Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/54

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34
THE FRENCH RESOLUTION.

for his age. The Queen, forbidden writing materials, commissioned Cléry to return the clothes with a letter of thanks, but the municipal commissaries refused to allow their being sent back. The little Lord Strathnavar, the future Duke of Sutherland, whose garments were thus confiscated, was then, at six years old, so accustomed to see cannon in the streets, that on arriving in London he was amazed, we are told by Walpole, at finding none.

Recalled on the abolition of royalty, Gower instructed the Embassy secretary, William Lindsay, to remain a few days, and his stay was lengthened by the difficulty in obtaining passports from the municipality. Indeed, he had to threaten to start without them, warning Lebrun, of the Foreign Office, that the result might be his being brought back or insulted, and the next morning he received them. Lindsay and other English guests were about to dine with the Duke of Orleans on the 3rd September when they heard the cries of a mob, and going to the window, saw the Princesse de Lamballe's head carried past. According to one version, Orleans looked on and said, "Je sais ce que c'est," then passed into the next room, and sat down to dinner with complete coolness; but the Bland Burges Papers, a better authority, state that he was sitting at the other end of the room, and on his guests drawing back horrified from the window, asked what was the matter. Told that a woman's head had been carried