86 ikings of tbe IRob, TCifle, anb (Bun 



During the next five or six years the Colonel appears 

 to have been under a cloud. Robbed by rascally bailiffs, 

 pestered by duns, plagued with writs, the gallant old 

 sportsman nevertheless contrived to live merrily. He 

 sold his house " The Boudoir," in Westminster Road, 

 for fourteen hogsheads of claret, which he removed to 

 a villa in the Edgware Road. There he barricaded 

 himself and stood a siege of nearly two years against 

 an army of bailiffs, still entertaining his friends on 

 Sundays in right royal style. 



In 1814, he was over in France again, astonishing the 

 natives with his hounds and hunting establishment. 

 Thenceforward Colonel Thornton lived entirely abroad. 

 In 1817 he obtained a Royal Ordinance permitting him 

 to establish his domicile in France, and securing him 

 the enjoyment of all civil rights so long as he should 

 continue to reside there. He took on lease the chateau 

 of Chambord and bought an estate at Pont-Sur- Seine, 

 which carried with it the title of Marquis, and he used 

 sometimes to sign himself Marquis de Pont. In 1821 

 he sold this estate to the famous statesman Casimir 

 Perier, and passed the rest of his life in hired apartments 

 in Paris, where the " Falconers' Club," which he had 

 established there, dined every week. A correspondent 

 gives the following sketch of the old sportsman's later 

 years : 



"You ask me what I know of old Thornton. I 

 first became acquainted with him in Paris in October, 

 1822, when I became a member of a club (of which he 

 was the head) who dined together at the Shakespeare 

 a tavern kept by an old private servant of Colonel T.'s, 



