[233] At the celebrated Congress of Erfurt, held in 1808, were present the Emperors Alexander and Napoleon and almost all the sovereigns of Germany. The King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria were the only crowned heads not invited to it.—T.
[234] Æneid, X. 174.—B.
[235] Marie Countess Walewice-Walewska (circa 1787-1817), née Laczinska, married, first (circa 1804), to Anastasius Colonna, Count Walewice-Walewski, who died in 1814, at the age of eighty-four; secondly, to General Philippe Antoine Comte d'Omano. She visited Napoleon at Elba on the 1st of September 1814, accompanied by a child of four or five years of age. She stayed about fifty hours; during this time the Emperor received no one, not even Madame Mère, who was then in Elba, at Marciana. But, after those fifty hours, Madame Walewska went to Longone to embark for the Continent in a gale so severe that the very sailors feared for her safety. She refused to listen to all representations. The Emperor sent an officer to delay her departure; but she was already out at sea, and Napoleon knew no peace of mind until he had received from the Countess Walewska herself news of her safe arrival. (Cf. Pons de L'Hérault, Souvenirs et anecdotes de l'île d'Elbe).—T.
[236] Alexandre Florian Joseph de Colonna, Comte, later Duc de Walewski (1810-1868), the reputed illegitimate son of Napoleon I., Minister of Foreign Affairs and, later, President of the Legislative Body under Napoleon III.—T.
[237] Antoine Francois Claude Comte Ferrand (1758-1825) was Postmaster-general. In 1816, he was created a peer of France and became a member of the French Academy. His best-known literary work is the Esprit de l'histoire in four volumes (1802), which has been many times reprinted.—T.
[238] Antoine Marie Chamans, Comte de Lavallette (1769-1830), was married to a Mademoiselle de Beauharnais, a niece of the Empress Joséphine. He had been Postmaster-general in 1814; lost that office on the return of the Bourbons, and resumed it, in 1816, on the flight of the Princes. He was tried for seconding the return of Bonaparte and sentenced to death, but made his escape from prison by the aid of his wife. Three English officers, Messrs. Hutchinson, Wilson and Bruce, assisted him across the frontier, and he took refuge in Bavaria. Lavallette was permitted to return to France in 1820, when he retired into private life.—T.
[239] The Nain jaune was a satirical Bonapartist journal, inspired by the circle of the ex-Queen Hortense, which adopted a guise of extreme Royalism. The number for the 28th of February 1815 contains a letter from a correspondent who says:
"I have worn out ten goose-quills in writing to you, without receiving a reply; perhaps I shall be luckier if I try a duck-quill" (plume de cane).
On the next day, the 1st of March, Napoleon landed at Cannes on his return from Elba.—B.
[240] Carlo Andrea Count Pozzo di Borgo (1764-1842), a native of Corsica, entered the Russian diplomatic service and took part in all the congresses of the Holy Alliance. Pozzo acted as Russian Ambassador to France from 1814 to 1835, and to England from 1835 to 1839. He spent his last years in Paris.—T.