He
was only fifty-five years old, and was full of vigour at that time, even
though he might have put on flesh during recent years, and therefore have
renounced dancing--his last partner in the waltz having been Mme. Carette,
the Empress Eugenie's reader, whom he led out at one of the '67 balls at
the Tuileries. Very hale and hearty, too, looked the King whom Bismarck
was about to turn into an Emperor. Yet the victor of Sedan was already
seventy-three years old. I only saw him on horseback during my stay at
Versailles. My recollections of him, Bismarck, and Moltke, belong more
particularly to the year 1872, when I was in Berlin in connexion with the
famous meeting of the three Emperors.
My father and myself had kept in touch with Mr. Wodehouse, from whom we
learnt that we should have to apply to the German General commanding
at Versailles with respect to any further safe-conducts. At first we were
informed that there could be no departure from the plan of sending us out
of France by way of Epernay, Reims, and Sedan, and this by no means
coincided with the desires of most of the Englishmen who had come out of
Paris, they wishing to proceed westward, and secure a passage across the
Channel from Le Havre or Dieppe.
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