244 COACHING. 



" A splendid animal," said "Wellington, " I 

 Lope to ride bim next Monday at Fontaine- 

 bleau." 



My heart quailed within me. The hours 

 glided on, and when driving the Duke to the 

 theatre that evening in his cabriolet, so dis- 

 tracted was I that I grazed the curb-stone, and 

 was within an inch of knocking over one 

 of the gendarmes as we approached the 

 theatre. 



It was late when we arrived ; the last scene 

 of " Orestes " was going on, with Talma as 

 the hero; then followed the inimitable Made- 

 moiselle Mars in " La Jeunesse de Henri Cinq," 

 from which the English version of " Charles the 

 Second " has been adapted. 



To account for the change of monarchs, and 



to explain the inconsistency of having the wicked 



Earl of Rochester, the companion of " Sweet 



Prince Hal," I may remark that when the drama 



was first about to be brought out in Paris, 



during the reign of Napoleon I., the licenser 



objected to Charles, he being a restored Monarch, 



so the author had no alternative left him but 



to rewrite the whole piece or change his hero. 



The latter course he adopted, trusting that a 



Parisian audience would not detect the anachro- 



