A THEATRICAL BETISE.

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Mars in the second. I admire Talma and Mademoiselle Mars exceedingly. The company produced a fine effect. The Maréchaux de France had seats on the left hand of the Royal Family, as also had the Ambassadors and their suites; the ladies being on the right hand. There were also upper boxes in which the company were dressed, but not in court dresses. The pit full of gentlemen with swords and bags, or uniforms.

25th. I dined at the Ambassador's, and found everybody much annoyed at the allusions to England in "Adélaïde du Guesclin." It was certainly an ill-chosen play, but I have since heard that it was selected by the actors. In the evening I went to a ball at the Duke of Wellington's, where Monsieur, the Duke d'Angoulême, and the Duke and Duchess de Berri made their appearance and danced-Monsieur excepted. On my return home I heard that some confusion had been occasioned

And not without reason, as the following extracts will show. It must be remembered, too, that the Duke of Wellington and many of the Waterloo heroes were in the house by special invitation :

"Je prévois que bientôt cette guerre fatale,

Ces troubles intestins de la maison royale,

Ces tristes factions cèderont au danger

D'abandonner la France au fils de l'étranger.

Je vois que de l'Anglais la race est peu chérie,

Que leur joug est pesant! qu'on n'aime leur patrie.

n'acceptera pour maître, L'allié des Anglais, quelque grand qu'il puisse être.

.... Je ne veux pas que l'Anglais en ces lieux,

Protecteur insolent, commande sous

mes yeux;

Les Anglais avec moi pourraient mal s'accorder,

Jusqu'au dernier moment je veux seul commander," &c. &c.

by a cartridge having been thrown into the kitchen window. Colonel Fremantle and another officer went down and extinguished the fire, but it gave rise to some conversation next day, though not so much as the allusions to England at the theatre.

STATE OF THE COUNTRY.

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CHAPTER VI.

RETURN TO ENGLAND MEETING WITH THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTEFRANCE UNDER THE BOURBONS-PARISIAN SOCIETY.

[ON the 29th of June, Miss Knight left Paris and travelled by way of St. Germain and Mantes to Rouen, and so on to Dieppe, whence she crossed over to Brighton, and arrived in London on the 3rd of July.]

JOURNAL CONTINUED.

July 4th, 1816.-The weather so cold and uncomfortable that I was obliged to have a fire. London is still full, but growing thinner. The state of the country is rather alarming, owing to the riots and the general discontent.

5th. There has been a great bankruptcy in London. Ministers have sent to stop deputations from Manchester and Birmingham which were

coming to the Regent. He has a levee to-day. In the evening I wrote a note to Princess Charlotte to inform her of my arrival in England, and to inquire when I might see her. I had a kind answer in return, desiring to see me next day between one and two.

6th. I went to Princess Charlotte's,* whom I found sitting to Hayter, the miniature painter. He remained during the whole of the time I was there, which was an hour and a half, as he was told that Prince Leopold wished to see him before he left. She appeared agitated, but was friendly as usual. Prince Leopold came in to look at the picture, and announced the weather being fine and the curricle ready, on which I took my leave. He was civil.

11th.-A person called on me who has the means of knowing many things relative to the affairs of Princess Charlotte, and told me the Regent and the Queen had opened their eyes with respect to myself, and were now persuaded that my conduct had been such as they could not think injurious to themselves. It is probable they knew who was the mischief-maker.

12th. In the morning I saw Princess Charlotte, who gave me a print of Prince Leopold. She was very cordial, but, I believe, sees very few people. Hayter was there, and Prince Leopold came in to

Then residing at Camelford House.

SHERIDAN'S FUNERAL.

113

sit for his picture. Not having been very well, she is not going to the grand ball given by the Regent this evening.

13th. The Duke of Sussex called on me early, as he was going to Sheridan's funeral.* He said the Prince Regent was moving everything to get a divorce. This I had heard from various people, as also that Lord Exmouth was to be an informer.

22nd. Having received accounts of the death of Vittoria Ruffo, eldest daughter of Prince Castelcicala, I returned to town from Rochetts for the purpose of seeing her afflicted parents. She was accomplished and sensible, and most useful in her own family, and her loss must be felt by all who knew her. When I arrived, I found they were not yet in Town, as she is not to be buried till to-morrow morning.

At nine in the evening the guns fired for Princess Mary's marriage with the Duke of Gloucester. 25th.-I saw Princess Charlotte; her husband,

*The Dukes of York and Sussex were chief mourners, while the pall was supported by the Dukes of Bedford and Argyle, the Earl of Lauderdale, Lords Mulgrave and Holland, and the Bishop of London. "The coffin," says a writer in the Universal Review for January, 1860, "was borne to its resting-place in Westminster Abbey by a crowd of titled and illustrious mourners, whose homage to departed genius offered rather a suggestive contrast to their late neglect of its living owner:

'How proud they can press to the funeral array

Of him whom they shunned in his sickness and sorrow.' No circumstance of splendid woe was wanting to the burial of him whose last illness had been embittered by the falling away of friends, and the growing pressure of pecuniary troubles, and whose last hours were passed under his own roof only through the kindness or calculating fears of a sheriff's officer."