guests upon that same occasion (I must drag the mention of
the fact in head and shoulders here, or else I shall forget it), was
that extraordinary man, Baron Ward, who was, or perhaps I ought to say
at that time had been, prime minister and general administrator to the
Duke of Lucca. Ward had been originally brought from Yorkshire to be
an assistant in the ducal stables. There, doubtless because he knew
more about the business than anybody else concerned with it, he soon
became chief. In that capacity he made himself so acceptable to the
Duke, that he was taken from the stables to be his highness's personal
attendant. His excellence in that position soon enlarged his duties
to those of controller of the whole ducal household. And thence, by
degrees that were more imperceptible in the case of such a government
than they could have been in a larger and more regularly administered
state, Ward became the recognised, and nearly all-powerful head,
manager, and ruler of the little Duchy of Lucca. And I believe the
strange promotion was much for the advantage of the Duke and of the
Duke's subjects. Ward, I take it, never robbed him or any one else.
And this eccentric specialty, the Duke, though he was no Solomon,
had the wit to discover. In his cups the ex-groom, ex-valet, was not
reticent about his sovereign master, and his talk was not altogether
of an edifying nature. One sally sticks in my memory. "Ah, yes! He was
a grand favourite with the women. But _I_ have had the grooming of
him; and it was a wuss job than ever grooming his hosses was!"

Ward got very drunk that night, I remember, and we deemed it fortunate
that our diplomatist guest had departed before the outward signs of
his condition became manifest.

Henry Bulwer, by mere circumstance of synchronism, has suggested the
remembrance of Ward, Ward has called up the Duke of Lucca, and he
brings with him a host of Baths of Lucca reminiscences respecting his
Serene Highness and others. But all these _must_ be left to find their
places, if anywhere, when I come to them later on, or we shall never
get back to Paris.

It was on this our second visit to _Lutetia Parisiorum_ that my mother
and I made acquaintance with a very specially charming family of the
name of D'Henin. The family circle consisted of General le Vicomte
D'Henin, his English wife, and their daughter. The general was a
delightful old man, more like an English general officer than any
other Frenchman I eve