1815-1816J 77 



CHAPTER VI 



18151816 



The Allen sisters abroad Paris after Waterloo Harriet Drewe's 

 engagement to Mr Gifford Fanny Allen and William Clifford 

 A family gathering at Bath Sarah Wedgwood's love-affairs 

 Bessy visits Mrs Surtees Geneva society The Sydney Smiths 

 at Etruria Kitty Mackintosh and her daughters The Allen 

 sisters' journey to Florence. 



IN the autumn of 1815 the three sisters Jessie, Emma, and 

 Fanny Allen went abroad for three years. Jessie was 38, 

 Emma 35, and Fanny 34 years old. They were accom- 

 panied as far as Paris by John Wedgwood. The Continent 

 was only just opened to English travellers after the Peace, 

 and they were in Paris when the Louvre was being dismantled 

 of the stolen treasures. 



Emma Allen to her niece Elizabeth Wedgwood. 



HOTEL DE TOURS, RUE N.D. DES VICTOIRES, 



PARIS, Sept. 16, 1815. 

 MY DEAR ELIZABETH, 



Here I am at present in a state so much happier 

 than when I parted from you that I have longed to write 

 to one of the beloved ones at Etruria, for I know how glad 

 they will be to hear that, instead of repenting, I rejoice in 

 my decision of leaving England, though till I had talked 

 with Mackintosh, it was still passing in my mind to return 

 from town to Staffordshire. But he so entirely reconciled 

 me to the scheme that I became every hour happier that I 

 spent in town, and so many of those I love going with me 

 took from it the sadness I dreaded at quitting England. . . . 

 At one of the posts between Dieppe and Rouen, while 

 the horses were changing, we walked under the shade of 



