CHAPTER VI

MY FIRST POST-TURIN, 1849-1851

It was a long, weary drive from Coni to Turin, the Corriere rumbling into the Piedmontese capital at last in the raw, foggy dawn of a November Sunday. I was glad to tumble into bed for a few hours at the Hotel Trombetta, but, after breakfast, at once sallied forth in quest of the Legation, which then occupied part of the Palais La Cisterna at the corner of the Rue St. Philippe and the Rue Madonna degli Angeli. When I was ushered into my chief's library, I found him on the point of reading the Morning Service (there being no English chaplain or congregation at Turin), and feeling somewhat shy and ill at ease, I was not sorry to have to drop on my knees without further ceremony. I fear I paid but little attention to my devotions, for, in the midst of them, there came crashing down the street a military band (next to the Austrian, the Sardinian bands were of rare excellence) playing-how strange it seems that, at this distance of time, I should still remember it—the march out of Verdi's "Macbeth." The band passed by, and, the short service being soon over, I was introduced to Lady Mary Abercromby,' and to my

1 Née Elliot, eldest daughter of the 2nd Earl of Minto.

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fellow Attaché, de Salis. The Elliots are a remarkably swarthy, Southern-looking race, and Lady Mary had the family complexion and dark, lustrous eyes, which at once beamed on me with kindness. Indeed, I never had a truer or more valuable friend than she proved to the raw, inexperienced youth I still was at this time. She was gentleness, tact, delicacy, and sound womanly sense personified. A clever, though somewhat ridiculous, American lady once said of her in my hearing that she was "a singularly wellbalanced woman," and allowing for the oddity of the expression, it well described a nature in which both heart and head happily combined, neither encroaching unduly on the realm of the other. Of my first chief and his wife I shall ever preserve a grateful recollection. Abercromby was thoroughly amiable and considerate, and treated me from the first as one of the family. Among other traditions of a former age, he kept up the good old habit of having his staff, which consisted of Lettsom, de Salis, and myself, to dinner with him every day—a custom more honoured now in the breach than in the observance. Autres temps autres mœurs; the patriarchal element has disappeared from diplomacy no less than from other walks of life.

De Salis looked after me for the rest of the day, making me acquainted with some of the junior members of the Corps Diplomatique-such as the Belgian Secretary, Pycke van Petteghem, and the Spaniard, Ligués y Bardaji-and taking me to the

theatre in the evening. I can see the house now with its utterly foreign, Italian aspect as though it had been yesterday, although of the performance I remember nothing. In my juvenile self-consciousness I myself was to myself "the star" of the evening. Was not this my first appearance on the public stage, in the character of no less a personage than an Attaché d'Ambassade? I recollect the wife of a distinguished diplomatist once saying to me that she knew of only two really enviable positions in the service-those of an Attaché and of an Ambassadress. I can never hope to test the delights of the latter station, but cannot help indulging in a retrospective smile of pity and amusement at thoughts of the intoxication with which I was filled by the former-Gaudeamus igitur, juvenes dum sumus!

From my new colleagues I heard little that was favourable of the native society, but prudently resolved to judge of it for myself. At first, of course, I lived mostly in the diplomatic set, which contained many pleasant elements. The Prussian Minister, Count Henry Redern, a somewhat pompous type of the old diplomatist, in striking contrast to his charming, lively Austrian wife (a Princess Odescalchi), kept the best house in the place. The Rederns were soon rivalled in hospitality by my kind friends the Apponyis, who came, about this time, to renew the diplomatic relations that had been broken off by the war which ended on the field of Novara. The French

Minister, when I first arrived, was Prince Lucien Murat, whose beautiful and accomplished daughter afterwards married the young Duc de Mouchy, but who, personally, was not remarkable for much dignity or refinement. Nevertheless, I recollect a neat, though singular, reply he made one day to Count Apponyi, who, when encomiums were passed on the nerve which young Joachim Murat, then quite a boy, had shown in riding a very unmanageable horse in the public promenade of the Valentino, observed that pluck was to be expected of one who bore his name. "Oui," replied the father, "il en est du courage comme de la goutte; il saute une génération." This son of the brilliant Hussar King of Naples had the foolish weakness to wear habitually the very unbecoming uniform of a colonel of a Legion of the Paris National Guard, which made him somewhat ridiculous in the eyes of Piedmontese military society. He soon resigned his diplomatic appointment, and was succeeded first by Ferdinand Barrot (a brother of Odilon), and then by Hys de Butenval, one of the most physically hideous but most amusing of Frenchmen. We had, too, a Portuguese Minister of the name of Lobo de Moira; a stout, quick-witted Southerner, who was excellent company, and was as popular at Turin as he afterwards. became at St. Petersburg, where he died a few years ago.

I have not yet spoken of my own immediate colleagues of the Legation. De Salis left Turin and the

service so soon after my arrival that my acquaintance with him was but short, but he was much liked by all who knew him.' The paid Attaché, William Garrow Lettsom, was my first teacher, as it were, in the routine of diplomatic work-a very efficient and kind one, although with him the bitterness of hope deferred and the sense of ill-requited service had done their best to sour a most amiable disposition. He was many years my senior, and at heart hated the profession that had used him so ill. His passion was astronomy, and his nights were mostly spent in serene contemplation on the towers of the Palazzo Madama in company with the illustrious Plana. He retired on a pension not long ago, after holding for ten years the post of Chargé d'Affaires and ConsulGeneral at Montevideo.

Much the most notable character of the Legation was its First Secretary, Dick Bingham, a man of great parts, but of violent passions and utterly ungovernable temper. He was at daggers drawn with Abercromby, whom he systematically opposed in everything. In politics he was Austrian to the backbone, and spent the best part of his time at Milan, in the intimacy of Radetzky and his staff. In order to understand how distasteful this was to our excellent chief, it should be explained that Abercromby was a Whig of the Whigs, the son-in

1 Count John Francis de Salis, who was the head of the English branch of the great Grisons family, died some years ago on his estate at Hillingdon, near London. His son has succeeded him in our Diplomatic Service.