Looking Back

by Sir Seymour John Fortescue

Later in the year I was present at Buckingham Palace at a rather mournful little ceremony. Under the new Army Organisation Scheme, it had been decided to disband the 3rd Battalion of the Scots Guards. Naturally, the officers and men of the battalion were much distressed at their disappearance from the Army List, and, as some sort of consolation, the King took the opportunity of parading them at Buckingham Palace, so as to take leave of them, accepting, at the same time, the custody of their colours. This fine battalion paraded under the command of Colonel Lawrence Drummond, their Colonel. After the parade, the colours were handed over by the colour party to the two Equerries-in-Waiting, and by them were duly placed in the private chapel of the palace, where I have no doubt they remained until the late war, when a third battalion was reformed.

Early in 1907 I was once more in Paris in attendance on the King and Queen, who took the opportunity of paying a week’s visit to that Capital. With the exception of a luncheon with the President, there were no official functions, and for once in a way it was a real holiday for their Majesties. The King and Queen occupied the Embassy during the whole of their visit, the Ambassador and Ambassadress (then the late Sir Francis and Lady Feodorovna Bertie) taking up their residence for the time at the Hôtel Bristol.

The British Embassy in Paris is worthy of a few words of description, both on account of its historical interest and its magnificence as a residence. I question whether many of my countrymen realise what a bargain was made by the nation, when it was purchased for something under £30,000, its value before the late war being estimated at about a quarter of a million sterling. It was bought on the advice of the Duke of Wellington during the occupation of Paris by the Allies after Waterloo, and was at the time the Paris home of the Prince and Princess Borghese, the Princess being the beautiful Pauline, a sister of the great Napoleon.

It is most conveniently situated for an official residence, standing as it does, to use the French expression, “entre cour et jardin,” with its entrance on the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, only a very few hundred yards from the Palace of the Élysée, the official residence of the President of the French Republic. The garden is unusually large for a Paris house, extending its border almost to the Avenue des Champs Élysées.

The interior of the “hotel” (to again use the French term) is very magnificent, decorated profusely in the approved style of the period of its occupation by Pauline Borghese, and consequently filled with fine specimens of Empire furniture, decoration, and bibelots, extending even to a fine dinner-service of gold plate. The proportions of the great reception and dining-rooms on the ground floor are very imposing, and they contain some remarkably good specimens of mantelpieces and garnitures de cheminées of bronze and ormolu.

Just at the top of the great staircase is the small dining-room that was used by the King and Queen for private luncheons and dinners. This little room is hung with some early seventeenth-century Gobelin tapestries, which were sent over in the late Lord Bertie’s time by our Foreign Office for cleaning and restoration; at his request they were, after their treatment, allowed to remain there, and are the principal ornament of the small dining-room to this day. The State bed-rooms were, of course, occupied by the King and Queen during their visit; the larger of the two is absolutely untouched, and remains exactly as it was in Pauline Borghese’s time. The bed is a splendid specimen of Empire work, and so are the toilette tables with their hand-chased bronze medallions. The candelabra on the mantelpiece are especially beautiful, and there are interesting medallion portraits of Pauline and her husband on either side of the fire-place.

The drawing-rooms on the first floor were hung with pale amber-yellow damask, and also contained all their original Empire furniture, with beautiful candelabra and chimney-pieces. The smaller of the two in those days was used by the Ambassadress as her sitting-room, and amongst other interesting pictures there was a portrait of herself and her sister, Lady Hardwicke, as girls, (they were the daughters of the Lord Cowley who was a long time Ambassador in Paris, and I fancy that one, if not both, of the sisters was actually born at the Embassy); there was also another portrait of Lady Feodorovna Wellesley (as she was then) dressed as a bridesmaid to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, on her marriage with the Prince of Wales in 1863.

To proceed with the King and Queen’s stay in Paris:—Amongst the several theatres visited was the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, where that wonderful artist, Madame Bernhardt, was playing in a very pretty little poetical piece called Les Bouffons, and apropos of Madame Bernhardt and Les Bouffons, the conjunction of the two resulted in an extremely pleasant half-hour for me. I was sent round to see the illustrious artist in question, on the morning of the performance, to ask her to put off the hour fixed for the entertainment, to enable their Majesties, who had a dinner party, to be in time for the beginning. I had known the great Sarah in England, but very slightly, and on this occasion when I called at her house, though she evidently had risen straight from her bed to receive me, she kept me long after our business had been disposed of, gossiping, and relating all the amusing cabotinage of Paris, for, besides being a transcendent artist, she was one of the most agreeable of women.

There was a constant succession of luncheons given in honour of the distinguished visitors, but the one that remains in my memory was at the apartment of the late Sir Reginald Lister, then, as Reggie Lister, the first Secretary of the Embassy. It was quite a small party, but amongst the guests were Monsieur and Madame Jean de Reszke. Madame Jean, though nominally only an amateur, was practically a great artist, and after luncheon was over, she sang as she only could sing. She possessed one of the most lovely and sympathetic voices I have ever heard, and was, moreover, a perfectly trained musician; indeed, Jean always averred that she was a better singer than he, and I can still remember the enormous pleasure it was to listen to her. I had heard her before, at one or two of those delightful musical parties that the late Lady Ripon used so constantly to give at Coombe,—parties, the like of which I can remember in no other house, and I can never expect to experience anything comparable to them in the future. For there all the greatest artists in the world used to sing as they sang nowhere else, knowing, as they did, that in their hostess alone, to say nothing of her guests, they had the most sympathetic of audiences, and, moreover, in her, a kind and constant friend. At so many concerts where great singers give us of their art, though they cannot help singing well, there is always a feeling that they are faithfully performing a contract for which they are paid, and the contract being completed, are very pleased to have earned their money and to go home to bed. At Coombe, on the contrary, they sometimes almost fought as to who was to get to the piano, and the accompanist first. There never was such a thing as a programme; but they simply sang whatever came into their heads, or whatever they were asked for, for the popularity of that very gifted and beautiful lady in musical circles was simply boundless. I remember once seeing such artists as Destinn, Caruso, and Scotti, with Signor Ricordi at the piano, with only one book between the four of them, trying through, what was then, an unheard-of opera in London,—Madame Butterfly. Alas! that those days have gone for ever, through the untimely death of one of the kindest of my friends, and the most interesting hostess of my time.

The Paris visit being concluded, the rest of 1907, as far as my duties were concerned, was spent to a great extent on board the Royal Yacht, for in July the Royal Family once more embarked on board her at Holyhead for a visit to Ireland and Wales. After spending the night on board at Holyhead, Bangor was visited to enable the King to lay the foundation-stone of the new buildings of the University College of Wales.