One would gladly have heard something of the latter days of Omai, and can only hope that his state of semi-civilization did not make him discontented, with his life in Otaheite, or obnoxious to its inhabitants. If, as is most probable, the terrible details of his benefactor’s murder ever reached him, the grateful heart of Omai must have been wrung with sorrow.
Count Walewski.
Born, 1801. Died, 1868.—He was the son of the Emperor Napoleon I., by a Polish lady of rank. When only nineteen he went on a diplomatic mission to London, to plead the cause of Poland, having inherited from his mother, an enthusiastic love for her country. Charles Greville says in his Diary, that “his agreeable manners and remarkable beauty made him welcome in society;” and in 1831, he married Lady Caroline Montagu, sister to the Earl of Sandwich. He served for a time, under the Polish flag; was present at the Battle of Grokow, and was decorated with the National Military Cross. He afterwards obtained a commission in a regiment of French Hussars, but before long he laid down the sword to take up the pen. Among his past publications was “Un mot sur la question d’Afrique, et de l’alliance Anglaise.” He became the editor of the Messager, and wrote a five-act comedy, called “L’Ecole du Monde,” which was put on the stage in 1840.
He resumed his diplomatic career in the same year, and was sent to Egypt under the ministry of Thiers; he also held several appointments under Guizot.
When Louis Napoleon became President, Walewski attached himself to his cause. In 1849, he went as minister to Florence, and Naples, and in 1854, he came as Ambassador to England, but was recalled to Paris, the ensuing year, to take the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, vacant by the resignation of M. Drouyn de l’Huys. In this post his connection with, and knowledge of, England, made him instrumental in cementing the alliance of the two nations. In 1856, he presided as French Plenipotentiary over the Congress of Paris. In 1860, he resigned his post, but was again employed as successor to M. Fould. In 1863, he retired from public life, it was supposed on account of his strong Polish tendencies. He had the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, and other decorations.
He married as his second wife the grand-daughter of Stanislaus Poniatowski, nephew to the last King of Poland. To France and its Emperor, he was an irreparable loss.