Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake [42]
(19) "D-n your eyes!" he said once, in a moment of irritation, to his ATTACHE, Mr. Hay. "D-n your Excellency's eyes!" was the answer, delivered with deep respect but with sufficient emphasis. Dismissed on the spot, the candid ATTACHE went in great anger to pack up, but was followed after a time by Lady Canning, habitual peacemaker in the household, who besought him if not to apologize at least to bid his Chief good-bye. After much persuasion he consented. "Hardly had he entered the room when Sir Stratford had him by the hand. 'My dear Hay, this will never do; what a devil of a temper you have!' The two were firmer friends than ever after this" (LANE POOLE'S LIFE OF LORD STRATFORD, chapter xiii.).
(20) The story of an old quarrel between Sir Stratford Canning and the then Grand Duke Nicholas at St. Petersburg in 1825 is disproved by Canning's own statement. The two met once only in their lives, at a purely formal reception at Paris in 1814.
(21) LA FEMME was a "Miss" or "Mrs." Howard. She followed Louis Napoleon to France in 1848, and lived openly with him as his mistress. In the once famous "Letters of an Englishman" we are told how shortly after the December massacre the ELITE of English visitors in Paris were not ashamed to dine at her house in the President's company: and in 1860, Mrs. Simpson, in France with her father, Nassau Senior, found her, decorated with the title of Madame de Beauregard, inhabiting La Celle, near Versailles, once the abode of Madame de Pompadour, "with the national flag flying over it, to the great scandal of the neighbourhood."
(22) Bachaumont's criticism of Latour. Lady Dilke's "French Painters," p. 165.
(23) Here is one of the stanzas:
"L'Autriche - dit-on - et la Russie Se brouillent pour la Turquie. Des aujourd'hui il n'en est plus question. En invitant une femme charmante, Le Turc - et je l'en complimente - Est devenu pour nous un trait d'union."
(24) "Blackwood's Magazine," December, 1895, p. 802.
(25) I inserted this quotation before reading the "Etchingham Letters." Sir Richard would wish me to erase it as hackneyed; but it applies to Kinglake's talk as accurately as to Virgil's writing, and I refuse to be defrauded of it.
(26) This delightful phrase is Lady Gregory's. One would wish, like Lord Houghton, though suppressing his presumptuous rider, to have been its author.
(27) Of course Kinglake was not alone in this opinion. It was voiced in a delightful JEU D'ESPRIT, now forgotten, which it is worth while to reproduce:
"THE BERLIN CONGRESS.
"The following Latin poem, from the pen of the well-known German poet, Gustave Schwetschke, was distributed by Prince Bismarck's special request amongst the Plenipotentiaries immediately after the last sitting on Saturday:
"'GAUDEAMUS CONGRESSIBILE. "'Gaudeamus igitur Socii congressus, Post dolores bellicosos, Post labores gloriosos, Nobis fit decessus.
"'Ubi sunt, qui ante nos Quondam consedere, Viennenses, Parisienses Tot per annos, tot per menses? Frustra decidere.
"'Mundus heu! vult decipi, Sed non decipiatur, Non plus ultra inter gentes Litigantes et frementes Manus conferatur.
'Vivat Pax! et comitent Dii nunc congressum, Ceu Deus ex machina Ipsa venit Cypria Roborans successum.
"'Pereat discordia! Vincat semper litem Proxenetae probitas, (27a) Fides, spes, et charitas, Gaudeamus item!
"G. S."
"THE OTHER VERSION. (From the "Pall Mall Gazette.")
"A correspondent informs us that the version given in 'The Standard' of yesterday of the congratulatory ode ('Gaudeamus igitur,' etc.) addressed to the Congress by 'the well-known German poet Gustave Schwetschke,' and 'distributed by Prince Bismarck's request among the Plenipotentiaries,' is incorrect. The true version, we are assured, is as follows:
"'Rideamus igitur, Socii Congressus; Post dolores bellicosos, Post labores bumptiosos, Fit mirandus messus.
"Ubi sunt qui apud nos Causas litigare, Moldo-Wallachae frementes, Graeculi esurientes? Heu! absquatulare.
"'Ubi sunt provinciae