264 A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, xvm 



his death. It looked affecting from an expression of deep 

 yet quiet suffering. Near this cast she had preserved the 

 portrait of his second wife and child, on which his dying 

 eyes were fixed, and which always hung at St Helena before 

 his little camp bed. Over these was hung the Cashmere 

 sash he wore at the battle of the Pyramids, blackened with 

 gunpowder. He had given it to her to wrap round her head 

 one day that she had taken cold. She shewed us also the 

 scapulaire of Charlemagne; it was taken from his tomb at 

 Aix-la-Chapelle and given by the town to her mother when 

 she visited it as Empress. There was in it a bit of the true 

 cross enchased in crystal as big as a turkey egg, set in jewels, 

 and a bit of gold chain that fastened it round his neck. 

 She had several interesting portraits, and is herself no con- 

 temptible artist. She takes strong likenesses and finishes 

 them very prettily. Her Chateau of Ehrenberg is beauti- 

 fully situated on the steep side of a mountain covered with 

 the richest vegetation, the most magnificent oak and walnut 

 trees, looking down directly into the Lake of Constance; 

 it is furnished as the most elegant and most comfortable 

 boudoir of Paris would be. It was delicious to take shelter 

 in it from the scorching sun. She has two dames d'honneur, 

 an Italian physician, and a French artist living with her 

 besides her son the Prince Louis. She told us she believed 

 she would come this winter to Geneva, for the sake of 

 making her son live in a way more consonant to his age 

 than with her at Constance. She gave us a book she has 

 just published, and that I am sure would interest you very 

 much Memoirs of her son's escape from Italy after the 

 last Revolution, and after her eldest son's death. 



I have just received my dear Mackintosh's History of 

 the Revolution, and your letter has lain by in consequence. 

 I cannot read it with quiet nerves. The Memoir 1 prefixed 

 does not so sorely vex me as it does Fanny [Allen], tho' 



1 A fragment of a History of the Revolution in 16S8 was published 

 after Mackintosh's death, with a memoir prefixed by a Mr Wallace. 

 Those who wish for more information on Mackintosh should read 

 Sydney Smith's noble panegyric given at the end of the Life by his 

 son; also an article in the Edinburgh Review for October, 1835. 



