Hylands, a property he bought in Essex, and in Hamilton Place, where his home was frequented by many distinguished people and diplomatists." Two sons were born to Pierre-César and Dorothy Labouchère. The elder, Henry, was born in 1798, and made for himself a social and political career of decided distinction, as a Whig of the old school, a certain primness and conventionality of character enabling him to perform the part successfully in private as in public life. He took a first-class in classics at Oxford, and in 1832 found himself a Lord of the Admiralty. He became subsequently Vice-President of the Board of Trade, Under-Secretary to the Colonies, President of the Board of Trade, Chief Secretary of Ireland, Secretary of State for the Colonies, and was raised to the peerage in 1859, when he assumed the title of Baron Taunton, choosing the name of the borough he had represented in Parliament for thirty years. It was at Taunton in 1835 that he opposed and defeated Dizzy by a majority of a hundred and seventy, when, on his appointment as Master of the Mint under Lord Melbourne, he offered himself to his constituents for re-election. His primness and {14} conventionality found on this occasion an admirable foil in the manner and appearance of his opponent, who was "very showily attired in a bottle-green frock coat, a waistcoat of the most extravagant pattern, the front of which was almost covered with glittering chains, and in fancy pattern pantaloons." The judicious electors of Taunton preferred Mr. Labouchere's more solid qualities. Lord Taunton died very suddenly on July 13, 1869. He was twice married, first to Frances, daughter of Sir Thomas Baring,[8] and secondly to Lady Mary Howard, a daughter of Lord Carlisle. He left no sons. Consequently the bulk of his fortune descended to his brother John Labouchere's eldest son Henry, the future member for Northampton and editor of _Truth_. The younger Henry Labouchere's earliest recollections carried him back to his childish visits to his grandfather in Hamilton Place, where Prince Talleyrand, then Ambassador to the Court of St. James (1830-34), was a frequent visitor. "I have always taken a special interest in Talleyrand," he wrote when he was sixty, "because he gave me when a child a very gorgeous box of dominoes."[9] The elder Henry Labouchere does not seem at first sight to have shared any traits with his nephew and namesake. The only point on which they may be said to have agreed was their love for America. Lord Taunton as a young man travelled much in the United States with Lord Derby, and he had important business interests there as well as in South America, arising out of the commercial enterprises of the {15} house of Hope. He acquired in the course of his travels a strong liking for American institutions and a genuine affection for the American people, a feeling which, as we shall see, was shared by his nephew.