avoid any
symptom of having been convinced. Generous minds, however, do not do
this; they fight courageously their battles, but when they clearly see
that they are wrong, and that the reasons and arguments submitted to
them are _true_, they frankly admit the truth. Charlotte had eminently
this disposition; besides, she was so anxious to please me, that often
she would say: "Let it be as it may; provided you wish it, I will
do it." I always answered: "I never want anything for myself; when I
press something on you, it is from a conviction that it is for your
interest and for your good." I know that you have been told that she
ordered everything in the house and liked to show that she was the
mistress. It was not so. On the contrary, her pride was to make
me appear to my best advantage, and even to display respect and
obedience, when I least wanted it from her. She would almost
exaggerate the feeling, to show very clearly that she considered me as
her lord and master.

And on the day of the marriage, as most people suspected her of a very
different disposition, everybody was struck with the manner in which
she pronounced the promise of obedience. I must say that I was much
more the master of the house than is generally the case in private
life. Besides, there was something generous and royal in her mind
which alone would have prevented her doing anything vulgar or
ill-bred. What rendered her sometimes a little violent was a slight
disposition to jealousy. Poor Lady Maryborough,[21] at all times some
twelve or fifteen years older than myself, but whom I had much known
in 1814, was once much the cause of a fit of that description. I told
her it was quite childish, but she said, "it is not, because she is a
very coquettish, dissipated woman." The most difficult task I had was
to change her manners; she had something brusque and too rash in her
movements, which made the Regent quite unhappy, and which sometimes
was occasioned by a struggle between shyness and the necessity of
exerting herself. I had--I may say so without seeming to boast--the
manners of the best society of Europe, having early moved in it, and
been rather what is called in French _de la fleur des pois_. A good
judge I therefore was, but Charlotte found it rather hard to be so
scrutinised, and grumbled occasionally how I could so often find fault
with her.

Nothing perhaps speaks such volumes as the _positive fact_ of her
manners getting _quite changed_ wi