Chapter III: Travels and Diplomacy (1)

(1853-1864)

Whether the Mentor resigned his job in despair about the time his pupil was making prudent resolutions in the seclusion of the little inn at Quotla di Amalpas, or whether it was decided by the parental authority that Labouchere might as well continue his search for wisdom in Mexico by himself, is not certain; but it would seem that, just about three months after his landing at Vera Cruz, he parted company with all his English friends, and, with a surprisingly small sum for such an adventure in his pocket, rode off, and wandered for eighteen months all over the country. Then he returned to the capital, and fell in love with a lady of the circus. The published legends belonging to this period of his career are legion. The authority for them appears to be almost always Mr. Joseph Hatton, who was the first writer to produce a biographical sketch of the editor of _Truth_. He wrote it for _Harper's Magazine_, where it formed part of a series which, in 1882, was published in England under the title of _Journalistic London_. According to Hatton, Labouchere gave him certain details of his past in an interview which took place at his house in Queen Anne's Gate, so that Hatton's evidence, in so far as _viva voce_ reminiscences are reliable, is unimpeachable.[1]

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Labouchere told him that he travelled with the troupe to which the lady he admired belonged, and got the job of doorkeeper. The circus was a popular one, but the crowds who flocked to it were not all in a position to pay their entrance with hard cash, so that he was authorised by the proprietors to accept payment in kind--usually consisting of oranges or small measures of maize. A very similar story is related about him as occurring a year or two later when he was attaché at Washington, and is corroborated for me by Sir Audley Gosling, to whom Labouchere related it one day in his house in Old Palace Yard. Sir Audley noticed hanging on the wall a large playbill, and asked what it was.

"It's a funny story," replied Labouchere; "I will tell you about it. When attaché at Washington I was in the habit of attending almost nightly a circus, standing often at the artistes' entrance to the ring. The proprietor had often scowled at me, and one night asked me what I meant by trespassing on sacred ground. I told him I had formed an honourable attachment for one of his ladies, and simply stood in the passage to kiss the hem of her robe as she passed by. 'Get out of this, you d--d loafer,' he said. And I got out. A few months later I pointed out to my chief notices in the New York press of a certain American sparkling wine called, after the district where it was grown, 'Kitawber.' I told him I thought a report should be made on this new vintage, and volunteered to draw up a report for the Foreign Office. He seemed surprised by my assiduity and very unusual zeal (for I never did a stroke of work), and said: 'By all means go--that is a capital idea of yours.' The truth was my circus had removed to Kitawber and with it my fair lady of the _haute école_, so thither I proceeded. I presented myself to the proprietor, my rude friend, and told him I wished for an engagement with his troupe without salary. He asked me what my line was, and I told him standing jumps. Some obstacles were placed in the ring, over which I jumped with great success, and my name {40} figures on the playbill you see hanging there as the 'Bounding Buck of Babylon.' I wore pink tights, with a fillet round my head. My adorable one said I looked a dear."

It is more probable that these two stories are different versions of one and the same adventure than that he twice followed a travelling circus. No doubt, in recounting the tale, he confused the chronology.

It would appear that the well-known story of his six months' residence among the Chippeway Indians, usually related as an incident occurring in the off moments of his diplomatic career, really took place towards the end of 1853. Joseph Hatton, without mentioning any dates, relates it as follows: "By and by he tired of this occupation (_i.e._ travelling with the circus), and went to the United States. He found himself at St. Paul, which was then only a cluster of houses. Here he met a party of Chippeway Indians going back to their homes. He went with them and lived with them for six months, hunting buffalo, joining in their work and sports, playing cards for wampum necklaces, and living what to Joaquin Miller would have been a poem in so many stanzas, but which, to the more prosaic Englishman, was just seeing life and passing away the time." More than half a century later, when Mr. Labouchere was living at Pope's villa, he invited all the Indian chiefs and their families, who were at that time taking part in Buffalo Bill's Show called "The Wild West," to spend a Sunday with him at Twickenham. They accepted the invitation, and arrived betimes in the morning. Mrs. T. P. O'Connor, who was a visitor at the villa on the occasion, gives a graphic account of Mr. Labouchere's recognition, in the person of one of the Chippeways, of the son of one of the nomadic friends of his early youth. She goes on to tell the story of Mr. Labouchere's adventures with the Indians, as she had often heard him tell it.

Nearly sixty years ago, [she says], Henry Labouchere, then an adventurous lad, made a journey in the west of America. {41} Minneapolis was at that time called St. Anthony's Palls, and while he was there a far-seeing young chemist begged him to buy the land on which Minneapolis stands--it was to be sold for a very small sum, now it is worth many millions. He travelled still farther west with the Chippeways, who were going to their hunting fields. The great chief, Hole in Heaven, was very friendly with him, and he camped in one of their wigwams for six weeks, the sister of the chief being assigned to wait upon him. She cooked game to perfection, roasting wild birds in clay and larger game before a fire. The game in those days was very plentiful and tame, not having found out man to be their natural enemy. Sometimes prairie chickens came near enough to be knocked on the head, and great herds of buffalos still ranged the plains. The Indians often killed a buffalo, but Mr. Labouchere was not lucky enough to get one for himself. He saw an Indian war-dance, but discreetly, from a slit in the door of his wigwam, as Hole in Heaven said that, friendly as they were, at this sacred rite a white face might infuriate them even to the use of the tomahawk. Mr. Labouchere lingered among these American gentlemen until the last steamer had departed from Fond du Lac, so he was obliged to travel in a canoe until he reached the eastern end of the lake.[2]

After his experiences in the Wild West, Labouchere made New York his quarters for some time, and occupied himself with a careful study of the institutions, political and otherwise, of the American nation, for which he acquired at this period of his life a profound and lasting admiration. In 1883 he was writing to Mr. Joseph Chamberlain on the subject of Radical policy, and he said in the course of his letter: "I was caught young and sent to America; there I imbibed the political views of the country, so that my Radicalism is not a joke, but perfectly earnest. My opinions of most of the institutions of this country is that of Americans--that they are utterly absurd and ridiculous."[3] He constantly throughout his career drew upon his youthful reminiscences of {42} America to point a moral or draw a comparison, almost invariably favourable to the transatlantic people. In a famous article which he wrote in 1884, to demonstrate to the public the wide divergency existing at that time between Whig and Radical principles, while discussing the financial relations of the Crown with the country, he said:

The President of the United States regards himself as generously treated with a salary of £10,000 per annum. We give half this sum to a nobleman who condescends to walk before the Chief of the State on ceremonial occasions with a coloured stick in his hand; and we spend more than five times this sum in keeping a yacht in commission and repair on which our sovereign steps two or three times in twenty years!

In the same article he compared the English system of education with the American:

If M * * * * wishes to learn what our schools ought to be, let him go to the State of Illinois. A child there enters school at the age of six. Each school is divided into ten grades; at the end of each year there is an examination, and a child goes up one or more grades according to his proficiency. A lad going through all the grades acquires an excellent liberal education; if he passes through the "high school" he is, by a very long degree, the educational superior of the majority of our youths who have spent years at Eton or at Harrow. All this does not cost his parents one cent. Rich and poor alike send their children to the public schools, and thus all class prejudice is early stamped out of the American breast. Another advantage of these schools is that boys and girls are taught together. The girls thus learn early how to take care of themselves, and the boys' manners are softened. When grown up, boys and girls are not kept apart as though they were each other's natural enemies, nor are there any ill effects from their associating together. If some marry, the relations of those who do not are those of brothers and sisters. The Duke of Wellington is reported to have said that Waterloo was won in the Eton playing fields. Not only was the Union maintained in many battlefields, but America has become the most forward nation {43} in the world owing to her schools. How pitiably small and narrow does our school system appear in comparison with theirs! Why cannot we do what has been done in America? Why? Because the land is too full of men ... ignorant, servile, and aware that their only chance of succeeding in life is to perpetuate class distinctions, and to deprive the vast majority of their fellow-citizens of the possibility of competing with them by depriving them of the blessings of any real education. Which would be to the greater advantage of the country, a Church Establishment such as ours, or a school establishment such as that of Illinois? What Radical entertains a doubt? If so, why do not we at once substitute the one for the other?[4]

In his letters to the _Daily News_ during the autumn and winter of 1870 and 1871, he wrote from Paris commenting on the behaviour of the English and American officials of the Diplomatic Corps who remained in Paris during the siege. "Diplomats," he wrote on September 28th, "are little better than old women when they have to act in an emergency. Were it not for Mr. Washburne, who was brought up in the rough-and-ready life of the Far West, instead of serving an apprenticeship in Courts and Government offices, those who are still here would be perfectly helpless. They come to him at all moments, and although he cannot speak French, for all practical purposes, he is worth more than all his colleagues put together." In another letter he gives an amusing picture of the worried English chargé d'affaires, immersed in official trivialities: "A singular remonstrance has been received at the British Embassy. In the Rue de Chaillot resides a celebrated English courtesan, called Cora Pearl, and above her house floats the English flag. The inhabitants of the street request the Ambassador of England, 'a country, the purity and decency of whose manners is well known,' to cause this bit of bunting, which is a scandal in their eyes, to be hauled down. I left Mr. Wodehouse consulting the text-writers upon international law, in order to discover a precedent for {44} the case." It contrasts sharply enough with the glimpse he gives his readers of the American Embassy. "I passed the afternoon," he wrote on November 15th, "greedily devouring the news at the American Legation. It was a curious sight--the Chancellerie was crowded with people engaged in the same occupation. There were several French journalists, opening their eyes very wide, under the impression that this would enable them to understand English. A Secretary of Legation was sitting at a table giving audiences to unnumbered ladies who wished to know how they could leave Paris; or, if this was impossible, how they could draw on their bankers in New York. Mr. Washburne walked about cheerily shaking every one by the hand, and telling them to make themselves at home. How different American diplomatists are to the prim old women who represent us abroad, with a staff of half a dozen dandies helping each other to do nothing, who have been taught to regard all who are not of the craft as their natural enemies." Yet another quotation from Labouchere's journalistic correspondence, illustrating his predilection for things American: "The ambulance which is considered the best is the American. The wounded are under canvas, the tents are not cold, and yet the ventilation is admirable. The American surgeons are far more skilful in the treatment of gunshot wounds than their French colleagues. Instead of amputation they practise resection of the bone. It is the dream of every French soldier, if he is wounded, to be taken to this ambulance. They seem to be under the impression that, even if their legs are shot off, the skill of the Esculapii of the United States will make them grow again. Be this as it may, a person might be worse off than stretched on a bed with a slight wound under the tents of the Far West. The French have a notion that, go where you may, to the top of a pyramid or to the top of Mont Blanc, you are sure to meet an Englishman reading a newspaper; in my experience of the world, the American girl is far more inevitable than the Britisher; and, of course, under the stars {45} and stripes which wave over the American tents, she is to be found, tending the sick, and, when there is nothing more to be got for them, patiently reading to them or playing at cards with them. I have a great weakness for the American girl; she always puts her heart in what she is about. When she flirts she does it conscientiously, and when she nurses a most uninviting-looking Zouave, or Franc-tireur, she does it equally conscientiously; besides, as a rule, she is pretty, a gift of nature which I am very far from undervaluing."

To resume our narrative. At home the parental and avuncular authorities had been at work, puzzling as to what career would best suit the young searcher for wisdom, the irrepressible Eton blood--the baby of the preparatory school, who, without his milk teeth, was able to confound the ruffians of the cane and their assistants--the undaunted enemy of university dons and pedagogues. Finally, it was decided that the diplomatic service would be, at any rate for a time, the best safety-valve for the inquisitive youth. Henry Labouchere was on one of his unconventional tours in his beloved Wild West when he heard of his first diplomatic appointment. He was appointed attaché at Washington on July 16, 1854.

Mr. Crampton had been Minister at Washington since 1852, and, at the time of Labouchere taking up his duties at the Legation, Lord Elgin, then Governor of Canada, was on a special mission to Washington. Mr. Crampton had not succeeded in making himself at all agreeable to the American statesmen, and during the Crimean War he had nearly caused a rupture between Great Britain and the United States over the question of recruiting. The exigencies of war had brought about the reprehensible practice of raising various foreign corps and pressing them--or crimping them--into the British service. Crampton very actively forwarded the schemes of his Government by encouraging the recruiting of soldiers within the territories of the United States. It was not, however, until 1856 that the President {46} of the United States came to a determination to discontinue official intercourse with him on account of the recruiting question. This necessitated his removal from Washington, and the feeling against him in the United States was so strong that diplomatic relations were not renewed with Great Britain for more than six months.[5] There is no evidence of any kind to support the statements that have appeared from time to time in the press, to the effect that Henry Labouchere was involved in the crimping business. During the time he spent at Washington he seems to have been an assiduous worker--to which the number of despatches in his handwriting preserved in the archives of the Record Office bear witness.

He related in _Truth_, some years later, how his energy received a check at the very outset of his career. "When I joined the diplomatic service," he said, "I was sent as attaché to a legation where a cynic was the minister. New brooms sweep clean. Every morning I appeared, eager to be employed, a sort of besom tied up in red tape. Said the cynic to me: 'If you fancy that you are likely to get on in the service by hard work, you will soon discover your error; far better will it be for you if you can prove that some relation of yours is the sixteenth cousin of the porter at the Foreign Office.' It was not long before I discovered that the cynic was right."

It was the fate of Henry Labouchere, wherever he went, to create an atmosphere of unconventionality, which formed a fitting background for the numberless stories which seem still to collect and grow round his name as time goes on. During one of Mr. Crampton's absences from the Legation, he had an opportunity of exercising the official reserve and {47} discretion for which the English diplomats have always been so famous. An American citizen called one morning to see Mr. Crampton. "I want to see the boss," he said. "You can't--he is out," replied Labouchere. "But you can see me." "You are no good," replied the American. "I must see the boss. I'll wait." "Very well," calmly said the attaché, and went on with his letter-writing. The visitor sat down and waited for a considerable time. At last he said: "I've been fooling round here two hours; has the chief come in yet?"--"No; you will see him drive up to the front door when he returns."--"How long do you reckon he will be before he comes?" "Well," said Labouchere, "he went to Canada yesterday; I should say he'll be here in about six weeks."

In spite of all his good resolutions Labouchere was still a gambler, and once found himself in what might have been an awkward scrape owing to this propensity. All who knew him at all intimately must often have heard him tell the following episode, which I will relate as nearly as possible in his own words: "While I was attaché at Washington I was sent by the minister to look after some Irish patriots at Boston. I took up my residence at a small hotel, and wrote down an imaginary name in the hotel book as mine. In the evening I went to a gambling establishment, where I lost all the money I had with me except half a dollar. Then I went to bed, satisfied with my prowess. The next morning the bailiffs seized on the hotel for debt, and all the guests were requested to pay their bills and to take away their luggage. I could not pay mine, and so I could not take away my luggage. All that I could do was to write to Washington for a remittance, and to wait two days for its arrival. The first day I walked about, and spent my half dollar on food. It was summer, so I slept on a bench on the common, and in the morning went to the bay to wash myself. I felt independent of all the cares and troubles of civilisation. But I had nothing with which to buy myself a breakfast. {48} I grew hungry and, towards evening, more hungry still, so much so that I entered a restaurant and ordered dinner, without any clear idea how I was to pay for it, except by leaving my coat in pledge. In those days Boston restaurants were mostly in cellars, and there was a bar near the door, where the proprietor sat to receive payment. As I ate my dinner I observed that all the waiters, who were Irishmen, were continually staring at me, and evidently speaking of me to each other. A guilty conscience made me think that this was because I had an impecunious look, and that they were discussing whether my clothes would cover my bill. At last one of them approached me, and said: "I beg your pardon, sir; are you the patriot Meagher?" Now this patriot was a gentleman who had aided Smith O'Brien in his Irish rising, had been sent to Australia, and had escaped thence to the United States. It was my business to look after patriots, so I put my finger before my lips, and said: "Hush!" while I cast up my eyes to the ceiling as though I saw a vision of Erin beckoning to me. It was felt at once that I was Meagher. The choicest viands were placed before me, and most excellent wine. When I had done justice to all the good things I approached the bar and asked boldly for my bill. The proprietor, also an Irishman said: "From a man like you, who has suffered in the good cause, I can take no money; allow a brother patriot to shake you by the hand." I allowed him. I further allowed all the waiters to shake hands with me, and stalked forth with the stern, resolved, but somewhat condescendingly dismal air which I have seen assumed by patriots in exile. Again I slept on the common, again I washed in the bay. Then I went to the post office, found a letter for me from Washington with some money in it, and breakfasted."

Another anecdote Labouchere was fond of recalling about his Washington days was the following: Having planned a little holiday excursion, he found at the Chancellerie a letter awaiting him, addressed in the well-known handwriting of his {49} chief. Shrewdly suspecting that the instructions it contained would render his holiday impossible, he put the letter unopened in his coat-tail pocket, and carried out with great satisfaction to himself his holiday intentions. Then he opened his letter, and found that his suspicions of its contents had been very well founded. He wrote a nice letter of apology to his chief, beginning, "Your letter has followed me here," which was, after all, nothing but the simple truth!

"It is a funny thing," Labouchere would often say, speaking of treaties and diplomatic negotiations in general, "to notice on what small matters success or the reverse is dependent"; and he would then relate how, when he was attaché at Washington, he went down with the British Minister to a small inn at Virginia to meet Mr. Marcy, the Secretary of State for the United States, for the purpose of discussing a reciprocity treaty between Canada and the United States. Mr. Marcy, in general the most genial and agreeable of men, was as cross as a bear, and would agree to nothing. Labouchere asked the secretary to tell him, in confidence, what was the matter with his chief. The secretary replied: "He is not getting his rubber of whist." After that the British Minister proposed a rubber of whist every night, which he invariably lost. Mr. Marcy was immensely pleased at beating the Britishers at, what he called "their own game," and his good humour returned. "Every morning," Labouchere related, "when the details of the treaty were being discussed, we had our revenge, and scored a few points for Canada."

Labouchere was transferred to the Legation at Munich in December, 1855. "Old King Louis was then alive," he wrote thirty years later, "although he had been deposed for making a fool of himself over Lola Montes. I used frequently to meet him in the streets, when he always stopped me to ask how Queen Victoria was. I had at last respectfully to tell him that Her Majesty was not in the habit of writing to me every day respecting her health."

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From Munich he went to Stockholm in 1857. I cannot resist quoting in full his account of the duel he fought while at Stockholm with the Austrian chargé d'affaires, it is so extremely characteristic of him both in spirit and style.

At Stockholm "I found favour with my superiors for the curious reason that I challenged an Austrian chargé d'affaires. Never was there a more absurd affair. There was an Englishman who had been challenged by a Swede, whom he declined to fight. A few days later the Englishman went with my Minister to a box in the theatre. The next day at a club the Austrian chargé d'affaires said before me and others that Englishmen had odd ideas of honour, and more particularly English Ministers. I replied that Englishmen were not so silly as to fight duels, and that the English Minister was not a dishonourable man for appearing in a theatre with his countrymen. As it was generally felt that I ought to challenge this Austrian, I 'put myself in the hands' of the French and Prussian Ministers. A few hours later my seconds came to me. I expected that they were going to tell me that the Austrian had apologised. Not at all. With a cheerful smile they observed: 'It is arranged for to-morrow morning--pistols.' At seven o'clock A.M. they reappeared. Their countenances were downcast. 'I have lost the mould for the bullets of my duelling pistols,' observed the Prussian, 'and we have had to borrow a pair of pistols, for whose accuracy of aim I cannot vouch.' This inwardly rejoiced me, but, of course, I pretended to share in the regret of my seconds. We sat down to an early breakfast. 'You are young, I am old,' said the Frenchman; 'would that I could take your place.' I wished it as sincerely as he did, but I tried to assume an air of rather liking my position, and I grinned a ghastly grin. Then we started for the park. The opposition had not arrived; but there was a surgeon, who had been kindly requested to attend by my sympathising friends. 'An accident may happen,' observed the Prussian; 'do you wish to confide to me any dispositions that you may {51} desire to be carried out after----?' and he sighed in a horribly suggestive manner. 'No,' I said; I had nothing particular to confide; and as I looked at the surgeon I thought what an idiot I was to make myself the target for an Austrian to aim at, in order to establish the principle that Englishmen have a perfect right to decline to fight duels. There was a want of logic about the entire proceeding that went to my heart. To be killed is bad enough, but to be killed paradoxically is still worse. Soon the Austrian and his seconds appeared. I never felt more dismal in my life. The Austrian stood apart; I stood apart. The surgeon already eyed me as a 'subject.' The seconds consulted; then the Frenchman stepped out twelve paces. He had very short legs, and they seemed to me shorter than ever. After this came the loading of the pistols. Sometimes, I thought, seconds do not put in the bullets; this comforted me, but only for a moment, for the bullets were rammed down with cheerful energy. By this time we had been placed facing each other. A pistol was given to each of us. 'I am to give the signal,' said the Prussian; 'I shall count one, two, three, and then at the word fire, you will both fire. Gentlemen, are you ready?' We both nodded. 'One, two, three, fire!' and both our pistols went off. No harm had been done. I felt considerably relieved when to my horror the Frenchman stepped up to me, and said: 'I think that I ought to demand a second shot for you, but mind, if nothing occurs again, I shall not allow a third shot.' 'Ye--es,' I said; so we had a second shot, with the same result. Knowing that my Frenchman was a man of his word, I felt now that I might at no risk to myself display my valour, so I demanded a third shot. The seconds consulted together; for a moment I feared that they were going to grant my request, and I was greatly relieved when they informed me that they considered that two shots were amply sufficient. I was delighted, but I pretended to be most unhappy, and religiously kept up the farce of being an aggrieved person."[6]

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He was at Frankfort and St. Petersburg between November, 1858, and the summer of 1860. While he was at Frankfort he made the acquaintance of Bismarck, who was the Prussian representative at the restored Diet of Frankfort. Labouchere had a constitutional dislike of the German people, with the exception of the great Chancellor. He wrote some years later: "The only Prussian I ever knew who was an agreeable man was Bismarck. All others with whom I have been thrown--and I have lived for years in Germany--were proud as Scotchmen, cold as New Englanders, and touchy as only Prussians can be. I once had a friend among them. His name was Buckenbrock. I inadvertently called him Butterbrod. We have never spoken since!" Bismarck was an eminently social person, fond of drinking and smoking, and many a time did Labouchere listen to his jovial loud-toned talk in the cafés at Frankfort. "Bismarck," he wrote in later life, "used to pass entire nights drinking beer in a garden overlooking the Main. In the morning after a night passed in beer-drinking he would write his despatches, then issue forth on a white horse for a ride, and on his return, attend the Diet, of which he was a member."[7] It is interesting to note how very similar were the judgments of these two exceedingly different characters upon the subject of diplomacy and its aspects of absurdity and pomposity. Bismarck wrote from Frankfort: "Frankfort is hideously tiresome. The people here worry themselves about the merest rubbish, and these diplomatists with their pompous peddling already appear to me a good deal more ridiculous than a member of the second chamber in all the pride of his lofty station. Unless external accidents should accrue, ... I know exactly how much we shall effect in one, two, or five years from the present time, and will engage to do it all myself within four-and-twenty hours, if the others will only be truthful and sensible throughout one single day. I never doubted that, one and all, these gentlemen prepared their {53} dishes _à l'eau_, but such thin, mawkish water soup as this, devoid of the least symptom of richness, positively astounds me. Send me your village schoolmaster or road inspector, clean washed and combed; they will make just as good diplomatists as these."[8] Of diplomatic literature Bismarck observed: "For the most part it is nothing but paper and ink. If you wanted to utilise it for historical purposes, you could not get anything worth having out of it. I believe it is the rule to allow historians to consult the F. O. Archives at the expiration of thirty years (after date of despatches, etc.). They might be permitted to examine them much sooner, for the despatches and letters, when they contain any information at all, are quite unintelligible to those unacquainted with the persons and relations treated of in them."[9] Labouchere wrote in 1889: "If all Foreign Office telegrams were published, they would be curious reading. Years ago I was an attaché at Stockholm. The present Queen, then Duchess of Ostrogotha, had a baby, and a telegram came from the Foreign Office desiring that Her Majesty's congratulations should be offered, and that she should be informed how the mother and child were. The Minister was away, so off I went to the Palace to convey the message and to inquire about the health of the pair. A solemn gentleman received me. I informed him of my orders, and requested him to say what I was to reply. "Her Royal Highness," he replied, "is as well as can be expected, but His Royal Highness is suffering a little internally, and it is thought that this is due to the milk of the wet nurse having been slightly sour yesterday evening." I telegraphed this to the Foreign Office."[10]

In a speech he made in the House of Commons,[4] protesting against a sum of nearly £50,000 being voted for the salaries and expenses of the department for Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Labouchere said, {54} referring in particular to Foreign Office messengers, that very often these gentlemen were sent abroad, at a very large cost to the country, for no practical object whatever. They went on a certain route, and the business was made up for them as they went. He had had the honour to serve at one time under Sir Henry Bulwer at Constantinople. Now Sir Henry Bulwer was always ill; and on one occasion he remembered making a calculation that a box of pills Sir Henry was anxious to obtain, and which was sent out by a Foreign Office messenger, cost the country from £200 to £300. Probably the pills did Sir Henry good, and pills were much more useful than a good deal of the stuff sent out by the Foreign Office. He went on to tell the House that he had himself been in the diplomatic service for ten years, and he had spent a great deal of his time in ciphering and deciphering telegrams, and that he could not remember half a dozen of them that any man, woman, or child in the whole world would have taken any trouble to decipher for any information that could have been derived from them.

Labouchere used always to say that, while he was attaché at Frankfort, he spent most of his time at Wiesbaden, Homburg, or Baden, because he found the Diet of the German Confederation "rather a dull sort of affair." He managed, however, to make a great many very staunch friends at this period of his life. One of these was the old Duchess of Cambridge. He was a frequent visitor at the Schloss of Ruppenheim, which was the summer meeting-place of the main stock and branches of the Hesses. The old Duchess made a great fuss over him, for he could speak the German of Hanover so well that she could understand his banter and enjoy it. His popularity at Frankfort, according to his own account, rested on a very simple basis. Great Britain was represented at the Diet by Sir Alexander Malet, one of the most popular chiefs to be found in the Service. "But I was even more appreciated than my chief," he would relate, "and this is why. Sometimes there was a ball at the {55} Court, which we were expected to attend. At my first ball supper I found myself next to a grandee, gorgeous in stars and ribbons. The servant came to pour out champagne. I shook my head, for I detest champagne. The grandee nudged me, and said, 'Let him pour it out.' This I did, and he explained to me that our host never gave his guests more than one glass, 'So you see, if I drink yours, I shall have two.' After this there used to be quite a struggle to sit near me at Court suppers."

Yet another ridiculous reminiscence of the Court of Darmstadt, dating from his attaché days at Frankfort. Sir Alexander Malet was fond of whist, and it was felt, said Labouchere, that an English diplomatist could not be expected to play the game for less than florin points. Such stakes, however, the fortune of no Darmstadt nobleman could stand. A sort of joint purse was therefore formed, which was entrusted to the three best players of the grand-ducal Court, and these champions encountered the Englishman. "It was amusing," Labouchere would relate, "to watch the anxiety depicted on all countenances: when the Minister won all was gloom; when he lost, counts and countesses, barons and baronesses, skipped about in high glee, like the hills of the Psalmist."

Bismarck was Ambassador at St. Petersburg during the year that Labouchere was there as attaché in 1860, so it is very probable that he continued to imbibe wisdom from listening to the conversation of the great German, for whose powers of statecraft he always expressed the warmest admiration. The following amusing episode occurred during his year at St. Petersburg. He was in love with the wife of one of the gentlemen about the Court. So was a tall, smart young Frenchman. Labouchere was desperately jealous of his rival, but could think of no means of outwitting him. At a Court function they were both standing near the object of their admiration, the Frenchman making, it seemed to Labouchere, marked advances in the lady's favour. {56} However he was soon called away for some reason or another. Labouchere, in his eagerness to seize the opportunity and advance his own suit, inadvertently tipped his cup of black coffee over the lady's magnificent yellow satin train. He was in despair, but, seeing that she had not yet perceived the tragedy, he slipped the cup and saucer into his tail-coat pocket, and then, with an air of commiseration, drew her attention to the ruined gown. "Who did it?" she exclaimed furiously. Labouchere put his finger to his lips, at the same time looking significantly at the form of his rival, at that moment disappearing through the doorway. "I know who did it," he said, "but wild horses would not induce me to tell you." Of course, the lady had followed the direction of his glance. She exclaimed: "That ruffian, I will never speak to him again as long as I live!" History does not relate how the adventure proceeded for the handsome Frenchman's rival.

Labouchere did not think much of the Russians. He used to say that they were like monkeys, eager to copy the manners of civilised Europe, but that the copy they succeeded in producing was a daub and not a picture, because they always exaggerated their originals. When they were polite, they were too polite; when they were copying Frenchmen, they were too much like dancing masters; and when they were copying Englishmen they were too much like grooms. He had an amusing account to give of a visit he once paid to a Russian country house. "Card-playing, eating and drinking--and more especially the latter," he related--"went on all day and nearly all night. I never could understand where my bedroom was, for the excellent reason, as I at length discovered, that I hadn't one. At a late hour I saw several of the guests heaping up in corners cushions which they had taken from sofas, to serve as beds, so I followed their example. When I woke up in the morning I could not see any apparatus to wash in, so I filled a china bowl with water, and, having dried myself with a tablecloth which I found in an adjoining room, I dressed." He {57} gave a charming thumb-nail sketch of a Russian drawing-room, à propos of a visit of Mr. Augustus Lumley to the Russian capital. Mr. Lumley was a famous cotillon leader. "I was at St. Petersburg when Mr. Lumley arrived on a visit. He was solemnly introduced to the Russian leader of cotillons, who is invariably an officer of distinction, as a colleague. It was like the meeting between two famous generals, and reminded me of the pictures of Wellington and Blücher on the field of Waterloo. It took place at a ball, and the Russian, with chivalrous courtesy, offered to surrender to his English colleague the direction of the cotillon."

The Emperor of Russia[12] once stood beside Henry Labouchere whilst he was playing at écarté to watch his game. The occasion was a ball given by the Empress to the Emperor on his birthday. Labouchere and his adversary were both at four, and it was Labouchere's deal. "Now," said the Emperor, "let us see whether you can turn up the king." Labouchere dealt, and then held out the turn-up card, observing: "Your orders have been obeyed, sir." The Emperor asked him, as often as a dozen times subsequently, how he had managed it, and never could be persuaded that it was a mere coincidence, and that the young attaché had taken the chance of the card being a king. It was a trifling example of the luck, or its reverse, that seemed to be for ever crossing and recrossing Labouchere's path, in spite of his own belief in nothing but the logical sequence of events.

A popular anecdote of his Petersburg days is the following: A fussy German nobleman pushed his way into the Chancellerie, where Labouchere was working, asking to see the Ambassador. "Please take a chair," said the secretary; "he will be here soon." "But, young man," blustered the German, "do you know who I am?" And he poured out a string of imposing titles. Labouchere looked up in well-simulated awe. "Pray take two chairs," he remarked quietly, and went on writing.

{58}

When Khalil Pasha was recalled from being Ambassador in Paris, Labouchere published the following reminiscence of his year in the Russian capital: "Khalil Pasha once saved me from a heavy loss, and that is why I take an interest in him. He, a Russian, and I sat down one evening to have a quiet rubber. The Russians have a hideous device of playing with what they call a zero; that is to say, a zero is added to all winnings and losses, so that 10 stands for 100, etc. When Khalil and the Russians had won their dummies, I found to my horror that, with the zero, I had lost about £4000. Then it came to my turn to take dummy. I had won a game, and we were playing for the odd trick in the last game. If I failed to win it I should lose about £8000. Only two cards remained in hand. I had marked up six tricks and my opponents five. Khalil had the lead; he had the best trump and a thirteenth card. The only other trump was in the hands of the dummy. He had, therefore, only to play his trump and then the thirteenth card to win the rubber, when he let drop the latter card, for his fingers were of a very 'thumby' description. Before he could take it up I pushed the dummy's trump on it and claimed the trick. The Russian howled, Khalil howled; they said this was very sharp practice. I replied that whist is essentially a game of sharp practice, and that I was acting in accordance with the rules. The lookers-on were appealed to, and, of course, gave it in my favour. Thus did I make, or rather save, £8000 against Russia and Turkey in alliance, through the fault of the Turk; and it seems to me that the poor Ottoman, now that he is at war (1877) with his ally of the card-table, is losing the game, much as Khalil lost his game of whist to me. To have good cards is one thing, to know how to make use of them quite another."[13]

Labouchere used to tell a good story of how he got at the secrets of the Russian Government. His laundress was a handsome woman, and having made friends with her on {59} other than professional grounds, she happened to mention that her husband was a compositor in the government printing office. The minutes of the Cabinet councils were printed in French, of which the printers, of course, understood nothing. Labouchere persuaded her, for a consideration, to obtain from her husband the loose sheets from which the minutes had been printed. They were brought to him by the faithful woman every week, concealed among his starched shirts and collars. As soon as Lord John Russell discovered the source of the interesting information that reached him from Petersburg, he put a stop to the simple intrigue. Labouchere would always wind up his narrative of this episode with the words: "For what reason, I wonder, did Russell imagine, diplomacy was invented?"

After Petersburg, Dresden was Labouchere's next appointment. He had previously assiduously studied the German language, in which, being a born linguist, he was remarkably proficient. He had been for a time to Marburg to reside in a German family for the purpose of acquiring conversational fluency. All through his life one of his fads consisted in working out on how small an income an economical family might live in comfort, and he used frequently to commend the management of means practised in the bourgeois family at Marburg where he boarded. It consisted of a mother, two daughters, a father, and an elementary maid-of-all-work. The daughters did the housework alternately. The daughter, whose turn it was to be the young lady, used to dress herself gorgeously every afternoon and evening, receiving visitors or paying calls. She would play Chopin and Beethoven on the pianoforte, and make herself an exceedingly agreeable social personage. The following week she would retire to the domestic regions and be an excellent servant, while her sister took her turn as _femme du monde_. Occasionally the whole family, including Labouchere, would be invited to a party. It was the custom on such occasions for both the daughters to be "young {60} ladies." The maid-of-all-work would accompany them to the neighbour's house whither they had been bidden, carrying their suppers in paper bags--for the hospitality proffered at Marburg was intellectual, not material. All the guests brought similar paper bags, and at the conclusion of the repast the remains of the various meals were carefully collected by their respective owners, and carried home to figure at the next day's _mittagessen_. Labouchere used often to assert that the evening parties at Marburg were the most delightful and amusing ones he ever attended. While there he frequented the hospital, and attended the lectures given for the instruction of the medical students. He was always fond of developing extraordinary theories on the subject of medical science, more remarkable for their originality than for their probable ultimate utility. The authority upon which these theories would be based was invariably that of the lecturer at the Marburg Hospital. Even as late as 1905, Mr. Labouchere still remembered his medical student days. He wrote to one of his sisters in that year on the occasion of her son becoming a doctor: "A doctor is a good profession. I learnt doctoring at Marburg in order to learn German. I rather liked it, and have vainly offered to doctor people gratis since then, but no one seems inclined."

Between his diplomatic appointments at Frankfort and Petersburg, Labouchere spent several months at Florence, and he described in _Truth_ how it was that he came to have a year's free time on his hands: "Once did I get the better of the Foreign Office. I was on leave in Italy when I received a notification that Her Majesty had kindly thought fit to appoint me Secretary of Legation to the Republic of Parana. I had never heard of this republic. After diligent inquiry, I learnt that Parana was a sort of Federal town on the River Plate, but that a few months previously the republic of that name had shared the fate of the Kilkenny cats. So I remained in Italy, and comfortably drew my salary like a bishop of a see _in partibus infidelium_. A year later came a {61} despatch couched in language more remarkable for its strength than its civility, asking me what I meant by not proceeding to my post. I replied that I had passed the twelve months in making diligent inquiries respecting the whereabouts of the Republic of Parana, hitherto without success, but if his lordship would kindly inform me where it was, I need hardly say that I would hasten there!"[14]

While in Florence Labouchere witnessed the revolution which deposed the Grand Duke and provided Tuscany with a provisional government of her own choice, preparatory to the union of all the Italian States under the King of Sardinia. He was a personal friend of Mr. (afterwards Sir) James Hudson, the English Minister at Turin, whose Nationalist sympathies, like Labouchere's, were well known, and he was an invaluable reporter to the Liberals in Turin of the news of the struggle for liberty in Tuscany. On the morning of the revolution, after the Grand Duke and his family had left the Pitti Palace, he, with many of his revolutionary friends, entered the forsaken home of Austrian royalty, and had the astuteness to procure on the spot what was left of the famous Metternich Johannisberger for the newly founded _Unione_ Club, of which he was a member. He had an amusing story to tell about the flight of the grand-ducal family from the City of Flowers, which is best repeated in his own words, as he used to relate it to his Florentine friends after he had returned to end his days in the place which he had loved so well in his youth. "The news was brought back here by some of the people who had seen them off the premises, that, on the road to Bologna, they all got out and stopped an hour or two at an inn, where they all sat in a row crying. After this had gone on for some time, it was discovered that the whole party had forgotten their pocket-handkerchiefs. Fortunately the Grand Duchess had on a white petticoat with very ample frills, so she went round to each of the grand-ducal family in turn, and wiped their {62} eyes and noses for them in the frills of her petticoat. And then she did the same for the ladies and gentlemen in waiting."

"Do I think that incident really is true?" he would reply to his incredulous audience, "probably not. But from what I know of royalties in general, and from what I remember about the grand-ducal family of Tuscany in particular, I think that it is exceedingly probable that they would start out on an expedition of that kind without a pocket-handkerchief between them."[15] His personal reminiscences of Victor Emmanuel II. and of Cavour were of the raciest description and would enthral his hearers by the hour, told as only he could tell them, with all the decorative touches of local colour and local dialect.

He was also very fond of telling a story about an outrageous compliment he paid to a lady belonging to the Court of the Grand Duchess, which, if true, showed that at least one of the resolutions he had made in the inn at Quotla di Amalpas had been carried into successful practice: "The Grand Duchess of Tuscany had a venerable maid of honour above seventy years of age. She had piercing black eyes, and looked like an old postchaise, painted up and with new lamps. 'How old do you think I am?' she once asked me, with a simpering smile that caused my blood to run cold. I hesitated, and then said 'Twenty.' 'Flatterer,' she replied, tapping me with her fan, 'I am twenty-five.'