The French Revolution was now in full progress: the Bastile had been stormed and demolished; anarchy reigned in Paris; châteaux in the provinces were being plundered and burnt by the peasants; refugees, in terrified crowds, were pouring over to England. Some of the exiles presently found their way into Walpole’s neighbourhood. “Madame de Boufflers,” he tells Lady Ossory, “and the Comtesse Emilie, her daughter-in-law, I hear, are come to London; and Woronzow, the Russian Minister, who has a house at Richmond, is to lend it to her for the winter, as her fortune has received some considerable blow in the present commotions.” Besides these foreigners, other important personages had come or were coming into the district. The Duke of Clarence had a house in the middle of Richmond “with nothing but a green short apron to the river, a situation only fit for an old gentlewoman who has put out her knee-pans and loves cards. The Prince of Wales has taken a somewhat better place at Roehampton, and enters upon it at Christmas.” “My Straw-Berries,” he adds, “are not yet returned, but I expect them next week, and have found a house for them at Teddington very near me.” A little later, he writes, “My neighbour, the Duke of Clarence, is so popular, that if Richmond were a borough, and he had not attained his title, but still retained his idea of standing candidate, he would certainly be elected there. He pays his bills regularly himself, locks up his doors at night, that his servants may not stay out late, and never drinks but a few glasses of wine. Though the value of crowns is mightily fallen of late at market, it looks as if his Royal Highness thought they were still worth waiting for; nay, it is said that he tells his brothers that he shall be king before either--that is fair at least.”[116] In July, 1790, Walpole is alarmed by the intelligence that the Berrys have arranged to make a long visit to Italy. He writes to Miss Berry, then at the sea with her sister: “I feel all the kindness of your determination of coming to Twickenham in August, and shall certainly say no more against it, though I am certain that I shall count every day that passes; and when _they are passed_, they will leave a melancholy impression on Strawberry, that I had rather have affixed to London. The two last summers were infinitely the pleasantest I ever passed here, for I never before had an agreeable neighbourhood. Still I loved the place, and had no comparisons to draw. Now, the neighbourhood will remain, and will appear ten times worse; with the aggravation of remembering _two months_ that may have some transient roses, but, I am sure, lasting thorns. You tell me I do not write with my usual spirits: at least I will suppress, as much as I can, the want of them, though I am a bad dissembler.” The months pass, and we have the following farewell letter: “Sunday, Oct. 10, 1790. The day of your departure.