isu-1815] Tom Wedgwood in Paris 73 



Tom Wedgwood to his father John Wedgwood. 



PAKIS, July 15, 1815. 



. . . All the Emperors and Kings are now in Paris. I 

 was on guard at the Emperor of Russia's on the 13th. He 

 treated us very generously. The guard consisted of 100 

 men; he gave them 150 Ibs. of meat, 200 Ibs. of bread, 

 100 bottles of very good wine, and vegetables. The officers 

 had an excellent dinner and might call at any time for 

 anything. . . . About the middle of dinner Platoff came 

 in and sat with us for a couple of hours and talked with us 

 quite familiarly. He said he enjoyed his visit to England 

 more than anything in his life, and that he liked the English 

 women better than any others, and when he went out he 

 shook us by the hand most heartily. . . . 



I think the French are the most impertinent and most 

 civil people in the world. As a proof of the latter, I was on 

 guard at one of the gates of Paris and had black crape 

 round my arm. A gentleman with two women came up 

 to me in a very civil way and beseeched to know what was 

 the meaning of the crape round my arm. I told them, but 

 that was not sufficient for they asked who for, which made 

 me stare, however I told them and walked away. . . . 



This 3 weeks' campaigning has only affected me in one 

 way, it made my legs very sore. For the first 3 days I did 

 [not] take off my boots and they got wet several times and 

 dried again on my feet, and when I got them off at last, I 

 could not get them on again without cutting the leather half 

 way down my foot, the consequence was that the insteps of 

 my feet were made quite raw. There is also another thing 

 which I cannot account for in the least. My face is quite 

 contracted on one side; and when I smile my mouth gets 

 quite to the left side of my face, and when I eat my upper 

 jaw does not come exactly on my under one, and I cannot 

 shut one of my eyes without the other, which I could do 

 before; however I do not feel it quite so much as before. . . . 



His face never entirely recovered from the paralysis 

 Drought on by exposure and want of food. 



