My daughter was very happy in her domestic life in Stassfurt. She was
married from Lady Ripon’s house on Putney Heath, where a grand breakfast
was provided for a large party of friends. Lady de Grey, Lord Goderich,
Colonel Bertie Gordon, Mr. and Mrs. Dupré, my sons, George, Egmont and
Henry, Mr. and Mrs. William Hake (my brother and his wife) and other
members of my family and friends, with myself, were there, the good
countess presiding with her usual kindness and grace.
The tables were hung round with festoons of grapes, beneath which the
guests were seated.
Every one was struck by the likeness of Mr. Dupré to Bonaparte without
any knowledge of the reason, which was that they had a common ancestor in
the female line of Feisch, mother of the cardinal of that name. When Mr.
Dupré was page to the King of Wurtemberg, Jerome Bonaparte, through this
connection, the guard often presented arms as he passed, mistaking him
for one of the royal house.
He belonged to an old French family, that of Dupré de St. Maur, with
the rank of marquis, a title never entirely dropped, and to which my
son-in-law now stands next in succession, though he may never use it.
There was once an event of moment to the Protestants of France, the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes: this drove my son’s branch of the
Duprés into Germany and another to England, whose descendants are settled
in Buckinghamshire.
I went with all my family to the Harz, a mountain which is like a large
purse full of uncoined money; it is said to contain every metal. Men
whistle when they have nothing better to do, and they puff out their
cheeks when they are hot. This they are taught by Nature: she whistles
and behold a Vesuvius in full blast; she puffs out her cheeks and behold
the Harz mountains.
In England no place is more than 100 miles from the sea; but except
a strip of the Baltic all the salt water of Germany is inland, and
where its waves spout out, the people have towns, which, like our
horse-troughs, are called Watering Places. In Germany those who can
afford the luxury of gradual suicide, caused by over-good drinking and
eating, go there yearly to settle accounts with their system.
These towns have their pilgrims from many lands, who go as to Æsculapian
Temples to repent of their Hoch: but their sins are very curious; they
break out all over and all inside their bodies. There are reddish and
purple sins; these do penance sometimes on the nose, sometimes on the
large toes, and other joints; sometimes they blossom all over the skin.
Then there are sins of the stomachic, hepatic, renal, and pulmonic kind,
each symbolizing local contrition; and the penitents, with their sins
thus upon them, go every season to drink of those holy waters, and some
of them, for a time, are forgiven.
Midway between Stassfurt and Magdeburg there is a sort of park, called
Schönebeck, where people go for an idle day. It is bounded by a noted
salt-water evaporator which is a wall a mile long. There is an hotel, and
stalls for the sale of ephemeral goods, as books, toys, and drinks, and a
band plays all day the music of the best composers. George, who went with
me by way of Hamburg, returned with me to England by way of Cologne and
Brussels.
My Roehampton days were now over. After a stay in London, Brighton,
and elsewhere, I went to Bath early in 1873, and spent the August of
that year at Dover in company with my son Egmont; I then went to Paris,
where my eldest son, Thomas St. Edmund, joined me, making the very naïve
remark during our walks, that one learns a good deal of French out of
doors. This I capped by saying that English, too, might be learnt on the
shop-windows; but it was broken English, for the gold letters stuck on
the glass, of “English spoken here,” often got loose, while some were
missing. My next movement was through the Cenis Tunnel to Turin, where
I met my youngest son, Henry, who was a student of chemistry at the
University of Giesen, under Dr. Will.
After some stay at Turin we visited Genoa; passing the month of November
there, during which I was bitten by mosquitos over the face in a manner
expressive of small-pox.