captain Cook.