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watering plans. We jorneyed about the country and mad the tour of The Isle of Wight among other excursions.
Across the channel, and on to Brussels. The Field of Waterloo, over which we were ciceroned by Decoster the peasant who had served as guide to Napoleon throughout the battle. Chosen for his knowledge of the country, he had been seized in his farmstead tied on a horse led by a trooper with the threat of being summarily shot if he showed any recalcitrant disposition. He was often in danger from the balls that whizzed around, and when in terror he sought to avoid them by turning in the saddle the Emperor would say, my friend, you may be shot in the back as well as front, put a bold face on it then. Decoster was evidently a man of sagacity despite his want of education. From Brussels we went to Paris, bright, beautiful, gay Paris. The few weeks I then passed there were the only unclouded ones of my painful life. I was sixteen radiant with health and beauty, a fairy in form and grace, the delight of all eyes, a vision of romance, looking more youthful even than my years. My hair still unbound with its rich luxuriance of curls reaching below my waist I was an object of admiration to the Parisians then unaccustomed to the fair complexion so common in England, and mine was especially beautiful. C. R. Leslie used to say that if he could portray my skin he would throw down his pencil content with such a triumph of art – only Titian he added could give an idea of its perfection. Sir Thomas Lawrence who they

Courtesy of the Mistress and Fellows, Girton College, Cambridge