The Rev. E. Burnaby 71 



also found himself in complete agreement with all the sermons 

 Canon Farrar preached at the Abbey. 



Although Evelyn Burnaby has been in ill-health for some 

 time, he is as interested in things and people as ever, while his 

 memory is so clear that he has been of great assistance to me in 

 remembering old times, old friends, and dates. Perhaps he 

 will write his own memoirs some day : I hope he will. 



He used to spend a good deal of time in the Riviera. Once 

 when he was returning with his father and mother in the 

 Rapide from Marseilles, which was not timed to stop between 

 Dijon and Paris, they unexpectedly pulled up at Fontainebleau. 

 A bevy of fair ladies, aides-de-camps, officers and obsequious 

 railway officials were on the platform, and some great person 

 was evidently about to join the train. 



It proved to be the Empress Eugenie, who was returning to 

 Paris from a shooting -party in the forest. She was lifted into 

 the train from the low platform by an aide-de-camp, amidst 

 much laughter and merriment among the courtiers. This 

 was some fifty years ago, while Paris was still the most brilliant 

 capital in Europe and the Imperial master at the Tuilleries at 

 the height of his power. Burnaby was much impressed by the 

 Empress's beauty. He did not see her again for years, until 

 she passed him in a hansom-cab one day in St. James's Street 

 when she was a widowed ex-Empress, after having escaped to 

 the house of a dentist at the time of the Commune, from whose 

 house she made her way as a fugitive to the coast and was 

 brought to England by an old friend. Sir John Burgoyne, who 

 was given the fee -simple of Sutton and Potter in the county of 



Bedford. 



The height of the railway carriages above the platforms in 

 France has often tried me highly, especially when I have 

 had no aide-de-camp to help me. I remember seeing our dear 

 King Edward, when Prince of Wales, very nearly have a nasty 

 fall once while alighting from the train at Nice. All would 

 probably have gone well if he had been given a chance of getting 

 down in the ordinary peaceful fashion, but a crowd of officials 

 sought to assist him while simultaneously bowing, saluting, and 

 expressing their pleasure at seeing him. So many helping 

 hands were held out to him and so many swords became en- 

 tangled amongst excited legs, that the Prince missed the steps 



