Delighted with the character the new purchase had obtained, I started to ride quietly home by myself, when, within half a league of Paris, in crossing a small grip, I found that my horse went lame. To dismount and inspect his foot was the work of a moment, but I could see nothing. No alternative was then left me but to lead the limping animal home, which I did amidst the taunts and jeers of the rabble. No sooner had I reached the stables than I sent for the head-groom and the Duke's state coachman, to whom I explained all that had occurred. "Well, you have gone and done it," said the latter, who was a most eccentric character. "We wouldn't have taken three hundred guineas for that horse." This knight of the ribbons, be it remarked, always spoke in the plural number, and talked of what _we_ had done in the Peninsula, of _our_ triumphal entry into Madrid, and of how _we_ had beaten Ney and all the French marshals. Happily for me the Duke, who had been occupied all day, was out riding, and I did not see him until we met at dinner. I had fully made up my mind to tell him of the accident before going to bed, but waited until I received a further account of the horse's state. As a large party was assembled, little was said about the hunt until the ladies left the room, when I was called upon to give an account of the run, which I did. I then mentioned the brilliant manner in which Elmore had carried me, and the panegyrics he had received from all. "A splendid animal," said Wellington, "I hope to ride him next Monday at Fontainebleau." My heart quailed within me. The hours glided on, and when driving the Duke to the theatre that evening in his cabriolet, so distracted was I that I grazed the curbstone, and was within an inch of knocking over one of the gendarmes as we approached the theatre. It was late when we arrived; the last scene of "Orestes" was going on, with Talma as the hero; then followed the inimitable Mademoiselle Mars in "La Jeunesse de Henri Cinq," from which the English version of "Charles the Second" has been adapted. To account for the change of monarchs, and to explain the inconsistency of having the wicked Earl of Rochester, the companion of "Sweet Prince Hal," I may remark that when the drama was first about to be brought out in Paris, during the reign of Napoleon I., the licenser objected to Charles, he being a restored Monarch, so the author had no alternative left him but to rewrite the whole piece or change his hero. The latter course he adopted, trusting that a Parisian audience would not detect the anachronism. The perfect acting of Talma had no charm for me, and when the after-piece began I was too wretched to laugh at the _bonhomie_ of the actor who represented Captain Copp, or to appreciate the archness of that child of nature, Mlle. Mars as Betty.