1903
Copyright, 1903, by Charles Scribner's Sons for the United States of America
Printed by the Trow Directory, Printing and Bookbinding Company New York, U. S. A.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BY THE COLLECTOR OF THE LETTERS
Mary Alsop King Waddington is a daughter of the late Charles King, President of Columbia College in the City of New York from 1849 to 1864, and a granddaughter of Rufus King, the second Minister sent to England by the United States after the adoption of the Constitution.
Miss King was educated in this country. In 1871, after the death of her father, she went, with her mother and sisters, to live in France, and in 1874 became the wife of M. William Henry Waddington.
M. Waddington was born in Normandy, France, in 1826. His grandfather was an Englishman who had established cotton manufactories in France, and had become a naturalised French citizen. The grandson, however, was educated first in a Paris lycée, then at Rugby, and later at Trinity College, Cambridge. As an undergraduate he rowed in the Cambridge boat in the University race of 1849. Soon after leaving the University, M. Waddington returned to France and entered public life. In 1871 he was elected a representative from the Department of the Aisne to the National Assembly, and two years afterward was appointed Minister of Public Instruction in place of M. Jules Simon. In January, 1876, he was elected a senator for the Department of the Aisne, and two months later again became Minister of Public Instruction. In December, 1877, he accepted the portfolio of Minister of Foreign Affairs.