"SPEECH OF THE KING OF FRANCE, "Delivered at the opening of the Chambers, January 31st."
Then follows a full report of the address which Charles X. had given eight weeks before.
Next we come to a piece of geographical discovery:—
"The operations of the British armies against the Burmese enable us to correct many errors and to add to our limited knowledge of the geography of the East. A short time since, we announced the important fact that a branch of the Irrawaddy had been discovered to discharge into the Bay of Bengal. This discovery has been fully confirmed, various stragglers from Sir Archibald Campbell's army at Prome having found their way to the coast in that direction, and there got on board English vessels."
The last quotation which I will make from the issue of that date refers to the "Seizure of a slave vessel in England." In it we read how "The French vessel was boarded and subsequently seized by Lieutenant Rye of the coastguard service. She was found well fitted out with all the ordinary furniture of a slave-trader, her hold adapted in the usual way to the reception of slaves. Among her other stores there were, of course, found manacles and shackles in great abundance: a long chain to confine the unfortunate creatures in gangs, with all the usual implements of negro torture that would not be understood by their names, we are happy to say, by most of our readers."
These, then, were the special plums of "Latest Intelligence" from Europe, which the twenty-year-old Manuel no doubt devoured with keenest relish on that morning eighty odd years ago.
I should like to make one more quotation from the same paper, two months later, for it gives us a glimpse of both the artistic and military doings of Europe at this time. The article in question is an appreciation of the President of the Royal Academy.
"Sir Thomas Lawrence is confessedly at the head of the English school of portrait-painters. He is about forty-seven years of age. The Kembles and Mrs Siddons have been his favourite associates. At one time he was a particular friend of the late Queen Caroline. His portraits of George IV. are excellent. In 1818 he was commissioned to visit the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle for the purpose of painting the monarchs, warriors, and statesmen of Europe. During that visit the doors of his atelier were open to his friends, and it is impossible to fancy a more interesting sight than his morning levée. The Emperors of Russia and Austria, the King of Prussia, Wellington, Richelieu, Blücher, Bernstoff, and a long train of distinguished personages, were almost always to be met there."
During the opera season of 1826 two strange events took place which Señor Garcia would recall in after-years. At the time the one filled the inhabitants of New York with the wildest excitement, the second with the deepest gloom.
On April 8—three weeks, that is to say, after the future centenarian had celebrated his twenty-first birthday—the extraordinary duel took place between John Randolph, United States Senator from Virginia, and Henry Clay, Secretary of State. The meeting was on the right bank of the Potomac within the state of Virginia, above the Little Falls Bridge—pistols, at ten paces. Each of the principals was attended by two seconds and a surgeon, while Senator Benton was present as a mutual friend. Needless to say, it ended in the way which was to become so fashionable among French duellists in later years. The daring combatants escaped scatheless and shook hands,—the gentlemanly Anglo-Saxon alternative for each rushing into the other's arms with a wild cry of "Mon ami! mon ami!" and saluting his late adversary with an affectionate kiss on either cheek.