482 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 160. 



amidst the warriors of renown whose deeds form 

 the most brilliant themes of history. This was the 

 Honorable Arthur Welsey (for so the name was 

 then written *), of whom the lady related to me 

 the anecdote above referred to. After passing the 

 Christmas festivals at the Castle, Mrs. Woodcock 

 was under the necessity, on some commanding 

 cause, of returning to her own rather distant resi- 

 dence, for which she expressed the most anxious 

 desire : but in the depth of a severe winter, an 

 overwhelming fall of snow had rendered it impos- 

 sible to obtain a regular conveyance ; neither coach 

 nor sedan could be fetched or found; and the 

 lady's disappointment was too visible to escape 

 notice, when young Welsey relieved her by calling 

 to his aid Mr. Edmund Henry Pery, subsequently 

 Eai'l of Limerick, and, placing his lovely charge in 

 the sedan-chair that always awaited in the hall, 

 carried her amidst a storm of assailing snow to her 

 lodging. This, in itself so trivial a circumstance, 

 was many years since consigned, under my initials, 

 to the pages of the Gentleman s Magazine ; but in 

 the reproduction of a mass of anecdotes, such as 

 we daily read in the public prints with pleasure, 

 lest the most insignificant event of such a life 

 should elapse in oblivion, this little fact may not 

 be disentitled to repetition. 



On the death of Mr. Woodcock, his widow be- 

 came the wife of the Honorable Christopher Hely 

 Hutchinson, the long cherished member for Cork ; 

 and though both had passed the attractive spring- 

 time of life, — for he, too, had lost his wedded 

 partner, — a handsomer couple could rarely be seen ; 

 conspicuous as he was in dignity of manly feature, 

 mien, and aspect, and the lady still all loveliness, 



" Omnibus una omnes surripuit Veneres." 



Catullus. 



in unimpaired and fascinating charms. But even 

 their influence, with the recollection of the feelings 

 she had inspired in early life, sunk obediently 

 submissive to the superior command of what the 

 Duke considered a duty, which is said to have 

 ever swayed his conscience and actions. 



Reverting briefly to the lady, I should add, that 

 Mrs. Hutchinson's appeal to the Duke on behalf 

 of Ney, and, conjointly with Lady Holland, her 

 exertions to save Labedoyere, a colonel who had 

 also deserted to Napoleon in 1814, caused her to 



* It was not till the Duke's brother, the Marquis, 

 became governor of our Indian empire, that the family 

 changed the name, by the addition of a syllable, to 

 Wellesley, its original form ; while Napoleon and his 

 family, on the other hand, have abridged their patro- 

 nymic by discarding the letter u from the name in 

 order to Frenchify it. And here I may remark, that 

 the Duke and his family had not a drop of the Wel- 

 lesley blood in their veins, nor had Napoleon a particle 

 of French life-fluid in his, as their respective genealogies 

 will show. 



be ordered from Paris with Lady Holland, as Na- 

 poleon had similarly exiled from the capital (or, 

 in French estimation, from France, which it re- 

 presents) Madame de Stael, Madame Recamier, 

 the Duchesse de Chevreuse, and others, who had 

 become obnoxious to him. She survived Mr.. 

 Hutchinson (whose son, by his first wife, succeeded 

 him in the representation of Cork) a few years, 

 and died not long since at Florence, where her 

 daughter, Isabella, the wife of M. Brennier, French 

 resident at the Archducal court, and since called 

 to higher stations in the French Republic, then 

 lived. Only two victims, Ney and Labedoyere, 

 expiated by their death the wide-spread treason of 

 1815, it is fair to observe. 



As there appears a short interval hitherto, I 

 find, unnoticed in my illustrious countryman's 

 life (for though constantly denominated an En- 

 glishman, he was not only Irish, but could not 

 even trace his family for centuries to an English 

 stock), — I mean his sojourn at Angers to complete 

 his education, and prepare him for his destined 

 pursuit, — a short paragraph may not be superfluous 

 on the subject, though presenting no very sig- 

 nificant Incident in the recital. However the 

 facts may be of more or less interest, they proceed 

 from an authentic source. Angers is a city of 

 considerable note in various aspects : the capital of 

 the ancient province of Anjou, which gave birth 

 to several men of learning, Bodin (from whom 

 Montesquieu borrowed much). Menage, the Dr. 

 Johnson of his time, the traveller Bernier ; and if 

 not the native soil, the domestic residence for 

 many years of the epicene, or semivir, George 

 Sand. The city is now the capital of the de- 

 partement de Loire et Marne, containing about 

 35,000 inhabitants, and 210 miles south of Paris. 

 Its military academy was long the preferred school 

 for youths destined for the profession ; and thither 

 our departed hero was sent preparatory to his 

 being appointed to a regiment, which he was in 

 1787. Near the town a family of Irish extraction, 

 who had realised a considerable fortune in trade 

 at Nantes (see Lord Mahon's History, vol. iii. 

 p. 339.), possessed an estate, and corresponding 

 chateau, under the name of Serent, exchanged for 

 that of Walsh, when ennobled by Louis XV. on 

 advancing a large sum in aid of the young Pre- 

 tender's expedition in 1745. On the demise also, 

 in 1761, of the late Viscount Clare (his Irish for- 

 feited title, but Marshal Thomond in France, the 

 only Irishman In the French service so promoted *), 



* The marshal left two sons, who died without pos- 

 terity, and a daughter, married to the Duke of Clioiseul- 

 Praslin, grandfather of the miscreant who murdered 

 his wife in 1847. Louis XVIII. anxiously desired to 

 present the marshal's staff to Wellington, and it is even 

 said did so, but durst not encounter the unpopularity 

 of the act, and withheld it. Charles X. promised it to 



