MEMOIR. 5 



When passing through Florence we were seized with the 

 measles. An order had been issued forbidding any foreigners 

 remaining more than a single night in the city ; however, on my 

 father's representing his case to the authorities, we obtained leave 

 to rest three days. 



I recollect looking out at the carriage window at Mont 

 Blanc as we passed within sight of its glaciers. I also retain a 

 vivid recollection of Switzerland and the tedious zig-zag roads 

 across the Alps. We narrowly escaped destruction here. The 

 ropes which attached the carriage to a team of oxen broke, the 

 carriage rolled backwards down the declivity, ran to the side of 

 the road, which was bounded by a precipice, and came in contact 

 with a small tree growing by the roadside, which stopped its 

 career. My father and Keginald had dismounted, and were 

 walking up the hill at the time, and Emma, to save herself, 

 jumped down from her elevated seat behind on to the road and 

 escaped injury. 



An agreeable sojourn of some continuance we spent on the 

 banks of the Lake of Geneva, at Ouchy, near the town of 

 Lausanne, where we hired a house situated among vineyards and 

 chestnut-trees. We also resided for some time in Paris at a 

 hotel in the Place Vendome. 



On returning home from the Continent we brought a Parisian 

 tutor, Mr B., who, though of English parentage, had been 

 brought up in France, and was indeed quite a model of a 

 Frenchman, volatile and thoughtless, with a truly Parisian 

 vanity and love of showing off. However, we became much 

 attached to him for his amiable manners, and because he was 



B 



