FORE:When the returned Emperor, therefore, drove up to the Tuileries, at nearly ten o'clock on the night of the 20tha foggy and wet nighthis carriage, covered with mud, was surrounded by his friends, as if he had only been absent on one of his campaigns. As he stepped out of his carriage in his old grey great-coat and cocked hat, now to be seen in the museum of the Louvre, he was instantly so hemmed in that he called out, "My friends, you stifle me!" and a number of general officers at once hoisted him upon their shoulders, and thus bore him into the palace and up into the State apartments amid deafening shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!"
FORE:
FORE:Immediately on the rising of Parliament O'Connell published a violent attack in the form of a letter to Lord Duncannon. This was taken up by Lord Brougham in the course of an oratorical tour which he was making through Scotland, and a mutual exchange of compliments ensued. Unfortunately the Chancellor's eccentricity did not stop there. Earl Grey was not permitted to retire into private life without some popular recognition of his great public services. On the 15th of September a grand banquet was given in Edinburgh in honour of this illustrious statesman. "Probably," says a contemporary chronicle, "no Minister in the zenith of his power ever before received so gratifying a tribute of national respect as was paid on this occasion to one who had not only retired from office, but retired from it for ever. The popular enthusiasm, both in the capital and other parts of Scotland, was extreme, which the noble earl sensibly felt, and gratefully acknowledged as among the proudest circumstances of his life. The dinner took place in a large pavilion, erected for the occasion in the area of the High School, and was provided for upwards of 1,500 persons, more than 600 having been admitted after the removal of the cloth. The principal speakers were Earl Grey, the Lord Chancellor, and the Earl of Durham. Earl Grey and the Lord Chancellor, in their speeches, said they considered that the Reform in Parliament afforded the means by which all useful improvements might be obtained without violence. Both advocated a deliberate and careful, but steady course of amelioration and reform, and both derided the idea of a reaction in favour of Tory principles of government. The Earl of Durham avowed his opinions in favour of the ballot and household suffrage, and declared that he should regret every hour which left ancient and recognised abuses unreformed." This involved the Lord Chancellor in a new controversy in which more personalities were exchanged.Matters were at this pass when Lord Wellington, who had heard of the attack, at his headquarters at Lezaco, two days before, came galloping up on the morning of the 27th. He found Soult only two leagues from Pampeluna, and saw him so near that he could plainly discern his features. Wellington caused his own presence to be announced to his two bodies of troops, and they answered the announcement with loud cheers. That day the troops of Soult were pushed backwards by a regiment of the Irish, and a body of Spanish infantry, at the point of the bayonet. The next day, the 28th, the French were driven down still farther. On the 29th both armies rested, but on the 30th the fight was renewed with fury; but Picton and Dalhousie, being sent across the mountains in opposite directions, managed to turn both flanks of Soult, and the French fled precipitately as far as Olaque. There the pursuing troops fell in with the right of the French, which[60] had been worsted by Hill. In the darkness the French continued their flight, and the next morning were found in full retreat for France. The British gave chase, and made many prisoners, taking much baggage. These battles, which have been named "The Battles of the Pyrenees," Wellington describes as some of the most severe that he ever saw. He states the loss of the British in killed at one thousand five hundred, but in killed and wounded at six thousand. The French, he says, admitted that they had lost fifteen thousand men, and he therefore gave them credit for the loss being much more. On one occasion Wellington surprised Soult, and had so laid his plans for surrounding him that he felt sure of capturing him; but three drunken British soldiers, rambling carelessly beyond the outposts, were taken, and let out the secret of Wellington being hidden close at hand, behind the rocks, and thus saved the French commander. A second time he was saved by the Spanish generals, Longa and Barcenas, not being at their posts in a narrow defile near St. Estevan, where he could only pass by a slender bridge. Still the British were at his heels, and committed dreadful havoc on his troops in this pass. On the 2nd of August there was a fresh encounter with Soult's forces near the town of Echalar, where they were again beaten, and driven from a lofty mountain called Ivantelly. Soult retired behind the Bidassoa, and concentrated his routed forces; and Wellington, having once more cleared the passes of the Pyrenees of the French, gave his army some rest, after nine days of incessant and arduous action, where they could look out over the plains of France, which they were ere long to traverse. But the army had not much rest here. The French made determined efforts to raise the siege of San Sebastian, while Wellington was as active in endeavouring to force Pampeluna to capitulate. Unfortunately he had still scarcely any proper men or tools for siege-work. He had long urged on the Government the formation of companies of sappers and miners. But, after eighteen months, they had formed only one company, whilst, as Wellington informed the Government, there was no French corps d'arme which had not a battalion of them. This first British company of sappers and miners came out on the 19th of August, and were immediately set to work. Sir George Collier sent his sailors to assist, and on the 31st Wellington considered that he had made sufficient breach for storming. But that morning Soult sent across the Bidassoa a strong body of French to attack the besiegers. These were met by a division of eight thousand Spaniards, who allowed the French to ascend the heights of San Marcial, on which they were posted, and then, with a shout, charged with the bayonet down hill, at which sight the French instantly broke, and ran for it. They were pursued to the river, in which many plunged, and were drowned. In the afternoon Soult sent over again fifteen thousand men, having put across a pontoon bridge. These, under the eye and encouragement of Lord Wellington, were charged again by the Spaniards, and routed as before; many again rushing into the river, and the rest, crushing upon the bridge, broke it down, and perished in great numbers also. The Portuguese troops likewise met and defeated another detachment of French, who had come by another way. These were supported by British troops, under General Inglis, and with the same result. Wellington was highly delighted to see the Spaniards thus, at length, doing justice to their native valour under British discipline, and praised them warmly. Soult is said to have lost two thousand men.
THREE:
THREE:The Ministry were now involved in a transaction which produced them a plentiful crop of unpopularity. The country was already highly disappointed by the character of the financial measures, and now saw them engaged in an attempt to gratify the domestic resentments of the Prince of Wales. We have already alluded to the[520] disreputable circumstances attending his marriage with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick. After little more than a year's cohabitation they separated, but not before a daughter was born. So long as the Pitt Administration continued, all offensive measures of a public nature were warded from the unfortunate princess. The king had always been her decided protector; but now the Whigs came in, who had ever been in alliance with the Prince of Wales, and that exemplary gentleman conceived hopes that he might rid himself of her. The public had been for some time scandalised by disputes between the prince and princess as to a proper separate allowance for her, and concerning the prince's endeavours to deprive her of the company of her own child; but, as he had not succeeded in taking away the infant, rumours were soon industriously spread that the princess, at Blackheath, was leading a very disreputable life. All that they could gather up or construe to the princess's disadvantage was duly communicated to the Duke of Sussex, and by the duke to his brother, the prince. In 1805 they had supplied their employer or employers with a most startling story of the princess's having been delivered of a son, whom she was openly keeping in her house, under pretence that it was the child of a poor woman of the name of Austin, which she had adopted. Immediate steps were taken privately to get up a case. On the 24th of May Lord Chancellor Erskine read the written statements to the king, who decided that a private inquiry should take place; that the house of Lord Grenville should be selected as the proper scene, and that Lords Erskine, Spencer, Grenville, and Ellenborough should undertake the inquiry and report to him upon it. This meeting and inquiry took place, accordingly, on the 1st of June. Romilly attended. The servants were examined, and appear, according to Romilly's diary, to have uniformly given the most favourable testimony to the conduct of the princess. Further: the reputed mother of the child, Sophia Austin, was examined, and proved that the child was veritably her own; had been born at the Brownlow Street Hospital on the 11th of July, 1802, and had been taken to the princess's house on the 15th of November, adopted by her, and had remained there ever since. "The result," says Romilly, "was a perfect conviction on my mind, and, I believe, on the minds of the four lords, that the child was the child of Sophia Austin." This affair of the Princess of Wales was not terminated till the end of January, 1807. When the report was laid before the king, he referred it to the Cabinet, and they advised him to send a written message to the princess, acquitting her of the main charge, but observing that he saw in the depositions of the witnesses, and even in her own letter to him, defending her conduct, evidence of a deportment unbecoming her station. The odium excited against the Ministry by these un-English proceedings was intense, especially amongst women, all over the country.
