Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/142

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122
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

and eventual wife Mrs. Sullivan, alleged ex-wife of the future King of Wurtemburg,[1] and grandmother that was to be of Comte d'Orsay! When the Terror had passed over, Craufurd returned. Under the Empire he had whist parties with Talleyrand, and formed a collection of historical portraits which was one of the sights of Paris till his death in 1819. The Duke of Wellington was returning from a call on Craufurd when shot at by Cantillon in 1818, and he was at Mrs. Craufurd's when the intelligence of Napoleon's death arrived. Talleyrand was also there, and when some exclaimed "What an event," he replied, "Non, ce n'est qu'une nouvelle." Benjamin Constant secreted himself for a few days in Craufurd's house on Napoleon's return from Elba, Madame de Stael having probably made them acquainted with each other. Though so devoted to Marie Antoinette, Craufurd, in a memorandum to the English Government, spoke of Fersen as "generally supposed to be the father of the present Dauphin."[2]

Henry Seymour, nephew of the first Duke of Somerset, left in June 1792, and like Kerry and Craufurd, was declared an émigré, which implied confiscation of property. A widower, he was the neighbour and penultimate lover of Madame Dubarry, and eight of her letters to him were sold at Paris

  1. Who married George III.'s eldest daughter.
  2. Papers of Bland Burges.