122 Hozv the Prince Imperial Was Killed [ 1 9^>d 



and he held up his hand, for he could not speak. When the priest, 

 an Englishman, Cuthbert Dunn, came to him he asked him whether he 

 wished to be received and put the usual questions, and again Oscar 

 held up his hand, but he was in no condition to make a confession nor 

 could he say a word. On this sign, however, Dunn allowing him the 

 benefit of the doubt, gave him conditional baptism, and afterwards 

 extreme unction but not communion. He was never able to speak and 

 we do not know whether he was altogether conscious. I did this for 

 the sake of my own conscience and the promise I had made.' Wilde's 

 wife died a year after he left prison. She would have gone to see him 

 at Paris but he had already taken to drink, and Ross did not encourage 

 her to do so. Ross made £800 by the ' De Profundis.' He had in- 

 tended to pay off Oscar's Paris debts with £400 of it and devote the 

 rest to the use of the boys, but just as he was going to do this the 

 whole sum was claimed by the bankruptcy court and the affair is not yet 

 settled. 



" 26th Nov. — Button Bourke came last night to dine with me. He 

 told me a curious story about the death of the Prince Imperial, Napoleon 

 the Third's son. He, Button, was at that time ' Daily Telegraph ' 

 correspondent with Chelmsford's staff in South Africa, to which the 

 Prince was attached. The Prince was bored with the staff duties and 

 got Chelmsford to allow him to go out with the scouting parties. On 

 one of these expeditions to survey the line of march, they fell in with 

 the Zulus, who surprised them while they were having their lunch. 

 Cary, who was in command of the scouts, gave order for a sanvc qui 

 pent and all rushed to get on their horses. The Prince had a habit of 

 vaulting into his saddle, but the girths having been loosed, the saddle 

 .urned round with him and he fell and was speared by the Zulus after 

 running forty or fifty yards. Cary and the rest had meanwhile ridden 

 away and returned to camp with the news. He had met Grenfell on 

 the way and had told him that they had been attacked by a large force 

 jf Zulus and that the Prince had been shot. Five other men had lost 

 :heir lives. The next morning Button had gone out with Grenfell 

 and others to look for the bodies and had found them, first coming 

 upon a Boer, who had been one of the scouts, then they found the 

 Prince's body, pierced with spears through the eye, the heart, and 

 other parts, but with no shot wounds. Upon this Cary was tried 

 by court martial for cowardice in the field, Button acting as his 

 ' friend ' on the occasion. His defence was that he had never learnt 

 to ride as a boy, that he had then served in a West Indian regiment 

 where the officers were not mounted, and that until he had come out 

 to South Africa he had never been on horseback, that they had all 

 scrambled on to their horses as they best could and that, he being unable 

 to manage his horse, had been run away with and had not even been 



