Before and after Waterloo: Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802; 1814; 1816)Stanley, Edward
History
Before and after Waterloo: Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802; 1814; 1816)
Stanley, Edward
Europe -- Description and travel; France -- History -- Consulate and First Empire, 1799-1815
On leaving Mme. de S. we paid another visit. From the greatest woman we
went to see our greatest man in Paris, Sir Charles Stuart,[42] to whom
Lord Sheffield had given me a letter of introduction. This had been sent
the day before, and of course I now went to see the effect. After
waiting in the Anti-chamber of the great man for about half an hour, and
seeing divers and sundry faces pass and repass in review, we were
summoned to an audience. We found a little, vulgar-looking man, whom I
should have mistaken for the great man's butler if he had not first
given a hint that he was bonâ fide the great man himself. I think the
conversation was nearly thus: E. S.: "Pray, Sir, are the Marshalls in
Paris, and if so is it easy to see them?" Sir C. S.: "Upon my soul I
don't know." E. S.: "Pray, Sir, is there anything interesting to a
stranger like myself likely to take place in the course of the next
fortnight?" Sir C. S.: "Upon my soul I don't know." E. S.: "Pray, Sir,
is the interior of the Thuilleries worth seeing, and could we easily see
the apartments?" Sir C. S.: "Upon my soul I don't know." This, I do
assure you, was the cream of the conversation. Now certainly a great man
ought to look wise and say he does not know so and so, when in fact he
knows all about it, but somehow or other I could not help thinking that
Sir Charles spoke the truth, for if I may draw any inference from
Physiognomy, I never saw a face upon which the character of "upon my
soul I don't know" was more visibly stamped. I left my card, bowed, and
retired....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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