My Paris Diary of 1870 385 



decorated personage in Europe. Also he has the pretension of universal 

 knowledge, and has written a book or pamphlet on every possible subject 

 from Pisciculture to the Immaculate Conception. At Cintra he had a 

 garden of acclimatisation. His wife, the widow of a British navy surgeon, 

 was a worthy Englishwoman on whom he imposed absolute silence in 

 society so as to conceal her defects of education. 



" Another revolution is an absurd one at Monaco, where the Prince 

 heritier, who married Lady Mary Hamilton last spring, has slapped his 

 wife's face, and asks for a divorce. The late Duke of Hamilton, her* 

 father, so well known here at Paris as the Empress's cousin and intimate 

 friend, with many faults of conduct, was a grand seigneur. His worst 

 folly was his marriage with a Baden Princess who despised his Scotch 

 nobility and gave him a heavy set of German heirs. He met his death 

 by slipping down the narrow stairs of the Maison Doree where he had 

 been supping with Henry Howard and a couple of women after an opera 

 ball. The Empress learning what had happened hurried to his rooms and 

 was with him till he died. 



" Dejazet is retiring from the stage on which she has been popular for 

 nearly seventy years, having begun as an infant prodigy at the age of five. 



" Yet another scandal has been one in the Spanish Royal Family. The 

 ex-King's pension has been left unpaid, and he sues the ex-Queen Ysabel 

 for arrears. 



" I have bought a pair of horses of Mrs. Lyne Stevens for 4,000 francs. 

 She was on the stage, and her husband dying left her an immense fortune 

 which Claremont, our military attache here, manages for her at a salary 

 of £1,000 a year. 



" 26th June. — The Orleans princes have addressed a letter to the French 

 Parliament demanding their readmission into France. Courbet, the painter, 

 has refused the legion of honour. The Paris papers consider the refusal 

 a miracle of virtue. 



" 2&th June. — The claim of the Orleans princes has been refused 

 through fear, probably, that they should go on to demand their property in 

 France confiscated by the Republic. The Chantilly Estate is said to be 

 worth 280,000,000 francs. Among the wills and bequests I see that this 

 Estate, bought of the Due de Nemours, has just been left by Sir Edmund 

 Antrobus to his son, held I suppose fictitiously for the Orleans family. 



" Yesterday morning died Lord Clarendon, our Secretary for Foreign 

 Affairs. I met him four years ago when I was staying with the Usedoms 

 in the Villa Capponi at Florence, a sleek white little old man, with a 

 pulse, it was said for some years at forty, and an agreeable old-fashioned 

 manner. His brother, Charles Villiers, I met several times at the Malet's 

 at Frankfort in i860, a very brilliant talker, who was kind to me, and 

 interested in my young man's chatter. Their mother was the Mrs. 

 Villiers of the Byron correspondence. 



" 1st July. — To Versailles to see whether the historic tennis court there 

 was in a fit state for play. A nice litle girl in charge of the place told us 

 that an order had just come from the Ministry for its restoration. The 

 court is miserably out of repair, the floor chipped, and the plaster falling 



