spirits. She
did not talk of France, but feared for England anything tending to
diminish authority of "powers that be."

[83] Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie were living at Chislehurst.

On August 18, 1871, Lord Russell's seventy-ninth birthday was celebrated at
Pembroke Lodge by the school children under the cedar in the garden. "His
serene and cheerful mind, a greater blessing year by year as enjoyments one
by one drop away. He looks back with gratitude, he accepts the present with
contentment. He looks forward, I think, without dread." In September they
went abroad, and took for the second time the house at Renens-sur-Roche, in
Switzerland, where they had stayed in 1855. Lady Russell's mind was still
full of horror of the recent war.

The first morning at Glyon (she writes to her sister, Lady Dunfermline) was
one of merciless rain, but the afternoon did well enough for Chillon, to
which use we all put it, and very interesting, grimly and horribly so, we
found it. Men are less wicked and less cruel, tyrants are less tyrannical
nowadays than when so-called criminals, often the best men in their
country, were chained by iron rings to dungeon stones for years and years,
or fastened to pillars and tortured by slow fires, or thrown down
"oubliettes" into the lake below, falling first on a revolving machine
stuck full of sharp blades--of all which horrors we were shown the scene
and the remains. But I hope that some centuries hence travellers will
wonder at even the present use to which Chillon is put, that of an arsenal,
and thank God that they did not live in an age when sovereigns and rulers
could command man to destroy his brother-man.

From Switzerland they moved down to the South of France to get to a warmer
climate. They had taken a villa for the winter at Cannes, where they had a
happy time, brightened during the Christmas vacation by the visits of their
sons with friends from Oxford. In his old age Lord Russell seemed to enjoy
more and more the companionship of the young, and entered with spirit into
their merry jests and their eager conversations on great subjects,
discussed with the freshness and enthusiasm of youth.

Lord Russell, as the following letters show, was still taking keen interest
in education questions:

_Lord Russell to Colonel Romilly_

RENENS, _September_ 27, 1871

I see the Bishop of Manchester has been speaking in favour of "a
very moderate form of dogmatism"