Naturally, in order to remove the arch, the statue must come down, and then came the great question, Was it to go back again? This was just the sort of problem which would provoke violent differences of opinion. I had a great deal of talk about it with the Prince of Wales, who took the liveliest interest in it, and finally appointed a committee of advice, which met at Marlborough House and at which he took the chair.[44] The two protagonists for replacing the statue and against so doing were the Dukes of Rutland and Wellington. Filial piety prompted the former to stand up stoutly for a statue erected by a committee of which his father had been chairman; filial piety caused the Duke of Wellington to raise his voice against replacing what he considered to be an insult to his father’s memory. The duel became very comic. The Duke of Rutland wound up by saying that it would be a monstrous thing to banish a statue for which the great Duke had sat to the sculptor in the very clothes which he wore at Waterloo. This the Duke felt to be unanswerable, and he looked round at us in triumph. “Nothing of the kind,” said the Duke of Wellington. “My father only sent his valet to the sculptor’s studio with a bag of clothes.” In spite of further objections raised by Sir Stafford Northcote and Lord John Manners, the last of whom had been one of the speakers in the debate in the House of Commons in 1846 which resulted in the erection of the monster, the Duke of Wellington’s bag of clothes, so far as the committee was concerned, clinched the historic part of the discussion, and the æsthetic side was not long in doubt. But there was still Parliament to be faced. In the meantime the Prince went abroad, first to Darmstadt and then to Royat in Auvergne. In the House of Commons our proposals were carried by a majority of one hundred and eleven, a result which I communicated to His Royal Highness, who wrote from Darmstadt on May 4th: “I rejoice with you at the majority of one hundred and eleven obtained in the House of Commons on the important matter which we have so much at heart.... Both you and your chief will, I am sure, agree with me that I was right, when I saw you this day week, in insisting on being firm and risking the result of the division. I have at any rate had my reward.” The Prince wrote to me again from Royat in some anxiety upon the subject, which was to be brought forward in the Upper House by Lords de Ros and Stratheden.