Mr. John Labouchere predeceased Lord Taunton by six years, and it was often presumed by persons who knew the family but slightly that the younger Henry Labouchere was the son of Lord Taunton, which mistake gave the young wit the opportunity of making one of his best-known repartees. On one occasion a gentleman, to whom Henry was introduced for the first time, opened the conversation by remarking: "I have just heard your father make an admirable speech in the House of Lords." "The House of Lords!" replied Mr. Labouchere, assuming an air of intense interest, "well, I always _have_ wondered where my father went to when he died." [1] Presumably Uncle Pierre had conformed and stuck to it. [2] The portraits of Pierre-César Labouchère and Dorothy his wife, now in my possession, were then at Farnham Castle, and Mr. Baring was visiting my father, the then Bishop of Winchester, when he related to me this anecdote of my great-grandparents. [3] The story is confirmed by the Hon. Francis Henry Baring. Mr. F. H. Baring was told it by the late Thomas Charles Baring, M.P., the son of the Bishop of Durham. Mr. T. C. Baring was for many years a partner in Baring Bros., where he probably heard the story. Sir Henry Lucy, in his _More Passages by the Way_, mentions that Mr. Labouchere himself believed the story to be true. [4] Vincent Nolte, _Fifty Years in Both Hemispheres_. American translation, 1854. [5] Thiers, _Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire_; Louis Madelin, _Fouché_. See also _Times_, March 16, 1811, for the English account. [6] _Histoire de Mon Temps: Mémoires du Chancelier Pasquier_, publiées par le Duc d'Audriffet-Pasquier, 1789-1830. [7] The journal was written by Mr. T. L. Mallet, who married Lucy, daughter of Charles Baring. I am indebted for the extract to Lord Northbrook. [8] Yet another link between the Laboucheres and the Barings was forged by the marriage, in 1837, of Lady Taunton's sister, Emily Baring, to Mrs. John Labouchere's brother, the Rev. William Maxwell Du Pre. His sister, Caroline Du Pre, became the wife of the Rev. Spenser Thornton, who was a grandson of Godfrey Thornton by Jane his wife, a daughter of an influential director of the French hospital, Stephen Peter Godin, whose family note-book was published in the January number of the _Genealogist_ (_The Labouchère Pedigree_, by Henry Wagner, F.S.A., 1913). [9] _Truth_, March 19, 1891. {16} CHAPTER II CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH (1831-1853)