Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume I

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Lever Charles James. Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume I

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

THE PASS OF THE ARLBERG

CHAPTER XII

HANS JÖRGLE

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I must leave Paris at once. The weather is intolerably hot; the leaves that were green ten days ago already are shewing symptoms of the sear and yellow. Is it in compliment to the august inhabitant of the palace that the garden is so empressé to turn its coat? Shame on my ingratitude to say so! for I find that his Majesty has sent me a card of invitation to dine on Friday next. Another reason for a hurried departure! Of all moderate endurances, I know of none to compare with a dinner at the Tuileries. “Stay! – halt!” cries Memory; “I’ll tell you of one worse again – a dinner at Neuilly!”

The former is sure to include a certain number of distinguished and remarkable men, who, even under the chill and restraint of a royal entertainment, venture now and then on some few words that supply the void where conversation should be. At Neuilly it is strictly a family party, where, whatever ease may be felt by the illustrious hosts, the guests have none of it. Juvenal quaintly asks, If that can be a battle where you strike and I am beaten? so one is tempted to inquire, If that can be called society where a royal personage talks rapidly for hours, and the listener must not even look dissent? The King of the French is unquestionably a great man, but not greater in any thing than in the complete mystification in which he has succeeded in enveloping his real character, mingling up together elements so strange, so incongruous, and seemingly inconsistent, that the actual direction or object of any political move he has ever made, will always bear a double appreciation. The haughty monarch is the citizen king; the wily and secret politician, the most free-spoken and candid of men: the most cautious in an intrigue, the very rashest in action. How is it possible to divine the meaning, or guess the wishes, of one whose nature seems so Protean?

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“I believe not, your Majesty. Beauclerc has behaved very well since it happened; he has not left the Marquis for a moment, and has, they say, asked pardon most humbly for his offence, which was, indeed, a very gross neglect of the Marchesa no husband could pardon.”

“So I heard,” said the King, yawning. “The Marquis is very tiresome, and a great bore: but, for all that, he is a man of spirit; and I am glad he has shewn this young foreigner that Italian honour cannot be outraged with impunity!”

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