Digitised Manuscripts and Books

of electricity, and constructed a somewhat primitive but yet very effective battery which my eldest Sister played with, to the great annoyance of her visitors, whom she insisted on subjecting to electrical shocks. A young French footman named Gustave, who had been engaged to wait on my Brother and me, – he passed afterwards into the service of my Father as valet and remained with him until his death – was thought capable of sustaining a severe shock, but it was so very severe that, to our great alarm, he was knocked all out of time by it.

I was about nine years old when Dr. Creuznach left to be married. M. Monton, a handsome young Frenchman took his place, but proved the worst tutor we ever had, for he left us to our own devices as often as he could, in order to gallivant about the town where he formed an attachment for a young lady. Eventually he transferred his affections to my cousins’ French governess, and parted with us to marry and settle with her in Paris. He afterwards tried his hand at various speculations – journalism among others – but invariably with disastrous results. However, there was no harm in the man, and I kept up relations with him until his death.

Though we had plenty of holidays and amusements no children could have been more strictly and simply brought up than we were. We had to rise and turn into bed early, to learn lessons of every kind, and we were not spared punishment when our record was unsatisfactory. Great severity was shown in the matter of food: none but the plainest was allowed, and that by no means in abundance. We had a frugal dinner at one; tea and a slice of cold meat was all that was allowed for supper, except when on many an evening the good-natured French governess supplemented it with some of her portion. Being a fast grower, always ravenous and inordinately greedy, I often induced our German nursemaid Anna, to whom I was much devoted, to procure me some Frankfort sausages, which were justly famous, and pilfered in the stillroom regardless of the retribution that awaited me when I was found out.

I was not very strong, and consequently not an adept at the sports which my Mother encouraged me to pursue. We fenced and practised gymnastics, we had our ponies, in the summer went swimming in the river, and in the winter we skated with our friends on the low-lying meadows which had been flooded by the autumnal rains. For these friends, however, I cared much less than for the members of my own family, into whose games I brought an earnestness unequalled by most children. I remember, though then quite a child, that in these games, for which our gardens and courtyard afforded ample scope, we were often assisted by our Father’s then greatest friend, General Ferning, a Spaniard - after whom, I believe, I was called. He once nearly led us into a severe scrape. He had given us a toy cannon, which, small as it was, could be fired. To amuse us he loaded it, but charged it so heavily that when it was set off it exploded in our midst, though fortunately without inflicting any injury. General Ferning accompanied my Father to Cairo one July, where my Father’s excellent constitution enabled him to bear