1895] Our Lord Mayor at Paris 177 



Then Dufferin came to fetch me, and took me off to Lady Dufferin, 

 who was holding court for the Lord Mayor of London on the lawn, 

 all sitting on gilded arm-chairs on a red carpet — the Lord Mayor, Sir 

 Francis Reinalls, a ridiculous, pompous little man, who has come over 

 to Paris to make a splash, bringing his gilt coach and four horses with 

 him. Dufferin tells me that at the Elysee Reinalls took upon himself 

 to compliment the President on his royal bearing, and to invite him to 

 stay with him at the Mansion House. He seems to have made a fcol 

 of himself all round. He told me himself that he had been to the 

 Theatre Frangais, and had been so bored that he had gone away to a 

 Cafe Chantant, and I see the French papers have got hold of the story, 

 while the English ones contain a protest that he has no commission at 

 all to represent the City of London in Paris. 



" Dufferin was very kind and pleasant, as he always is to me, and 

 showed me his books. Among them was a volume of Gregory's Mem- 

 oirs, and he fired up when I noticed it, repudiating with great indigna- 

 tion the story told there of his aunt, Mrs. Norton, having sold the in- 

 formation of Peel's change on the Corn Law question to the ' Times.' 

 He assured me it was entirely false, as he had traced the truth to Peel 

 himself, who desired to clinch the matter. He considered it a cruel 

 libel on his virtuous aunt. But Dufferin is touching in his family 

 fidelity. 



" At 6.30 I took train for Vienna, arriving there the night of 9th 

 September. Stayed at Sacher's Hotel, a very excellent inn, and on 

 the morning of the 10th, after calling on Barrington and Clarke at the 

 Embassy, and getting my passport from them, I again took train, and 

 so through the following night and the morning of yesterday, arriving 

 at length somewhat tired and very dirty at Czerny Ostrov, my final 

 station. At the frontier, Voloschitzka, I had some difficulty about my 

 passport, of which the Russian authorities seemed suspicious, but with 

 the help of Count Bielski, a young Pole whom I had met in the train, 

 got through. At Czerny Ostrov a carriage and four was waiting, and 

 I was driven rapidly to Antonin, the last half of the road in Countess 

 Joseph Potocka's four-in-hand of four dark bay Arab mares, very 

 beautiful ones and beautifully matched, going a great pace. The roads 

 were good, there having been no rain for long, and we did the distance 

 of twenty-two miles in about two hours. 



" To-day I have been shown the stud. The Arab portion of it is, 

 I am sorry to say, in a lamentable condition compared with what it was 

 eleven years ago when I saw it last. The reason is the want of proper 

 stallions. For one reason or another Potocki has been unable to pro- 

 cure a really first class one, and the horse, ' Euclid,' which he bought 

 in India of Lord William Beresford for, I believe, 500 guineas, has 1 

 proved an absolute failure at the stud. His stock are coarse, without 



