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 FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS 
 OF A DIPLOMATIST
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF A 
 DIPLOMATIST 
 
 1849-1873 
 
 In Two Vols. Demy 8vo, 25s. nett.
 
 FURTHER 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF 
 A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 SIR HORACE RUMBOLD, Bart., G.C.B., G.C.M.G. 
 
 SOMETIME H.M. AMBASSADOR AT VIENNA 
 
 LONDON 
 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 i3ublial)fT to tljr Entna ©ffict 
 »903 

 
 PREFACE 
 
 The favourable reception accorded to the first 
 portion of these Recollections has encouraged 
 me to take them up attain where I left them in 
 the spring of 1873. The present third volume, 
 which covers a further period of twelve years of 
 a somewhat varied career, may, I hope, prove 
 acceptable to readers who took a kind interest 
 in the earlier part of this life history. 
 
 A • ■ •, 1903.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGH 
 
 I. ON THE WAY TO SAXT1AOO DE CHILE i 
 
 II. SANTIAGO DE CHILE 
 
 III. LIFE IN CHILE 
 
 IV. THE "TACNA" AFFAIR 
 
 V. HOME AGAIN . 
 
 19 
 39 
 60 
 
 S3 
 
 VI. LONDON EN 1877-1S78 95 
 
 VII. COUNTRY VISITS, jSyy-iSyS . . .113 
 
 VIII. BERNE AGAIN, 1878 147 
 
 IX. BERNE AND LONDON, 1879 . . .173 
 
 x. London and BUENOS AYRES, 1880-1881 193 
 
 XI sTi K'KIIOLM, 1881-18 8a 228 
 
 Xll STOCK BOLM, 1882 1883 267 
 
 XIII. STOCKHOLM, 1883-1884 301 
 
 XIV. OHBISTIANLA AND STOCKHOLM, 1884-1885 324 
 
 INDEX 
 
 349
 
 FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS 
 OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ON THE WAY TO SANTIAGO DE CHILE 
 
 " Dklikve me," said, or rather sputtered out, the 
 kind-hearted Hammond 1 — quite the most invaluable 
 but worst mannered of officials — " believe me, the 
 best thing you can do is to make up your mind to 
 go out there. It will be a complete change, and 
 be good for you in every way." 
 
 Tli is was when I called at the Foreign Office on 
 my return from Nice, and there was so much wisdom 
 in the certainly well-meant counsel, that I deter- 
 mined to face the many difficulties of a removal to 
 
 
 
 so great a distance with three children, the eldest of 
 whom was only four years old. Most fortunately, 
 I felt that I could entirely rely on their head-nurse, 
 who proved a thoroughly devoted, capable creature, 
 
 and, with the help of an intelligent German nursery - 
 
 maid, took the best possible oare of her small 
 
 1 Afterwardi Lord Sammond, and for many yean Permanent 
 rjnder-Se retary of State at the Foreign Office, lit- retired on a 
 ; 1873, aii'l irai lucceeded by Lord Tenterden. 
 
 A
 
 2 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 charges. I secured, too, the services of a competent 
 man-servant, of the name of Dinsmore, who came to 
 me from our Embassy at Berlin, and thus knew some- 
 thing of the requirements of a Legation abroad. 
 
 No regular diplomatic staff being allowed to the 
 Minister at Santiago, Lord Granville considerately 
 left at my free disposal the nomination to the so- 
 called Clerkship to the Legation — a place that 
 carried with it a salary of ^250 a year, and was, 
 therefore, equivalent as regards pay to a Second 
 Secretaryship in the Service. At the suggestion of 
 my good friend Edwin Egerton I offered this ap- 
 pointment to a connection of his, young Granville 
 Milner, brother of Sir William Milner of Nun- 
 appleton, and, during the two years and a half he 
 lived with me as my Private Secretary, could not 
 have had a more pleasant, congenial companion. 
 
 I speedily completed my arrangements, and, 
 after allowing for travelling expenses to my des- 
 tination, found that only a small proportion of the 
 ^800 granted me as outfit remained available for the 
 furniture and other things in the way of equipment 
 I was recommended to take out with me. I mention 
 this advisedly, because an experience acquired in 
 the many shiftings I have undergone from post to 
 post enables me to speak with some confidence on 
 the subject. It is unduly inconsiderate, it seems to 
 me, that the hard and fast rule by which travelling 
 expenses have to be defrayed out of the so-called 
 outfit allowance should be applied to Ministers
 
 "OUTFIT ALLOWANCES" 3 
 
 named to the most distant countries, as it was in my 
 case. Under this rule I had to find my way to the 
 antipodes, at very heavy cost, with my family and 
 household, in the same manner as would a full 
 Envoy, with a much larger salary and outfit, simply 
 bound to some European Court within an easy 
 journey from London. The question of outfit 
 allowances, about which much more might be said, 
 requires complete revision in my opinion. As re- 
 gards remote posts, entailing long and expensive 
 journeys, the regulations — still, I believe, in force — 
 are decidedly inequitable, and render the benefits 
 of the outfit simply illusory. As a matter of fact, 
 two-thirds of my allowance under this head were 
 absorbed by passage-money and freight on heavy 
 luggage. 
 
 I kissed hands, on my appointment, at Windsor, 
 on the 27th of May, staying for that occasion at the 
 Deanery with the kind old Dean and Lily Wellesley 
 — in all her beauty in those days — and sailed from 
 Southampton on the 17th of June in the Royal Mail 
 s.s. Moselle. A few days only before leaving 
 I'.iiLrland I had been on a visit to the Edward Sar- 
 tori^es at their charming home at Warsash over- 
 looking the Southampton Water. It was the last 
 occasion on which I saw that exceptionally gifted 
 being, Adelaide Sartoris, 1 whose guest I had often 
 been in old days at 1ht pleasant house in St. James's 
 
 1 Mr-. Bartorii died al Wartiah, august 4, 18791 after :i lingering
 
 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Place, where one met some of the most accomplished 
 and agreeable people in London. Here I first 
 became acquainted with Frederic Leighton, while 
 Henry Greville, Hamilton Aide, Frank Courtenay 
 (the would-be imitator of Rubini), 1 and all the sym- 
 pathique Barrington connection were constantly to 
 be found there. Staying at Warsash there was a 
 charming Miss Gordon, sister of Henry Evans 
 Gordon, who sang delightfully. We did some 
 music with her and her hostess, who put into all she 
 attempted a fire that was quite her own, and still 
 fully justified that crabbed musical critic Chorley's 
 judgment of her that she was the greatest English 
 singer of the century. In the course of this visit, 
 when I had been speaking to her one day in a some- 
 what desponding mood of the lonely prospect before 
 me, she once more recited to me, with that deep, 
 impassioned voice of hers, a splendid sonnet by 
 Tennyson which I had already heard from her a 
 good many years before, but now wrote down under 
 her dictation. It is so little known — having only 
 appeared in Friendship's Offering for 1832, and 
 having never, I believe, been republished — that I 
 may perhaps transcribe it here : — 
 
 1 Courtenay, who had been Private Secretary to one of the 
 Governors-General of India — Lord Dalhousie, I think — had a fairly 
 good tenor voice, which he had cultivated to the highest pitch, and he 
 certainly sang some of Rubini's stock pieces, like the great air in 
 " Niobe," with much effect. He was not a little proud of this accom- 
 plishment, and was fond of recounting a visit he had paid to the 
 widow of the greatest of tenors, when, being pressed by her to sing 
 something, an old female servant interrupted the performance by- 
 rushing in with the exclamation : " E la voce del defunto padrone ! "
 
 A SONNET BY TENNYSON 5 
 
 Me mine own fate to lusting sorrow doometh ; 
 Thy woes are birds of passage, transitory. 
 Thy spirit, circled with a living glory, 
 In summer still a summer joy resumoth. 
 Alone my hopeless melancholy gloometh, 
 Like a lone cypress through the twilight hoary, 
 In some old garden where no flower bloometh — 
 One cypres- on an inland promontory. 
 And yet my lonely spirit follows thine, 
 As, round the rolling earth, night follows day. 
 And yet thy lights on my horizon shine, 
 Into my night, when thou art far away — 
 I am so dark, alas ! And thou so bright, 
 When we two meet, there's never perfect light. 
 
 After the great Laureate's death I obtained the 
 present Lord Tennyson's leave to reprint this sonnet 
 in Notes and Queries} 
 
 "When 1 left Warsash its inmates had promised 
 to watch for the steamer that was to take me and 
 my belongings away, and standing on her deck in 
 perfect weather I strained my eyes for a last look 
 at the hospitable house where I had been so kindly 
 entertained. As it happened, I was never to see its 
 gifted mistress again. 
 
 We carried the lovely weather with us right 
 across into the heat and glare of the tropics. There 
 were relatively few passengers on board, and the 
 roomy Moselle was unusually quiet and comfortable. 
 Under such conditions there is nothing more sooth- 
 ing and restful than a long sea-voyage. The only 
 fellow-traveller I can distinctly recall to mind was a 
 Chief-Justice going out to Trinidad; a very pleasant, 
 1 Nairn an t , fcth series, vol. [L, November 5, 1S92.
 
 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 cultivated man, who had lived a good deal abroad — 
 chiefly in France — and to whom I was induced to show 
 my first recollections, then very much in the rough, 
 of society at Paris in the days of Louis-Philippe. 
 He was so civil and encouraging about them that a 
 small niche in these pages seems only his due, though 
 for the life of me I cannot remember his name. 
 
 On the ist of July I had my first view of the 
 West Indies at Barbados, where Milnerand I landed 
 and spent part of the day. It looked very trim and 
 prosperous then, though no doubt it must now to 
 some extent share in the general depression that 
 affects these once most valuable of our colonial pos- 
 sessions. Two days later we touched at St. Thomas, 
 where I visited my brother Arthur's grave and made 
 arrangements for its being put in proper order with 
 the Consul, William Giffard Palgrave, whose guest 
 I was for the day. Palgrave was a man of brilliant 
 gifts, who had gone through romantic and indeed 
 unique vicissitudes. He had made the most perilous 
 and astounding of journeys through Central Arabia; 
 had for a time been a missionary affiliated to the 
 Jesuit order in the East ; later on became the con- 
 fidential agent of Napoleon III. in Syria and Arabia, 
 and was besides the ablest of writers and most ac- 
 complished of linguists. It was strange, and indeed 
 saddening, to find such a man stranded, as it were, 
 at the Consulate * in this commonplace Danish 
 
 1 Mr. Palgrave was afterwards appointed Agent and Consul-General 
 in Siam ; and thence sent as Minister Resident to Monte Video, where 
 he died, in 1884.
 
 COLON. A SAD VIGIL 7 
 
 possession — a sort of maritime Crewe or Rugby, 
 whose only raison cFStre is its being the converg- 
 ing point for the different lines of steamers that 
 furrow these West Indian waters. It reminded 
 me in a way of poor Lever eating his heart out 
 at Trieste. 
 
 We touched at Jacmel in Haiti, and spent half a 
 day coaling at Kingston in Jamaica, which gave us 
 time for a drive sufficiently far inland to get some 
 idea of the beauties of the approach to the Blue 
 Mountains. From Kingston we shaped our course 
 for Colon, or Aspinwall — the terminus of the rail- 
 road across the Isthmus — reaching that Heaven- 
 forsaken spot in the afternoon of the 8th. The heat 
 here was very great, and I spent the best part of 
 my last night on the Moselle on deck, the tempera- 
 ture below being almost unbearable. At some 
 distance from us lay an American liner, with her 
 steam up, about to start on her way back to the 
 States. Till quite late in the evening her passengers 
 amused themselves singing, with great perfection, 
 some of those simple old plantation part-songs, 
 which one never hears now it seems to me. Borne 
 across the water, through the close, tropical dark- 
 ness, these strangely thrilling, pathetic melodies, 
 which I knew but too well, brought back the past 
 with such (over that I count this vigil at Colon 
 in tome ways among the saddest of my life. 
 
 The run across the Isthmus through scenery of 
 no marked character disappointed me on the whole.
 
 8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 We reached Panama — which struck me by its 
 general air of decay and dreariness — about mid-day, 
 but made no stay there, being taken almost immedi- 
 ately, by the courtesy of the Pacific Company's agent, 
 on board the steamer that was to convey us down 
 the West Coast. We thus had the ship entirely to 
 ourselves until the next day, when the rest of the 
 passengers — an uninteresting lot — joined us. Un- 
 fortunately, my halt at Panama was, however brief, 
 long enough to produce disastrous and lasting con- 
 sequences. In the stifling heat what could be more 
 grateful than to have one's hair trimmed and well 
 shampooed after three weeks on board ship in the 
 tropics? Accordingly, Milner and I were directed 
 to a decent-looking salon de coiffure on the Plaza 
 close to the hotel, where our wants were satisfactorily 
 attended to. The West Indian nigger who took me 
 in hand was very expert, but terminated his opera- 
 tions by squirting ice-cold water into my ears — an 
 unexpected proceeding which seemed to me quite 
 delightful at the time. Next morning, however, 
 I woke with a dull aching in my left ear that 
 increased all through the journey, and was the 
 beginning of serious trouble which in the end per- 
 manently impaired my hearing on one side. 
 
 We should have been comfortable enough in 
 the Santiago, which took us to Callao in eight days, 
 but for the pestilential smell pervading her. The 
 bulk of her cargo was composed of raw sugar, and 
 the odour from this stuff fermenting in the hold was
 
 THE OROYA LINE 9 
 
 quite intolerable. There was no escaping from it ; it 
 got, as it were, into one's food, pursued one into one's 
 berth, and was simply sickening. I was doubly glad, 
 therefore, to reach Lima, where we tarried the inside 
 of a week. Of this former metropolis and city of de- 
 lights in the ancient days of Spanish grandeur I have 
 preserved but a disagreeable impression of close heat, 
 with a sky as misty as that of London. Our charge 
 d! affaires, William Jerningham — a brother of my 
 former Stuttgart chief, and almost as shy — received 
 me most cordially, and to him I am indebted for an 
 interesting run up the Oroya line, of which only a 
 certain portion had then been opened for traffic. 
 This remarkable railway, carried up the Andes to an 
 altitude of some 16,000 feet, and intended to tap and 
 open up the rich and almost virgin region known as 
 the Montana on the farther side of the great range, 
 with all its wealth of cinchona, indiarubber, and 
 other tropical produce, was the work of the notori- 
 ous American contractor Meiggs, and, as a specimen 
 of almost reckless engineering, is probably unrivalled. 
 It rises from Lima very rapidly- — 5000 feet in the 
 first forty miles — so that we immediately got out of 
 1 British mista into the deepest tropical blue. Pretty 
 soon, too, we reached the end of the section then in 
 working order, and there our party shifted into a 
 couple of trollies with a light engine that took us 
 up a good deal higher to a temporary station, where 
 ■Hi)])' nous lunch awaited us. We had had a short 
 run before this as far as the chief object of the
 
 io RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 excursion — a stupendous viaduct spanning a very 
 deep and precipitous chasm 600 feet wide, and rest- 
 ing on three gigantic piers, of which the central one 
 is entirely made of hollow-wrought iron. Much of 
 the labour on it is said to have been done by 
 deserters from our ships, whose training enabled 
 them to work at ease at dizzy heights, and who 
 were tempted by the large wages offered them. The 
 viaduct owes its name of Puente de las Verrugas — 
 or bridge of "boils" — to a kind of bubonic plague 
 which carried oft* a large number of the navvies 
 (mostly peones imported from Chile) who were en- 
 gaged in its construction. 
 
 We continued our journey to Valparaiso in the 
 Sorata, one of the larger steamers belonging to the 
 Pacific Steam Navigation Company, touching, among 
 other places, at Arica, formerly a prosperous town 
 with a considerable population, but then only just 
 emerging from the effects of the tidal wave by 
 which it had been submerged five years before, 
 during the great earthquake of August 13, 1868. 
 
 The Vice-Consul, Mr. Nugent, gave me the most 
 interesting particulars of this appalling catastrophe. 
 The first shocks of the earthquake, he told me, were 
 of exceptional violence, and betokened a most severe 
 visitation. The walls of his house, which was at 
 no great distance from the shore, at once gave signs 
 of collapse, while the ground at his feet yawned, 
 showing a great rent, whence a poisonous sulphuric 
 vapour was emitted. He collected his family and
 
 A TIDAL WAVE n 
 
 household and made with all speed for the open 
 slopes above the town. After hurrying uphill for 
 a few minutes and reaching high ground entirely 
 clear of buildings, he paused to take breath, and, 
 like the fugitives from the " Cities of the Plain," 
 looked back on what he had left behind him. He 
 then beheld the strangest and most awe-inspiring 
 spectacle conceivable. The hitherto motionless sea, 
 stretching its perfectly smooth, glassy surface in the 
 sweltering noontide as far as eye could reach — 
 the glittering expanse only broken by a group of 
 rocky islets in the nearer offing — suddenly began 
 to recede from the shore, at first quite gently and 
 majestically, carrying with it a certain number of 
 vessels torn from their moorings close inland, and 
 leaving the others uncovered, like boulders strewn 
 on the naked sand at low tide. Away rolled the 
 " painted ocean," parting entire company with the 
 land, and sweeping past the islets, which it also 
 left quite denuded. Presently it returned, still 
 with placid, unruffled aspect, but added impetus, 
 forming, as it ncared its natural boundary, a tower- 
 ing watery mound upwards of fifty feet high, which, 
 after overwhelming all the craft it had at first left 
 behind it, made a clean sweep of every building on 
 the shore-line. Once more was the same terrible 
 phenomenon enacted ; the flood, at its return, making 
 still more destructive inroads upon tin.' doomed city 
 and its surroundings and the last time carrying a 
 Peruvian man-of-war, the America, and the 1'nited
 
 12 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 States paddle-wheel gunboat Water ee, more than 
 two miles inland, depositing the latter there high 
 and dry and quite upright on an even keel, with 
 every spar and rope in her rigging undisturbed. 
 Here we ourselves found the iron framework of her 
 hull still erect in the midst of the fields, and Gran- 
 ville Milner climbed into her by the ribs of her 
 skeleton. The Vice-Consul related to us, among 
 other incidents of that terrible day, that, when fleeing 
 uphill from the earthquake, he had crossed a young 
 Frenchwoman who was hastening down to the town 
 in the hope of saving what little property she had 
 left in a sort of inn and restaurant she kept near 
 the waterside, and had stopped to warn her of her 
 folly in making the attempt. Two days afterwards 
 her corpse was found, with many others, on the 
 beach, stripped of every particle of clothing ex- 
 cepting only one stocking. He also said that there 
 was still alive in the town an old horse which had 
 been discovered, several days after the catastrophe, 
 quietly grazing on one of the islets already men- 
 tioned, whither it had been swept by the wave 
 from its stable near the harbour. The very graphic 
 account given me by Vice-Consul Nugent of this 
 appalling visitation remains quite present to my 
 memory even at this distance of time. 
 
 We reached our journey's end on the 4th of 
 August at Valparaiso. With the barren heights 
 that hem in its crowded harbour and bustling 
 quays, it bears no resemblance whatever to the
 
 ASSUMPTION DAY 13 
 
 vale of Paradise to which its discoverer, Valdivia 
 — possibly thankful for the end of a tedious naviga- 
 tion — was pleased to compare it, with true Castilian 
 grandiloquence. Our Consul, James Drummond- 
 II ay, looked after, and was most helpful, to us 
 here, and on the 6th we went up by rail to Santiago. 
 Rooms had been engaged for us at the Gran Hotel 
 Ingles^ in the principal Square, or Plaza de Armas, 
 ■ — a handsome but. ambitious building, defiantly 
 rearing on high its two lofty storeys and pavilions, 
 copied from the Tuileries, in a city where even 
 houses with one upper floor were rather the ex- 
 ception on account of the frequent recurrence of 
 earthquakes. A very few days after our arrival 
 we had a first sharp experience of one of these 
 unnerving convulsions. In the forenoon of the 
 15th of August, while Milner and I were busy 
 writing for the homeward mail in my sitting-room 
 on the second floor of the hotel, we suddenly became 
 aware of a hollow, rumbling sound, like that of 
 heavy artillery passing over the pavement, almost 
 immediately followed by a shaking of everything 
 in the room, which increased to such a degree that 
 we both started from our seats and called out 
 "Earthquake!" in unison. At this moment the 
 waiter, who had been doing the bedrooms beyond, 
 rushed through and made straight for the stairs, 
 
 taking do heed whatever of the questions we put 
 to him. The vibration happily only lasted a short 
 time; but the sensation of rocking, at the height
 
 i 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 at which we were above the ground, was not a 
 little alarming. Still more striking was the sight 
 from our windows overlooking the great Plaza. It 
 being a grand festival of the Church — the Assump- 
 tion of the Blessed Virgin — the crowds attending 
 High Mass in the cathedral had poured out into 
 the square and filled it with a throng of panic- 
 stricken worshippers, who, all of them, on reaching 
 the open, at once went down on their knees. 
 
 On this occasion, as I learned subsequently, the 
 dismaying effects of the shock had been intensified 
 by the predictions of an hysterical nun, who asserted 
 that some terrific convulsion was in store that very day 
 for the seat of an impious Government bent on de- 
 spoiling the clergy of their ancient privileges or fueros. 
 The contentions between Church and State, I should 
 explain, practically already fought out in Europe, had 
 only shortly before extended to this most distant point 
 of the Western Hemisphere, where they had taken an 
 exceedingly bitter turn. In these predictions, which 
 had been assiduously spread about through clerical 
 channels, it was stated that the earthquake would 
 take place at two o'clock in the morning, and be 
 accompanied by a Cimmerian darkness against which 
 no ordinary means of lighting would be of any avail. 
 There is no doubt that, in view of the catastrophe 
 foretold, the clergy of the capital were busily en- 
 gaged, for days before the supposed fatal date, in 
 blessing the dwelling-houses of the faithful as well 
 as their stock of oil and candles. As it happened,
 
 EARTHQUAKE EXPERIENCES 15 
 
 the shock occurred in the broad light of a beautiful 
 August forenoon and was relatively slight. 
 
 It is a singular circumstance that the impression 
 produced by these alarming disturbances on a popu- 
 lation which might be reasonably supposed to be 
 inured to them seems to grow more and more 
 intense instead of being worn out by habit. Fortu- 
 nately, as regards my personal experience, no very 
 severe shocks l occurred during my residence in 
 Chile, and when once I was settled in one of 
 the stereotyped Santiago houses, built of adobes 
 — loose bricks made of mud. which is far more 
 elastic than the hard - baked material used since 
 time immemorial in Europe — round inner court- 
 vards on the same plan as the Pompeian villas, and 
 without any upper storey or basement and cellars 
 below, I can honestly say that the shocks, although 
 decidedly unpleasant, had no demoralising effect 
 upon me. When I bear in mind, however, the 
 admission made to me on the subject by Drumraond- 
 I lay, I am thankful not to have experienced any of 
 the more formidable visitations. Drummond-Ilay, 
 a younger brother of that eminent diplomatist, Sir 
 John — our envoy in Morocco, and for many years the 
 Stratford de Etedcliffe an petit pied of the Sherifiao 
 Km pin — had begun life at Tangier under his brother, 
 who was his senior by eighteen years. On the occa- 
 
 1 The very frequent ■hoeke (temblorw ) must be distinguished from 
 earthquakes (torrmtutoi which occur at much greater intervals, 
 an'l arc attended by more 01 less disastrous results.
 
 16 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 sion of the wreck of a small British vessel on the 
 Riff coast he had gone to the assistance of the ship- 
 wrecked crew and defended them, single-handed, 
 with such gallantry against the attacks of the pirates, 
 that, on the circumstances of the affair being reported 
 home, he was at once rewarded with a C.B. He 
 was, I believe, as absolutely fearless as man can be, 
 yet he confessed to me that, during a very violent 
 earthquake which took place on the 7th of July, a 
 few weeks before my arrival, and did great damage 
 at Valparaiso, he had entirely lost his nerve. He 
 lived in a house on the hill above the town, and was 
 sitting alone in his study at ten o'clock at night, 
 when the shocks began. Behind him was a folding 
 door leading into an unoccupied room, which he 
 knew for certain to be securely locked and bolted. 
 Suddenly, on turning round, he saw both leaves of it 
 opened as by an unseen hand ; the effect upon him, 
 he told me, being such, that although he had been 
 some years in the country, his feeling the next day 
 simply was that he must go on board ship there and 
 then, at any cost, and leave everything behind him 
 rather than face such an unmanning ordeal again. 
 
 The very peculiar configuration of the region 
 afflicted by these convulsions is no doubt in great 
 degree accountable for their frequency and violence. 
 A brief description I gave elsewhere * of its general 
 physical and other conditions may, therefore, appro- 
 
 1 Report on the Progress and General Condition of Chile, December 
 1875 (Foreign Office Reports).
 
 A BIT OF HISTORY 17 
 
 priately find its place here, and convey some idea of 
 the country which now, for some years, became my 
 home. 
 
 A strip of coast-land, ranging over some 2000 
 miles, and nowhere exceeding 200 miles in breadth, 
 pent in between almost the loftiest mountains 
 and the broadest ocean of the globe. Its shores 
 turned away from all the ancient homes of civi- 
 lisation and facing the western sea — as vet "mute 
 and inglorious," though at no remote period pos- 
 sibly destined to witness the contentions of new 
 and powerful States. Divided from the Old World 
 by the expanse of the Atlantic and the breadth of a 
 continent, and till recently approachable only by the 
 deterring voyage round the stormy Horn or a weari- 
 some transit through the swamps and jungles of 
 Panama, Chile may well be said to have started on its 
 way as a nation at a great disadvantage. Nor will 
 its history be found to have been more favourable 
 to it than its geographical situation. Of all the vast 
 dependencies of Spain, Chile was perhaps the most 
 neglected : a refugium peccatorwm from the metro- 
 polis ; a sort of Algeria or Turkestan for the "un- 
 quiet spirits" of the Spanish Colonial Empire; at 
 best, a training ground where the more adventurous 
 earned in obscure, toilsome Axaucanian raids a right 
 
 rett among the lazy luxuries of Peru. 
 
 Chile was certainly aever popular with the 
 aniards. Almagro overruns it, and withdraws 
 
 from it in disgust; Valdivia again conquers il, but 
 
 b
 
 1 8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 falls in the hour of triumph ; and after him, for 
 two centuries and a half, successive governors have 
 to contend with an indomitable native race. During 
 nearly the entire period of Spanish rule, or misrule, 
 the same Indian trouble recurs unceasingly, the ill- 
 repute of the province growing with it. It is a land 
 abounding in natural resources, but comparatively 
 little gold is to be got there, while there is a 
 plentiful assurance of hard knocks. Nevertheless, 
 though the Spaniard cared little for it, he moodily 
 kept his hold on it as on all the rest of the 
 huge territories beneath his sway. Then came 
 the struggle for independence, resisted by Spain 
 with singular tenacity considering the little value 
 she placed on the country, and, after sixteen years 
 of chequered warfare, the land was left to itself, and 
 commenced its career as the free and independent 
 Republic of Chile. The remnant of the Spaniards 
 under Quintanilla evacuated Chiloe, the last point 
 held by them, in January 1826. Barely fifty years, 
 therefore, of autonomy, and not quite twenty-five 
 of settled government undisturbed by any serious 
 attempts at revolution, make up the whole of 
 Chilean national history up to the day when I 
 first visited the country.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BANTIAGO D E CHILE 
 
 NOTHING can be more striking and, in some respects, 
 unique than the situation of the Chilean capital. 
 One hundred miles of gradual rise from the coast, 
 with a stiffer climb across the range of the lesser 
 or maritime Cordillera, bring one to the plateau 
 on which Santiago stands at an altitude of 1S00 
 feet above the sea-level. Running north and south 
 down the whole length of the Chilean territory, 
 this high plateau is little more than a very broad 
 valley, with narrower lateral dales approached by 
 intersecting glens, each one rising step-like above 
 the other to the foot of the giant wall of the Andes. 
 The fine, somewhat aspiring, city, standing in such 
 proximity to the first spurs of the lofty chain, thus 
 has the most majestic of backgrounds. 
 
 Not that the huge, frowning mass of the Andes 
 can be compared for beauty or picturesque effect to 
 
 great Swiss ranges, with their lovely, clearly- 
 defined peaks, each of which has its distinctive 
 
 ihape and features that remain engraved for ever 
 in the memory of those who have lived in sight 
 of them. The colossal Andine chain, as seen from 
 the central valley stretched a1 its feet, has no such
 
 20 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 characteristic traits. Its loftiest summits lie much 
 farther back, and are nowhere visible from the high 
 plateau. The range thus rather produces the effect 
 of a featureless wilderness of rock, piled skywards- 
 like the battlements of some Cyclopean city, and 
 heavily topped with snow, the line of which is 
 broken here and there by truncated towers, such as 
 the great mass of Tupungato. Only on one occasion 
 can I remember espying, from the deck of a vessel 
 nearing the coast, the wondrous pyramid of Acon- 
 cagua, glittering in mid-air at sunrise — a veritable 
 fairy mountain — fully a hundred and twenty miles 
 away. The Andes, as one looks up at them from 
 Santiago, with their rugged lower slopes entirely 
 denuded of vegetation, derive a forbidding grandeur 
 almost devoid of beauty from their enormous size 
 alone ; being, both in appearance and in very 
 truth, by their height and vastness, the most 
 formidable barrier set by Nature on the face of the 
 globe. 
 
 The great depth of this gigantic mountain system 
 unfortunately has a deleterious effect on the climate 
 of the high plateau, by arresting and retaining all 
 the periodical atmospheric disturbances which other- 
 wise would visit the plains below. The newcomer, 
 resting in the broad sunshine, under a perfectly 
 breathless, cloudless sky, in the gardens of the 
 Plaza de Armas at Santiago, thus not unfrequently 
 has a chance of watching — almost an unparalleled 
 experience in travel — some violent tempest or snow-
 
 A DRY CLIMATE 21 
 
 storm circling over the sombre pinnacles above, 
 which never finds its way down to the valley. So 
 abnormal, in fact, is the perennial dryness thereby 
 produced at this altitude that, until one gets inured 
 to it, the climate of Santiago is most irritating and 
 trying to a European constitution. Day after day 
 one hopes and prays in vain for some of the 
 moisture kept suspended above one to descend 
 in the shape of a refreshing shower and relieve a 
 feeling of tension at times almost intolerable. The 
 data I collected during my residence at Santiago 
 shows the average rainfall to be so scanty that one 
 year there were as many as 335 days of dry weather, 
 of which 233 were entirely cloudless. Only once in 
 the course of three years do 1 recall a tremendous 
 thunderstorm actually reaching the town, where it 
 produced almost greater consternation than the 
 much-dreaded temblores. Yet, in spite of its ex- 
 cessive dryness, the climate of Santiago is remark- 
 ably equable, and thus very healthy — the mean 
 temperature in winter seldom falling below 40 F., 
 or much exceeding 68 in summer. 
 
 Like the rest of the older Spanish - American 
 settlements, the city is almost entirely laid out in 
 parallelograms or cuadras — a monotonous fashion 
 in city building which has now spread to great 
 
 European cities, with damaging results to their 
 attractiveness and pictorial effect The low one- 
 
 <■<! houses, with the depth of their several 
 
 inner courtyards, cover so much ground, that the
 
 22 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 town spreads over a much larger expanse than would 
 otherwise be required for the accommodation of a 
 population which thirty years ago scarcely exceeded 
 170,000 souls. I was little prepared to find so far 
 inland in this remote country a capital of such pro- 
 portions, adorned with so many decorative buildings, 
 well-to-do private residences, and spacious, well-kept 
 promenades. What I still less expected was the 
 general air of aristocratic ease and opulence that 
 pervades Santiago. Long, quiet streets lined with 
 handsome houses, mostly built on the model of 
 the Parisian petit hotel, with a good many of more 
 palatial design — their drowsy repose occasionally 
 broken by the clatter of a well-appointed brougham 
 or barouche that would pass muster in the Bois de 
 Boulogne or Hyde Park ; neatly dressed, refined- 
 looking women gliding along the well - swept 
 pavement ; numerous churches, low, white-washed 
 convent walls, and a fair sprinkling of priests and 
 friars ; the absence of stir and bustle caused by 
 the concentration of all business and shopping in 
 a few central thoroughfares — all these combined, 
 at the period I speak of, to give to Santiago the 
 stamp of the residence of some sleepy, luxurious, 
 Ultramontane Court rather than of the metropolis 
 of a progressive, hard-working democratic State. To 
 those, however, who know it to be a creation of 
 exclusive class-government implanted in one of the 
 main strongholds of South American Catholicity, 
 the phenomenon is more readily intelligible.
 
 THE ALAMEDA 23 
 
 Among the most attractive aspects of the place 
 is its beautiful Alameda, shaded by thick rows of 
 poplars of luxuriant growth and unusual height, and 
 in my time adorned by mediocre equestrian pre- 
 sentments of those national heroes of the struggle 
 for independence — Generals O'Higgins and San 
 Martin. 1 An elaborate system of canalisation, fed 
 by the numerous streams that come down from the 
 mountains, completes the charm of these public 
 walks bordered by open conduits, which, owing to a 
 slope in the lie of the town, are full of clear, running 
 water. These conduits, or accquias, are carried 
 everywhere through the houses, and give a peculiar 
 character to them and to the streets; the fact that 
 most of the buildings are raised on the bare soil 
 without deep foundations making underground pipes 
 almost unnecessary. Salutary and grateful to the 
 eye as is this network of rivulets in so parched and 
 rainless a region, it has serious inconveniences, as I 
 soon learned to my cost. 
 
 But by far the most remarkable feature of 
 Santiago is the Cerro de Santa Lucia, a rocky 
 eminence of some 230 feet rising abruptly from the 
 centre of the town, which it dominates much as the 
 Acropolis does Athens. This hill had been recently 
 converted by the distinguished Intendente (Prefect) 
 of th<- province, M. Benjamin Vienna Mackenna — a 
 
 1 .-' ■ present considerably over 300,000 inhabitant*, 
 
 othei improvements, the gnat Alameda has, I believe, been 
 
 turn.-'! into something like a Sieges Alice, with numerous statues of 
 national worth.
 
 24 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 man of much taste and discernment — into the most 
 original of public pleasure-grounds. Well kept roads 
 and walks traverse and make it accessible. It is very 
 ingeniously laid out, and embellished by waterfalls 
 and artificial ponds and rockeries, together with a 
 wealth of trees, shrubs, and flowers, while a summer 
 theatre and pleasant French restaurants, side by side 
 with a chapel and a statue dedicated to the Arch- 
 bishop Vicuna, make it an agreeable and popular 
 resort, and at the same time afford, as it were, an 
 epitome of the curiously intermingled clerical and 
 mundane aspects of Chilean life. Some of the 
 adornments of this unique promenade may not be in 
 the best of tastes, and it has indeed been described 
 as a " perfect triumph of Cockney genius," but the 
 view from the summit of the hill is simply match- 
 less. From its platform, crowned with the crenel- 
 lated remains of the citadel raised by the Spaniards, 
 on the site of the ancient Araucanian hill-fort of 
 Huelen, the eye ranges over the wide-spreading city, 
 with its numerous cupolas and spires and inter- 
 minable streets, measuring together over 200 kilo- 
 metres in length, and radiating far into the verdant 
 plain around ; the enchanting scene being begirt, 
 circus-like, by the snowy Andes — the very roof of 
 the world — to the eastward, and the jagged outline 
 of the lower Cordillera to the west. The buzz of 
 the city ascends with the sound of church bells and 
 the rumbling of tramway cars, and with them come 
 up great fragrant whiffs of incense from the count-
 
 AX INCOMPARABLE VIEW 25 
 
 less orange trees and magnolias which fill the 2 : > a ^ os 
 of the low-roofed houses. The beauty and majesty 
 of the prospect are in truth incomparable, and 
 surpass even such splendid views as those from 
 the Acropolis or the Castle of Edinburgh. But 
 unlike these, it lacks, for the visitor from the 
 Old World, the inexpressible charm and interest 
 of ancient historic memories or associations. Yet 
 no grander or more lovely setting could be ima- 
 gined to great deeds or events which still remain 
 to be written on the blank page where the meagre 
 opening sentences of Chilean history alone figure 
 as yet. 
 
 By this time I had succeeded in housing myself 
 in the Calle Vcrgara, a street running from the 
 central Alameda or Canada to a public park re- 
 cently presented to the town by Don Luis Cousiiio, 
 a wealthy and munificent citizen, whose premature 
 death, which occurred shortly before my arrival in 
 Chile, may be accounted a distinct national loss. I 
 furnished this moderately sized abode almost entirely 
 "with the things I had brought with me from 
 England, and soon turned it into a fairly comfortable 
 home By degrees, too, I became acquainted with a 
 f< w persons belonging to the leading native circles, 
 and must at once here place on record my grateful 
 lense of the kind feeling and tact which some of 
 them, whom 1 afterwards numbered among my best 
 friends, showed in gradually drawing me out of my 
 
 usion and winning me back to social intercourse.
 
 26 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 There exist in Chile the elements of a society in 
 some ways essentially superior to any to be found 
 in other South American Republics. The land- 
 owning class, who practically govern the country, do 
 so by reason of their territorial possessions and their 
 pure Spanish descent. Families like the Larrains 
 and Irrarazavals, for instance, go back almost to the 
 days of early Spanish occupation, and own Castilian 
 titles which, under the existing Republican insti- 
 tutions, they no longer openly assume. The wealth 
 of the country being mainly based on its thriving 
 agriculture, the hacendados, or gentlemen farmers, 
 are necessarily preponderant in the State, and con- 
 stitute in effect a powerful oligarchy. To their firm 
 and intelligent control of public affairs Chile owed, 
 at the time I write of, her exemption from the prin- 
 cipal evils which have afflicted the sister Republics 
 in the shape of military pronunciamentos and cor- 
 rupt administration. 1 The ruling class in Chile has 
 many of the higher qualities of an aristocracy de- 
 voted to the best interests of the country, and is 
 much too independent to be open to debasing 
 influences such as too frequently obtain in public 
 life under a more undiluted democratic dispensation. 
 Among the leading families with whom I soon 
 became more intimate was that of the late General 
 Bulnes, who had filled the Presidential chair for 
 
 1 It should be pointed out that the war with Peru, and later on the 
 civil contest during the Presidency of Balmaceda, took place a good 
 many years after this period.
 
 THE CHILEAN UPPER TEX 27 
 
 two consecutive periods of five years, and had led 
 the army which successfully invaded Peru in 1837— 
 1839. The widow of the victor of Yungay and con- 
 queror of Lima, whom a very agreeable French 
 colleague, M. de Bacourt, amusingly dubbed Madame 
 la Marechale Duchesse de Biilnes, was a pleasant, 
 well-bred old lady, with two daughters, married 
 respectively to Don Kuperto Vergara and Don 
 Adolfo Ortiizar, to whom I am indebted for the 
 greatest kindness. The salon of Lucia Biilnes de 
 Vergara became before long my chief resort, and at 
 the time when the Chilean market was booming 
 with that modern Potosi, the silver mines of Cara- 
 coles, Iluperto and his clever, lively wife kept the 
 most hospitable of houses in Santiago. The simple, 
 cordial welcome I received from these kindly, con- 
 siderate people was a real boon to me under the 
 circumstances in which I began life again, as it 
 were, in the far-off New World. 
 
 The most historically interesting person in 
 Santiago society was certainly the aged General 
 Blanco Encalada, the valorous comrade-in-arms of 
 Lord Cochrane. I w r ent pretty often to the house 
 of this national hero j>"r excellence, a distinguished 
 looking old gentleman, with a thin face and a promi- 
 nent nose, his genera] outline in some degree 
 
 tiling that of the Iron Duke, a circumstance to 
 which the gallant old Allow was rather fond of 
 
 inviting the attention of strangers. "On dit que je 
 emble beauconp a wotte Dnc de Wellington," he
 
 28 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 said to me, pronouncing it Villaington with a nasal 
 intonation which, with the leading feature in his 
 countenance, reminded me of old Prince Metternich. 
 He had said this probably more than once to Taylour 
 Thomson (my predecessor), who at last one day 
 replied : " C'est vrai ; surtout vu de dos ! ' 
 
 As for the Chilean ladies of that period, they 
 seemed to me, with a few exceptions, to be remark- 
 able rather for their sprightliness and easy, graceful 
 bearing than for very great beauty. Dona Isidora de 
 Cousino — the widow of the millionaire to whose splen- 
 did donations I have already referred, and a very great 
 lady indeed by reason of her wealth — was one of the 
 few really handsome women I met in society, while 
 Dona Transito Sanchez Fontecilla was, to my mind, 
 much the prettiest and most taking of them. 1 The 
 Chilean elegante, although the best of customers to 
 the grandes maisons de confections at Paris, never 
 looks so well as in her church-going attire of sober 
 black, her head and shoulders draped with the 
 plain black manto of woollen or silk stuff (not the 
 coquettish lace mantilla of the old country) which 
 is de rigueur for all women of whatever social grade 
 when going to their devotions. 
 
 Somehow, when I first met my fair acquaintances 
 in their charming tenue d'e'glise, my thoughts could 
 not but revert to the appalling catastrophe in which 
 their mothers and other relatives had been involved 
 
 1 The husband of this charming lady — at one time Minister of War 
 and Marine — now, I believe, represents his country at Rome.
 
 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE COMPAXIA 29 
 
 ten years before at the destruction by fire of the 
 great church of the Jesuits, or the Compania, by 
 which name its sinister record will ever be handed 
 down to posterity. Upwards of 1600 1 persons — 
 most of them women and children, a very large pro- 
 portion of whom belonged to the upper class — are 
 known to have perished in the flames. One of the 
 habituds of Casa Yergara, a sad-visaged man whose 
 name has escaped my memory, had lost his wife, his 
 mother, and all his sisters on that occasion. He and 
 others gave me particulars of the event which in 
 their horror far exceed what I had previously known 
 on the subject. 
 
 The catastrophe took place on the afternoon of 
 the Sth of December (1863), which in the southern 
 hemisphere is of course the hottest time of the year, 
 the great church being thronged for vespers on the 
 high festival of the Immaculate Conception and 
 lighted up a giorno. The precise origin of the fire 
 never could be clearly ascertained. Probably some 
 draperies near the high altar became ignited and 
 caused the explosion of naphtha lamps placed against 
 the walls, a universal panic at once ensuing. I had 
 heard a good deal of the disaster from my chief at 
 Berne, Admiral Harris, who was chargd dfqffaires in 
 Chile some years before the occurrence, and, having 
 l'-ft many friends at Santiago, was of course deeply 
 
 1 The inscription in the cemetery of Santiago puti the number of 
 
 1000. The "Diccionario Jeogrdfico de la 
 Bepublicade Chile," by P. S< lano Ajta-Buroaga, estimates it as over 
 ia
 
 30 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 shocked by the dreadful fate that befell so many of 
 them. I was under the impression that the cause of 
 the appalling loss of life was the wild rush made for 
 the main exit by the terrified crowd, which in press- 
 ing against doors that opened inwards, had hermeti- 
 cally closed them. This, my Chilean informants 
 assured me, was not the case. 1 The doors, they all 
 said, opened outwards, and remained wide open 
 throughout. In their terror some of the poor people 
 who had first reached the entrance must have 
 stumbled or fainted, others had fallen over them, 
 and in an instant a living, struggling barrier had 
 been formed which the desperate throng, pushing 
 forward from the back, had surged up against and 
 striven in vain to overcome. In an incredibly short 
 space of time the building was turned into a vast 
 brazier which it was impossible to approach from 
 the outside. The scarcity of water and the want of 
 anything like an organised fire-brigade from the first 
 rendered futile all attempts to quench the flames, 
 but on the plaza outside some mounted men con- 
 trived to extricate a few victims from the threshold 
 by lassooing their bodies from a distance and liter- 
 ally dragging them out. Finally, when the agony 
 of the scene was at its climax, the big bell of the 
 church came crashing down into the midst of the 
 dying and the dead. 
 
 A monument has been erected in memory of the 
 
 1 It was stated, and very generally believed at the time, that the 
 clergy, for fear of robbery of the church treasury and ornaments, closed 
 the only other exit at the back of the altar.
 
 A FIRST AUDIENCE 31 
 
 event on the square where stood the church, facing 
 the house of Congress, and in the cemetery beyond 
 the river Mapocho — for the greater part of the year 
 the dry bed of a torrent spanned by a picturesque 
 old Spanish bridge — a really beautiful statue by the 
 French sculptor Carrier-Belleuse marks the spot 
 where the charred and utterly unrecognisable remains 
 of the victims were consigned to one great common 
 pit. A fortunate effect of this fearful tragedy has 
 
 D the formation of one of the best found and 
 most highly trained fire-brigades existing anywhere. 
 It is mainly officered by young men of the higher 
 classes, and is so popular that its periodical drills 
 on the Canada always attract a large concourse of 
 spectators. Granville Milner joined this body very 
 shortly after our arrival in Chile. 
 
 My first entering upon official relations with 
 the Chilean Government was retarded by adverse 
 circumstances. For some weeks after reaching 
 Santiago the troublesome inflammation of the ear 
 I had contracted on the journey kept me mostly 
 within doors, and quite prevented my applying for 
 an audience of the President for the delivery of my 
 credentials, which I should have had to attend in 
 the undignified guise of II. M. Representative with 
 his head tied up! On the 1st of September, how- 
 ever, I was received by Don Frederico Errazuriz, 
 with the customary ceremonial, al the Casa d<- 
 Moueda, which contains the Presidential offices. At 
 this first interview the President impressed me
 
 32 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 favourably by his dignified, though somewhat stern, 
 aspect, and seemed to me a very creditable specimen 
 of the Chilean patrician class. I was before long to 
 learn that, while accounted by his countrymen, and 
 especially by the Clerical party who had been prime 
 movers in his election, to be remarkably cautious 
 and circumspect, his was essentially a despotic 
 temperament. Lengthy disquisitions on the politics 
 and state of parties in Chile thirty years ago would 
 be both wearisome and unprofitable. I may briefly 
 say, however, of the Errazuriz administration, that 
 it was not unfairly described by its opponents as a 
 close corporation. The Chamber of Deputies was 
 full of the President's personal friends and depen- 
 dants, and some of the most important offices in the 
 State were held by relations and connections of his. 
 He had more particularly a powerful supporter in 
 his brother-in-law, the Intendente of Valparaiso, 
 M. Echaurren, an official of great shrewdness and 
 very large private fortune, but of the same arbitrary 
 disposition as himself. The Intendente carried 
 things with a high hand in the thriving Chilean 
 seaport, but at the same time, it must be admitted, 
 thoroughly devoted himself to its improvement and 
 good administration. The government of Chile 
 was certainly in strong and capable hands at this 
 period. 
 
 The general course of public affairs was by no 
 means without interest. There was the contention 
 between Church and State, to which I have already
 
 THE "ENGLISH OF THE PACIFIC" 3$ 
 
 referred, about the privileges of the clergy, and more 
 particularly the exclusive right they had up till then 
 preserved of keeping the civil registers. On this a 
 split took place before long between the powerful 
 clerical interest and their nominee, the President. 
 Of more general importance were the relations be- 
 tween Chile and her neighbours on the Pacific coast 
 and across the Andes, which just then were of a 
 nature to cause well-founded anxiety to the Cabinet 
 of Santiago. Chile had long been regarded with 
 little favour by the cognate nations which surrounded 
 it to the north and east. They were envious of the 
 prosperity of the well-ordered State, due to the 
 stability of its government and the vigour of a popu- 
 lation which, from the poorest and most neglected 
 of Spanish dependencies, had in less than half a 
 century turned it into the most flourishing of South 
 American communities. The "English of the 
 Pacific" — as they were termed with a dash of sar- 
 casm — were, like their prototypes at the present day, 
 far from universally popular, and like them, too, were 
 charged with a selfish disregard of anything but 
 their own interests and with a policy of excep- 
 tional perfidiousness in the pursuit of their aims. 
 The Cabinet of Santiago had therefore good reason 
 to apprehend a possibly formidable hostile combina- 
 tion, which, besides Peru and Bolivia, might include 
 the Argentine Republic. Proposals from Lima to 
 
 that effect were known by them to have been 
 
 c
 
 34 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 discussed in secret session by Congress at Buenos 
 Ayres. 1 
 
 Pretexts for such a combination were not want- 
 ing in the differences of Chile with Bolivia about the 
 mining district of Caracoles, and those with Peru 
 respecting the nitrate fields in the northern region 
 of Tarapaca, out of which grew a few years later the 
 great war of 1879. In addition to these there was, 
 of course, the long standing cuestion de limites, or 
 conflicting claims of the Argentines and Chileans to 
 the ownership of the Straits of Magellan and the 
 vast untenanted regions of Patagonia. An active 
 paper war had been carried on for years on this 
 question between the two Governments ; the length 
 and dryness of the arguments adduced on both sides 
 by the lawyer element which so largely predominates 
 in South American administrations being truly 
 typical of the size and aridity — I would venture to 
 add, the forbidding and unprofitable character — of 
 the greater portion of the tracts in dispute. The 
 question has now, I need hardly say, been quite 
 recently settled by the arbitration of this country, 
 but for a number of years it endangered the peace 
 of two flourishing Republics, and in contributing to 
 bring it to a happy and reasonable issue no diploma- 
 tists ever did better work than my old friends Sir 
 
 1 I subsequently had it on unimpeachable authority at Buenos 
 Ayres that one of the last acts of President Sarmiento was the sig- 
 nature of an offensive and defensive treaty of alliance with Peru 
 and Bolivia. The treaty passed the Chamber of Deputies, but was 
 adjourned by the Senate and remained a dead letter.
 
 CHERS COLLOGUES 
 
 03 
 
 William BarringtoD and Mr. Gerard Lowther at 
 Buenos Ayres and Santiago respectively. It so 
 happened that when I reached Santiago an acute 
 turn had been given to the controversy by a vote 
 passed in the Argentine Congress for the erection of 
 a lighthouse on Cape Virgins at the Atlantic entrance 
 to the Straits. This had been at once looked upon 
 at Santiago as an aggressive assertion of sovereignty 
 over the contested passage. I may perhaps claim to 
 have helped to diminish the tension thus produced 
 by giving it as my private opinion to the Chilean 
 Ministers that their country would improve its case 
 in the eyes of the world, with regard to the question 
 in general, by making known its readiness to neu- 
 tralise the Straits in time of war and not to attempt 
 to fortifv or raise toll in them. My suggestion was 
 very readily adopted by the Chilean Government, 
 and this soon led to a similar declaration being 
 made by the Government at Buenos Ayres. 
 
 I have said nothing as yet of the Diplomatic 
 Corps at Santiago, which was much smaller than 
 those I had been accustomed to elsewhere. Only 
 two or three of the chief European Governments 
 were diplomatically represented there, the rest 
 contenting themselves with consular agents of 
 more or less dignity at Valparaiso. The French 
 had B full Minister Plenipotentiary in the person of 
 
 M. Brenier de Montmorand, who had been some 
 
 years Consul General at Shanghai before coming 
 tO Chile, a man of decided ability, who had an
 
 36 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 amiable half-English wife and a remarkably pleasing 
 daughter. The Breniers greeted me most kindly, 
 and I am indebted to them for much civility. Later 
 on, my relations with my French colleague became 
 still more cordial by reason of the friendly line he 
 followed in the Taena affair, of which I shall have a 
 good deal to say presently. M. Brenier was before 
 long joined by M. de Bacourt, a young and very 
 promising diplomatist, who came out as secretary to 
 the Legation, and whose uncle, of the same name, 
 I remembered well at Baden Baden as an especial 
 favourite of the Princess of Prussia, afterwards the 
 Empress Augusta. Bacourt and I soon became great 
 friends. Germany was represented by M. Leven- 
 hagen, a small, wizened old gentleman who had 
 resided in the country fourteen years, and who, 
 partly on account of the warm Chilean sympathies 
 he evinced, was highly esteemed and much con- 
 sulted by the Chilean Government, and notably by 
 the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, M. Ibanez. 
 I was rather amused, I remember, in the earlier days 
 of my intercourse with that Minister, at having, on 
 some occasion, to undergo from him a kind of 
 homily on the admirable manner in which my Ger- 
 man collegue acquitted himself of his duties, clearly 
 meant for my benefit, and not obscurely conveying the 
 hint : " Go thou and do likewise." M. Levenhagen 
 later on actively bestirred himself against me in the 
 Taena question, to which I have above referred. It 
 was much to his credit, however, as well as to that
 
 A SLIGHT CONFUSION 37 
 
 of others charged with German interests on the 
 South Pacific coast, that already at that period, a few 
 years only after the resuscitation of the Empire, the 
 influence and trade of Germany were distinctly asser- 
 ting themselves in that distant region, and competing 
 not unsuccessfully with ours. The German agents 
 in South America had evidently taken to heart the 
 caution which the Minister at Lima told me had been 
 addressed to him by Prince Bismarck when he in- 
 quired, before leaving for his post, whether the Chan- 
 cellor had any special instructions for him : " Suchen 
 Sic Handel, aber h im Handel!" A pleasant Italian 
 charge" d'affaires, Count Sanminiatelli, completed 
 the European contingent of our Diplomatic Corps. 
 
 The principal American States had all, of course, 
 representatives at Santiago. With the exception of 
 the Brazilian Minister, M. d'Andrada — whose popu- 
 larity was such that on his transfer to Monte Video 
 a round-robin was in vain sent by the most in- 
 fluential members of Chilean society to the Emperor 
 of Brazil begging that he might be maintained at 
 his post — and of the Argentine Envoy, M. Frias, 
 an able Buenos Ayrea lawyer, who treated the thorny 
 Patagonian question with greater seal and eloquence 
 than discretion, I can call to mind no one of special 
 not*' among my other plentiful American colleagues. 
 With the United States Envoy, on the other hand 
 1 pretty soon established amicable relations, which 
 were marked at the beginning by a somewhal 
 
 laughable incident. Although this gentleman was
 
 38 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 living at the same hotel to which I went on my 
 arrival, and we duly exchanged cards, I happened 
 by some chance not to meet him until shortly after 
 I had set up house in the Calle Vergara. Having 
 been previously cautioned to avoid frequenting 
 the table cVhdte, the habitues of which were 
 generally a very mixed lot, I had infinitely pre- 
 ferred dining and lunching in my own rooms 
 with Milner. My servants, on the other hand, 
 and especially my smart English major-domo, Mr. 
 Dinsmore, had their meals at the hotel-ordinary 
 with other travellers, there being no such thing as a 
 separate table for domestics under the regime egali- 
 taire that obtains in South American habits and 
 customs. The first time I met my North American 
 colleague I was greeted by him with almost effusive 
 heartiness. " Well, sir ! " said this worthy gentle- 
 man, whose name, I grieve to say, is a blank in my 
 memory, " I am very glad indeed to know you, and 
 also very glad to find that you do not yourself take 
 in the milk at the door of a morning ! ' I was 
 rather startled by this unexpected remark, but soon 
 found out that my excellent colleague had had for 
 his neighbour at the table d'hdte my friend Dinsmore, 
 who, being an uppish specimen of his class, had led 
 him to suppose that he formed part of the Legation, 
 and had accordingly been mistaken by him for the 
 new British Minister, whom with some surprise he 
 had subsequently, in his early walks, observed taking 
 in the milk at the door in Calle Vergara !
 
 CHAPTER III 
 LIFE IN CHILE 
 
 By the end of 1873 I had settled down comfortably 
 enough in my new antipodean quarters, and was 
 fairly reconciled to the sense they brought me of 
 complete banishment, always excepting the incon- 
 venience — in those days, when as yet there was no 
 direct communication with Europe by telegraph, a 
 very serious one — of having to wait upwards of three 
 months for a reply to letters, however urgent or im- 
 portant they might be. My official occupations not 
 being of an absorbing character, I employed part of 
 my spare time in working at the rough notes of my 
 experiences and recollections, which I had first 
 begun jotting down some months before at Nice. 
 A good deal of the earlier part of these I put into 
 shape at this period under the singularly bright and 
 exhilarating impressions of the Chilean spring and 
 summer ; the heat of the latter, except for the great 
 power of the sun in the middle of the day, being 
 quite endurable, relieved as it invariably is by cool, 
 fill nights. The summer weather at Santiago 
 seemed to me indeed delightful, even at the most 
 biasing of Christmas - tides. I have all my life 
 
 been peculiarly susceptible to external surroundings, 
 
 39
 
 40 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 whether cheering or the reverse. In this respect 
 the beautiful Chilean skies and climate, and my 
 cosy, quiet home were in every way congenial and 
 beneficial to me. The sunny patio with the scent 
 of its flowers — nowhere are they so deliciously 
 fragrant, or fruit, with some exceptions, so taste- 
 less as in Chile — the gentle splash of its central 
 fountain, the merry voices of my little children — 
 I can almost see and hear them now as I did when 
 idling away an hour or two in some well-shaded 
 corner, and dreaming of old days long past, or 
 chatting about common friends and acquaintances 
 with that muy simpatico joven — as he was univer- 
 sally accounted — Granville Milner. I soon fully 
 realised what sound sense there had been in old 
 Hammond's kindly counsel, and how well I had 
 done in following it. 
 
 Before dismissing my trim patio, by the way, I 
 must mention that it was one forenoon about this 
 time the scene of an absurd and very annoying 
 experience, caused by a sudden stoppage in the 
 open acequia in the backyard of the house. This 
 revealed itself at first by a slight trickle in one 
 corner of the dining-room, which, with the children's 
 nursery and other rooms, lay between the back and 
 front courtyards. In spite of all attempts to stop 
 the leakage the water soon came in with a regular 
 flow, which spread over all these rooms, and began 
 invading the trim patio aforesaid and the front part 
 of the house. The only chance of stopping the
 
 A DELUGE 41 
 
 mischief was to find out where the obstruction had 
 occurred in the acequicu of the adjoining houses. 
 The search resulted in the discovery of a formidable 
 barrage, composed of a pile of rinds of the enormous 
 Bondtas (water-melons), with which some rascally 
 rotos, 1 whose favourite food they are, had choked 
 up one of the conduits. By this time the water 
 in my house had become a stream nearly two feet 
 deep, through which the whole of my household 
 were disconsolately wading and trying in vain to 
 stem the torrent, my little fellows having meanwhile 
 been sent for refuge to an obliging neighbour close 
 by. The worst of it was that some of my best 
 carpets from Maple's, put down only a day or two 
 before, were completely deluged. This serio-comic 
 affair, I may well say, damped the admiration I had 
 at first conceived for the Santiago water-supply 
 arrangements. 
 
 In the perfect summer weather I now took to 
 riding a good deal, and horse-flesh being almost 
 the only cheap commodity in Chile, was able to 
 set up a small stable, which Milner, as a good York- 
 shireman, looked after very satisfactorily. Nothing 
 can surpass the freshness and beauty of the early 
 mornings in the hot season. Milner and I were 
 frequently in the saddle by five o'clock, and went 
 longish distances, sometimes not returning home 
 
 1 Roto, the generic name given to the Chilean proletarian class, of 
 Indian descent, who for the greater part lived in I 
 
 ■ ii 11I it inn of extreme penury and squalor.
 
 42 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 until after a substantial almuerzo, or dejeuner a 
 la fourchette, at some hacienda in the environs. 
 One of our favourite excursions was to Macul, a 
 large experimental farm and stud belonging to the 
 Cousinos, full of carefully selected stock of the best 
 English breeds in cattle and sheep, thoroughbreds 
 and racehorses — " Fanfaron," a splendid stallion 
 bred by Lord Zetland, was amongst the latter — the 
 whole being under the management of a gentleman- 
 like Englishman of the name of Canning. Besides 
 the breeding establishment there was on the estate a 
 large park-like enclosure containing fallow and other 
 deer, alpacas and guanacos. Although the whole 
 place was of recent creation, the gardens, under the 
 care of an experienced Scotchman, Mr. Graham, were 
 already remarkably pretty, and the orchards and 
 vineyards, treated after the most approved methods, 
 very promising. It was altogether a notable and 
 enviable domain. Occasionally, too, we rode out 
 on a shooting expedition to higher ground among 
 the first spurs of the hills, and had a day with the 
 partridges — the South-American species, which is 
 mostly found singly and never in large coveys. 
 The sport was fairly good, but scarcely perhaps 
 repaid one for the very rough walking. Our staple 
 food at the mid-day meal on these occasions was the 
 national cazuela, prepared on the spot by the peones 
 of some neighbouring farm. This is a chicken-stew 
 cooked in an earthen pot with rice, Indian corn, 
 and other vegetables, and judiciously seasoned with
 
 CAUQUENES BATHS 43 
 
 pimento and just a soupcon — well! of onion; un- 
 questionably a very savoury dish, which we washed 
 down with the chicha — half-fermented grape-juice 
 or newly-made wine — of the country. 
 
 In the very hot weather I each year took my 
 children for a change to the baths of Cauquenes, a 
 primitive watering-place with hot springs — a sort of 
 Chilean "Wildbad — situated up one of the lateral 
 Andine valleys at a height of 2500 feet. To get to 
 it we had a four hours' journey on the line that runs 
 due south along the great valley of Chile, with a 
 I wenty miles' drive at the end in a coach of ante- 
 diluvian build and immense size, to which three old 
 screws were harnessed abreast. When we at last 
 reached the baths, we found excellent accommoda- 
 tion at the comfortable establishment kept by a 
 German and his wife. Herr Carl Hess, or "Don 
 Carlos" as he was popularly called in these parts, 
 was quite the smartest and most obliging of inn- 
 keepers, and with his genius for management and 
 organisation deserves long ago to have made his 
 fortune and retired to some luxurious residence at 
 Santiago, if he has not indeed entered public life 
 and placed his eapacitiesat the service of his adopted 
 country. The hotel and baths are admirably located 
 on a rocky platform high above the rushing, roaring 
 Cachapual River, at the opening of a gorge whence 
 I obtained a iniieli more perfect idea of the real 
 grandeur of the Andine (bain than I had bad up till 
 then. The life led by the badegdste at Cauquenes
 
 44 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 was deliriously contemplative and dull. They 
 scarcely ever indulged in a stroll beyond the well- 
 shaded garden of the establishment, and were quite 
 content to spend hours under the trees in complete 
 idleness, broken at intervals by a game at cards or 
 dominoes. We stayed here about ten days on our 
 first visit. No traveller in distant Chile should miss 
 seeing this sleepiest of health-resorts, with its charm- 
 ing surroundings, its cheerful buildings clothed 
 luxuriantly with fuchsias, passion-flowers, and other 
 lovely flowering creepers, the great wall of jagged 
 "black rock that faces it across the bright, winding 
 river, and far away, in the background above all, 
 the glitter of the snowfields at the base of the 
 giant Maipo (5384 metres) and the peaks adjoin- 
 ing it. 
 
 By far the most pleasing and interesting experi- 
 ence I had of Chilean country life and hospitality I 
 owe to Don Adolfo Ortuzar and his amiable wife, 
 nee Biilnes, who soon after my arrival at Santiago 
 had made me promise that I would in the summer pay 
 them a visit at their estate of Codao in the province 
 of Colchagua, 1 50 miles south of Santiago, and bring 
 all my boys with me. Early in January 1874, in 
 unusually hot weather, I availed myself of this very 
 kind invitation, and, after a few hours' run on the 
 Southern line, and a long, dusty drive from the 
 station at Pelequen, reached my destination late 
 in the afternoon. I found a large family gather- 
 ing, comprising, among others, the Vergara couple
 
 A MODEL HACIENDA 45 
 
 and all their children, so that, with my own <jriugo l 
 contingent and half-a-dozen young Ortuzars, the 
 place was crammed full of small folk. But the 
 house, though quite unpretentious and villa-like, 
 was roomy, and easily afforded accommodation for 
 so large a party. 
 
 The juvenile element seems more exuberant in 
 Chile than anywhere else. Unions as a rule are 
 so prolific there, that it is no uncommon thing to 
 hear of upwards of a dozen children of the same 
 father and mother. In fact one of the first stereo- 
 typed remarks addressed to the newcomer is : " Mmj 
 largas las familias en Chile, no?" The contrast 
 between this fecundity and the slow increase of the 
 population is only to be explained by the appalling 
 mortality among infants 2 in the lower orders. 
 
 I got to Codao in the midst of harvest-time, and 
 the field-work, as carried out on this splendid pro- 
 perty, was to me a most interesting sight. Ortuzar 
 had now rented this estate of some 20,000 acres — 
 which formed part of the vast Ossa family domains 
 — for twelve years, paying ,£5000 a year to its owner, 
 and had cleared upwards of ,£40,000 by it. Nine 
 thousand acres of it were under wheat, which, at the 
 time of my visit, had been sold all round at 12s. the 
 
 1 Originally a somewhat disparaging appellation given to all 
 foreigners, but now applied, in 00 offensive sense, specially t" the 
 igliah, 
 
 official figures given of tl"- relation of the mortality among 
 Idren under seven) t" tin- general death*rateof ill' 1 country, 
 showed, ;it the time I write of, s p 1 entage of about y> par 100.
 
 46 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 fanega{\\ cwts.), this season's crop of 50,000 fanegas 
 being, therefore, worth about ^"30,000. The wheat- 
 fields in the central provinces of Chile are in some 
 ways the most remarkable in the world, their yield 
 — which is fully equal to 12 for 1 in the province of 
 Santiago and the neighbouring zone, and in the 
 province of Concepcion and the southern districts 
 reaches a still higher figure — being entirely due to 
 the admirable system of irrigation applied to them ; 
 and, according to some writers, to the fact that the 
 mountain streams from which the water is derived 
 bring with them, in their torrential course, rich, 
 fertilising mineral manures from the limestone and 
 other rocks. "The fields," says one authority, 1 
 " ordinarily receive four irrigations between the 
 cessation of the rains in September and the maturity 
 of the grain at the end of November ; on each occa- 
 sion the soil remains submerged during one night, 
 and sometimes for twenty-four hours," the result of 
 this method of flooding being that a mineral deposit 
 is left which " in some years amounts to a stratum 
 of three - quarters of an inch." The magnificent 
 crops produced by these triumphs of irrigation over 
 torrid heat in the driest of climates entail of course 
 corresponding labour, so that the Chilean hacendado 
 who conscientiously exploits his land, as did Don 
 
 1 Lieutenant Gilliss, of the United States Navy, who was in charge 
 of a naval astronomical expedition to South America about 1850. I 
 borrow the above from Mr. T. W. HinchlifPs very pleasant record of 
 travel, " Over the Sea and Far Away."
 
 AN OLD-WORLD CABALLERO 47 
 
 Adolfo, is, especially at harvest-time, one of the 
 hardest-worked of men. 
 
 My host was up and on horseback punctually 
 every morning with the first glimmer of dawn, and 
 was seldom back before nine or ten, having mean- 
 while ridden over the whole estate and seen to 
 everything with his own eyes. Don Adolfo, then a 
 man of about six-and-thirty, was a remarkably 
 creditable specimen of the old-world Spanish cahal- 
 lero, with his spare, active figure, and plain, neat 
 riding-gear, to which the graceful folds of a silken 
 poncho and a great broad-brimmed sombrero gave 
 a picturesque touch. No man in Chile was better 
 mounted, or had an easier seat or a greater grip on 
 a horse. He kindly placed at my disposal one of 
 his nicest hacks, which I afterwards purchased from 
 him, and I generally rode out to join him on his 
 early rounds. There exists, I believe, no pleasanter 
 mount than a well-broken Chilean cob or roadster. 
 Plis easy hand-gallop — he is no good whatever at 
 trotting — is the perfection of motion, and to canter, 
 where the reaping was over, across the immense 
 stubble fields — bounded in great squares by dense 
 rows of the Lombardy poplar {alamo) — through a cool 
 morning breez.e off the mountains just tipped by the 
 rising sun, was one of the most exhilarating sen- 
 sations I can recall in my well-nigh countless 
 experiences in so many climes and countries. 
 
 At Codao, agriculture was carried on after the 
 most modern European methods with steam-ploughs
 
 48 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 and threshing machines of the best English make. 
 Yet, as a strange contrast, wherever the work was at 
 its busiest with these matter-of-fact engines, the 
 level landscape was dotted with brilliant patches 
 formed by the many-coloured ponchos of Ortuzar's 
 capataz (overseer or farm bailiff), and other sir- 
 vientes del campo — or confidential staff, as they may 
 be termed — superintending the peones and in- 
 quilinos 1 of the estate at their labours. These 
 brightly-striped articles of the ordinary riding attire 
 of the country are very striking, and as one canters 
 along the straight endless roads in the dim, almost 
 impenetrable shade of the lofty alamos, the sound of 
 one's horse's hoofs quite deadened by sand inches 
 thick, the effect of a group of these variegated 
 horsemen rapidly moving towards one from a dis- 
 tance, through a golden mist of dust and sunbeams, 
 is to a degree picturesque and charming. 
 
 But I am allowing myself to linger far too long 
 in these rich Chilean fields. The slanting rays of 
 the morning sun begin to beat fiercely, and it is 
 time to turn one's horse's head homewards] and get 
 
 1 The peon, or ordinary labourer, is of a somewhat migratory char- 
 acter, and often without a settled home. The inquilinos, on the other 
 hand, are the mass of the resident peasantry who are allowed by the 
 landowners to occupy certain patches of land, as well as their ranchos, 
 or huts, rent free, but are bound, in return, to perform a certain 
 amount of unremunerated labour on the estate. This unpaid service, 
 or corvee, is the distinctive feature of the system known as inquilinaje ; 
 but the amount of the service required of the inquilino varies greatly 
 on the different estates, and is determined by custom or voluntary 
 agreement, there being absolutely no written contract between the- 
 owner and the inquilino.
 
 SOUTH AMERICAN FEUDALISM 49 
 
 back to one's bath and the sensible light and early 
 mid-day meal which takes the place of our much too 
 copious and belated luncheon. The ladies who, as 
 well as the children, have bathed under a large tent 
 rigged up for that purpose in a stream that passes 
 through the grounds, now make their appearance in 
 becoming white ncylige garments, together with 
 mine host as spruce as possible in a well-cut suit of 
 spotless white duck. After the ahauerzo we lounge 
 and laze about the garden or under cover of the 
 verandah which faces the inclosure through which the 
 house is approached. To the palings that divide it 
 from the fields a number of horses, ready saddled 
 and bridled, are tethered all day long, and occasion- 
 ally some huaso, or farm-servant, comes round from 
 the back regions, and, saluting respectfully as he 
 goes by, mounts and gallops away into the dust and 
 L r lare ; or an inquilino with a message or a report 
 rides up, and jumping off his horse approaches the 
 patron with uncovered head and low obeisance. 
 The bearing towards their employer of all these 
 dependants is distinctly feudal, as indeed are in 
 many respects the relations between owner and 
 tenants in this land of free and independent cen- 
 t.tuis. 1 Before long we all retire for the indispens- 
 
 1 There Win^, a- shown in the preceding footm tricing the 
 
 condition of 1 1 1 « - inquilino, no real link between him ami the land— hie 
 only title to exist >>n it, and by it, being in reason of little Less than 
 servile tenure In- may be said to be practically Ln a state of \a- alage, 
 
 ther, although hi: i-, in tin- rya free man, ami has an iindoul 
 right • :••• <;ii which he has been allowed to squat, the 
 
 him ..f ill.- landowner, who frequently 1* tvbdtltgado 
 
 D
 
 50 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 able siesta, and later on, in the cool of the evening, 
 are taken for a drive, perhaps to the neighbouring 
 little town of Rengo, surrounded by orchards which 
 produce a perfectly delicious kind of that generally 
 insipid fruit, the apricot. But, with the exception 
 of these, and unapproachable melons, figs, and 
 grapes, the Chilean fruit seemed to me to have less 
 flavour than ours of the eastern hemisphere. 
 Amidst these pleasant scenes, and in the company 
 of these kindly people, a fortnight sped quickly 
 away, and by the end of January I was back again 
 in Calle Vergara, but not to stay there very long. 
 
 Like most other capitals, excepting our own, 
 Santiago is deserted at the height of summer by the 
 upper ten, who visit their estates, or go down to 
 Valparaiso for the sea-breezes and sea-bathing. 
 This year the exodus had taken place sooner, and 
 was more complete than usual on account of the 
 President, who, being much nettled by the opposition 
 he met with on Church questions, had adjourned 
 Congress somewhat unexpectedly. The town was 
 quite empty, even the principal members of the 
 Government, including the Minister for Foreign 
 
 (rural magistrate) or comandante de policia, are such as to check any 
 excess of independence on his part. " The inquilinos,'" wrote Don 
 Manuel Jose Balmaceda — the father, I believe, of the notorious and ill- 
 fated President, and one of the largest landowners in Chile — "the 
 inquilinos are the compulsory hands (los brazos obligados) which the 
 owner has at his disposal for every kind of labour." The writer from 
 whose Manual del Hacendado Ghileno the above is taken held, however, 
 what might be termed Colonial views of the duties incumbent on the 
 inquilinos as the successors of the Indians of the encomiendas, and 
 enforced the sternest discipline on his estates.
 
 A CRUISE TO THE SOUTH 51 
 
 Affairs, being away. This seemed to me a propi- 
 tious moment for carrying out a plan I had formed 
 of visiting the southern Chilean ports in H.M.S. 
 Scout, a roomy corvette which her commanding 
 officer. Captain (now Admiral) Cator had, when 
 staying with me at Santiago, kindly placed at my 
 disposal. On the 1 6th of February I accordingly 
 embarked at Valparaiso with Milner, and was away 
 three weeks on a very pleasant cruise. After 
 roughish weather, with a strong head-wind from the 
 south as we steamed down the coast of Arauco, we 
 anchored in the roadstead of Corral in the afternoon 
 of the 19th, this being the nearest point whence 
 we could reach Valdivia, one of the oldest Spanish 
 settlements in this region, and so called after the 
 conquering Pedro of that ilk. Early the following 
 morning we left the Scout in the captain's galley, 
 and sailed across the wide estuary of Corral — 
 guarded by the old fort of Niebla and the remains 
 of other ancient Spanish defences, sadly knocked 
 to pieces by Cochrane and his Liberating squadron 
 in February 1820 1 — to the mouth of the Calla Calla 
 River, on which lies the primitive little city to which 
 we were bound. Coming as we did from the 
 parched uplands of the central districts, the luxu- 
 riant vegetation on the banks of the broad, beauti- 
 ful stream was quite delightful to behold. Dense 
 
 1 During the ti ■'■• for independence Valdivia and it* trail- 
 Bed bay became an tmportanl bate for the Spaniard* until taken 
 by the inanrrectionary tquadron under Lord Cochrane,
 
 52 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 thickets of bamboo and laurel — with a background 
 of the Chilean oak — gigantic cedars (alerce), and 
 Rauli (Fagus jorocera), with other equally splendid 
 timber, their trunks here and there decked with 
 fuchsias and a variety of brilliant twining plants 
 or parasites — grew right down to the water's edge. 
 The depth and silence of the woods, although astir 
 with bird life — bright-plumed loros (parroquets) flying 
 from branch to branch, while numerous divers and 
 other aquatic birds disported themselves in the water 
 — gave to the whole scene the aspect of some lovely, 
 primeval solitude, far removed from any human 
 habitation ; a fascinating conceit which even a 
 sailing barge or two we crossed on our way scarcely 
 dispelled. Some years later a journey I made up 
 the great, forest-girt reaches of the Uruguay, and 
 which I have described elsewhere, 1 called forth in 
 me similar impressions, though on a far grander and 
 more vivid scale. We had an absolutely perfect day 
 for our easy sail of three hours against the broad 
 current, and shortly before noon sighted Valdivia. 
 The unexpected advent of our smart man-of-war s- 
 boat made no little sensation in this small secluded 
 community of at most 6000 souls, while we in turn 
 were little prepared to find here a South American 
 Burton-on-Trent, and the home of the excellent beer 
 which is drunk in such great quantities all over the 
 country. 
 
 1 See my " Great Silver Eiver," notes of a residence in Buenos 
 Ayres in 1880 and 1881 (John Murray, 1887).
 
 VAL1UVIA 53 
 
 German enterprise and industry had made Val- 
 divia what we found it, and had given it the un- 
 mistakable, and in this remote region incongruous, 
 stamp of a fourth-rate Franconian or Suabian town. 
 Its narrow irregular streets and the build of its 
 houses were typically Teutonic, as were its tannery 
 close by the landing-place and its prosperous 
 brewery. The owner of the latter, Herr Anwandter, 
 the great capitalist of the community, had come out 
 with the first batch of immigrants from Germany in 
 the early 'fifties, and in barely twenty years had 
 amassed a fortune of several million piastres. I had 
 some interesting talk with this patriarch, who, after 
 having begun by setting up a small chemist's shop, 
 was now flooding the whole west coast with his 
 malt liquor. His fellow-colonists were, according to 
 him, a fairly prosperous lot, but not increasing in 
 numbers. Although most of them had taken 
 Chilean wives, the national type still strongly 
 asserted itself in the fair skins and flaxen hair of 
 their children and grandchildren. The Valdivia 
 Germans make up about one-fourth of the popu- 
 lation, and form a sort of close corporation, with 
 schools of their own, musical and other clubs, but. 
 no church, or indeed any attempt at public worship. 
 " It is all school with us," grimly said old Anwand- 
 ter to me, "and no church," and the Governor of 
 the Province, one of the very Clerical Irrara/.avals, 
 
 corroborated the statement, adding that this frank 
 
 dispensing with all outward slum ofreligioui obser-
 
 54 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 varices seemed to him quite regular or natural. We 
 were taken to a German inn, which was the head- 
 quarters of the Deutsche Verein, the cleanliness of 
 the rooms assigned to us leaving much to be 
 desired, while the food, on the other hand, was 
 remarkably good. 
 
 The woody scenery round Valdivia is most at- 
 tractive, and Captain Cator, with whom I took a 
 long stroll in the afternoon, told me it reminded 
 him very much of New Zealand. We went along 
 an atrocious road skirting the noble river, and 
 presently met a string of big, clumsy waggons, 
 whose ungreased wheels produced dreadful creaking 
 sounds which had long before prepared us for their 
 approach. These vehicles were heavily loaded with 
 the household goods and chattels of a large com- 
 pany of German settlers shifting their quarters 
 farther south to Osorno. High up on the piled 
 bedding and mattresses sat the elder women and 
 children. It reminded me somehow of the sad 
 caravan of fugitives in " Hermann and Dorothea" ; a 
 very pretty girl, who escorted the waggons on horse- 
 back, affording an agreeable presentment of the 
 heroine of Goethe's somewhat insipid eighteenth- 
 century idyll. The German colonies in Chile extend 
 down to the adjoining province of Llanquihue, but, 
 although fairly thriving, have remained stationary, 
 no steady flow of immigration from the Fatherland 
 having thus far set in this direction. 
 
 After dinner we adjourned to a large room used
 
 "GOD SAVE THE QUEEN" 55 
 
 by the Verein for its meetings, and assisted at a 
 sort of smoking - concert which had been partly 
 arranged for our benefit. The national turn for 
 music seemed to have degenerated a good deal in 
 the Yaldivian atmosphere, and, barring a creditable 
 performance on the fiddle by a young Teuton, the 
 entertainment was rather trying. It wound up with 
 the Chilean national hymn, followed by "Cod Save 
 the Queen " — or such we complacently assumed it 
 to be — both played by what I find I described in 
 rough notes taken at the time as an " atrocious 
 brass band." Considering, however, the calm ap- 
 propriation in Prussia of the latter melody as a 
 national anthem, under the title of " Ileil dir im 
 S /■ rhrcmz" it may very well have been nowise 
 intended for us. We left Valdivia next morning 
 on our return to the Scout, crossing the bay in a 
 stiff westerly breeze that made our boat heel over 
 quite unpleasantly. 
 
 We had proposed going farther down the coast 
 as far as Puerto Montt, but rough weather and the 
 limited holiday I had assigned myself decided us to 
 steer north again to the bay of Talcahuano, where 
 v\ e lay at anchor a couple of days off* the domains of 
 the Cousino family at Lota. It is difficult to imagine 
 a more beautiful site than that they have chosen 
 here for their sumptuous villa and park, which, at 
 time I write of, were as yet in an incomplete 
 state ; but, from the accounts 1 have since seen of 
 them, may well now rank among the marvels of the
 
 56 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 South Pacific. Dona Isidora Cousino received us 
 with the greatest cordiality, and put us up very 
 comfortably — her own house being as yet only partly 
 ready — at the house of the agency for the estate. 
 After going over the large copper-smelting works 
 and seeing the coal-mines, which together have laid 
 the foundations of the great wealth of the Cousinos, 
 we took coach to Concepcion, reaching that place 
 towards evening after a long and uninteresting 
 drive. This picturesque old Spanish town of some 
 16,000 souls, situated on the banks of the broad 
 and rapid Bio-bio, is the capital of the south, and 
 played a leading part in the revolutionary war, 
 witnessing the formal proclamation of Chilean in- 
 dependence on the 1st of January 1818. From 
 Concepcion we went on by train and steamer up 
 the river to Nacimiento, and the following day 
 struck across country to Angol, a place of quite 
 recent creation, and the centre of the administra- 
 tion of the so-called province of Arauco, which 
 was formally incorporated in the dominions of the 
 Republic in 1852. 
 
 We were now on the very borders of the Arau- 
 canian region, and one of the main objects of my 
 journey was to visit the frontier line of defence, 
 as the Chileans themselves then oddly enough 
 designated it, against the aboriginal tribes which 
 occupied the country from the Andes to the sea, for 
 some 250 kilometres to the south, as far as the Rio 
 Tolten and the borders of the province of Valdivia.
 
 THE LINE OF THE MAILLECO 57 
 
 Although this great wedge or enclave in the Chilean 
 territory no longer figures as an unsightly break on 
 the map, the greater part of the so-called province, 
 nevertheless, remained practically as independent as 
 it had been from time immemorial. It was, in fact, 
 only effectually subdued and occupied several years 
 later by the forces rendered available for that 
 purpose at the victorious close of the great war 
 against Peru. The military governor of the pro- 
 vince, General Urrutia, whose headquarters were at 
 Angol, obligingly placed horses and an escort at 
 my disposal for the excursion I wished to make 
 along the line of fortified posts on the river 
 ^Iailleco. Early in the morning, with a sergeant's 
 guard in attendance on us, we started on this 
 expedition from the very primitive inn where we 
 were lodged. Like all the Chilean breed, the troop- 
 horses provided for us were pleasant mounts enough, 
 but the regulation high-peaked saddles proved 
 rather a trial to both my naval friend and myself, 
 and our ride of something like fifty miles in 
 and out that day seemed to us a fairly creditable 
 achievement for persons of our respectable middle 
 age. 
 
 The line of the Mailleco consisted of a chain of 
 a dozen forts, or more properly blockhouses, at 
 intervals of a few miles, and, with a similar girdle 
 on the southern frontier towards Valdivia, afforded 
 
 >d training and employment to the greater part 
 
 of the modest Chilean army, which in those days
 
 58 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 numbered altogether but a few thousand men. 1 
 These amply sufficed to keep in check the maraud- 
 ing bands which occasionally ventured across the 
 river for a raid on the Chilean farms. The remnant 
 of the Araucanian nation, whose exploits are sung 
 in Ercilla's heroic verse, 2 had then already sadly 
 degenerated from the formidable warriors led by 
 Caupolican and Lautaro, and had become little 
 better than caterans and cattle-lifters. Fugitives 
 from justice, deserters, and in general the pick of 
 Chilean scoundrelism, who found a ready refuge 
 with the tribes, nevertheless constituted a dangerous 
 element amongst them, and the country along the 
 border could certainly not be said to be safe, while 
 any attempt to penetrate beyond it, into the heart 
 of the area complacently mapped out as the Pro- 
 vince of Arauco, was, at the period of my visit, out 
 of the question without an adequate armed force. 
 The banks of the Mailleco are much broken up by 
 wooded ravines affording excellent cover to predatory 
 parties. Not eight miles out of Angol, and within 
 gunshot of one of the forts, a Danish doctor in the 
 Chilean service had been quite recently murdered, 
 and only a week before our visit a party of fifty 
 Indians had forded the river and been engaged in a 
 sharp and bloody skirmish with the nearest garrison. 
 
 1 The military element has been systematically and wisely kept 
 under in Chile, with the result that the country has been far freer 
 from internal disturbance than any of the South American Republics. 
 
 2 " La Araucana," the great epic poem of the soldier-poet Alonso 
 de Ercilla y Zuniga.
 
 ACHING LIMBS 59 
 
 Our ride along the border, with our military escort 
 and some of the pom}) and circumstance of war, 
 remains a decidedly interesting and pleasing experi- 
 ence ; the officers at the several forts, and especially 
 at Colli Pulli, where we made a longish halt for 
 dinner and rested and baited our horses, entertain- 
 ing us to the best of theil ability, and freely plying 
 us with the heady wines of the country. We got 
 back to Angol after a steady gallop of a good many 
 miles in the broad moonlight, and gladly tumbled 
 into bed — I for my part with aching limbs and lively 
 recollections of the Chilean cavalry saddle. The 
 next day we retraced our steps to Concepcion and 
 Talcahuano, where we embarked for Valparaiso. At 
 the latter port I parted from one of the pleasantest 
 friends I have ever made in ELM. Navy, and on 
 the 10th of March was back at my duties, which 
 now, quite unexpectedly, became both engrossing 
 and troublesome.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 THE TACNA AFFAIR 
 
 On March 8 the Tacna, a small steamer of 322 
 tons, employed by the Pacific Steam Navigation 
 Company in trading with the ports north of Val- 
 paraiso, capsized in the early hours of the morning 
 at a distance of nine or ten miles from the coast. 
 The disaster was due to careless and excessive load- 
 ing of a vessel already reported to be crank. The 
 cargo partially shifting in the night, and giving her 
 a marked list on the port side, the Tacna failed 
 to right herself from a heavy lurch caused by the 
 long ground-swell off the shore, and turned turtle in 
 less than fifteen minutes. Nine of her eighteen 
 passengers were drowned, as well as ten out of the 
 crew of thirty-four. The survivors got off in boats, 
 and with the master, John Hyde — who was twenty- 
 five minutes in the water before being saved — landed, 
 after a weary pull of six hours, at the small port of 
 Los Vilos. 
 
 The catastrophe caused a great sensation at 
 Valparaiso, and was vigorously commented upon by 
 the press, which, not unnaturally, held the master 
 
 of the wrecked vessel answerable for the lamentable 
 
 60
 
 A NAVAL COURT 61 
 
 loss of life. A naval court of inquiry at once met 
 at our Consulate under the presidency of Mr. Drum- 
 mond-Hay, and Hyde, with the other survivors, was 
 examined ; the Court rinding both the master and 
 the agents on shore of the Pacific Steam Navigation 
 Company highly censurable for the careless and 
 improper loading of the vessel, especially on the 
 upper deck. The Court animadverted at the same 
 time on the absence of proper supervision of the 
 charing of vessels in Chilean harbours, there being 
 thus no check on the condition in which they pro- 
 ceeded to sea. My attention had been called before, 
 I regret to say, to malpractices on other British 
 ships similar to those which had proved fatal in the 
 Tacna. I therefore immediately communicated the 
 finding of the Court and its remarks to the Chilean 
 Government, and suggested the delegation to some 
 authority in their ports of powers to prevent vessels 
 departing in an unsafe condition. 
 
 Meanwhile the Valparaiso authorities, moved by 
 the popular feeling, themselves instituted an inquiry 
 into the circumstances of the wreck. The case, it is 
 most essential to explain, was one which they were 
 legally incompetent to deal with otherwise than for 
 pure purposes of investigation, it having been proved 
 beyond any doubt that the Tacna had gone down on 
 the high seal entirelj outside the limits of the Chilean 
 waters. Our Consul, none the less, very properly 
 placed at their disposal all the evidence given before 
 the Naval Court, the principal witnesses, including
 
 62 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Hyde, being examined by the magistrate charged 
 with the inquiry. 
 
 The circumstances attending the loss of the 
 vessel having thus been fully gone into on the 
 Chilean as well as the British side, it became neces- 
 sary to send Hyde home to answer for his conduct 
 before the Board of Trade and his employers. The 
 Consul accordingly informed the Maritime Governor 
 that he proposed despatching the man to Liver- 
 pool by the next mail, inquiring at the same time 
 whether it was desired to interrogate him further 
 before his departure. No answer being returned to 
 this communication, Hyde sailed in the Ulimani 
 on March 25. 
 
 No sooner was his departure known than there 
 arose such an outcry at this "great criminal having 
 been allowed to leave the country," that the Govern- 
 ment, intimidated by the clamour, and inspired by a 
 President who was only too prone to arbitrary pro- 
 ceedings, took the unwarrantable step of telegraphing 
 to Lota, where the Illimani was to touch thirty-six 
 hours after leaving Valparaiso, to have " the offender 
 flying from justice " seized and brought back. Hyde 
 was accordingly taken out of the ship, put in irons, 
 and, on arriving at Valparaiso, was confined in the 
 common jail, and at first kept au secret. 
 
 Although not a little disturbed by the arrest, I 
 was on sufficiently cordial terms with the Chilean 
 Ministers to flatter myself that I should be able to 
 convince them of its illegality, and thus be spared
 
 OFFICIAL STUBBORNNESS 63 
 
 having to take official action in this unpleasant 
 business. Unfortunately the Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs. M. Ibahez. was away at his country house at 
 Quillota, eighty miles from Santiago. I sent him a 
 very pressing message through the official mayor, or 
 Under-Secretary, M. Domingo Gana — now the much- 
 esteemed representative of his Government in this 
 country — but received the somewhat annoying reply 
 that he was indisposed, 1 and would not return for 
 some days. An offer I made to go down and see 
 him was taken no notice of. I then tried to con- 
 vince the Minister of Justice that Hyde's seizure 
 was unjustifiable, and might have serious conse- 
 quences. M. Barcel6, however, treated the affair 
 lightly, if not flippantly, and confined himself to 
 saying that justice must take its course. I also saw 
 the Minister of War, M. Pinto, whom I frequently 
 met at his near relatives, the Vergaras. Don Anibal 
 Pinto, a man of high standing and character, who 
 afterwards succeeded M. Emizuriz in the Presidency, 
 listened to me courteously, and undertook to convey 
 my urgent remonstrances to the President. To my 
 chagrin, however, I found that he, too, thought the 
 incident of little importance. 
 
 Several daya thus passed, my well-meant efforts 
 and warnings producing no result beyond a verbal 
 
 isage from the absent Ebanez to the effect that 
 
 1 I rabeequently Ifwrntd from Mr. DrammancUH&y thai the 
 Minister was in perfect health, tnd had lmcl violent language at Val 
 paraiao in favour of Byde*i arrest, which indeed Mi. Bay attributed 
 
 to hi in.
 
 64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Hyde was now allowed to communicate with the 
 British Consul. I could defer action no longer, and 
 sent in an official note pointing out the complete 
 illegality of the arrest, as shown by the fact, which 
 had been proved beyond question, that the Tacna 
 had foundered on the high seas entirely outside 
 Chilean jurisdiction. On that ground I demanded 
 the release of a British subject arbitrarily detained. 
 
 To this note I received an extremely long-winded 
 and anything but conciliatory reply, treating my 
 arguments as scarcely worthy of consideration, and 
 declining to interfere in any way in the proceedings 
 against Hyde. I thereupon addressed a very vigorous 
 protest to M. Ibanez — whose reasoning was, I may 
 fairly say, deplorably weak — holding his Government 
 answerable for the illegal acts of their agents, and 
 insisting on the liberation of a man who, whatever 
 might be his error, was in no way accountable to 
 Chilean judges, and had been forcibly taken out of a 
 Royal Mail steamer under circumstances of peculiar 
 indignity. In both my communications I purposely 
 avoided putting forward any claim for pecuniary 
 damages, well knowing how sensitive the Chileans 
 were certain to be on that score. 
 
 The excitement caused by the Tacna incident 
 now reached its height. The newspapers loudly 
 applauded the attitude of the Government, and pro- 
 fessed amazement at my audacity in venturing to 
 question its correctness. I have passed through far 
 more important crises in the course of a long diplo-
 
 AN ILL-TIMED VISIT 65 
 
 matic career, but this storm in a teacup is one of the 
 sharpest I can remember. Society at Santiago was 
 divided respecting the affair, but I fortunately had 
 influential friends who supported me in my conten- 
 tion as to the wrongful seizure of Hyde. Among 
 these were two distinguished lawyers and members 
 of Congress, MM. Good and Huneeus, both of foreign 
 extraction, the former being of English ! and the 
 latter of German parentage. These gentlemen did 
 me essential service in the controversy in which I 
 was engaged, but made no concealment that the 
 predominant feeling was : " We will face ten wars 
 with Kngland rather than surrender Hyde." The 
 national susceptibility and an excessive — almost 
 morbid — conception of the dignity of the country, 
 which are characteristic of the entire Spanish- 
 American race, were screwed up to the highest 
 pitch. On the other hand, the large and influential 
 British community at Valparaiso were equally up in 
 arms over the outrage committed. 
 
 A fortnight had now elapsed since Hyde's arrest. 
 On April 1 2 I was surprised by a visit from M. Ibanez, 
 who entered my room with a jaunty air, a smiling 
 countenance and extended hand. I bowed to him, 
 of course, and motioned him to a seat, but at once 
 
 1 that, before shaking hands, I had much to say 
 of his oeglectful treatment of me, to which was 
 
 1 Mr. Cood bad been partly educated in England. Two maternal 
 ancles of bis, of the name of Ross, were I 1 on the staff of Tfo 
 
 T 
 
 B
 
 66 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 mainly due the serious character the Tacna affair 
 had now assumed. M. Ibanez seemed greatly 
 taken aback and impressed (as I wished him to 
 be) by my resentful tone, and soon retired in 
 evident confusion. 
 
 The next day he sent me an official communica- 
 tion, referring to my reception of him, and giving an 
 account of it of which he begged me to confirm the 
 correctness, " as my reply would determine the atti- 
 tude to be observed towards me by his Government 
 in future." His object clearly was to get me to 
 commit myself by some injudicious statement that 
 might be used against me with our Foreign Office, 
 and thereby to extricate himself at my expense from 
 the awkward position he had got into. In reply I 
 begged " to be excused from following him on to 
 the ground to which he apparently wished to lead 
 me," being, I said, unwilling to further complicate 
 our controversy by the importation of extraneous 
 matter. I admitted, however, that, while most 
 anxious to preserve the friendliest relations with his 
 Government, I did not feel bound to show marked 
 cordiality to a Minister who had done nothing to 
 meet me in my earnest desire to settle the Tacna 
 affair amicably and without taking diplomatic action 
 on it. " For the rest, I would continue in the dis- 
 charge of my official duties without heeding the 
 threat which the concluding passage of M. Ibanez's 
 note possibly contained." 
 
 The answer to this was a letter requesting me
 
 THE CHILEAN FOREIGN MINISTER 67 
 
 to call the next day at the Moneda* when M. 
 Ibanez "felt confident that our interview would lead 
 to the satisfactory object he proposed to himself." 
 On reaching the Foreign Department I found in the 
 waiting-room M. Pinto, who asked as a favour to be 
 present at the interview about to take place. Nothing, 
 I replied, could be more agreeable to me than his 
 presence, but as I had not come to apologise to his 
 colleague, but rather to make quite clear my stand- 
 point in the Tacna incident, I preferred seeing M. 
 Ibariez alone. Some description of the Chilean 
 Foreign Minister may not be out of place here. He 
 was a small man of insignificant appearance, with 
 thin sandy hair, and the address and bearing of a 
 schoolmaster. Somehow he reminded me of the St. 
 Omer of my boyhood. 2 By profession he was a 
 lawyer — of no particular distinction — verbose and 
 boastful, and at this time much inflated by the 
 encomiums bestowed on his interminable notes on 
 the Argentine Boundary question. In no way a 
 man of mark, he was essentially a puppet in the 
 hands of the President, who, throughout, as I well 
 knew, was answerable for the high-handed proceed- 
 ings against Hyde. 
 
 Scarcely had I entered the room when, to my 
 
 1 The M /■■'(•• (Mint) i» the President's official residence, and con* 
 tains the chief ( lorernment offices. The original plans for this building 
 as a Mint were intended, it ii said, for the city of Mexico, and, in the 
 strati^- confusion of thr old Bpaniab days, were sent by mistake to 
 The tradition, however, appears doubtful, and is denied in 
 M. Wiener's OMU •< GhiUt n . 
 
 * Fids u Becollections of a Diplono I '. L pp. 34,35.
 
 68 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 intense surprise, the Minister began with ill-con- 
 cealed emotion to express his regret that he had 
 not better appreciated and seconded my efforts to 
 settle the affair amicably at the outset. He was, 
 however, chiefly anxious to be assured that I had 
 not intended any insult in not shaking hands when 
 he called upon me. I had no difficulty in satisfying 
 him on that point, and stretched out my hand, which 
 he grasped with effusion. The poor man was, in 
 fact, in the most submissive of moods, as he let 
 appear just before by stooping to pick up a walking- 
 stick that had slipped out of my hand — quite acci- 
 dentally, I need scarcely say, and in no parodying 
 reminiscence of one of old Prince Metternich's stock 
 anecdotes. 1 
 
 " And now," despondingly inquired the Minister, 
 " what is to be done ? What would you have us 
 do 1 " I said that it was not for me to show him 
 the way out of the difficulty. I could only repeat 
 that the affair must be stopped as speedily as possible. 
 I insisted on Hyde's release ; if he could effect this 
 by legal methods, so much the better for him. Here 
 M. Ibafiez rang the bell, and, writing a few lines, 
 handed them to a messenger, at the same time 
 explaining that he was sending a request to the 
 Supreme Court (to which the affair had come up 
 on appeal from Valparaiso) " to suspend proceedings 
 
 1 The memorable interview at Dresden, when Napoleon, in order 
 to test the pliancy of the Austrian statesman, threw his hat down, 
 Metternich not attempting to pick it up.
 
 AN ULTIMATUM 69 
 
 at once." He then asked what were my terms. 
 I told him that my conception of my duty to my 
 Government made it impossible for me to assist 
 any longer at the arbitrary incarceration of my 
 countryman. If, therefore, I was not in a position 
 to report home by the mail of April 22 — six days 
 hence — that Hyde had been set free, I would take 
 upon myself to suspend relations and withdraw to 
 Valparaiso, where I would await further instructions 
 from II. M. Government. Further, the release must 
 be notified to me officially, with some suitable ex- 
 pression of regret for the error committed, which 
 I could transmit home. 
 
 M. Ibariez, although evidently much relieved 
 by what I said, seemed anxious to know whether 
 a pecuniary indemnity would be demanded. I 
 reminded him that I had carefully reserved this 
 point for the decision of the Foreign Office, though 
 it seemed to me only reasonable that Hyde should 
 be indemnified for wrongful imprisonment. The 
 Minister then proposed we should draft the ex- 
 pression of regret, which would, in my opinion, 
 meet the circumstances. Being, however, loth to 
 press him further at the moment, 1 said we could 
 settle that point when he came to me the next 
 day, as he proposed doing. On parting he again 
 thanked me effusively "for all I bad done." 
 
 When the Minister called upon me, as arranged, 
 
 he teemed rather inclined to shilly-shally about 
 the release of Hyde, apprehending, he said, thai
 
 70 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 it might be difficult to obtain a unanimous decision 
 from the Supreme Court for his liberation. He 
 had evidently seen the President in the interval, 
 but he soon changed his tone on my warning him 
 again of my firm resolve to suspend relations if 
 necessary. He then inquired whether I had pre- 
 pared the draft we had spoken of the day before, 
 and here, in my sincere desire to spare him what 
 seemed the humiliation of dictating terms to him, 
 I was so weak as to say that I was not particular 
 about the exact wording of the regret to be ex- 
 pressed. "Ustedes son caballeros " (you are gentle- 
 men), I said, " and can be trusted to say gracefully 
 what is needed." Thereupon he left me, not, how- 
 ever, without destroying in my presence, of his 
 own accord, the threatening note he had sent me 
 and of which he was evidently much ashamed. 1 
 Finally, on the evening of the 21st, I received a 
 private line from M. Ibaflez, stating that the 
 Supreme Court had quashed the proceedings at 
 Valparaiso, and I was thus able to telegraph next 
 day to Lord Derby — the second Disraeli Adminis- 
 tration had shortly before come in — that Hyde had 
 been released. 
 
 I was well satisfied with my success in the 
 affair, and still more glad to receive, after a few 
 weeks interval — Panama or Montevideo being still 
 at that time the nearest points whence it was 
 
 1 I had thought it advisable to keep copies of this curious corre- 
 spondence.
 
 A BREACH OF FAITH 71 
 
 possible to communicate with Europe by telegraph 
 — a message of approval from Lord Derby. Great 
 was my disgust, therefore, when the formal notifi- 
 cation of the decree of the Supreme Court reached 
 me without a single expression of regret, or the 
 admission of any wrong-doing on the part of the 
 Chilean authorities. I, of course, reported home 
 this breach of faith, and assumed an attitude of 
 great reserve towards the Government, being, in 
 due course, instructed to demand satisfaction and 
 compensation for the arrest. The final settlement 
 of the affair did not, however, take place for months, 
 and the Tacna incident affected my official rela- 
 tions until nearly the end of my stay in Chile. 
 It practically came to a personal contest over the 
 question between the stubborn autocratic President 
 and myself, which at one time led to the resignation 
 of the maladroit Ibariez and the substitution for 
 him of my friend Don Enrique Cood, whose ap- 
 paintment was avowedly intended to be agreeable 
 to II. M. Government and their representative. 
 
 But it is high time that I should turn from this 
 troublesome business to other subjects. In the 
 early antipodean spring — read August — of 1874, the 
 somewhat dreary sameness of life in Chile was 
 broken by the arrival at Valparaiso of Adelaide 
 I J i >tori. A good many yean before at Vienna 1 had 
 made the acquaintance of this greatest of tragic 
 actresses of our time — still living, I rejoice to think* 
 I could recall the impression made upon me by
 
 72 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 her brilliant appearance, her southern verve and 
 picturesque gestures, when I first met her at an 
 entertainment given in her honour by Stametz 
 Meyer, the rich Austrian banker and Maecenas of 
 those days, and well remembered her impulsive 
 greeting of some revolutionary ditties of the dawn 
 of the risorgimento — sono Italiano, and the like — 
 which I had been induced to sing after dinner for 
 her amusement : a highly treasonable proceeding 
 on the part of an attache* at the Imperial Court. 
 I had gone down to Valparaiso for a few days, for a 
 change from the worry of the Tacna affair, when 
 Madame Ristori — now Marchesa Capranica del 
 Grillo — arrived at the Hotel Oddo where I was 
 stopping. I called upon her at once and offered 
 my services during her approaching visit to Santiago, 
 where she had arranged to give a series of per- 
 formances at the very handsome Teatro Municipal. 
 
 There was something touching about this last 
 venture of the illustrious tragedienne. She had met 
 shortly before with very severe financial reverses, 
 and, although she was already on the threshold of 
 old age, and had long since exchanged her dramatic 
 triumphs for the repose and dignity of the Palazzo Cap- 
 ranica at Rome, she was now pluckily engaged on a 
 professional tour round the world. She had just been 
 starring it at Rio Janeiro and Buenos Ayres, and 
 was on her way to Peru, Mexico, California and 
 Australia, with the object of making good to her son 
 and daughter the million or so of francs by which
 
 A PICTURE FROM PETRARCH 73 
 
 their inheritance had been curtailed. All this she 
 was explaining to me, in her sitting-room at the 
 Valparaiso Hotel, when the door opened and a tall, 
 slight girl, with hair of the most perfect blond 
 \r4y dark eyes, and an indescribable look of 
 distinction and refinement, entered the room and 
 was introduced as her daughter Bianca. Donna 
 Bianca — should these lines ever come under her 
 notice — must forgive me if I permit myself, after 
 these long years, to say that I scarcely remember 
 ever being so struck as I was by this unexpectedly 
 lair apparition in a commonplace inn-parlour in the 
 remote South Pacific. But for the perfect taste and 
 simplicity of her nineteenth-century gown, she might 
 have stepped out of the frame of a Bronzino or 
 Lorenzo Lotto, depicting the sweetly serious traits 
 of some high-born biondina bella of a great Italian 
 house. Charming Donna Bianca ! As I write, and 
 look back to that far-away time, Petrarch's splendid 
 statelv lines recur to me as best and most vividly 
 recalling her as I first beheld her that sunny fore- 
 noon : — 
 
 ( liovaru- <lonna sott' un verde lauro 
 Vidi, piii bianca, e piii fr<"Ma '-lie neve 
 Nmi percossa dal Sol molti e moltfanni : 
 K'l roo parlar*, e'l be] \riso, «• le chiome 
 Mi piacquen a), oh' L'l'ho dinanzi a gli ocohi 
 Ed avm Bempre oV io ria, in pog . o'n riva. ' 
 
 After a short season at Valparaiso the great 
 
 artist moved up to the capital with her family, and 
 
 1 Petrarca, < !ansoxu
 
 74 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the troupe — mostly old camarades de scene of hers — 
 which she had enlisted for her tour. To me who 
 lived, for some weeks, in the intimacy of the del 
 Grillos, nothing could be more interesting than 
 to note the, so to speak, twofold life they led. In 
 her rooms at the Grand Hotel, the Marchesa did 
 not let a trace appear of the object which had 
 brought her to the uttermost ends of the earth. 
 Above all, Donna Bianca was sedulously kept out of 
 all contact with her mother's theatrical surroundings. 
 A middle-aged Belgian lady, a Comtesse du Hamal, 
 kept her company and chaperoned her, while of her 
 mother's repertoire she was only allowed to be 
 present at pieces like "Maria Stuart," "Marie 
 Antoinette," or " Elisabetta " ; it being judged quite 
 unfit that she should witness the sombre, impassioned 
 performance of such parts as "Phedre" or "Myrrha." 
 The Chileans made many demonstrations in 
 honour of Melpomene on the globe-trot, some of 
 these being unfortunately marred by questionable 
 incidents. A great banquet given to Madame 
 Kistori by the Intendente (Prefect) of Santiago, 
 which was attended by the Ministers and other high 
 officials, was most tactlessly turned into a manifesta- 
 tion in favour of the independence of Cuba, while 
 some of the speeches delivered at it contained 
 allusions in very doubtful taste to the execution of 
 the Emperor Maximilian and the degrading effects 
 of monarchical institutions, which latter remarks 
 can hardly have been grateful to my worthy colleague
 
 THE DEL GRILLOS 75 
 
 Sanminiatelli and other Italians present. In still 
 worse taste was the advantage taken by the Inten- 
 dente of his distinguished guest's compassionate 
 feelings, to initiate a movement for the reprieve of a 
 criminal recently condemned to death for the murder 
 of his wife under circumstances of peculiar atrocity. 
 From the banquet Madame Ristori was induced to 
 accompany the Intendente and Ministers to the 
 President of the Republic, who, most unwillingly 
 it was said, granted the commutation of the sen- 
 tence to imprisonment for life. 
 
 These Ristori days — a brilliant and delightful 
 interlude in my recollections of that year — passed 
 away all too rapidly. I did my best to entertain 
 the del Grillos, taking them, among other excursions, 
 for a picnic to the Escobar gardens, perhaps the 
 prettiest spot in all the neighbourhood, where 
 l)mma Bianca's delicate profile and slight, grace- 
 ful outline, standing out against the rich, sub- 
 tropical greenery, more than ever reminded me 
 of the fair being rendered immortal by the unique 
 memorial raised by the poet to female charm and 
 loveliness. 
 
 Two days before the departure of the del Grillos 
 a great subscription ball was given at the theatre, to 
 which all the Santiago world of course went, and 
 where, not having jrel quite given up my old Vien- 
 nese propensities, I took a turn or two with Donna 
 
 Bianca and other ladies. Such indiscretions as 
 
 these bring their punishment with them. We were
 
 76 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 verging on summer, and the heat of the ball-room 
 being very great, I went and stood at an open 
 window between the dances, and only too effec- 
 tually courted the Andine night breezes. - A day or 
 two after I was laid up with one of the worst bron- 
 chial attacks I have ever experienced. I was pulled 
 through it by the skill of the late Dr. Cooper, of 
 the British Naval Hospital at Valparaiso, for whom 
 I sent when I found that the Santiago medicos 
 afforded me no relief. One night during my illness, 
 I remember, there was an unusually sharp shock of 
 earthquake, which, probably from my lying helpless 
 in bed, made a most unpleasant impression upon me. 
 As soon as I had sufficiently recovered strength 
 I went down for a fortnight to our hospital, ad- 
 mirably managed by the kind and able Cooper, and 
 which, being situated on very high ground, com- 
 mands a magnificent prospect of the town and the 
 boundless ocean beyond it. I now saw the last of 
 Madame Ristori and her party, who went north to 
 Callao and Lima, though for several months I was 
 able to follow their peregrinations, as I kept up a 
 correspondence with young Giorgio Capranica for 
 a time. 
 
 I have said nothing as yet of the English resi- 
 dents at Valparaiso, but should be indeed remiss 
 were I not to refer to them, for, next to the factory 
 at St. Petersburg, I can remember no more credit- 
 able British community abroad, and they stood 
 loyally by me at a rather critical period and
 
 OLD PHOTOGRAPHS 77 
 
 showed me much goodwill. Lying before me is 
 a packet of photographs of Valparaiso friends — 
 almost pathetic they look to me in the old-fashioned 
 dresses of thirty years ago, let alone the thought 
 that most of those they represent may well be 
 no longer of this world. Here is pretty Mrs. 
 Hammond, gifted with a charming voice, and 
 appropriately attired as Music, as she appeared 
 at a fancy dress ball at the Valparaiso Philhar- 
 monic. Here, too, is graceful Mrs. Brice Miller 
 and cheerv Mrs. Bourchier, the husbands of 
 these ladies — all leading men in the prosperous, 
 hospitable community — being among my staunchest 
 supporters in the Tacna difficulty. Here also is 
 charming Donna Juanita Browne de Subercaseaux, 
 English in her good looks as well as in feelings, 
 though born in the country and married to a 
 Chilean of old French descent. How vividly these 
 poor, faded effigies, long put aside and forgotten, 
 bring back all that period as I turn them over and 
 wonder, not without a tinge of sadness, what has 
 been the lot of those portrayed in them ! 
 
 Unlike Valparaiso, Santiago has scarcely any 
 trade, and therefore but few English residents, the 
 most prominent amongst them in my time being 
 a Mr. Applegatli, of whom I preserve a cor- 
 dial recollection. The Santiaguinos prided them- 
 selves, and rightly, on their easy, polished lives, 
 mi their opera-house and their races. At the 
 former there was generally a very fair Italian
 
 78 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 company, graced one season by a pleasing sop- 
 rano of the name of Repetto, whose attractive 
 features smile upon me from among the photos 
 aforesaid. As for the carreras, the racecourse 
 on which they took place was truly unique in 
 the contrast between its stern background of 
 snowy mountain and the gay brilliant scene 
 with the smiling plain around it. The wealthier 
 Chileans spared no expense on the furniture of 
 their houses or the splendour of their equipages, 
 and the number of thoroughly well-appointed car- 
 riages that turned out at their race-meetings could 
 not but strike even an English eye. The entire 
 display was in those days very superior to what I 
 saw some years later in the equally luxurious, but 
 far less patrician, capital of Argentina. The quality 
 of the horses running was on the whole, too, com- 
 mendable, considering the small value of the prizes 
 which, according to the " correct card " I have pre- 
 served of one day's racing, scarcely exceeded 400 
 dollars, £Zo in all. 
 
 But for its remoteness, Santiago would certainly 
 in every respect repay a visit from our ubiquitous 
 tourists .in quest of novelty, and now that it has 
 become so much more accessible, through its almost 
 complete connection with Buenos Ayres by rail, the 
 capital of Chile deserves to be much better known 
 than it is. During my stay in the country the 
 travellers, who visited it on anything but business, 
 were so few that I can almost count them on my
 
 ENGLISH VISITORS 79 
 
 lingers. The Challenger touching at Valparaiso, on 
 her return from her remarkable deep-sea dredging 
 operations, her captain (Nares), together with the 
 eminent Professor Wyville Thomson, and with them 
 young Lord George Campbell, paid me a visit at 
 Santiago. Later on, my old Foreign Office chum, 
 and subsequently distinguished colleague, "Fergus" 
 O'Conor, 1 turned up quite unexpectedly with Greville 
 Douglas, affectionately yclept "The Snipe," whom I 
 have since had good reason to number among my 
 best friends. They were on their way to Buenos 
 Avres overland, and I helped them to engage mules 
 and guides for crossing the Andes. I can remember, 
 too, a flying visit from Colonel and Lady Constance 
 Barne, on a wedding tour round the world, and last, 
 but not least, my first sight of Mr. W. Gillett, 
 now so well known in London circles, whose 
 journeyings at that time no doubt furnished some 
 of the stock of lantern slides he has since used 
 to illustrate his lectures at the Bachelors' — best 
 managed of London Clubs let it be said by the way. 
 My residence in Chile now drew fast to a close. 
 Some months before, 1 had obtained Lord Derby's 
 sanction to go home on leave, and in the Chilean 
 ipiing (read autumn) of 1875 I completed my ar- 
 rangements to start in January, when the summer 
 season gave reasonable promise of a smooth passage 
 
 » The friendly nickname ftrtl given to Sir Nicholai O'Conor (now 
 
 1IM. Am!).-i--.i d ' >' the Foreign Office, in chaffy 
 
 allnaion to the notorioai ( ihartUt leader Feargua < POonnor.
 
 80 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 for my small belongings through the Straits of 
 Magellan. My last visit, a fortnight before my 
 departure, was to the kind Ortuzars at Codao, 
 where I once more enjoyed such perfect hospitality 
 as I have seldom experienced since in any clime 
 or country. Parting, with sincere regret, from my 
 kindly hosts at early dawn for the long drive to 
 the station at Pelequen, I well recollect calling the 
 attention of my eldest boy — then not quite seven 
 years old, and now following his father's footsteps 
 in a service which may, I trust, use him well — to 
 the striking effect of the sun rising over the great 
 chain of mountains, bidding him remember in after 
 years that in his early childhood he had seen that 
 wondrous spectacle. 
 
 In many respects I was sincerely sorry to leave 
 Chile, and have ever since kept a warm corner in 
 my heart for that country and its friendly people. 
 I had felt it right, and still feel it was right, to 
 turn to account the Tacna difficulty — absolutely 
 forced upon me by an autocratic President and an 
 incompetent Minister — for the recovery of some of 
 the ground which our Legation, and in some degree 
 our national prestige in that important region of the 
 South Pacific, had for some years been losing. My 
 predecessor, Mr. Taylour Thomson, had on several 
 occasions been subjected to much indignity, and 
 the bearing of the Chilean authorities towards our 
 Legation and our countrymen, as indeed towards 
 foreigners in general, had for some time past been
 
 VEXATIOUS PROCEEDINGS 81 
 
 troincr from bad to worse. I had just cause to 
 complain of a series of vexatious proceedings, such 
 as the refusal to acknowledge the right of our 
 ( onsuls to issue sentences of imprisonment against 
 seamen for offences committed on board vessels 
 flying the British flag, and the still more invidious 
 attempt to close our Naval Hospital — where seamen 
 of all nations, including Chilean blue-jackets, were 
 most liberally treated — on the pretext that Dr. 
 Cooper had not taken a Chilean degree, although 
 holding the diplomas of both the Royal Colleges 
 of Physicians and of Surgeons. These and other 
 acts of the arrogant Intendente Echaiirren, backed 
 up by his brother-in-law the President, made it, I 
 considered, imperative that the Chilean Government 
 should be brought to their bearings, and this view 
 of mine was fully indorsed by my colleagues, with 
 the sole exception of the German Minister. Never- 
 theless, throughout the Tacna controversy, I had 
 never once attempted or threatened anything like 
 coercion ; and on one occasion, in fact, had made it 
 an urgent request to Admiral Cochrane, in com- 
 mand of the West Coast squadron, who had reached 
 Coquimbo on his way to Valparaiso, to postpone 
 his visit and return north, lest the presence of his 
 ships on the Chilean coast should be construed as a 
 menace to a recalcitrant Government. The Tacna 
 question had, liowcvi r, now been settled some time, 1 
 
 1 The Chilean &fii a London, Bleat Gana,had offered an ei 
 
 ion oi ■• ifficient by Lord Derby, and in the and 
 
 d of 1000 dollan bad been allowed i<> Hyde, 
 
 K
 
 82 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 and I parted on the best of terms with the Chilean 
 Ministers both past and present. 
 
 I had very gratifying evidence that my attitude 
 had been rightly appreciated by the best class of 
 Chileans in the flattering manifestations of regard 
 shown to me before my departure. A dinner was 
 given in my honour at the Club de la Union 
 — a most luxurious establishment by the way — by 
 the leaders of Santiago society, under the presi- 
 dency of M. Pinto, then president-elect, and the 
 small British community also very kindly enter- 
 tained me. At Valparaiso, too, my numerous 
 English friends were good enough to invite me 
 to a farewell dinner at the Gran Hotel Central, 
 at which very kind things were said of my efforts 
 to guard British interests in this most considerable 
 seaport of the west coast. In these efforts I had 
 been throughout very efficiently seconded by H.M. 
 Consul, James Drummond Hay, who not many 
 years afterwards died in the prime of life — a great 
 loss to the Consular service. 
 
 And now, in closing these recollections of my 
 sojourn in their beautiful country, which have, to 
 my dismay, grown to an inordinate length, I send 
 most cordial greetings to those of my Chilean 
 friends who still tread this globe in their splendid 
 inland city under the shadow of the great moun- 
 tains, or by the sparkling southern sea. Valeant 
 et Jloreant !
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 HOME AGAIN 
 
 I sailed from Valparaiso on January 19, 1876, 
 in the Galicia, of the Pacific S. N. Co., a very 
 comfortable ship, whose captain was Squire T. S. 
 Lecky, one of the most capable officers on that 
 line. The sea becoming unpleasantly rough about 
 three days out from Valparaiso, the captain took 
 us, by exceptional favour, through some of the 
 inner channels formed by the intricate archipelago 
 which extends from the south of Chiloe down to 
 the entrance of the Straits. Several years before 
 he had himself surveyed most of these difficult 
 and dangerous passages, which, in certain places, 
 are so narrow that our yard-arms almost scraped 
 the Jvertical masses of rock by which the deep 
 water-way is walled in. 
 
 No other region of the globe, except the forbid- 
 ding, monstrous Polar solitudes, can bear a sterner 
 aspect than this extreme southern point of the 
 American continent, broken up, as any map will 
 show, into innumerable chaotic fragments by the 
 tremendous convulsions of a primeval age. Never- 
 theless, the moist atmosphere and abundant rainfall 
 
 83
 
 84 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 favour vegetation to such an extent that, wherever 
 there is a break in the rocky barrier, dark patches 
 of pine and beech come down to the very edge 
 of the sea and somewhat mitigate the general sense 
 of desolation. Nowhere, however, is the impression 
 of one's having reached the extreme confines of 
 the habitable globe so strong as, when issuing 
 forth again from the shelter of the inner channels 
 into the great waste of troubled sea outside, one 
 first sights the weird group of rocks known as the 
 Evangelists — the lonesome vedette, one may say, 
 of the dreaded Cape Pillar, which all vessels seek- 
 ing to enter the Straits of Magellan are bound, in 
 nautical parlance, " to make " in their course. 
 These four huge, storm-lashed crags in mid-ocean, 
 with the size of the rollers that break on them, 
 even on a fair summer's day, are one of the most 
 awe-inspiring sights it is possible to conceive. The 
 character of the whole of this lonesome region is 
 well recorded on the charts by such names as 
 Froward Island, Port Famine, Desolation Land, or 
 Last Hope Inlet. 
 
 After doubling Cape Pillar we stopped for a 
 few hours at Sandy Point (Punta Arenas), where 
 I called on the Governor, and was taken in a trolley 
 on a short tram-line leading up to some coal-mines 
 quite recently opened in the heart of thick moss- 
 grown woods of evergreens, lightened by the white 
 stems of the Antarctic beech. This settlement, con- 
 taining about 1 200 souls at the time of my visit,.
 
 AT SEA 85 
 
 is noteworthy as the most southern civilised com- 
 munity of our planet, and as having been for many 
 years the chief bone of contention in the wearisome 
 euestion de limites between Chile and Argentina. 
 It seemed to me a dreary, heaven-forsaken spot. 
 Oceans of ink were spilt over it, but the enterprising 
 Chileans, by their bold occupation of the place iu 
 1849, had acquired the nine points of the law from 
 which no Argentine arguments could afterwards dis- 
 lodge them. 
 
 "We reached Montevideo on February 1, waiting 
 there twenty-four hours for the Buenos Ayres mails 
 and passengers, and got to Rio de Janeiro on 
 the 7th. Here I found my old Petersburg col- 
 league, Victor Drummond, who had been acting 
 as charge* d } affaires for a long time, and made 
 me most welcome, taking me out with him to dine 
 with the Russian Minister, Baron Koskull, at that 
 loveliest of tropical country resorts, Tijuca. The 
 heat at Rio was very great, and there was so much 
 yellow fever about that we got away with anything 
 but a clean bill of health, which was not improved 
 by our touching at the equally contaminated Bahia 
 and Pernambuco. After leaving the latter place, 1 
 turned to account the fortnight 's stretch between 
 it and Lisbon to work at, and complete, a very 
 exhaustive official reporl on the progress and general 
 condition of Chile, on which 1 had been engaged 
 for some time. This was not only i'a\ ourablv re- 
 ceived at the Foreign Office — my valued friend
 
 86 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Villiers Lister x writing to me in the kindest terms 
 about it — but it attracted a good deal of attention 
 in Chile itself, where the sincere tribute I paid 
 to the high spirit and patriotism of the governing 
 class, the purity of the administration, and the 
 vigour and industry of the people, must have con- 
 vinced those who read it of the friendly spirit 
 in which I viewed the condition and prospects of 
 their country, believing it to be by far the best- 
 ordered and most advanced of South American 
 States. 2 
 
 We touched at Lisbon on Februaiy 28, flying 
 the yellow flag, and were thus prevented from 
 landing, much to my disgust, as I longed to set foot 
 on European soil again after so long an absence. 
 The Consul, Mr. Brackenbury, the brother-in-law of 
 my old friends, Sir Charles and Sir George Russell, 
 of Swallowfield, obligingly came alongside in a boat 
 to see me, and, among other news, brought me the 
 announcement — rather a damper to my diplomatic 
 aspirations — of the appointment of Lytton as Vice- 
 roy of India, and the choice of Robert Morier as 
 his successor at Lisbon. 
 
 At last, early on March 2, we reached the 
 entrance to the Gironde, and steamed slowly up 
 to Pauillac, where we anchored off" low hills covered 
 
 1 Sir Thomas Villiers Lister, K.C.M.G., who died in 1902, had a 
 distinguished career, during which he served for twenty years as 
 Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 
 
 2 President Pinto, the successor of Errazuriz, caused this report to 
 be translated at Paris into French for more general circulation.
 
 A WARM WELCOME 87 
 
 with vineyards and dotted with chdteaux, bearing 
 some of the best-known names in the wine-lists of 
 the world. I had arranged to land here with my 
 party, bnt presently a tug came puffing alongside, 
 and I was gladdened by the unexpected sight of 
 my sister, who, with her husband and daughter, 
 had very kindly come to meet and welcome me on 
 my return. After greeting me and my children most 
 ail'ectionately. my sister broke to me the news of 
 the death at Nice of my dear old aunt, Mrs. Arabin, 
 which had taken place almost suddenly two months 
 before, on the closing day of the year. At her 
 advanced age — she was in her eighty-seventh year 
 — there was nothing surprising in the event, but 
 the loss of her who had stood me in a mother's stead 
 came to me none the less as a great shock, and the 
 more so from my having received, shortly before 
 I left Santiago, one of her periodical letters, giving 
 no indication of failing health. With her death the 
 strongest link in my recollections of the past was 
 broken for good. 
 
 The La Rochefoucaulds were now permanently 
 established at Biarritz, where, having parted with 
 my sister's villa at Baden Baden, they had acquired 
 a large plot of ground, and built themselves a 
 charming roomy cottage, in which they were living, 
 pending the construction of the much larger house, 
 now certainly one of the best in the place, and \\ Inch 
 
 one winter season had the honour of harbouring her 
 late Majesty. We went up the river in the regular
 
 88 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 steamer to Bordeaux, where we all stayed for the 
 night at the comfortable Hotel de la Paix, kept 
 by a man named Lassalle, whose cellars were 
 stocked with unexceptionable wines. The following 
 day we went on to Biarritz, where I took up my 
 quarters at the Hotel d'Angleterre, then almost the 
 only inn there, and excellently managed by the 
 Campagne family. 
 
 Few places have changed and increased more of 
 late years, or become more the fashion, especially 
 with our English of the better class, than Biarritz. 
 When I first knew it, its ways were simple enough. 
 It had no golf-links then, no club, no imposing 
 hotels or casino ; while the hounds, which have since 
 rivalled the old-established pack at Pau, had not yet 
 been thought of. It was but a small, rather dull 
 place, which, after being brought into notice for a 
 few brief years under the Empire, had relapsed into 
 its primitive quietness, when, with the beautiful 
 Empress, the brilliant sunshine of fashion had de- 
 parted from it. In the summer months it woke up 
 a bit with the influx of bathers from Spain, and, for 
 the nonce, became a barrio or suburb of Madrid. 
 My worthy brother-in-law had served four years in 
 that capital as Second Secretary to the French Em- 
 bassy, and, after going to Washington as First 
 Secretary, was now en disponibilitie. 
 
 I must indulge here in a digression about Gaston 
 de la Rochefoucauld — a most creditable specimen of 
 those gentlemen of France, cast in an old mould
 
 A RENAISSANCE FRENCHMAN 89 
 
 which is fast being broken up, who have always 
 served the country well at its hours of need, but for 
 whom this Republican age no longer finds any uses. 
 His grand air and old-world, slightly formal manner, 
 somehow make one think of his forbears who in 
 December 1539 entertained with much splendour, in 
 their halls at Verteuil, 1 the Emperor Charles V. on 
 his memorable journey through France. He has a 
 Renaissance look and carriage, and might have sat 
 to Janet 01 Ponrbns. But this does not prevent his 
 keeping in full touch with the times we live in, and 
 holding enlightened views not quite common among 
 Frenchmen of his class. Withal the best of good 
 fellows, and, in his family relations, the kindest and 
 most warm-hearted of men. 
 
 Gaston and his wife were of course intimate with 
 the small set of Spaniards who at that time made 
 Biarritz their headquarters all through the year, and 
 among whom were the late Due de Frias, then the 
 widower of the charming and talented daughter of 
 Balfe the composer ; and O'Shea, Due de San Lucar, 
 a sociable Irish-Iberian, whose sudden death, caused 
 by a rupture of the diaphragm in simply stooping to 
 
 1 Verteuil ia a very old seal of tbe La Rochefoucauld family, not 
 
 far from AngoulSme, first mentioned in chronicles aboul 1050-1100. 
 
 ■ of the different branches of the family was Pranopia 
 
 che, who in 1494 was godfather t" the prince who afterwards 
 
 me King Francis I. In memory of this circumstance the hea 
 
 b, or Due de La Rochefoucauld, always bears the name 
 
 of Francois. Ti • Habsburgwa so gratified by his reception that, 
 
 irting from his hostess, Anne de Polignac, the widow ol Prancpia 
 
 II. de La Rochi foucanld, he declared, " N'fitre jamsi entr^ so maiaon 
 
 entit mieux sa grande vertu, honnestet el tegneui
 
 90 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 put on his boot, is one of the most singular I have 
 ever heard of. Besides the Spanish, there was a 
 French coterie of Nadaillacs, Delesserts, and Carayons 
 la Tour, with a very few English, of whom the best 
 known were Lady Ernest Bruce, afterwards Lady 
 Ailesbury, who had built herself a house in an out- 
 of-the-way nook on the sea-shore beneath the C6te 
 des Basques, and Mrs. Edmund Phipps, mother of 
 our present Minister at Brussels. With her tradi- 
 tions of the salon Delmar, and her own talents de 
 societe, my sister made her house a pleasant point 
 de reunion for all these people. Altogether the 
 first few weeks I spent at Biarritz after my dis- 
 tant exile have left me very agreeable recollections ; 
 my sister, to whom I have always been much 
 attached, making much of me and my boys in 
 every way. As for the treeless, boisterous place 
 itself, its violent gales, the great Atlantic breakers 
 thundering on the beach or on the rocks at the Port 
 Vieux, or, in fine weather, the glare and dust of its 
 white roads, I cannot say that I ever took to it much 
 or should care to live there for any length of time. 
 
 At the end of March I left my small people in 
 charge of my sister and went with La Rochefoucauld 
 to Paris, where I stayed a fortnight at the Hotel 
 Chatham. My primary object here was to examine 
 the papers that had been taken at the seizure of my 
 grandfather at Hamburg in 1 804, l and were still kept 
 
 1 For an account of this, see " Recollections of a Diplomatist," 
 vol. i. pp. 24-27.
 
 LORD LYONS 91 
 
 at the Archives Nationales. Lord Lyons had been 
 good enough to apply officially for permission for me 
 to see them, but the task proved disappointing, inas- 
 much as the correspondence contained little that "was 
 of family value, while whatever there may have been 
 of real political interest in it was, I strongly suspect, 
 withheld from me, doubtless on the plea that the 
 papers were classes as secret police reports to which 
 no one was allowed access. I nevertheless was given 
 have to take copies of some of the documents, which 
 I added to my very scanty family archives. 
 
 I now saw a good deal of Lord Lyons — to whom 
 1 was indebted for this, to me, interesting search — 
 and might be tempted to give a slight sketch of him, 
 had he not been so skilfully and faithfully portrayed 
 in the charming Shifting Scenes of his devoted subor- 
 dinate, Sir Edward Malet. Still, I will permit myself 
 to say that our eminent Ambassador at Paris, under 
 whom I never had the good fortune actually to serve, 
 seemed to me, with his simple, direct manner, his 
 admirable perspicacity and judgment, and his broad, 
 generous views of affairs in general, joined to an 
 exquisite sense of humour, a very perfect sample 
 of what a diplomatic spokesman of Great Britain 
 should be. Succeeded though he was by such 
 brilliant men as Lord Lytton and Lord Dutl'erin 
 — not to speak of our actual wry able representative, 
 to whom old friendship alone would make me partial 
 — Lord Lyons left behind him at Paris a record that 
 will ever be hard to heat ; while his wise and bene-
 
 92 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 ficent attitude during the great war and the lurid 
 drama of the Commune gave him a prestige and 
 authority with the French Government such as no 
 other British Ambassador could pretend to. Lord 
 Lyons had but one defect in my eyes. His cook 
 was the best, as his horses and carriages were the 
 handsomest in Paris. His dinners were absolutely 
 perfect, but he ate so fast — although endowed with 
 a very healthy appetite, and drinking, by the way, 
 nothing but St. Galmier — that the waiting at his 
 table went with a lightning speed which, being 
 myself a very slow eater, I was utterly unable to 
 keep up with. I have gone through many such 
 experiences at Royal and Imperial tables, finding 
 it very difficult to get a fair meal while duly re- 
 sponding to the remarks of exalted neighbours, but 
 Lord Lyons's exquisite dinners live in my memory 
 as cruelly tantalising temptations set before me 
 actually in vain. 
 
 At this time, too, I happened to make the 
 acquaintance of a much more prominent actor in 
 the events which had not so long before desolated 
 France. I met my old Petersburg acquaintance, 
 Princesse Lise Troubetzkoy, in Paris, and was taken 
 by her one evening to see M. Thiers. I exchanged 
 only a few words with him, though his reception 
 of me was very gracious, but it is interesting 
 to have seen, in his unpretentious home in the 
 Rue St. Georges, this dauntless, eloquent little 
 statesman and most unselfish of patriots — a true
 
 PARIS RESTAURANTS 93 
 
 French meridional in appearance and accent — 
 remembering well, as I did, his splendidly devoted, 
 but heartbreaking, tour through Europe in search 
 of support and sympathy for his country in its 
 death-strii^iile. Among other old Paris friends I 
 renewed acquaintance with the Due de Mouchy, 
 now married to the charming Princess Anna Murat. 
 1 lunched, too, in company of La Hochefoucald, 
 with Robert Moricr, whom I had scarcely ever met 
 or heard from since our Vienna intimacy and his 
 marriage at Marble Hill in 1861 to Miss Alice Peel. 
 I mention this trifling circumstance because of the 
 unwonted impulsiveness and emotion with which 
 Morier, on this occasion, reproached himself for his 
 forgetfulness of me at a time when most of my old 
 friends had shown me much sympathy. But a curi- 
 ously tender chord ran through my ruggedly massive, 
 imperious colleague, tinged almost with the senti- 
 mentalism of a German student. 
 
 I had not been in Paris for so long that I much 
 mjoyed sampling, with La Hochefoucald, the more 
 fashionable restaurants of the day, like Brabant's 
 and Bignon's, now all defunct. The best known of 
 the cabarets, as they used to be called by old- 
 fashioned Frenchmen — with the exception of such 
 modern and extravagantly dear establishments as 
 Paillard's or the Tour d' Argent — have since been 
 driven out of the tield by cheaper eating-houses and 
 
 grill-rooms on the English pattern. We of course 
 
 also went the round of the theatres, seeing, with
 
 94 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 other plays, L Etrangere at the Francais, in which 
 the leading part was taken by that powerful artist 
 the late Madame Croisette ; and the Petite Marine 
 at the Renaissance, where the captivating Jeanne 
 Granier had only just begun to make her mark. It 
 was, however, now high time that I should go on to 
 England, so I crossed over on April 13 with Lord 
 and Lady Headfort, who were returning from the 
 South after their recent marriage. By a lucky 
 chance I came across them at the Gare du Nord, 
 and, being offered a seat in their reserved compart- 
 ment, thus made the journey in most pleasant 
 company. On reaching London I first went to 
 lodgings at 42 Clarges Street, removing afterwards 
 to 29 Half Moon Street.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 LONDON IX 1S77-1S78 
 
 I got home at what was politically an exceptionally 
 interesting period ; the troublous course of events 
 in the near East culminating at that very time in 
 the Bulgarian atrocities and the hostilities between 
 Turkey and Servia, to which the conspicuous part 
 taken in them bv General Tchernaieff, the " Herman 
 Cortez of Central Asia," with a crowd of Russian 
 volunteers, gave the appearance of a guerre qfficieuse 
 bv Kussia, to quote Prince Bismarck's saying con- 
 cerning it. Afar off at Santiago I had watched, as 
 well as I could, the first signs of the great crisis in 
 the insurrection in the Herzegovina, and have since 
 been reminded by my friend Bacourt — -the only one 
 of mv colleagues out there who took a keen interest 
 in European affairs — of my then foretelling that 
 these risings would lead to a far more general com- 
 plication in the near future. 
 
 1 saw a good deal of the Derbys at this time. 
 Despite a somewhat ungenial manner — the outcome 
 of insurmountable shyness Lord Derby was in 
 every way a considerate and eminently just chief, 
 and in Lady Derby I found a trulj kind friend. 
 
 For this 1 was in pari indebted to the Austrian
 
 96 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Ambassador, Count Apponyi, who had known me 
 from boyhood, and, being on terms of considerable 
 friendship with Lady Derby, was good enough to 
 write to her from Paris, to which place he had been 
 transferred some time before, expressing the far too 
 favourable opinion he had formed of my fitness and 
 qualifications for advancement in the service. My 
 old friend Lionel West, like me on leave from South 
 America previous to his being appointed to Madrid, 
 also contributed his share in warmly commending 
 me to his favourite and very charming sister. I was 
 therefore in a position to follow the course of affairs 
 with more accurate knowledge than I could have 
 acquired by the most assiduous newspaper reading. 
 At the St. James's Club, too, which I used a great 
 deal for the next two years, and elsewhere, I pretty 
 often met the Russian Ambassador, Comte Pierre 
 Schouvalow, whom I had known at St. Petersburg 
 when he was in charge of the almost omnipotent 
 Troisieme Section. 1 
 
 Count Schouvalow's striking good looks and 
 grand seigneur mien, his freedom of speech and 
 convivial moods — frequently rather simulated than 
 real — his easy, insouciant bearing at a period when 
 all his faculties were absorbed by the most delicate 
 possible diplomatic negotiations, are still so well 
 
 1 The Third Section of the Imperial Chancellerie, as it used to be 
 called, comprised at that time the Secret Police, which, among other 
 important functions, had of course to provide for the safety of the 
 Emperor. In allusion to his power and influence Count Schouvalow 
 went, in Petersburg society, under the sobriquet of Pierre IV.
 
 AN ABLE AMBASSADOR 97 
 
 remembered in London society that to attempt to 
 describe him may seem superfluous. Under the 
 gay, seductive exterior of a courtier of the licentious 
 days of Catherine, he screened great earnestness of 
 purpose, joined to remarkable adroitness. He 
 strenuously applied himself throughout the crisis to 
 prevent its coming to a conflict between the two 
 countries, and no ambassador, I believe, ever laboured 
 more ably and unremittingly than he did in the 
 cause of peace. In dealing with such statesmen as 
 Lords Beaconsfield, Salisbury and Derby, he showed 
 great qualities as a negotiator, and, above all, may 
 claim the merit of enjoying their confidence when 
 the credit of his own Government for straight deal- 
 inv; was at a very low ebb in Downing Street. This 
 distrust of the methods of the Imperial Chancellerie 
 unfortunately still remains a disturbing factor in our 
 relations with Russia, to the regret of those who, 
 like myself, desire to see some understanding estab- 
 lished between us and that great Power on the 
 questions which divide us in the far East, and, at 
 the time I refer to, divided us in the nearer Levant. 
 I extract from an unusually full diary I kept for 
 some time on my return to Europe, a passage which 
 affords a good illustration of the mental attitude of 
 our Government towards the Cabinet of St. Peters- 
 burg in the protracted discussions which took place 
 
 during the crisis preceding tin- Etusso-Turkish War. 
 
 It refers more especially to the Protocol of March 
 
 3'» '' l "'77' which defined the expectant position the 
 
 G
 
 98 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Powers engaged to maintain with regard to events 
 in Turkey on the very eve of the declaration of war 
 by Russia : 1 — 
 
 March 31, 1877. — -After dinner had a long talk 
 with Schouvalow in the smoking-room at the St. 
 James's. He told me that the Protocol had been 
 signed that afternoon, and then went on to talk of 
 the negotiations in general, dwelling quite openly 
 on Ignatiew's disregard of truth and the mischief he 
 had done here. He complained that we were bien 
 durs comme ne'gociateurs, and that we carried our 
 suspicions of Russian policy a great deal too far. 
 " Why ! " he said, " the real truth is that we have 
 no fixed policy ; everything changing from day to 
 day. Comme vous savez, tout se fait au Palais, et 
 tout depend de la digestion de deux ou trois indi- 
 vidus." But it was no use his representing this to 
 Ministers here, and he would give me the most 
 curious instance of all of our distrust. One day he 
 was on the point of giving up the whole thing in 
 despair, when he was entreated by Lady Derby to 
 make one more effort and see whether he could not 
 find a redaction that would meet the difficulty. So 
 he went home that evening and drafted a Protocol 
 of his own, without referring it to St. Petersburg. 
 The following day he took it to Lord Derby, who 
 
 1 The gist of the Protocol was that the Powers would wait for the 
 introduction of the promised reforms in Turkey and watch the pro- 
 gress of events ; a conditional disarmament to take place in Russia and 
 in Turkey. War was declared by Russia on April 24, 1877.
 
 THE IGNATIBWS 99 
 
 said he thought it would do, but must consult the 
 Cabinet. The Cabinet likewise approving, this 
 draft of his became in fact the document that was 
 finally signed. The best part of it, he added, was 
 that it was perhaps less favourable to us than former 
 projects which had been rejected. But its merit in 
 our eyes was its not coming from St. Petersburg, and 
 Lord Beaconsfield had said to him afterwards : " You 
 understood us very well in laying before us a docu- 
 ment which bore the date of Chesham House." 
 
 From my diary, too, I glean the following about 
 General Ignatiew's visit to London in March 1877, 
 referred to in the above extract. He was engaged 
 on a tour to the great capitals, urging his views on 
 the Eastern crisis, and, much to the annoyance of 
 Count Schouvalow, who tried hard to stop him, came 
 over from Paris on the 1 6th : — 
 
 March 17, 1877. — At ten o'clock left the Club 
 fur the Foreign Office party, being curious to see the 
 Ignatiews there. He seemed quite pleased to meet 
 me again, as she did too, speaking with much feel- 
 ing of my poor dear C. A lovely Paris gown — 
 turquoise blue, matching the beautiful turquoises 
 she wore, made her look the pink of neatness and 
 ildgance in the midst of the masses of dowdiness that 
 
 kmed her in on every side, for they both got a 
 most thorough mobbing, com/me de raison, I chaffed 
 tli<- General about this, and, with his utual charkning
 
 ioo RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 carelessness of statement, he said he was quite ac- 
 customed to it, for at all the stations coming up from 
 Dover the people had turned out to see him, pointing 
 him out to their children, &c. ; a strong order, con- 
 sidering he came up by an ordinary passenger train, 
 sans tambour ni trompettes ! At half-past eleven the 
 Ignatiews left for King's Cross Station, where a special 
 train was waiting to take them on to Hatfield. 
 
 Schouvalow afterwards told me that among other 
 results of this visit he thought the General had 
 destroyed any chance he may have had of coming 
 here as Ambassador, while, as for Prince Gortchacow, 
 his policy had been so ill-judged of late years that 
 in his (Count Schouvalow's) opinion he would have 
 done well to retire some five or six years ago. 
 
 Speaking of Prince Gortchacow, towards whose 
 memory I, personally, remain grateful for much in- 
 dulgence and kindness, I am tempted to intercalate 
 here a scrap of some historical interest from a frag- 
 mentary diary of 1869, which ought rightly to have 
 found a place in the first part of these " Recollec- 
 tions," and has no connection with the Eastern 
 affairs above referred to : — 
 
 St. Petersburg, June 23, 1869. — Went to take 
 leave of old Prince Gortchacow this morning, finding 
 him in high good humour and full of anecdote. 
 " Qu'est ce que vous venez faire ici ? " he said ; " vous
 
 QUEEN HORTENSE 101 
 
 ne savez done pas que je suis mort." x Speaking of 
 the Emperor Napoleon, he told me it was wonderful 
 how grateful he was for all past services, forgetting 
 none. When he (the Prince) was serving at Rome, 
 he was very intimate with Queen Hortense, and 
 spent most of his evenings at her house. On one 
 occasion he went there much disturbed by an order 
 from the Emperor Nicholas, transferring him to 
 Berlin, which he had declined to obey. The Queen, 
 noticing his annoyance, took him aside and led the 
 way to her dressing-room. Here she opened a box, 
 he holding the light for her, and took out of it a 
 ncarab4e t set as a seal, which she gave him, saying: 
 "Take this, it will bring you luck!" She told him 
 she had given two similar ones before ; one to 
 Ypsilanti, and the other to Fabvier the Philhellene. 
 "It did bring me luck," observed the Chancelter t 
 ' for. instead of resenting my refusal, the Emperor 
 Nicholas appointed me to the very post I wanted 
 — Florence." 
 
 There, he went on to relate, he was when 1S30 
 came, bringing in its train the insurrectionary move- 
 mentfl in Italy. Both the sons of Hortense were 
 »-iiL r :iL r <'<l in the Italian rising, and the elder of the 
 
 1 falling dangerously ill at Forli, the Queen went 
 to him. Meanwhile the Austrians had advanced as 
 far as Bologna, and the corps commanded l>\ the 
 
 1 Thii mi in allusion to report* then assiduously circulated thai 
 
 r had leal the [mperial favour, and to which a vi it of 
 
 1 ral [gnatiew to the Emperor in the Crimea al this period lent
 
 102 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Bonaparte brothers (the eldest died in the interval) 
 melting away, Louis Napoleon and his mother were 
 in a position of great danger. Their only way to 
 Leghorn and the sea was through Tuscany. One 
 morning at the Russian Legation in Florence a 
 gentleman was announced to Gortchacow as coming 
 from the Comte de St. Leu, the title taken by the 
 ex-King Louis of Holland. Gortchacow received 
 him, and the gentleman stated that he was sent to 
 beg him to exert himself in favour of the Queen and 
 her last remaining son. " Tell the Comte from me," 
 was the reply, " that he has been a King himself and 
 therefore must know how impossible is interference 
 in certain cases. The Tuscan Government would 
 never allow enemies of Austria and of order to take 
 refuge in their territory." The envoy was about to 
 withdraw, but, as he reached the door, the Prince 
 recalled him, and, pointing to a map, said : " If 
 I follow you correctly, they are at this point, and in 
 order to reach Leghorn they must pass through such 
 and such places," dwelling with his finger on each 
 place successively as he spoke. " Please," he added, 
 " express to the Comte my regret at being unable 
 to move in the matter." The emissary of course 
 understood him, and, as soon as he had left, the 
 Prince went to Fossombroni, then Minister, and 
 asked him to blink at the passage of the fugitives 
 along the line he had marked out on the map. Sir 
 Hamilton Seymour, then our charge d'affaires at 
 Florence, at the same time sent the Queen an
 
 BERLIN VIEWS OF THE CRISIS 103 
 
 English passport, and with this and with Louis 
 Napoleon, dressed up as a courier on the box, she 
 reached Leghorn in safety. In her will the Queen 
 left Lady Seymour a beautiful cameo brooch set 
 in fine pearls in recognition of the service ren- 
 dered her by Sir Hamilton, while to Gortchacow she 
 sent a message " to be delivered to another diplo- 
 matist whom she could not name, but who helped 
 to save her and her son." " The son," added the 
 Chancelier, "has never forgotten this, and when 
 I last saw him at Paris, he permitted me great 
 freedom of speech and treated me with much kind- 
 ness." When I parted from the old Prince, who was 
 going away for the summer, he said to me all 
 manner of obliging things, which the few rags of 
 modestv remaining to me preclude me from repeating 
 even in this private diary. 
 
 To return to what I learned from unexception- 
 able sources at this period of the Eastern crisis, a 
 few passages relating to the views and aims of 
 Prince Bismarck at this juncture seem worth trans- 
 cribing, as conveying lessons possibly not without 
 their uses at the present day : — 
 
 June 1, 1877. — It is reported from Berlin on the 
 best authority that Bismarck still dreads an attack 
 from Prance, and that all his policy is subordinate to 
 thai fear. As for the Eastern affair, it is said that 
 
 marck will Let Bussia have free play up to a
 
 io 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 certain point, but would be disposed to lend England 
 the full weight of German moral support towards 
 stopping Russia after any considerable success of 
 hers. As regards the Turks, he thinks that Con- 
 stantinople, with a small amount of territory round 
 it {Rome avec un jardin), would be enough for 
 them. He would not object to a partition of the 
 Turkish Empire. Why should we not occupy 
 Egypt, Syria, Crete, Cyprus, &c. ? He is not in- 
 clined to do much for Italy, but would let her have a 
 bit of Tripoli, and although France has already cut 
 out for herself her share of the spoil in Algiers, why 
 she might add some portion of Tunis to it. His 
 greatest bugbear is a possible coalition between 
 France, Russia, and the Pope. He has repeatedly 
 offered us his alliance, and is said to have com- 
 missioned Odo Russell (who has come over for a 
 few days) to make a fresh offer of it. " If you have 
 anything good to bring me," he is said to have told 
 Odo, " come and see me at once, wherever I may 
 be." 
 
 But I will leave my diary for the present, 
 merely observing that in the extracts I have given 
 from it I have departed a good deal from the chrono- 
 logical order of my narrative, which it will now be 
 convenient to resume. I spent the best part of the 
 season of 1876 in London, and being " avant tout 
 un rnondain," according to obliging critics of the 
 first part of these Recollections, probably saw the
 
 BEAUTIES OF THE DAY 105 
 
 pleasantest side of London society of that day. 
 Among other dissipations, I went for the Ascot 
 week to Minley, a place belonging to Mr. Raikes 
 Carrie, the father of my old friend Philip, now Lord 
 Cnrrie, where I found a very pleasant party ; the 
 greatest ornament of which was the late Mrs. 
 Mahlon Sands — probably the loveliest American 
 that had as yet dawned upon the world of London, 
 and who, to my mind, has never been eclipsed by 
 any of the numerous fair daughters of Columbia 
 who have since graced, and in some degree revolu- 
 tionised, English society. This season, too, witnessed, 
 if 1 am not mistaken, the first appearance of Mrs. 
 Langtry, the dazzling Lily of Jersey, who was literally 
 mobbed wherever she went. Among the noted 
 beauties of the day were Mrs. Cornwallis West, Mrs. 
 Luke Wheeler and others. About this time my 
 brother William and his wife having come over for 
 a fortnight — the last visit they ever paid to England 
 — Spencer Cowper, a very old acquaintance of mine 
 at the Cercle de l'Union at Paris, asked us all to 
 dine with him. With my love of music the occasion 
 happened to be an interesting one, as the first on 
 which I ever met Paolo Tosti, a young Italian artist, 
 who delighted us after dinner by Binging his own 
 compositions Quantfio t'amerei and 7V Ra/pirei 
 amongsl them. He was then quite unknown to 
 fame, but afterwards deservedly became the most 
 popular of composers and most charming disev/r 
 
 of hifl own melodies. I had heard of him before
 
 106 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 from his delightful pupil Donna Bianca Capranica, 
 and more than other singing-masters he has con- 
 tributed to implant in our amateurs a production 
 of the voice and an art de bien dire which were 
 almost unknown in the days of my youth. Not 
 the least gratifying of Signor Tosti's after experi- 
 ences was the favour in which he stood with the 
 late Queen and the venerable Duchess of Cambridge. 
 In the last years of Her Royal Highness's life he 
 used to go and sing to her every day, and the 
 Duchess is said to have left him in her will sub- 
 stantial proof of her regard. 
 
 If I can trust my recollections of the season of 
 1876 it was a brilliant one in every way. Great 
 balls and parties were given at Stafford House and 
 at Grosvenor House, and almost for the first time 
 the splendid palazzo of the Holfords in Park Lane, 
 not long before completed, opened its doors in 
 honour of the very charming young ladies of the 
 family, one of whom, now Lady Grey, whose 
 marriage took place the following year, seemed 
 to me, when I first met her at the Loyd-Lindsays 
 at Lockinge, one of the most attractive types of 
 high-bred English maidenhood imaginable. Nor 
 can I pass over in my retrospect of this and fol- 
 lowing seasons that absolutely unique combination 
 of a town and country abode, Holland House — 
 where I had the good fortune to be asked a good 
 deal at this time — with its lively, diminutive hostess, 
 who dispensed the hospitality of her grand historic
 
 HOLLAND HOUSE 107 
 
 house with a half foreign ease and grace, and whose 
 smaller gatherings and dinners were quite the 
 pleasantest in London. Among her frequent visitors 
 of those days wire that Irish cosmopolite, Percy 
 Ffrench, speaking all languages with equal volu- 
 bility ; the Granvilles and Frederick Leveson- 
 Gower ; old Panizzi of the British Museum; poor 
 Fortunato, the last of Neapolitan representatives in 
 London, where he then still lived on in exile and 
 penury ; Edward Cheney, Lord Ronald Gower, 
 and Lcighton, whose artistic home almost adjoined 
 Holland House, &c. &c. x\t dinner here one day 
 I remember meeting, for the first time, Princess 
 Frederica of Hanover, who seemed interested in 
 my South American and other experiences, and 
 conversed with me most of the evening. I have 
 seldom since come across this gracious and state- 
 liest of princesses of a fallen house, the " poor 
 Lily of Hanover " as the late Queen used to call 
 her, and little did I then foresee the many kind- 
 nesses that were to be shown me years afterwards 
 by other members of her illustrious family. Beauti- 
 ful Holland House! It is good to know that it 
 has since parsed into the hands of another perfect 
 hostess, who fully values and guards its treasures 
 and associations, and that it has the promise of like 
 intelligent solicitude in the next generation. 
 
 Such distant exile as I had undergone naturally 
 
 drew me still oearer to old friends and relations 
 on my return, and I wm warmly greeted by old
 
 108 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Lord Rokeby and all the Montagu connection, by 
 the Haringtons — kindly Johnny Harington, then 
 fast approaching his end — the Loyd-Lindsays, and 
 by Rivers and his sister Harriet Bruce. I shall not 
 easily forget Harriet's affectionate welcome of me 
 in her house in Prince's Gardens, now tenanted 
 by the most popular, and certainly not the least 
 patriotic, of our statesmen. Still wonderfully hand- 
 some — in her youth she had been the most beauti- 
 ful of Maids of Honour in the earliest years of 
 the late Queen's reign — she was already stricken 
 past recovery with a cruel malady against which she 
 bore up with the rarest pluck for the sake of her 
 brother, Horace, to whom she was devoted ; care- 
 fully concealing her hopeless condition from him 
 and all others up to the very end. I have kept a 
 touching letter she wrote me when I left town for 
 Biarritz at the beginning of July, in which she told 
 me of her danger, of which I had not had the least 
 idea, and said that I should never see her again. 
 A week later she was no more. 
 
 I found my small people comfortably installed in 
 lodgings at the Maison Roquejoffre in the Rue de 
 rimprimerie, where I spent two months with them. 
 They had been provided during my absence with 
 a daily governess, a worthy lady who calls for 
 mention as about the plainest and quite the wartiest 
 person I ever beheld. The poor creature's face and 
 hands were covered with these distressing excres-
 
 BRAVO TORO' 109 
 
 cences, which of course did not commend her to 
 sensitive, quick-witted boys, so that, with all her 
 goodwill, the results of her teaching were hardly 
 commensurate with her efforts. My widowed sister- 
 in-law 7 , Helen Rumbold — very smart and pretty in 
 those days, and much liked and cntource by the 
 habitues of the Chalet la Rochefoucauld — was also 
 here with her little Arthur, a handsome, intelligent 
 child of eight, who was almost suddenly taken from 
 her a few months later. The perfect weather we 
 had made Biarritz very enjoyable, and favoured some 
 distant excursions. We went, a large family party 
 with a lew friends — including, I think, the beautiful 
 and charming Mrs. Arthur Post, now Lady Barry- 
 more, my acquaintance with whom dates from this 
 period — to a bull-fight at St. Sebastian — the only 
 occasion on which I ever set foot on Spanish soil. 
 I frankly confess that, in spite of the novelty and 
 brilliancy of the pageant, I came away greatly 
 shocked by what seemed to me the barbarity of 
 the proceedings, more especially as concerns the 
 wretched animals on which the picadores are 
 mounted. The sight of one of these broken-down 
 beasts, gored to death and literally disembow 7 elled, 
 yet still standing on its poor quivering legs, while 
 blood dripped from it in a stream that reached 
 the sand beneath with a dull thud, was sickening 
 beyond words. My sister-in-law nearly fainted 
 
 away and had to Leave the box. Almost more re- 
 \oltinu r and painful t<> my mind is the Inexorable
 
 no RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 fate of the bull itself when once it has been let 
 into the arena. The temper of the beasts immo- 
 lated in any corrida of course varies a good deal, 
 some of them showing far less sport — if such a 
 term can be fairly used — than others. One splendid, 
 savage brute — as black as Erebus — with red, blood- 
 shot eyes full of the lust of battle, and snorting, 
 fiery nostrils — came bounding into the ring, which 
 he soon almost cleared, unhorsing the picadores and 
 lacerating their mounts, and chivying a banderillero 
 or two over the barrier for safety. He got a 
 deservedly warm ovation, the Spanish elegantes — 
 at this bathing-season St. Sebastian was full of 
 smart folk from Madrid — applauding him to the 
 echo ; it was bravo toro ! with a vengeance. But, 
 when he was practically master of the field, it was too 
 sad to see the poor brute wander round and round the 
 wooden wall that penned him in to his doom, blindly 
 feeling along it with his horns for the entrance 
 whence he would too gladly have returned to his 
 native potrero in distant Cordoba, 1 but through 
 which, after being artistically despatched by the 
 renowned Lagartijo, specially engaged, his carcase 
 would presently be dragged by the team of mules 
 with gay harness, to the funeral blare of trompeta 
 e clarin and impatient cries of otro toro ! It is 
 this side, it seems to me, of the drama in the bull 
 
 1 The greatest breeding establishment for bulls destined for the 
 ring is, I believe, in the province of Cordoba, and belongs to the 
 Duque de Veraguas, the descendant of Columbus.
 
 SLOANE STREET in 
 
 ring — a surviving fragment of the brutal old gladi- 
 atorial and other shows of decadent Rome — that 
 cannot but be repugnant to healthy-minded English- 
 men, in whose keen instincts of sport, however 
 murderous, the idea of all possibility of escape 
 being denied to the victim pursued can find no 
 place. Not all the wonderful skill and grace and 
 the cool daring of the espada and other bull- 
 fighters, pitting their lives en champ clos against 
 the most dangerous and infuriated of animals, can 
 quite redeem the national sport of an essentially 
 chivalrous people from this reproach of unfair- 
 ness. 
 
 I left Biarritz on the i 5th September with my 
 boys, and after a few days at Paris, where we halted 
 to see my late wife's parents, the Harringtons, and 
 I had the great pleasure of visiting the del Grillos 
 in their Parisian home, we went on to London, 
 where I had engaged the upper part of No. 136 
 Sloane Street, over what was at that time the shop 
 of an upholsterer in a small way of business. In 
 the course of the autumn I paid a few visits — 
 among others, at Lockinge and at Vale Royal (the 
 Delameres), and to Wilfrid Blunt at his delightful 
 Sussex home, C rabbet ; also spending a day or two 
 with Ferdinand Rothschild and his sister at a small 
 hunting-box he then had at Leightofl Buzzard, 
 meeting there Mrs. Sands, who, too soon for her 
 
 English friends, went back to the States a few 
 months later. For the first Christinas dinner 1
 
 ii2 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 had eaten in England for many years I was 
 indebted to Mrs. John Towneley in Eaton Place, 
 always a very kind friend to me, who kept, so to 
 speak, open house on that day for the homeless 
 and the destitute like myself.
 
 CHATTER VII 
 COUNTRY VISITS, 1S77-1878 
 
 From this time onward a diary — almost Pepysian 
 in its fullness — which I kept pretty regularly for 
 the next two or three years, to a certain degree 
 simplifies my task, while at the same time some- 
 what inconveniently crowding the slight canvas I 
 have been working upon with the help of memory 
 alone. 
 
 Early in January 1S77, I went for a few days to 
 the Bamngtons at their pleasant home in the Vale 
 of White Horse. The Barrington family and connec- 
 tion have been amongst my kindest and staunchest 
 friends through life, and at this day I have in Eric 
 Barrington 1 almost the only link left to me with 
 the great Department I served under for over half 
 a century. At the time I refer to, George Barring- 
 ton" — certainly one of the most agreeable and best- 
 looking men of his generation — ruled at Beckett 
 with his charming wife, and soon afterwards 
 became Lord Beaconsiield's chef du cabinet — to 
 borrow a foreign term which alone correctly conveys 
 
 1 The Eon. Sir Eric Barrington, K.C.B., successively l'rivate 
 
 .•y to Lord Salisbury and Lord Lanadowne, 
 ; George, ;tli W..,uiii Barrington, married Iiabel, daughter of 
 John lioi ritt, of ] ■• Pai '»■■ JTork. 
 
 11
 
 ii 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the confidential functions of a Private Secretary to 
 the Premier. The party I found here were almost 
 strictly family, grouped, as it were, round perhaps 
 the dearest old lady I can remember, the Dowager 
 Lady Barrington, one of the numerous and popular 
 Liddell sisterhood, 1 of whom at this moment Lady 
 Bloomfield alone survives. With her gentle ways, 
 her brightness, her slight lisp, the lovely smooth skin 
 and complexion, and the pretty hair she kept till 
 her last day, it is difficult to imagine a more lovable 
 central figure to any family circle. These quiet 
 days at Beckett, and the welcome I was always 
 assured of in Cavendish Square and Hertford Street, 
 are among my most pleasing recollections of this 
 period. Lord Barrington took me a long, delight- 
 ful ride on a pulling thoroughbred chestnut one 
 day, I remember, to the great White Horse and 
 the Roman camp above it, and thence home by 
 Wayland Smith's cave of Kenilworth fame ; and of 
 an evening Miss Augusta Barrington 2 enchanted me 
 by playing quite magistralement bits of Schumann 
 and Schubert, and a heavenly motif from the only 
 symphony ever written by Chopin for the piano and 
 orchestra. 
 
 From Beckett I went on to Castle Ashby, whither 
 Percy Anderson, 3 one of my most intimate F.O 
 
 1 Lady Normanby, Lady Williamson, Mrs. Edward Villiers, and 
 Lady Hardwicke were some of Lord Ravensworth's many daughters. 
 
 2 Now Mrs. Maclagan, wife of the Archbishop of York. 
 
 3 Sir Henry Percy Anderson, K.C.B., K.C.M.G., was Assistant 
 Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and died in 1896.
 
 CASTLE ASHBY 115 
 
 chums, had been commissioned by his sister, Lady 
 Alwyne Compton, to ask me. The invitation was 
 afterwards kindly extended by Lord Northampton ! 
 to my three little fellows, who, having spent their 
 small lives abroad, were at first much bewildered 
 by the size of the beautiful old Jacobean pile, with 
 its intricate passages and long, creepy galleries. 
 But although a thoroughly haunted-looking house, 
 no uncomfortable traditions appear to attach to 
 Castle Ashby. We spent upwards of a fortnight 
 here, our host taking a great fancy to the boys, and 
 to the quaint (ierrnan patois songs they had been 
 taught to sing in parts by one of their nurses. Lord 
 Northampton was already then in the very last stage 
 of decline, but his conversation was still delightful, 
 and, like his gifted sister, Lady Marian Alford, he 
 \\ as an admirable draughtsman, and worked with 
 pencil and brush to the very last. Artistic gifts 
 are indeed hereditary in the family, for staying in 
 the house was old Lady Elizabeth Dickins, Lord 
 Northampton's aunt, who used to amuse the children 
 with very clever pen-and-ink sketches which she 
 did, for choice, kneeling by the table, although 
 then considerably past eighty. 
 
 From Castle Ashby we went, a party, by train 
 
 (I quote again from my diary) to lunch with Mrs. 
 Stopford Sackville at Drayton House, a place that 
 
 1 Charles, 3rd Harqnesi of Northampton, born 1816, died 1877*
 
 n6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 interested me, specially from its having belonged 
 to the last Duke of Dorset, 1 who had been 
 so often mentioned before me in my boyhood as 
 an intimate friend of my great-aunt, Mrs. Rigby. 
 It is a magnificent old house, but looks dreary 
 and fallen in estate, the income from the property 
 barely sufficing to keep it up. Mrs. Sackville, the 
 niece of the last Duke (she would have been Duke 
 had she been a boy), was most cordial to me, and 
 said my name was very familiar to her. She showed 
 me some miniatures, one of which I singled out 
 as being Mrs. Rigby, but I could not find the 
 clue I had hoped for to the lost picture of her 
 by Sir Joshua. 2 There are almost unique old 
 hornbeam hedges in the grounds here, and the 
 finest wrought-iron gates of ancient Dutch work- 
 manship. 
 
 In town afterwards I saw a good deal of Mrs. 
 Sackville and her daughters, who were great friends 
 of my cousin, Harriet Bruce. 
 
 From the diary, too, I extract the following 
 about an expedition to my mother's home at Bunney 
 Park, near Nottingham, which I undertook from 
 Castle Ashby, being curious to see the place once 
 
 1 Charles, fifth Duke of Dorset, K.G., died unmarried in 1843. 
 He was godfather to my elder brother Charles. 
 
 2 This very fine portrait of the only daughter of Sir Thomas 
 Bumbold by his first wife, painted before her marriage with Colonel 
 Rigby, which I well remember in my youth, was sold at Paris in the 
 sixties, and it has been impossible to trace it since.
 
 FAMILY PICTURES 117 
 
 more ; the owner, to whom it had been left absolutely 
 by my uncle Rancliffe, away from his family, having 
 died quite recently : — 
 
 January 22. — Reached Nottingham at 3, and 
 went to the "Flying Horse" inn, to which old 
 Rancliffe had taken me in 1849. Mai pas was dead, 
 and his daughter having sold the concern, the new 
 people knew nothing of Bunney. I chartered a 
 hansom and drove the 7^ miles out there. Trim 
 lodge and gates. Drove through the park to the 
 hall, over the porch of which hangs Mrs. F.'s 
 hatchment. The house had a deserted, neglected 
 aspect as I stood before it in the fading light. At 
 last a servant in ill-fitting mourning livery came 
 to the door, and, taking my card, ushered me into 
 the library ; Miss Hawksley was engaged, but would 
 come to me presently. There is a bare, unfurnished 
 air about all the rooms, and, coming straight from 
 luxurious Castle Ashby, of course one felt the con- 
 trast. Miss H., when she came, received me very 
 civilly, and obligingly volunteered to show me the 
 family pictures she had put away in one of the 
 b'drooms upstairs. There are half-a-dozen good 
 paintings there — my grandfather and grandmother 
 by Hoppner (the latter a beautiful picture), their 
 parents, &c. One or two of them (not being lettered) 
 it was impossible to identify, and such was the ease 
 with those downstairs, none of which could be told 
 with certainty, except the old Cavaliei colonel,
 
 n8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Isham Parkyns, father of the first Baronet. She had 
 to take extra care of everything, she said, on account 
 of the trustees. This gave me an opportunity of 
 asking how the place was left. She answered simply 
 enough that she " might live here for her life if 
 she pleased," but after her all went to the Levinges, 
 meaning, of course, William. He and his wife 
 (Miss Sutton) had been there at Christmas. It was 
 getting very dark, but Miss H. sent round to have 
 the church opened for me, and I had a look at the 
 monuments in the gloaming. The sexton's wife, 
 who did cicerone, turned out to be the daughter of 
 a woman who had been in my father's service when 
 he was living at Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire. That 
 must have been before he went out to India in 
 
 1813. 
 
 I made another excursion to Bunney, with my 
 
 wife, some years later. Miss Hawksley (now Mrs. 
 Wilkinson) is doing her duty by the place, and 
 hunting friends, who know it well as a regular meet 
 of the Quorn, tell me that she is greatly esteemed 
 in the neighbourhood. 
 
 Our stay at Castle Ashby now came to a close. 
 We left on the 30th January in so violent a gale 
 that it was doubtful whether we should be able 
 to reach the station. About noon a good-sized elm 
 came down with a crash close to the entrance. The 
 weather moderating, we took the 2 o'clock train. I 
 was quite moved at parting from Lord Northampton
 
 LADY MARIAN ALFORD 119 
 
 and the kind Ahvyne Comptons. 1 He looked so ill, 
 and his hand was absolutely transparent. He died 
 on the 3rd of March following. Lady Marian, who 
 travelled with us to town, was quite delightful in 
 the train, and whiled away the time with some 
 capital anecdotes, some of which, with others she 
 had told me at Castle Ashby, I will endeavour to 
 recount, though I can do them but little justice. 
 
 Some of her stories referred to Mr. Gladstone, 
 whom she was much too °:ood a Tory not to dislike. 
 She said that during a round of visits she was 
 making in the North the previous autumn she met 
 the (iladstones at Ford Castle, and went on with 
 Mrs. Gladstone and her daughter to Alnwick. On 
 the way there they had to traverse some property 
 belonging to Lord Browulow, and Lady Marian's 
 coming being expected, the tenants were on the 
 look-out for her, and made many affectionate de- 
 monstrations as she drove by, whereat, unconscious, 
 Mrs. Gladstone exclaimed: ''They think William 
 is in the carriage ! " During this same tour Lady 
 Marian had met Iliibner, 2 who was on his way to 
 
 1 Lord Ahvyne Compton, youngest brother <>f the Lord Nor- 
 thampton spoken of above, was then I ;<-<t « .r of Castle Ashby, and 
 afterwards became Dean of Worcester and Bishop of Ely. Ho and 
 his wife, the beautiful daughter of the Rev. Robert Anderson, and 
 r of sir Percy Anderson, likewise mentioned above, at that time 
 • bouse for the widowed Lord Northampton. 
 Count Blibner, the irell-known Austrian diplomatist and 
 slier, who was Ambassador at Paris and at Rome, and bad man] 
 ■ is in England. The above anecdote refers to the period when 
 Mi. Gladstone, by bis injudicious "Hands "ti', Austria " speech, had 
 mads himself sexy obnoxious at Vienna.
 
 120 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Raby Castle like herself, and travelled with him 
 as far as Darlington, where they had to wait a couple 
 of hours before continuing their journey. They 
 went to an inn in the town for lunch, and thence 
 back to the station in the hotel omnibus. There 
 were other passengers in the " 'bus," one of whom, 
 after gazing intently on Hiibner, said : "I believe 
 I have the privilege of being seated in the same 
 conveyance with Mr. Gladstone ! " to which Hiibner 
 replied by a contemptuous grunt and shrug, and, 
 letting down the glass behind him, thrust his elbow 
 oat, and deliberately looked out of the window till 
 the station was reached. "What did you do that 
 for?" asked Lady Marian as they got out. " Well," 
 he replied, " I hope I have succeeded in making Mr. 
 Gladstone thoroughly unpopular in Darlington ! " 
 
 As we got near Boxmoor in the express from 
 Bletchley my delightful companion pointed out a 
 clump of trees which marks the spot where, for the 
 last time in England, a man was hung in chains 
 for some highway robbery, and then told me of 
 the ghost of a Lady Ferrers (the widow of the 
 5th Earl?) which haunts a house called Market 
 End, on the Brownlow property, where she lived 
 in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. This 
 lady loved a bold gentleman - highwayman, whom 
 she used to accompany in his nocturnal expeditions. 
 In one of these he was killed, and she, though 
 desperately wounded, having strength enough left 
 to ride home, let herself in, fastened the door and
 
 A MOMENTOUS MUSICAL PARTY 121 
 
 tried to reach her bedroom, but collapsing on the 
 Btairs was found there all bloody and stark-dead 
 in the morning. She is said to flit about the place 
 in a short riding-habit (a "Joseph," Lady Marian 
 called it), and has been seen by the present occu- 
 pants of the house, a Rev. Adie and his wife, 
 
 and many other persons; having appeared, among 
 other occasions, at a school feast. According to 
 Lady Marian, one of the best authenticated spectres 
 on record. 
 
 1 must find room for a story she told me 
 abont Talleyrand which was new to me. He was 
 
 talking one day to the Duchess of , who had 
 
 a small and very pretty foot, which Talleyrand 
 thought she was protruding somewhat needlessly. 
 "Qui, Madame!" he said at last, " jc sais que vous 
 woei /. pied trhs petit. Votre /''"."(hers was very 
 big) "ne tiendrait pas dans votre Soulier!" 
 
 I had to run up to town once or twice on busi- 
 ness from Castle Ashby, and one afternoon went to 
 a small musical party at the house of my old friend 
 George March of the Foreign Office 1 and his talented 
 wife, Virginia Gabriel, in Cadogan Place. An entry 
 in my diary, briefly recording tiiis trifling circum- 
 nce, markfl a notable turning-point in my life. 
 
 1 Mr. G U • h, C.M.G., r in-ill \ yeai Superintendent 
 
 of the Treaty Department <>i the Foreign Office. 1 1 i ~ wife mel with a 
 
 leath, being run away with in Gro renoi Place and thrown out of 
 
 . carri.i).'' il iiijui 1
 
 122 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 January 24. — Went up to town, and in the 
 afternoon to some music at the Marchs — mostly 
 Virginia M.'s compositions. Met here Mrs. St. 
 George Caulfeild, whom I have scarcely seen since a 
 certain journey from the Piraeus to Messina in the 
 Messageries boat in January 1 864, when she charmed 
 Geofroy and me by her singing. Asked to meet 
 her to-morrow at lunch at the Haringtons. 
 
 I will say but a few words here on a subject 
 which, from that day forward, looms very large in 
 the daily record from which I am quoting. At the 
 very outset I knew for certain that what happiness 
 I might yet hope for lay in that direction ; and, 
 writing this in the sere and yellow leaf, am grate- 
 fully assured of how true was my instinct. Before 
 reaching, however, the goal I thenceforward steadily 
 kept in view, I had to pass through troublous times, 
 on which I will touch but lightly in these pages, 
 penned in a haven of rest in prosaic Sloane Street, 
 with its noise and traffic, and its bright, common- 
 place shops — but which to me, in the days I write 
 of, was an enchanted region, the glamour of which 
 has in my memory not departed from it yet : — 
 
 In einer nahen Gasse sollt'st Du wohnen, 
 
 Ich wollt dein Nachbar sein und Dich bewachen ; 
 
 Das Dir kein Leid begegne, nichts Dich store — 
 
 Mit einem Blick kbnnt'st dann und wann mich lohnen ! l 
 
 1 The rooms I had engaged, on my return from abroad, at 136 
 Sloane Street, happened to be only a few doors from the house of my 
 present wife, who was living there with her little son after the loss of 
 her husband, Captain St. George Caulfeild.
 
 LONDON GAIETIES 123 
 
 To turn to the <raieties of London this year, I 
 find mention at intervals in my jottings of festivities 
 at Marlborough House and Grosvenor House, as well 
 as at the Dudleys. 
 
 March 12. — A sudden and unwelcome change 
 this morning to wet, muggy weather, and a still more 
 unexpected but welcome invitation to the dance this 
 (■veiling at Marlboro' House. . . . The ball was very 
 pretty, but not animated, it seemed to me ; the 
 music very indifferent, being the stringed band of the 
 Blues. Mrs. Standish, Mme. de Stuers (the American 
 wife of the Dutch Secretary), 1 and Mrs. Sands, all 
 looking very well, but the latter the prettiest. Of 
 the other best-known beauties Mme. de Murrieta not 
 here, somewhat to my surprise, the reason given being 
 that she had neglected to write down her name. 
 
 Lord Dudley, who was a prominent figure in 
 the London world of those days, and, with all his 
 well-known peculiarities, an extremely amiable, 
 kind-hearted man, had seen me as a youth at the 
 Delmara in Paris, and was always very good- 
 natured to me. Being much interested in music, in 
 which he knew that I myself dabbled, he sometimes 
 asked my opinion about artists who were recom- 
 mended to him, and to whom he always, 1 believe, 
 
 1 M. •:■ - bai now for many yean been Minister from the 
 
 icrlanda in Pai
 
 124 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 showed himself a generous patron. I append a 
 note or two of my recollections this year of him and 
 of the hospitable Dudley House, which has since 
 passed into very different hands. 
 
 March 19. — At 12, by appointment, to Dudley 
 House to hear the new singer, a Miss Robertson, 
 but am not so enthusiastic about her as Lord D. 
 would have me be. Benedict accompanying, as 
 usual, execrably, I sang two duets of Pinsuti and 
 Lucantoni with her, the great picture-gallery lending 
 extraordinary volume to the voice. It is a curious 
 coincidence that the young lady should have been 
 born and bred at Valparaiso. Presently in comes 
 Milady and her brother R. MoncreifTe, of the Scots 
 Fusiliers, and asks me to stay to lunch. Surely 
 there can be no lovelier woman in England, barring 
 the Princess, and yet she seems so perfectly simple 
 and unspoilt. I sat with her for some time in her 
 boudoir — the Coventry vases, bought not long ago 
 for ten thousand guineas, staring me in the face on 
 the mantelpiece — and she asked me so prettily 
 whether we had not been a short time before her in 
 1872 at St. Moritz, where she had found such strong 
 recollections of my poor C, that she quite won my 
 heart. It was delightful to see her at lunch with 
 her boys and their governess and tutor. One cannot 
 but envy the man who is able to gratify the slightest 
 wish and gild, as it were, the existence of so per- 
 fectly charming a creature.
 
 DUDLEY HOUSE 125 
 
 March 21. — To dinner at Dudley House, where I 
 get much too early, the mattre de maison not being 
 down yet. Joachim soon arrives and keeps me in 
 countenance, and then our host appears and tells us 
 his wife cannot come down and is nursing herself 
 for the concert afterwards. Next come in Lady 
 Marjori banks and her daughter, who bring news that 
 the Princess, too, is unwell, and will not be able to 
 come to the concert. The rest of the dinner-party 
 consists of Montgelas (a Secretary of the Austrian 
 Embassy), the Delawarrs, Sir Ivor and Lady Cornelia 
 Guest, and Lady Augusta Rous, who is pretty and 
 extremely well dressed. The food excellent, and we 
 leave the table with the ladies a la Frangaise, which 
 over here seems strange, and certainly makes the 
 interval between the dinner and party appear end- 
 less. Presently Lady D. comes down, and then the 
 guests begin to straggle in ; Teck and Prince 
 Christian among the first, the Sutherlands, Beust, 
 &c, following, but there is a certain stiffness and 
 solemnity, and even almost a want of usage du monde 
 about many of them that strike me almost painfully. 
 The social graces seem to me not to flourish abun- 
 dantly on English soil. The conceit begins at II j 
 very good music. Joachim and Mile. Marie Krebs 
 and a Mile. Kedeker who sings things of Brahms, but 
 ii not much listened to, in spite of the programmes 
 bearing the motto : // piU grande omaggio aUa 
 murica > U rilenzio. The [gnatiews meanwhile 
 arrive, and then the Prince with Princess Louise.
 
 126 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 Somewhat further on I find the following : — 
 
 May 14. — Dined at the Dorchesters in Berkeley 
 Square — a pleasant party : Sir A. Cockburn, Lady 
 Rosslyn, the Charles Barings, Avelands, Wombwells, 
 Henry Lennox, &c. I took in Mrs. Baring, whom I 
 have not met for years, and this brought back old 
 times very vividly. Reached Grosvenor House at 
 12, and found there a great crush. It was generally 
 known that it would develop into a dance, but the 
 arrival of H.R.H., who had been at the Albert Hall, 
 was waited for before they began. Mrs. Sands here, 
 looking lovelier than ever. I danced a quadrille 
 vis a vis to her and Deym (then Secretary to the 
 Austrian Embassy). At 2.45 a. m. Montgelas brought 
 news of the division in the House. A great triumph 
 for the Government, who got a majority of 129. 1 
 While I was having a little supper before leaving, 
 the Prince came up to me and entered into conver- 
 sation very graciously. He is as anti-Russian as 
 ever, and indeed, longs, it is said, for some command 
 in the field. He ended by offering me a lift in his 
 carriage — an honour I was obliged to decline, living 
 so far out of his line of road. It is difficult not to 
 be drawn towards him, his manner is so absolutely 
 perfect. 
 
 Meanwhile I had heard in the early spring from 
 my sister of the engagement of her daughter, Ida 
 
 1 The division on Mr. Gladstone's resolutions on the attitude of the 
 Government towards the Porte and the massacres in Bulgaria.
 
 AN ENCASHMENT 127 
 
 Cavendish, to a young Prince Louis Pignatelli 
 d'Aragon — of the Spanish branch of that ancient 
 and well-known family — whose parents had been 
 settled for some time at Biarritz. These Pignatelli s, 
 who were not, I believe, in affluent circumstances, 
 had come to live here close to the Spanish 
 frontier partly on account of their strong Carlist 
 proclivities, the fiance and his elder brother having 
 served with Don Carlos on his last campaign in 
 the Basque provinces. I should myself have much 
 preferred to see my dear little niece, who has since 
 borne herself admirably in difficult and painful cir- 
 cumstances, married to some nice young Englishman, 
 but diiscUiter visum. My sister made it so pressing 
 a request that I should be present at the wedding, 
 and be one of the tc'moins customary on these oc- 
 ( asions in France, that I resolved to go, leaving 
 my boys in London, where Cinny Montagu and 
 other friends promised to look after them. 
 
 I reached Bayonne on the day of the signature of 
 the contrat, and was met by my sister and her future 
 son-in-law, who, at first sight, impressed me favour- 
 ably, having a well-bred look, and somewhat the air 
 of a smart Austrian cavalry officer. Lord Henry 
 Lennox 1 was the other English tdmoin besides 
 myself, the Spaniards being a Count de la Florida 
 and the Due de San Lucar. The function was 
 absurdly delayed, I remember, by the bridegroom 
 
 1 Lad ll'-nrv Gordon Lennox, &t one time Secretary to the A.dmi- 
 ad robeeqnently FintCommi Loner oi Worke,died in 1886.
 
 128 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 and his parents, Count and Countess de Fuentes, 
 keeping us all waiting over an hour with true 
 Spanish nonchalance. The next day the mariage 
 civil took place at the Mairie at Biarritz at the 
 impossible hour of 11.30 p.m.; Henry Lennox 
 being rather amusing about the absurdity of 
 our meeting at midnight in the house of a 
 French mayor. Almost the last time I had seen 
 him, I think, was at Henry Labouchere's at Pope's 
 Villa, Twickenham, in far more diverting sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 Punctually at eleven the following morning our 
 family party met at the Church of Ste. Eugenie for 
 the wedding. We found the approaches crowded 
 with well-dressed people, and all the wedding guests 
 assembled, with the exception of the bridegroom and 
 his belongings, who again were upwards of a quarter- 
 of-an-hour late. There being no one else there of 
 sufficient importance to take my sister into the 
 church, the Duke of Abercorn, 1 who had been asked 
 as a distant relation of the bride, promptly came 
 forward and gave her his arm, the poor bride having 
 meanwhile to wait in the porch for these strangely 
 unpunctual Castilians. At last we moved in due 
 procession up the aisle, and the couple were married 
 dans le chccur, inside the altar railings, which, it 
 seems, is a privilege of the Princes du Sai?U Empire ; 
 these Pignatellis having quite a string of high-sound- 
 
 1 The first Duke of Abercorn, ex- Viceroy of Ireland, whose wife, 
 Lady Louisa Russell, was related to the Cavendishes.
 
 AN OLD SECRET TREATY 129 
 
 ing Spanish, Italian, and Flemish titles, and, among 
 these, laying claim to that of Egmont of tragical 
 memories. After the ceremony, at which the Abbe 
 Saubot officiated with considerable unction and 
 dignity, we all signed the register in the sacristy, 
 and then drove back to the as yet unfinished Pavi- 
 lion where breakfast had been laid for twenty-four 
 in a big coach-house, decorated with much taste for 
 the occasion. The luncheon went of! well, though 
 with a certain solemnity, and our duke, who in 
 manner and appearance was certainly a perfect 
 specimen of his class, proposed the bride's health 
 in excellent French but with truly British shyness. 
 
 I stayed on at Biarritz a few days, during which 
 I was taken to St. Jean de Luz, and shown over 
 the house which in 1660 witnessed the somewhat 
 more important marriage of Louis Quatorze and his 
 Spanish Infanta. At Paris, where I also lingered a 
 few days, I found the Embassy Chancery composed 
 of old friends like Ottiwell Adams (afterwards 
 Minister in Switzerland), Bill Harrington, Maitland 
 Sartoris, and George Greville. There was much 
 talk li.ac of course about the critical situation in the 
 Bast, and I recollect being assured by one of the 
 Embassy staff that during the Duke of Wellington's 
 brief embassy at Petersburg in 1826 a secret treaty 
 had bees Bigned between us and Russia, which 
 
 provided tor a partition of Turkish territory in 
 
 given eventualities, and that this agreement had 
 
 I
 
 130 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 afterwards really been the basis of the notorious 
 pourparlers between the Emperor Nicholas and Sir 
 Hamilton Seymour. I have never heard this remark- 
 able statement corroborated since, but, on referring 
 to my diary, find that it was distinctly made to me 
 at the time, and struck me the more on account of 
 our being again on what seemed the eve of war 
 with Russia. Lord Lyons, I know, was certainly of 
 opinion that we could scarcely hope to keep out of 
 the impending conflict, and was much disturbed by 
 the evident leaning towards Russia of the Due De- 
 cazes, who was then Minister for Foreign Affairs. 
 One of the great dangers, as I recollect Sir Charles 
 Dilke remarking to me about that time, was the 
 warlike tone of our constituencies, and the fact that 
 the greater the progress of democracy in England, 
 the less the people would be disposed to accept a 
 "peace at any price policy." 
 
 I went with Ottiwell Adams to see the " Poule 
 d'Essai," or French Two Thousand, run for — a bril- 
 liant sight and a brilliant crowd, conspicuous among 
 which was the strikingly handsome Mrs. Francis 
 Lowther, to whom Adams introduced me. I also 
 went to a great ball given by the Gustave Roths- 
 childs in their splendid new house in the Avenue de 
 Marigny, built on the very site of the poor old Hotel 
 Delmar of my childhood and first youth. Although 
 the Paris world could not but have entirely changed 
 since those distant days, there came over me that 
 evening a peculiar Rip van Winkle-like sensation
 
 WAGNER CONCERTS 131 
 
 at finding myself practically an entire stranger in a 
 society once so familiar to me. Fortunately some 
 few old friends remembered me, and I supped gaily 
 with Mouchv and Georges d'Aramon — the latter full 
 of the drollest sallies, and both of them the best of 
 company. The following day I went back to London, 
 and almost the next thing I find entered in my diary 
 is a dinner given by Ferdinand Rothschild partly in 
 honour of his cousin Gustavo aforesaid, who had 
 come over to see his horse " Verneuil " run at New- 
 market in the Two Thousand, in which, by the way, 
 he was beaten by Lagrange's " Chamant." 
 
 May 3, 1S77. — The dinner last night was a big 
 affair. We had the Castlereaghs, Macnamaras, Lord 
 , \Yaterford, Count Beust, Lord Rosebery, Miss Marie 
 Ilervev, &c, and the new Lady Mandeville, to whom 
 I was introduced and with whom I had a long talk 
 about America, and my sister and Ida, whom she had 
 known well at Newport. She has all the American 
 simplicity and unconventionality ; but will make, I 
 fancy, a Duchess after an entirely new pattern. 
 Lord Harrington too was at the dinner, much dis- 
 gusted, I fancy, with Gladstone and his resolutions. 
 
 This year there took place, for the first time in 
 this country 1 think, a series of Wagner concerts at 
 the Albert Ball, some impressions of which, as noted 
 
 down by me, seem not entirely without interest in 
 
 viru of the passion for the works of Wagner which
 
 132 KECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 has reached such a pitch in this country of recent 
 years. 
 
 May 7, 1877. — To a box at the Albert Hall, 
 belonging to Mrs. White of Ardarroch (afterwards 
 Lady Henry Lennox), the party consisting of Mrs. 
 Henry Wodehouse, 1 a Miss Hornby (daughter of 
 the Admiral), Walter Creyke, and the Lord Chief 
 Justice. 2 The Tannhaiiser march was magnificently 
 played, and gave rise to a great ovation, but the 
 Rheingold music seemed too strange and incompre- 
 hensible without the scenic effects, and fell rather 
 flat. Quoth Sir Alexander, rousing himself at the 
 end from his slumbers : " Well, any man who be- 
 lieves in that music would believe in the Claimant." 
 The Royalties mustered in great force to-night, the 
 Teck box being next to ours. 
 
 One result of these Wagner performances, 
 directed by the great composer himself, was cer- 
 tainly, as far as I was concerned, to make it im- 
 possible to listen patiently to such operas as 
 Donizetti's. A few nights later, for instance, 
 " Lucia," admirably given, with Albani and the 
 new Spanish tenor, Gayarre, in the leading parts, 
 seemed to me almost unendurable, with the ex- 
 ception of the great septett and the duet in the 
 second act between the soprano and baritone. 
 
 1 The widow of my Vienna colleague, remarried to the 5th Marquis 
 of Anglesey. 
 
 2 The well-known Sir Alexander Cockburn.
 
 THE PRINCE IMPERIAL 133 
 
 The next extract is not without a melancholy 
 interest : — 
 
 June 10, 1877. — At 4 o'clock took a train from 
 Yauxhall to Putney, and thence in a hansom to 
 Borthwick's x place at Coombe. I knew it was 
 pretty, but had no conception of the extreme 
 beauty of the spot as it appeared on this glorious 
 summer day. There were about fifty or sixty 
 people here, and on the lawn some clever Indian 
 ju ™lers and snake-charmers, who did wonderful 
 tricks, but were very slow over them. After 
 their performances the Prince Imperial and Arthur 
 Russell ~ asked to look at the snakes, and began 
 handling the loathsome creatures, one charming 
 lady following their example, rather to my dis- 
 may. We stayed to dinner, a party of sixteen, 
 amongst whom were the Barringtons, De la Warrs, 
 Dorchesters, the Duke of Sutherland, and the 
 Prince Imperial, to whom I was presented, and 
 who made a most favourable impression upon me. 
 Hi- went away early, but, before leaving, wrote 
 his name (plain Napoldon) in a book Borthwick 
 keeps of his visitors. Drove home with Bertie 
 lfitford a and his wife, going for a few minutes 
 into their house in Cheyne Walk, which seemed 
 
 1 Tin- jiivM-tit I,.. 1 <1 1 Jlum-sk. 
 
 - Lord Arthur Km- ill. M.I', for T&TlfltOOk, died i8<j.\ 
 
 1 Bertram Freemen ICitford, O.B., now Lord Redeedele, trhom 
 I remember ;i* quite the prettieet of imal] boyi et Peril sixty yean
 
 134 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 to me perfect, with its delightful situation on the 
 river. 
 
 Almost exactly two years from the day 1 on 
 which I had this glimpse of the gallant young 
 Prince, he met with his death in one of those 
 wretched South African guet apens, which the 
 fortunes of war in that fatal country have recently 
 made so sadly familiar to us. Even at this distance 
 of time the general sorrow is still remembered 
 which was caused by the untimely end of the 
 promising heir of the Bonapartes, who, driven by 
 exile to our shores, had become almost one of 
 ourselves, and had gone out to fight in our service. 
 The Prince Imperial seems indeed to have had 
 in him the stuff of a thoroughly worthy pretender 
 to the French throne, and one cannot help specu- 
 lating on how differently the course of history in 
 that great country might have run had he but lived 
 longer. In all respects he had been admirably 
 trained for the exalted position in prospect for him, 
 and his physical development, more especially, had 
 been carefully attended to from his childhood. I 
 remember being much amused by the enthusiastic 
 terms in which an old prevot de salle of the name 
 of Bertrand, who in those days kept a gymnasium 
 and fencing school in Warwick Street, Leicester 
 Square, spoke to me of the pluck and manliness 
 of the young Prince. He told me that, besides 
 
 1 The Prince was killed at Ulundi, June 19, 1879.
 
 BLACKBALLING 135 
 
 being a good all-round athlete, he was a most 
 formidable swordsman and boxer. "77 vous tuerait 
 commc uui' mouche, Monsieur ! " he said, and added 
 that his counsel to him, if he ever got into " ime 
 affaire" abroad, had always been " retournez-la ! " 
 meaning of course his sword when once he pinked 
 his adversary. His father had from the first care- 
 fully seen to this side of his bringing up. " Voila 
 ■ 1 lucatwn. Monsieur! Chez nous en France on 
 est e%efo6 a la cuiUer ! " 
 
 About this time I was elected to the Turf 
 Club, which, since the decline of White's, has, 
 as London clubs go, stepped into the position 
 occupied by that celebrated institution in its 
 palmier days. George Harrington and Rivers 
 proposed and seconded me, and as there was a 
 good deal of blackballing just then, my election 
 was a matter of some congratulation to me on the 
 part of my friends. Among the victims was my 
 former Neapolitan ally, the Due de Forli, a charm- 
 ing fellow, who deserved a better fate, and the 
 sale of whose splendid collection of Dresden china 
 had been one of the events at Christie's this year. 
 Another rejected candidate was the Conseiller of 
 the Russian embassy, Bartolomei, a man of slovenly 
 habits, who seldom took the trouble to change his 
 clothei for dinner, and was said to be extremely 
 
 cantankerous at cards. Ilis being blackballed was, 
 nevertheless, not unnaturally put down to the ill- 
 feeling against Russia, which was increasing apace
 
 136 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 at the time. It looked, indeed, as though we were 
 fast drifting into a great war with our customary 
 unpreparedness, for our battalions, according to 
 what so experienced an officer as Colonel Hozier 
 assured me, were deplorably weak, and we were 
 badly off for horses, &c. I remember the Russian 
 Ambassador just then amusing and startling a group 
 of ladies, gathered round him at some evening party, 
 by his (no doubt purposely) indiscreet remarks re- 
 specting his mission to this country. He had 
 accepted the Embassy here, he said, believing it 
 to be the easiest of posts, with lots of pleasant 
 society and the best of shooting. But now, almost 
 from the first, he found himself " plonge jusqu' au 
 cou dans cette beastly question," and, instead of 
 enjoying himself, having to confer every day with 
 Lord Derby, " ce qui riest pas drdle du tout!" he 
 cynically added. He had actually begun preparing 
 for his departure the other day, he said ; " J'ai meme 
 tire quelques mouchoirs de ma commode pour les 
 emballer" but since then things had improved a 
 little again. Beneath the Ambassador's banter there 
 no doubt lay a very critical situation. 
 
 One more function of this season I will extract 
 here from my diary — namely, the inauguration of 
 Count Gleichen's statue of King Alfred, which was put 
 up at Wantage, the birthplace of the national hero. 
 
 July 14. — Pouring wet morning, but found the 
 platform at Paddington carpeted and railed off and
 
 A FETE AT LOCKINGE 137 
 
 a special train ready to take us to Wantage Road, 
 which we reached after three. I was in luck, being 
 in the same carriage with the Stanhopes, Philip 
 Stanhope and his new Russian wife, Lady Alice 
 I e and Lord Mori e v. A lot of brakes and omni- 
 buses were waiting at the station, and an open 
 carriage and four, with an escort of yeomanry, for 
 T.R.H. All the country-side were out along the 
 roads and lining the hedges to see them pass; the 
 villages charmingly decorated, and Wantage itself 
 a mass of flags and triumphal arches. But for the 
 dreadful weather, it would have been the prettiest 
 possible sight. Then came the usual ceremonies 
 in the market-place of reading of addresses, school- 
 children singing " God bless the Prince of Wales," 
 fcc., culminating in the planting of two lime-trees 
 and the unveiling of the statue of Alfred, we all 
 looking on bareheaded under shelter of our umbrellas. 
 Thence through Aldington village to Lockinge Park, 
 where three big marquees had been put up in the 
 garden for the luncheon and dancing, hut the showery 
 ither now turned into cataracts of tropical rain, 
 which entirely marred these excellent arrangements. 
 We were all driven to take refuge with the Royal 
 party in the biLTLrest of the marquees, where the heat 
 was suffocating, and where we whiled away the time 
 ;i-~ best we could until the dinner hour. Never was 
 
 mop- dreadful weather, and the poor Loyd-Lindsays, 
 
 who had gone to all this expense and trouble and 
 asked so big a party down from London, were much
 
 138 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 to be pitied under such trying circumstances. But 
 all's well that ends well. Presently the Royalties 
 and the people asked to stay in the house came 
 down dressed for dinner, the Princess looking 
 radiantly lovely, and we were told off to the ladies 
 we were to take in. I was fortunate, for to my lot 
 fell Lady Corisande Bennet, with whom I had a 
 ready subject of conversation in our mutual relatives 
 the Polignacs, &c. We were placed at three tables, 
 the daintiest-looking of Princesses being of course 
 seated at the central one. I had not before 
 had such an opportunity of realising how perfectly 
 beautiful she is, and could scarcely take my eyes off 
 her. It was weary work afterwards waiting for the 
 carriages to take us to the station, but I was lucky 
 in having Morley and Fred Leighton for companions, 
 and in again joining Lady Tankerville and her 
 daughter in the train to town, which we did not 
 reach before 2 a.m. 
 
 Early in September I made up my mind to go to 
 Scotland, where I had a general invitation to one or 
 two houses. It was my first visit to that country 
 since the hurried journey to Balmoral in 1859, of 
 which I have given an account elsewhere. After a 
 brief stay in Edinburgh — which at once struck me 
 as almost the fairest city I had beheld in my many 
 joumeyings — and at Perth, I went on first to a place 
 called Aden in Aberdeenshire, belonging to Russell 
 of that ilk, who had been for some years in the
 
 BAD NEWS FROM THE CAPE 139 
 
 diplomatic service. I spent the best part of a week 
 here in very hospitable quarters, in the society of 
 Henry Northcote of the Foreign Office, 1 honeymoon- 
 ing with his attractive little Canadian bride, who 
 since then have both been the best of friends to me. 
 From Aden I went on to Jim Farquharson's at 
 Invercauld, where I found a mixed party of men 
 comprising Francis Baring, Henry Wellesley — best 
 known then as " Spurgeon " J — Charley Hall, 3 full of 
 amusing sallies and anecdotes, and Laurence Oli- 
 phant, 4 who in a languid way of his own was 
 excellent company — the gathering being afterwards 
 reinforced by Henry Labouchere and Lady Cork, 
 with two of her daughters. The weather here was 
 lovely on the whole, and I took part in a not over 
 successful drive for deer in the beautiful woods of 
 Invercauld. But although the scenery of this world- 
 renowned district of the Highlands is no doubt 
 perfect of its kind, to me, with my Andine re- 
 miniscences still strong upon me, it seemed rather 
 cramped and deficient in real grandeur. 
 
 A telegram I received here, announcing the 
 dangerous illness at Cape Town of my only surviving 
 elder brother, Charles, cut short my stay on Ueeside 
 and made me hasten back to Perth, where letters 
 
 1 Henry Stafford Nbrthcote, dow Lord Nbrthcote, and Governor- 
 
 1 J of the Commonwealth of Australia. 
 -' The late and third ! )uk«- of Wellington, who vrai supposed to l>e 
 rated pn achei in appearance. 
 TIh: late BiH !harlet Hall t Q.C., Recorder of I.' in. ion and A.ttornej - 
 1 . to the Pi incc of Wales. 
 
 * M ' feneral Oliphant, 'Mi., now commanding the Home District.
 
 140 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 were waiting for me which fully confirmed the bad 
 news. From Perth I went on the 25th September 
 to Glamis Castle on what proved to me a momentous 
 visit. For my invitation to this house, which I had 
 long wished to see, I was indebted to dear old Lady 
 Barrington, who was going there herself with her 
 daughter from Murthly Castle — a delightful place 
 overlooking the river Tay, and well known for its 
 excellent fishing, then occupied by Henry Graham * 
 and his mother, and subsequently rented during 
 many years by the painter Millais. I joined the 
 Barringtons at Murthly and reached Glamis with 
 them late in the afternoon as it was getting dark. 
 Coming upon it in the gloaming of a September day, 
 the first sight of the splendid Castle, round which 
 have grown up such strange mysterious traditions, 
 quite surpassed my expectations, and I at once 
 realised the peculiar atmosphere of uncanniness by 
 which all those who have stayed there agree that it 
 is pervaded. Lady Strathmore — most graceful and 
 gracious of hostesses — took me to a room on the 
 second floor at the top of the main staircase, known 
 as the " panelled chamber," very comfortable and 
 perfectly harmless to all appearance, except for a 
 large, dark, and deep coal-cupboard in one corner of 
 it — in the great thickness of the wall — the recesses 
 of which seemed to me uncomfortably vague and 
 obscure. I may as well admit at once that, all 
 
 1 Now Sir Henry Graham, K.C.B., Clerk of Parliaments, married 
 to Lady Margaret Coinpton, second daughter of the fourth Marquess 
 of Northampton.
 
 GLAMIS 141 
 
 through my week's stay here, I felt somehow on the 
 stretch, and certainly did not enjoy unbroken rest 
 at night. 
 
 The next day I was taken over the house, which 
 is truly a unique habitation. It has been lived in 
 for over eight centuries, and is full of puzzling, 
 crooked corridors and unexpected staircases and 
 turnings, the rooms and passages, though charm- 
 ingly furnished and brightly carpeted, and made to 
 look as cheerful as possible, yet none the less con- 
 \< y an indefinable sense of gloom and mystery. I 
 hasten to add that no house I ever stayed in inter- 
 ested me so deeply, or remains so vividly and grate- 
 fully present to my memory. Other causes, however, 
 ■\\ hicfa have made Glamis in every way memorable to 
 me contributed to this ; for to the small party staying 
 here — mostly family — was soon added my friend 
 and neighbour in London, Mrs. St. George Caul- 
 l'< lid, who with her boy came on from a visit to the 
 Kinnoulls at Dupplin. 
 
 Michaelmas-day being the anniversary of the con- 
 secration of the private chapel in 1688, full choral 
 service was held in commemoration — Dean Nicolson 
 of Brechin officiating. The chapel, which adjoins 
 the drawing-room — on the further side of which, 
 by the way, is the sacristy — has a curious panelled 
 and painted ceiling, one of the panels being said to 
 lead to a " priest's hob/' or hiding-place. In the 
 afternoon we drove over — tLpCLfite c<<rn'<- with the 
 
 Barringtons, and the Dean on the box — to Cortachy
 
 142 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Castle to inquire after Lady Airlie, who was down 
 with typhoid fever, but fortunately on the mend. 
 The ghostly legend attaching to this picturesque 
 old place had none the less asserted itself, and it 
 was currently reported in the neighbourhood that 
 the drummer of Airlie, of evil omen, had been lately 
 heard in the castle-yard. The welcome given us, 
 however, by Bertie Mitford and his wife, and the 
 bright, clever face of bonny Lady Blanche Ogilvy 
 more than sufficed to dispel in us any thoughts of 
 the weird old tradition. 
 
 It would be almost affectation to write of Glamis 
 and not refer to the story of the secret chamber 
 which makes it so famous among what, for want of 
 a better word, must be described as haunted houses. 
 The knowledge of the exact whereabouts of this 
 chamber in the great, irregular mediaeval pile is, as 
 most people are aware, held by the Lyons to be 
 of such importance that, from generation to genera- 
 tion, it has been jealously guarded, and, under a 
 family statute observed most rigidly, confined to 
 three persons at a time : the owner namely and 
 his eldest son, when the latter is of age, and either 
 the factor on the estate or the family lawyer at 
 Edinburgh. So far so good. The grave import 
 attached to the preservation of the secret has been 
 variously attributed by those who speculate on the 
 subject — and who of the many visitors to Glamis has 
 not done so ? — to such causes as an unwillingness 
 to break with a time-honoured family tradition
 
 A FASCINATING MYSTERY 143 
 
 handed down through centuries in an ancient race ; 
 or to the dark crime of some ancestor which, if 
 fully revealed, would inflict indelihle disgrace on 
 the family name ; or, lastly, to some flaw in the 
 title to the property which might come to light 
 with the discovery of the secret. None of these 
 motives, however, can at all account for the serious 
 manner in which that secret appears to affect the 
 lives of its chief depositaries. Attachment to an old 
 family tradition, or the misdeeds of a wicked fore- 
 father, may be dismissed as clearly futile grounds 
 for maintaining the mystery, while no original flaw 
 in the right to the estate could possibly operate 
 against owners whose possession goes back fully 
 five hundred years. It is the dominant part it plays 
 in the existence of these owners which invests the 
 Glamis mystery with such strange interest — one 
 might almost say tragical dignity. 
 
 There is, I believe, scarcely any doubt that the 
 strained relations which marred the short and ill- 
 starred union of the late Lord Strathmore and his 
 wife — the lovely Charlotte Harrington, whose appear- 
 ance at Paris during her uncle Lord Normanby's 
 Embassy there, made, I remember, quite a sensation 
 — primarily arose out of a thoughtless attempt she 
 countenanced to fathom the secret. A small party 
 of relations and intimates were assembled at (ilamis 
 111 summer not long after her marriage. Lord 
 
 Strathmore bad gone awaj en business for a day or 
 
 two, and the const being clear, somebody hit upos
 
 144 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the ingenious device of opening the windows all 
 over the castle, and hanging out of each of them 
 a sheet, or towel, or pocket-handkerchief, and thus 
 marking them all. The secret chamber, it was 
 said, had a window. Any aperture left unmarked 
 would therefore reveal its position. No sooner 
 said than done. The bande joyeuse promptly in- 
 vaded every room that was accessible, and innumer- 
 able white signals were soon fluttering in the 
 summer breeze when Lord Strathmore unexpectedly 
 returned. The result was, it is said, a painful scene, 
 in which he bitterly reproached his wife for treating 
 so lightly, and seeking to discover, what she well 
 knew was a solemn secret deeply affecting the family 
 fortunes. 
 
 Of this same Lord Strathmore (Ben) — a heedless 
 man of the world, with few prejudices and possibly 
 still fewer beliefs — it is related that, on his death- 
 bed, he told his brother and heir that he must now 
 endeavour "to pray down" the sinister influences 
 he himself had in vain tried " to laugh down," and 
 which for so many years had darkened the family 
 history. His most courteous, kindly, and deeply 
 religious successor had certainly taken to heart 
 the counsel said to have been given him. The long 
 neglected chapel was restored to its pristine uses, 
 and if it were sought to exorcise any evil influences 
 at work at Glamis by daily services and constant 
 prayer, no means to that end were left neglected. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking instance, however, of
 
 A FASCINATING MYSTERY 145 
 
 the profound effect of the mystery on those who are 
 concerned in it is what is related of the present heir 
 to the title when he came of age. On being told 
 that the time had come for him to be initiated into 
 the family secret, he is said to have inquired 
 whether that secret were not in the safe keeping 
 of three persons, as prescribed : that of his father 
 and the factor and the family lawyer. On this 
 being admitted, he had then replied that his imme- 
 diate initiation not being indispensable, he preferred 
 waiting until it should become so. Of the effect, 
 too, of the mystery on the other persons cognizant 
 cf it. the story goes that the factor, Mr. R., when- 
 ever kept at the Castle late on business, or dining 
 there, makes it a point to return to his own house, 
 whatever the hour or the weather, rather than spend 
 a night under a roof with the strange story of which 
 he is so well acquainted. Hound this strange story 
 many tales have, of course, gathered by degrees, 
 of phantom figures appearing even by daylight in 
 different places in the Castle or outside it, or of 
 unearthly sounds and eldritch laughter disturbing 
 the night hours. 15ut on this point it may, 1 be- 
 lieve, be truly said that the mystery of Glamis 
 ranges far above such idle ghosl Btories, and to 
 those who ponder over it, almost irresistibly sug- 
 ts thoughts of weird supernatural agencies 
 which, even in our matter of facl incredulous age, it 
 is hard in this instance to dismiss contemptuously 
 after the fashion of the day.
 
 146 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 On the ist of October my visit to Glamis came 
 to an end. The party assembled here, with the 
 exception of old Mrs. Oswald Smith, Lady Strath- 
 more's mother, and Mrs. Caulfeild, went over to 
 Dundee to the opening of a Fine Arts Exhibition. 
 I waited for an afternoon train to take me to 
 Edinburgh on my return south, and left on my 
 journey with more comfort than I had known since 
 that mournful Christmas day of 1872. 
 
 At the Balmoral Hotel at Edinburgh the follow- 
 ing morning I read in the Scotsman that my fore- 
 bodings about my brother were but too correct, and 
 that the poor fellow had died of a seizure at Cape 
 Town on the 28th of August. Between the painful 
 thoughts brought up by this news, and other happier 
 ones, I was whirled along in the train to London, 
 taking but little heed of the journey until I reached 
 home, and was addressed there by my new appel- 
 lation, which jarred upon me in many ways more 
 than I can say.
 
 CHATTER VIII 
 BERNE AGAIN, i 8 7 S 
 
 JANUARY 1S7S brought with it a crisis in my affairs. 
 I had now been at home nine months, and had 
 exceeded the amount of leave to which I was 
 entitled. As, in my family circumstances, it would 
 have been almost impossible for me to go back to 
 Santiago. I anxiously watched the moves in the 
 Bervice, and, on the appointment of William Stuart to 
 succeed my old chief Admiral Bams at The Hague, 
 had strong hopes of obtaining the mission thereby 
 rendered vacant in Greece. I stood well with the 
 Foreign Office, and my chances for that post seemed 
 indeed so good that I was very generally congratu- 
 lated by my friends on my impending promotion, 
 and was assured by George Barrington and Arthur 
 HUN, 1 among others, that the Prince of Wales spoke 
 openly of the probability of my being soon accredited 
 as Envoy to Ins brother-in-law at Athens. 
 
 Meanwhile, with the cherished plans I had in 
 view, everything depended on my being given a 
 suitable post in Europe. It was a crushing blow to 
 me, therefore, to receive on the 5th of January 
 a letter from Lord Derby offering me the choice 
 
 1 M;ijm-< lenertJ Sir Arthur I'.ili-, G.C.V.O., I i mfttij yean Senior 
 Equerry to the King when Prin se of W» 
 
 M7
 
 148 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 between the missions at Buenos Ayres and at 
 Berne. The first of these would have entailed 
 fresh exile and put an end to my hopes for the 
 future, while the second meant the acceptance of a 
 badly remunerated post, with a salary less by nearly 
 one-third than that I had been drawing at Santiago, 
 and no increase of rank in the service. The Foreign 
 Office — not unnaturally displeased by certain cir- 
 cumstances attending the Geneva arbitration in the 
 Alabama affair — had, after the retirement of Mr. 
 Bonar, reduced the rank of our representative in 
 Switzerland from full Envoy to Minister Resident, 
 at the same time cutting the salary down by one 
 half — from ^2800 to ^1400. I sought in vain to 
 get some increase of pay, or at least a promise of an 
 early appointment to a better post, but all I could 
 obtain from Lord Derby was the cautious reply that 
 he hoped it " might not be necessary to leave me 
 long at Berne." I cannot pass over unnoticed here 
 the sympathy shown me at this time by my well- 
 wishers at the Foreign Office, and more particularly 
 by Kennedy of the Commercial Department, 1 and 
 Sanderson, then Private Secretary to Lord Derby, as 
 he afterwards was to Lord Granville, who in this 
 affair showed himself a thoroughly staunch friend 
 to me. 
 
 I mention these circumstances because they so 
 greatly influenced the troublous phase to which I 
 
 1 Sir Charles Malcolm Kennedy, K.C.M.G., C.B., was head of that 
 Department for many years, and was frequently employed in important 
 commercial negotiations abroad.
 
 PLEASANT SUNDAY DINNERS 149 
 
 have before referred, and which was not to end for 
 yet a long while. I shall not, however, allude to it 
 further in these pages, and in this cannot do better 
 than follow the example of Massimo d'Azeglio, who, 
 in his fascinating " Ricordi," asks his readers to 
 bear simply in mind that, throughout a certain 
 anxious period of his life, his thoughts and actions 
 were entirely governed by one all-absorbing con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Before leaving England for my new post, as I 
 did in March, T paid two visits in the country which 
 are not undeserving of mention. The first of these 
 was to Hanford in Dorsetshire, the picturesque old 
 home of the Ker-Seymers, the owner of which, 
 Gertrude Ker-Seymer, was a sort of connection of 
 mine through the Ri verses, and was married to 
 Ernest Clay, whom I had known well for years in 
 the Diplomatic service, and, in much older days, at 
 the house of his father, James Clay, the popular 
 M.I', for Hull, who was the most hospitable of 
 men, and one of the finest whist-players in Eng- 
 land. At his lively Sunday dinners in Montagu 
 Square one used to meet the pick of the Treasury 
 of that period : Charley Fremantle, 1 Rivers Wilson, 2 
 and Welby, the last of whom in more recent years 
 became the very incarnation of the stern spirit of 
 
 1 The Bon. Sir Chariot Fremantle, E.C.E, Deputy-Master and 
 ptroller "t" the Hint, now one of the British Directors <>f the 
 1 ' in il Company. 
 
 Wilson, G.O.M.Q., C.B., Controller-General of 
 the National Debt, and afterward Finance Minister in Egypt.
 
 150 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 that great Department. Our gathering at cheery 
 Hanford was essentially artistic, its occasion being 
 some concerts given for a charitable purpose at the 
 neighbouring village of Stourpaine. Fred Clay, the 
 clever composer and most amusing and Bohemian of 
 Treasury clerks — some of whose melodious songs, 
 like " She wandered down the Mountain Side " and 
 " I'll sing thee Songs of Araby," still hold their own 
 at ballad concerts — was the life and soul of the 
 rehearsals. A good deal of the music that was 
 performed was by Arthur Sullivan, with bits from 
 his " Sorcerer," which had then not yet come out, 
 directed by the talented composer himself. Lionel 
 Benson and an old acquaintance of mine, pretty, 
 charming Mrs. Ronalds — to this day deservedly the 
 most popular of musical hostesses in London, who 
 has never been known to say an unkind thing, and 
 has never lost a friend — took the chief parts in a 
 programme such as no Dorsetshire yokels ever had 
 a chance of listening to before or since. Rivers 
 and his wife completed the party. It was almost 
 the last time I saw much of Rivers, who, as Horace 
 Pitt, had been one of the smartest and certainly 
 much the best-looking of officers of the Blues, and, 
 late in life, had found a very devoted wife in bright, 
 cheery Minnie Bastard. His father had been my 
 godfather; he in turn being one of the godfathers 
 of my eldest son. 1 I went with the boy to see him 
 
 1 The boy was called Horace after him, and Montagu after Lord 
 Rokeby.
 
 NETHERBY 151 
 
 one day, and was rather disappointed, I remember, 
 at his taking but little notice of him. All the more 
 surprised and gratified was I, therefore, when he 
 most generously left his godson and namesake ^500 
 in his will. 
 
 My second visit was to the ancient home of 
 the Grahams at Netherby, near Carlisle. Origi- 
 nallv a frontier stronghold in " the debatable land," 
 and the headquarters of the most troublesome of 
 borderers and moss - troopers, it has been in my 
 recollection the cradle of successive generations of 
 perhaps the fairest women in English society. The 
 mingling of such strains as Sheridan and Callander 
 has produced in the Graham blood a truly wonderful 
 blend of loveliness. Of Lady Graham, ne'e Callander 
 — the wife of the eminent statesman, Sir James, and 
 mother and grandmother of the ladies I refer to — it 
 is said that the Emperor Nicholas, when asked, on 
 his visit to this country in 1S44, which he most 
 admired of the ladies he had met, unhesitatingly 
 accorded her the palm of supreme beauty. 
 
 Netherby is altogether an interesting place with 
 manv old traditions; the best known of them pro- 
 bably being the legend of "Young Lochinvar," the 
 scene of which most romantic of runaway matches 
 lay, not inappropriately, in the close vicinity of 
 Gretna Green. The house has also the credit of 
 being haunted, and on this point T can oiler what 
 ems to me curious testimony. My friends the 
 Etokebys were very intimate with Sir .lames Graham
 
 152 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 and his family, and used in old days to stay at 
 Netherby regularly every year. On one occasion, 
 the night after their arrival, Lord Rokeby woke 
 up suddenly out of his first sleep, and, in the 
 dim rays of a night - light which was burning in 
 the room, distinctly saw a figure in white cross at 
 the foot of the great four-poster and pass into a 
 dressing - room next door which had no separate 
 outlet beyond it. The room was occupied by his 
 daughter Lily (now Mrs. Wellesley), then a girl of 
 about fifteen. Lord Rokeby turned to his wife and 
 found that she too was awake, and had had as vivid 
 an impression as himself of the passing vision. He 
 got up and went into the dressing-room, thinking 
 that possibly the girl might have been playing some 
 prank on her parents, but found her fast asleep. To 
 make sure, however, that she had not been out of 
 bed, he felt her feet, which were quite warm. On 
 going down to the breakfast - room next morning 
 he was greeted by the eldest Miss Graham (Cossy), 
 and, on her casually expressing the hope that he 
 had slept well, he began telling her of his nocturnal 
 experience, when she at once stopped him and 
 begged him to say nothing further, as her father 
 might be down at any moment, "and could not bear 
 the subject to be alluded to." 1 I have, nevertheless, 
 related the above almost exactly, I believe, as it was 
 afterwards told me by Lord Rokeby himself. 
 
 1 No doubt Sir James had learned by experience how inconvenient 
 such a tradition can be in a large household.
 
 AN INTERESTING LECTURE 153 
 
 I have never since had the good fortune to re- 
 visit Netherby and its beautiful views of the river 
 Esk and the blue hills beyond it. In my memory 
 it remains associated with much kindness shown 
 me at a period of discouragement and perplexity, 
 and I shall always look back with pleasure to 
 the walks I took in its delightful woods, so 
 picturesquely overhanging the bright, rapid Border 
 river, in the company of charming Lady Ilermione 
 — one of my present wife's oldest and best friends, 
 full of sympathy and good counsel — or with the 
 eldest of her four fair daughters, then lately 
 widowed, who afterwards became Lady Verulam. 
 
 One more reminiscence of an entirely different 
 character should be recorded in this place. On 
 February the 1st I went to a lecture on the Tele- 
 phone, given at the Royal Institution by Mr. (now 
 Sir William) Preece. It was, I think, the first com- 
 plete account given in public of that wonderful 
 apparatus, of which, at that time, comparatively little 
 was known. 1 I called in the forenoon on the secre- 
 tary in Albemarle Street to obtain, if possible, an 
 order of admission. Mr. Spottiswoode courteously 
 promised to do the best he could for me, and, as I was 
 leaving him, observed that another invention of a very 
 interesting character wonld probably be produced that 
 evening. Pointing to a box on his table he said 
 
 that the inventor hud that morning brought him 
 
 [l fa i been ihown to the Queen, ' borne, by Ifr. Preece just a 
 fortnigbl ;. 15, 1S78).
 
 154 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 an instrument by which the mechanical effect of the 
 vibrations of sound could be imprinted on a moving 
 surface of wax, and the sounds thus collected be 
 afterwards reproduced at will. 
 
 Mr. Preece's lecture was of course deeply interest- 
 ing, and, when it was concluded, the apparatus I 
 had been shown in the morning was produced. It 
 was the very rudimentary phonograph invented two 
 years before by Mr. Edison, and the first design of 
 which he patented in 1877. The sounds it emitted 
 — among other things a few words by Mr. Gladstone, 
 if I remember rightly — were of a thin, grating, 
 Punch and Judy like character, while its rendering 
 of some commonplace melody reminded one of a 
 cracked penny trumpet. The effect produced was 
 nevertheless decidedly uncanny, and when I think 
 of the present instruments, with their almost perfect 
 reproduction of orchestral pieces or vocal recitals, 
 it seems as though far more than a quarter of a 
 century must have passed since the first exhibition 
 of the embryo phonograph at which I was present. 
 
 Far more satisfactory, though equally uncanny, it 
 was when, at the close of the evening, ear-trumpets 
 were handed to visitors near the lecturer through 
 which one distinctly heard the harmonies of some 
 glee-singers at Long's Hotel, Bond Street, which had 
 been connected for the purpose with the Royal 
 Institution. It is a far cry from these experiments 
 to my quite recent recollections of my German 
 colleague and opposite neighbour at Vienna being
 
 MY HOME ON THE MUXSTERPLATZ 155 
 
 called up from his writing-table by n. ring to receive 
 some special message spoken at Berlin by the voice 
 of his Imperial master. 
 
 Following, meanwhile, the advice given me at 
 the Foreign Office I accepted Berne, and early in 
 March made a hurried journey thither and presented 
 my credentials to President Schenk on the 9th of 
 that month. It was very distasteful to me to have 
 to set up a home again in a place so full to me of 
 saddening memories, but, after some hesitation, I 
 made up my mind to take on the old house on the 
 Miinsterplatz, which had been lived in by all my 
 predecessors. This immediately faced the Cathedral 
 and the equestrian statue of Rudolph von Erlach, 
 and belonged to the ancient patrician family of 
 Tscharncr. Although it was really too large for my 
 requirements, its big, empty rooms and echoing 
 staircase made a splendid romping-ground for my 
 three boys, with whom I definitively installed myself 
 there in April, providing them before long with a tutor 
 of the name of Schimmel — a rough young Teuton 
 who knocked them about considerably, but grounded 
 them sufficiently well in German, Latin, and mathe- 
 matics. This strapping young fellow, just released 
 from his military duties, and still full of martial 
 ardour — combined with scarcely concealed contempt 
 lor everything that was English put his pupils 
 through a complete course of regimental drill, ami 
 
 it soon was the prettiest sight imaginable to watch
 
 156 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the little fellows performing the Prussian manual 
 exercise with absolute precision and smartness. 
 
 As for me, I made myself fairly comfortable in 
 a few rooms on the first floor, and decorated my 
 sitting-room with some handsome Italian hangings 
 of fine cinquecento embroidery, which I picked up — 
 a great bargain — in my old acquaintance Woog's 
 shabby little shop, under the arcades of the main 
 street of the Federal city. My embroideries, the 
 careful repair and arrangement of which later on 
 gave my wife many months of pleasant occupation at 
 Stockholm, afterwards became a great adornment to 
 her boudoir, both at The Hague and at Vienna. 
 
 I found Berne but little altered from what I had 
 last known it six years before on my return from Con- 
 stantinople. The Corps Diplomatique, which had 
 of course been entirely renewed, fortunately contained 
 sufficiently pleasant elements of society. Comte 
 Bernard d'Harcourt, who for a short time had been 
 at the French Embassy in London, was now at Berne, 
 with his ample and jocund spouse, nee de St. Priest, 
 a most pleasant, cordial woman whose pungent sallies 
 and Rabelaisian wit, full of V esprit Gaulois, made 
 her the very best of company. The hospitality of 
 the d'Harcourts was unbounded, and the quality of 
 their wines quite remarkable ; their eldest daughter 
 having married Comte Duchatel, the owner of 
 some of the finest crils of the Gironde. Madame 
 d'Harcourt subsequently inveigled me into taking 
 part in some private theatricals at her house
 
 THE MANXLICHEX 157 
 
 — the last indiscretion of the kind I have to confess 
 to. The play I acted in was Petite pluie abat grand 
 rent, and had much success, thanks to my partner 
 in the principal part, Comtesse Gaston de Dudzeelc 
 of the Belgian Legation, a pretty, graceful woman 
 who was then one of the great attractions of the 
 diplomatic set, but not very many years later suc- 
 cumbed to that cruellest of all maladies, cancer. 
 
 Among the new colleagues who proved a real 
 resource to me I may mention the Spanish Minister, 
 Vicomte de la Vega, and his pleasant wife — one of 
 the Murrietta family, which at that time enjoyed 
 such favour in London society. I saw a good deal, 
 too, of the American charge d'affaires, Nicholas 
 Fish — son of the then Secretary of State, Mr. 
 Hamilton Fish — and his vivacious wife, a lady who 
 spoke both French and German well, but with an 
 accent which lives in my ear as a perfect curiosity of 
 its kind. With this amiable couple and my eldest 
 boy, now nine years old, I made a short tour in the 
 Oberland, in the course of which we went up the 
 mountain known as the M;innlichen, which immedi- 
 ately faces Grindelwald, and divides as it were the 
 valley of Grindelwald from that of Lauterbrunnen. 
 The easy, but long and somewhat toilsome ascent of 
 this eminence is up steep grassy slopes, which in 
 
 Bnmmei are covered with a profusion of lovely wild 
 flowers. t 
 
 ( 'n reaching t } 1( . topmost ridge, \n hich is marked by 
 
 a rough mountain inn, one undergoes what in ni\
 
 158 KECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 memory remains a perfectly unique impression of a 
 stupendous grandeur suddenly revealed. It is only a 
 few yards from the inn to the summit above it, and 
 when our party had climbed to the very top of this, so 
 to speak, green rampart, a full view of a group of the 
 finest peaks of the Bernese range — including the Jung- 
 frau, the Monch and the Eiger — instantaneously burst 
 upon us with literally dazzling effect. The narrow 
 green margin we stood upon overhangs an almost 
 perpendicular descent going sheer down several thou- 
 sand feet into the Trumleten Thai, which, peered 
 into from above, seems a mere gully. From its bed 
 rose, immediately facing us and seemingly within 
 easy gunshot, the glorious peaks aforesaid, visible 
 throughout from their base in all their snowy splen- 
 dour, their beautiful forms being sharply outlined 
 against the intense blue of a July noontide. The 
 magnificence of the picture thus abruptly presented 
 to the eye literally takes one's breath away. Indeed, 
 of the various Alpine views I am acquainted with, 
 this one appears to me much the most striking from 
 the way in which one finds oneself, without any 
 preparation whatever, suddenly transferred into the 
 very heart of the glorious mountain solitudes, and 
 face to face with the sublimest scene it is possible to 
 conceive. No other view can match it in this respect, 
 although, next to it, when afterwards crossing over 
 the Kleine Scheideck and the Wengernalp down to 
 Lauterbrunnen, the prospect we kept in view of the 
 Jungfrau, with its lovely secondary peak of the
 
 EDMUND FANE 159 
 
 Silberhorn, is quite marvellous in its way. This and 
 other excursions I made during the two summers I 
 now spent in Switzerland fully confirmed me in my 
 opinion that, for real majesty and beauty, the gigantic 
 Andes, in all their rugged grandeur, cannot compare 
 with the Swiss Alps. 
 
 On reaching Berne I found at our Legation 
 Graham Sandford, who was transferred almost im- 
 mediately to Rio, and W. N. Beauclerk. 1 Before 
 long the Legation staff was strengthened by the 
 arrival of Edmund Fane 2 and his wife, whom I 
 reckon among the best friends I have ever had 
 in the service. My first glimpse of Fane's tall 
 figure and kindly humorous countenance was at 
 Marseilles, when I landed there in sorry plight on 
 my return from China in 1S59. He was then on 
 his way to Persia, with Sir Henry Kawlinson, and 
 at the beginning of a long, and not all too well 
 requited career. Years afterwards I was in regular 
 correspondence with him when he was Minister at 
 Belgrade, and saw his despatches — models of their 
 kind— which passed through my hands at Vienna 
 under flying seal, and, like his private letters, were 
 full of shrewd observation and sound judgment. 
 The Fanes installed themselves for the summer at 
 Thun, and afterwards took a house in the suburb 
 of La Villette at Berne, which, in the dreary winter 
 
 1 Mr. William Nelthorpe Beauclerk is dow Minister Resident al 
 Lima. 
 
 1 * 3 Edmund Fane, K < ' \i G ., Envoy extraordinary at 
 1 when be died in Bfareb i<joo.
 
 160 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 months, became a second home to me. It was this 
 summer, too, on a flying visit I made to Lucerne 
 and its beautiful neighbourhood, that I first met, 
 at the well-known mountain resort of Seelisberg, 
 Mrs. Fane's charming sister, Miss Evelyn Wood, 
 who afterwards as Lady Grenfell made herself so 
 popular at Cairo and at Malta, and was so sincerely 
 mourned by all those who knew her. 
 
 In August I went for a fortnight's change to 
 St. Moritz in the Engadine, where I found the 
 usual crowd of Italians, driven up by the heat from 
 the Lombard plains, and among them Madame 
 Ristori, whom I have never had the good fortune 
 to come across since, and her daughter Bianca, 
 who appeared to me as attractive as ever. At the 
 Engadiner Kulm Hotel, where I stayed, I met and 
 foregathered much with the daughters of Vincent 
 de Tuyll, of my old Baden days, 1 Baroness de 
 Brienen and her sister Nora, now Countess Henry 
 Ltitzow. I had first known these ladies, whom I 
 was to see so much of in later years at the Hague, 
 almost as children at Baden-Baden, but my last 
 recollection of Madame de Brienen was, some years 
 after that, as a lovely girl of seventeen, on a journey 
 from Nice, when she was committed to the care of the 
 late Mr. Higgins as far as Paris, whither she was 
 going to her aunt, Mrs. Ralph Dutton. " Jacob 
 Omnium " — most witty and good-natured of 
 giants — and I took of course the greatest care 
 
 1 See " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. p. 232.
 
 THE VICTOR OF SLTVNITZA 161 
 
 of our charming little fellow-traveller, who not 
 long afterwards became the wife of Baron de 
 Brienen. 
 
 During this stav of mine at St. Moritz I likewise 
 often met a young officer in the Russian service, who 
 was destined shortly to be the principal actor in 
 one of the most dramatic episodes of the last quarter 
 of the century. I mean the future victor of Slivnitza 
 and Tsaribrod, Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who 
 had just been greatly distinguishing himself in the 
 Russo-Turkish war. With much charm of manner, 
 he had all the looks and bearing of a genuine hero 
 of romance, and, if I am not mistaken, was at that 
 time the object of a more than passing interest 
 on the part of one of the most attractive girls it 
 has been my lot to meet. Even at this distance 
 of time it is painful to think how cruelly what 
 promised to be a brilliant and useful reign was 
 cut short by a dastardly military conspiracy, the 
 treachery of which has only since been exceeded 
 by the abominable massacre of Belgrade, which, I 
 cannot refrain from adding, was viewed with such 
 itrange equanimity, not to say indifference, by most 
 of the leading Chancelleries of Europe. 
 
 I have so far not touched at all on the political 
 ami other official matters w hich engaged my attention 
 
 at Berne during the short two years of my mission 
 there. At first sight the Swiss of our days may 
 
 well appear to enjoy the enviable position of a 
 
 people Without a history, so little milled outwardly
 
 1 62 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 is the calm surface of their national life. There 
 were none the less on the tapis in Switzerland at 
 this period several questions of considerable mag- 
 nitude which essentially affected the welfare of 
 the Confederation. The more immediately serious 
 of these arose out of the construction of the St. 
 Gothard Railway, which, apart from its bearing on 
 the commercial interests of the country, was in- 
 vested with great international importance by reason 
 of the participation in it of the Governments of 
 Germany and Italy, and required very careful 
 management on the part of the Federal Council. 
 
 At this time more particularly it was that the 
 Swiss Executive displayed those qualities of sound 
 and patient statesmanship to which I endeavoured 
 to do justice in the first portion of these Recollec- 
 tions. The affairs of the company formed to build 
 the line were just then in a critical condition. 
 The first estimate made of the expense of the 
 undertaking — namely, 187 millions of francs 
 (,£7,480,000) — was soon seen to be quite in- 
 adequate. When, however, the accounts of the 
 company were fully gone into at Lucerne by an 
 international Conference called to consider the 
 prospects of the enterprise, which threatened to 
 collapse for want of funds, it was found that the 
 total cost of the line, as first sketched out, must 
 exceed that amount by at least £"3,000,000. It was 
 sought to reduce expenditure by postponing the 
 building of some branch lines which formed part
 
 THE ST. GOTHARD LINE 163 
 
 of the original design. A deficit of forty millions 
 (.£1,600,000) nevertheless still remained {o be pro- 
 vided for, and, to meet this, the contracting Govern- 
 ments agreed to increase their contributions in 
 certain proportions. 
 
 It was then that the share of Switzerland in 
 the supplementary subvention (S millions of francs 
 or f ^ 20,000) <rave rise to serious internal difficulties. 
 That amount had to be carefully apportioned between 
 the exchequers of the several Cantons which had 
 a direct interest in promoting the line. For instance, 
 the wealthy Canton of Bale Villc was called upon 
 for a contribution of 600,000 francs (,£24,000) as 
 against the 25,000 francs (£"iooo) to be found by 
 the forest Canton of Unterwalden. To add to the 
 complications of the affair, the central line projected 
 was looked upon with much disfavour in the eastern 
 and western divisions of the country, each of these 
 having its own pet scheme for tunnelling the Alps 
 through the Lukmanier and the Simplon respec- 
 tively. Further, it was indispensable that the quota 
 of the Cantons should be submitted for ratification to 
 their several Legislatures, or put to the popular vote 
 
 provided in the different Cantonal Constitutions. 
 
 The result of this cumbersome process was at 
 first disastrous for the prospects of the undertaking. 
 The influential rote of the premier Canton of Zurich, 1 
 
 1 TIk; three dim Ziiri<h, Berne, and Lucerne baring, under 
 
 old Constitution, enjoyed in rotation the position of Vorort^ or 
 of the whole Confederation, -till take precedes 
 
 the nitons.
 
 1 64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 when taken in popular assembly, was cast against 
 the proposed subvention, while the Tessin and 
 some of the small Cantons, like Uri and Zug, 
 refused payment on the score of the temporary 
 abandonment of branch lines which alone were of 
 real value to them. Ultimately the Federal Council 
 had to recommend to the Federal Assembly the 
 grant of the subvention rejected by the Cantons, 
 which, after great opposition, they succeeded in 
 obtaining by means of an adroit compromise, which 
 propitiated the supporters of the rival Simplon and 
 Lukmanier lines, and was oddly enough brought 
 forward by one of their opponents, M. de Weck- 
 Eeynolds, a Conservative and Ultramontane deputy 
 from Fribourg. An overwhelming majority confirmed 
 this decision of the Assembly when, at the instance 
 of hostile electors in the Canton of Vaud, the 
 question was afterwards put to a popular vote 
 throughout the country, in accordance with the 
 Referendum Article of the Constitution. 
 
 Nevertheless, the niggardly spirit in which this 
 sum, which even for Switzerland was relatively 
 small, was dealt with, and the danger to which it 
 exposed the Confederation of pressure from its 
 powerful neighbours to the north and south, who 
 might have insisted on taking into their own hands 
 the construction of the line on Swiss soil, made the 
 St. Gothard crisis highly interesting to the dis- 
 passionate observer. Its most serious feature was 
 perhaps the unfavourable light it threw on the
 
 SWISS KULTURKAMPF 165 
 
 Cantonal form of Government, and, therefore, on 
 the Federative system as applied in Switzerland. It 
 of course furnished ready weapons to the advanced 
 Democrats dominant at that time in the Federal 
 Council, whose aim it was to concentrate all power 
 and authority in the hands of the Bund, and to 
 reduce the Cantons to mere shadows, thereby extin- 
 guishing the local life and energies to which 
 Switzerland owes much of its not inglorious past, 
 and, in the eyes of the political student, the great 
 interest and originality of its institutions. These 
 considerations it is which have led me to indulge in 
 so lengthy a review of the difficulties which at the 
 commencement beset this bold and gigantic under- 
 taking. The traveller who now passes in the 
 luxurious train through the incomparable scenery 
 of the stupendous line, from the point where it 
 leaves the lake at Fluelen until it plunges into the 
 great tunnel at Goschenen, little realises the con- 
 tentions which for months threatened to ruin the 
 venture, and to involve Switzerland in grave internal 
 and external complications. 
 
 Religious differences, too, at this time disturbed 
 the peace of the country. The Radical element, 
 which for some years had had the upper hand in 
 some of the leading Cantons, followed Bismarck 
 ID his attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 The Kvlturkampf in Switzerland, and uotably at 
 Qeneva and Berne, chiefly took the form of an 
 attempt to place the so-called Old Catholics on a
 
 1 66 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 footing of equality with the adherents of the ancient 
 established faith. The Roman Catholics in the 
 Bernese Jura were practically deprived of the 
 churches which they refused to share with the new 
 sectarians, and were driven to worship in barns and 
 outhouses. At Chene-Bourg, in the Genevese terri- 
 tory, the Roman Catholics of the commune had left 
 their parish church to the intruders and carried on 
 their services in a secular building provisionally 
 converted into a chapel. Towards the end of Lent 
 a magistrate, accompanied by gendarmes, entered 
 this building during divine service, and forcibly 
 removed the altar ornaments, including even the 
 monstrance containing the host, under pretence that 
 they belonged to the parish church and had been 
 illegally taken from thence by the Cur£, M. Deldtraz. 
 The Cure - himself was taken to prison, but released 
 after a few days, very heavy bail being however 
 required for him. In the Canton of Berne upwards of 
 sixty priests were ejected from their benefices, and in 
 some cases replaced by Old Catholics recruited by the 
 Radical Government from among the dregs of the 
 French and Belgian clergy, some of them, it was said, 
 being literally taken off the Parisian cabstands. 1 
 
 The intolerant spirit shown in this business by 
 the Bernese and Genevese Governments was in 
 some degree reflected in certain members of the 
 
 1 It was currently stated at the time that among the cab-drivers in 
 Paris there was a certain proportion of men expelled from the Church 
 for immoral practices.
 
 NIHILISTS AND OTHERS 167 
 
 Federal Council, and notably in its President, 
 M. Schenk, an ex-pasteur of the Reformed Church, 
 whose personal attitude was clearly influenced by 
 the old odium theologicum. Fortunately a Conserva- 
 tive wave soon passed over the country, and brought 
 with it a more conciliatorv treatment of these re- 
 li^ious questions. As for the design favoured by 
 the Radicals in the Jura to instal the Old Catholics 
 a^ a sort of State Church, it simply failed through 
 the fact that their insignificant numbers were 
 unable even to half fill the churches at first 
 handed over to them. The Old Catholic movement 
 broke down in Switzerland more completely even 
 than it has done in Germany, its failure almost co- 
 inciding with the accession of the Pontiff who was 
 to do so much towards restoring the influence of the 
 Holy See. 
 
 Some trouble was also occasioned to the Swiss 
 Executive by successive attempts on the lives of 
 the Sovereigns of Spain, Italy, and Germany, 1 the 
 perpetrators of which were very credibly suspected 
 of being in touch with the political refugees and 
 conspirators who have from time to time made 
 Switzerland the base for their nefarious operations. 
 Both Nobiling and Moncasi were known to have 
 
 D in Geneva and in correspondence with anar- 
 chists residing there. These facts, together with a 
 
 1 'I'll'- year 1878 wu distinguished by the attempts of tfoncari on 
 tli- King of Spain, of Passananteon 1 1 i * - ELingof [taly, andof Bode] 
 Nobiling on the German Emperor.
 
 i68 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 banquet given in that city in honour of the Spanish 
 Republican leader, Zorilla, which the President of the 
 Radical Government, M. Carteret, had the effrontery 
 to attend, and a similar manifestation got up by the 
 French communards for Vera Sassoulitch, the would- 
 be assassin of the head of the Petersburg police, 
 General Trepoff, caused considerable indignation 
 abroad, and led to remonstrances on the subject of the 
 droit d'asile so jealously guarded by the Helvetic 
 people. The Swiss authorities wisely showed more 
 than customary vigour in these circumstances, and 
 Vera Sassoulitch was expelled from Geneva by the 
 Cantonal Government. The Federal Council on their 
 side took the unusual step of suppressing a Revolu- 
 tionary paper entitling itself I' Avant-garde, organe 
 collectiviste et anarchiste, and expelled the editor. 
 This paper, which openly advocated regicide, was 
 published at la Chaux de Fonds in the Canton 
 of Neuchatel, and exported in sealed packets for 
 circulation abroad. 
 
 Nevertheless, the droit d'asile will always remain 
 a source of international trouble and possible peril 
 for the Confederation, and when crimes like the 
 wantonly atrocious murder of the Empress Elizabeth 
 are committed on Swiss territory itself, the con- 
 science of the civilised world cannot but be outraged 
 by the thought that in the very heart of Europe, and 
 under cover of treaties guaranteeing its neutrality 
 and independence, there should remain a privileged 
 asylum for the worst enemies of mankind. It is
 
 THE DROIT D'ASILE 169 
 
 true — to my mind unfortunately so — that we likewise 
 in this country afford to political refugees a safe 
 retreat which is sometimes scandalously misused. 
 Still it seems to me scarcely possible to deny that 
 the peculiar geographical position of Switzerland 
 renders, on occasion, her harbouring of well-known 
 plotters of the worst description a distinct inter- 
 national nuisance. It might even lead to an em- 
 barrassing situation for ourselves, inasmuch as the 
 Swiss, if at any time threatened by some powerful 
 neighbour on this question, might turn to us for 
 a support which it would be most inconvenient 
 to afford effectually, however much it might be 
 called for by public opinion in England. I am, 
 therefore, one of those who consider the droit d'asile 
 a dangerous luxury for Switzerland to indulge in. 
 Moreover, it never was asserted by the old Con- 
 federation in its palmiest days, and is purely the 
 outgrowth of the modern ultra-democratic sentiment. 
 To an unscrupulous foreign statesman it might easily 
 furnish a convenient casus belli, such as those of 
 which General Ignatieff once told me at Constan- 
 tinople that the drawers of his writing-table were 
 always full. 
 
 To turn from these political disquisitions I 
 availed myself at the end of October of the offer 
 
 of Ottiwell Adams, 1 of the Paris Embassy, to put 
 
 1 Sir i :i\vt-ll Adams, EL O.M.G., after being Secretary of 
 
 Embt at Paris, was appointed Envoy-Extraordinary 
 
 , a post be bald until In death in 1887.
 
 170 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 me up at his rooms in the Rue Billault, and saw 
 the last of the International Exhibition then drawing 
 to a close. I went with him to the great ball given 
 at the palace of Versailles — an imposing /Ste which 
 I remember not so much for its splendour as for its 
 deplorable mismanagement. We engaged rooms for 
 the occasion at the Hotel des Reservoirs, where we 
 met, among other people, Lord and Lady Dudley. 
 Paris was full of Royalties, including the Prince and 
 Princess of Wales, and chiefly in honour of these 
 personages this crowning festivity of the great world- 
 fair was given. Monarchy was in the air at the time, 
 and the President, Marshal MacMahon — who, it was 
 then very generally thought, was paving the way for 
 an impending Restoration — received his illustrious 
 guests right royally and with as much etiquette as 
 circumstances permitted. The approach to the rooms 
 in which they were received was strictly guarded by 
 huissiers, who let no one through but those who had 
 some official or other title to be admitted ; the great 
 mass of people invited being kept to the historic 
 Galerie des Glaces and other magnificent apart- 
 ments of the Palace. 
 
 In one of the salons set apart there was a 
 buffet, and going into it shortly before midnight, I 
 noticed a parley being carried on between one of 
 the President's offlciers oVordonnance and some 
 persons outside the half-open door which led from 
 this room to the staircase reserved for privi- 
 leged guests, by which we had come in, the result
 
 A BALL AT VERSAILLES 171 
 
 of the colloquy being that the door was closed and 
 locked by the officer in question. 1 thought no 
 more of the matter, but shortly afterwards there 
 was a knocking at the door, with fruitless attempts 
 to open it from the outside. Hammering soon suc- 
 ceeded knocking, accompanied by loud cries of 
 " Ouvrez done!" and shrill female voices with the 
 same cry, accompanied by more ominous sounds 
 as from an angry crowd. In the famed palace that 
 had witnessed the surging mob of the faubourgs 
 breaking in to fetch away "le boul anger, la bou- 
 bingi ,••■ et h [,<tit /nitron" there was something 
 almost sinister in this banging at the door and the 
 clamour outside it. A hurried consultation now 
 took place between the officers of the Presidential 
 household, and the door being thrown open, a huge 
 crowd of exhibitors and their wives — who, by some 
 absurd mistake, had been directed to this private 
 entrance, and had been dangerously jammed in 
 and crushed on the stairs — came pouring into 
 the room and soon flooded it. With the rest of 
 the first occupants I was driven back to the 
 wall, together with the Dudley manage, who, by 
 a happy chance, were standing close by. Behind 
 us were some large gilt /<nitriiils, of which we at 
 once took possession ; the now pacified throng of 
 citizen^ and their families filing by us where we sat 
 en trio, Lady Dudley occupying the central chair. 
 She was truly resplendent that evening, admirably 
 dressed, and with a regal diamond tiara and other
 
 172 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 splendid jewels. In the crowd that went past us 
 I soon noticed a middle-aged Frenchwoman — the 
 very type of a bourgeoise of the Faubourg St. Denis 
 — who was evidently entranced by the dazzling 
 vision in front of her, and deliberately halted to 
 have a good stare at it. I was watching her with 
 amused interest when she suddenly turned round 
 to her belongings, and said quite loud : " Mais 
 regardez-la done ! C'est qu'elle est admirablement 
 belle ! yarfaite jusqu aux dents ! ! " The good 
 soul had evidently been watching for a reply 
 from my beautiful neighbour to some remark of 
 mine before pronouncing this blunt, outspoken 
 verdict. " There ! " I could not help saying to 
 its fair object, "I don't think you will ever get a 
 more thoroughly sincere compliment paid you than 
 that ! " 
 
 From Paris I went over to England for a fort- 
 night to attend to some indispensable business, but 
 before the end of November was back again at 
 Berne, where we had an unusually severe winter 
 with excellent skating. The snow fell so heavily 
 that passages had to be cut for the traffic, leaving 
 huge frozen mounds which turned the squares and 
 open spaces into miniature maps in relief of the 
 Alpine ranges.
 
 CHAPTEB IX 
 
 BERNE AM) LONDON, 1879 
 
 1\ the winter of 1878-79 a change took place in 
 the French Embassy at Berne; the Marqnis d'llar- 
 court being relieved of his functions and replaced 
 by M. Ghallemel-Lacour. The appointment of this 
 well-known deputy and politician was by no means 
 welcome to the Swiss Government, who had in fact 
 for some time past endeavoured to stave it off. 
 They were very sorry to lose M. d'llarcourt, who 
 had shown himself the soul of conciliation in the 
 numerous small differences which are apt to arise 
 between bordering States, and was in every way 
 agreeable to them. M. Challemel-Lacour, on the 
 other hand, had a somewhat troublous past behind 
 him. He had early in life held advanced views 
 and been driven to take refuge in Belgium and in 
 Switzerland; in which latter country, when in exile 
 during the Second P^mpire, he had been for some 
 years professor of French literature at the Poly- 
 technicnm at Zurich. The ultra-Republican ante- 
 cedents of the new ambassador were decidedly 
 against him in a country of moderate and Con- 
 servative tendencies. As a Federal Councillor 
 once put it tu me: "On croit qu'en Suisse nous 
 
 '71
 
 174 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 airnons les Republiques ; la ndtre oui, mais pas 
 celle des autres." The enthusiasm with which his 
 nominatiou was greeted by the numerous foreign 
 fugitives in Switzerland, further contributed to make 
 it distasteful at the Federal Palace, and was not a 
 little embarrassing to the new French representative 
 himself. 
 
 An incident that occurred at his first official 
 reception rather amusingly illustrated his own senti- 
 ments on this point. In accordance with one of 
 the special privileges attaching to ambassadorial 
 rank, he formally notified to each of his colleagues 
 the presentation of his credentials, and appointed 
 a day on which he would be happy to receive them 
 and make their acquaintance. The Italian envoy 
 at this time was M. Melegari, Senatore del Regno, 
 an amiable old gentleman of scientific attainments, 
 who, in the good old days, had dabbled in plots and 
 conspiracies, and, like his new French colleague, 
 had sought a livelihood as professor at the Zurich 
 University. The story told of him was that his 
 extradition had been demanded a dozen times, 
 and that he had escaped it by playing a sort of 
 game of post from one Canton to another. 1 On 
 entering M. Challemel's salon at the Bernerhof, 
 the excellent Melegari went up to him with true 
 Southern ebullition, and, with both hands extended, 
 
 1 The Cantons being Sovereign States, the extradition had to be 
 demanded of each of them separately and not of the Central Federal 
 Government.
 
 EX-POLITICAL REFUGEES IN CLOVER 175 
 
 effusively exclaimed, in the strongest North 
 Italian accent: "Ah! mon cher i Qui a u rait pense 
 que nous nous retrouverions comme celaf" ! a greet- 
 ing to which the Frenchman responded but frigidly, 
 en riant jaune, as they say in his country. Mean- 
 while one of his secretaries — a sarcastic youth of 
 the name of De Sercey, who, like the rest of the 
 Embassy staff, was anything but cordially disposed 
 to his new chief — observed to me : " Cette journee 
 rest* > ' jamais memorable; on Fappettera Ven- 
 " d\ s pions .' " l 
 
 To me the appointment of M. Challemel-Laconr 
 was destined to be of some personal interest. Very 
 shortlv after his arrival he announced to me, with 
 evident satisfaction, that my brother-in-law, M. de 
 La Hochefoucauld, had been named First Secretary 
 on the staff of his Embassy. I of course rejoiced 
 at the prospect of my sister coming to live at Berne, 
 but soon gathered from the letters she wrote me 
 that however much her husband might be personally 
 inclined, after his long disponibilite', to take up the 
 offered post, there were serious obstacles in the 
 way of his doing so. The very extreme views 
 attributed to his future chief made it difficult for 
 any one with La Rochefoucauld's name and family 
 connexions to serve under him. More especially 
 M. Challemel'fl reputed attitude at Lyons when sent 
 there as Pre*fei in i.S;o by the Government of 
 National Defence, and the violent language attri- 
 
 1 A COntemptUOOl term fur sclnxil-usher.
 
 176 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 buted to him 1 at that period — which to me he 
 positively disclaimed ever having held — had made 
 him the bete noire of French monarchist and aristo- 
 cratic circles, who saw in him a demagogue of the type 
 of the worst men of the " Terreur." My brother- 
 in-law soon found that by definitely accepting the 
 offer made him he risked a serious breach with 
 his relations and friends. Being very loth, how- 
 ever, entirely to give up the diplomatic service, and 
 having then besides to undergo a severe surgical 
 operation, he naturally endeavoured to gain time, 
 and applied for and obtained a few weeks leave 
 before proceeding to his post. 
 
 On passing through Paris on my way home in 
 the spring I went to see the late M. Waddington, 
 then Minister for Foreign Affairs, on this business, 
 Ottiwell Adams, a Rugby schoolfellow and friend 
 of his, having given me a letter to him, but I 
 found the minister very obdurate and slightly 
 cassant in manner. At the expiration of his leave 
 La Rochefoucauld was given the choice between 
 going to his post or resigning. Unfortunately the 
 
 1 M. Challemel-Lacour was sent to Lyons at a very critical moment, 
 in the midst of the Franco-Prussian war, when the red flag had been 
 hoisted and the town was in the hands of a " Comite de Salut Public." 
 He displayed great energy in restoring order under these difficult 
 circumstances, but was charged with having used the language referred 
 to above about a Royalist demonstration which took place. The 
 accusation was brought against him in the Chamber in 1873 by M. de 
 Carayon-Latour, who said he had seen a written order from M. Challe- 
 mel containing the words : " fait es-tnoi fusilier ces gens-lcl !" No proof 
 whatever was produced of the existence of this order, which M. Challe- 
 mel in a most eloquent speech indignantly denied ever having given.
 
 M. CHALLEMEL-LACOUR 177 
 
 papers had got hold of the affair, and it became the 
 talk of the clubs at Paris. Under these circumstances 
 La Rochefoucauld thought it more dignified to return 
 to la dispoiuhil'ttr. Two years later M. ( iambetta, 
 then President du Conseil, of his own accord con- 
 ferred upon him the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary 
 as some compensation for the unfair treatment ac- 
 corded to him. A very promising diplomatic career 
 thus came somewhat sadly to an untimely end. 
 
 This incident and his transfer soon afterwards to 
 the Embassy in London gave me an opportunity of 
 seeim: a good deal of M. Challemel-Lacour. He 
 of an unhappy disposition and almost a con- 
 firmed hypochondriac, but brilliant in conversation 
 and a speaker of rare eloquence. He owed much to 
 (iambetta, who had a very high opinion of him, and 
 who, after having left the bar for upwards of ten 
 years, came forward to plead for him in an action he 
 brought against a newspaper which had scandalously 
 charged him with cheating at cards at some club. 
 In London, shortly before I went out to Buenos 
 /Lyres, M. Challemel freely unbosomed himself to 
 me about the objections which he knew were so 
 generally entertained against him. He was, he said, 
 the most unfortunate of men. He hated nothing 
 more than strife, and jret was thrust into the thick 
 of it: " •/< de'teste la politique, et m'y trouvefovi re" 
 jusqu'au cou!' 1 His greatest misfortune was that 
 
 he could refuse nothing to his friends: " /'"?><// iV a 
 
 sw mot "/■ empire ej.iri /<)/•< I in" trr." in 1870 he was 
 
 M
 
 178 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 living in retirement, engrossed by literary work, 
 when he was told that his services were imperatively 
 required at Lyons. He then had a reputation for 
 vigour and decision of character. " II ne rrien reste 
 plus rien maintenant," he bitterly added. Ill-health 
 and the weight of responsibility had made him 
 prematurely old. " Je ne suis plus qu'un vieux chat 
 gris!" I found him, as I told Lord Granville — 
 then at the Foreign Office — fully alive to the honour 
 of representing his country in England, but evidently 
 nervous as to his fitness for the task confided to him. 
 He had been much impressed by the dignity and 
 charm of manner of the Queen, and greatly amused 
 me by telling me that he had tried to cut his private 
 audience of her shorter by saying as few words as 
 possible. Much as though he had said : " Je ne veux 
 pas deranger Voire Majeste plus longtemps!" 
 
 Lord Granville asked him to a dinner which he 
 told me would, he hoped, put the nervous diploma- 
 tist at his ease. Lord Hartington, the Duke of 
 Cleveland, Layard, Charles Villiers, Count Dimitri 
 Nesselrode were of the party I remember. 1 The 
 guest of the evening, however, spoke little and ate 
 less and seemed altogether uncomfortable. Of M. 
 Challemel-Lacour — on whom I have expatiated at 
 
 1 Lord Granville himself spoke French admirably, while the Duke 
 of Cleveland, who had begun life in the diplomatic service, and Sir 
 Henry Layard, then on leave from Constantinople, were of course good 
 French scholars. Count Dimitri Nesselrode, son of the Chancellor, is 
 remembered, if at all, in connection with the younger Dumas' novel, 
 " La Dame aux perles."
 
 PEACE WITH HONOUR 179 
 
 inordinate length 1 fear — I will say in conclusion 
 that I found him far better than his reputation, 1 
 though he certainly was not a success as an am- 
 bassador. As to the chief cause of his failure, it 
 may well be said of it, as of that of many a better 
 man : " cherchez lafemme ! " 
 
 Before closing this review of public affairs during 
 my sojourn at Berne I cannot entirely pass over the 
 sense of relief experienced there at the termination 
 of the Russo-Turkish war. which by so long threaten- 
 ing to lead to a general conflagration, had kept the 
 neutral States, and Switzerland among others, on 
 tenterhooks. More striking still was the effect pro- 
 duced by the firmness of our negotiators at Berlin ; 
 their success being nowhere hailed with greater 
 warmth than in Swiss official circles. The President 
 of the Confederation, M. Hammer, who had suc- 
 ceed- -d tin.- Radirul Srhenk, had been .Minister ful- 
 some years at Berlin, and was better informed on 
 foreign affairs than most of his colleagues. By him 
 and the veteran (ronzenbach, and that authority on 
 International law, Professor Konig, 1 with others, the 
 
 1 The moBt obje timiable trait in M. Challemel-Laoour was hie 
 
 offensive attitude in religious matters, [t is related of him, for instance, 
 
 be went into Notre Dame one day during some religions function 
 
 with his hat on, and thus ostentatio Iked about the church to the 
 
 il of (he oongi egal ion. 
 
 - Since writing the above I am indebted to Mr. Wilfrid Blunt for an 
 
 it Profe or K inig, which, although irrelevant, I cannot 
 
 reeiflt inserting. The Pi . whom lie had known well when serv- 
 
 ion 1' Berne, afterwards came to ee him al Crabbet. 
 
 ok him oul shooting one da y in the Crabbet woods and found 
 
 pretty <3 ted. Presently s bird, shot
 
 180 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 pacific triumph achieved by Lord Beaconsfield at the 
 Congress was regarded as a victory of the cause of 
 right against might. They were delighted to see 
 Great Britain once more assume the lead in the 
 councils of Europe, and considered that the smaller 
 Powers more especially owed her much for her 
 successful vindication of Treaty rights, and her 
 defence of what M. de Gonzenbach called "the 
 doctrine of morality in international dealings." In 
 looking back upon the long period of diminished 
 national prestige, and of almost deliberate self- 
 abasement, that was too soon to follow, it is difficult 
 to realise how high England stood in the eyes of the 
 world at that time. I amused myself in my leisure 
 hours at Berne writing a pamphlet entitled "Two 
 Imperial Policies," x inscribed to the late Lord Car- 
 narvon, in which I endeavoured to show the contrast 
 between the methods by which the brilliant British 
 Premier and the Iron Chancellor had respectively 
 aroused the Imperial spirit in the two great nations 
 whose destinies they controlled. 
 
 "Have we not assisted," I wrote twenty -five 
 
 by one of the party, fell almost at the feet of Konig, who, in his excite- 
 ment, proceeded to discharge both barrels into it as it lay on the ground. 
 So delighted was the Professor with his sport that, on leaving, he asked 
 Blunt whether he might have a pheasant to take to his wife, who had 
 never seen one. Blunt told him he might have as many as he liked, 
 but suggested that he might get into trouble about them with the 
 Octroi. " No," said the Professor, " you shall only give me one phea- 
 sant roasted. I will wrap it up in my dirty shirts. No one will look 
 for it there." 
 
 1 "Two Imperial Policies." William Kidgway, 1878.
 
 EARLY IMPERIAL INSTINCT 181 
 
 years ago, " at a spectacle more curious, perhaps, 
 even than the resurrection of the Teutonic Empire, 
 though less striking in outward show, namely, the 
 evolution of Imperial doctrines much nearer home, 
 an( ] — most curious of all — the revelation to its own 
 citizens of an Empire, mightier than any other of 
 modern times, the power and resources, and indeed 
 the actual existence of which seem to have been 
 but dimlv perceived by them 1 We have seen with 
 what surpassing sagacity Prince Bismarck turned to 
 account the memories of departed, but tenderly 
 cherished, Imperial greatness in Germany, and, in 
 the space of a decade, raised the Fatherland to the 
 highest pitch of inrluence and authority. We think 
 it can hardly be less interesting to Englishmen to 
 consider the patient skill and the purely intellectual 
 process — very far removed from the rougher methods 
 of the Chancellor — by which they themselves have 
 been roused out of a condition of national lethargy, 
 and brought to recognise both the splendid realities 
 and the stern obligations of Empire." The Imperial 
 idea has since then spread in ever-widening circles, 
 and ie>\\ forms part of the creed of the great majority 
 of Englishmen. I may perhaps be pardoned for 
 claiming to have foreseen tins a quarter of a century 
 ;iU r o, and to have then already firmly held to tenets 
 
 which at that period were far from generally re- 
 ceived. 
 
 This seems perhaps the most suitable place for 
 1 1 1 f - 1 1 1 i < ) 1 1 i 1 1 lt what little I myself remember of Lord
 
 1 82 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Beaconsfield. Principally owing to the kindness of 
 Princess Mary and the help of Monty Corry, 1 a 
 friend of old Cambridge House days, I obtained 
 an interview with him about some Indian business 
 in which I have been deeply interested all my 
 life. I cannot honestly say that, beyond a patient 
 hearing, I obtained much from him in furtherance 
 of that affair ; but however negative the results 
 of my conversation with him, I was fully conscious 
 of the great charm he is admitted to have exer- 
 cised on all who approached him habitually, and 
 it is something to have conversed with the Sphinx- 
 like statesman at the zenith of his fame. I next 
 met him at a great dinner in his honour given by 
 dear Lady Marian Alford — almost the first time she 
 opened the beautiful house she had recently com- 
 pleted in Princes Gate. She had asked a number 
 of smart people to meet him, the Duchess of 
 Bedford, the Duchess of Cleveland, Lady Somers, 
 and Lady Brownlow amongst others. The Premier 
 arrived late, and it was curious to see these great 
 ladies — en grandissime toilette for the State Concert 
 that evening — all rise as for Royalty when the old 
 man came in. After dinner he said a few words to 
 me, and surveying Lady Marian's beautiful drawing- 
 room and the conservatory beyond it, made a sweep- 
 ing gesture with his hand, and observed in his best 
 Lothair manner : " This is a Palace of Art ! " which, 
 
 1 Montagu William Lowry-Corry, now Lord Rowton, and at that 
 time Private Secretary to Lord Beaconsfield.
 
 LORD BEACONSFIELD 183 
 
 though not precisely original, was just the sort of 
 thing he might be expected to say. He looked de- 
 cidedly worn and aged, and in spite of the great 
 attention and respect shown to him, seemed, I 
 thought, rather bored. And this reminds me of a 
 pathetic little anecdote of Lady Marian's concerning 
 him. She went to the House of Lords to see him 
 take his seat as a Peer. She was standing about 
 in one of the lobbies, and as he went past in his 
 rubes heard a voice close by her sob out: "Oh! 
 if she could only have lived to see this!" Dizzy's 
 confidential servant ! 
 
 My eldest boy was now old enough for school, 
 and having determined from the first that he should 
 enjoy the advantages which had been denied to me 
 of a thorough English education, I took him home 
 with me in May 1S79, and placed him at the large 
 preparatory school kept by the Rev. John Hawtrey 
 at Aldin House, Slough, which in those days went 
 by the name of " Little Eton," and for comfort, and 
 indeed luxury, has never, I believe, been excelled. 
 Here the boy did extremely well, and was, on the 
 whole, happv, having for his schoolfellow, among 
 others, my future step-son, Alg\ Caulfeild. 1 spent 
 three months in England this summer in my old 
 Sloane Street lo(lu r i 11 lt, and only returned to my 
 post in August. In my diary I find a few pas- 
 sage! relating to this season which seem worth 
 transcribing : —
 
 1 84 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 July 5, 1879. — To lunch at Kensington Palace 
 with Princess Mary, who is as agreeable and full of 
 entrain as ever. She is very indignant — and rightly 
 so I think — with the ladies who are going to sell 
 next week at the Albert Hall Bazaar, cheek by 
 jowl with the French actresses, and says the Queen 
 ought to interfere and forbid it. She is angry, too, 
 about the weakness shown by the Government in 
 the matter of the reception of the remains of the 
 Prince Imperial. After luncheon she took me to 
 her room, and told me she had herself given Lord 
 Beaconsfield the letter it was agreed I should write 
 to her explaining my Indian business, and had 
 strongly commended it to him. "With him," she 
 amusingly said, " we can now do much more than 
 we have been able to do for some time. He has 
 no family of his own, you see, so he has adopted 
 us!" She told me, too, that she had just heard of 
 Lady Waldegrave's death, and also of that of young 
 Lord Ossulston, from cholera in Afghanistan. The 
 latter news, it seems, came late on Thursday even- 
 ing. That same night I saw and spoke to Lady 
 Tankerville at the Guinness' ball — she must have 
 found the fatal telegram on getting home ! After 
 taking leave of the most charming of Princesses — ■ 
 than whom I have never had a kinder, truer friend 
 — I walked home through the Park, and then to 
 dinner at Ernest Clay-Ker-Seymer's. 
 
 I may mention here by the way a story told
 
 A CHARITY BAZAAR 185 
 
 about this same Charity Bazaar spoken of by the 
 Princess. A great beauty of the day, who shall 
 be nameless, was selling cups of tea at half-a- 
 crown apiece. A man who was quite unknown to 
 her asked for one, and at once handed her the 
 amount she charged for it. The lady then, before 
 giving him the cup, took a sip from it, and, pas- 
 sing it to him, said: "And now it's a sovereign!" 
 AY hereupon he quietly produced the gold coin, and, 
 returning her the tea, replied : " And perhaps now 
 you will kindly let me have a clean cup!" 
 
 May 24, 1S79. — The usual official dinner, at 
 Lord Salisbury's in Arlington Street, in honour of 
 the Queen's birthday, with a big party at the 
 Foreign Office afterwards. A disagreeable incident 
 occurred at dessert, when SchouvalorF, who probably 
 was a little flushed with wine, made a very savage 
 onslaught on White (of Bucharest), who showed 
 perfect temper. Much struck at the Foreign Office 
 party by Miss Sinclair (the daughter of Sir Tolle- 
 inache), whom I met for the first time, and who 
 has the most lovely complexion and a perfect 
 figure. 
 
 In elucidation of the above, I should explain 
 that in those days the foreign Ambassadors and 
 
 Ministers were the only persons to whom places 
 were assigned, according to their rank and pre- 
 cedence, at these birthday banquets. Our own
 
 1 86 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 representatives on leave from their posts, and the 
 higher personnel of the Foreign Office, sat pretty 
 nearly as they liked — an arrangement which, al- 
 though it was less correct, I myself much preferred 
 to the plan now followed of sandwiching our men 
 between the chiefs of the different foreign missions. 
 The table, on the occasion I refer to, was of the 
 horse-shoe shape, the top of which was reserved 
 for Lord Salisbury's more distinguished guests. I 
 was seated at the lower end, almost next to Mr. 
 White, 1 who had shortly before been appointed 
 Envoy in Roumania. Suddenly I recognised the 
 well-known voice of the Russian Ambassador saying, 
 in almost stentorian tones : " Demandez done a 
 Monsieur White comment cela se dit en Juif Polo- 
 nais." We all turned round of course, and there 
 was an awkward silence, soon relieved by White's 
 replying, with admirable temper, that he did not 
 know to what Count Schouvaloff referred, but 
 that in any case he was ignorant of the dialect 
 in question. The studied insult conveyed in this 
 strange and unwarrantable attack — for such it clearly 
 was — lay in the fact that some doubt was believed 
 to exist as to White's precise nationality. He was 
 said to be of Irish extraction, and had been partly 
 educated in this country, and had been at Cam- 
 bridge ; but much of his childhood and youth had 
 been passed in Poland, to which country his father 
 
 1 Afterwards the Right Honourable Sir William White, G.C.B., 
 and our very distinguished Ambassador at Constantinople.
 
 SIR WILLIAM WHITE 187 
 
 had gone after being a short time in our consular 
 service, and 'where he himself commenced his re- 
 markable career in the modest capacity of clerk 
 to our Consulate-General at Warsaw. He had long 
 been obnoxious to the Russian Foreign Office as 
 a diplomatic agent of great astuteness and activity, 
 with quite an exceptional knowledge of things, 
 and, above all, of men in the vast region peopled 
 by such various and intricately dovetailed races, 
 which, from the shores of the Baltic — where he 
 acted as Consul at Dantzig — stretches, through the 
 Polish and Balkan countries, to the seat of his 
 future Embassy on the Bosphorus. The would-be 
 sting of SchouvalofFs apostrophe was the hint it 
 conveyed that "White was really of humble Jewish 
 extraction, and therefore familiar with the Yiddish 
 which of recent years has so overrun the whole 
 of the East end of London. lie may possibly 
 have had some Polish blood in him, and he certainly 
 was a devout Roman Catholic. 
 
 This incident, together with an invitation to 
 the Foreign Office party, which Schouvaloff pro- 
 cured for a somewhat notorious Kussian lady, who 
 was scarcely received in Petersburg society, was 
 one of the minor scandals of the season. At the 
 Levee two days later, after I had made my bow 
 
 and reached the cornet where stood the Cabinet 
 Ministers, Lord Salisbury stopped me — a very un- 
 usual thing for him — and significantly made some 
 
 remark about the Kussian .Ambassador not being
 
 1 88 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 present in the diplomatic cercle. These unfortunate 
 indiscretions probably contributed to Count Schouv- 
 alofFs resigning in November of that year. He had 
 done such good work in contributing to preserve 
 peace between the two countries at a most threaten- 
 ing crisis that his splitting on such a rock was 
 greatly to be regretted. 
 
 I pretty frequently met White after this at the 
 St. James's Club and other places. His was in 
 every way a striking personality. In some respects 
 he reminded me of Morier, and, without the latter's 
 polish, was, like him, massive and imperious. His 
 rugged exterior, rough manner, and, still rougher, 
 loud voice — which was said specially to grate on 
 the Sovereign to whom he was accredited — together 
 with his peculiar foreign accent, grafted on what 
 he claimed to be a native brogue, almost belied, 
 and effectually masked, the great finesse and almost 
 Slav flexibility and adroitness that lay beneath. 
 Most remarkable of all was his flair, and his memory 
 for the antecedents of persons of any interest he 
 had known in his multifarious service. The self- 
 made diplomate double' d'un policier thus became, 
 if not a great Eltchi on the Stratford de Redcliffe 
 pattern, at least a vigilant, admirably informed, 
 and most loyal guardian of interests to which we 
 then still attached much importance. 
 
 One more recollection of this season I must 
 put down here, namely, taking my boy Horace — 
 up with an exeat from school — to see Lord Rokeby
 
 A WATERLOO VETERAN 189 
 
 in a house in Stratford Place, to which he had a 
 few years before removed 011 the expiry of the lease 
 of Montagu House in Portman Square. It was hard 
 at his age — he was then in his seventy-fourth year 
 and a martyr to gout — to be turned out of the family- 
 home of a century. This trial he owed to his great- 
 aunt, Mrs. Montagu (the patron of blue-stockings 
 and chimney-sweeps), who might, it is said, have 
 originally secured a freehold of that valuable pro- 
 perty iustead of only a ninety-nine years' lease. We 
 found the old general seated in the fauteuil roulant 
 in which he habitually moved about his rooms — 
 a picturesque figure in a loose dressing-gown and 
 a black velvet cap, which, witli his white hair and 
 flowing beard, gave him a most patriarchal appear- 
 ance. The boy squatted at his feet, and presently 
 asked him to tell him something about Waterloo, 
 at which battle he knew from me that his godfather 
 had been present. Nothing loth, the dear old man 
 then related how he had been drafted out from 
 England at seventeen to his battalion of the Guards, 
 and had joined it only a few days before the great 
 battle. He then told us of the terrible fight round 
 Ilugoumont, where the Guards and Brunswickers 
 had held out all through that never-ending June 
 day against the repeated attacks of the enemy. It 
 Was a story to be remembered fol Life, as I said 
 t<> my little fellow ; for the boy-guardsman, whose 
 baptism of fire WBM now described to him, had lived 
 
 to command the brigade, and with it had likewise
 
 ipo RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 gone through the long anxious hours at Inkerman, 
 when a few thousand English had successfully stood 
 their ground against such fearful odds, till reinforced 
 by Cathcart's Division and afterwards by the French. 
 
 • • • • • • 
 
 On my return to Berne I found a fresh colleague 
 in M. Hamburger, who had succeeded, as Russian 
 Minister, Prince Michel Gortchacow, the very un- 
 popular younger son of the Chancelier. I had 
 known M. Hamburger in the days of his bondage 
 as one of Prince Gortchacow's ablest of quill-drivers 
 and humblest of satellites. Now that he was a 
 free man, he turned upon and rent his late master 
 without mercy, and, as he owed to him his unex- 
 pected promotion, I was amazed by his ingratitude. 
 He cynically spoke of the Prince as being now 
 quite incapable of any mental exertion, and abused 
 everything about him — down to his cigars, which 
 he described as being of the cheapest and nastiest 
 possible kind. " You know his intolerable vanity," 
 he said to me, "he thrusts these execrable, spurious 
 Havanas on his acquaintance, and, I really believe, 
 thinks they acquire flavour by his doing them the 
 honour to smoke them." Altogether, the newly- 
 fledged Envoy gave me the idea of a man who 
 breathes freely for the first time, the acrimony of 
 his remarks bearing painful witness to long habits 
 of repression. Indeed he could, I thought, almost 
 be looked upon as the last serf enfranchised in 
 Russia. By an odd perverseness, however, he had
 
 EXILE AGAIN 191 
 
 regained his liberty with the Chancel icr, only to 
 forfeit it again to a strangely selected wife, and it 
 was doubtful which was the worse — his former or 
 his present condition. 
 
 Before very long, I was to take leave for good 
 of Berne and of my colleagues, pleasant or indifferent. 
 During my stay in England Philip Currie, then 
 Private Secretary to Lord Salisbury, had sounded 
 me several times as to my willingness to go out 
 to Buenos Ayres. An offer of the post was repeated 
 to me in August, in terms which made it impossible 
 for me to refuse, though, as I reminded Lord Salis- 
 bury, I had been given the option between Buenos 
 A vies and Berne eighteen months before, and had 
 chosen the latter, with its inferior rank and pay, rather 
 than go back to South America and separate myself 
 from mv children, to whom, as it happened, I was 
 more than ordinarily necessary. Meanwhile I was 
 engaged the whole autumn in negotiations with 
 the Federal Council about a new treaty of Extra- 
 dition, so that I did not actually leave Berne before 
 the 15th of December. I was sincerely sorry to 
 part from some of my friends and colleagues, notably 
 from the d'Harcourts, the La Vegas, and old Melc- 
 •_ r ari and his clever daughters, one of whom has 
 since been successful in literature, and quite re- 
 cently contributed BOme thoughtful essays to the 
 • NuOTO Ant'ilogia." 
 
 I have paid but one flying visit to Switzerland 
 since, thougb bo many memories of my past life
 
 i 9 2 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 are bound up with that beautiful country. In 
 taking leave of it, as it were, in these pages, I 
 must express a sincere wish for the prosperity 
 which its intelligent and industrious population so 
 fully deserve. Though its sons no longer seek 
 their fortunes in faithful military service in foreign 
 lands, the spirit of enterprise is in nowise extinct 
 in them. They are to be found at the most distant 
 points of the globe, pioneers and workmen in the 
 army of commerce, and everywhere carry with them 
 the memories of their native soil, cherishing its 
 ancient customs and traditions, gathering at joyous 
 Liedertafel and festive rifle-match — nowhere forget- 
 ful of the history which has made that wildest and 
 most sublime of European regions, nestling in the 
 heart of the Continent under the watch and ward 
 of its mightiest uplands, as dear to friends of 
 liberty as it is to all lovers of nature.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LONDON AND BUENOS AYRES, 1 880-1881 
 
 I LEFT Berne on the 15th of December in un- 
 usually severe weather. 
 
 Paris, where I broke the journey for twenty-four 
 hours, was literally buried in snow, piled up in long 
 hillocks parallel with the trottoirs, so high as quite 
 to hide the foot passengers, apertures being cut 
 at intervals to permit of access to the houses. It 
 was a surprising sight, and both the aspect and 
 the temperature of the gay, insouciant city were 
 simply Siberian. 
 
 Journeying north the following day on our way 
 to Boulogne a milder current met us before lorn* 
 and on nearing Folkestone we at once felt "the dewy 
 breath of England blown across her ghostly wall " — 
 a striking and pleasant contrast to the bitter weather 
 we had left behind us. But for this we were soon to 
 pay in another shape, the fogs in London this winter 
 exceeding in density anything I can remember 
 either before or since. On Christmas day especially 
 the darkness was such that in the early forenoon 
 
 the Very principle of light seemed gradually to die 
 "tit of the sky. It really looked as if one's windows 
 
 were being carefully draped from the outside with b 
 
 N
 
 i 9 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 heavy black pall, and I had nothing for it but to 
 close the shutters and draw the curtains at 10 a.m., 
 and spend the rest of the day indoors with my 
 small trio. Many Londoners must remember that 
 Black Christmas, one of the strangest features of 
 which was the dead silence of the streets. All 
 wheeled traffic had of course been stopped at an 
 early hour, but none the less an adventurous omni- 
 bus managed to get on to the pavement in Sloane 
 Street, and was overturned with a great crash a few 
 doors from where I was staying in my old quarters. 
 
 A variety of circumstances, into which it is need- 
 less to enter, made me postpone as long as I possibly 
 could my departure for Buenos Ayres, the result 
 being that I passed the first seven months of 1880 in 
 London. The change of administration which took 
 place at the end of April, after the great Midlothian 
 campaign and the defeat of the Conservatives at the 
 general election, might, I hoped, produce some 
 shuffle in the diplomatic service that would lead to 
 my obtaining an exchange to a less distant post. I 
 knew Lord Granville, who was now back at the 
 Foreign Office, to be personally so well disposed 
 towards me that I lingered on in expectation of a 
 reprieve which, as it turned out, never came. 
 
 Notwithstanding his decisive victory at the polls, 
 the return of Mr. Gladstone to power was viewed 
 with apprehension and distrust by an influential 
 section of public opinion, and nowhere more so, it 
 was said, than in the highest quarters. I happened
 
 A ROYAL AUDIENCE 195 
 
 at the time to hear, from a perfectly trustworthy 
 source, something of the circumstances attending the 
 great" Liheral leader's visit to Windsor when sum- 
 moned thither by the Queen. The Dean of Windsor l 
 was a very old friend of his, and looking in upon 
 him at the Deanery on the evening of the 23rd April, 
 on his way up to the Castle, Mr. Gladstone did not 
 conceal the misgivings with which he looked forward 
 to his audience. He returned to the Deanery after 
 it. evidently much relieved. The Queen, he told his 
 friend, had received him most graciously, and had 
 confined herself to expressing the hope that no great 
 change would he attempted in the general direction 
 of the foreign policy of the country. Unfortunately, 
 in looking back on those five years of Mr. Gladstone's 
 second Administration (April 1880 to June r 8S5), it 
 is impossible to forget that they began with what has 
 been well described as "the apparent capitulation of 
 the Queen's advisers to the enemy" after the disaster 
 of Mn juba Hill — the bitter fruits of which have been 
 reaped in the present generation — and ended in the 
 abandonment of Gordon, and the culpably tardy, 
 however gallant, attempt made at the eleventh hour 
 to rescue him. But in permitting myself these stric- 
 tures on the spirit with which the eminent statesman 
 was apt to deal with Imperial questions, I am con- 
 scious that I am overstepping the bounds I have set 
 myself in these reminiscences of my pasl career. My 
 
 1 Tip- Honourable and Very Her. Gerald Welleeler, Ohaplain and 
 Lord High Almoner to the lata Queen.
 
 196 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 excuse for doing so must be the painful experience I 
 shared with others who then had to watch over 
 British interests abroad, of the humiliating effects of 
 Mr. Gladstone's incoherent and nerveless foreign 
 policy, as shown in the palpable decrease of our 
 weight and influence in the affairs of the world. To 
 be fair, however, it must be allowed that succeeding 
 Governments in some degree followed that same 
 policy down to a more recent period. The ground 
 we lost has since been recovered by slow degrees ; 
 but, for a good many years, the national credit of 
 England stood at a low ebb, which only those whose 
 business it was to uphold it in foreign capitals were 
 in a position fully and despondingly to realise. 
 
 For the rest, during my few months stay in 
 England, the course of public affairs both at home 
 and abroad was uneventful, but for the unsatisfac- 
 tory campaign then going on in Afghanistan, and 
 the reverse we sustained there at Maiwand. On the 
 Continent, on the other hand, there was just then 
 a good deal of tension in the Kusso-German re- 
 lations, due partly to the antipathy entertained by 
 Prince Bismarck for the old Russian Chancellor. I 
 had heard a good deal about this before leaving 
 Berne from President Hammer, who was unusually 
 well-informed on German affairs, and also from my 
 Russian colleague M. Hamburger. M. Hammer 
 told me that one of the motives assigned for the 
 meeting of the German and Russian Emperors at 
 Alexandrovo, which made a great sensation at the
 
 TWO CHANCELLORS 197 
 
 time, was the desire of the Emperor William to 
 effect the dismissal from office of Prince Gortchacow, 
 whom the Iron Chancellor could not abide, and to 
 whom he attributed the hostile tone then current 
 in the Russian Press towards Germany. The 
 President added that several Prussian military men, 
 old acquaintances of his, whom he had met in the 
 summer, had told him they considered a war be- 
 tween Russia and Germany to be inevitable, and 
 its outbreak merely a question of time. On the 
 other hand, Prince Gortchacow was profuse in his 
 denials of having in any way instigated a press 
 campaign against Bismarck, for whom he professed 
 the greatest admiration; speaking of him as u un 
 ■ si phenomenal que tout* VEuropi devrait se 
 mettre a plat ventn devant lui" 
 
 The old Chancellor' 8 official days, however, were 
 almost numbered, 1 and very nearly his last act was 
 to appoint my Petersburg acquaintance, Prince 
 Alexis Lobanow, to succeed Count Schouvaloff in 
 London. Of the various occupants of Chesham 
 Souse I have known, from Baron Brunnow onwards, 
 Prince Lobanow was, I fear, the one who took to 
 it the least kindly. For a man of such refined 
 tastes and aristocratic traditions, he was rather 
 
 unaccountably out of sympathy with English life 
 
 and English society. This was probably in pari 
 
 1 Se resigned in [882 and died the following jrear. The l: 1 yeai 
 of bislifew tly oul "i" Runria, the Foreign Office being 
 
 • :
 
 198 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 due to his belonging to that generation of his 
 countrymen whose standards of thought and culture 
 were almost exclusively French. He it was in fact 
 who subsequently, during his short tenure of the 
 Imperial Foreign Office, laid the foundations of the 
 Russo-French alliance. Here, too, again, " cher- 
 chez la femme" for during a considerable period of 
 his life, at Constantinople and elsewhere, he had 
 been greatly under the influence of an attractive 
 and very clever French lady, who, for his sake, had 
 thrown her cap over all the windmills of this world. 
 On the strength of the connection between our 
 families the Russian Ambassador — who in appearance 
 somehow reminded one of an abbe of the ancien 
 regime — kindly treated me en guise de parent, and 
 I have preserved a grateful recollection of his hospi- 
 tality, the culinary arrangements of which, by the 
 way, were presided over by a really eminent artist. 
 With the help of a select staff of men like Adler- 
 berg, the nephew of the right-hand man of the 
 Emperor Alexander II., and poor Boutenieff — whom 
 I had known from his first youth at Baden Baden 
 and Stuttgart, as English in speech and ways of 
 thinking as his chief was French, and who died 
 under very painful circumstances when afterwards 
 Minister at Munich — Prince Lobanow made his 
 Embassy the most pleasant of resorts. 
 
 At Easter I went to the Clevelands at Battle 
 Abbey, where a number of agreeable people were 
 assembled under the auspices of a hostess who,
 
 BATTLE ABBEY 199 
 
 besides being the mother of perhaps the most 
 brilliant of our younger statesmen, was herself a 
 perfect mistress of the art of conversation, and had 
 the still rarer gift of promoting it in others. 
 At Battle it was in fact a field-day from early 
 breakfast until bedtime, and such poor weapons 
 as one disposed of had to be kept well furbished 
 for the fray. The late Lord Houghton — himself 
 an admirable and indefatigable talker — and Lord 
 Strathnairn, whom I had scarcely come across 
 since we played at tin soldiers together at 
 the Legation at Yieuna in 1856, 1 were the 
 
 • known men of a pleasant gathering, which 
 also comprised Lord Sligo and his very charm- 
 ing semi-French wife;- the Bylandts, 8 who lived 
 among us for so many years and made them- 
 selves so popular, without, at heart, I believe, 
 ever really caring for us much; Henry Brougham, 4 
 Alec Yorke, and others. Some of tin- arrangements 
 at Battle were decidedly old-fashioned. The Duke, 
 stately and ancien rdgvme, and extremely agree- 
 able — who had been Attache at Paris under the 
 R'stauration and afterwards at Petersburg — relegated 
 the smokers to sonic remote place in the lower 
 regions of the great monastic pile, the approach to 
 
 ". vol. i. of these " Recollections," pp, 253 54. 
 1 Lady Sligo ii the granddaughter ol tin- Vioomte de Peyronnet 
 formed part of the ill-fated Polignac Cabinet under Charles \ 
 
 • Count Bylandt wbb Blin I t the Netherlands in London 
 fur ;i great aumbei ol yean and highly esteemed in looiety. 
 
 i 1 1 bam and Vaux
 
 200 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 which was through devious and confusing passages 
 and turnings. One night, after a more protracted 
 tobacco parliament than usual, one of the smokers, 
 rather a figure of fun in a scanty and very ancient 
 dressing-gown, took the wrong turning and opened 
 the wrong door, and to his dismay found himself 
 in a room where one of our married couples were 
 peacefully slumbering. 
 
 Battle has quite lately passed into other hands, 
 after the recent death of the old Duchess — the 
 beautiful and brilliant Lady Wilhelmina Stanhope 
 — who survived four months the Queen whose 
 bridesmaid she had been, became in her old age 
 the most indefatigable of travellers, and died, while 
 abroad, a mercifully sudden death, almost, it may 
 be said, in harness. If this rough sketch of my 
 visit there, nigh upon a quarter of a century ago, 
 should come under the notice of the devoted 
 daughter who so admirably helped to do the 
 honours of that historic abode, I trust she may see 
 in it a slight tribute for much kindness shown to 
 one of those who met there in that spring of 1880. 
 
 For the Ascot week I was again asked to Minley 
 Manor, where I found two of the Harris young ladies, 
 Constance and Florence — the latter afterwards the 
 wife of Sir Charles Grant — and the latest additions 
 to the French Embassy in London : namely, La Fer- 
 ronnays and Montebello with their wives. Madame 
 de Montebello — a niece of the then ambassador, 
 M. Leon Say, and very smart and attractive — was
 
 MINLEY MANOR 201 
 
 destined later to dispense for a long period the 
 splendid hospitalities of the French Embassy in 
 Kussia. But the clou, as they say at Paris, of 
 this Ascot party was — to quote the enthusiastic 
 language of our host, old Mr. Kaikes Currie — that 
 simply glorious creature, Lady Ramsay, afterwards 
 Lady Dalhousie, quite the loveliest woman of her 
 generation in London society, who but a few years 
 later died, in all the splendour of her youth and 
 
 uty, literally within a day of her husband, for 
 whose health they had been travelling in America. 
 She contracted blood-poisoning at New York, and 
 died almost immediately after landing at Havre ; 
 Lord Dalhousie onlv surviving the shock of her 
 death twenty-four hours. Gone, too, of that party 
 is charming, bright Lady " Conty " Harris, as well 
 as Godfrey Webb, one of the most popular and 
 amusing of diners out in London. Saddening in all 
 conscience it is to summon up — as I am seeking to 
 do in these pages — a retrospect filled so largely, as 
 it must be, with those who have passed beyond us, 
 too many of them in their prime. 
 
 In looking over my other relatively scanty 
 jottings of this season, I find a few rough notes 
 of dinners and parties at Grosvenoi House — where 
 Yolande de Lnynei was then, I remember, on a 
 visit for some time — at the Wharncliffes, the Leeds', 
 ! tlv Margaret Beaumont's, and at Lady Somen', 
 
 irhere I first heard pretty Mrs. Arkwright warble 
 her delightful French and Spanish melodies. But
 
 202 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 on these records of society doings I will not linger 
 at greater length. 
 
 It was about this time that I first engaged in ex- 
 tensive researches at the Public Record Office, which 
 proved of great interest to me, and enabled me to re- 
 construct entirely the history of my family at the close 
 of the sixteenth and in the seventeenth century. 
 
 My immediate object in this inquiry was to 
 trace the exact history of a certain Henry Rum- 
 bold, who, according to a vague family tradition, 
 had taken refuge in Spain during the Common- 
 wealth, and had afterwards held a consular ap- 
 pointment in that country. He was believed to 
 be a brother of the comparatively well - known 
 loyalist, William Rumbold, 1 a very active agent 
 for the Royal cause in England during the exile 
 of Charles II., 2 who is frequently mentioned in 
 the Clarendon Papers in the Bodleian, and in 
 other State Papers of the so-called Domestic Series. 
 For this purpose, with the kind assistance of the 
 late Mr. Alfred Kingston, and afterwards of Mr. 
 Hubert Hall, I went through the great mass of 
 uncalendared papers relating to Spain, which are 
 to be found in the wonderful storehouse in Fetter 
 
 1 This William Rumbold entered the office of the Great Wardrobe 
 at an early age, and was at Naseby with his father, Thomas, who was 
 afterwards taken as a prisoner by the Parliamentary forces, from his 
 house near Burbage, to Leicester. 
 
 2 "Among many others that employed themselves in the King's 
 business, none did more faithfully or judiciously negotiate than Mr. 
 William Rumbold, who doth well deserve a good place in this story for 
 his great services." — Doctor Gumble's " Life of General Monck."
 
 THE RECORD OFFICE 203 
 
 Lane. The results of my search were surprisingly 
 satisfactory. I dug out the man I was looking 
 for from under the dusty mound of records in 
 which he and his doings were buried. From 
 his letters to the King, to Arlington, Sandwich, 
 and others, I gathered all it was possible to 
 Learn about his services as a Royalist agent in 
 Spain, which were rewarded by his appointment 
 tn the Consulate-General for Andalusia in 1660; 
 his two marriages in that country ; the adventures 
 of one of his sons while serving in the garrison 
 of Tangier ; his subsequent thankless treatment 
 by the Government at home — in short, a full ac- 
 count of a direct ancestor whose existence, owing to 
 a wanton destruction of family papers, had become 
 almost a myth. I afterwards supplemented these 
 facts by searches which I caused to be made in 
 the registers at Cadiz and at San Lucar de Bar- 
 rameda, and in the vast records at Simancas, where 
 copious sources of information touching upon our 
 relations with Spain at that period still await in- 
 vestigation. What facts 1 thus recovered from 
 oblivion I afterwards embodied in a contribution 
 to the Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 
 There was something very fascinating to inc in this 
 Work, over which I often spent whole days, with 
 an interval for lunch at the "Rainbow" tavern 
 
 in Fleet Street, a vet) ancient establishment, 
 
 which has leew been modernised past recognition, 
 and has entirely I"-' itfl (plaint old-world character.
 
 20 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 In connection with the task I had set myself 
 a curious incident took place which seems almost 
 worth relating. I went down one May morning 
 to Fulham, for the purpose of getting an exact copy 
 of the inscription on the tomb of the above-men- 
 tioned William Rumbold, who, at the Restoration, 
 was appointed Comptroller of the Great Wardrobe 
 and Surveyor-General of Customs, and was buried, 
 in May 1667, in the chancel of All Saints. On 
 reaching the church I found it in the hands of 
 workmen, but was warmly greeted by the vicar, who 
 said that he had been on the point of writing to 
 give me notice that, in view of the projected altera- 
 tions, the slab marking the grave of the comptroller 
 was about to be removed. When I arrived on the 
 spot this was actually being done, and the vicar 
 suggested that some inspection might be made of 
 the vault beneath. 1 assented to this, but when 
 the first turns of the spade brought to light a few 
 mouldering bones I had not the heart to persist in 
 the search, and begged that it might be abandoned. 
 I may thus have missed the chance of finding 
 interesting coffin - plates of the old Restoration 
 Worthy or his family, but I shrank from disturbing 
 his remains. By an odd chance my visit took place 
 two hundred and thirteen years, almost to a day, 
 after they had found here their last resting-place. 
 
 The season now rapidly drew to a close, and 
 with it vanished all my hopes of evading Buenos 
 Ayres. Lord Granville was personally most kind
 
 A SPECIAL TRAIN 205 
 
 to me. When I went to take leave of him, and 
 explained the great difficulty I was placed in with 
 respect to my boys, he at once suggested that I 
 should take them down to Walmer, where he would, 
 he said, help to look after them. I accordingly 
 found for them a snug little cottage under the 
 shadow of the castle, where they spent most of the 
 summer and autumn. At the same time, Lord 
 Granville took care to let me understand that he 
 did not propose leaving me at my distant post 
 any Longer than he could help. With this comfort - 
 ing assurance I went on the 31st July to Osborne, 
 to kiss hands on my new appointment, in a special 
 train conveying Lord Spencer, the Lord Steward 
 (Lord Sydney), Lord Kenmare (then Lord Cham- 
 berlain), and Mr. C. Lennox Peel, Clerk of the Privy 
 Council. Besides these there were in the train, but 
 in another carriage, two gentlemen about whose 
 identity our high court officials seemed to be in some 
 degree puzzled. When we were on board the boat 
 going across to Osborne, I was consulted respecting 
 these persons, who, though they had a foreign ap- 
 pearance, must, it was presumed, be colonial or con- 
 sular officials going down to be knighted after the 
 Privy Council. I soon found out that they were 
 simply the new Envoys from lloumania and Servia, 
 on their way to present their credentials, and who 
 thus, it might almost be said, narrowly escaped an 
 honour chiefly reserved for inch dignitaries as city 
 aldermen or provincial mayors !
 
 206 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 At last, on the 1 2th of August, I left England for 
 Bordeaux, whence I had engaged my passage to my 
 destination in one of the steamers of the French 
 Messageries Maritimes. I took a circuitous route, 
 travelling with a party of friends who were on their 
 way to Wildbad, and stopping with them on the 
 road at Brussels and Coblentz. It was altogether a 
 delightful journey in perfect weather, every incident 
 of which to this hour remains as vivid in my memory 
 as though it had taken place but yesterday. At 
 Wildbad I regretfully parted from my companions, 
 and, after spending an evening with the La Roche- 
 foucaulds at Baden Baden, where they were passing 
 the summer, found my way to Bordeaux, embark- 
 ing there on the 20th, in extremely hot weather, 
 on the Niger, a roomy and fairly comfortable vessel 
 which, however, owing to the top-weight of her 
 great hurricane-deck, could be on occasion as lively 
 a roller as ever I came across. 
 
 We touched at Lisbon, where I landed and went 
 to see Morier, who showed me all over the Legation, 
 which seemed to me a charming house. The garden, 
 with its terrace and outlook over the Tagus, is 
 simply delightful, and I could not help picturing to 
 myself with some degree of bitterness the ideal 
 home I might have set up here had the chances of 
 the service been more propitious to me. 
 
 There was scarcely any one to associate with on 
 board, most of my fellow-passengers being of the 
 noisy type of lower middle - class French and
 
 PETROPOLIS 207 
 
 Italians, with u sprinkling of Brazilians, so I passed 
 niv time, as best I could, reading and working at 
 
 my " Recollections." We got to Rio de Janeiro on 
 the 10th of September, and I at once went on to 
 Petropolis, where I spent a cool night up in the 
 clouds with our charge" d'affaires, Harris Gastrell, 
 and young Francis Elliot, the son of my old chief 
 Sir Henry. The drive to this hill station, after one 
 has crossed the bay, is along an admirably en- 
 gineered read, tarried up by zigzags through 
 perfectly splendid scenery, which struck me im- 
 mensely, but Petropolis itself, perched on high in 
 almost British mists, left on me a dreary impression. 
 The heat next day down at Rio was intolerable, and 
 I was glad to get on board again. The last stage of 
 my journey, however, proved highly unpleasant, for, 
 shortly after leaving Rio, we encountered one of 
 those heavy gales from the south-west known as a 
 pampero sucio, which are prevalent in the spring of 
 the southern hemisphere. For two whole days we 
 lay tossing in the gloom and drizzle, unable to get a 
 reliable observation of OUT whereabouts, and having 
 in consequence to feel our way as best we could by 
 dead reckoning along a dangerous coast. On the 
 evening of the [4th we sighted, to our great relief, 
 the light on Cape Santa Maria, and the next morn- 
 ing anchored in the roadstead of Monte Video. T 
 
 new hade farewell to the Niger, and for twenty-four 
 hours became the guest of my old friend Edmund
 
 208 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Monson, 1 whom I found cosily installed as Minister 
 Resident to the Republic of Uruguay. From him I 
 received full particulars of the disastrous effects all 
 over the Argentine Pampas of the gale I had just 
 passed through. The number of live stock de- 
 stroyed throughout the great province of Buenos 
 Ayres, by what on land had been a terrific tempest, 
 was afterwards roughly reckoned at not less than 
 half a million head. It was still blowing hard at 
 Monte Video, and I had a rough and very cold 
 passage the next night up the River Plate to Buenos 
 Ayres, which I at last reached in the early hours 
 of September the 17th. 
 
 Lord Granville was so true to his word that my 
 actual residence at Buenos Ayres did not exceed 
 seven months and a half in all. Leaving England 
 in mid- August of 1880, I was back there again on 
 the last day of the following May. Of my brief 
 experience and impressions of Argentina, and, 
 among others, of an interesting excursion I made 
 up the Uruguay River, I have written so much 
 elsewhere 2 that I have little left to relate of them. 
 Some few reminiscences, however, of my sojourn in 
 the River Plate still remain to be told to make the 
 record of this part of my life complete. I was 
 fortunate on arriving to find here my old Petersburg 
 
 1 Now the Right Honourable Sir Edmund Monson, G.C.B., 
 Ambassador at Paris. 
 
 2 " The Great Silver River : Notes of a Residence in Buenos Ayres 
 in 1880 and 1881." John Murray, 1887.
 
 A SECESH PROVINCE 209 
 
 colleague and very good friend, Edwin Egerton, 1 
 who had been acting as chargd $ affaires for some 
 months after the departure of my predecessor Mr. 
 Ford, and, being a Bhrewd observer, was able to give 
 me much valuable information about the country and 
 its people. I lived in close intimacy with EgertoD 
 throughout my stay, and a charming companion 
 and most valuable collaborator he proved to me in 
 all respects. 
 
 Argentina when I reached its shores — or, more 
 correctly speaking, the Province of Buenos Ayres — 
 had just passed through the ordeal of civil war, 
 the proud city having itself undergone the humili- 
 ation of a ruinous siege and blockade. The short 
 but sharp Btruggle arose out of what was practically 
 an attempt at secession on the part of the Province 
 and its capital. In some points, in fact, it bore a 
 resemblance to the great contest between the 
 Northern and Southern States of the North American 
 Union. As in the United States, the signal for 
 BecessioD was given by the election of a President 
 hostile to Provincial, or state pretensions, who 
 came forward as the candidate of the nation at 
 large, as opposed to that fraction of it which up 
 to this time had monopolised the lead in the 
 Confederacy. Sooner than surrender its hegemony, 
 Buern a Ayres (the province and the town) took up 
 
 : win Egi • . 1 1 ' 1.1 ;.. K 1 B., Em 03 al Alheo . 
 'The late Sit Fran i I rely ambassador al 
 
 . ' osl intinople, and I 
 
 «)
 
 210 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 arms against the rest of its Confederates, and its 
 discomfiture may in some degree be compared to 
 the overthrow of the South, and a parallel for the 
 election of Lincoln be sought in the nomination of 
 President Boca. The comparison, however, if pushed 
 too far, would turn almost to the grotesque, for in 
 the Argentine tussle for power there was no great 
 principle at stake such as the suppression of 
 slavery, or the prior duty of the citizen to his 
 native State rather than to the Union. But it is 
 not my purpose to dwell at length on this South 
 American family quarrel, which was fortunately 
 brief, is now entirely forgotten, and can have no 
 sort of interest for those who may glance through 
 these pages. My object in referring to it is to 
 give some idea of its effect on the society of the 
 aspiring Argentine metropolis at the time of my 
 arrival. 
 
 What native society there was, composed of the 
 leading Buenos Ayrean families, deeply mourned 
 and resented the issue of the contest. A few of 
 its jeunesse doree had fallen in the sharp skirmishes 
 outside the beleaguered town, at the head of the 
 bands of rough Gauchos whom they had armed and 
 brought in with them from their estancias. The 
 Argentine upper ten were in a sulky, dejected mood, 
 though some of them were wisely disposed to put 
 up with the consequences of their defeat. My first 
 opportunity of meeting Buenos Ayres society was 
 two days after my arrival, at one of the weekly
 
 THE ARGENTINE BEAU MONDE 211 
 
 evening receptions of President Avellaneda, whose 
 term of office was fast coming to an end. 1 There 
 was at this party a sprinkling of the vanquished 
 element, showing some signs, I was told, of a more 
 conciliatory disposition, but of this I, as a complete 
 Btranger, conld of course not judge. 1 cannot say 
 that these receptions appeared to me very enter- 
 taining, and 1 was certainly at first sii^ht dis- 
 appointed as to the good looks for which the 
 /'" ladies are so celebrated throughout South 
 
 America, though in the smartness of their clothes 
 they seemed to me even to outdo my fair Chilean 
 friends across the Andes. Of the festivities of the 
 short Bueno> Ayres "season" I best remember the 
 parties and balls given by Don Diego de Alvear — 
 who had been Minister in London and had several 
 eedingly pretty daughters — by the Berdiers, the 
 Castros and the Elortondos, all wealthy people, with 
 well decorated and splendidly furnished houses, 
 who were content with the large incomes they had 
 amassed, and kept entirely aloof from public affairs. 
 Although some of them had very large estates, 
 there was here no politically influential class such 
 as the land-owning oligarchy I had known in 
 
 ( Ihile. 
 
 To descend to frivolous details about the few 
 
 private balls at which I was preseni at Buenos 
 
 1 Tip- new President, General Roca, w :>•<! on t li « - iath <>f 
 
 (obex 1880. 
 
 P ok inhabitant "f the Port, if - 1 1 1 appellation commonly 
 
 1 on 1 he citizen "f Bu< \
 
 212 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Ayres, I must admit that they appeared to me 
 rather dreary and lacking in animation, though, as 
 regards what our fashionable news reporters de- 
 scribe as "floral decorations," and the arrangements 
 for supper, they were sumptuous enough in all 
 conscience. What struck me most was that the 
 " sitting-out," which is so familiar a feature at 
 London dances, was replaced by promenading the 
 ball-room in couples, quite regardless of the actual 
 dancers, whose feeble gyrations were apparently re- 
 garded as of little account by the young people 
 who tramped up and down the whole evening, like 
 so many London stockbrokers bent on making a 
 record in mileage. I presume that these ambu- 
 latory flirtations answered their purpose as well as 
 a valse echevelee, but to me they seemed anything 
 but festive, and rather suggested the early grind 
 between one's glasses at Kissingen or Homburg. 
 
 Most friendly and serviceable to me on my arrival 
 was a Brazilian gentleman of the name of Alkaine, 
 whom I had first met at the St. James's Club in 
 London, where he formed part of Baron de Penedo's 
 Legation, and was known as the Vicomte de Castello 
 Alvo — a title he dropped when he settled in demo- 
 cratic Buenos Ayres, and became Government broker 
 during Roca's administration. He had a charming 
 wife, belonging to one of the best Argentine families, 
 who died a few years afterwards when still quite 
 young. This very refined lady and two of her 
 greatest friends, Mme. Adele Heimendahl, nee
 
 BRITISH KXTKRPRISE 213 
 
 Ocampo, and the lovely Mine. Magdalena Elizalde, 
 Ramos Mejia, made up a pleasant and extremely 
 cultivated coU rie, in every way accomplished and — 
 what was indeed rare in Smith American society at 
 that period really musical. I have endeavoured to 
 pay a Blight tribute to these charming ladies in my 
 book alread\ referred to, without, however, mention- 
 ing them by name. They formed part of the small 
 remnant of high-bred, old-world society still existing 
 there — a diminutive Bet which kept very much to 
 itself, and was not easily accessible to strangers. 
 
 ( >n the other hand there was a Large foreign — 
 and what of course concerned me most— a large 
 British community. The English of the River Plate 
 need no favourable mention from one who for only a 
 few short months had to watch over their interests. 
 To their enter] >risc and industry the land of their 
 temporary adoption owes no small share of its steadily 
 ing prosperitv. Thei have so effectually stamped 
 upon it the imprint of the British race that this 
 splendid region which, but for Whitelock's craven 
 surrender, we might possibly have permanently con- 
 quered, is even now in greal part held and worked by 
 OUT capital and developed by the energy of our people. 
 Iii fact, the giant strides made l>\ Argentina in the 
 twenty-two years of peace and good governmenl thai 
 have elapsed since my brief sojourn, make my recol- 
 lection! of the country on the morrow of b severe 
 internal convulsion almost valueless. \n entire 
 generation h;^ passed away since then, and of my
 
 214 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 countrymen with whom I was then most associated, 
 and on whose cordial and loyal co-operation I could 
 always count, but few probably survive ; and these, 
 it is to be hoped, are now enjoying at home the well- 
 earned fruits of their labours. Gone is genial old 
 Mr. Coghlan, the chief engineer and builder of the 
 great Southern line, which has been so powerful a 
 factor in reclaiming vast tracts of splendid soil which 
 a quarter of a century ago were still the camping 
 grounds of wild, marauding Indians. Gone, too, I 
 know, is poor Frederick Woodgate, at whose hands 
 I received great kindness, and whose bright wife and 
 merry trio of pretty daughters made his house at 
 Bella Vista the liveliest and cheeriest in the big 
 pleasure-loving city. 
 
 Early in November, when the summer heat began 
 to make itself felt, I removed from my stuffy quarters 
 at the Hotel de la Paix to a furnished quinta at 
 Belgrano, which I took over, with all its contents, 
 from some English people who were going home for 
 a while. Hotel life in South America in those days 
 was far from pleasant, let alone being horribly ex- 
 pensive, and was only fit for the tribe of bagmen and 
 commis-voyageurs whose custom kept the extortion- 
 ate caravansaries going. My villa, which bore the 
 high-sounding name of 22 Calle Once de Setiembre, 
 was charmingly situated at the top of a low ridge, or 
 barranca, that stretches for some miles to the west 
 of the town, and commands a clear view of the great 
 estuary of the River Plate. A quaint enclosure —
 
 MY HOUSEHOLD AT BELGRANO 215 
 
 half wild garden and orchard — which lay behind it. 
 and yielded fruit and flowers in abundance for my 
 wants, completed what was a simple but very attrac- 
 tive residence. I kept on trial the cook and the 
 gardener of the previous occupants. The former was 
 in some respects one of the oddest combinations that 
 could be imagined even in the olla podrida of nations 
 to be found on these shores. A burly, sour-visaged 
 Gascon, and yet a rigid C'alvinist, he answered to 
 the name of Triboulet, which, as readers of Victor 
 Hugo may remember, is the appellation of the jester 
 in " In Ren s* amuse" and the original of Verdi's 
 " Rigoletto. - ' Egerton would have it that the fellow's 
 proper name was Marcel, and that he came out of 
 quite another opera, the " Huguenots." We were 
 fortunately agreed as to his cooking, which was quite 
 satisfactory*. I had brought with me as valet and 
 factotum another meridional whom I picked up in 
 London, and who was by no means so great a suc- 
 cess, ih' proved a nerveless, feckless creature; in- 
 variably lost his head at the wrong moment, and was 
 thus most aggravating. Although quite respectable 
 in appearance, lie had a forlorn, downcast look — due, 
 ;i- 1 presently discovered, to a bibulous turn — which 
 made Egerton call him "the blasted one," an ap- 
 propriate name that afforded a relict' to one's feelings 
 and stuck to the pour devil till the end. I got quite 
 fond of my 7'"/-/", and was as happy in it as I could 
 
 be under the circumstances. In its front verandah, 
 with the fair outlook over the "Great Silver River,"
 
 216 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 I wrote a good part of the book to which I gave that 
 title, but only put it into shape for publication some 
 years afterwards at Athens. 
 
 I had been settled but a short time in my suburban 
 abode when I received official notice from home of 
 the forthcoming arrival at Monte Video of the De- 
 tached Squadron, with the Princes Albert Victor and 
 George of Wales. The Foreign Office Circular, in 
 which this was notified to the Legation, informed 
 H.M. Ministers abroad of the Prince of Wales's desire 
 that his sons should lay aside their royal rank during 
 their cruise, and of H.RH.'s hope that they would 
 be treated, as far as possible, on the footing of 
 members of their family by those of H.M. Represen- 
 tatives whose places of residence they visited on 
 their journey round the world. 
 
 The squadron reached Monte Video early on the 
 22nd December, and that same afternoon I went 
 down the river to meet it in the Elk, a small gun- 
 boat, commanded by a cheerful Paddy of the name 
 of Clanchy — a capital fellow, who had been some 
 months on the station, had done good service during 
 the blockade of Buenos Ayres, and whom we had 
 come to consider as part and parcel of the Legation. 
 As a rule I am a fairly good sailor, but the lively 
 behaviour of the Elk, in the rough waters of the 
 shallow estuary, quite did for me, and Lord Charles 
 Scott, of the Bacchante, when he came on board 
 next morning to call upon me, where we lay off 
 his ship, found me in a very limp state indeed.
 
 THE FOUNG PRINCES 217 
 
 After seeing the Admiral — my old acquaintance Lord 
 Clanwilliam — and making the necessary arrange- 
 ments with him and the Princes' Governor, Mr. (now 
 (anon) Dalton. for the Royal visit to me, 1 went 
 on shore to the Hotel Oriental. I staved four davs 
 
 Monte Video, during which Monson gave a very 
 pretty dance in honour of the squadron, and 1 ate 
 
 Christmas dinner at Mrs. Munro's, one of whose 
 charming daughters a few months later became the 
 
 v^ 
 
 wife of my friend and colleague. 
 
 My guests arrived in the Elk early on the last 
 
 of the year, and I at once took them out. to 
 Belgrano, where J managed at a pinch to put up 
 the two Princes, with their Governor and young 
 Lord Francis Osborne, a brother-midshipman of 
 theirs. A neighbouring villa, which had been ob- 
 ligingly placed at my disposal by its owner, an 
 Italian, provided accommodation for Lord Charles 
 Scott, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and Doctor Turn- 
 1 all, of the Bacchante. After luncheon I took the 
 young Princes and Prince Louis to call upon the 
 newly-elected President, General loicn. The visit 
 was of course a purely private one, as I had taken 
 rare to explain to the President beforehand. The 
 
 was that, although to my mind nothing could be 
 u ore judicious than the line laid down by the Prince 
 [ea for the reception of his sous, it was no easy 
 tter to e, to its being strictly carried out, and, 
 idea causing some disappointment to the Argen- 
 tine authorities, il rise to heartburnings anuniir
 
 218 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the British residents, who were bent upon giving 
 the Royal visitors the heartiest and most loyal of 
 welcomes. It was my thankless task to check, or 
 at least to moderate, this creditable outburst of 
 patriotic feeling. 
 
 General Roca received us in his unpretentious 
 Villa del Caballito, at Flores, with much cordiality 
 and perfect simplicity. He was certainly one of 
 the remarkable men with whom the Princes had 
 an opportunity of becoming acquainted during their 
 long cruise, and to this day he plays a leading part 
 in the destinies of his country. At this period the 
 new President was still very young-looking, of slight, 
 delicate build, with thin fair hair and cold steel- 
 blue eyes, his general appearance being much more 
 Germanic than Spanish. But in his countenance, 
 and in his quiet, collected manner, there were un- 
 mistakable indications of the energy he had shown 
 in the campaigns in which he drove the Indian 
 tribes back beyond the Rio Nauquen into the fast- 
 nesses of the Cordillera — thereby pushing the fron- 
 tier forward some 400 miles, and almost doubling 
 the Argentine patrimony — as well as in his short 
 and decisive struggle with the rebellious metropo- 
 litan province. Roca's advent to power marks a 
 most fortunate turning-point in the history of his 
 promising country. 
 
 We dined that evening, a large party, in the 
 verandah overlooking my garden, which I had 
 lighted up with Chinese lanterns. Considering that
 
 ADVERSE CIRCUMSTANCE- 219 
 
 I had really no maison monte'e, having come out to 
 my post in light marching order, the entertainment 
 was on the whole a fairly successful one. Unfor- 
 tunately, the wretched "blasted one," who, to steady 
 his nerves, had indulged somewhat freely, committed 
 various deplorable laches, which, to my great dis- 
 tress, my young Royal guests, with the sharp eyes 
 of their age, did not fail to see, and no doubt to 
 be amused at. 
 
 Torrential rain, such as I have seldom experi- 
 enced elsewhere, ushered in New Year's Day of 
 1SS1, and closely confined me and my visitors to 
 the house the whole morning. The weather was 
 so bad that my overflow party at the other villa, 
 which was some distance off, were unable to get 
 across and join us before two o'clock. I thus had 
 to amuse mv three middies as best I could bv tell- 
 ing them stories, showing them albums, &c., and 
 it was then that I first realised what nice, simple, 
 unspoilt lads these two young Princes were. They 
 soon found out that 1 was given to music, and 
 made me play and siiiL, r to them, until Prince George — 
 having considerately gone off to look after Mr. Dalton, 
 who was unwell and had staved in bed — returned, 
 and begged me to stop as his tutor was asleep. 
 
 The weather mended sufficiently for us to L r <> 
 down iiftcr lunch to the Parque Palermo, where 
 the British residents had got up for the occasion 
 a cricket match, which was, of course, entirely spoilt 
 
 by th<- rain. Mere we found a special train waiting
 
 220 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 for us, and were soon being rattled, at forty miles 
 an hour, on the Great Southern line to Villa Nueva, 
 the station for the model estancia Negrete, belong- 
 ing to Mr. D. A. Shennan, who had kindly under- 
 taken to show the Royal travellers something of 
 Argentine " camp " 1 life. What between our reach- 
 ing our destination late, and an accident to the carts 
 which were bringing the luggage from the station, 
 our party — now strengthened by Monson from 
 Monte Video, and two more young sailors, Erskine 
 and Wemyss — did not sit down to dinner until long 
 past 10 o'clock. I mention the trifling circum- 
 stance because of the opportunity it gave us of 
 seeing at his best our host, who did not allow him- 
 self to be put out in the least by these annoying 
 contretemps, and — while despatching one mounted 
 gaucho after the other to help to bring up the things 
 — did the honours with such imperturbable tact 
 and grace as to strike even judges of men and 
 manners like Prince Louis and Lord Charles Scott. 
 But my very good friend Shennan is as truly a 
 prince of good fellows as he was in my day the 
 most successful of estancieros, and the best all-round 
 sportsman in the River Plate. 
 
 The three days' stay of the Princes at Negrete 
 went off admirably, and is duly chronicled at length 
 in the interesting account which afterwards appeared 
 
 1 Camp, from the Spanish Campo, is the somewhat barbarous expres- 
 sion used by the Buenos Ayres English for country and country life.
 
 ESTANCIA NEGRETE 221 
 
 of the cruise of the Bacchai > . l I will only men- 
 tion a rodeOj where 30CO head of cattle were driven 
 in from all parts of the estancia by Sherman's 
 mounted men into one great enclosure — a reallv 
 splendid and exciting spectacle, during which young 
 Wemvss had a rather singular accident. I lis horse 
 fell with him, and he at once picked himself up. 
 apparently quite unhurt. It soon appeared, how- 
 r, thai he had a Blight concussion of the brain, 
 for he began talking the most arrant nonsense, and 
 - for a time entirely unconscious of what had 
 urred to him. Our whole party got back to 
 Kelgrano on the evening of the 4th, in time for 
 a great ball given by the British residents at the 
 theatre — nominally for the Admiral and officers of 
 the squadron, but in reality, of course, for the young 
 Trinces, who, to their great contusion, were greeted 
 on entering the box reserved for them with the 
 National Anthem, which made them remark to me, 
 in some distress: "Why do they do that ! We are 
 not the Queen." The ball, I am bound to add. 
 
 quite beautiful, and did the greatest credit to 
 
 the committee who made the arrangements for it. 
 
 The Royal visit — a mosl grateful break in the 
 wearisome monotony of the Buenos Ayres summer 
 — came to an end the next day, and I saw my guests 
 off at the Catalinae Mule, where they embarked on 
 their return to the squadron. The Princes had both 
 
 '•'I'll.- < ,1 II. M I Marmillim 
 
 I
 
 222 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 been so thoroughly nice and considerate throughout 
 — never giving the slightest trouble, and being so 
 cheery and easily amused — that their visit left rne 
 none but the pleasantest recollections, saddened 
 since, as regards Prince Eddie, with his amiable, 
 gentle ways, and somewhat shy, reserved manner, 
 by the thought of his early death little more than 
 ten years from that time. Of Prince George I was 
 to see a good deal more later on in the Mediter- 
 ranean. In his middy days his dash and spirits, his 
 thoughtfulness for others, and frank, simple manner, 
 made him the most winning boy imaginable. On 
 parting he thanked me in the nicest way possible 
 for having looked so well after him and his brother, 
 and my quintet, when I got back to it, seemed to me 
 dreary and empty indeed without the presence of 
 these bright sailor lads, of whom one remains the 
 future hope of England. 
 
 I have but little more to tell of my stay at 
 Buenos Ayres, for the first days of March brought 
 me a most welcome telegram from Lord Granville 
 announcing my transfer to Stockholm. Before 
 leaving, however, I paid my friend Shennan two 
 more visits at Negrete, meeting there my worthy 
 Brazilian colleague, Baron de Gondim, with his 
 family, and one of the Woodgate young ladies. To 
 me there was a peculiar, not-to-be-forgotten charm in 
 life at this hospitable place, a restful oasis of shade 
 and verdure in the boundless, treeless Pampa, which 
 was now parched and baked brown by the fierce
 
 THE AMELOTS 223 
 
 summer heat. The wonderful wild-fowl shooting in 
 the lagunas, or shallow marshes, the early gallop 
 before breakfast in the clear, dry morning air, in 
 company with I iondim's pleasing little daughter, 
 and bright, madcap Adela Woodgate, and the long 
 evening drive to some neighbouring estancia, still 
 vividly live in my recollection. But 1 have so 
 amply recorded elsewhere my impressions of the 
 strangely fascinating Argentine prairies — as grand 
 and imposing in their expanse and their constantly 
 varying aspects as the ocean solitudes to which 
 they have been so often compared — that 1 will 
 linger no more on the subject. 
 
 Impatient though I was to get home again, and 
 correspondingly desirous as I am to have done with 
 the subject of Buenos Ayres in these pages, I feel, 
 nevertheless, that I owe a few valedictory words to 
 some of mv colleagues there. To the above-men- 
 
 ■ 
 
 tioned Brazilian Minister and his amiable, half- 
 English wife 1 was indebted for more than ordinary 
 kindness. Shortly before I left, too, the French 
 Minister, my old colleague Amelot de Chaillou — 
 whom J had scarcely met since our memorable tour 
 in the Ionian Islands with the young King ( leorge in 
 1864 — returned from leave of absence with his wife, 
 whose acquaintance, as Mile. Rosalie du Ballay, I 
 had first made in almost equally old days at Berne. 
 
 It was under their roof, indeed, that I spent my last 
 days in Argentina, alter breaking up my establish- 
 ment at Belgrano, and of this, in many ways brilliant,
 
 224 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 couple I may recount here what I imagine to be a 
 unique experience. Countess Amelot was, for a 
 Frenchwoman, unusually keen about sport, and ac- 
 companied her husband in his many travels and 
 shooting expeditions all over Argentina and Para- 
 guay. She was herself a capital shot, and, with 
 other game that fell to her rifle, was credited with 
 an American tiger, or jaguar. In her journeyings 
 in the Pampa she had become interested in the 
 Indian tribes that were then being hunted down by 
 Roca and his troopers. It happened that among 
 the prisoners taken at the break-up of one of 
 the Indian encampments, and conveyed to Buenos 
 Ayres, there was a little girl of about six years 
 old, the child of some cacique who had either 
 been killed or had vanished into the Patagonian 
 desert. This poor little waif was brought to Madame 
 Amelot by an Argentine officer of her acquaintance, 
 and she, having no children of her own, offered to 
 take it in, and, getting much attached to the child, 
 ended by formally adopting it and giving it the best 
 of European educations. A good many years after- 
 wards she came through Vienna with this Princess 
 of the Pampas, now a grown-up and very accom- 
 plished and intelligent young lady, speaking French, 
 of course, perfectly, and German and English very 
 well. With her remarkably fine figure, dusky hair, 
 smooth copper-coloured skin, and supple, almost 
 feline, grace, the adopted daughter of the Amelots 
 made a great sensation at a party at our house. Not
 
 A PRINCESS OF THE PAMPAS 225 
 
 verv long afterwards she was married to a country 
 neighbour of the Amelots in Normandy. Thus 
 what seemed at first a somewhat hazardous experi- 
 ment has so far proved highly successful. I must 
 also mention another colleague, namely the German 
 Minister Kesident, Doctor von Ilolleben. I did not 
 see very much of him, but remember him well as an 
 agreeable, much-travelled man of pleasant manners. 
 Ilerr von Holleben's name has quite recently been 
 prominently before the world in connection with the 
 Venezuelan complications. 
 
 In the twenty-two years that have elapsed since I 
 bade farewell to Argentina, that country has advanced 
 continuously in the path of progress, and is now 
 once more under the firm guidance of Roca, who, 
 next to Juarez in Mexico, is probably the most 
 capable Spanish- American ruler in the Western 
 hemisphere. \\ hat Argentina still suffers from, 
 however, is the bane of a constitution, almost 
 exactly copied from that of the North American 
 Union, which confers on backward, imperfectly- 
 developed provinces, such as Rioja or Corrientes, 
 State rights similar to those enjoyed by great 
 cultured communities like Massachusetts or Illinois. 
 This in reality sham federal system imposes on a 
 relatively small population the burden of fourteen 
 separate provincial governments, composed of an 
 
 executive, a legislature, a judicature, and all 
 the other branches of au independent adminis- 
 tration The taxable power of the country is thus 
 
 tried to the utmost by threefold contributions to
 
 226 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the national, provincial, and municipal treasuries. 
 According to a calculation made thirty years ago, 
 these accumulated charges amounted to nearly 
 £8 sterling per head of the population in the pro- 
 vince of Buenos Ayres, or almost double the same 
 charge per head of the population of France. The 
 material resources of the country are fortunately 
 immense — in fact, practically inexhaustible — and 
 under a reasonably provident administration the 
 financial prospects of the Republic need not cause 
 much apprehension. 
 
 In one important respect, however, the clumsy 
 and costly federal organisation, even though the 
 powers of the provincial governments have been 
 considerably curtailed, has more particularly baneful 
 results by conducing to the regrettable insecurity 
 of life and property in the remoter districts of the 
 country. The jealously guarded sovereign rights 
 of those governments unfortunately stand in the 
 way of effectual intervention on the part of the 
 Central National Power. The atrocious murder, 
 just before I left the country, of some Scotch sheep- 
 farmers in the province of Corrientes, and a series 
 of similar crimes, of which Italian subjects in that pro- 
 vince and in adjoining Entre Rios were the victims, 1 
 
 1 The most scandalous feature of a great number of these 
 crimes was their being traceable to persons in the employ of the 
 provincial government, from common policemen up to Commis- 
 saries of Police, and even Justices of the Peace. In September 
 1880, twelve persons, comprising the entire family, down to infants, 
 of a well-to-do Italian shopkeeper of the name of Muti, together 
 with the servants and two guests staying in the house, were mas- 
 sacred by the Juez de Paz (Juge de Paix) of Curuzu Cuatia and 
 his two sons.
 
 HOME ONCE MORE 227 
 
 afforded striking instances of the powerlessness of 
 the central government at that time to bring criminals 
 to justice. The circumstances attending the recent 
 murder of Mr. Barnett 1 only too clearly show that 
 even at the present day that Government is unable 
 to cope successfully with the evil. None the less, 
 Argentina remains a land of infinite resource and 
 promise, and, whatever the flaws in its organisation 
 and administration, is assured of a great and pros- 
 perous future. 
 
 I left Monte Video on the 4th of May in the 
 Britannic of the Pacific Line, and, landing at 
 Pauillac, passed two days with my sister at Biarritz, 
 whence I went straight on to London. I found 
 in v three boys all at school at llawtrey's, where 
 the two younger ones had joined their elder brother. 
 Of the kindness that had been shown to them 
 during my absence 1 cannot speak too gratefully- 
 After leaving Walmer they had been provided for 
 during the Christmas and Easter holidays by Lord 
 Rokeby at Hazlewood, by Lord Brownlow at Ash- 
 ridge, and by the kind Alwvne Comptons at the 
 Deanery at Worcester. My days of doubt and 
 despondency were now well over, and I could 
 look forward confidently to ;i happier home and 
 a brighter future than I had for some years ventured 
 to contemplate as within my reach. 
 
 1 In this c;ih«', uft'i ondlen oorreipondenoe with bhe Argentine 
 l Brnment, the murderer mtm ■entenosd to ten yew imprison- 
 ment.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 STOCKHOLM, 1881-1882 
 
 During the next few weeks in London I was busily 
 and pleasantly engaged in preparations for going 
 out to my new post, and with the arrangements for 
 my almost immediate marriage. I only left town 
 for the inside of a week on a visit to Alfred Caulfeild 
 (the brother-in-law of my fiancee) and his wife, Lady 
 Alan Churchill, at Roke Manor, their very nice 
 place, near Romsey. The lovely Hampshire country 
 was at its very best in the unusually perfect June 
 weather, and the splendour of the foliage and of 
 the rhododendrons, which flourish exceedingly in 
 the parks and chases round about these borders of 
 the New Forest, seemed to me beyond compare, 
 coming as I did straight from the dead and colour- 
 less level of the Argentine wolds. I remembered 
 the neighbourhood well from former days in the 
 Palmerston reign, and our party of four drove out 
 to Broadlands one afternoon, and went all over the 
 empty rooms which once upon a time had re-echoed 
 the old statesman's cheery voice and laughter. 
 
 We were married quite quietly on the 28th of 
 July at our parish church of Holy Trinity, Sloane 
 
 Street ; only my wife's nearest relations, with the 
 
 228
 
 NORTHWARD BOUND 229 
 
 Dowager Lady Lonsdale and her daughters being 
 present, and Lord Crofton acting as my best man. 
 After luncheon in Ashley Gardens with my father- 
 in-law, Mr. Crampton, we started for a short tour 
 in North Wales, where T had never been before, 
 first spending three days in that most picturesque 
 of old English towns, Chester. Here, in wandering 
 about the ancient Rows, we picked up a few bits 
 of good old furniture, which afterwards decorated 
 our various diplomatic homes, the best of them — a 
 large and remarkably handsome Chippendale cabinet 
 — remaining to this day an ornament of the Embassy 
 1 1 use at Vienna, being too large for the modest 
 home of a retired diplomatist. From Chester we 
 went to Bangor, and thence to Bettws-y-Coed, end- 
 ing our delightful tour by a two days' visit to the 
 Dean and Lady Alwyne Compton at Worcester. 
 
 I had kissed hands at Windsor on the 15th of 
 July — this time not so entirely in dumb show as on 
 the two previous occasions — the Queen being pleased 
 to charge me with messages for the King and Queen 
 of Sweden. Our preparations being eompleted, we 
 went down to Hull on the 19th of August, and 
 embarked in the 8.8. Orlando of the Wilson line, for 
 Gottenburg. The whole of our combined schoolboy 
 contingent from Aldin I louse, now four in number, 
 went with us for their holidays, so that, with 
 servants, we made up quite b large number and 
 fully taxed the accommodation of the ship. As far 
 ai I can recollect, the North Sea treated us fairly
 
 230 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 well, and we were so happy a party, beginning 
 with H.M. Minister, that, in looking back upon it, 
 our invasion of Sweden in force appears to me more 
 in the light of a summer picnic than of the official 
 journey of a diplomatic functionary proceeding to 
 his post across the choppy waters. How well I 
 remember the first aspect of the bright, clean 
 Swedish Liverpool ; the early breakfast at the Hotel 
 Christiania after landing with our crowd of hungry 
 schoolboys ; and the check we met with at the 
 railway station, when the officials, quite regardless 
 of the representations of John Duff — most amiable 
 and serviceable of Consuls, who was looking after 
 us as in duty bound — somewhat rudely declined 
 to reserve a compartment for us, the only bit of 
 incivility I can recollect being shown to me during 
 the whole of my residence in kindly, hospitable 
 Sweden. This little difficulty made us at once 
 realise the desirableness of acquiring some know- 
 ledge of a language which, by reason of its apparently 
 close affinity to both English and German, at first 
 sounds familiar and easy, but nevertheless quite non- 
 plusses the unfortunate stranger. We both of us, 
 my wife and I, speedily took to wrestling with and 
 made some progress in it, with the help of a poor 
 university teacher of the name of Kjellberg, for 
 whom, through the personal kindness of King Oscar, 
 I was able afterwards to obtain a small pension. 
 
 The fourteen hours by rail, right across the 
 country, which it then took to reach Stockholm from
 
 SWEDISH SCKXKKV 231 
 
 Gottenburg, afforded the new-comer a perfect epi- 
 tome of Swedish Bcenery. Without ever being grand 
 or exceptionally striking, that scenery lias the peculiar 
 charm of a paysage intime, and grows upon one 
 more and more even though it be lacking in variety. 
 As you speed along in the well-appointed, never- 
 hurrying train, the same attractive picture recurs at 
 intervals. As the principal feature of the prospect, 
 a good-sized lake, framed in by great sombre 
 patches of fir and pine, mingled with the lighter 
 tints of beech and oak, and broken at intervals 
 b\ grey lichen-covered rocks ; groups of houses 
 of chalet-like build scattered along its margin, and 
 boat-houses and bathing-huts climbing down into 
 the cool, dark water, with here and there the landing- 
 st;iL r <' of the small local steamer ; now and then a 
 modest church and one or two more imposing white- 
 washed buildings — presumably a school or a post- 
 office — and, stretching away in the distance, green 
 meadows, dotted with small cottages and cow-sheds, 
 all painted a rich brownish red. Almost such a 
 simple picture, in its crude tints of green and red 
 and blue, as an intelligent child might paint for 
 itself; but the whole tinged with a subdued sadness 
 b\ the cold, pale sky, the northern light, the sombre 
 woods, and the scattered tenements Buggestive of a 
 sp;irs.' population spread over the poor soil of count- 
 less acres which, as the first look :it the map tells 
 
 "In-, extend we]] J I J 1 • » the Arctic ciplr. Or, to put 
 
 it another way, imagine but little mine than the
 
 232 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 number of inhabitants of London proper 1 turned 
 out to settle in a region reaching nearly a thousand 
 miles from Malmo to Haparanda, and covering an 
 area of about 1 70,000 English square miles. 
 
 Nowhere on the long stretch across the country, 
 from sea to sea, does the line pass through any 
 towns of importance. There is, nevertheless, a 
 considerable amount of traffic, and we stopped 
 at a good many small stations before reaching, 
 after midday, the junction at Hallsberg, where 
 a longish halt took place for lunch. Here we 
 realised for the first time the admirable arrange- 
 ments made in this country for the famished 
 traveller. The tables in the large dining-room of 
 the station were spread with an extraordinary variety 
 of food of all kinds and of excellent quality, both 
 hot and cold — in fact, an amply abundant menu 
 for a big dinner, the payment of 1^ kronor, or 
 is. 8d., entitling one to dispose of as much of 
 the viands displayed as one's digestive powers and 
 the company's time-tables permitted. It seemed 
 a wasteful system, but was princely in its liberality. 
 A distinctive feature of the railway buffets, as well 
 as of the suppers at the private parties at Stock- 
 holm, by the way, is the delicious milk handed 
 round in glasses with the other refreshments. Not 
 to dwell too long, however, on the subject, I may 
 say at once that the food in Swedish houses is, as a 
 
 1 The last general census taken (that of 1898) put the population of 
 Sweden at just over five millions.
 
 ARRIVAL AT STOCKHOLM 253 
 
 rule, extremely good, and that some of the Swedish 
 \\ omen-cooks are perfect cordons blew. 
 
 Quite late in the evening, when the intermin- 
 able summer daylight was at last fading out of the 
 sky, we passed through a wilder region of fir and 
 moorland, strewn here and there with great moss- 
 grown boulders, and soon reached the immediate 
 outskirts of the capital, and then crossing the long 
 railway bridge that spans the very head of Lake 
 Malar and the Island of Riddarholm, found our- 
 selves at the central terminus in Tcgelbacken. 
 Here we were met and taken to the Hotel Rvdben* 
 on the Large square known as the Gustaf Adolf 
 Torg, the centre of which is decorated by a very 
 mediocre equestrian statue of the Lion of the North. 
 W e liked our quarters at the Hotel Rydberg well 
 enough, old-fashioned though they were in some 
 respects, with very large scantily-furnished rooms, 
 where the beds were placed in deep alcoves screened 
 off by curtains, as in ancient country inns in France. 
 The big massive building, with its handsome J'/rudr 
 on the square, had no doubt known more dignified 
 fortunes in the old turbulent days of the strife 
 between "Hats and Caps." 1 
 
 The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Baron Hochs- 
 child, whom I of course at once soughl out, happened 
 to ho an old acquaintance. I had frequently met 
 
 1 The nam a to the contending Russian and French factions 
 
 m tl Mmm, w! ension di turbed the country for 
 
 .tit the middle <>f ili«- eighteenth cent iry.
 
 234 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 him in the early 'sixties in London, where he was 
 Secretary to the Swedish Legation, and we had 
 both been habitues of the Persigny salon at Albert 
 Gate. Hochschild, who had trod the paths of 
 diplomacy for a good many years, was a nineteenth 
 century revival of the Fvanpais du Nord, on the 
 pattern of the courtiers of that brilliant Wasa who, 
 for a short period, played so prominent a part in 
 Swedish and European history until foully murdered 
 in the old Opera Llouse that stood at the corner 
 of the square we looked over from our windows. 
 A very pleasant man Hochschild, witty and accom- 
 plished, and a good musician and linguist, with 
 a strong vein of sarcasm. We were soon on 
 excellent terms with him and his wife, a Comtesse 
 Piper, a thoroughly warm-hearted woman and 
 staunch friend as well as tres grande dame, who 
 did the honours of the Hdtel des Affaires Etrangeres 
 with much dignity and hospitality, although at 
 times sadly handicapped by the severe neuralgic 
 headaches to which she was a martyr. Hochschild 
 I think it was who told me of a villa, belonging 
 to an artist, to be let in the Djurgarden, just 
 outside the town, which — the weather being still 
 wonderfully fine — I might with advantage hire for 
 a few weeks before settling down for the winter. 
 
 The Stockholmers are justly proud of their 
 Djurgarden, which for size and natural beauty 
 far surpasses all other public parks adjoining 
 European capitals. Its circumference is said to be
 
 DJURGARDEN 255 
 
 about twenty miles, and the broken, undulating 
 ground, relieved here and there by bright inlets 
 from the sea; its splendid timber, growing so thick 
 in plates as to give it the character of a primeval 
 forest, with lovely intervening glades, and great 
 ragged masses of rock in the heart of dense planta- 
 tions of trees, make it an absolutely unique 
 pleasure-ground. "When it is considered that Stock- 
 holm and Petersburg are situated almost exactly 
 in the same latitude, the wonderful growth of the 
 forest trees — the old oaks especially being remark- 
 able for their size and vigour — and the general 
 luxuriance of the vegetation are very striking as 
 compared with the low, stunted woods of pine 
 and birch that line the shores of the Gulf of 
 1 inland, and make so sombre a background to the 
 great Russian metropolis. In other respects, too, 
 the contrast between the two capitals is very great, 
 for though the cold of Stockholm in winter is 
 occasionally severe, there is not in it the same icy 
 penetrating sting as at Petersburg. Stockholm, in 
 fact, sheltered by the Scandinavian range that 
 divides Sweden from Norway, can boast of a climate 
 ntiallv superior to that of the city of the Ingrian 
 swamp, which Lfl OpeD all round to frozen blasts 
 from Antic or Siberian wastes and solitudes. We 
 
 spent five delightful weeks m the rough and un- 
 pretentious Villa Thorell, the redeeming feature 
 of which was a large studio, where our hoy quartet 
 
 made the evenings melodious with German and
 
 236 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Christy Minstrel part-songs, which they really sang 
 to perfection to the accompaniment of my third 
 boy George, who early developed great musical 
 talent. Their songs, I may truly say, faithfully 
 reflected the harmony of our now composite, but 
 thoroughly united, family circle. 
 
 I had my first audience of King Oscar on 
 September i. I had years before met his Majesty, 
 then Crown Prince in the lifetime of his brother 
 Charles XV., during one of my numerous visits 
 to Nice, when he on several occasions took part 
 with our set in excursions and junkets all over 
 that lovely neighbourhood. He was very thin and 
 slight then for his great height, and seemed rather 
 to have outgrown his strength. In middle age he 
 looked the picture of health, and every inch a king. 
 He received me most graciously, and was pleased 
 to show me unvarying favour and confidence during 
 my residence of three years and a half at his Court. 
 The King of Sweden was in those days, and pro- 
 bably still is — next to the exceptionally gifted and 
 many-sided German Emperor — the most talented 
 and accomplished of European monarchs. His con- 
 tributions to Swedish poetry and literature would 
 alone suffice to mark his place among the royal 
 authors whom it may be the task of some future 
 Walpole to delineate for posterity. He is above 
 all a born orator, and — in this again not unlike 
 that other sovereign who now takes up so pro- 
 minent a position on the stage of the world — uses
 
 SWEDISH FREEMASONRY 237 
 
 this great gift with signal effect. It certainly was 
 a real pleasure to hear King Oscar speak on any 
 public occasion, so perfect was his delivery, and so 
 carefully modulated his voice. 
 
 Like his more immediate predecessors on the 
 Swedish throne, beginning with the last reigning 
 Wasa, Charles XIII., the King is a zealous Free- 
 mason and Gland Master of the Order in Sweden. 
 Freemasonry is widely spread in the Scandinavian 
 countries, and in Sweden certainly acts as a useful 
 bond between classes. Although myself but an 
 unprofitable member of the craft, the lodge to which 
 I belong, and which I joined in 1877 under the 
 auspices of the late Lord Donoughmore, was good 
 enough to raise me to the Royal Arch Degree on 
 my appointment to Stockholm, so as better to 
 qualify me for admission to the higher degrees in 
 Sweden. I was thus present at several interesting 
 Masonic ceremonies, which are carried out with 
 much solemnity and pomp in the extremely hand- 
 some and beautifully decorated Masonic Hall at 
 Stockholm, the King making a point of presiding 
 at them in person. It is on such occasions 
 a- the anniversary banquets (Hdgtidsdag) of the 
 Nordiska F&rsta, the principal Swedish Lodge, at 
 which several hundred masons of every rank in life 
 an- gathered together, that the genial monarch is 
 
 rhaps t<> be seen to tin- greatest advantage. At 
 
 : the brethren are brought up to him in large 
 batches, and he drinks the Swedish sin/ (toast)
 
 238 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 with them as they stand in a row behind his 
 chair, and then after some general and always 
 eloquent address, in which the economic and poli- 
 tical questions of the day are not left unnoticed, 
 the Royal Grand Master mixes familiarly with the 
 crowd and freely enters into conversation with many 
 of them, the consequence being that he is per- 
 sonally well known to a great number of the Stock- 
 holmers. In fact, Freemasonry in Sweden may be 
 said to be partially run by him on political lines, 
 and constitutes a cordial and very valuable link 
 between the sovereign and many of his subjects of 
 all classes and callings. 
 
 The eighth degree, which answers to that of 
 Knights Templar, was conferred upon me by the 
 King himself some time after my arrival, on the 
 same occasion as upon his Majesty's third son Prince 
 Charles, Duke of Westergotland, at that period the 
 handsomest youth of twenty it was possible to 
 imagine, and, both in features and stature, a perfect 
 presentment of some young god out of the Northern 
 Mythology. The ceremony was rendered most 
 impressive by beautiful music and the complete 
 religious ritual which forms part of it. Before being 
 admitted to this degree, candidates are supposed 
 to undergo the full night's vigil, or veillee des 
 armes, which in mediaeval times used to precede 
 admission to knighthood. Prince Charles and I 
 accordingly partly underwent this ordeal, being 
 locked up for a few hours in uniform and with
 
 YKIU.l'.i: DI-JS ARMES 239 
 
 our swords drawn, in one of the halls of the Masonic 
 Temple, but, by special dispensation, were released 
 about 2 a.m., when we were glad to go to the 
 supper thoughtfully provided for us. This inter- 
 esting old form, which, thanks to exceptional cir- 
 cumstances, 1 had the good fortune to go through 
 perfunctorily, had, at a by no means remote period, 
 to be undergone in the ancient church of the 
 Riddarholm — the St. Denis or Westminster Abbey 
 of Sweden — where are laid to rest the hones of 
 the mighty heroes who, for the space of rather more 
 than a century, made the national history such a 
 marvellous record of military glory. A solitary 
 night's watch among these royal tombs, over which 
 droop the tattered Danish, Polish, Herman or 
 Russian' banners taken by the warrior kings, must 
 have been a somewhat trying experience for the 
 postulants to high masonic honour^. 
 
 The fine old Riddarholm Church is altogether 
 most interesting, although unfortunately a good deal 
 disfigured by the modern spire of cast-iron tracery 
 that has replaced the ancient one destroyed in 1835 
 by lightning. Here in the Bemadotte Chapel lie 
 
 the remains of the last' and most popular King 
 Charles XV., whose memory 18 cherished to this day, 
 and on whose tomb flow ers arc said to be secretly laid 
 
 at each recurring anniversary of his death (Septem- 
 ber 18, 1872) }>v Mane loving but unknown hand. 
 During my sojourn in Sweden very interesting addi- 
 tions were made t<> the illust nous company of Wasas
 
 240 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 who slumber in the church in what is known as 
 the Gustavian Chapel, round the central monument 
 of the great Gustavus Adolphus. At the instance, 
 it was said, of the Queen of Saxony, 1 private pour- 
 parlers had been carried on for some time with the 
 Swedish Court and Government for the translation 
 to the resting-place of their ancestors of the re- 
 mains of her Majesty's grandfather, father, and 
 brother : the dethroned King Gustavus IV. ; his son 
 Prince Wasa — whom I remember perfectly well as 
 an amiable and popular general in the Austrian 
 service during my first stay at Vienna — and his 
 grandson who died as a child. The Government, 
 it was further said, were at first divided as to the 
 expediency of acceding to this request ; but the 
 King, with his generous, imaginative temperament, 
 favoured the scheme, and the necessary preliminary 
 steps were taken for the transfer of the ashes from 
 their place of interment at Oldenburg to Stockholm. 
 It was very reasonably thought advisable to give 
 no special eclat to the affair, and to treat it as a 
 private matter only concerning the royal family. 
 No doubt with that view, the coffins were shipped 
 on board one of the large German steamers habitu- 
 ally trading between Liibeck and the Swedish 
 capital, where they were landed at a very early 
 hour and quietly taken to the Riddarholm Church ; 
 the Crown Prince, with the Governor-General of 
 Stockholm, Baron Ugglas, and other dignitaries, 
 
 1 Queen Carola, Princess of Wasa, now the widow of King Albert 
 of Saxony.
 
 THE LAST WASAS 241 
 
 all in plain morning clothes, being in readiness 
 there to receive them. Nothing could be more 
 suitable and dignified than these arrangements. 
 Unfortunately, however, certain ill-disposed news- 
 papers somehow got hold of the fact that the mortal 
 relics of the exiled monarch and his descendants 
 had, by an unlucky mischance, made the voyage, 
 with other miscellaneous cargo, in company with a 
 performing elephant destined for a circus then 
 giving representations in the Djurgarden. There 
 seemed a cruel crowning touch of irony about the 
 circumstances attending this last removal of the 
 unfortunate Wasa — in reality, by the way, a IIol- 
 stein-Gottorp. 1 He had already been buried three 
 times before: at St. Gall in Switzerland, where he 
 died in 1S37, after many restless wanderings, under 
 the name of Colonel Gustafson ; then on his son's 
 estates in Moravia ; and subsequently in the church 
 of St. Hedwig at Oldenburg. A curious fact in 
 connection with his final interment was that in 
 the Gnstavian vault into which he was lowered, 
 there was found only just enough space to receive 
 the three additional royal coffins. 
 
 I happened to reach my Dew and delightful 
 post at a season of exceptional rejoicing. The 
 
 marriage of the Crown Prince with Princess Vic- 
 toria of Baden had taken place at Carlsruhe on the 
 
 20th of September, and great preparations were 
 
 ■ the line, K 1 n^* Adolf Frederick, wa descended 
 from the Waaaa through hia great-grandmother, a daughter of Cha 
 
 IX. :■ u.
 
 242 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 made for the reception of the young couple. On 
 the ist of October their entry into Stockholm took 
 place in great state. We had now left our villa and re- 
 turned to the Rydberg Hotel, where from our rooms, 
 to which we had asked several colleagues, together 
 with Lady Garvagh and Mrs. Charles Cadogan, we 
 had a perfect view of the royal procession. It was 
 indeed a remarkably pretty sight. The gay string 
 of handsome Court carriages, with its brilliant 
 military escort, debouched on the big, closely- 
 packed square, and, passing through cheering 
 crowds over the long Norrbro bridge, entered the 
 great portal of the palace by the inclined plane 
 that leads up the Lejonbacken, or hill of lions, to 
 the main entrance of one of the most admirably 
 placed and imposing of royal residences. The 
 pageant was favoured by splendid weather, and the 
 Stockholmers, who are reputed to be rather unde- 
 monstrative, showed unusual enthusiasm, notwith- 
 standing the fact that the date chosen for the 
 royal entry was said to be very unpopular with 
 these orderly Northerners, as interfering with their 
 long-standing custom of changing their quarters 
 [fiyttning, as it is called) on the ist of October. 
 At night the whole town was splendidly illu- 
 minated, and although the illuminations merely 
 consisted of the old device of placing rows of 
 lighted candles in every available window, I cannot 
 remember ever seeing anything more strikingly 
 effective before or since, so universally was this
 
 FAERY LIGHTS 243 
 
 simple scheme carried out. We had tickets for 
 the palace garden, which overlooks the wide channel 
 dividing the principal island, called Staden, on which 
 the great pile itself stands, from the hulk of the 
 city on the mainland with its long rows of houses. 
 The perfect hlaze of lights that faced us, reflected in 
 the glittering mirror of the Baltic ; the beautiful 
 outlining of the numerous islands and inlets, and of 
 the shores of Lake Malar with festoons of fairy 
 lights again multiplied by reflection ; and the flit- 
 ting to and fro on the broad waters of a number of 
 small steam launches — the gondolas of this " Venice 
 of the North" — profusely decorated with coloured 
 lanterns, altogether made up a scene of truly magi- 
 cal beauty. To the fair princess, whose singularly 
 winsome manner and graceful figure had at once con- 
 quered all hearts, her new northern home must 
 that evening have seemed little short of fairyland. 
 
 The palace itself — designed with consummate 
 taste by the father of Count Tessin, the statesman 
 tutor of young Gustavus III. — is a noble building of 
 vast dimensions, reared on a massive granite base, and 
 bearing a somewhat severe and gloomy aspect. \N e 
 entered it the first time 00 one of our early 
 morning walks, and when, passing under the front 
 portal, I found myself in tin* great central quad- 
 rangle, a weird story I had heard in my boyhood 
 
 suddenly recurred mosl vividly to in\ memory. Mj 
 
 father's sisters had known at the Congress of Vienna 
 
 I wunt Ldwenhjelm, who had bees one of t he great
 
 244 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 officers of the household of King Gustavus IV. in 
 the opening years of the century. One night, so the 
 Count had told them, he was present at the royal 
 supper-table in the palace, and in virtue of his high 
 rank at Court was seated next to the young King. 
 On the other side of the table, facing the King, was 
 the Queen, and on her right hand a prince of the 
 house of Baden who had been on a visit to the 
 Swedish Court, but was to leave very early the next 
 morning on his return to Germany. Suddenly, 
 half-way through the supper, the King let drop 
 his knife and fork, and, turning to Lowenhjelm, 
 said, with evident signs of disturbance, " Look ! 
 don't you see ? " at the same time gazing anxiously 
 across the table. On Lowenhjelm, who was of 
 course taken aback, venturing to inquire to what 
 his Majesty referred, Gustavus addressed the same 
 question to his other neighbour — likewise a high 
 Court official — and, receiving from him a similar 
 reply, closed the incident by curtly saying to the 
 puzzled courtiers, " (Jest bien ! " 
 
 There was a short cercle after supper, during which 
 the German prince took a final leave of his royal 
 hosts, the King then retiring to his private apart- 
 ments, whither, in accordance with the etiquette of 
 the period, he was preceded by Lowenhjelm and his 
 colleague bearing lighted candelabra. Instead, how- 
 ever, of being as usual dismissed at the threshold, 
 they were detained by the King and told to come 
 in, as he wished to explain to them the cause of
 
 A ROYAL WRAITH 245 
 
 the perturbation he had allowed to appear at Bupper. 
 ''When 1 asked you both," Gustavus said to them, 
 "whether you saw anything, I had myself just 
 distinctly seen the double, or wraith, of the Prince 
 of Baden enter the room, and, passing round the 
 table, place itself behind that prince's chair, where 
 it quickly faded away and vanished." "You know," 
 added the King, " the terrible import attached in 
 our country to such apparitions, and having given 
 von the key to what you may well have thought 
 unaccountable conduct on my part, 1 must now 
 request you to keep strictly to yourselves what T 
 have imparted to you." The following evening and 
 at the same hour, concluded Count Lowenhjelm, 
 while the Court was seated as usual at supper, the 
 clatter of horse's hoofs was heard in the palace 
 quadrangle, and a courier was speedily announced, 
 who brought tidings of a disastrous carriage accident 
 in which the Prince of Baden had lost his life while 
 posting on his way south from the Swedish capital. 
 Standing in the vast, gloomy quadrangle, the <■<<</,;■ 
 in which I found myself bo exactly fitted this 
 Btranere. lugubrious vision of the exiled monarch that 
 I there and then related the story to my wife. 
 
 A series of official functions and entertainments 
 which took ]>la<-e on the occasion of the Koyal 
 
 marriage gave as ample opportunities of becoming 
 acquainted with the interior of the great Palace. 
 
 On Sunday there \\;' s a Bolemfl thanksgiving and 
 '/'■ //<<//// in the very handsomely decorated Chapel
 
 246 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Royal, with beautiful music, the choir at what 
 was then the Court of perhaps the most musical 
 sovereign in Europe being a highly trained one. 
 We were, I am afraid, chiefly struck by the unusual 
 length of the service and by the splendour of the 
 vestments of the Bishop, who officiated in his mitre, 
 and of the other assistant clergy, being little pre- 
 pared for such ecclesiastical pomp in a Lutheran 
 country. 
 
 A state ball was given the next day. The 
 monumental staircase leading to the great apart- 
 ments was lined by the palace guard, or Trabanten, 
 dressed in blue and buff, with high boots, leather 
 breeches, and queer old cocked-hats — the whole 
 being an exact copy of the uniforms of the troopers 
 who, with the youthful " madman of the North," 
 rode down and shattered the enemy at Narva, 
 Clissow, Holovzin, and many another desperate 
 encounter. The ball itself took place in the very 
 fine room known as the Hvita Hafvet, or White 
 Sea, from its size and its walls of polished white 
 stucco, relieved by profuse gilding and a number 
 of mirrors. Lighted up by countless wax candles in 
 immense chandeliers — in those pre-electricity days — 
 and crowded with the flower of the Swedish aris- 
 tocracy, the effect of the ballroom was to a degree 
 brilliant. At supper the King called for a toast in 
 honour of his daughter-in-law, gracefully alluding in 
 his speech to her descent from the ancient house
 
 UN BALLO IN MASCEERA 24; 
 
 of Wasa, 1 and thereby skilfully striking a chord 
 -which readily vibrates in the patriotic Swedes, who 
 are much given to live in the past national glories. 
 
 There was a gala performance the following 
 evening at the Opera House — built by the murdered 
 Gustavus — which at that time was the oldest exist- 
 ing theatre in Kurope, but has since, I believe, been 
 pulled down and replaced by a new building. I 
 remember being taken there one morning and being 
 shown the very small narrow closet, or retiring- 
 room, behind the scenes, into which the wounded 
 King was carried, and the couch on which he lay 
 before he was removed to the palace. We then 
 descended the few steps by which, heedless of his 
 favourite Kssen's entreaties, the unfortunate man 
 went to his doom, the exact spot on the stage, 
 close to one of the wings, where he fell, being 
 pointed out to as. But this is in every way a sad 
 digression from that brilliant wedding gala night, 
 when the house was resplendent with uniforms and 
 ladies en grand \\8si me toilette, while no less an artist 
 than Christine Nilsson gave an admirable rendering 
 of the garden scene in " Faust." The round of 
 Court gaieties was finally closed by a state dinner, 
 followed by a small evening party, at which the 
 great Swedish Binger — then still very handsome and 
 
 1 The ' Irown Prini Lirectlyde cended from the Wa ib, being a 
 
 bter of iJu-uvu- IV., through that sovereign's daugh- 
 ter, th.- mothet "f the present ' ^ r,-m<] Duke "f Baden. 
 
 Tin- murder of Gustavui baa furnished 1 In- subject "i two opei 1 
 Ant- 11 le bal masque "and Verdi's "Ballo in Maechera.''
 
 2 4 8 KECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 attractive — sang quite enchantingly some of what 
 could well be called her own native peasant songs, 
 for it was a charming trait in her that on her 
 frequent visits to Sweden she never failed to go 
 down to her old village home in Smaland. 
 
 The appointments of the state banquet itself were 
 very regal and in perfect taste, and it was given in a 
 room the walls of which were decorated with price- 
 less Sevres china, the gift of Louis Seize to Gustavus 
 during that restless sovereign's celebrated tour in 
 Europe as Comte de Haga. But I have done with 
 this empty tale of Court festivities, about even the 
 most sumptuous of which there is always a certain 
 sameness. Of the many I have been present at in 
 my time, these Swedish marriage rejoicings appeared 
 to me exceptionally attractive ; more perhaps by their 
 old-world stamp than by the actual grandeur of 
 their surroundings, and most of all by the vivacious 
 and interesting personality of the gifted royal host. 
 
 We had now made up our minds to take 
 on the house which had been lived in by my 
 predecessor, Edward Erskine, at the lower end of 
 Drottninggatan (Queen Street), one of the principal 
 thoroughfares of the town, and we moved into it 
 early in November, just after a first violent snow- 
 storm had given us a foretaste of the coming winter. 
 The owner was Baron de Bonde, the head of one of 
 the former great feudal families, and at that time 
 Grand Chambellan of the Court, and he himself 
 occupied the further side of the rambling old build-
 
 SWEDISH B1UC-A-BRAC 249 
 
 ing, which was built round two large courtyards. 
 Our new quarters had some very serious defects, the 
 bedrooms being mostly > <■ enfilade without separate 
 exits, but they were numerous and easily housed our 
 large family even during the holidays, while the 
 reception rooms were very fairly good, and with 
 their gilded panellings and ceilings of the best 
 eighteenth-century period, were quite in the style 
 of a 'petit hdtel Louis Quinze. The old Italian 
 embroideries I have already spoken of came in 
 here most appropriately, being hung with great 
 effect on the walls of my wife's boudoir. 
 
 The arrangement and furnishing of our new 
 home gave us plenty to do. We spent many a 
 pleasant hour ransacking the queer old shops — half 
 pawnbrokers, half antiquaires — which abounded in 
 the more remote quarters of the town, and were of 
 a most primitive character, displaying at first sight 
 chiefly cast-off clothes and rows of ancient boots, 
 from behind which peeped out here and there some 
 genuine old cabinet or choice bit of bois <lore. 
 Among other things we picked up in our peram- 
 bulations was a handsome set of large gilt chairs, 
 bearing the stamp of the royal chateau of Drott- 
 ningholm and the cypher of Queen Louise Ulrica, 
 the gifted and accomplished Bister of Frederick the 
 (ireat, and mother of Gustavus III. The most 
 
 mating of these quaint places was in the distant 
 Southern district called Sodennalm, high upon the 
 
 Mosebacke Hill. The traveller is no* taken up to
 
 250 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 those heights by an hydraulic lift, but in my time 
 the approach to them was by a long series of 
 narrow steps, on a landing of which was the 
 entrance to a mean little house, where, up a dark 
 rickety staircase, an individual of the uncommon 
 appellation of Zerno was to be found — the funniest, 
 blear-eyed little wizard, clad in the greasiest of 
 dressing-gowns, and invariably sucking away at the 
 stump of a very black half-smoked cigar. This 
 queer old creature, who might have been any age, 
 was so systematically grumpy and monosyllabic 
 that he positively seemed to resent the visit of 
 customers. He was worth going to, nevertheless, 
 for he generally had, hidden away in the untidy 
 litter of his abode, some desirable bit of old furni- 
 ture, let alone the attraction of the marvellous view 
 one had from his front windows over the big, strag- 
 gling town opposite, with its islands and waterways, 
 and the vast plain beyond it to the north, encircled 
 by a fringe of dark forest. Sweden at the time I 
 speak of was still a promised land to the collector 
 and biic-a-brac hunter, the stores of ancient and 
 artistic objects amassed in the country — from the 
 huge loot of the Thirty Years' War down to the 
 extravagant days of Gustavus, bent on making his 
 capital the Paris of the North — being quite amazing. 
 At Stockholm we were exceptionally fortunate 
 in our colleagues. The German Minister, M. de 
 Pfuel, with whom I had served before at Petersburg, 
 was as friendly and sociable as he was ill-favoured,
 
 A GREAT GASTRONOME 251 
 
 which is saying not a little. He and I were on very 
 cordial terms throughout my stay in Sweden, where 
 he had made for himself an excellent position, both 
 politically and socially. M. Patendtre, the French 
 Minister — as good-looking as his (ierman colleague 
 was the reverse — was before long transferred to 
 China, and has since then achieved a considerable 
 reputation as ambassador both at Washington and 
 Madrid. His successor was Comte d'Aunay, who, 
 with his extremely pretty, sdduisante wife — a sister 
 of Mrs. Marion Crawford's — kept house charmingly 
 in a corner of a vast old mansion which had belonged 
 to the adventurous Count Axel Fersen — the paladin 
 of Marie Antoinette, 1 and afterwards Grand Marshal 
 of the kingdom — who was literally torn to pieces 
 by an infuriated mob on the square of the Rid- 
 darhus in June 18 10, the troops that should have 
 protected him looking on at the murder Varrae au 
 pied: — one of the ugliest pages in the wild days 
 of Swedish history which preceded the advent and 
 orderly rule of the Bemadottes. 
 
 The Russian Legation was presided over by old 
 M. OkounefY, who most conscientiously practised 
 the precept laid down by Sir Hamilton Seymour 
 that the first duty of a foreign representative N\as 
 
 to keep the best possible cook. Okouneff's 
 
 If. Paul Qaulot'i rery interesting book, M Un Ami de la 
 
 1 The reply giren by Sir Hamilton t.. 1 question put to him liy a 
 member <<( the House of Common Committee <>f Inquiry into tli<' 
 Diplomatic Sei to vrhat he con id< n ■! t<> be the first duty «'i one 
 
 of (I.M. Ministers abroad.
 
 252 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 hospitality was boundless and his cuisine quite 
 irreproachable. When not engaged in fostering, 
 as he did ably and successfully, the good relations 
 between his country and Sweden, much of his time 
 was taken up by correspondence about the choice 
 delicacies with which he kept his table supplied 
 from all directions. It was the favourite hobby of 
 a really charming man, and a costly one to boot, 
 for he made no secret of the rapacity of the great 
 artist who ministered to his appetite. One day, at 
 the expansive hour that follows upon a really perfect 
 repast, he confided to me that he had come almost 
 to a breach with his " Vatel," and this led to my 
 inquiring whether the man robbed him out of the 
 common. " Mon cher ! ''' he replied, with a sudden 
 fury quite foreign to his usual placidity, " c'est lepire 
 des voleurs ; non settlement je le deteste mais je le 
 meprise ! " There was a long tale of woe in this 
 outburst. 
 
 Before being appointed to his snug and ex- 
 tremely well-paid post at Stockholm, M. Okouneff 
 had served many years in the Russian Embassy 
 at Paris, and there had apparently acquired some 
 curious notions about English society. The first 
 time we dined with him, he very naively said to 
 my wife, whom he had taken in : " Cest singulier ! 
 Pour une Anglaise vous ne buvez pas de vin, et vous 
 navez pas le nez rouge ! " This prince of gourmets 
 died very suddenly, and was generally regretted, but 
 to his last day never had the courage to shake off the
 
 SOME COLLEAGUES 253 
 
 rascally tyrant of the kitchen who had played so 
 important a part in his life. Perhaps the most 
 curious trait about poor OkounefFs servitude was 
 that he himself hardly touched the marvellous 
 dishes for which he paid so heavily, being kept 
 by his doctor to the simple rojime of un bon 
 bifteck bien saignant — or a VAnglaise, as it is 
 termed abroad by the many who firmly believe in 
 our national predilection for underdone meat. 
 
 Taking the Stockholm Corps Diplomatique as it 
 were geographically, our Danish colleagues the De 
 Billes properly come next in order. They were great 
 friends of ours, but have since then made them- 
 selves so popular in this country, and are so well 
 known that it seems almost superfluous to refer to 
 them here. They were universally liked at Stock- 
 holm, and most hospitable in those distant days 
 when the very charming young lady who now so 
 brightens their home was still a baity. In our 
 Italian and Austrian colleagues, the Spinolas and 
 Pfusterschmids, too, we had a never-failing resource. 
 We were to meet the friendly Spinolas again and 
 much of them at The Hague, and as for the 
 kind and excellent Pfusterschmids, we several times 
 during our summer vacations at Vienna visited them 
 ;it Salzburg, where, after Long years spent in remote 
 Scandinavia, they have made themselves a cosy 
 
 n treat in that happy paradise of retired I. and EL 
 
 Travelling yet further West I come to the
 
 254 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Spanish legation, which calls for notice if only for 
 the beauty of the wife of my worthy colleague Cas- 
 tellanos, as unspoilt and bonne enfant as she was 
 lively and graceful, and who later on at Copenhagen 
 made a greater sensation even than in Sweden, and 
 enjoyed exceptional favour at the Danish Court. 
 
 Quite apart from the rest of our diplomatic 
 corporation was its doyen, or senior, the Portuguese 
 Minister, Vicomte de Sotomayor, who of the various 
 odd specimens that have come under my ken in my 
 long service was certainly the most grotesque. The 
 old gentleman had resided at Stockholm in his 
 official capacity for at least half a century ; appa- 
 rently forgotten by his Government, and even, it 
 was said, though erroneously, by its Treasury. 
 Hochschild, who had known him for years, was 
 unable to fix his age, but put it at anything between 
 eighty and ninety. He was a small shrivelled crea- 
 ture, with a skin like parchment, and wore a beau- 
 tiful snow-white wig, which, with ample whiskers 
 and bushy eyebrows to match, gave him the look of 
 one of those big heads one sees in a pantomime. 
 He was chiefly remarkable for the extravagance of 
 his get-up — rich satin stocks, velvet waistcoats and 
 frilled shirt-fronts — and the costly jewellery with 
 which he bedecked himself. The vain old fellow 
 was known to be desperately hard up, but to the 
 last — he was still to the fore when I left Sweden in 
 1885 — kept up the pose of a reckless reprobate. 
 One night at the Opera House — the curtain going
 
 STOCKHOLM GAIETIES 255 
 
 up with extra punctuality in an cutracte of the ballet 
 —he was caught in one of the side-scenes, and, to 
 effect his retreat, had to scuttle across the empty 
 stage amidst peals of laughter from a very full audi- 
 ence, including the Royal Family. Poor old Soto! 
 T hear him now in his queer Franco-Portuguese 
 baragouvn : " Oesi ujnl ! Ze souis rouine, maiszai 
 de bu n '" aux habits!" 
 
 The winter of 1881-82 — our first in Sweden — 
 passed away quickly and cheerily. The Swedes are 
 an essentially kindly, sociable people, and most 
 OCCU* Ulant to strangers. We went out a good deal 
 both in Swedish and diplomatic society, and soon 
 sufficiently settled down to return the civilities that 
 were shown us. 1 had engaged in the autumn a 
 Frenchman of the name of Maintenant — a son of 
 the head of the royal kitchen at the Tuileries in the 
 days of Louis Philippe who was an admirable cook 
 and ran even OkounefFs wonderful malt re queux 1 
 hard, but, unlike Okouneff, I parted with him, re- 
 gretfullv but unflinchingly, after a few months in- 
 effectual struggle to keep him within reasonable 
 bounds. We diucd with the Tlochschilds, the 
 Bondes, the Platens beautiful Comtesse Stephanie 
 Platen, 1 with the luxuriant wealth of hair which she 
 wore in BUch a wonderful thick plait down her back — 
 
 the Axel Wachtmeisters, and at other hospitable 
 
 1 MaUn <, ■ I French <a for mai ter cook. 
 
 v. reman G "' *on Wedel, Qerman Amba 
 
 sad"r ;it Vieni 1
 
 256 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Swedish houses. We also went to a number of 
 parties and balls, some of which were given in 
 honour of the Crown Princess. At these one could 
 not but be struck by the high average of good looks, 
 though perhaps not of absolute beauty, in the ladies ; 
 their dazzling complexions and pretty fair hair — " the 
 colour of ripe corn " — being most of all remarkable. 
 The Swedish maidens are indeed blondes comme les 
 ble's, while their partners of the Lifgard til hoist and 
 other crack corps were mostly tall, personable young 
 fellows and very capable, vigorous dancers. Alto- 
 gether there was plenty of simple fun and entrain 
 of the best kind at these entertainments, the one 
 trying circumstance about them, however, being the 
 high temperature, and consequent stuffiness, pro- 
 duced by too tightly-closed windows. As at Peters- 
 burg, one longed for a breath of fresh air, however 
 glacial it might be. 
 
 Before closing this record of Stockholm gaieties, 
 I cannot pass over one fete — quite a curiosity of its 
 kind — the so-called Amaranthen ball, which is given 
 every winter with a peculiar and interesting cere- 
 monial. The invitations to it are issued to foreigners 
 of distinction in the name of the Amaranther Orden, 
 a semi-serious order of chivalry instituted by Queen 
 Christina, the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, not 
 long after she first assumed power. This gala func- 
 tion took place in the fine assembly rooms of the old 
 Stockholm Exchange, the King and Royal Family 
 attending it, and uniform being de rigueur for the
 
 THE AMARANTHEN BALL 257 
 
 occasion. The quests who did not already belong 
 to the Order — including that evening the King's 
 vounger sons Prince Oscar and Prince Charles, the 
 Crown Princess, and a number of other ladies and 
 gentlemen — underwent a sort of initiation in a 
 separate room on their arrival. The secretary of the 
 Order, who received them, began by reading out the 
 names of the persons craving admission to it, and 
 then proceeded to the closed doors of the ballroom, 
 where he solemnly gave three knocks with a hammer 
 which were answered from within. A short parley 
 then ensued, followed by a pause, after which the 
 doors were thrown open and the candidates, or 
 pienter, entered in couples, hand in hand, and 
 in strict order of precedence, each lady being led by 
 the gentleman who presented her, and vice versd. 
 At the entrance they were met by the Grand- 
 Mistress of the Order (Countess Niels Koscn), 
 attended by two young ladies bearing long wands 
 decorated with amaranth favours, who headed the 
 procession up to a dais occupied by the (i rand- 
 Master (Count Platen) and other dignitaries. Here, 
 after three profound obeisances, the candidates were 
 invested, according to their rank and dignity, wit!; 
 gra/ndt c<>r</<>ns or lesser decorations of the colour 
 which gives its name to the Order. Lady Garvagh, 
 who was spending tie- winter at Stockholm, where 
 she wai of course greatly admired, was one of tho.se 
 
 decorated together with ourtelvi The ladies now 
 
 ranged themselves on one side of the room and the 
 
 B
 
 258 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 gentlemen opposite to them, and on the Grand- 
 Master muttering certain cabalistic words the can- 
 didates all raised their right hands to their lips, 
 blowing as it were a kiss, then laid them on their 
 hearts, and finally clapped both hands, taking their 
 time from the Grand-Master, who remained gravely 
 seated with his cocked hat on. The ball then took 
 the usual course of balls. 
 
 Though in great degree puerile, the ceremony 
 had a remarkably pretty effect, and was undoubtedly 
 interesting as a reminiscence of the brilliant and 
 frivolous court of the girl-Queen Christina, whose 
 strange and eccentric after-career contains such 
 sinister and mysterious passages. 
 
 The story told of the foundation of the Order, 
 which had a serious existence for a short period, is 
 not without historical interest. In the summer of 
 1653 our exiled King, Charles II., wishing to secure 
 the powerful support of Sweden, sent a confidential 
 emissary to Christina, charged, among other things, 
 to deliver the Garter to her cousin and declared heir, 
 Karl Gustaf, afterwards Charles X. The Queen, 
 having by this time come to an understanding with 
 Cromwell — whose envoy, Whitelocke, became one of 
 her chief intimates — would not allow her cousin to 
 accept the Order. The pretext she put forward was 
 that she objected to her subjects wearing foreign 
 decorations, and could not, as she put it, " brook a 
 foreign lord stamping his brand upon her sheep." 1 
 
 1 " Ty jag kan ej tala, att en frarnmande herre satter sitt marke pa 
 mina far.'' (Fryxell, " Berattelser ur Svenska Historien.")
 
 QUEEN CHRISTINA 259 
 
 She resolved, however, to found a fresh Order of her 
 own, of which she bestowed the first decoration, 
 set in precious stones, on Antonio Pimentelli, the 
 Spanish Envoy at her court, her partiality for whom 
 was one of the many scandals of her life. Two 
 inverted A's which figure on the cross of the Order 
 were said by the ill-natured to be the initial letter 
 of the favoured envoy's Christian name and that 
 of Amaranta, or "the ever-constant," 1 which lacka- 
 daisical appellation the fickle, fantastic sovereign 
 had been pleased to adopt, and had first assumed in 
 a great ballet in which she figured as Queen of the 
 Shepherdesses. This mythological f$te t where the 
 conquering Spaniard appeared as the god Mars, took 
 place on Twelfth Day, 1653, a date which is inscribed 
 on the cross of the Amaranther Orden. 
 
 During ray residence at Stockholm in the early 
 eighties the course of Swedish public affairs ran on 
 the whole pretty smoothly. The main interest of 
 the situation lay in the sister kingdom, where the 
 conflict which had arisen between the Crown and 
 the Norwegian Storthing, or Parliament, just then 
 reached an acute stage. But of this more anon. 
 On the 19th of January 1882 the Swedish Diet was 
 opened in full state In the King in the throne-room 
 <»!' the palace, a splendid apartment measuring nearly 
 150 feet by 50. In his regal robes and crown, with 
 
 his three stalwart sons Likewise robed and wearing 
 
 1 Amaranth i- tip- botanical name <A what i- commonly called • 
 iting" 1! -He.
 
 260 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 their princely coronets, the central royal group, 
 surrounded by the great officers of the household, 
 produced a very fine, picturesque effect. The speech 
 from the throne was delivered with much dignity, 
 and all the skill of a practised orator. On this 
 occasion the speech only foreshadowed certain im- 
 portant measures, then in course of preparation, for 
 the reform of taxation, and, in close connection with 
 these, the new military organisation which the 
 Government desired to introduce. Although these 
 measures could only be dealt with in subsequent 
 sessions, they already engrossed public attention. 
 
 The question of putting the military forces of 
 the country on a footing more in harmony with 
 modern ideas and requirements had, for many years 
 past, been taken into serious consideration by the 
 Government, and had been much discussed in the 
 public press. Among the more responsible and 
 intelligent classes an uneasy feeling had grown up 
 that, since the close of the great Napoleonic wars, 
 the kingdom had gradually lapsed into an almost 
 defenceless condition. As a matter of fact, the army 
 consisted only of a small force recruited by voluntary 
 enlistment — composed of a few picked regiments, 
 including the Guards quartered at Stockholm — 
 which was kept in a high state of efficiency, but 
 barely exceeded seven thousand men in all. Besides 
 this there was the ancient so-called Indelta army, 
 raised under a scheme resorted to some two hundred 
 years before in the Swedish provinces, as a safeguard
 
 THE INDELTA ARMY 261 
 
 ■gainst the forced levies by which the kingdom was 
 drained of its manhood in the incessant wars waged 
 by the martial and ambitious successors of Gustavus 
 "\\ asa. The Swedish territory had then been por- 
 tioned out into equal districts or rotor, each of 
 which corresponded to two estates entered at a 
 certain fixed income in the cadastral survey for 
 purposes of taxation. Each of these rota/r engaged 
 to furnish and find the pay of an able-bodied in- 
 fantry soldier, and to provide him with a torp or 
 small holding. The Indelta force, recruited from 
 the peasantry, and dispersed throughout the rural 
 districts, but having certain regimental centres, 
 amounted altogether to about 23,000 men. 1 Prac- 
 tically the Indelta private was a militiaman, per- 
 manently quartered on the land, who was called 
 out for a short period of training every year, and 
 after thirty years' service was entitled to a pension. 
 In addition to the above forces there was the 
 /" ptfl ring, or Landwehr, reckoned at some 80,000 
 men, of whom only 20,000 could be called out for 
 an annual training of fifteen days in time of peace. 
 
 The Government design was to suppress the 
 Indelta force, with its heavy charges bearing ex- 
 clusively on the land, and to substitute for its 
 clumsy and altogether antiquated machinery an 
 efficient organisation, resembling that of the great 
 
 1 According to Dr.Sidenblal tatUUqnede la Suede, w 
 
 published in 1876, there were ;tt that time -0,37'. mtar ami ^505 
 the l.'u: of property being charged with the main- 
 
 tenance of 1 caralry K>ldi< r with bia horn.- and full equipment
 
 262 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 continental armies, and based on the principle of 
 general obligatory military service. It was not un- 
 reasonable to assume that such a reform would 
 commend itself to a population the most part of 
 which was engaged in agriculture. The Swedish 
 people, however, are strongly wedded to old customs 
 and traditions, and the great body of lesser land- 
 owners and farmers directly interested in the pro- 
 posed change had in the last fifteen years acquired 
 a preponderating influence in public affairs. The 
 abolition which had taken place in 1866, under the 
 last King Charles XV., of the ancient Standers 
 Riksdag, representing the four orders of nobility, 
 clergy, burghers, and peasantry, and the introduction 
 of the two chamber system which obtains in most 
 constitutional countries had, as was predicted at 
 the time, the effect of making the Landtmanna, or 
 peasant party, paramount in the State, and, at the 
 period I refer to, had put them in a fair way to 
 establish a class despotism of a very marked 
 character. In the army question they had, by 
 means of their majority in the Diet, succeeded in 
 thwarting during sixteen years the different attempts 
 made to improve the national defences. On the 
 score of an unbroken peace of nearly three-quarters 
 of a century they refused to admit the possibility 
 of Sweden being ever again involved in hostilities. 
 At the same time, however, they were bent on 
 ridding themselves of the land taxes, and especially 
 of the impost on real property arising out of the
 
 IMPRACTICABLE PEASANTS 263 
 
 maintenance of the Indelta forces. Under these 
 circumstances the Government let it be clearly 
 understood that their proposals were essentially of 
 the nature of a compromise. " Enable us," they 
 said, " to place the national defences on a satisfac- 
 tory footing, and we will do our best to relieve the 
 land from the special load it has hitherto had to 
 bear." The peasants, somewhat ashamed of the 
 designation of "Nihilists of the National Defence," 
 given them by a former Prime Minister, Baron de 
 Geer, and tempted by the bait held out to them, in 
 the end came to terms with the Government, 1 how- 
 ever much they disliked their scheme of reorgani- 
 sation and perversely clung to the old provincial 
 levies. 
 
 The King personally attached the greatest value 
 to a final settlement of this much vexed question, 
 and his Prime Minister, Count Arvid Posse, a 
 Scanian landowner of ancient lineage, who had 
 been brought into office by the Landtmanna party, 
 seemed specially fitted for carrying the Government 
 measures through the Diet. King Oscar had come 
 to the throne in September 1872, when all Europe 
 was still under the impression of the amazing deeds 
 accomplished by the magnificent German organisu- 
 tion, and his Majesty was accused by the Swedish 
 
 1 To this it erentnally came after j.rot rn<ti<l discuaaiona in the 
 
 ■ extending over twenty The land taxes and [ndelta charges 
 
 ire being annua itted at a certain rate, and the new ition 
 
 will be completed in 1^13, bringing with it the final extinction <>f tl"' 
 
 Iii'li:lta ton
 
 I64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Eadicals of that day like Mankell and Hedlund of 
 marked German proclivities, and of having, in fact, 
 come to some secret understanding with Berlin for 
 common action in given eventualities. Among the 
 canards that were occasionally hatched in the late 
 M. de Blowitz's office in Paris was the statement 
 made in a letter of April 3, 1882, that a treaty had 
 long existed between Sweden and Germany whereby 
 the former country engaged, in case of a German breach 
 with Russia, to lend her fleet in exchange for the 
 restoration to her of Finland after a successful war. 
 The story was too ridiculous to be taken seriously, 
 but it none the less produced a certain sensation, 
 and diverted no one more than King Oscar, to whom 
 Baron Hochschild observed, when referring to it at an 
 audience of his Majesty, that it was really gratifying 
 to find that there were people who actually seemed 
 to believe in the existence of a Swedish fleet. 
 
 As regards the military and naval weakness of 
 Sweden at this period, it was amusing, too, to note 
 the divergent views of my worthy German and 
 Russian colleagues. They both professed a great 
 desire to see the question of national defence 
 speedily set at rest for the good of the Swedish 
 Monarchy. This, however, according to M. de 
 Pfuel, could only be achieved by means of a brand- 
 new scheme as nearly approaching the German as 
 local circumstances permitted, while, in the opinion 
 of M. Okouneff, the real wants of Sweden were fully 
 supplied by the venerable, semi-feudal system of the
 
 A FABLE OF LA FONTAINE 265 
 
 Indelta. The peasants, according to the Russian 
 Minister, were showing much practical good sense 
 and political understanding in this affair. They were 
 perfectly right in declining to waste money on use- 
 less military preparations, Sweden was too poor a 
 country to allure a foreign invader, and the seventy 
 yean of peace she had enjoyed Mere but an earnest 
 of a future of unbroken rest and security. Dans le 
 ordn ffiddes the excellent Okouneff took a 
 warm interest in a motion made about this time by 
 a group of Radicals in the Second Chamber for the 
 neutralisation of Sweden. He spoke of it in terms 
 of strong approval to Baron Hochschild and even to 
 the King. Hochschild, I remember, told me rather a 
 good story about this. The King, he said, had re- 
 ferred to the matter in conversation with him, and 
 had manifested some amusement at the Russian 
 Minister bein<>: so bitten with this notion of neutral- 
 ising Swedish territory. Whereupon the Minister 
 for Foreign Affairs told his Majesty that it re- 
 minded him of La Fontaine's fable in which the fox, 
 ing a cock perched upon a tree beyond his reach, 
 approaches him with the news that universal frater- 
 nity has been proclaimed, and entreats him to come 
 down to be embraced. To which the crafty bird — a 
 bird of much experience, interpolated Hochschild — 
 replies \>\ expressing his joy at this intelligence, 
 while pointing to two greyhounds rapidly approach- 
 ing who do doubt are messengers charged with the 
 
 same welcome tidings. The King had been so
 
 266 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 pleased with this notion that he had turned the 
 fable into Swedish verse, and caused it to be inserted 
 in one of the Stockholm papers, where it had at- 
 tracted a good deal of notice, though no one sus- 
 pected its authorship. 
 
 "Poor Okouneff, if he read it," added Hochs- 
 child in relating this to me, " can have had no idea 
 that he was the fox and I that old chanticleer ! "
 
 CHAPTEB XII 
 
 STOCKHOLM, 1SS2-1SS3 
 
 IN the cheerful and interesting surroundings I have 
 described above we had entered upon the year 18S2. 
 Early in the spring my wife's time was much taken 
 up by preparations for a bazaar in aid of the British 
 Church Fund of which she was patroness, and which 
 took place in March at the Assembly Rooms of the 
 Exchange, successfully rewarding the exertions of 
 those who had taken an active share in it. Among 
 these were our Consul, Robert Drummond-Hay (the 
 capable son of the distinguished Envoy in Morocco) 
 and his wife, and the extremely pretty Mrs. Charles 
 Cadogan and her sister, Mrs. Crossley. Charity 
 bazaars are, to my mind, rather an objectionable 
 form of polite mendicancy, the end with them far 
 from always justifying the means; but in this 
 instance none of what I would call the question- 
 able pressure which is such an unpleasant feature 
 of the fancy fairs of the present day was resorted 
 to, and our bazaar, besides being as attractive 
 as any I ever saw — BOme of the bonny little 
 Swedish u r irls helping to sell — brought in a good 
 round sum for the object we had in view, while 
 bein^r conducted on the simplest lines and at
 
 268 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 most reasonable prices, to the disgust, indeed, of the 
 Stockholm shopkeepers, who seriously complained 
 of our underselling them. The Crown Princess and 
 some of the young princes lent it their countenance, 
 and the venture was in every way successful. 
 
 A different fate attended another charity fete 
 which was organised sometime afterwards by the 
 wives of the Austrian and Italian Envoys for the 
 benefit of some Roman Catholic sisters of Charity, 
 who, besides keeping a small school, did excellent 
 service in attending the sick ; the number of trained 
 nurses at Stockholm being at that time very limited. 
 This was a genuine fancy fair, and drew large crowds, 
 attracted by the artistic decorations of the stalls and 
 the dresses of the ladies who sold at them. Hand- 
 some donations were sent to it from abroad, among 
 others by the Empress Augusta and the Grand 
 Duchess of Baden. Yet no one of the immediate 
 entourage of the Swedish Court came near it, or in 
 any way contributed towards it, a circumstance 
 which was much commented upon, and was due, it 
 was said, to the fear of displeasing the high Lutheran 
 clergy, who are very inimical to anything in the 
 shape of Catholicism. Our colleagues were not 
 a little hurt by this attitude, and considering the 
 real good that was done by these poor sisters — 
 as I myself before long had the best cause to 
 know — the uncharitable feeling exhibited towards 
 them seemed almost a survival of the spirit that 
 reigned during the fierce religious contests under
 
 A ROYAL SKATING-RINK 269 
 
 Sigismund and Charles IX., when, in the early days 
 of the Reformation, the old faith was so effectually 
 extirpated root and branch in Sweden. 1 
 
 Thus far I have said nothing of the staff of our 
 Legation, which at my arrival consisted only of the 
 First Secretary. Mr. Lawrence, afterwards Minister 
 at Quito, and now, I believe and trust, happily 
 planting his cabbages on his Gloucestershire estate. 
 Lawrence had been at Stockholm some two years, 
 and was well up in Swedish affairs, and our rela- 
 tions throughout were of a most cordial character. 
 Before long our Chancery was reinforced by Francis 
 Elliot, Sir Henry's son, who joined us as Second 
 Secretary, and was then as efficient an emplove as 
 he is now showing himself an able agent at the 
 troublous and troublesome Court of Ferdinand of 
 Bulgaria. It is one of the many odd freaks of 
 memory to link persons with whom one has at some 
 time been habitually thrown, but has long lost sight 
 of, with a relatively trifling incident or circumstance. 
 Thus Lawrence is present to my mind chiefly in 
 connection with the splendid royal skating-rink at 
 Skeppsholm, where, next only to Drummond-IIav. 
 he was pre-eminent among the skaters. The latter 
 beat him perhaps in fancy figure-skating, but nothing 
 could be more satisfactory than Lawrence's quiet, 
 finished performance, and it was a remarkable 
 instance.' of British aptitude for sport of all kinds 
 
 1 At the ' ienrai of 1890 the total number of Roman Catholics in the 
 Kingdom wai returned ;it 1390.
 
 270 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 that, in this northern country, no one made a better 
 show on the ice than these two Englishmen, of 
 whom one had, with the exception of little more than 
 a year at St. Petersburg, served almost exclusively 
 in warm regions, while the entire youth of the other 
 had been passed on the coast of North Africa. 
 
 The royal rink was admirably situated under 
 cover of the bridge that leads from the island of 
 Skeppsholm to that of Kastellholm, and was shel- 
 tered by the low ridge on which stand the Admi- 
 ralty Church and the picturesque Artillery barracks, 
 or Canonier casern, built in mediaeval style. The 
 ice here was always kept in perfect order, and was 
 never crowded, access to it being strictly reserved 
 for the privileged subscribers and their families. At 
 the same time the royal pavilion gave welcome 
 shelter to chaperons and lookers on, besides pro- 
 viding creature comforts in the shape of tea and 
 other hot drinks for such as required them. On 
 certain days of the week, when a military band used 
 to play, no gayer scene could be imagined than that 
 of this great expanse studded with expert couples 
 skimming along hand in hand — a few trim maidens 
 from the long-lost Grand Duchy across the Baltic 
 doing the graceful Finnish roll — and all keeping 
 perfect time to the music, with the accompani- 
 ment of the clear, cheery ring of steel on the frozen 
 surface. The sharp frosts at night continuing long 
 beyond the close of the winter months, the skating 
 went on until well into the spring, when the sun
 
 ICE AND SUNSHADES 271 
 
 had already acquired great power; and I distinctly 
 remember, one bright day late in March, taking a 
 spin round the rink with a charming Miss Broad- 
 wood, then on a visit to Stockholm — whose sister was 
 married to one of the Ruspolis at Kome — and her 
 haying to hold up a parasol while skating to protect 
 herself from the slanting afternoon rays. The King 
 himself occasionally had a turn on the ice with some 
 favoured Swedish or foreign lady, and the princes 
 were habitual frequenters of the rink, which was 
 a delightful point de reunion for the Stockholm gay 
 world. 
 
 The Easter holidays now drawing near, my wife 
 went home to look after our young school-folk, and 
 at the end of April I applied for, and obtained, a 
 month's leave of absence, and joined her in London. 
 Before starting 1 had a private audience of the 
 King, at which I inquired whether he had any 
 orders to give me for England. "Yes !" said II.M., 
 " I have a message for Lord Granville," and then 
 explained that he was desirous to confer on Lord 
 Carnarvon the Grand Cross of his Order of Charles 
 XIII. He was well aware, he said, of the regula- 
 tions which prevent British subjects from accepting 
 foreign decorations, excepting lor war services per- 
 formed under certain conditions, but, as 1 knew, the 
 Order in question was purely Masonic — its Grand 
 Cross being, as it were, the barter of Swedish 
 Freemasonry and he therefore hoped that, with 
 Lord Granville's help, a departure from the rule
 
 272 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 might be made in this instance in favour of Lord 
 Carnarvon, for whom he had a great regard, and 
 who was in an exceptional position as Pro-Grand 
 Master of our United Grand Lodge. I of course 
 engaged to attend to H.M.'s commands, and left on 
 my way home by the land route — if so it may be 
 called — vid Copenhagen, Kiel, Hamburg, Cologne, 
 and Brussels. This very broken journey being quite 
 new to me, I arranged to make it with Count 
 d'Otrante, 1 who was bound for Paris, and whom 
 I rejoined at Copenhagen. I look back on Count 
 and Countess d'Otrante as having been the best 
 friends we had in Sweden, she especially being on 
 most affectionate terms with my wife. And here again 
 my recollections are dashed with sadness, for this 
 most charming woman — the beautiful widow of my 
 old Paris colleague, William Grey, and one of the 
 favourite ladies-in-waiting of Queen Alexandra when 
 Princess of Wales — who had married her cousin, 
 d'Otrante, en secondes noces, died not very long 
 ago, to the sincere sorrow of all who had the privi- 
 lege of knowing her. Of her very great kindness to 
 my wife I have more to relate presently. 
 
 I found my travelling companion so pleasant and 
 amusing that I have still a vivid remembrance of the 
 journey we made, and of one, to me interesting, 
 incident in it of which I have spoken before, 
 namely, a certain breakfast we had together on the 
 
 1 Now Due d'Otrante, and formerly aide-de-camp and principal 
 equerry of the late King Charles XV.
 
 FOREIGN DECORATIONS 273 
 
 way at AVilken's Keller at Hamburg. 1 I reached 
 our house in Sloane Street late in the afternoon 
 of the 6th May, and I am thus particular in men- 
 tioning the exact date and time because of the 
 dismay and horror with which we learnt next morn- 
 ing the news of the atrocious murder in the Phoenix 
 Park of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. T. II. 
 Burke, which had been perpetrated the very evening 
 before. It seemed at first impossible to believe that 
 a political crime of so heinous a stamp could have 
 been publicly committed in any part of this civilised 
 realm. 
 
 Our stay in London did not exceed three weeks, 
 daring which we had our moderate share of that 
 season's gaieties, including a Court ball, and 
 were hospitably entertained by the Granvilles and 
 a few old friends of my wife and mine, like the 
 Ormathwaites, Leconficlds, and Wharncliffes, who 
 had not before had an opportunity of greeting us 
 in our character of a new, however sedate, married 
 couple. On first calling on Lord Granville at the 
 Foreign Office, I had been careful to deliver the 
 royal message confided to me, but got little en- 
 conragement from him ; and when 1 took leave of 
 him before my return to Stockholm, he told me 
 that, on due reflection, he regretted being unable to 
 
 meet King Oscar's wishes, seeing 110 reason why our 
 well-established rule about Foreign Orders should 
 
 be departed from in favour of Lord Carnarvon. At 
 
 1 Bee the ti rot portion of th< w " Recollections," vol. i. p. 28. 
 
 s
 
 274 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the same time, he characteristically went on to say, 
 he remembered that, not long before, Count Herbert 
 Bismarck 1 had observed to him that he had often 
 wondered how we ever obtained any information at 
 all of real value. "You never bribe," he had said, 
 " and you never give decorations." Lord Granville 
 here touched on a biggish question into which I 
 will not attempt to enter, beyond remarking that 
 there is more to be said about it, in my opinion, 
 than is dreamt of in the philosophy of our average 
 Philistine. I can state, however, from my own 
 personal knowledge, that, at one of the important 
 courts of Europe, certain sources of absolutely ac- 
 curate information which we had procured with 
 difficulty, and commanded for a short period many 
 years ago, were lost to us through the conscientious 
 scruples of an Ambassador (now long since dead), 
 who deliberately declined to sanction the means that 
 were requisite to keep them flowing as they were 
 doing to our great advantage. The exiguity of our 
 secret service fund has always been a subject of sur- 
 prise to foreign statesmen and diplomatists. 
 
 We left London on our return to our northern 
 home on the 24th of May, and, after a few days' 
 visit to Lady Lonsdale at Cottesmore, and an hour 
 or two at Peterborough, which we devoted to the 
 beautiful cathedral, got to Hull, where we embarked 
 
 1 Count Herbert Bismarck, the younger son of the great Chancellor, 
 and now himself Prince Bismarck, was at that time First Secretary in 
 charge of the German Embassy in London.
 
 GOTTEXBURG 275 
 
 for Gottenburg in the good steamer Orla/ndo. At 
 Gottenburg we broke the journey for a couple of 
 days, and dined the evening of our arrival with 
 the Speaker of the Second Chamber of the Diet 
 </'■' .1 dra Kammaren), M. Wijk, and his 
 
 pleasant wife, a connexion of the wealthy Anglo- 
 Swedish Baron Dickson. Mr. Speaker had much 
 to say about the attitude of the Landtmanna party 
 in the House. The main difficulty in the burning 
 Army Reform question, he pointed out, was to get 
 tin- peasants to believe that after so long an interval 
 of unbroken peace the country could possibly have 
 to fear attack, or needed any improvement in its 
 defences. To this, said Mr. Wijk, must be added 
 
 vt rv sincere horror they entertained of an en- 
 listed force, with its supposed corrupting influences. 
 Exactly similar arguments were used, in my recol- 
 lection, some years later in Holland, as to the 
 contamination produced by barrack-life, when the 
 same question of military organisation was on the 
 /•/ins in that country. 
 
 From Gottenburg we made an excursion to the 
 celebrated falls of Trollhattan on the Gotha Kiver, 
 the beauty of which appealed to me, I confess, 
 
 somewhat overrated. The thunder and turmoil of 
 the immense body of water forcing its way down 
 through its rock] bed from the great Weneru Lake 
 are no doubt very striking, but ;is none of the 
 successive Leaps taken by the river exceed forty feel 
 in height, they me wanting in real grandeur^ Thej
 
 276 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 reminded me in fact, on a much larger scale, of the 
 disappointing Salto Grande on the River Uruguay, 
 and like it have much more of the character of 
 gigantic rapids, or cataracts, than of splendid water- 
 falls such as one sees in Switzerland or Norway. 
 We had intended returning to Stockholm by the 
 Gota Canal, a unique route through the heart of 
 Sweden, which, the guide-books tell one, no traveller 
 should omit taking. After a look, however, at the 
 cramped accommodation in the canal boats, although 
 these are very clean and tidily kept, we could not 
 make up our minds to face forty-eight hours of 
 what seemed such doubtful comfort. 
 
 We got back to Stockholm just in time for the 
 celebration of the Royal Silver Wedding on the 
 6th of June, which gave rise to general rejoicings in 
 all parts of the kingdom as well as in Norway. A 
 number of deputations came up for it to Stockholm, 
 with congratulatory addresses from the provinces 
 and the principal cities, and the leading organs of 
 the Press were full of expressions of loyalty and 
 devotion to the Sovereign and dynasty. After an 
 impressive thanksgiving service in the Chapel Royal 
 which every one attended in full Court dress, we 
 Diplomatists joined the royal procession, and passed 
 through the whole length of the great State rooms to 
 the other end of the immense palace, where the King 
 and Queen held a cercle at which they received our 
 congratulations, and I was able to deliver the special 
 message from our Queen with which I was charged.
 
 A ROYAL SILVER WEDDING 277 
 
 There was a Court banquet that evening, followed 
 two days later by a State ball. Fortunately the kind 
 and amiable Queen Sophie, although generally a 
 great sufferer from a painful form of acute neuralgia, 
 was able to take part in these festivities. An inter- 
 esting feature of the ball was the presence at it of 
 numerous deputies, many of them in their peasant 
 dress ; and conspicuous among these Liss Olof 
 Larsson, an eloquent spokesman of the Landtmcii 
 party, and a rich farmer in classic Dalecarlia, which 
 province has played, in Swedish history, the same 
 part as the Forest Cantons in the annals of Switzer- 
 land. After the Court dinner King Oscar himself 
 showed the Foreign representatives and other guests 
 the gifts which had reached the Royal couple from all 
 quarters on this auspicious anniversary, and which 
 were displayed in his private study. Among these was 
 a picture showing the entry of General Bernadotte 
 into Marseilles on his return from the brilliant Italian 
 campaign in 1797. The founder of the dynasty was 
 depicted riding through the crowded streets of the 
 
 rime at the head of the troops with which he 
 
 had forded the Tagliamento to the cry of: " Sold 'at s 
 (!■' Rhin, Varmdi cP Italie vous regarde!" Above 
 him, on a balcony <>i one of the houses, a group of 
 ladies were waving their handkerchiefs in greet ing of 
 the popular commander. Most conspicuous among 
 these was a young girl, eagerly leaning forward to 
 bare :i better new of the returning hero, and who 
 
 no other than his future consort, Mile. De'sire'e
 
 278 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Clary. My wife and I were standing near King 
 Oscar with a few colleagues, to whom H.M. was 
 explaining, with the animation in which his southern 
 blood asserts itself so strongly, the subject and 
 details of the picture. One of the listeners was 
 the French Military Attache^ Captain Appert, and 
 in the fire of his description the King turned to 
 him, and, seizing him by the hand with a cordial 
 grip, said, in an aparte which was audible to us all : 
 "Car vous savez, je rioublie pas mon origine!" 
 Which is indeed most true. Descended from 
 probably the ablest of Napoleon's companions in 
 arms — certainly the one the great Corsican was 
 most jealous of, and of whom he said : " C'est 
 une tete franpaise sur un coeur Romain" — the 
 fourth Prince of the House of Bernadotte who has 
 occupied the Swedish throne is justly proud of his 
 ancestry, and feels secure in the hold which his 
 dynasty has acquired over an essentially loyal people. 
 A century of good and enlightened government, 
 under four very able sovereigns in succession, is in 
 truth a record not exceeded in any of the reigning 
 families of Europe. 
 
 But even in the genuine rejoicings called forth 
 by this Jubilee celebration, the inevitable amari 
 aliquid that attends all human affairs was destined 
 to mingle. The Radicals in the Norwegian Storthing, 
 actuated by the baneful influence of the President 
 of that Assembly, Johan Sverdrup, chose, it might 
 almost be said deliberately, this moment for rejecting
 
 A GREAT PICTURE 279 
 
 an increase which had been asked for by the Govern- 
 ment, at the time of the Crown Prince's marriage, 
 to the annual grant theretofore made to him as heir 
 to the throne. 1 This hostile vote, only a prelude 
 to the far graver dissensions which were soon to 
 follow, was in such contrast with the demonstrations 
 of attachment to the Royal House of the Swedish 
 lieges that it was greatly resented at Stockholm. I 
 remember a Swedish conservative, who then took a 
 considerable part in public affairs, referring with 
 much bitterness to the intractable attitude of the 
 Norwegians. The Danes, he said, when masters of 
 the country, " had always treated the Norwegians 
 like dogs, while the Swedes had done nothing but 
 humour and spoil them ; yet what was the result?" 
 
 At the end of June I obtained leave to go to 
 Carlsbad for a three weeks' cure. We stopped one 
 night on the road at Dresden, and devoted a fore- 
 noon to the celebrated gallery, which I had not 
 seen for a number of years. Of the many master- 
 pieces it contains, the Madonna di San Sisto is to 
 my mind unique among pictures in the absolutely 
 divine expression of the countenance of the child- 
 Saviour. The sublime mystery and depth of sorrow 
 that speak to one in the wondrous eyes from out 
 of the soft, innocent contours of the infant face 
 are to me a perfect marvel of inspiration, such 
 as ran have come only onro iu a Lifetime, and to 
 
 1 Tii.- original grant ubj 30,000 kronor (^1666) a year, and the 
 
 im demand* I 50,000 kronor (^2777).
 
 28o RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 one painter alone. In that respect this extra- 
 ordinary work — let alone its other great beauties — 
 seems to me to stand out quite by itself among all 
 renderings, and specially all Italian renderings, of 
 religious subjects, the utter conventionalism in so 
 many of which too often mars admirable draughts- 
 manship and an unsurpassable sense of colour. 
 
 We went on to Carlsbad, to which I took, I 
 confess, a great dislike, and have never visited 
 since, infinitely preferring its next-door neighbour, 
 Marienbad, with which I subsequently became very 
 familiar. We found rooms at the Victoria on the 
 hill, as far as possible removed from the heat, 
 which in this exceptionally trying July was simply 
 stifling in the hollow round the Alte Wiese, where 
 lay the springs and baths, and that direct outlet 
 from the infernal regions, the far-famed Sprudel. 
 Lady Louisa Mills, beautiful Princess Mary Dolgo- 
 rouki — since re-married to one of the Benckendorffs 
 — with her brother Vladimir, and the Haygarths 
 were about the only people we saw anything of 
 during our stay. In the depressing and mono- 
 tonous round of the cure, which I went through 
 very conscientiously, it was extremely cheering to 
 hear of the victory at Tel-el-Kebir and the bombard- 
 ment of Alexandria. At Berlin, where we halted 
 on our way north, we dined with the Walshams, 
 the Ambassador, Lord Odo Russell, being away, 
 and Sir John left in charge of the Embassy. I 
 had not met Lady Walsham since days of old,
 
 COUNTRY HOUSES IX SCANIA 281 
 
 when, as Bina Scarlett, she gracefully kept house 
 for her father at Athens in the troublous time that 
 followed upon the dethronement of King Otho. 
 
 Before we left Stockholm the Ilochschilds 
 had made us promise to pay them a visit at 
 their place in Scania on ourj way back. We 
 took the steamer at Stralsund for Malm<> and 
 thence went by train to Marsvinsholm, where a 
 smart -tat ion omnibus, with a capital team of 
 four, met us and conveyed us in great state to 
 Bellinga, a charming and most comfortable house, 
 as English as possible in all its arrangements, 
 situated in the heart of that garden of Sweden 
 which was fought over for so many years by Danes 
 and Swedes until finally wrested from the Danish 
 power by Charles XL We passed two very pleasant 
 days at Bellinga, and were taken to see some of 
 the houses with which the rich, smiling country 
 is studded, and among them the very fine old 
 chdteau of Sofverburg belonging to Count Eric 
 Piper, a near relation of our hostess, and the elder 
 brother, if I am not mistaken, of Count Edward 
 I'iper, who was Swedish .Minister in London for a 
 L r "<»d many years. 
 
 A (fairs in Norway had in the early autumn of 
 1882 already reached a critical stage, a complete 
 breach between the Executive and Parliament 
 appearing almost unavoidable. The story and the 
 bearings of the Constitutional conflict between the
 
 282 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 two Powers in the Norwegian State are little known 
 to any but students of Scandinavian history. They 
 seem, nevertheless, to afford lessons of sufficient 
 interest and value to warrant my attempting a 
 rough sketch of them here. The Norwegian Funda- 
 mental Law, or Constitution, is of a pronounced 
 democratic type ; the very limited attributions 
 assigned in it to the Crown being in great measure 
 copied from the French Revolutionary Constitution 
 of 1 79 1 with its Roi Veto. In effect it was the 
 work of reaction against the Danish despotism from 
 which the country had just been freed. It was 
 drawn up and hurriedly passed in the space of six 
 weeks, in the spring of 1814, by the National 
 Assembly (or Constituante), which met at Eidsvold, 
 near Christiania. Charles John (Bernadotte), who 
 had marched into Norway with his army to enforce 
 the union with Sweden, decreed by the Treaty of 
 Kiel of 14th January 18 14, and literally held the 
 country in his hand, was much censured at the 
 time for his somewhat strange acceptance, in the 
 name of the Swedish Crown, of so crude and 
 imperfect an instrument. 1 
 
 The object which the framers of the Constitu- 
 tion seem chiefly to have had in view was as 
 distinct a separation as possible between the Legis- 
 lature and the Executive, together with a strict 
 
 1 There are grounds for believing that Bernadotte at first 
 rejected the Constitution, but was afterwards persuaded by the 
 Russian Emperor Alexander to accept it.
 
 A GREAT CONSTITUTIONAL CONFLICT 283 
 
 limitation of the Royal power. Thus the Crown 
 was only allowed a purely suspensive veto in 
 ordinary Legislation, that is to say, a measure 
 passed without any alteration by three successive, 
 separately elected Storthings acquired force of law 
 without the Royal sanction. 1 The Crown had no 
 right of dissolution except in the case of Extra- 
 ordinary Storthings convoked for special purposes. 
 Further, the better to secure the independence of 
 the Legislature, the Councillors of State (Ministers) 
 were declared to he ineligible, and all communica- 
 tion between Parliament and the Executive was 
 confined to writing. 
 
 It was on this latter point that first arose the 
 it Constitutional conflict to which I am referring. 
 The attendance of Ministers in Parliament, and their 
 right to take part in the debates, without voting, 
 had been originally an amendment to the Consti- 
 tution proposed by the Government, as facilitating the 
 course of legislature, and securing to the Executive 
 the due weight to which it had a right to pretend 
 in the discussion of measures of importance laid 
 before Parliament. At the outset it was repeatedly 
 rejected in the Storthing during a period of twenty 
 years. By a singular revulsion of opinion, however, 
 
 1 As a set-nil' to these restrictions <>n the Royal power, in the. 
 original Grundl titution) Latitude was left t<> the Drown u> 
 
 i.HHuo ordinances in the intervals between the Storthings, which <>nly 
 met every third year, and legally oould sit only for three months, 
 nrers <>f the drown bare since been entirely <lono away 
 with by the introduction ol annual ona <>f the Assembly, which 
 
 without any ll'.yal summons.
 
 284 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 it was adopted later on by the Liberal Opposition as 
 part of their programme, and was then passed by 
 increasing majorities in seven successive Storthings ; 
 the votes given in its favour finally reaching the two- 
 thirds required under the Fundamental Law to give 
 effect to any Constitutional amendments. On each 
 occasion the Royal sanction had been refused to the 
 measure, but in the end the Government had mani- 
 fested a disposition to consent to it, on condition 
 that the right of the Crown to dissolve any ordinary 
 Storthing should be formally admitted, and certain 
 moderate retiring pensions be assured to the Min- 
 isters. The object of the latter condition was to 
 make these servants of the Crown — mostly men of 
 small means — in some degree independent of an 
 Assembly which was by degrees absorbing all power 
 in the State. 
 
 A Constitutional amendment, ostensibly harm- 
 less, if not in itself beneficial, which, for a con- 
 siderable period had been warmly advocated by the 
 upholders of the Royal power and by the Conservative 
 party in Norway, and was afterwards taken up and 
 vigorously pressed by the extreme Radicals, and in 
 turn opposed by the defenders of the Prerogative 
 of the Crown, is a decided curiosity in parliamentary 
 history. The explanation of this change of front is 
 to be sought in the great alteration which by more 
 and more rapid degrees took place in the composi- 
 tion and character of the Legislature. The peasant 
 proprietors, who form the bulk of the Norwegian
 
 THE RADICALS IN THE STORTHING 285 
 
 nation, and at first appear to have made little use 
 of the franchise (which in the rural districts is 
 based simply on ownership or occupation of duly re- 
 gistered property without any specification of value), 
 gradually came to interest themselves in public 
 affairs, and took to returning representatives of their 
 own class in numbers sufficient to give them the 
 control of the Assembly, thereby in great measure 
 displacing the bourgeoisie from their seats in it. 
 Such a body of half-educated men was peculiarly 
 susceptible to the influence and guidance of pro- 
 fessional politicians and agitators, whose creed it 
 was that the spirit of the Constitution demanded 
 a concentration of all authority in the Assembly 
 as the direct mandatory of the people, with whom 
 sovereign rights alone resided. 
 
 The Radical transformation in the composition 
 of the Assembly, and its tendency to encroach more 
 and more on the narrow domain reserved to the 
 Executive, explain, and in fact justify, the resistance 
 of the Government to the demand for the com- 
 pulsory attendance of its members in the Storthing, 
 as repeatedly urged by the Radical majority in that 
 body. Their contention was that concession on 
 this point would deprive them of what little inde- 
 pendence they still possessed, and from responsible 
 advisers of the Crown would transform them into 
 helpless instruments of a tyrannical Assembly. 
 They were, nevertheless, prepared to recommend 
 acceptance of the measure to the Crown, in ex-
 
 286 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 change for the inherent right of the latter to dissolve 
 Parliament, which is admitted in all Constitutional 
 Monarchies. 
 
 In the early autumn of 1882 the position of the 
 affair was as follows : The Radical majority in the 
 Storthing maintained that the suspensive veto of 
 the Crown had been overridden and exhausted by 
 these decisions given in three separate successive 
 Storthings, and in consequence they formally declared 
 the measure to have acquired force of law. The 
 conflict was thereby shifted to an issue of far greater 
 magnitude — the absolute right, namely, of the Crown 
 to veto amendments to the National Charter. The 
 Radical majority, by a resolution passed on the 
 9th June 1880, had already denied the existence of 
 any such right — which is, unfortunately, not ex- 
 plicitly recorded in the text of the Grundlov — and 
 now peremptorily called upon the Government to 
 promulgate their amendment as forming part of 
 the Constitution. 
 
 The King thereupon submitted the grave point 
 in dispute to the Legal Faculty of the University of 
 Christiania for their opinion, and received from that 
 learned body, in the spring of 1881, an able and 
 closely reasoned memorandum distinctly affirming 
 that in the case of all amendments to the Con- 
 stitution — which could in nowise be considered as 
 forming part of the ordinary legislation, in which 
 the royal veto was only suspensive — the sanction of 
 the Crown was unquestionably indispensable. This
 
 THE ROYAL RIGHT OF VETO 287 
 
 right of the Crown had in fact been distinctly 
 admitted in a formal address of the Storthing to 
 King Charles John, in May 1S24, in the following 
 words: ''The National Representatives acknowledge 
 that from the nature of the case (i fohje Sag?i's 
 NcUur), your Majesty is already in possession of an 
 absolute veto as far as regards alterations in the 
 Fundamental Law." Nothing could be plainer than 
 this language, and it was reiterated in an address 
 to Charles XV., in i860, on the question of the 
 suppression of the office of Viceroy of Norway, to 
 which that sovereign was in the end induced to 
 L, r ive his consent. No settlement of the question, 
 it was therein admitted, could he arrived at without 
 the agreement of both parties to the fundamental 
 compact — that is, the Crown and Parliament. It 
 is a noteworthy feci that the arch-agitator, Sverdrup, 
 himself took part in this address. 
 
 But even if such testimony could not have been 
 invoked in favour of the right of the sovereign to 
 veto changes in the Constitution, the exigencies of 
 the union between the two kingdoms made such a 
 safeguard absolutely indispensable. It was obvious 
 that if the pretensions of the Radical majority in 
 the Storthing wire tamely submitted to, there was 
 nothing to prevent that Assembly from resorting, 
 under the influence of popular passion, to violent 
 measures imperilling the dynasty and destructive 
 
 of the pact of union with Sweden. Thai such a 
 
 r was not imaginary, recent utterances of the
 
 288 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 more advanced leaders of the Radical party had made 
 palpably manifest. The distinguished poet, journalist, 
 and agitator, Bjornstjerna Bjornson, openly advocated 
 the Republic as the form of government best suited 
 for Norway, and taunted Sverdrup for not facing the 
 logical outcome of the campaign he was engaged in 
 against the Royal prerogative. It was at any rate clear 
 that their aim was to reduce the royal power to a mere 
 shadow. The masterful President of the Storthing, 
 Johan Sverdrup, had, in fact, summed up the aspira- 
 tions of his following in a few pregnant words : " All 
 power," he had said, " must be gathered in this hall." 
 
 Unfortunately the Government had committed 
 a serious fault in tactics by joining issue with the 
 Radicals — in a conflict which was sooner or later 
 inevitable — on such a secondary question as the 
 compulsory attendance of Ministers, which it was 
 difficult to view in the light of an amendment of 
 a dangerous or extravagant nature, and had, which 
 was far worse, encouraged the Crown to commit itself 
 by public declarations which rendered retreat or com- 
 promise almost impossible. 
 
 The position was made still more hopeless for the 
 Executive by the general election at the close of 
 the year (1882), which resulted in a complete victory 
 for the Venstre, or Left, who were returned in the 
 proportion of 83 to 31, capturing nine seats in 
 the urban constituencies hitherto devoted to the 
 Conservative interest. The contest was marked 
 by certain incidents which showed how disloyal
 
 TWO BRITISH STATESMEN 289 
 
 was the spirit abroad in some of the constituencies ; 
 two of the candidates chosen, M. Sorensen and 
 Major Iljorth, having the one undergone a term 
 of imprisonment for language insulting to the King, 
 and the other been dismissed the service for acting 
 in defiance of a royal order. These elections were 
 much resented in Sweden, and were severely com- 
 mented upon in the Swedish press. Finally, in the 
 session of 1S83, the triumphant Opposition pro- 
 ceeded to the impeachment of the Selmer Ministry 
 before a carefully packed Rigsret, 1 a memorable 
 State trial which dragged its weary length through 
 fully ten months. 
 
 I have expatiated at immoderate length on this 
 remarkable and complicated constitutional conflict, 
 first, because of my belief that some useful teaching 
 can be derived from it with respect to questions 
 deeply interesting to ourselves, but more particularly 
 on account of its having engaged the attention of 
 two verv distinguished statesmen who happened 
 to visit the Swedish capital very shortly after niv 
 return iherc from Carlsbad in August, The first 
 «,f these was the late Mr. W. E. For8ter, who, with 
 his family, was Beeking relaxation and change of 
 
 1 The following will give some idea of the composition of the 
 Lagthing, which, together with tin- members <>f tip- apreme court 
 of justice (H&iesteret . formed the tribunal before whom the Mini 
 
 ned. It was made up «>f fourteen Qaardbruger, or small 
 luntry bailiffs . two villa e ohool- 
 
 : end - : !i <-i, • i; ,\ . 'ill ly members 
 
 ... tin- level irere one merchant, one bank manager, one retired 
 ter, two a1 tornies, and 1 otor "f for 
 
 T
 
 2 9 o RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 scene after his anxious labours in Ireland. Mr. 
 Forster brought me a warm letter of introduction 
 from Lord Granville, and I saw a good deal of him 
 during his stay at Stockholm. I soon gathered that 
 he was following with much interest the course of 
 affairs in Norway and the effects of Home Rule 
 there, as distinctly, and, I think it must be held, 
 necessarily, leading towards the development of 
 separatist tendencies. We fully talked over the 
 whole question, and at his suggestion, and partly 
 for his use, I drew up a memorandum upon it 
 which I have used largely in the sketch I have 
 given above of this instructive conflict. I never 
 had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Forster again, but 
 besides finding him, as Lord Granville described 
 him, "a charming fellow," I have a strong recollec- 
 tion of the impression he left on me of absolute 
 rectitude of purpose and of an unflinching sense of 
 duty. Under a somewhat stern and rugged exterior 
 there lay in him a most kindly and generous dis- 
 position. He had come straight to Sweden from 
 combating the unscrupulous leaders of the National 
 League, and the " village ruffians " and boycotters 
 who acted under their inspiration, and nothing, it 
 seemed to me, could be more cruel and unjust than 
 the epithet l with which he had been branded by an 
 
 1 " Buckshot " Forster. The danger in which he stood from designs 
 on his life which were well known to him, but were as carefully as 
 possible concealed from the public by his directions, and his cool 
 disregard of precautions have since been done full justice to. See 
 his life in the " National Biography."
 
 MR. CHAMBERLAIN 291 
 
 unbridled press. In the discharge of his duties he 
 had long carried his life in his hand, and, although 
 fully aware of his danger, had continued for months 
 fearlessly to face the murderous gang to whom 
 his unfortunate successor was at once to fall a 
 victim. 
 
 Shortly after the departure of Mr. Eorster I had 
 the good fortune to make the acquaintance of yet 
 another statesman whose name is now uppermost 
 in most minds, and, to the great majority of 
 sincerely patriotic Englishmen, is a watchword of 
 Empire, and a symbol of Imperial destinies and 
 of an Imperial mission till within a recent period 
 but dimly recognised or understood. Mr. Chamber- 
 lain, at that time President of the Board of Trade, 
 was on a tour through Sweden and Russia with 
 his sister and daughter. Never having met him 
 before, I may perhaps own to having been in some 
 degree prejudiced against him by the opinions 
 with which he had first entered on his public 
 career. To a diplomatist past middle age, living 
 entirely outside the give-and-take of English 
 political strife, and with strong innate Conservative 
 tendenci< possibly accentuated by a foreign 
 atmosphere and foreign associations, the extreme 
 programme attributed to the rising statesman 
 was disquieting, if do! distasteful. Mr. Chamber 
 lain, it is almost needless to say, came and not 
 
 only conquered an easj victor — but captivated 
 
 our home circle and all those with whom he came
 
 292 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 in contact during his short visit to Stockholm. 
 He had an audience of the King, who talked to 
 him a cceur ouvert of his Norwegian troubles, and 
 was probably glad to get some opinion, if not 
 counsel, regarding them from an English Cabinet 
 Minister whose Liberal sentiments could not be 
 doubted. Mr. Chamberlain's impression, which sub- 
 sequent events proved to be quite correct, was that 
 the Crown had been led by maladroit advice into 
 a position whence it could with difficulty extricate 
 itself without some loss of prestige. At the same 
 time he agreed with me in thinking that any 
 further weakening of the royal authority in 
 Norway would be a misfortune, inasmuch as that 
 authority was the only bond of union existing 
 between two countries otherwise absolutely inde- 
 pendent as regards their internal administration. 
 
 Altogether, like his late colleague, Mr. Forster, 
 he seemed very desirous of information about the 
 Norwegian complications. My old Petersburg 
 friend, Tom Michel], then Consul-General at 
 Christiania, kept me so admirably an courant of 
 the trend of events there that I was able usefully 
 to assist Mr. Chamberlain in his inquiry. I 
 cannot but think that the conclusions he arrived 
 at somewhat contributed to the decided line which 
 he, together with that most single-minded of 
 statesmen, Lord Hartington — how strange, at the 
 crisis of the present hour, to have to bracket their 
 names together ! — and my very kind friend Henry
 
 SUMMER VISITORS 293 
 
 James (now Lord James of Hereford) took towards 
 Home Rule for Ireland, when not long afterwards 
 that issue was suddenly sprung upon the country 
 by the most brilliant and most dangerous party 
 leader of the Victorian age. During his visit, Mr. 
 Chamberlaio likewise devoted much attention to 
 the Gothenburg licensing system, and on this 
 subject, too, I was able to procure for him useful 
 information, which I myself afterwards turned to 
 account in official reports to the Foreign Office on 
 that question. I have preserved a strong personal 
 regard for the then stalwart Radical member for 
 Birmingham — now become the loadstar of all 
 earnest Imperialists — my next meeting with whom 
 was to take place in quite another region, and 
 under very different circumstances, after the sharp 
 crisis which led to the international blockade of 
 Greece in 1886. 
 
 A good many English people came to Stock- 
 holm this summer, which was an exceptionally fine 
 one, the hot weather lasting until late in Sep- 
 tember. Among them were my old Foreign Oflice 
 acquaintance, Sir Arthur Cowell-Stepney, and poor 
 Byerard Primrose, 1 then Military Attache at Vienna, 
 a very charming and accomplished man and a 
 promising officer, who nol ]<<ng afterwards died of 
 fever during the expedition too tardily sent to 
 
 1 Colons] the Honourable ESverard Primrose, Grenadier Ciuards, 
 a younger brother ol Lord B ery.
 
 294 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 relieve "the hero of heroes," as we are now told 
 Mr. Gladstone termed Gordon. Sir Edward Thornton 
 too — that veteran diplomatist — passed through on 
 his way home from the Embassy at Petersburg and 
 came to see us ; also Sir John Drummond-Hay, 
 from Morocco, who stayed for some time with his 
 son at the Consulate. Of quite a different type 
 was our old friend, Admiral Sir Reginald Mac- 
 donald, who came on a fortnight's visit to us, and 
 enlivened us with countless amusing anecdotes — 
 a good many of them of a rather risque char- 
 acter — told to the accompaniment of his own 
 infectious bursts of laughter, which ended with an 
 inimitable chuckle, or rather click, that would 
 have made his fortune on the stage, and no doubt 
 contributed to make it at Marlborough House, 
 where for many years he was a great favourite. 
 Dear old "Rim's" stay with us led to our making 
 a number of excursions in the really beautiful 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 Successive Swedish kings have built and left their 
 mark upon half-a-dozen palaces well worth visiting, 
 and all within easy reach of the city, either by road, 
 or by the numerous small undecked steamers which 
 ply backwards and forwards to all points of the 
 lovely broken coast, and to the sheltered bays and 
 islands, that form so intricate and curiously fair a 
 tangle of land and lake and sea for miles round 
 the city lying in its midst, like a spider in its web. 
 Close by, nestling in one of the forest glades of the
 
 A LEGEND OF HAGA 295 
 
 Djurg&rden, is Ilosendal, formerly a favourite retreat 
 of King Charles John, and now of the present Queen 
 Sophie, with bright gardens and hothouses, which 
 became a great resource to mv wife in the loni? 
 winter months, when flowers were so scarce and 
 difficult to procure that artificial bouquets were re- 
 sorted to for table decoration even in the best 
 houses, the dinner-party bouquets being put away in 
 bandboxes with great care for the next occasion. 
 Failing real flowers, my wife at first used nothing but 
 growing ferns, bought from the gardener at Rosendal. 
 Before we left Stockholm, however, a florist's shop 
 made its appearance in the town, and the old primi- 
 tive arrangements were much modified. 
 
 Also not far off, but in an entirely different direc- 
 tion from the town, is Karlberg, with its long, bare 
 frontage, the creation of the Twelfth Charles, and 
 typical of him in its severe outline and unadorned 
 aspect, but surrounded by a noble park with splen- 
 did timber reflected in the gleaming waters — the 
 palace being now appropriately turned into a mili- 
 tary academy, the Sandhurst of Sweden. Yet a 
 little farther on lies Ilaga — now the residence of 
 the widowed Duchess of Dalecarlia, the King's 
 ter-in-law — full of memories of Gustavus III., 
 and standing in pretty but somewhat neglected 
 Lrr< .11 ml-. Here tradition will have it that Horn and 
 Ankarstrbm Btood one winter's evening, watching, 
 with deadly intent, the light in the window of the 
 King's room, where he sal resting in an arm-chair
 
 296 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 after a hard day's sport in the neighbouring forests — 
 an easy mark to the conspirators. Suddenly, so 
 goes the tale, he rose, and opening the window, 
 leaned out of it, revealing to them so strangely 
 sad and almost despairing a countenance that the 
 would-be murderers were smitten with pity and re- 
 morse, and slunk away in the dark, giving their 
 victim a few weeks respite. 
 
 Loveliest of all in its situation, with a wonderful 
 approach up one of the most picturesquely winding 
 reaches of the Saltsjb, or Baltic, is Ulriksdal. Ori- 
 ginally founded by Jacques de La Gardie, the great 
 general of Gustavus Adolphus in his earlier wars 
 with Russia, it was rescued by Charles XV. from the 
 fate of an Hotel des Invalides, to which it had been 
 consigned by his grandfather, Charles John, and be- 
 came the residence de predilection of that talented, 
 pleasure-loving sovereign of the debonnaire ways, 
 which made his mother say of him that, although he 
 did all he could to make himself unpopular, he had 
 never succeeded in doing so. Beautiful Ulriksdal 
 bears witness to its royal owner's acquirements and 
 consummate taste in the interesting historical and 
 other collections placed there by him, and the 
 many artistic objects — especially the old furniture 
 and china — with which he filled it, and made of 
 it a small South Kensington Museum. But it is 
 the perfect frame of woodland and water in which 
 they are set, more even than their historical asso- 
 ciations, which makes these now half-deserted royal
 
 WAXHOLM 297 
 
 abodes so attractive. Seen towards the end of sum- 
 mer, when the thick woods that come down to the 
 edge of the indented fjords are touched with the 
 first autumnal tinge, the placid waterways round 
 Stockholm — where, even on the brightest day, the 
 melancholy tone of the distant north darkens and 
 deepens the prospect — have a strange fascination of 
 their own. In a sequestered nook of this wilderness 
 of sea and rock Lawrence had discovered a small 
 island, with a comfortable, roomy cottage, where he 
 spent the summer — Crusoe-like, with a man Friday 
 — and where we, with all our boys, paid him a visit 
 one day, and were sumptuously entertained by him. 
 On one occasion, too, I went with our naval 
 guest to the fortress of Waxholm, which guards 
 the approach to the capital from the sea. "We were 
 lionising him one day over the palace at Stock- 
 holm, when we met on the grand staircase the King 
 starting for his afternoon walk, in plain clothes, 
 with a single aide-de-camp, as was his almost daily 
 habit. He stopped anil talked to us, and on learn- 
 ing who our friend "Rim" was, graciously gave 
 orders — when I applied for leave in the usual way to 
 \isit the fortress — for the Admiralty yacht Skoldmdn 
 to be placed ;it our disposal. Admiral Yirjin accom- 
 panied us. and took us all over the works, which 
 woe then in course of extension and rearmament, 
 
 and would doubtless now prove a \ery formidable 
 Obstacle to any attempt made to force the passage. 
 
 (indium back to Stockholm through the calm,
 
 298 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 sheltered waters, in the mysterious northern 
 twilight, it was difficult to realise that in a few 
 weeks they would be entirely ice-bound, and serve 
 as a course for the ice-boats in which a few sport- 
 ing characters, and amongst them Drummond-Hay, 
 sailed matches on the frozen surface in the winter 
 months, when all navigation had ceased and the 
 pleasant northern capital hibernated snugly and 
 contentedly in its far away corner of Europe. And 
 this reminds me of the anxiety we went through 
 one winter evening when my two youngest boys, 
 who were now at home with us, with a German 
 tutor of the name of Appel, failed to turn up at 
 dinner-time, and indeed for several hours after. 
 They had started early in the afternoon with 
 their tutor on a skating expedition on the 
 Saltsjo, the vast expanse of which, however 
 hard frozen, of course contains many weak and 
 dangerous places. It turned out that they had 
 skated the whole way to Ulriksdal up the Wartan 
 passage, a distance of many miles, mostly in the 
 dark, and not succeeding in getting a conveyance 
 there, had had to walk and partly skate back, by 
 way of Haga and Jarfva, not getting home till 
 eleven o'clock, of course dead beat, but having 
 made quite a record tour for boys of their age. 
 
 The autumn, as it wore on, brought little variety 
 in our pleasant sociable lives. A few changes, 
 however, took place in our diplomatic corps, of 
 which the only one of any interest was the advent,
 
 A ROYAL CHRISTENING 299 
 
 as Secretary to the Austro-Hungarian Legation, of 
 Uexandre d'Okolicsanyi with bis Russian wife, a 
 Princess Lobanow — niece of Prince Alexis, and, 
 through her mother, of the Prince Paskevitch of 
 my Russian recollections — who, when she first burst 
 on the Stockholm world, was quite dazzlingly lovely. 
 Thanks to the near relationship between her and 
 my own Lobanow sister-in-law, we saw a great deal 
 of the Okolicsanyis. With all her beauty — the 
 whole of Madrid had been at her feet — she kept 
 as unspoilt and without any pose or pretension as 
 any debutante. Poor Olga Okolicsanyi ! Some 
 ten years later, when we met her again at the 
 Hague, she was still extremely handsome, but had 
 become painfully deaf, and had already then, though 
 she never admitted it and fought most pluckily 
 against it, the germs in her of the fatal disease 
 which was soon to carry her off in the prime of 
 life. 
 
 Bat the great event of the waning year was 
 the birth of the first child of the Crown Princess, 
 a son and heir who became the future hope of the 
 house of Sweden. The christening of the royal 
 infant wa8 a gnat, and indeed impressive, solemnity 
 to which all the representatives of foreign Powers 
 were bidden. The old German Emperor, for whom 
 
 King Oscar had the greatest admiration, and who 
 
 great-grandfather to tin- child was one of its 
 godfathers, caused himself to he represented by 
 hie principal aide-de-camp, General Cdunl von der
 
 300 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Goltz, one of my old Baden-Baden acquaintances. 
 The function took place in the afternoon of Novem- 
 ber the 25th, with suitable display, in one of the 
 great apartments of the palace. The entrance of 
 the principal, however diminutive, personage of the 
 ceremony was extremely interesting. As I after- 
 wards described it in a private letter to Lord 
 Granville : " It is said that the King and Queen 
 fought over the baby the other day. The King 
 wanted to display it himself to the assembled 
 dignitaries, but the Queen insisted upon carrying 
 it in, the King walking by its side, and shading 
 the light from its eyes with his cocked hat and 
 feathers." The infant prince was, with a string of 
 other names, baptized Gustaf- Adolf, and given 
 the title of Duke of Scania. After a cercle, at 
 which we all duly congratulated their Majesties 
 and the Crown Prince, we were taken to a room 
 where we, with all the other persons invited, filed 
 past the royal infant, lying in his historic cradle, 
 surrounded by a bodyguard of ladies-in-waiting 
 under the command of the Queen's Mistress of the 
 Robes, Countess de La Gardie, nee Platen, a 
 charming old lady. The child was wide-awake 
 and smiling — not unlike other good-tempered 
 babies, I suppose — being well pleased, one allowed 
 oneself to fancy, at having been christened after 
 one glorious king, and laid in the cradle of another, 
 King Charles XII.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 STOCKHOLM— i S83-18S4 
 
 Our second winter in Stockholm resembled in many 
 respects the preceding one, but was far more severe. 
 The channels and fjords of the Saltsjo were blocked 
 with ice much sooner than usual. On Christmas 
 Eve, after an early luncheon, we started in a steam- 
 launch with a Legation family party — of which that 
 best-hearted of fellows, Hugh Gough, 1 who had come 
 from Berlin with despatches, was one — hoping to be 
 able to go up the lovely passage of the Skurusund, but 
 soon having to cut our way through the ice-floes, were 
 in the end reluctantly obliged to turn back. The 
 afternoon was wonderfully bright and still, as is often 
 the case with severe cold, and as we slowly returned, 
 crunching through the thin ice, the distant city, out- 
 lined against a brilliant, almost blood-red, sunset, made 
 the most gorgeous Turncresque picture conceivable. 
 Snow had fallen, too, in great quantities in the 
 town, and lay on the ground for a long while. So 
 excellent, however, were the arrangements made 
 for the street traffic, that in an incredibly short 
 ■pace of time the roadways Mere sufficiently cleared 
 to provide good sledging tracks, the surplus masses 
 
 1 N'-w \'i ooonl Gough, and II. M. filinisteral Dresden,
 
 302 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 being symmetrically heaped up in the wider open 
 spaces, before being rapidly carted away and tilted 
 into the Saltsjo close at hand. In this respect, of 
 course, the task was much easier than it is in our 
 own vast, overgrown Babylon ; but nevertheless, the 
 methods practised in this northern capital might, 
 I think, be studied with advantage by our ediles, 
 whom even the most ordinary snowfall seems hope- 
 lessly to paralyse. The long-suffering Chelsea rate- 
 payer, for instance, has sometimes for weeks together 
 to trudge through the cold melting slush, and has 
 yet to be rejoiced by the sight of a string of vestry 
 carts carrying the fresh-fallen snow down to Father 
 Thames hard by ; while, on the other hand, he is 
 haunted all the year round by the less-pleasing 
 vision of the dust-cart going its malodorous rounds, 
 in broad daylight, through the most frequented and 
 fashionable of thoroughfares. 
 
 On a keenly bright day of this Arctic season 
 we went, with a large party of friends, for a drive 
 round the Djurgarden, more beautiful than ever in 
 its glittering snowy robes, in gaily decorated sleighs 
 of whimsical designs — relics possibly of the winter 
 revels of Gustavus and his minions, and very 
 different from the plain, sober-tinted vehicles in 
 general use in Russia — ending the day with a 
 cheery picnic dinner and dance at Hasselbacken, 
 the celebrated restaurant, which must be familiar 
 to all visitors to Stockholm. 
 
 Somewhere about this time we went on a few
 
 ELGHAMMAR 303 
 
 days' visit to the d'Otrantes, at Elghammar — an 
 estate near Bjornlunda, in the province of Soderman- 
 land, which, with a tine old house, had come to 
 them through the Stedingks ; Mme. d'Otrante being 
 Baronne Stedimik, and her husband's mother 
 also belonging to that old AYestphalian stock, settled 
 in Sweden since a couple of generations. It was a 
 welcome and delightful experience of a Swedish 
 country home, with all the comforts and refinements 
 to be found in an English one. The chdteau con- 
 tained a good many interesting things, and a few fine 
 family portraits. A Field-Marshal Count Stedingk — 
 the grandfather of Madame d'Otrante — was Swedish 
 Ambassador at St. Petersburg for a great many years 
 in the eighteenth century. He was there in 1777 
 when Gustavus III., shortly after his accession to 
 the throne, was so magnificently entertained by 
 Catherine, and was afterwards so contemptuously 
 referred to by her as quel come'dien! The greatest 
 treasure at Elghammar was a beautiful set of furni- 
 ture in one of the rooms, comprising two state beds, 
 presented by the Empress to the Ambassador on 
 that occasion. The bedsteads were of satin-wood, 
 richly inlaid with silver; the counterpanes and 
 curtains "1 white damask, lined with apricot satin; 
 
 tin- whole being very dainty and regal, and in a 
 
 Wonderful state of preservation. This same Stedingk, 
 
 1 think it was, at whose Embassy the eccentric young 
 
 Gustavus I\. took up liis quarters nearly twenty 
 
 yean later, when he went to Petersburg as suitor
 
 304 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 for the hand of the Empress Catherine's grand- 
 daughter, Alexandra Paulowna, and broke off the 
 marriage, under such dramatic circumstances, at the 
 eleventh hour, when the beautiful grand-duchess 
 was actually waiting for him at the altar. 
 
 There are a good many old houses in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Elghammar, and among them a very 
 pretty place called Sparreholm, which belonged to 
 the Sprengtportens, an ancient Finnish race, whose 
 original patronymic was Rolandt, and whose history 
 affords some of the most interesting links with the 
 past I ever heard of. An old Baron Sprengtpor- 
 ten, who died at a very advanced age a few years 
 before my arrival at Stockholm, was the sole repre- 
 sentative of this family, of which only three male 
 members had, during a period of about 240 years, 
 grown up to manhood ; the surviving Sprengtporten 
 in each successive generation being born when his 
 father was at least seventy. There had, in fact, 
 been only three Sprengtportens in the course of two 
 centuries and a half to bear the title of Baron, 
 which was conferred, with its punning designation, 
 on the first of them for his gallantry in blowing up 
 the gates at the siege of some fortress. The third 
 Baron, who was living in 1875, and past eighty at 
 that time, told a friend of mine, to whom I am in- 
 debted for these particulars, that he had had an elder 
 brother who died in 1756. This — at first hearing 
 astounding — statement my friend was afterwards 
 able to verify by the inscription on the tombstone,
 
 CURIOUS LINKS WITH THE PAST 305 
 
 in the church at Sparreholra, of the said "elder 
 brother " ; the space of 1 1 9 years between the date 
 at which the old baron made the statement and the 
 death of his relative being accounted for by the 
 fact that the latter was the child of a first marriage, 
 and died in, -his infancy, while the narrator was the 
 son of a second marriage, and was born in 1 791, 
 when his father was already considerably past 
 seventy. 
 
 Another interesting, and still more surprising, 
 circumstance in the Sprengtporten annals was 
 that the great - grandfather of the old baron 
 had, in his first youth, been page in the house- 
 hold of Katrina Stenbock, Gustavus Wasa's third 
 wife, who was born in 1536, and was married 
 when sixteen to that monarch, a few years before 
 his death in 1560 — surviving him into extreme 
 old age, and not dying till 1622. Only five lives 
 bridging over nearly three and a half centuries, and 
 connecting the last quarter of the nineteenth century 
 with the days of the great contemporary of our 
 Henry the Eighth, surely make a very remarkable 
 record ! And this reminds me of another striking 
 link with the past of which I was told not long since. 
 An old gentleman belonging to the best society 
 in Paris, and still alive some ten years ago, re- 
 membered having met, when young, in the late 
 thirties of the last century, a well-preserved old lady, 
 who. to his intense surprise, casually referred in con- 
 versation to " mon mart la Man'cfial dc RicheUeu" 
 
 u
 
 306 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 and was, in fact, the widow of the vainqueur de 
 Mahon, to whom she was married in 1780, when 
 he was eighty-four. I will not vouch for the truth 
 of this story although it is very generally received, 
 but may say of it : " Se non e vero e ben trovato? 
 
 Quite as striking, and absolutely authentic, are 
 some instances of longevity in the ancient French 
 family of de Mailly-Nesle, for which I am indebted 
 to Count Aimery de La Rochefoucauld, my sister's 
 brother-in-law. In 1874, on Count Aimery's mar- 
 riage with Mile, de Mailly, his wife's grandfather, the 
 Comte de Mailly, then in his eighty-fifth year, told 
 him that his own father, the Mardchal de Mailly — 
 who was a very old man when his son, the narrator, 
 was born — remembered having, as a boy of seven, 
 been presented to Louis Quatorze in the Galerie 
 des Glaces, at Versailles, in the last year of that 
 monarch's reign. The same Comte de Mailly had 
 had a half-sister, the Marquise d'Argenson — his 
 senior by very many years — who was married in 
 1744, the year before the battle of Fontenoy, and 
 therefore 130 years before the marriage of her great- 
 niece to Count Aimery de La Rochefoucauld. 
 
 To return to the d'Otrantes : they had two sons, 
 much of the same age as our own, and great friends 
 of theirs. About Christmas time we got up a small 
 charade or play at the Legation, for the amusement 
 of our boys, in which I, myself, took a part with 
 them, the scenery for it being painted by my second 
 boy, Willie. To these modest theatricals, which
 
 BARONESS KNUT BONDE 307 
 
 went off satisfactorily, we asked only a few quite 
 intimate friends, including of course Countess 
 d'Otrante and her sons, the eldest of whom, 
 Edward — a charming little fellow, whom his mother 
 absolutely worshipped — was a godson of the Prince 
 of Wales. I remember this little performance well, 
 because two days afterwards we heard that the boy 
 had fallen ill — from a chill, it was at first supposed, 
 he had got at our house. In less than a week he 
 died of diphtheria, the result as was afterwards 
 proved of the defective drains in the old house of 
 the d'Otrantes in La Fredsgatan. 
 
 Count d'Otrante's first wife, a Bonde, was the 
 step-daughter of Baroness Knut Bonde, an Irish 
 lady whose interesting recollections of Paris, at the 
 time of the revolution of February 1848 and the 
 terrible June days, have quite recently been pub- 
 lished. From my boyhood I recollected this lady and 
 her mother, Lady Helena Robinson (a daughter of 
 Lord Mountcashell), as being friends of my aunts, 
 and forming part of the English colony living at 
 Paris in the days of the July monarchy. It was in- 
 teresting to rind at Stockholm a person with whom 
 I had so many memories in common, and to talk 
 Orel remote Paris times with this old lady of a ready 
 wit and somewhat unsparing tongue, in her pleasant. 
 apartmenl overlooking the pretty square known at 
 the Kungstradg&rd. Baroness Knut Bonde died at 
 Stockholm not so long ago al an advanced age. 
 
 I have said nothing thus far of the opera at Stock-
 
 308 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 holm, where we had a box once a week during the 
 winter season. The performances were very good 
 indeed ; a handsome royal subvention being con- 
 tributed to the expenses of the management. The 
 first prima donna, Mile. Grabow, was a charming 
 singer, and was especially delightful as "Mignon," 
 in Ambroise Thomas' tuneful opera; and Odmann, 
 the tenor of the day, had an excellent voice. Here 
 I, for the first time, heard Boito's " Mefistofele," 
 quite admirably sung and put on the stage — an 
 opera for which I have a great liking, and which, 
 to my mind, unaccountably seems to have entirely 
 dropped out of the Covent Garden repertoire. One 
 night, too, we had the " Bergtagna," l a fine 
 romantic work of the Swedish composer Ivan Hall- 
 strom, a great protege of King Oscar, who was 
 indeed credited with some share in the writing 
 of this interesting score. Not only is the King 
 an accomplished musician, but he is gifted with a 
 fine tenor voice which, by a bit of ill-luck, we never 
 heard to advantage. We were asked one evening to 
 our neighbours, the Carl Gustav Rosens, en tout petit 
 comite*, to do some music with his Majesty, who had 
 announced his intention of honouring his favourite 
 equerry, Count Rosen, with his presence. Accord- 
 ingly the King tried some slight duet with my wife, 
 but was unfortunately so hoarse that he was obliged 
 to stop, to the general disappointment, and we had 
 
 1 Bergtagna, meaning a young girl enticed into the mountains by evil 
 spirits, and detained there by them.
 
 A MUSICAL PARTY 309 
 
 to fall back on Baron Hochschild, who was no mean 
 musician, and had a capital baritone voice — many a 
 time have we sung the duet in Donizetti's " Beli- 
 sario " together — and a very pretty Baronne Ramel, 
 who had a lovely contralto and sang quite beauti- 
 fully. The country that gave birth to Christine 
 Xilsson and Jenny Lind, not to mention Sigrid 
 Arnoldson, still produces very remarkable voices, 
 and Swedish — for this I take to be a factor of some 
 importance in the question — is an extremely sing- 
 able language. 
 
 The Diet was opened this year by the King, with 
 all the customary display, the address from the 
 throne turning principally on the vexed questions 
 of land taxation and army reorganisation, of which 
 a full scheme was announced. At the close of his 
 speech, the King referred to a new line of railway 
 in the extreme north of the kingdom, the construc- 
 tion of which had been sanctioned, and which his 
 Majesty said he felt assured would contribute " to 
 draw closer together the two nations united under 
 his sceptre." Some emphasis was laid on the de- 
 livery of this passage, which bore upon a question of 
 more than ordinary interest. 
 
 The line in question, as primarily projected, had 
 a twofold object, namely, the opening up of the vast 
 mineral resources of the province of Norrbotten, and 
 its connection with extreme Northern Norway and 
 the ice-free waters of the ( IfoteO Fjord. It had like-
 
 310 KECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 wise been originally proposed that the point of 
 departure of the line on the Baltic seaboard should 
 be near Haparanda, on the immediate frontier of 
 Finland, where it might be joined on to the Finnish 
 lines and thus be linked with the general Russian 
 railway system. This was strongly objected to by 
 the King and the Swedish Government, on strategic 
 grounds, and their final consent to the project was 
 only given on condition that the terminus of the 
 line, instead of being at the Tore Fjord close to the 
 Finnish frontier, should be placed at the town of 
 Lule&, which is at a considerable distance within 
 the Swedish borders. Thence the projected line 
 was to run to the Norwegian frontier through the 
 districts which contain the celebrated iron mines of 
 Gellivara and Luossovara and others. 
 
 This project has now been carried out. The 
 northernmost railway in the world, part of which 
 runs within the Arctic circle, has been completed, 
 and the tourist, on his return from the North Cape, 
 or Spitzbergen, or some of the other now fashionable 
 hyperborean excursions, is comfortably conveyed in 
 an express train, which runs once a week in summer, 
 with sleeping and dining cars, from the distant 
 Norwegian Fjord to the Swedish capital. At the 
 time I write of, so little was known of these regions, 
 that I was much interested by the account given 
 me of his experiences by an English engineer of 
 the name of Wilkinson, who had carefully surveyed 
 the trace of the line in the summer of 1883 for
 
 A MOUNTAIN OF METAL 311 
 
 the company which afterwards constructed it. He 
 started from Lulea with a sum'cient number of ponies 
 for his party and his supplies, but soon found the 
 large tracts of forest that stretch inland from the 
 coast so impracticable that he had to transfer his 
 luggage to men's backs, and eventually walked the 
 whole distance of 300 miles from sea to sea. Be- 
 yond the comparatively well-known country round 
 Gellivara — now a flourishing mining centre of several 
 thousand inhabitants — he came to a region a great 
 portion of which had probably never been visited 
 before by any traveller. Here are situated the great 
 mines of Kiranuvara, the wealth of which was first 
 reported upon in 1876. Mr. Wilkinson told me of 
 the now celebrated Malmberg, near Gellivara, which, 
 he said, was practically a mountain of metal, one 
 face of which he described as a sheer wall of iron 
 ore rising precipitately some 800 feet from the lake 
 which lies at its base, and glistening in the sun so 
 as to be visible at a distance of forty miles. He 
 looked upon the yield of ore existing there as 
 almost inexhaustible, and roughly reckoned the per- 
 centage of pure metal it contained at over seventy 
 per cent., a calculation which has since been much 
 exceeded in the returns from it. 
 
 Mr. Wilkinson spoke of the climate of these 
 remote regions as much more temperate than their 
 hi^h latitude would lead one to expect ; a great 
 deal of the soil being suitable for the growth of the 
 hardier cereals, such as rye and barley. The sparse
 
 312 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 population he came across was composed partly of 
 Lapps, settled on small holdings, and partly of 
 nomad Finns, most of whom were fishermen. Already 
 at that period it was noticeable that a considerable 
 intercourse was carried on between Finland and 
 Norway by these migratory Finns — a fact of some 
 interest in view of the reports which then reached 
 the Swedish Government from their Consul-General 
 at Helsingfors, calling attention to a flow of emi- 
 gration across the Swedish frontier, together with 
 a steady increase of the autonomous tendencies in 
 Finland, and the strange phenomenon that Finnish, 
 although so primitive an idiom, was very encroach- 
 ing, and was actually to some extent supplanting 
 Swedish, not only in the Grand Duchy but in some 
 of the northern districts of the adjoining kingdom 
 and Norway. There was good reason to suspect that 
 this spread of the Finnish language at the expense of 
 Swedish, both in Finland and beyond the frontier, was 
 viewed with anything but disfavour in those days at St. 
 Petersburg, as tending to smooth the path for pos- 
 sible ulterior designs on these northernmost regions, 
 and the splendid harbours on the Norwegian coast 
 beyond them. It may then have been thought good 
 policy not to check racial aspirations which have 
 since been dealt with so sternly. At any rate, 
 twenty years ago the subject was not lost sight of 
 at Stockholm, and, but for the political strife then 
 existing in Norway, ought to have been still more 
 closely watched at Christiania.
 
 A CHARMING COMPOSER 313 
 
 After doing our duty by Stockholm society in 
 the way of dinners and dances during the winter 
 season, we went home after Easter, partly in order 
 to make the necessary arrangements for the removal 
 of our two eldest boys from their school at Slough 
 to Eton. The year I had passed in Argentina, and 
 my immediate move from there to Sweden, entitled 
 me to accumulated leave, which I spent in England. 
 In my notes of this period after my arrival in 
 London, I find mention of a performance, by the 
 English Opera Company at Drury Lane, of Arthur 
 Goring Thomas's " Esmeralda " — a charming work by 
 a still more charming composer whom we knew well. 
 Being both of us much devoted to music, we saw a 
 good deal of him, and several of his best songs were 
 written for my wife, who was a very old friend of his, 
 having first made his acquaintance, when he was still 
 a youth, at Madeira, where he was wintering for his 
 health. In all his compositions there is a refine- 
 ment and a delicate grace and distinction, in the 
 French sense of the word, which, to my thinking, 
 give him a special place among English writers of 
 music, and make his early and tragical end one of 
 the severest losses English musical art has sustained 
 in our time. 
 
 The Granvilles — then living in the beautiful 
 house in CarltOD House Terrace (No. 18), which, 
 previous to and since their tenancy, has passed 
 through so many vicissitudes before coming into 
 the hands of Mr. Waldorf Astor — greeted us very
 
 314 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 cordially as usual, and, shortly after our arrival, 
 asked us to a big dinner given in honour of the 
 Mohrenheims, who had not long before replaced 
 Prince Lobanow at the Russian Embassy. Before 
 we went in Lord Granville introduced me, with 
 some civil remark about my familiarity with 
 French, to the new Ambassador, who at once 
 launched forth in the most flowery style in that 
 language, and, referring to the approaching corona- 
 tion of the Emperor Alexander III., which was the 
 topic of the hour, said to Lord Granville's and my 
 amusement, " Plusieurs de mes collegues vont se 
 rendre a Moscou pour cette solennite entr'autres le 
 representant du fils du del," by which he simply 
 meant the Chinese Minister in London. At dinner 
 afterwards — which, according to what was then a 
 new fashion, was served at two round tables of 
 twelve — the Russian Ambassador of course taking 
 in Lady Granville, I remember his much diverting 
 us, in replying to a question she put to him as 
 to whether his (very nice-looking) daughter liked 
 London, and how she passed her time, by saying, 
 " Ence moment elle se consacrea V etude du peerage. 
 Elle possede deja les Norfolk et les Somerset." 
 
 I met the Ambassador again a day or two later at 
 a dinner given by Sir Oscar Clayton for the Duke of 
 Edinburgh, where no doubt feeling somewhat like a 
 fish out of water — he knew but little English, and 
 had not been long at his post — he, so to speak, took 
 refuge with me after dinner, and with the curious 
 expansiveness I have frequently noticed in Russians
 
 AMBASSADORIAL EFFUSIONS 315 
 
 at the post-prandial hour, spoke to me at great 
 length about the position of affairs between our 
 two countries. His epanchementi were quite in- 
 teresting, and were duly reported by me to Lord 
 Granville, for whom they were of course intended. 
 He was very communicative about the circum- 
 stances attending his appointment to London. He 
 owed it entirely to the Emperor, quite irrespective 
 of the Imperial Foreign Office, and had had a 
 dangerous competitor in M. Sabourow, who was 
 bent on coming here, and had brought high in- 
 fluence here to bear in his favour. Even now, as 
 he knew through his friend Jomini, Sabourow was 
 working hard to displace him. He had hesitated 
 long before accepting a post for which he honestly 
 believed himself to be unfit, but notwithstanding 
 the general shuffle that had taken place it was clear 
 that from his long residence in Denmark he himself 
 would be impossible at Berlin, while Prince Orloff 
 would certainly not care to exchange Paris for 
 London. In reply to some remark I made about 
 his predecessor, he said that ce chanpard de 
 Lobanow had been transferred to Vienna with 
 the object of affording proof — as un Prince authen- 
 tique du sang de Rwrik alone could do — that the 
 Russian Government were fully determined to 
 discountenance Panslavism. 
 
 He then plunged at great Length into the Central 
 Asian question, the pith of what lie said being that 
 his own programme could be put in two words,
 
 316 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 confiance et reciprocite. He would never attempt 
 any concealment from us of Russian movements in 
 Central Asia, but would expect to be believed when 
 lie stated what really was taking place there. The 
 so-called "neutral zone," he said — a sorry invention 
 of ce sinistre farceur, Prince Gortchacow — had 
 become perfectly worthless, and had always been 
 absurd. England must be prepared to have Russia 
 as her next-door neighbour in Asia. He could 
 only explain our fears on that point by the fact of 
 our never yet having had immediate neighbours, 
 and dreading the new experience. Russia, on the 
 contrary, was surrounded by neighbours, and was 
 herself the most accommodating of neighbours. 
 She had calmly allowed Prussia to swell out into an 
 empire of forty millions, and had quietly looked on 
 while the centre of gravity in Austria was shifted 
 from Vienna to Pesth. What better proof was 
 needed of habits of bon voisinage? 
 
 The Ambassador then expatiated on the general 
 worthlessness of Central Asian conquests, while 
 deploring the costly expeditions which the restless- 
 ness of the tribes Russia had to deal with — Mervians 
 and others — compelled her to undertake. In fact 
 she was thereby constrained gradually to push 
 forward her frontier until she reached the peace she 
 longed for, which, as far as I could make out from 
 him, was only to be found on the borders of 
 Afghanistan. On my asking him what General 
 Tchernaieff was doing at Tashkend, he replied that
 
 THE DISTRUST OF RUSSIA 317 
 
 his hands were full with organisation. His being 
 selected for the post had, he admitted, seemed to 
 him dangerous, but he was bound to say that the 
 conqueror in him appeared now to be merged in 
 the administrator. 
 
 So manv years have passed since those days 
 and since the conversation I have related above, 
 that I may safely say of the choice made of M. de 
 Mohrenheim for the Russian Embassy in London 
 that it was not a happy one. He chiefly owed his 
 advancement to his long residence at Copenhagen, 
 where he had made himself very agreeable, but he 
 was ill-fitted for the most trying post a Russian 
 diplomatist can occupy. At Paris, whither he was 
 soon transferred, he did much better work for his 
 Government, and fostered and perfected, to the 
 great advantage of Russia, the intimate entente 
 with France of which the bases had been laid by 
 Lobanow. To his eminent successor, Baron de 
 Staal, it was reserved to achieve here still more 
 creditable results by absolutely overcoming, in his 
 own person, the ingrained distrust of Russian 
 agents, and in some degree of Russian policy, which 
 no less an authority than Lord Salisbury not so long 
 ago described as being the mark of an " antiquated " 
 diplomacy. 
 
 1 cannot dismiss this dinner-party without some 
 further mention of its giver, old Oscar Clayton — a 
 character well known to the last generation of 
 London society, but probably now forgotten by all
 
 318 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 but his few surviving patients. Having begun life 
 as a mere surgeon of police, he worked his way 
 up to the position of habitual medical adviser at 
 Marlborough House and to a large practice in the 
 fashionable set of that day. He was an ugly little 
 old man, with the worst wig I ever saw, excepting 
 perhaps Charles de Talleyrand's — a marked foible 
 for smart people, and a great fund of amusing small- 
 talk. As a physician he was remarkable for his 
 knowledge of drugs, of which he had made a special 
 study, and for his many little-known kindnesses to 
 the poor and the unfortunate. He prided himself 
 vastly on his dinners and his wines, and on the 
 judicious selection of his guests, and I recollect his 
 asking me once to what he was pleased to describe 
 as a "representative party." "English and Scotch 
 peerage," he said, " Lords De La Warr and Orkney ; 
 the navy, Admirals H. Carr Glyn and Rim Mac- 
 donald ; foreign diplomacy, Count Bylandt (the 
 Dutch minister) ; British ditto, yourself," and so on. 
 Though people laughed at old Clayton, they crowded 
 his consulting room, and he no doubt carried many 
 a curious secret with him down to the grave, and 
 certainly one grievance — the characteristic one that 
 his handle was not of the right kind, and that he 
 had been given neither a star nor a baronetcy ! 
 
 Of the fairly numerous gaieties during our stay 
 in town, I best remember a very pretty ball given 
 by Lady Londesborough at the house in Berkeley 
 Square, which has since become Lord Rosebery's,
 
 COURT FUNCTIONS 319 
 
 and which although now almost entirely rebuilt and 
 much enlarged, stands, if I am not greatly mistaken, 
 on the site of the one to which I, then a raw, foreign- 
 bred youth, was taken in 1S49 to see that very great 
 personage the Lady Jersey of that day, whose salon, 
 graced by her daughter, lovely Lady Clementina, of 
 the many rejected suitors, 1 was then perhaps the 
 leading one in London. AYe were bidden too, ex 
 <>ffi<in y to a state ball and a state concert. The latter 
 function used, during the late reign, to be an 
 eminently dignified entertainment worthy of the 
 best traditions of our court ; the programme alone 
 lacking sometimes in novelty and interest. On this 
 occasion, however, besides the indispensable Madame 
 Albani, we had Madame Pauline Lucca, and Madame 
 Scalchi of the glorious contralto voice, and Edward 
 Lloyd, who gave a most effective rendering of the 
 beautiful Preislied from the Meistersinger. 
 
 The court ball somehow is associated in my 
 memory with Odo Russell (Lord Ampthill), whom I 
 had not met for many years and saw there for the 
 last time, and with a trivial circumstance which was 
 very typical of the delightful sense of humour of 
 thai most charming of ambassadors, the euro mio 
 R0U88SU of Pio \"i>D. We were lounging together 
 in one of the doorways of the hall-room, talking 
 over old days at Paris and at Vienna, where he had 
 
 ! a good part of his \<>uth, when I asked him 
 
 whethei he still sang, for he had a beautiful tenor 
 1 Ladj Clementina Villien died unmarried in 1858.
 
 320 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 voice. "No, my dear fellow," he replied, with a 
 merry twinkle through his spectacles, " I have had 
 to give that up. I sent not long ago for a music- 
 master at Berlin who had been in the habit of 
 accompanying me, and tried a few things over with 
 him. When I had done, I asked him what he 
 thought. He made a little bow, and, with a tone 
 of regretful and most respectful sympathy, said, 
 1 Excellenz distoniren ganz furchterlich ! ' There 
 was nothing to be done after that, was there?" 
 Poor Odo ! About a year after this I had occasion 
 to write to him on some political question from 
 Stockholm, and received "a pleasant letter from him 
 in reply, in which he said that he had been very ill 
 but was getting all right again. In a few weeks 
 he was dead, a cruel loss to the service of which he 
 was one of the chief ornaments. Yet another of my 
 recollections of this stay in London is a mournful 
 one, for on the 31st of May I went down to Clewer 
 to the funeral of perhaps the truest, kindest friend 
 I had in early youth and manhood, that fine old 
 soldier the last Lord Rokeby. With the death of 
 the dear old man was broken one of the very few 
 family ties left to me in this country. 
 
 Before returning to Sweden we saw a good deal 
 of the Lonsdales — he being a near connexion of my 
 wife's through her first marriage — while to know 
 Lady Lonsdale is to like and feel drawn to her 
 as one in a thousand. The twin houses in Carlton 
 House Terrace (Nos. 14 and 15) were full of beauti-
 
 UNIQUE MuBILIER 321 
 
 ful things ; the great merit of what was really a 
 splendid collection being its perfect homogeneity. 
 The rooms were furnished throughout with a com- 
 plete old French mobilier, which, together with the 
 pictures, the works of art, the china, and other deco- 
 rative objects, was exclusively of the Louis XV. and 
 Louis XVI. periods, and of the very finest quality. 
 The Bouchers. Nattiers, Paters on the walls — 
 among them the celebrated portrait by Boucher of 
 Madame de Pompadour, and another smaller oval 
 one by the same painter — the priceless cabinets, 
 chandeliers, and appliques, and the wealth of 
 Sevres and other French china, even in the bed- 
 rooms, made the house a compendium of the 
 wonderful art, as applied to house decoration, 
 which blossomed out in France in the luxurious, 
 extravagant days that preceded the great revolu- 
 tionary cataclysm, and of which the most perfect 
 illustration is now to be seen in the wonders of 
 the Wallace collection at Hertford House. 
 
 Saving installed our two boys — my eldest, 
 1 1 race, and my stepson, Algy Caulfeild — at Eton 
 with the Rev. II. Daman — better known in those 
 days as I loppy Daman — and spent the festive 4th 
 of June with them, we presently turned our faces 
 northwards again, and were back in Stockholm 
 by the 2nd July. This summer our excursions 
 tended mostly in the direction of Lake Malar, the 
 of which, though tamer and less picturesque 
 
 than the rocky channels of the Saltsjo, are crow did 
 
 x
 
 322 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 with interesting places and associations. Here, on 
 a wooded promontory jutting out into the lake, 
 stand the grim walls and dark red towers of 
 Gripsholm, where the freres ennemis of Swedish 
 history : the crazy Eric — at one time a suitor for 
 the hand of Queen Elizabeth — and his sinister 
 brother, John, kept each other captive in turns 
 till the final removal of the dethroned Eric to 
 Orbyhus, where he is popularly believed to have 
 been put to death by poison, though this is by no 
 means historically proven. Here, too, on an island 
 off the opposite shore, is stately Drottningholm, the 
 masterpiece of Nicodemus Tessin and the favourite 
 summer quarters of the Court, where this autumn 
 I was present at a somewhat memorable banquet 
 given in honour of the Duke of Braganza, now 
 King of Portugal. Farther on is Skokloster, the 
 home of the Brahes, to whom it came through 
 marriage from the great field-marshal, Wrangel, 
 who stored there the immense spoil of his German 
 campaigns, comprising, among other things, the 
 famous Benvenuto Cellini shield taken at the sack 
 of Prague in 1648. 
 
 One of the pleasantest expeditions we made on 
 the Malar was, by an odd chance, as guests of a 
 young Siamese prince, of the name of Prisdang, who 
 turned up at this time on a special mission to the 
 Swedish Government, under the guidance of Mr. 
 Frederick Verney, now Councillor to the Siamese 
 Legation in London. We went with this amiable
 
 NORTHERN TWILIGHT 323 
 
 princely scion of the land of the white elephant up 
 the lake as far as Sodertelje and the first locks at the 
 entrance to the great Gota Canal, in a comfortable 
 steamer chartered for the occasion ; returning after a 
 lovely day, quite late in the evening, in the wonder- 
 ful light of these latitudes which the poet Tegner, 
 in his striking lines on the midnight sun, so well 
 describes as " neither day nor night, and hovering on 
 the borders of both." x Stockholm and its domes 
 and towers, as we neared them, with our watches on 
 the stroke of eleven, were still quivering in a great 
 aureole of golden mist. 
 
 tv 
 
 1 " Det var ej da<;, det var ej natt 
 Det vugde eniellun bada."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 CHRISTIAN! A AND STOCKHOLM, 1884- 1885 
 
 During my absence in England a partial ministerial 
 crisis had arisen through the resignation of the 
 prime minister, Count Posse, whose position had been 
 more or less shaky for some time. He had been 
 attacked — very unjustly, as was afterwards shown — 
 for having, during a visit to Norway, used indiscreet 
 language calculated to encourage the Norwegian 
 Radicals in their attempt to narrow the Royal 
 prerogative. As a matter of fact, his resignation 
 was due to his not being in complete harmony with 
 his colleagues, and still more to severe domestic 
 affliction, which made him desirous to withdraw 
 into private life. That a cabinet should continue in 
 office after the retirement of its chief is a circum- 
 stance which for English readers needs explanation. 
 To begin with — to judge clearly of the political 
 conditions which obtain in the Scandinavian sister 
 kingdoms — it is indispensable to divest onself of 
 the notion that Parliamentary government — in 
 the sense of government by party, or of effec- 
 tual Parliamentary control — is really understood or 
 practised in either of them. In neither country 
 
 does the administration of the day emanate from, 
 
 324
 
 A MINISTERIAL CRISIS 325 
 
 or depend upon, the will and pleasure of a majority 
 in the Legislature, the ministers being direct 
 nominees of the Crown. At the period I write of, 
 the full authority of Parliament, as understood with 
 us, would, in Sweden, have been tantamount to the 
 supremacy of the great body of peasant landowners, 
 or yeomen, almost to the exclusion of any other 
 class. It was not surprising, therefore, that Parlia- 
 mentary government, on the most approved models, 
 did not then in Sweden commend itself to men of 
 sincerely liberal views, who were content with the 
 real essence of free representative institutions in the 
 shape of the power of self-taxation, and an effective 
 and scrupulous control of the public purse. 
 
 Some changes became indispensable in the 
 cabinet on the withdrawal from it of Count Posse. - 
 Among the persons sent for by the King was a 
 former minister, who had been living for some years 
 in retirement, and whose return to office was attended 
 by certain amusing circumstances. The eminently 
 respectable old gentleman in question loyally placed 
 his services at the King's disposal, but before in- 
 timating his final acceptance, had to contend with 
 greal difficulties on the part of his better half. 
 
 Mrne. , so the story goes, cried her eyes out 
 
 over the whole thing, fearing that the work and 
 responsibility would he fatal to her husband at his 
 time of life, and still more dreading for herself 
 haying again to become, as she put it in her distress 
 and tmfamiliarity with French, wnefemme publique.
 
 326 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 As for her husband, she confided to one of her 
 friends that his health was very indifferent, and 
 his circulation most defective, instancing in proof 
 of this that she had never shared the couch d'un 
 homme qui etit les pieds aussi froids, which, after 
 the experience innocently confessed to by the poor 
 lady, could be regarded as conclusive evidence on 
 
 that point. M. remained in office but a few 
 
 months, to his anxious wife's great relief; the 
 cabinet being once more reconstituted under M. 
 Themptander, an able financier and administrator. 
 
 In November I received from a committee of 
 the British residents at Christiania a request that 
 I would lay the foundation-stone of an English 
 church, funds for the building of which had been 
 gradually collected for some time past ; a great 
 impetus having been given to the undertaking by 
 our energetic Consul-General, T. Michell. On my 
 arrival at Christiania with George Greville 1 — who 
 had not long before joined the Legation in succession 
 to Elliot, transferred to Lisbon — I had a most cordial 
 and flattering reception. A deputation of the com- 
 munity waited upon me, and presented me with a 
 beautifully illuminated address of welcome, and 
 the ceremony took place the next day with due 
 solemnity, and was attended by the prime minister, 
 M. Selmer, and some of his colleagues — already 
 then under the stress of an impeachment for high 
 treason, which they seemed to me to face with 
 
 1 Mr. George Greville, C.M.G., is now H.M. Minister at Mexico.
 
 ENGLISH CHURCH AT CHRISTIANIA 327 
 
 surprising equanimity. 1 A public dinner — the first 
 for many years which had brought together the body 
 of British residents — was afterwards given in my 
 honour, and was, in true northern fashion, marked 
 by most hearty, and indeed boisterous manifesta- 
 tions of goodwill. So rapidly was the work on the 
 church carried out that in little more than six 
 months I was present at its consecration by Bishop 
 Titcomb. This was my first visit to the Norwegian 
 capital, which 1 was to see more of the following 
 year. I drove out to the royal summer residence 
 of Oscarshall in a snowstorm, I remember, and was 
 at an evening party at the Michells, where a good 
 many interesting people had been asked to meet me. 
 I was thus able, during my short stay, to collect 
 some information regarding the political situation, 
 the general impression left upon me by what 1 
 gathered being very saddening. The party strife in 
 
 1 The Storthing had so often before resorted to impeachment that 
 it may have appeared less formidable to the Selmer cabinet than it 
 actually proved. How unjust impeachment could be, was shown when 
 King < hallos John XIV. having somewhat arbitrarily dismissed the 
 before they had voted the Budget, the Norwegian 
 Minister of State, Lovenskiold, was impeached and condemned to 
 penalties for cot having entered his protest in the protocol of the 
 I .iincil at which the decision was taken. Many years later it 
 became known that the King had acted under the pressure of an 
 almost menacing private letter from the Emperor Nicholas who 
 at that time (about 1830) held half Europe under his heel- urging 
 that til- 1. si tendencies in the Storthing must be sternly 
 checked at all costs. The King having shown the letter to Loven- 
 skiold and bound him b y, the minister oould not in honour 
 sword in hii own defence, and il suffered in silenoe 
 for simply doing his duty. He lived eventually to become Vioeroyof 
 Norway.
 
 328 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the limited Norwegian community seemed to me to 
 exceed even the proverbial rancour of family feuds. 
 It was carried on in an acrimonious spirit that 
 respected neither private friendship nor family ties, 
 the bitter flood of mutual recrimination making it 
 in fact very difficult for a neutral observer to exactly 
 gauge the situation. What struck me perhaps most 
 was the almost culpable optimism of the impeached 
 ministers, who, in their groundless belief that a 
 Conservative reaction would surely take place in 
 answer to the unscrupulous manoeuvres of the 
 Radical leaders, had let the conflict reach so acute a 
 stage, and, above all, had allowed the Crown to be 
 dragged into it, instead of insisting on resigning office 
 and thus depriving their adversaries of the victory 
 afforded them by the humiliation of the executive and 
 to a great degree also of the Crown. On the very day 
 of my return to Stockholm I had an opportunity of 
 imparting some of these impressions of mine to the 
 King, whom I met out walking late in the afternoon. 
 His Majesty on seeing me, stopped and conversed 
 with me for some time. He felt sure, he said, that 
 the Norwegians must have made a good impression 
 upon me, and that, in spite of the present regrettable 
 state of affairs, I must have seen how truly loyal 
 they were. On my venturing to remark on the 
 extreme animosity with which the contest was being 
 waged, the King replied that this was no doubt 
 regrettable, but that all would be well in the end, 
 and that the position was not so serious as was
 
 UPSALA 329 
 
 thought. He then graciously parted from me and 
 strode away in the gathering dusk, leaving me in 
 doubt whether his sanguine temperament misled 
 him or not as to the difficulties before him. 
 
 The winter was now upon us — to me a sorely- 
 trying one, as it turned out. My two youngest boys 
 having made good progress with their tutor, Ilerr 
 Appel (now a Professor at the University of 
 Breslau), I installed them with him for a few 
 months in snug lodgings at Upsala, where I went to 
 look after them every week. It was, when I think 
 of it, a curious experience for English boys, and 
 in after years they may well sometimes have looked 
 back with amusement to that winter-time in the 
 drowsy old university city, with its fine cathedral 
 and gaunt, half-abandoned castle on the hill, where, 
 in the great banqueting hall, amidst the tears of the 
 assemblage, Christina discrowned herself with such 
 solemnity ; to the merry skating on the hard-frozen 
 F\risa; and to the mild evening parties and im- 
 promptu hops to which they were bidden by genial 
 Swedish dons and their fair-haired Jiickor, only too 
 glad to show kindness to the sons of the l\n<j<lsk<i 
 ndebud* 
 
 On the 7th of February 1884 my youngest 
 ion was bom, in Drottning-Gatan, just fifteen years 
 
 and two days after his eldest brother. And 
 
 this recalls to my mind the fact, which is 
 
 1 l ■ m'Im. Sn , envoy or »mbaa*»dor.
 
 330 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 typical of the wandering fate of the diplo- 
 matist, that of my four sons two are Russian, 
 one Turkish, and one Swedish, as regards their 
 respective birthplaces. All went well with my wife 
 till the tenth day, when sitting reading to her after 
 dinner, I suddenly noticed that her breathing was 
 short and laboured. The doctor, sent for at once, 
 pronounced it to be an attack of pleurisy, and this 
 rapidly spread over both lungs. 
 
 From that day onwards she was in great danger 
 for several weeks, and at one time, the worst being 
 feared, her father was telegraphed for. The very day 
 of his arrival, however, she took a turn for the 
 better, and continued slowly to improve till the 3rd 
 April, the day of the child's christening, when she 
 was allowed to be present, the ceremony taking place 
 in a large room adjoining her bedroom. The effort, 
 however, proved too much for her, and she had a 
 relapse, being very ill again for eight weeks, and it 
 was not till Whit Sunday, the 1st June, that she was 
 carried downstairs for the first time to go for a drive. 
 During her long illness she was most carefully and 
 kindly nursed by the Roman Catholic sisters, of 
 whom I spoke some pages back, and, under Pro- 
 vidence, owed her recovery to this, and to the 
 skilful treatment of Professor Salin, assisted by 
 the King's physician, Dr. Bruzelius, and Professor 
 Netzel — but also not a little to her own admirable 
 pluck and patience. It was all through these weary 
 months that Countess d'Otrante proved so devoted
 
 SUMMER AT GYSSESTAD 331 
 
 and helpful a friend, coming daily, often more than 
 once, to see my invalid and to cheer me up at this 
 most trying time. She "was the godmother of the 
 poor little mite whose coming into the world nearly 
 cost us so dear. 1 
 
 After so long and serious an illness complete 
 change of air and scene became imperative. I 
 resolved, therefore, to remove for the summer to 
 Norway, and, with the help of Michell, secured a 
 good-sized villa, surrounded by a somewhat unkempt 
 but pretty garden, with a lovely view down a valley 
 bounded by the grey mass of the Skogumsaas 
 mountain. The house stood in a small finely- 
 timbered park on the fjord, half-an-hour by rail 
 from Christiania, at a place called Gyssestad, a 
 little beyond Sandviken on the Western line to 
 hrammen. We made ourselves comfortable in it 
 with a railway-van load of furniture and other 
 property from Stockholm, and spent one of the most 
 delightful summers I ever remember, favoured by 
 absolutely glorious weather. Our grounds sloped 
 down to the beautiful fjord, which here is studded 
 with thickly-wooded islands ; and when our four 
 boys joined us for the holidays, we daily spent long 
 afternoons on the water with them and George 
 Qreville — best known to his many friends as 
 '•(;. (;." — who stayed with us for some weeks and, 
 when Dot pulling in the family boat or bathing, 
 
 1 Til-- boy mi ohristenod Hugh OeoU Levinge; bii godfathen 
 being Lord Lonadak and my oouain, tho lata sir William Levinge.
 
 332 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 copied my despatches. A visitor or two from 
 Christiania, and a few stray English travellers — 
 "Tommy" Trafford, George Elliot, and William 
 "Warren Vernon, 1 and Dr. and Mrs. Priestley 2 
 among them — broke from time to time the deli- 
 ciously even tenour of our lives ; the fast returning 
 health and strength of my invalid more than 
 making up to me for anything approaching dulness 
 or monotony in the existence I led. 
 
 Early in July I was away for a few days with 
 Michell for some salmon-fishing in south Telemar- 
 ken, on the Laagen River, some thirty miles above 
 Laurvik and its splendid beech woods. Although 
 the sport we had was by no means first-rate, 
 it fully sufficed to interest me in what was to me 
 quite a novel experience. Our quarters at the farm- 
 house at which we put up were about as rough as 
 they well could be, gaardbrugger Hannevold and 
 his belongings being thoroughly untidy and slovenly 
 in their habits and household arrangements, which 
 struck me all the more, coming as I did from neat, 
 cleanly Sweden. The food they gave us, too, was 
 coarse and unappetising. Fortunately we had brought 
 with us an ample supply of tinned things, which, 
 with the fish of our own catching, broiled fresh 
 from the river, and the great wash-hand bowlfuls of 
 
 1 Mr. William Trafford, oddly nicknamed " Tommy," is a well-known 
 and popular Norfolk squire and sportsman, who has lived a great deal 
 in Paris. The Honourable George Elliot was a younger brother of 
 Sir Henry. The Honourable W. W. Vernon is a brother of the sixth 
 Lord Vernon. 
 
 2 The late Sir William Priestley, M.P., M.D.
 
 THE SELMER MINISTRY 333 
 
 fragrant wood strawberries and the delicious cream 
 set before us. made a menu fit for a king. These 
 few days spent on the bright, rapid, swirling river 
 — fishing, in the early dawn and late evening, in 
 its deep shady pools just below a noisy waterfall, and 
 enjoying the exciting struggle with the wary ones 
 that made for shelter in the broken water or behind 
 protecting rocks — stand out quite by themselves in 
 my Scandinavian souvenirs, as does the return 
 journey along the pretty road to Laurvik, in that 
 quaintest and most uncomfortable of vehicles, the 
 national cariole, which now, I am told, is fast 
 disappearing from Norwegian highways. 
 
 Meantime the political situation in Norway was 
 rapidly tending towards a complete triumph for the 
 Radical majority in the Storthing. At the end of 
 February the monstrous, and monster, prosecution of 
 the eleven members of the Selmer ministry before 
 the High Court of Justice had ended in their con- 
 demnation to heavy fines and penalties, including 
 loss of office. There was something revolting in 
 this spectacle of a group of honourable men, mostly 
 of advanced years, and with but scanty private 
 means — the prime minister, Selmer, had recently 
 lost most of his slender fortune through a failure 
 at Bergen — being driven from office for having — 
 faithfully, according to tlieir lights — defended the 
 prerogative of their sovereign, and being, more- 
 over, branded as dangerous conspirators againsl
 
 334 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the liberties of the nation. But nothing less than 
 a flagrant declaration of the guilt of the unfortunate 
 Governmental lamb would appease the rancour and 
 serve the purposes of the Storthing wolf. 1 At the same 
 time it must be admitted that the ministers — such 
 was certainly the view taken of them in Sweden — 
 however loyal and conscientious in the performance 
 of their duties, had proved themselves entirely 
 deficient in real statesmanship, and had given very 
 injudicious advice to the Crown, behind which 
 indeed, according to their adversaries, it had been 
 their main object to shelter themselves. 
 
 The issue of the State trial placed King Oscar 
 in a very difficult and painful predicament. He 
 showed sound political judgment in not disputing 
 the validity of the condemnation pronounced against 
 his ministers. The latter had, in fact, themselves 
 fully acknowledged the competence of their judges 
 by going up in person to receive sentence from 
 them. The King, therefore, relieved them of their 
 functions, but at the same time issued a rescript, 
 or declaration, emphatically reserving his royal 
 prerogative, being supported in this by a public 
 letter from the Swedish prime minister setting forth 
 the views of his colleagues. 
 
 1 There was besides a deplorably penurious side to these Nor- 
 wegian affairs. For instance, there was reason to believe that it was 
 the dread of losing their places and their prospects of a pension which 
 deterred the majority of the judges of the Hoiesteret from withdrawing 
 from the High Court of Justice, or Rigsret, on the undeniable ground 
 of the unfairness of its composition, and its being turned, for party 
 purposes, into an instrument of political passion. Their convictions, 
 in fact, were sacrificed to the necessities of their position.
 
 CRISIS IN NORWAY 335 
 
 "The Union," said the Swedish cabinet, "pre- 
 supposed, and made it an absolute condition that 
 the King should have in Norway, as he had in 
 Sweden, a decisive voice as to changes in the 
 Constitution, and that the armed forces in Norway, 
 of whatever description, should, like those of 
 Sweden, be placed under the command of the 
 common King (Unionskonung)." 
 
 The latter portion of this authoritative declara- 
 tion of the Swedish ministers referred to a measure 
 passed in the Storthing, whereby certain volunteer 
 rifle corps were placed under the direct authority 
 of Parliament — a bold encroachment which the 
 Norwegian Government had very properly refused 
 to sanction. By the above line of action the dignity 
 of the Crown was safeguarded as much as was 
 possible under the circumstances ; the King further 
 showing a wise magnanimity by causing the prose- 
 cution of M. Bjornstjerna Bjornson, for articles 
 published in his paper, the Werhlcns Gang, of 
 a grossly insulting character against him, to be 
 dropped. 1 
 
 1 It has been allowed, and recently put in print in a publication 
 which commands a very large circle of readers, that the King 
 meditated a '<■"// d'&ai in Norway, ami was urged by his Swedish 
 advisers to high-handed proceedings against the Storthing. 'I'heso 
 statements are quite erroneous. Tin' naval and military forces in 
 \ •'• . . could scarcely at that period have been relied on, while 
 m Sweden tli*- cabinet strongly recommended acquiescence in the 
 sentence against tin- impeached Norwegian ministers; the Swedish 
 Diet, . L eren tin- pri . carefully abstaining from any open ex- 
 pression of opinion at this acul 1 tin- conflict, alth< 
 inwardly voi I by the attitude of M. Sverdrup and ins adherent
 
 336 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 An attempt — destined to failure — was then made 
 to carry on the Government with an administration, 
 taken from the Conservative side, of men of in- 
 dependent means and high standing, like MM. 
 Schweigaard and Lovenskiold. With the latter, 
 one of the few remaining representatives of the 
 old Norwegian aristocracy, and his very pleasant 
 wife — now Mistress of the Robes to the Queen in 
 Norway — we made great friends, and several times 
 visited them at their charming place called Vekero, 
 on the Christiania fjord. Lovenskiold, whose 
 Conservatism was of a very moderate type, and 
 who had taken office to oblige the King, indulged 
 from the first in no illusions as to the final out- 
 come of the contest with the Storthing, and 
 strongly urged that the wisest course to adopt 
 was to cast the responsibilities of office on the 
 leader of the Opposition. After fruitless negotia- 
 tions for a modus vivendi with the Left, he was 
 finally charged by the King to call on the President 
 of the Storthing and request him to submit his list 
 for a new Ministry for his Majesty's approval. " It 
 was the bitterest thing I ever had to do," said M. 
 Lovenskiold, in relating this to me, " but I had 
 given the King what I believed to be the only 
 possible honest advice." 
 
 We were lunching in town with the Michells 
 on the day (June 26th) when the appointment 
 of M. Sverdrup as prime minister was first publicly 
 announced. M. Eichter, one of the incoming
 
 NORWEGIAN RADICAL AIMS 337 
 
 Cabinet — for some time Consul-General in London 
 — was one of the party, and showed what seemed 
 to me undue elation. He spoke of the new era on 
 which Norway was entering as a fresh honeymoon 
 for the King and the nation. Everything, he said, 
 would henceforth go smoothly. M. Richter did not 
 perhaps then realise the grasping spirit of the ex- 
 treme elements of his party, whose real aim was, and 
 is, complete separation from Sweden. Judged by 
 the light of the successive concessions since extorted 
 from the Crown in the question of the so-called 
 " pure " flag, 1 and in that of a separate Consular 
 service for Norway, which latter has been all but. 
 granted, his prognostications have proved as erro- 
 neous as I thought them at the time. Of the 
 general lassitude caused by the protracted struggle, 
 no better illustration can be given than the message 
 which the dying Stang — a former premier who had 
 been the first to recommend a policy of resistance 
 to the excessive pretensions of the Storthing — sent 
 to the King from his deathbed : " Sire ! Make 
 peace ! " 
 
 I have little more to say of our quiet, uneventful 
 BOJOOID in Norway, which now came to an end after 
 effecting its purpose by fully restoring my wife to 
 health. Before Leaving Christiania, however, 1 had 
 an interesting interview with the new Norwegian 
 
 1 The right claimed by the Nbi to remove from the flag 
 
 of th utile marine the Swedish quartering indicative oi the 
 
 union be( untriee.
 
 338 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 premier. This remarkable man, who certainly 
 changed the entire face of affairs in his country, 
 struck me at first sight as a poseur, a character, I 
 take it, not uncommon among demagogues. He 
 addressed me in German, which he evidently knew 
 well, but spoke with difficulty. He excused himself 
 for this by saying that he had been all his life "a 
 plain workman " (em schlichter Arbeiter), and had 
 had no time to bestow on " articles of luxury." As 
 a matter of fact, he came of a quite respectable 
 stock, and had for some years been unprofitably en- 
 gaged in banking business. I thought his manner 
 decidedly ungenial, and he seemed to be very 
 much on his guard and not quite at his ease. 
 Probably he had been too thoroughly soured in 
 opposition to enjoy the sweets of office now that he 
 had attained them. He spoke very bitterly of what 
 he called the governing class in Sweden ; which 
 must be made to realise that Norway intended to 
 be mistress in her own house. Nothing, he said, 
 could check the present movement, which indeed 
 was common to the three Scandinavian nations, and 
 was manifestlv the outcome of old historical and 
 ethnical conditions. 
 
 I asked him whether — given the thoroughly 
 democratic spirit and traditions which obtained in 
 Norway — the introduction of Republican institutions 
 would not be the logical issue of the present situa- 
 tion ? He seemed amused by this point-blank query, 
 and, dropping for a moment his doctrinaire tone,
 
 JOHAN SVERDRUP 339 
 
 replied that although freer forms of government 
 would probably some day be generally adopted, such 
 a change as I indicated was not imminent in Nor- 
 way. " We do not ride fast in this country, although 
 we are not dead men," he added, absurdly misapply- 
 ing a well-known German quotation. 1 Altogether, 
 M. Sverdrup did not impress me favourably. What 
 I disliked most in him was, for want of a better 
 word, a certain viciousness of manner and expres- 
 sion which pointed to his being an implacable 
 adversary. Hut a long course of political agitation 
 under adverse circumstances would scarcely develop 
 the more pleasing sides of human nature. 
 
 "We left Christiania on the 30th September, part- 
 ing with regret from our small circle of friends there, 
 and notably from Michell and his kind, warm-hearted 
 wife — a parting which, as it happened, was for good. 
 Bat it was pleasant to get back to our comfortable 
 home in Stockholm and the daily routine of life and 
 work there. Another change had recently taken 
 place in our Legation by the appointment of 
 Edmund Cope as First Secretary in succession to 
 Lawrence, promoted to be Minister Resident at 
 Quito. Cope was the heir to that fine old place, 
 Bramshill, with its splendid house, built for Henry, 
 Prince of Wales, about the same time and bv the 
 same architecl as Hatfield, which in its design and 
 general aspect it much resembL Bramshill is not 
 far from Eversley, and is probably the prototype of 
 
 1 " Ham! I /',/(.//." 1 B Lenora").
 
 340 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the imaginary home of the Calmadys, as depicted in 
 Lucas Malet's remarkable and most powerful, but 
 rather repelling story. We liked poor Cope and 
 his clever, helpful wife very much indeed, and little 
 foresaw when we left Sweden that, with so bright a 
 future before him, he was soon to come to a tragical 
 end by throwing himself out of his window at 
 Stockholm during a severe attack of brain fever. 
 
 During this, my last, autumn in Scandinavia I 
 made closer acquaintance with one of its most 
 distinguished sons, the Arctic explorer, Baron 
 Nordenskjold — in private life the most simple and 
 unassuming of men — whom I had first met shortly 
 before his last expedition to Greenland in the 
 summer of 1883. At that time he looked forward 
 with some confidence to establishing the correctness 
 of a theory he held, that, after crossing the zone of 
 ice-fields which follows the outline of the coast and 
 forms a glacial belt around it, the country beyond 
 would be found to be free from ice and probably 
 even wooded. He based this opinion — which he 
 admitted to be contrary to the received scientific 
 notions on the subject — mainly on the fact that all 
 the winds which reach the inland regions of Green- 
 land must partake of the character of the folin or 
 south wind, and, therefore, be dry and relatively 
 warm. A subsidiary object of the expedition was a 
 search for the vestiges of the settlement of Oster- 
 bygden, founded by Norwegians during the Middle 
 Ages, and which had to be looked for on the
 
 NORDENSKJOLD 341 
 
 eastern coast above Cape Farewell. This settle- 
 ment was known to have been flourishing, and to 
 have contained as many as one hundred and ninety 
 villages divided into thirteen parishes, which 
 formed a bishopric. The ravages made by the 
 plague in Norway towards the middle of the 
 fourteenth century caused the interruption of the 
 communications between the mother country and 
 the colony, and the unfortunate settlers, left to 
 themselves, were unable to make head against the 
 repeated assaults of the aborigines or Skrattingarne. 1 
 The entire community, it is supposed, eventuallv 
 perished, though the precise circumstances attend- 
 ing its destruction are lost to history. 
 
 These traditions of a Norse settlement buried 
 centuries ago in the Polar solitudes were sufficiently 
 fascinating to contribute to Nordenskjold's resolve to 
 explore Greenland, but his interest in that region had 
 been in part awakened by the discovery he had made 
 in the Library at Nancy of a manuscript map of the 
 Northern countries of Europe — made at Rome in 
 1427, sixty-five years before the first journey of 
 Columbus, and the earliest known chart of its kind 
 — which showed an outline of the coast of ( rreenland, 
 almost accurate as to its geographical situation, and 
 clearly marked as Grordandia provincia. Of a 
 facsimile he had h;el made of this remarkable map 
 
 the great explorer was good enough to give me a copy 
 
 ''l. the name given in the contempo irdi of the ill-fated 
 
 Llement to what were probal mo tribes.
 
 342 KECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 bearing his signature. Nordenskjold's expedition 
 to Greenland failed, as is well known, to confirm 
 his theory, and only contributed to establish the fact 
 that the interior of that desolate region is nothing 
 but a huge glacier, with an almost flat surface riven 
 by immensely wide fissures or crevasses. 
 
 About this time, too, he claimed the reward of 
 25,000 florins which had been offered as long ago as 
 1 596 by the Dutch States General to the first naviga- 
 tor who should discover a passage through the frozen 
 seas north of Europe to the rich regions of Cathay 
 and India in the Far East. This prize he considered 
 himself fully entitled to, on the strength of his 
 discovery of the North-Eastern passage, and his 
 successful circumnavigation of Asia in the Vega. 
 He told me, I remember, that he would be content 
 with a gold medal marking official recognition of his 
 having solved the mystery which had baffled so 
 many navigators before him, but I cannot say 
 whether he was able or not to establish his claim. 
 
 But it is high time I should return from this 
 lengthy Arctic digression to our pleasant every- 
 day life in Drottning-Gatan, where we looked 
 forward to the usual mild round of Swedish winter 
 dissipation. Various moves had indeed recently 
 taken place in the service, occasioned by the 
 lamented death of Lord Ampthill and the retirement 
 of Sir Charles Wyke. Of desirable posts both 
 Brussels and Lisbon had become vacant, and had 
 been filled up, somewhat to my chagrin. But there
 
 MOVES IN THE SERVICE 343 
 
 were far worse places than Stockholm, as I well 
 knew, and. trusting to Lord Granville's very friendly 
 disposition towards me, I had quite made up my 
 mind to another year or two of out-of-the-way, 
 but genial, Scandinavia, although there was no 
 denying that one's interest in the larger concerns of 
 Europe was, in this snug Northern cut de sac — as I 
 once put it to Lord Granville in a private letter — 
 something like that of Stratford Place in the roar and 
 bustle of Oxford Street. One felt like a highly 
 respectable neighbour who was altogether out of the 
 movement. On the other hand, I found plenty to 
 occupy me in the study of the complex questions 
 that were in the forefront of Swedish and Norwegian 
 affairs — as these pages may well, I fear, betray to 
 excess — and was besides just then engaged in 
 interesting negotiations for a convention exempting 
 British subjects residing in Sweden or Norway from 
 forced loans or compulsory military service in those 
 countries. 
 
 Quite unexpectedly, I received on the 3rd of 
 December a private message in cypher from Lord 
 Granville asking whether I would prefer Athens or 
 Copenhagen to my present post, if he was able to 
 make the arrangement. My reply to this vers kind 
 offer was, as events afterwards showed, probably a 
 decisive turning-point in my career. The recollec- 
 tion! I had of Greece, and my great regard lor its 
 sovereign, together with a vain notion that Athens 
 might possibly prove the stepping-stone to the
 
 344 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 Embassy at Constantinople, made me in some degree 
 covet that post ; while, on the other hand, the re- 
 moval to the pleasant neighbouring court of Copen- 
 hagen was in many ways tempting. In this dilemma 
 my reply to Lord Granville was to the effect that 
 "ambition" pointed to Athens while "private con- 
 venience " suggested Copenhagen ; and in a letter 
 of thanks I explained to him how difficult it would 
 be for me, having but few family ties in England, to 
 provide during the holidays for four sons, all now at 
 school, from so distant a post as Athens. My wife, 
 I well remember, was in despair that I had not at 
 once opted decidedly for Copenhagen, and, as it 
 turned out, her judgment in the matter was more 
 correct than mine. The real stepping-stone to the 
 greater posts in our service has for years past been 
 Copenhagen, and it may not be too presumptuous 
 to assume that had I gone there in 1885, instead of 
 to Athens, my chances of rapidly reaching the top 
 of the diplomatic tree would have been greater. 
 Lord Granville telegraphed back on the 17th that 
 " ambition had its way," and with mixed feelings 
 we prepared for the move, though we did not 
 actually make our final start for England until two 
 months later. 
 
 The time for our departure now drew near, and 
 our last effort in the shape of entertaining was a 
 small dance we gave in January, in honour of the 
 Crown Prince and Crown Princess, and which was 
 generally accounted to be a success. In February
 
 A SEAL IN SWEDISH 345 
 
 1 attended for the last time a banquet of the St. 
 Johannis Lodge, on which occasion the King very 
 graciously proposing my health, I returned thanks 
 in such Swedish as I could muster, referring to the 
 cordial relations which had always subsisted between 
 the Grand Lodges in both countries, and to the fact 
 that the Prince of Wales had been first initiated as 
 a Freemason in Sweden. I concluded this some- 
 what bold effort by expressing the conviction that 
 the Order would continue to flourish under its 
 Royal Grand Master and Protector, and that its 
 brethren, standing fast by the throne and the altar, 
 would ever loyally close up their ranks, both in 
 peaceful and in stormy days, when " the waves 
 beat on the sheltering rocks and islands (skdreri) 
 of Sweden." This quotation from one of King 
 Oscar's poems met, I need hardly say, with a cordial 
 reception. 
 
 The parting day soon came, and with it, I con- 
 fess, considerable repinings. I had spent three years 
 and a half so happily in Sweden, that I could not 
 hut ask myself why after all I was leaving it. Even 
 professionally there was much to regret about the 
 post I had occupied. Although removed there from 
 any active share in the game of diplomacy, I had 
 seen and Learned a good deal, and brought away 
 some useful lessons, not the least valuable of 
 which was the great object-lesson afforded by the 
 relations between the countries united by the mere 
 
 1 " .\.</- btfljorna -/<* tmci tkttren.*
 
 346 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 bond of King Oscar's sceptre. When I left 
 Sweden that bond had already been so weakened 
 that there seemed little to prevent the two kingdoms 
 from drifting asunder. The most complete self- 
 government ; an administrative independence which 
 comprised even a frontier line of customs ; a 
 sedulous care on the part of Sweden to consult at 
 all times the commercial interests of Norway ; * and 
 last, but not least, an earnest endeavour on the part 
 of the sovereign and Royal family to gain the affec- 
 tions of the people by identifying themselves with, 
 and frequently residing amongst them ; none of 
 these had availed to make Norway at heart true 
 to the Union, or to turn her from her dreams of 
 an independence which must almost certainly be 
 fatal to her as a nation. The fullest possible 
 measure of Home Rule, with the successive conces- 
 sions which brought it about, had in effect only 
 proved itself a forcing - machine for the most 
 extreme national aspirations. 
 
 It so happened that not long before my departure 
 I heard a great deal, on absolutely unimpeachable 
 authority, of certain dangers with which Norway was 
 then threatened. The Finnish immigration into 
 the northernmost Norwegian province of Finmarken 
 — to which I have before referred as being fostered 
 by Russia — was, I was assured, largely on the 
 increase. To such an extent in fact, that the 
 
 1 This was made thoroughly manifest in the negotiations for a 
 new commercial treaty with France in 1881.
 
 THE NORWEGIAN OBJECT-LESSON 347 
 
 Norwegian authorities who at first had taken little 
 heed of the gradual occupation of their territory by 
 an alien race which had so mighty an Empire at its 
 back, now began to realise the peril, and were 
 taking active measures to check it. 1 The first 
 warning given at Stockholm with respect to this 
 insidious process of colonisation had to come, I was 
 further told, from the best informed man in Europe 
 — namely, Prince Bismarck. 
 
 Norway, once cast adrift from Sweden, must 
 fatally, it seems to me, fall under the exclusive 
 influence, if not the dominion, of Russia — a consum- 
 mation which, knowing the hankering of that Power 
 after the open water in the northern Norwegian 
 harbours, we in England cannot possibly desire. 
 Nor should it be left out of account that so fine 
 a sea-board might well tempt other nations with 
 yearly widening aims. The maintenance and vitality 
 of the Union are, therefore, in my opinion, distinctly 
 a British interest, and by no means an insignificant 
 one. 
 
 I had my farewell audience of the King and 
 Queen on the 1 2t.l1 February 1S85. Their Majesties' 
 conversation with me turned chiefly on the news 
 — which had just come— of the death of General 
 Gordon. The Queen, with her strong evangelical 
 views, was much affected by the fate of one who 
 
 to her was the Christian hero par excellence. In 
 
 1 Tin- recenl turn "f aflairi in Finland ha of oour • greatly 
 altered the ; I bis movement.
 
 348 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST 
 
 the palace at Stockholm, as indeed wherever the 
 name of England was held in honour, that dark 
 hour of abandonment was deeply deplored. The 
 King took leave of me in the most flattering terms, 
 and gave me a large photograph recently taken of 
 him wearing the Garter. I have never had the 
 honour to see him again, but may safely say that no 
 one of our Envoys accredited to him, either before 
 or since, can possibly look back with greater pleasure 
 and interest to his sojourn at King Oscar's court 
 than I do to mine, or can form more sincere good 
 wishes for gamla Sverige 1 and its talented and 
 large-hearted ruler. 
 
 1 Old Sweden.
 
 INDEX 
 
 AbXROORN, Duke and Duchess of, 
 u^ and note, 120 
 
 .in-, sir Francis ottiwell, 129- 
 
 1 1 \ [69 and noti , 176 
 Adlerberg, < 'mint N., 19S 
 
 • . Hamilton, 4 
 Ailesbnry, Lady tee Bruce, Lady 
 
 Knit's!), 90 
 Airiie, Dowager Countess of, 142 
 
 ni. .Mini'.. 132, 319 
 Alford, Lady Marian, 115, 119-121, 
 
 1S2-3 
 Alkaine, M. (^ icomte de Castello 
 
 AIVO), 212 
 
 AI\car, 1 ton Diego de, 211 
 Amaranthen Order, at Stockholm, 
 
 256-9 and m 
 Anic I haillon, Comte, 223 
 
 , Comtesse, 224-5 
 
 Anderson, Sir Henry Percy, 114 
 
 and note'-*, 119 1, 
 
 onyi, ' '.Mint, 96 
 
 Arabin, Mr-.. 87 
 
 mon, 1 '<>in it- < toorges d', 131 
 
 Arancaniau nation. 58 and note" 
 
 region, 56-9 
 
 atine Republic, the, 33-5, 209- 
 210, 225-7 
 
 Arica, 10: tidal wave and earth- 
 quake at, 10-12 
 
 ArkN\ right, M re., 201 
 
 Allan-, appointment to, 31 ; 
 
 Augusta, Erapn 
 
 ay, Comte and Comtesse <!', 
 
 laneda, President, 21 1 
 I Wachtmeister, Count and 
 
 .'55 
 A/. ' 1 mo 'l,i 
 
 Bacodi M d< . 9^ 
 
 Baden, Prince 01, his w raitfa seen, 
 
 I 5 
 Balls, at Stockholm, 177 ; 
 
 at Versailles, 1 : 
 Bai ni/. < lolonel I 1 \n 
 
 , ( '..!., ml and Mi 1 126 
 
 Barne, Colonel and Lady Con- 
 stance, 79 
 
 Barrington, Hon. Augusta (see Mrs. 
 Blaclagarj . 1 14 
 
 , Hon. Charlotte (see Strath- 
 more, Countess of), 140, 143 
 
 , Hon. Sir Erie, 113 
 
 , George, Viscount, 115-4, 135, 
 
 147 
 
 , Dowager Lady, 114, 140 
 
 , Hon. Sir William, 34, 129 
 
 Harringtons, the, 153, 140-1 
 
 Harry more, Lady (see Post, Mrs. 
 Arthur), 109 
 
 Battenberg, Prince Alexander of, 
 161 
 
 , Prince Louis of, 217, 220 
 
 Battle Abbey, 198-200 
 
 Bazaars, at Albert Hall, 1S4-5 ; at 
 Stockholm, 267-8 
 
 Beaconsfield, Earl of, 99, 180-3 
 
 Beauclerk, William Nelthorpe, 159 
 and note 
 
 Beaumont, Lady Margaret, 201 
 
 Bellinga, 2S1 
 
 Hennet, Lady Corisande, 138 
 
 Benson, Lionel, 150 
 
 Berlin, 2S0 
 
 Bernadotte, General, 277-8 
 
 Bei 11c — 
 
 \i rival at, 155 
 I )i'|iarturc from, 191-3 
 Diplomatic corps at, 156-7, 159 
 and note, 173, 190 
 
 Politics at. 101 9 
 
 Berni 1 Ibei land, 157-9 
 
 Bertrand [fencing-master), 134-5 
 
 Beust, < lount, ui, 131 
 
 B a 1 lit/. 88 90, i« 9, 128-9 
 
 Billcs, t he I to, 253 
 
 Bi marck, < louni Herbert, 274 and 
 
 note 
 — . Prince, 95, 103 4, 180-1, 196, 
 • r 
 
 a on, Bittn tjerna, .■ 
 10111 field, Lady, 1 1 | 
 Blowitz, M. de, 26 1 

 
 35o 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Blunt, Wilfred, m, 179 note 
 
 Bolivia, 33-4 
 
 Bonde, Baron de, 248-9, 255 
 
 , Baroness Knut, 307 
 
 Bordeaux, 88, 206 
 
 Borthwick, Sir Algernon (Lord 
 
 Glenesk), 133 and note' 2 
 Bourchier, Mrs., 77 
 Boutenieff, M. de, 198 
 Brackenbury, Mr., 86 
 Brenier de Montmorands, the, 35-6 
 Brienen, Baroness de, 160-1 
 Broad wood, Miss, 271 
 Brougham, Lord, 199 and note 
 Brownlow, Countess of, 182 
 
 , Earl of, 227 
 
 Bruce, Lady Ernest (Lady Ailes- 
 bury), 90 
 
 , Hon. Harriet Preston, 108, 
 
 116 
 Buenos Ayres — 
 
 Arrival at, 208 
 
 Departure from, 222-7 
 
 Society at, 210 
 Bullfight at San Sebastian, 109-11, 
 
 no note 
 Biilnes, General, 26-7 
 
 , Miles, (see also Ortiizar and 
 
 Vergara), 27 
 
 , Mme., 27 
 
 Bylandt, Count, 199 and note, 
 
 3i8 
 
 Cadogan, Hon. Mrs. Charles, 242, 
 267 
 
 Callao, 8 
 
 Campbell, Lord George, 79 
 
 Carayon-Latour, M. de, 176 note 
 
 Carlsbad, 280 
 
 Carnarvon, Earl of, 271-3 
 
 Carola, Queen, of Saxony, 240 and 
 note 
 
 Castellanos, the, 254 
 
 Catholic, Old, Movement in Swit- 
 zerland, 165-7 
 
 Cator, Admiral, 51, 54, 59 
 
 Caulfeild, Alfred Henry, 228 
 
 , Algernon St. George, 183, 321 
 
 , Mrs. St. George (Lady Rum- 
 bold), 122 and note, 228-9, 2 5 2 > 
 273, 294-5, 308 
 
 Cauquenes, 43-4 
 
 Cavendish, Ida (Princess Louis 
 Pignatelli), 126-8, 131 
 
 Cerro de Santa Lucia, 23-4 
 
 Challemel - Lacour, M., 173-9 ai) d 
 note, 176 note 
 
 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph, 
 
 M.P., 291-3 
 Charles XII., 246, 295, 300 
 Charles XIIL, 237 
 Charles (John) XIV., 277, 278, 282 
 
 and note, 294, 296, 327 note 
 Charles XV., 236, 239, 262, 272 note, 
 
 296 
 Charles, Prince (Duke of Wester- 
 
 gotland), 238-9, 257, 259 
 Cheney, Edward, 107 
 Chile- 
 Agriculture in, 45-8 
 
 Classes of society in, 26 
 
 Departure from, 79-83 
 
 Description of, 16 and note, 17, 
 19-20, 42-59 
 
 Earthquakes in, 15 and note 
 
 German colonies in, 53-4 
 
 Life in, 39-59 et passim 
 
 Peasant classes in, 48 and note, 
 49 and note 
 
 Politics in, 32-5 
 
 Report on, 85-6 and note 
 
 Spanish rule in, 17-8 
 Chorley (musical critic), 4 
 Christian, Prince, 125 
 Christiania, 326-7 
 Christina, Queen, 256, 258-9, 329 
 Clanwilliam, Earl of, 217 
 Clary, Desir^e, 277-8 
 Clay, Fred, 150 
 
 , James, M.P., 149 
 
 , Key-Seymer, Ernest, 149, 184 
 
 Clayton, Sir Oscar, 314, 317-18 
 Cleveland, Duke and Duchess of, 
 
 178 and note, 182, 198-200 
 Cochrane, Admiral Lord, 27, 51 and 
 
 note, 81 
 Cock burn, Sir Alexander, 126, 132 
 Codao, 45-50, 80 
 Colon, 7 
 Compton, Lady Alwyne, 115, 119, 
 
 227, 229 
 , Lord Alwyne (Dean of Wor- 
 cester and Bishop of Ely), 119 
 and note 1 , 227, 229 
 Concepcion, 56 
 
 Cood, Don Enrique, 65 and note, 71 
 Cooper, Dr., 76, 81 
 Cope, Edmund, 339 
 Cork, Countess of, 139 
 Courtenay, Frank, 4 and note 
 Cousifio, Don Luis de, 25, 42, 55 
 — — , Dona Isidora de, 28-56 
 Cowell-Stepney, Sir Arthur, 293 
 Cowper, Hon. Spencer, 105
 
 INDEX 
 
 351 
 
 Crampton, Mr. Thomas Rnrmnll. 229 
 
 Crofton, Lord, 229 
 
 ( hroisette, Mine., 94 
 
 I iley, Mrs., 267 
 
 Carrie, Philip (Lord), 105, 191 
 
 , Mi. Raikes, 105, 201 
 
 DALTOH, < 'anon. 217-9 
 1 ^iman. Rev. II., ;.I 
 
 Decarcs, Dae, 130 
 
 Delamere, Lord and Lady, m 
 
 Del Grillo, M archesa Capranica (see 
 
 Riatori, lime.), 71-0, 1 1 1 
 , Doooa Bianoa Capranica, 
 
 73-4 
 Derby, Earl of, 70-1, 79, 95, 9S, 
 
 147-8 
 
 , Countess "t. < 5-6, 9S 
 
 I ii'vin, Count, ij'i 
 Dickins, Lady Elizabeth, 115 
 Dilke, Sir I Ibarlea, 130 
 Dolg'>r<>uki, l'rince and Princess, 
 
 280 
 Donoiigliiuorc, Kail of, 237 
 Dorchester, Lord and Lady, 126, 133 
 Dorset, 5th Puke 01, 1 16 and note'* 
 Dresden, 279-280 
 Droit tteutle, 168 9 
 Drummond, Victor, 85 
 Drammond-Hay, James, 13,15-16, 
 
 61, 63 and note, 82 
 
 , Sir John, 15, 294 
 
 , Robert, 267, 269, 298 
 
 Dudley. Kali and Countess of, 
 123-5, '/0-2 
 
 Dudi • le, < !omtesse < laston de, 157 
 Duff, Mr. John, 230 
 Dufferin, Marquess <»f, 91 
 Datton, Son. M 1 3. Ralph, 160 
 
 BABTHQ1 &KBS, at Arica, 1 1 ; at 
 
 ntiago, 1 1 '>, 76 
 tern < Insis, the, 97-9, 103-4 
 Bchaurren, M.. 32. &i 
 1. erton, sir Edwin, 2, 209 and 
 
 I lialiilnar, 302-4 
 
 I zalde, Mine. Magdalena, 213 
 Elliot, Francis, 207, 269 
 
 , Hon < reor e, > ;j and noU 
 
 Ellis, Major-General Sir Arthur, 
 
 147 and noU 
 1 Mia, < reneral Blanco, J7-8 
 I . Presidi I 1 >., 81 
 I . in.-. Ron. Bd ard, 
 . Seymour Blphiustone, R.N., 
 
 Kane, Sir Edmund and Lady, 159 
 
 and note, 160 
 Farquharson, Colonel dames (of 
 
 luvereaiiU |, iju 
 
 Person, Coonl Axel, 251 
 Ffreneb, Percy (of Monivea), 107 
 Pish, Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas, 157 
 Fontedlla, DoSaTransito Bandies, 
 
 28 
 Ford. Sir Francis Clare, 209 and 
 
 hi'' 
 
 Forli, 1 >uc de, 135 
 
 Forster, [light Hon. W. K., M.P., 
 
 289-291, 290 note 
 Fortunate, Marquis, 107 
 Frederica, Priucess of Hanover, 107 
 Freemasonry in Sweden, 237-9, 
 
 345 
 Fremantle, Hon. Sir Charles, 14) 
 
 and note 
 Frias, M.. 37 
 , Due de, S9 
 
 Gambetta, m., 177 
 
 Gana, M. Domingo, 63, 81 note 
 
 Garvagh, Lady, 242, 257 
 
 ( iavaric, Sefior, 132 
 
 Gillett, Mr. W., 79 
 
 Gladstone, Right Hon. W. K., 119 
 
 and note*, 194-6, 293 
 Glands Castle, 140-6 
 Glenesk, Lord {see Borthwick, Sir 
 
 Algernon), 133 
 Golts, General Count von der, 299 
 Gondim, Baron de, 222-3 
 Gonzenbach, M. de, 179-1S0 
 Gordon, ( reneral, 347 
 
 , Henry Kvans, 4 
 
 , Mifi , 4 
 
 Gortchacow, Prince, 100-3, 101 
 
 note, 107 and note, 316 
 Gongh, Hon. Hugh (Viscount), 
 
 301 and note 
 Graham, Sir Henry, 
 
 ami note 
 
 , Lad] Hermione, 
 
 , sir James, Bart 
 
 '. 
 
 151 
 
 . M 
 
 diss, 152 
 
 nei , M lie. Jeanne 
 
 K.i.K., 140 
 
 '53 
 , and Lady, 
 
 94 
 
 t rrant, Ladj Florence (nte Harris), 
 
 200 
 Granville, Karl, 2, 107, 17s and 
 
 notr, 194, 204- 5 71, 273, 
 
 I I 11. 143 4 
 Greenfell, Lady (Miss Evt Ij D 
 Wood), 160
 
 35- 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Greville, George, 129, 326 and note, 
 -, Henry, 4 
 
 Grey, Countess, 106 
 
 , Hon. William, 272 
 
 Guest, Sir Ivor and Lady Cornelia, 
 
 125 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus, 233, 240, 296, 
 
 300 
 Gustavus III., 234, 243, 247 and 
 
 note, 248, 249, 250, 295, 302 
 Gustavus IV., King, translation 
 
 of remains of, 240-41, 244-45, 
 
 303, and note 247 
 Gustavus Wasa, 261, 305 
 Gyssestad, 331 
 
 Haga, 295-6 
 
 Hall, Sir Cliarles, Q.C., 139 and 
 
 note s 
 
 , Mr. Hubert, 202 
 
 Hamburger, M., 190-1, 196 
 Hammer, Colonel, 179, 196 
 Hammond, Lord, 1 and note, 40 
 
 , Mrs., 77 
 
 Harcourt, Comte and Comtesse 
 
 Bernard d', 156, 173 
 Harington, Sir John, Bart., 108 
 Harrington, Mr. and Mrs., Ill 
 Harris, Admiral the Hon. Sir Ed- 
 ward, 29, 147 
 
 , Lady Constance, 200-1 
 
 Hartington, Marquess of (Duke of 
 
 Devonshire), 131, 178, 292 
 Hawtrey, Rev. John, his school, 
 
 183* 227 
 Haygarth, Colonel and Lady 
 
 Blanche, 280 
 Headfort, Marquis and Marchioness 
 
 of, 94 
 Heimendahl, Mme. Adele, 212 
 Hervey, Miss Marie, 131 
 Higgins, Mr. ("Jacob Omnium"), 
 
 160 
 Hinchliff, Mr. T. W., his " Over 
 
 the Sea and Far Away " quoted, 
 
 46 and note 
 Hochschild, Baron and Baroness, 
 
 233-4, 255, 264-6, 281, 309 
 Holland House, 106-7 
 
 , Lady, 106 
 
 Holleben, Doctor von, 225 
 Hope, Lady Mary, 200 
 Hortense, Queen, 101-3 
 Houghton, Lord, 199 
 Hiibner, Count, 119 and note", 120 
 Huneeus, M., 65 
 
 Hyde, John (Master of the Tacna), 
 60-70 ; arrested, 62 ; released, 
 70 ; indemnity to, 81 note 
 
 Ibanez, M., 36, 63 and note, 65- 
 
 7i 
 Ignatiew, General, 98-100, 101 
 
 note, 125, 169 
 
 Mme., 99, 100, 125 
 
 Ilchester, Countess of, 107 
 Imperial, Prince, 133-4 and note, 
 
 135, 184 
 
 James, Henry (Lord James of 
 
 Hereford), 293 
 Jerningham, Hon. William, 9 
 Jersey, Countess of, 319 
 Joachim, Herr, 125 
 
 Karlberg, 295 
 
 Kenmare, Earl of, 205 
 
 Kennedy, Sir Charles Malcolm, 
 
 148 
 Ker-Seymer, Gertrude (Mrs. Clay- 
 
 Ker-Seymer), 149 
 Kingston, Mr. Alfred, 202 
 Konig, Professor, 179 and note 
 
 Labouchere, Henry Dupre\ M.P.. 
 
 ^39 
 La Ferronnays, Marquis and Mar- 
 quise, 200 
 La Gardie, Countess de (nee Platen), 
 
 300 
 Lagartijo (bull fighter), no 
 Langtry, Mrs., 105 
 La Rochefoucauld, Comte Aimery 
 
 de, 306 
 Comtesse Gaston de, 87-90, 
 
 93, 126-7, 131, 175-7, 206 
 Larsson, Liss Olaf, 277 
 Lawrence, Mr., 269, 297 
 Layard, Sir Henry, 178 and note 
 Lecky, Captain, 83 
 Leconfield, Lord and Lady, 273 
 Leeds, Duke and Duchess of, 201 
 Leighton, Sir Frederic (Lord), 4, 
 
 107, 138 
 Lennox, Lord Henry Gordon, 126, 
 
 127 and note, 128 
 
 Lady Henry, 132 
 
 Levenhagen, M., 36 
 Leveson-Gower, Hon. Frederick, 
 
 107 
 Levinge, Sir William and Lady (ne'e 
 
 Sutton), 118, 331 note 
 Lima, 9
 
 INDEX 
 
 353 
 
 Lisbon, 86 
 
 Lister, si; rbomaa Villi.-r-. 86 and 
 
 not> 
 Lloyd, Mr. Edward] 319 
 Lobanow, Prince Alexis, 197-8, 
 
 3»5 
 
 Longevity, instances of, 304-6 
 Lou- i 1 r Countess of, 
 
 -74 
 
 , Countess of, 320 
 
 , Karl of, 331 note 
 
 1 ita, 55 
 
 Louise. Princess, 125 
 
 oskio d, M. and Mine., 336 
 Levi anhjelm, < lount, -43-5 
 Lowther, Mrs. Francis, 130 
 
 . Mr. Gerard, 34 
 
 Leyd-Lindsay, Col. and Hon. Mrs. 
 
 (Lord and Lady Wantage), 108, 
 
 '37 
 Lucca. Mine. 1'auline, 319 
 Lucerne, 100 
 
 Lutsow, Countess Henry de, 160 
 1 j ne-. 1 mchesse de, 201 
 Lyons, Lord, 01-2, 130 
 Lytton, Earl of, 80 
 
 M \. I'.nai.I'. Admiral Mr Regi- 
 nald. 294, 297. 3] 
 Maekenna, M. Benjamin Vicuna, 
 
 -4 
 Maclagan, Mr-, (see Barnngton, 
 
 Hon. Au.u-tai, 1 14 note 9 
 IfscMab m, Marshal, 170 
 
 il a stud farm), 42 
 Magi an, strait- of, question of 
 
 u\\ nersnip, 34 5 
 Mailly-Nesle family, 306 
 
 r. Lake, 321-3 
 Mi ;;, . : Hon. Sir Edward. 91 
 Mandevi le, Viscountess (Duchess 
 
 oi Manchi ster), 131 
 M mil. Mr. and Mr-. George, 121 
 
 and ii'>l' , 122 
 
 Merioriba 1 Lady, 125 
 House, 12 ^ 
 
 Man jS-9 
 
 Mele iri, M., 174-5 
 
 U rnich, Prince, 28, 68 and 1 
 In Starnetz, 72 
 Michel I, Thorns ,26-7, 331 >, 
 
 ••r, Mr-. Brice, 77 
 Mill*, Lad) Louisa, 280 
 
 inville, 2 6, 1 \, 31,40-1, 
 
 5' 
 , Sir \N illiam, Bart., 2 
 
 M it ford, Bertram Freeman (Lord 
 Redesdale), 133 and note', 142 
 Mohrenheim, Baron, 314-17 
 Monereiffe, sir EL, Hart., 124 
 Monson, Kt. Hou. Sir Edmund, 208 
 
 and note 1 , 217, 220 
 Montagu, Hon. Elisabeth, 127 
 
 , Mrs.. 189 
 
 Montebello, Marquis and Marquise 
 
 de, 200 
 Montevideo, >wte, S5, 207, 227 
 Montgelas, Count, 125-6 
 Morier, Kt. Hun. Sit Robert, 86, 93, 
 
 188, 206 
 Morley, Karl of, 137-8 
 Mouchy, Due and Duchesse {see 
 
 Mnrat), 93, 131 
 Mnnro, Mrs., 217 
 Murat, Princess Anna (arc Moucbvi. 
 
 93 
 Murrieta, Mme.de, 123 
 
 Napoleon III., Emperor, 101-2 
 Neaselrode, Count Dnnitri, 17S and 
 
 note 
 Netherby, 131-3 
 Nicholas, Emperor, 101, 130, 151, 
 
 327 note 
 Nicholson, Dean, 141 
 VI --on, Christine, 247-8 
 Norden kjold, Baron, 340-2 
 Northampton, 3rd Marquis of, 115 
 
 and not* , [18 9 and note ' 
 Nortlicote, Henry Stafford (Lord), 
 
 139 and note 9 
 Norway, political conditions in, 
 
 jSi-290, 333-9, 340-7 and 
 
 notes 
 Nugent, Consul, 10; his account of 
 earthquake and tidal wave, 10- 
 12 
 
 O'Comi 'i:. Bit Nicholas, 79 and note 
 Ogilvy, Lady Blanche, 142 
 Okolicsauyi, Alexandre d', 299 
 
 , ( M.a 1 Princess Kubaiinw ), 21)') 
 
 Okounen, M., 2^1 fc 255, 364-6 
 • lliphant, Major-< r< u< 1 a 1. 139 
 Onnathwaite, Lord and Lady, 273 
 ( trosa railway . <>-io 
 Ortuzar, Dun Adolfo, .'7. 44-5. 47, 80 
 
 Mme .. 7. n. • s " 
 1 1 mih'. Lord Franci -.217 
 ir, King of Sweden, 131 >. 236 7, 
 
 '57. 259. -7«. 
 
 12, 297, .• . 
 
 . 7. 345. 347 
 
 /.
 
 354 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Oscar, Prince, 257, 259 
 
 Osterbygden, 340-2 
 
 Otrante, Count (Duke) and Count- 
 ess d' (nee Stedingk), 272 and 
 note, 302, 306, 330-1 
 
 , Edward, 307 
 
 Palgrave, William Gifford, 6 and 
 note 
 
 Panama, 8 
 
 Panizzi, M., 107 
 
 Paris, visits to, 90-4, 108, 129-130, 
 170-2 
 
 Patenotre, M., 251 
 
 Peel, Miss Alice (Lady Morier), 93 
 
 , Sir Charles Lennox, 205 
 
 Peru, 33-4 
 
 Petropolis, 207 
 
 Pfuel, M. de, 250-1, 264 
 
 Pfusterchmids, the, 253 
 
 Phipps, Mrs. Edmund, 90 
 
 Phoenix Park Murders, 273 
 
 Phonograph, 153-4 
 
 Pinto, M. Anibal (President), 63, 
 67, 86 note 
 
 Piper, Count Edward, 281 
 
 , Count Eric, 281 
 
 Platen, Count, 257-8 
 
 , Countess, 255 and note 2 
 
 Posse, Count Arvid, 263, 324 
 
 Post, Mrs. Arthur (Lady Barry- 
 more), 109 
 
 Preece, Sir William, lecture by, 
 
 Priestley, Sir William, 332 
 Primrose, Col. the Hon Everard, 
 
 293 
 Prisdang, Prince, 322-3 
 Protocol of March 31, 1S77, 97 
 
 and note, 98 
 Puente de las Verrugas, 10 
 Punta Arenas, 84-5 
 
 Ramsay, Lady (Lady Dalhousie), 
 
 201 
 Rancliffe, Lord, 117 
 Rawlinson, Sir Henry, 159 
 Redesdale, Lord (see Mitford), 133 
 
 and note 3 
 Repetto, Mile., 78 
 Richelieu, Marechal de, 305 
 
 , widow of, 306 
 
 Richter, M., 336-7 
 
 Rigby, Mrs., 116 
 
 Rio de Janeiro, 85, 207 
 
 Ristori, Mme. Adelaide (Marchesa 
 
 Capranica del Grillo), 71-6, 160 
 
 Rivers, Lord, 108, 135, 149-150 
 Robinson, Lady Helena, 307 
 Roca, President, 211 note 1 , 217-18, 
 
 225 
 Rokeby, Lord, 108, 15 1-2, 188, 
 
 190, 227, 320 
 Ronalds, Mrs., 150 
 Rosen, Count and Countess Niels, 
 
 257> 308 
 Rosendal, 295 
 Rosebery, Earl of, 131 
 Rosslyn, Countess of, 126 
 Rothschild, Baron Ferdinand, ill, 
 
 131 
 
 , Baron Gustave, 130-1 
 
 Rowton, Lord, 1 82 and note 
 
 Rumbold, Sir Arthur, 109 
 
 , Sir Charles, 116 note 1 , 139, 
 
 146 
 
 , George, 236 
 
 , Helen, Lady, 109 
 
 , Henry, 202-3 
 
 , Horace Montagu, 80, 1 50 and 
 
 note, 151, 157, 183, 188, 321 
 , Hugh Cecil Levinge, 329, 331 
 
 and note 
 , Lady (see Caulfeild, Mrs. St. 
 
 George), 252, 273, 294-5, 3 o8 » 
 
 330-2, 344 
 , William, Comptroller of the 
 
 Great Wardrobe, 202 and notes 1 
 
 and 2 , 204 
 
 , William, 105 
 
 Russell, Lord Arthur, M.P., 133 and 
 
 note 2 
 
 , Sir Charles, 86 
 
 , Sir George, 86 
 
 , Lord Odo (Lord Ampthill), 
 
 104, 280, 319-20 
 of Aden, Mr., 138 
 
 Sackville, Mrs. Stopford, 1 15-16 
 St. Gothard Railway, 162-5 
 St. Moritz, 1 60- 1 
 St. Omer, M., 67 and note 2 
 St. Thomas, West Indies, 6 
 Salisbury, Marquess of, 186-7, I 9 I 
 Sanderson, Sir Thomas, 148 
 Sands, Mrs. Mahlon, 105, ii', 123, 
 
 126 
 San Lucar, Due de, 89, 127 
 Sanminiatelli, Count, 37, 74 
 Santiago, appointment to, 3 
 
 Arrival at, 13 
 
 Climate of, 20-1 
 
 Description of, 21-5, 23 note 
 
 Diplomatic corps at, 35-8
 
 INDEX 
 
 355 
 
 Santiag i. earthquake at, 13-15. 
 
 of the Compania at, 20 and 
 . • 
 Opera-house at, 77 
 l; leetings at, 78 
 Sartoris, Mr. and Mr-. Edward, 3 
 and note 
 
 . Maitland, 129 
 
 Bcalchi, Mme . 319 
 
 Scania, I hike 01, 300 
 
 Schenk, President, 155, 167,179 
 
 Schouvalow, Couut, 96 and note, 
 
 10 I, 13 . 1S5-8 
 
 Scott, Lord < lharles, 217, 220 
 
 9 r\ ice Fund, 274 
 Selmer, Blr., 326, 333 
 Beroej , M. de., 1 75 and note 
 
 mour, Sir Hamilton, 102-3, 130; 
 
 on first duty of a diplomatist 
 
 abroad, 251 and note 
 
 Lady, 103 
 
 Shennan, D. A.. 220. 222 
 
 Sligo, Marquess and Marchioness of, 
 
 199 and note 
 Smith, Mra » tewald, 146 
 Somen, < lountess, (82, 201 
 Sonnet, by Lord Tennyson, 5; by 
 
 Petrarch, 73 
 
 Qneen of Sweden, 276-7, 
 
 204. .vxd. 347 
 
 - • .may or. \ ieomte de, 254-5 
 Sparreholm, 304-5 
 
 - ocer, Earl, 205 
 
 ola, Marquis and Marquise, 
 
 2 53 
 Sprengtporten family, the, 304-5 
 
 . Baron de, 317 
 
 hope, Hon. Philip, 1 yj 
 Lady Wilhelmina (Duchee 
 
 Cleveland), 200 
 Btockholm — 
 
 A 1 rival at, 2 {I 
 
 Balls at, 
 
 I ; /.i..! - at, 267 8 
 
 d brae hunting at, 249-250 
 ( kmtrasted with St. Pi tei burg, 
 
 1 1 arture from, 345, 347-s 
 Diplomatic corps at, 250 5, 260, 
 
 I • . den at, 234 5, 302 
 niuminatioi 
 
 Ridds urch at, 2 | 1 1 1 
 
 I;-. christ ;<>o 
 
 I: 1 r w( mi" at, a 
 
 Stockholm — 
 
 Skating at, 269-271, 298 
 
 Staic ceremonies at, 243-8,276-8 
 
 Strathmore, Karl of, 143-4 
 
 , Countess of. 140-143 
 
 sti athnairn, Lord, 199 
 
 Stuart, Hun. Sir William, 147 
 
 Stuers, M. and Mme. do. 123 and note 
 Subercaseaux 1 tofiaJ uanita Browne 
 de, 77 
 
 Sullivan, Sir Arthur, 150 
 Sutherland, Duke of, 125-133 
 Sverdrup, Johan, 27S. 288 and note, 
 335 note, 336, 337-9 
 
 Sweden — 
 
 Cro« n Prince <>f, 240 
 
 Crown Princess of (Princess 
 
 Victoria of Baden), 241-2 
 1 description of, 231 
 Freemasonry in, 237-9, 271-2. 345 
 Public affairs in, 259 266, 275, 
 278-9, 309. 312, 3^4-8, 333-8, 
 346-7 
 Railway to ninth of, 309-10 
 Schw eigaard, M., 336 
 Switzerland, political and religious 
 
 questions in, 161-9 
 Sydney, Lord, 205 
 
 Tacna affair, the, 35-36, 60-71, Si 
 
 and note 
 Talleyrand, 121 
 
 Tankerville, Countess of, 138, 184 
 Tchernaieff, General, 95 
 Teck, Duke of, 125 
 Princess Mary, Duchess of, 
 
 180, 184 
 Themptander, M., 326 
 Thiers, M., 92-3 
 Thomas, Arthur < taring, 313 
 Thompson, Professor Wyville, 79 
 — , Mr. Taylour, 28, 80 
 Thornton, Sir Edward, 294 
 Tidal \\a\ e at A 1 Lea, 11,12 
 Tosti, Signor, 105 
 Towneley, M rs. John, 1 12 
 Trafford, Mr. William, 332 and not* 
 Troubetzkoy, Princess Lise, 92 
 Tumbull, l>r., 217 
 Tuyll, Baron Vincenl de, 160 
 •• Tw 11 I mperial Policies," qnoti d, 
 
 [{ 1 
 
 Baron, 240 
 
 I Ink -d.il, 306 7 
 
 I p al.i 
 
 I I I ill ... 1 .1 111 1 :i 1, 57
 
 356 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ValdivjA, 51-5, 51 note 
 
 , German colony at, 53 
 
 , Pedro, 17 
 
 Valparaiso — 
 
 Arrival at, 12-3 
 
 Departure from, 83 
 
 Earthquake at, 15 
 
 English residents at, 76, 82 
 Vega, Vicomte and Vicomtesse de 
 
 la, 157 
 Vergara, Don and Dona Ruperto, 
 
 27 
 Verney, Mr. Frederick, 322 
 Vernon, Hon. W. W., 332 and note 
 Versailles, ball at, 170-2 
 Verulam, Countess of, 153 
 Victoria, Queen, 107, 195, 229 
 Villiers, Rt. Hon. Charles, 178 
 
 , Lady Clementina, 319 and 
 
 note 
 Virjin, Admiral, 297 
 
 Waldegrave, Countess of, 184 
 
 Wales, Prince of (King Edward 
 VII.), 125-6, 170 
 
 , Princessof (Queen Alexandra), 
 
 138, 170, 272 
 
 , Prince Albert Victor of, 216- 
 
 222 
 
 , Prince George of (Prince of 
 
 Wales), 216-222 
 
 Walsham, Sir John and Lady, 280-1 
 
 Wasa, Prince, translation of re- 
 mains of, 240-1 
 
 Waterford, Marquess of, 131 
 
 Waxholm, 297 
 
 Webb, Godfrey, 201 
 
 Welby, Lord, 149 
 
 Wellesley, Hon. Gerald, Dean of 
 Windsor, 3, 195 and note 
 
 , Hon. Mrs., 3, 152 
 
 , Henry (3rd Duke of Welling- 
 ton), 139 and note 2 
 
 Wellington, istDukeof, 27-8 
 
 3rd Duke of (see Wellesley, 
 
 Henry), 139 and note 2 
 Wenryss, Captain R. C. (R.N. ), 
 
 220-1 
 West, Lionel (Lord Sackville), 96 
 Wharncliffe (Earl and Countess of), 
 
 201, 273 
 Wheeler, Mrs. Luke, 105 
 White, of Ardarroch, Mrs. (Lady 
 
 Henry Lennox), 132 
 , Right Hon. Sir William, 
 
 185-8, 186 note 
 Wijk, Mr., 275 
 Wilkinson, Mr., on North Sweden, 
 
 310-11 
 William I., Emperor, 197, 299 
 Wilson, Sir Charles Rivers, 149 and 
 
 note 
 Wodehouse, Hon. Mrs. Henry 
 
 (Marchioness of Anglesey), 132 
 Wombwell, Sir George and Lady 
 
 Julia. 126 
 Wood, Miss Evelyn (Lady Gren- 
 
 fell), 160 
 Woodgate, Adela, 222-3 
 , Frederick, 214 
 
 Yorke, Hon. Alexander, 199 
 "Young Lochinvar," Legend of, 
 
 151 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <y Co. 
 Edinburgh er 1 Loudon
 
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