SENT HOME FROM INDIA

5

free from the cares and anxieties which had made India so justly hateful to him. In one of the few of his letters in my possession-written to his sister, Madame de Delmar, on the 3rd of March 1833-he says :—

"Perhaps in eight months from this time I may be once more among you all, and once more surrounded by beings to call forth my affections and make life of some interest to me. I shall have done with all the troublesome part of my long and odious fight with the Company, and shall be contented, whether rich or poor, to live upon what means I may have." Further on he writes: "My hope is that when this reaches you my two poor little babies, last sent, will be with dear Maria' and Arabin at Paris." He then speaks of the life he looks forward to at home among kind friends, of his wish to visit Switzerland, the Rhine, &c. "You will see by all this," he concludes, "how my head is trying to free itself from present misery by indulging in pictures of home and of Europe."

The "two poor little babies," in charge of a trusted friend, Mrs. Sargent, reached England in June 1833, after the long journey of those days round the Cape of Good Hope. The faithful sister and her husband, Captain (afterwards Admiral) Arabin, were waiting for them in London, at Hawkins's Hotel in Albemarle Street, and, after

1 His second sister.

a short stay in London, conveyed them to their home in Paris (No. 6 Rue d'Anjou St. Honoré).

Scarcely were we settled here, when news of sad import to us unconscious infants followed us from India. Our father, worn out by anxiety and work, had not been spared to save any remnant of his fortune or to spend the remainder of his days in peace at home. On the morning of the 24th August 1833 he was found dead in his bed at Hyderabad,' and with him vanished all hope of recovering anything out of the complete wreck o Palmer & Co. The death of my father was the more disastrous to the family fortunes that he was evidently on the point of reaping some reward for his untiring exertions. A letter in which Lord William Bentinck, a very sincere friend of his, announces the event to the Duke of Devonshire, shows this very clearly. "Although both from Madras and Bombay," he writes, "from their greater contiguity to Hyderabad, the melancholy intelligence contained in the enclosed must reach England sooner than from hence; yet, at the request of Captain Oliphant, I am induced to address you as one of poor Sir W. Rumbold's

best friends. The loss of the kind, warm-hearted man to the cause to which he had devoted such incessant anxiety and labour, crowned at last with success, will be irreparable. I have no

1 He died in his forty-seventh year, and is buried in the cemetery

in the grounds of the Residency.

official account of the effects of Charles Grant's" (President of the Board of Control, and afterwards Lord Glenelg) "recent minute in favour of the House of Palmer & Co., but I hear that both Sir W. Rumbold and Mr. W. Palmer, the partner at Hyderabad, wrote to their correspondent here in terms of satisfaction with their progress in settlement of their affairs. I hope, therefore, that out of this wreck something may be coming to Sir William's family."

These expectations were not destined to be realised, but, although left orphans at the respective ages of three and four, my younger brother and I fortunately found with the Arabins a permanent home where the greatest care and affection were bestowed upon us. Of my deep obligations to them I cannot speak too strongly.

Meanwhile my three elder brothers, Cavendish, Arthur, and Charles, and my sister, Emily, had remained in England under the charge of our greataunt, Mrs. Rigby,' and her daughter, Lady Rivers.2 Thus, for a season at least, we were all six provided for, and, as regarded the future, we were each of us entitled to a share of what money our mother had inherited as co-heiress of our grandfather, Lord Rancliffe, and which, being strictly settled upon her, had escaped the general family ruin.

I may as well give some account here of my

1 Daughter of my great-grandfather, Sir Thomas Rumbold,
2 Widow of my godfather, Horace Beckford, 3rd Lord Rivers.

principal relations, on my father's and my mother's side, living at that period.

My father left three sisters, all married and settled in Paris. The eldest, Caroline, was the wife of Colonel Le Couturier de St. Clair, formerly of the Garde Royale, who had been severely wounded at the Revolution of July 1830, and whom I remember a handsome Frenchman of the florid type, above the usual height and size of his countrymen, and un tant soit peu bellâtre. The St. Clairs had a son, Ferdinand, of about the same age as my brother William and myself, who was one of our chief companions in childhood, but who later on turned out unsatisfactorily, and of whose subsequent fate I am entirely ignorant. My aunt was a clever and accomplished woman, and her salon was frequented by some of the best known artists and littérateurs of the day, foremost among whom was the great Balzac. She herself dabbled in literature, and was the writer of an historical romance, entitled, "Marston Moor," a book now entirely forgotten, although not without merit. She remained in Paris until her death, which took place in that same February of 1848 that witnessed the downfall of King Louis Philippe. Her husband had been killed some years before by a fall from his horse in Ceylon, whither he had gone to superintend the coffee estates belonging to his brotherin-law, Baron de Delmar.

Of my father's second sister, Mrs. Arabin, I

FAMILY CONNECTIONS

have already spoken.

9

She proved an admirable

mother to her brother's infant sons.

The third sister, Emily, was married to Baron de Delmar, a wealthy Prussian, of whom and of his home in the Avenue de Marigny at Paris I shall have occasion to speak at length later on.

Of my nearest relations on my mother's side a few words will suffice.

Maria, my mother's younger sister, was married twice-first to the Comte César de Choiseul, and,

after his death, to Prince Jules de Polignac, Ambassador in London, and later on President of the Council in the reign of Charles X. When I first reached Paris, Prince Polignac, who had been impeached and condemned after the events of 1830, was still confined in the fortress of Ham, where my aunt shared his captivity. My aunt had four sons and a daughter. The eldest, Alphonse, was an artillery officer, and served with distinction on the staff of Marshal Pélissier at the siege of Sebastopol. The second son, Ludovic, a colonel of the État Major, has seen a great deal of service in Algeria, and spent many years of his life among the Arab tribes. Camille, the third son, born during his father's imprisonment at Ham, joined the Confederate forces in the American Civil War, and commanded a division under Beauregard. During the Franco-German War he served with much credit in the Armée de la Loire, and greatly distinguished himself at Beaune-la-Rolande and in other actions.