The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 3): A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IVGreville, Charles
History
The Greville Memoirs, Part 1 (of 3), Volume 2 (of 3): A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV
Greville, Charles
Great Britain -- History -- George IV, 1820-1830; Great Britain -- History -- William IV, 1830-1837
The coronation went off well, and whereas nobody was satisfied
before it everybody was after it. No events of consequence. The
cholera has got to Berlin, and Warsaw is taken by the Russians,
who appear to have behaved with moderation. Since the deposition
of Skrznecki, and the reign of clubs and mobs and the perpetration
of massacres at Warsaw, the public sympathy for the Poles has a
good deal fallen off. The cholera, which is travelling south, is
less violent than it was in the north. It is remarkable that the
common people at Berlin are impressed with the same strange belief
that possessed those of St. Petersburg that they have been
poisoned, and Chad writes to-day that they believe there is no
such disease, and that the deaths ascribed to that malady are
produced by poison administered by the doctors, who are bribed for
that purpose; that the rich finding the poor becoming too numerous
to be conveniently governed have adopted this mode of thinning the
population, which was employed with success by the English in
India; that the foreign doctors are the delegates of a central
committee, which is formed in London and directs the proceedings,
and similar nonsense.
[Page Head: A DINNER AT ST. JAMES'S.]
The talk of the town has been about the King and a toast he gave
at a great dinner at St. James's the other day. He had ninety
guests--all his Ministers, all the great people, and all the
foreign Ambassadors. After dinner he made a long, rambling speech
in French, and ended by giving as 'a sentiment,' as he called it,
'The land we live in.' This was before the ladies left the room.
After they were gone he made another speech in French, in the
course of which he travelled over every variety of topic that
suggested itself to his excursive mind, and ended with a very
coarse toast and the words 'Honi soit qui mal y pense.' Sefton,
who told it me said he never felt so ashamed; Lord Grey was ready
to sink into the earth; everybody laughed of course, and Sefton,
who sat next to Talleyrand, said to him, 'Eh bien, que pensez-vous
de cela?' With his unmoved, immovable face he answered only,
'C'est bien remarquable.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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