The Beauty of Her Age: A Tale of Sex, Scandal and Money in Victorian England

by Jenifer Roberts

  The former, in obedience to orders from the Foreign Office, is only waiting for a reply from Count Bismarck to his letter asking for a pass to leave us. Whether the numerous English who remain here are then to look to … the porter for protection, I have been unable to discover.8

  Edward sent another despatch in cypher on 6 December, after French troops had attempted a five-day sortie which ended in disaster: ‘Ten thousand men altogether killed and wounded. I am afraid the morale is low.’ He and Wittgenstein had put off their departure to follow the sortie; according to Labouchere, Edward ‘was nearly killed several times by bombs from La Faisanderie, which was behind him, falling short’.

  Having obtained his pass through the American ambassador, Elihu B. Washburn (who commented that Edward was ‘slightly disgusted at Paris life at present’), he left the city at dawn on 12 December, accompanied by Wittgenstein and Captain Hore. They had difficulty passing through the lines and it was ‘a tedious and distressing journey’ to Versailles involving an overnight stop in the village of Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. ‘Sleeping in one’s clothes in an omnibus,’ explained the special correspondent of the London Evening Standard, ‘with the thermometer below freezing point is not pleasant.’

  When they reached Prussian headquarters on 13 December, Edward learned that he had been promoted to the rank of major-general, a promotion back-dated to March 1868 ‘to give him greater importance during the progress of the military operations’. He had an interview with the director of the siege, General von Blumenthal, during which he maintained ‘a proper silence on military matters … without concealing his opinion that the city is not at all disposed to surrender’. In the evening, he dined with Wilhelm I and ‘was graciously received. If his reports had been diligently studied, there would have been no great surprise felt in official circles at the catastrophe which befell the French armies.’9

  Edward left Versailles four days later, arriving in London on the 21st. Reunited with his family in their rented lodgings, he drafted a despatch for Lord Lyons in Bordeaux and for Lord Granville, the foreign secretary, which he sent to the Foreign Office on 30 December with a covering letter:

  I have the honour to forward herewith the draft of a despatch for Lord Lyons which I would request you to send to Bordeaux by the first messenger. I was anxious to get it off as soon as possible and have not had time to copy it, which I hope you will excuse – my wish being that Lord Granville should in this way have cognizance of it and no unnecessary time be lost …

  The best ally that the Germans have is hunger, for it is quite clear that a large town like Paris, with over two million inhabitants, cannot hold out forever if not revictualled; there will be nothing brilliant in such a success and it will be very much sullied by the acts of open theft and pillage which are now perpetrated in every direction.10

  On 12 January, Lord Lyons wrote to the Foreign Office. He had been asked for his opinion on:

  the necessity or advisableness of Major-General Claremont coming to Bordeaux and to state also in what way I consider, if his services are required, they can be turned to best account. I do not think that there is any great necessity under present circumstances that a Military Attaché should reside with the Embassy in Bordeaux, as no active operations are going on in the immediate neighbourhood of this place and very little information on military matters is to be obtained here.

  However, he continued, if a ‘competent military officer’ could accompany the French Army of the East commanded by General Bourbaki, this would provide ‘important and interesting information’. He had already obtained French approval for this. Six days later, in a despatch dated 19 January, the Foreign Office instructed Edward to travel to Bordeaux ‘without delay’ and to act as observer in the French Army of the East.11

  By this time, Edward was no longer in London. He was with Yolande in Lynford Hall, having travelled to Norfolk in early January. He did not reply to the order from the Foreign Office for fifteen days – by which time Bourbaki’s army had been defeated, an armistice had been signed in Paris, and the war was effectively over. His letter to the Foreign Office, dated 3 February and written in Lynford Hall, was brusque:

  I hope you will excuse my not answering your despatch of the 19th ultimo sooner, as the delay is owing to a circumstance over which I had no control. I suppose the fate which has befallen the army of General Bourbaki precludes the necessity of my complying with the instructions you conveyed to me in the said despatch and I shall therefore await Lord Granville’s further orders.12

  The seven weeks between Edward’s departure for Versailles on 12 December and the armistice on 28 January had been appallingly grim in Paris. By early January, there was almost no food left in the city. People were eating cats, dogs, horses, and rats. The taste of rat was described as ‘something between frog and rabbit’, and a Paris journal offered tips on how to ‘fish for sewer rats with a hook and line baited with tallow’. Animals in the zoo at Vincennes were slaughtered for food, and restaurants and street vendors sold meat and offal from bears, buffaloes, camels, elephants, monkeys, and zebras.

  It was a cold winter too. The Seine was frozen, gas supplies were exhausted, trees in the parks had been cut down and burnt, and there was little coal or wood remaining for warmth or for cooking the meagre amounts of food available. Crowds attacked the homes of the wealthy to obtain fuel, felling garden trees and pulling down fences.

  Before his departure, Edward had arranged with General Trochu to leave the embassy in the care of his friend, the banker Edward Blount. ‘The Embassy is now gone,’ Blount wrote to his wife by balloon post on 22 December, ‘and I have all the English miseries on my back.’ In early January, the Prussians began a bombardment, firing shells into the city every night for several hours. ‘I am terribly tormented by the English,’ Blount wrote on 23 January. ‘They are frightened out of their wits, have no money, and are watched as spies. My whole day is occupied with them. The ministers treat me as if I had official powers, but I have none.’13

  Two days later, Bismarck intensified the bombardment by firing 1,000-pound shells from Krupp’s 50-ton steel cannons, one of which had been proudly displayed at the Exposition Universelle. On the same day, Blount received a despatch from the foreign secretary in London giving him the temporary appointment of consul. Lord Granville thanked him ‘for the kind attention which you are showing the interests of British subjects shut up in Paris, and I have thought it might aid you in doing so if you were provided with some official authority’. Lord Lyons wrote on the 27th: ‘I cannot tell you what a relief it is to me that you should have official authority to take care of our countrymen in Paris in these terrible times.’

  In his capacity as temporary consul, Blount officiated at the marriage of his friend Richard Wallace to Julie Castelnau, the former parfumerie assistant with whom Wallace had been living for many years. There was a thirty-year-old son of the liaison but they were only free to marry after the death of Wallace’s father, Lord Hertford, a few weeks before the city was surrounded.

  Wallace, too, remained in Paris during the siege. He was untiring in his efforts to help the people, providing two field hospitals and donating an estimated £100,000 to charity. He became a popular and recognisable figure as he walked through the city to distribute money to the mairies: ‘a tall gentleman with a grizzled moustache, accompanied by a black-and-tan retriever dog’.

  15

  LA SEMAINE SANGLANTE

  The state of Paris is heart-breaking … Fires in all directions, the air oppressive with smoke and unpleasant odours, the incessant roar of cannon and musketry, and all kinds of strange sounds.

  Lord Lyons, 26 May 1871

  Edward returned to the Hôtel Molé on 27 February to be reunited with his friends who were exhausted and demoralised after four months of fear, cold and hunger. His orders from the Foreign Office, received three days earlier, were to ‘proceed at once to Paris’ to prepare ‘a full and professional report’ and ‘furnish much valuable info
rmation on a variety of subjects’. The despatch concluded with the words, ‘Unless Lord Lyons should summon you to Bordeaux, it is his desire that you should, whatever events may arise, remain in Paris.’1

  On 1 March, the Prussian army made a triumphal entry into the city for an occupation of three days. Edward chose to remain out of sight in the embassy: ‘I was afraid I might be recognised and accosted by some of their officers and anyone seen talking to them was roughly handled by the bystanders.’ Edward Blount had no such qualms:

  I saw them come in yesterday and they were very splendid in appearance and conduct. The mob surrounded them and called them all sorts of names, but they took it all quietly and with disdain … The shops are all shut, the people all idle and talking dreadful words.2

  Meanwhile, the provisional government had disbanded after the armistice and elections held on 8 February had brought a conservative, royalist government to power. This led to unrest among republicans in the city. ‘One of the worst features of the situation,’ Edward explained on 6 March, ‘is that even good people are so exasperated by the way in which their affairs have been mismanaged … that they now trust and respect no one, and this I am afraid will constitute a dangerous state of things for some time to come.’3

  Seven days later, during a debate in the House of Commons, a member of parliament raised a question for Lord Enfield, under-secretary of state for foreign affairs. He asked whether ‘General Claremont, to whom Lord Lyons transferred the protection of English subjects in Paris … was subsequently authorised by Lord Lyons to leave Paris several weeks before the conclusion of the siege’. He also asked whether ‘Her Majesty’s Government approved the withdrawal of General Claremont under the circumstances which then existed’.

  Enfield replied by referring to the instructions which Lord Granville had sent Lord Lyons in October, ‘under which General Claremont deemed himself at liberty to act’. He read out the words: ‘As regards Colonel Claremont, he should follow the course adopted by the Military Attachés of other countries who may have remained in Paris.’

  At this point, Sir Robert Peel (who had described the behaviour of the embassy as ‘slinking away with ignominy and disgrace during a season of great trial and difficulty’) rose to his feet and spoke ‘in severe terms’ about Edward’s departure during the siege. It was, he said, ‘a gross dereliction of duty’, with ‘deplorable’ effects on British residents in the city.

  The debate was reported in The Times on 11 March, copies of which arrived in Paris two days later. On the 14th, Lord Lyons and his staff returned to the city to find the embassy ‘quite uninjured, no trace of the siege in the neighbourhood, and the town merely looking a little duller than usual’. The following day, Edward handed the ambassador a long letter of justification which he had been drafting for the last two days:

  Owing to the questions which have been asked in the House of Commons on the subject of my leaving this place on 12th December last, I am anxious to lay before your Excellency the circumstances under which I considered myself justified in doing so …

  On 21 October, we received by pigeon a despatch from you saying from Lord Granville that the Prussian Government was ready to pass the personnel of the British Embassy and such British subjects as would join them. As far as I can recollect, a telegram to the same effect came in the next day from Lord Granville, through Versailles, the last sentence of which was ‘Claremont will know what the other Military Attachés do’.

  He pointed out that the Italian military attaché had already gone and, apart from Prince Wittgenstein who left with him in December, there remained in the city ‘only Count Uxkull for Austria, for I hardly counted a Turk whom I never heard of before … Captain Leontiew, a Russian, a kind of aide-de-camp to Prince Wittgenstein, and Colonel de Capellen, a Dutchman who has been settled here for years and who had been driven in by the occupation of his country-house by the Germans.’ These men, he suggested, could hardly be considered competent military attachés with the ability to represent their countries at a time of war.

  On 23rd November Prince Wittgenstein received orders to leave and asked me to accompany him. Knowing that a sortie on a large scale was contemplated, I suggested that we had better wait to see the result, as it might be very important; to this he most readily assented. I have reported the result of this sortie … which made it very evident that all efforts on the part of the garrison to break through the German lines would be unavailing.

  After waiting a few days, Prince Wittgenstein and I agreed that we might then leave and I called on General Trochu for the purpose; I did not consider myself in any way attached to his headquarters, but from the terms I was on with him I declared to him that, if in any way he thought I could be of any use by remaining, nothing would induce me to go. He answered that, on the contrary, he was of opinion I could be of more service by going, as I could tell people outside the exact state of the case inside; indeed, other official persons entertained and expressed to me the same opinion.

  The news of Edward’s arrival at the Prussian headquarters on 13 December was ‘immediately telegraphed’ to the Foreign Office, after which:

  I remained four days at Versailles, and had any desire to that effect been intimated to me, I do not suppose any difficulty would have been made to my returning to Paris … Not hearing anything, I proceeded to England on the 17th, and on my arrival there, I did not appear to be unexpected, nor had I then any reason to suppose I had acted contrary to any instructions; and I can safely and conscientiously say that it was far from my wish to do so …

  My position differed very materially from that of an officer attached to a regular army; the foolish and absurd suspicions of the National Guards and irregular corps made it more than disagreeable to go about amongst them; still I should have gone on bearing with it had I received no communication whatever from either the Foreign Office or from your Excellency. As it was, I really and sincerely thought that it was not contemplated that I should remain here.

  Edward had always been prickly and impulsive, traits commented on by the previous ambassador, Lord Cowley. On the morning of 16 March, after spending another sleepless night in the Hôtel Molé, he wrote a second letter to Lord Lyons:

  As I explained to your Excellency in my despatch of yesterday’s date, I acted from the best motives when I left Paris in December last. It is only from what has taken place lately that I have been led to suppose that I made a mistake in so doing; and the only way in which I can atone for such a mistake is to beg you to place my resignation at Lord Granville’s disposal. I have had the honour of being connected with this Embassy now for a long time; it is not without some degree of pain that I shall cease to belong to it, but it would be altogether foreign to my nature to remain in any position, whatever may be the personal consequences to myself, without the full approval of those under whom I serve.

  This hastily written letter, which he handed personally to Lord Lyons, was intended as a gesture which he assumed would not be taken at face value. The Foreign Office did not have to accept his resignation. Indeed, when forwarding the letter to the Foreign Office that afternoon, Lord Lyons made the specific recommendation that it should not be accepted:

  It will be a great misfortune for this Embassy if his official connection with it be allowed to terminate … I might cite many instances in which the information furnished by General Claremont has been of very remarkable value during the time he has been under my orders; and certainly your Lordship cannot have failed to be struck … with the sagacity and foresight respecting military and also political matters which are manifest in the despatches which General Claremont has written from the time when the war became imminent in July last up to the present day.

  The assistance which I have derived from my personal intercourse with General Claremont has been very great; and I am sure that my predecessor … would speak with equal satisfaction of his own intercourse with him … Supposing that an officer could be found with the same natural aptitude for the wo
rk, and supposing, which is far from probable, that such an officer should have equal opportunities of becoming intimate with French military men, it would still necessarily require many years for him to attain the position here which General Claremont has made for himself. I therefore consider that it will on public grounds be deeply to be regretted if this Embassy be deprived of General Claremont’s services.

  The Foreign Office thought differently. Lord Granville replied to Lord Lyons, asking him to inform Edward ‘that his resignation is accepted and that he is consequently, as far as this office is concerned, free to leave Paris as soon as his successor, who will be immediately appointed, shall arrive to relieve him’.4

  Here the plot thickens a little. Lord Granville, the foreign secretary, was the elder brother of Edward’s boyhood friend Frederick Leveson-Gower, who was also in parliament as the member for Bodmin. Leveson-Gower wrote to Edward on 17 March:

  I am much annoyed at the persistent and unjust way in which you are attacked. If an opportunity occurs, I should like to remind the House of your long and valuable services. It certainly would have been better if you had remained in Paris till the end. It is a pity that you did not have more definite instructions … It would be a great folly on your part to resign at the present moment. Do not be angry with me for saying to you what I think. You know how warmly I have at heart your real interests.

  On the 18th, two days after Edward’s resignation, republican sympathisers overthrew the government in Paris and took control of the city. ‘The Reds are the complete masters of the town,’ wrote Edward the following day. ‘I called at the War Department this morning … The confusion seemed complete.’