Private events, however, distracted the attention and gave employment to the pen of Mrs Stanhope during the year which followed. The health of her husband was gradually declining. He was under the necessity of renouncing his seat in Parliament, where he had respectively represented Haslemere, Carlisle and Hull during a space of nearly forty years. Deprived of the work which for so long a period had completely absorbed his thoughts and energies, his spirits flagged. The vivacity, the wit for which he had been noted deserted him and he sank gradually into a mental lethargy which, as his malady increased, at times almost amounted to torpor, but alternated with a restlessness and irritation of the nerves very distressing to witness. In order to divert his attention from the life with which he could no longer mingle, it was decided that novelty of scene might have a beneficial result. His family therefore proceeded to travel, but that the liveliness of his daughters was undiminished and their taste for society as keen, appears by a letter written by Marianne from Tunbridge Wells to her brother John in Yorkshire.
TUNBRIDGE WELLS, October 2nd, 1816.
We do not think that your Doncaster Belles sounded very captivating. I think I could have shown you at one glance a better show on the Pantiles yesterday—the beauties who turned out with a bright gleam after a horrid morning. To begin with the greatest, Miss Eden looked magnificent, and is pronounced very agreeable. With her was Lord Auckland's sister, extremely pretty and elegant, quite a Lucile, then Miss Bruce, smart, with well made boots, and Miss Anstruther who, perhaps, would be least thought of and attract the most. After leaving there I met the Douglases—Miss D. looking as if her blood did not circulate and Caroline as if she wished to be civil but found it inconvenient….
Should you have to write to Murray, tell him to send to Grosvenor Square the second part of "Childe Harold," and also the new novel by the "Author of Waverley."
In the ensuing year Frances Stanhope was taken to Court by her mother. Tall, graceful, and with a dazzling complexion, her beauty was singularly striking, and she used to relate that when she was presented to the Regent, H.R.H., who always distinguished between the pretty débutantes and the plain, graciously honoured her by bestowing upon her two resounding kisses on each cheek. Not long after this auspicious entry into society, however, her mother decided that a couple of years spent on the Continent might be equally advantageous to the health of Walter Stanhope and to the education of his children. The family therefore migrated to Paris, where everything at this date was in a curious state of transition. With Napoleon far away at St Helena, Louis XVIII. was firmly established on the Throne of his ancestors, and France was endeavouring to recover something of her pristine gaiety. Sir Charles Stuart was now Ambassador at the French Court; many English were in Paris, and like a fresh act of a Play wherein the various dramatis personae, moved by a common impulse, translate themselves en masse to a fresh locality, so the Stanhopes appear, in the midst of their new surroundings, to have found themselves encircled by their former friends.
Marianne Spencer-Stanhope to John Spencer-Stanhope.
35 RUE DE LA MADELEINE, February 7th, 1818.
I will not lose the opportunity of sending you a letter by Lady
Crompton, who goes to England in two days.
Mrs Beaumont, her two daughters and Wentworth are here, very grand and gay, talking of giving two grand balls; she is of course the first everywhere.
Mamma, Frances, Isabella and Edward were at Sir C. Stuart's Costume Ball, which was a most beautiful sight, and the whole thing went off with great éclat. Frances went as a Paysanne de Mola, near Naples; her dress was a short petticoat, trimmed with green and gold, a green apron, and black, green and gold bodice, and a roll of the same colours round her head. It was very becoming to her and she looked very grand. In Paris she is known everywhere as la belle Anglaise. Isabella was a most airy Coquette, in blue and silver, with a cap of little bells on one side, and long tresses of hair plaited with blue— she really looked beautiful. It is the dress of Belle et Bonne in some Play. Mamma and Edward were both in blue dominoes.
Last night we were at an enormous ball at M. Clarmont's, one of Lafitte's houses; the heat exceeded anything I ever felt. It was said 1200 people were asked, of all kinds and degrees. It was very disagreeable.