r. If he should be taken and I had the command I should never
trouble Alexander nor anybody else, but take him by the Drum head,
giving something like the sort of trial the Duc d'Enghien had and
immediately extinguish him by exactly the same process, ceremony, &c.,
as he practised on the Duc d'Enghien.

After all, and the worst of all, is that I apprehend we must pay the
piper to enable the above-mentioned Hordes to take possession of France,
and when there I flatter myself they will live upon the country. If we
do not make some effort of the kind, all the money we have shed may be
in a great degree thrown away. One great difficulty occurs to me, how
will it be possible to dispose of the present French Army if it should
be conquered, and how raise a French Army to maintain Louis's dominion?

If Napoleon should be utterly extinguished, it may be possible to do
something, but if he escapes (yet I know not where he can go) a large
foreign Army must remain a long time in France.

I must conclude by observing what a very extraordinary, strange creature
a Frenchman is! Instead of attending the King, or suppressing Navy
Depots where there are only fifty loyal men, the Minister of War flies
to England, and, as he represented, in order to join the King in
Flanders. At Paris he was certainly nearer Flanders than he was at
Dieppe....

Yours ever,

SHEFFIELD.

The Victory of Waterloo ended all fears of a fresh Imperial Despotism,
and also all the hopes of those who, like Lord Sheffield and the Stanley
family, were no great admirers of the Bourbon Dynasty.

Edward Stanley's desire to revisit France was now coupled with a wish to
realise the scene of the late Campaign, and he planned his journey so as
to arrive there on the first anniversary of the battle, June 18, 1816.

He was accompanied by Mrs. Stanley, by his brother-in-law, Edward
Leycester Penrhyn,[104] who had travelled with him in 1814, and by their
mutual friend, Donald Crawford.

Mrs. Stanley's bright and graphic letters contribute to the story of
their adventures, and are added to make it complete.

[Illustration: _Corn Mills at Vernon, July 11 1816._

_To face p. 247._]

CHAPTER VII

AFTER WATERLOO

A long Channel passage--Bruges--The battlefield--A posting
journey--Compiegne--Paris--Michael Bruce.

_Mrs. E. Stanley to Lady Maria Stanley._

_Spring, 1816._

...Edward has long talked of a week at Waterloo, and all the rest of the
plan came t