Category Archives: Congress of Vienna

April 11, 2020 · 9:49 am

The Road to Waterloo – Week Seven. The Allied Sovereigns Snub Napoleon and Mr Barton Wallop Goes to A Ball

In Paris Napoleon was finding that the tide of popular acclaim that had swept to meet him on his journey to Paris was ebbing fast now that he was actually in power. There were threats of civil war in the south and west and his legislative reforms were in chaos, even though all the major public institutions had declared their loyalty to him. To be safe he had to keep the peace internationally while he consolidated at home, so he wrote to the Allied Sovereigns – but none of his letters were accepted. France was, therefore, put on a war footing while Napoleon tinkered with the constitution. The British Mercury commented gloomily that 300,000 French prisoners of war had been returned to France and were doubtless flocking to Napoleon’s banner to fight against Britain.

In London the social scene was buzzing and in the newspapers the “Fashionable Parties” and “Arrivals” columns were long. On Monday it was reported that, “Lady Castlereagh [shown left. She was one of the Patronesses of Almack’s] gave an elegant supper on the Saturday, after the opera, at her house in St. James’s-square to nearly 100 distinguished fashionables: among them were the Russian Ambassador and his lady, Prince and Princess Castelcicala, the Duke of Devonshire etc.”

“Lord Grantley, Sir John and Lady Lubbock, Lady Frances Wright Wilson, Mr. Anson, Mr. Barton Wallop, and a large company of distinguished friends, were entertained on Friday to dinner, by the Earl and Countess of Portsmouth, in Wimpole-street; and her Ladyship had a party in the evening which was a much enlivened by an elegant selection of music.” The magnificently named Mr Barton Wallop appears to have been Major William Barton Wallop (1781-1824) who was at one time in the Nova Scotia Fencibles. There can’t have been many men around with that name!

On Monday a marriage fated to become tragically famous was announced: “On Tuesday last, Colonel Sir William de Lancey to Magdaline, second daughter of Sir James Hall of Dunglass, Bart. and Lady Helen Hall, sister to the Earl of Selkirk.” This was to prove a short-lived marriage, ending at Waterloo where Lady de Lancey nursed her dying husband [left] under terrible conditions.

In Parliament the House of Lords were almost entirely occupied with “The Crisis” while the Commons debated the Paving Bill, considered a number of petitions and gave the Chancellor of the Exchequer a hard time.

Employers everywhere probably shuddered at the report of the indictment of Elizabeth Fenning, for attempting to poison her employers (the household of Orlibar Turner – this seems to be the week for unusual names) with arsenic in their dumplings because she was under notice of dismissal. She had, apparently, taken the arsenic out of a drawer where it was, rather conveniently, labelled “Arsenic, deadly poison.” She was found guilty and sentenced to death.

At Lambeth Street Magistrates’ Office the trial continued of Margaret Moore, accused of attempting to steal the crown from the Tower of London. She maintained that her motive was to relieve those who were in want. Her neighbours appeared to state that she was occasionally deranged.

On Thursday the Queen held the Drawing Room which was “brilliantly attended”. The Morning Post reported that Her Majesty wore “a petticoat of jonquil starsnet covered with a beautiful Indian silver gauze, with draperies of the same gracefully intermerged with superb formed silver fringe, ornamented with handsome cords and tassels; robe to correspond ornamented with diamonds.” A long list of persons were to be presented and a one-way system was set up through the palace in order to manage the crowd. The image shows court dress – despite the fashion for high waists hoops were still compulsory, producing a truly odd silhouette.

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Filed under Congress of Vienna, Crime, Dance, Entertainment, Napoleon, Waterloo

Tagged as Almack's, Crime, Napoleon, William de Lancey

March 19, 2020 · 10:00 am

The Road to Waterloo Week Four – Napoleon Arrives In Paris & the London Exchanges Shiver

No doubt Londoners sitting down on Sunday morning, 19th March, read with relief the excellent – and completely inaccurate – news from the continent. As Bell’s Weekly Messenger’s headlines said, quoting the Paris papers of the 15th – “Gratifying Change In The State Of Affairs –Bonaparte Still At Lyons – Marching of troops On All Sides Against Him – Vigour of the Bourbons.”
In fact King Louis, whose reactions so far had been so far from vigorous as to be positively flabby, had fled Paris by night, heading for Brussels. The Duchess of Courland (shown left as a young woman in a portrait by Angelica Kauffman) set out at the same time to take the news to the Congress at Vienna. Meanwhile Napoleon continued to advance on Paris, despite further British headlines – “Reported Defeat of Bonaparte – Defection Of His Troops – His Probable Destruction.”
Meanwhile the London newspaper reader could pass on with relief to such good news as the signing of the peace treaty with the Americans and the assurances that Syphilis could be completely cured by doses of Velos’s Vegetable Syrup which “acts salutarily on the whole system, throws off all its impurities, and also removed the various forms of diseased Liver, Scrofula and Scurvy, that are so frequently left to medicines which aggravate their ravages.”
Bell’s Weekly Messenger’s “Died” column reported a curious selection of deaths in scrupulously alphabetical order, including:
O’Halloran, Sir Caesar Felix O’Neill, “the notorious swindler in Giltspur-street Counter.” [debtors’ prison]
Ripon, Mr Thomas of Nottingham, aged 75. “He was no more than 54 inches high. On a prodigious large head he wore an enormous cocked hat, and acquired a handsome income by former habits of mendicity (sic). ”
Saxe Cobourg, the Prince of, aged 77. “He commanded the Austrian Armies in the campaigns of 1793 and 1794.”
On Monday 20th Napoleon arrived at Fontainbleu and left again at 2 pm for Paris. He was met on the way by the 1st, 4th and 6th Chasseurs à Cheval and the 6th Lancers who had been sent to intercept him. Instead of arresting him they presented arms and joined his forces.
Bonaparte entered Paris at 10.30 pm without a shot being fired and was carried shoulder-high into the Tuileries, eyes closed, a smile on his face.
Perhaps the relieved Londoners who had read that he was in the process of fleeing through France at that very moment flocked to the Adelphi Exhibition in Adam Street, off the Strand to see Robert Lefèvre’s portrait of Napoleon in the uniform of Colonel of the Guard of Chasseurs.
A stir was caused on Tuesday 21st by the escape of the quite impossibly colourful Admiral Cochrane from the King’s Bench prison. He strolled into the Palace of Westminster to take his seat in Parliament, from whence he was returned to custody. On the same day anyone still worried about Napoleon would have been reassured by the arrival of the Hyperion frigate in Plymouth, loaded with troops and en route for Holland.
Then on Thursday the devastating news arrived that Napoleon had entered Paris and the King had fled. The 24th was Good Friday, and in his diary Mr Oakes in Bury Saint Edmunds recorded, “This morning the London papers this morning announced the arrival of Bonaparte at Paris on Monday last, 20th Inst, without opposition. Not a gun fired.” The Duchess of Courland reached Vienna the same day to report the King’s flight to the Allies.
By Saturday the Congress had acted, ratifying the Treaty of Alliance against Napoleon in which each of the great powers (Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia) agreed to pledge 150,000 men for the fight. The Duke of Wellington was made commander-in-chief.
In London the crisis was having its predictable consequences on the Exchange. Bell’s Weekly Messenger reported “… a close holiday at the Bank, but in the private bargains the Three per cent. Consols, the leading Stock, have suffered a decline of one per cent, reckoning from the closing price on Thursday, and one quarter from the closing price yesterday. The causes of the depression are too obvious to require specification.” The view above is of the Bank of England in 1809 (from Ackermann’s Repository). It is a view from the north, standing in Lothbury and looking down Princes Street on the right towards Mansion House.

The City around the Bank is still a fascinating place to walk – and Walk 8 from Walking Jane Austen’s London will take you from Temple Bar to the chop houses and coffee houses frequented by the Hellfire Club and Benjamin Franklin. (Not necessarily at the same time!)

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Filed under Art, Congress of Vienna, Napoleon, Royalty, Wellington

Tagged as Bank of England, Congress of Vienna, Georgian London, London history, Napoleon, Regency London, Wellington

March 12, 2020 · 10:00 am

The Road to Waterloo – Week Three: the French King Dithers, Princess Charlotte Sniffles

While Napoleon held court in Lyons, the alarmed Londoners must have fallen on the Sunday papers and would have been lulled into a false sense of security by reports from Paris that Napoleon had received no support following his landing. The weather in France had apparently made telegraphic signals difficult to use, but even so, the French court seems to have been trying to convince itself that all was well.
By all accounts King Louis XVIII (left) was driving his advisors distracted by his lack-lustre approach to the crisis. He had either deluded himself that all Frenchmen in their right minds would be ecstatic at the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty and that Napoleon had therefor no hope of securing support, or, more likely, he was simply so lacking in any sort of leadership qualities that he stuck his head in the sand and hoped it would all go away.
The date that Napoleon left Lyons is unclear, but the best estimate seems to be Monday 13th, the day that further falsely reassuring dispatches arrived in London. That same day, at the Congress of Vienna, the Great Powers of Europe (Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia) and their allies declared Napoleon an outlaw. The possibility of a peaceful outcome seemed to be fading, especially as on Tuesday Napoleon proclaimed the Bourbons unfit to reign and called on all French troops to join him.
Londoners who had been planning a visit to the continent, and who were reassured by the news from the Paris press, might have studied with interest an advertisement for packet boats from London via Gravesend to Ostend. They sailed every Sunday and, potential passengers were assured, took less than 24 hours. Private cabins were available.
Meanwhile, at Windsor, Princess Charlotte (right) was reported to be slightly indisposed and confined to Cranborn Lodge. She had been visited by the Queen & Princesses from Windsor Castle.
In London the Lord Mayor, as was usual, set the price of a wheaten quartern loaf at 11¾ d and the Earl & Countess of Jersey, one of the influential Patronesses of Almack’s, arrived in London for the Season from their Oxfordshire seat. Business as usual, in other words, and no sign of alarm.
On Thursday 16th Napoleon reached Avallon where two more regiments defected to his army and, finally, a more realistic report arrived in London from Paris to the effect that all troops sent against Napoleon had joined him, and that he had entered Lyons on 10th March. By Friday, the news was even gloomier – Bonaparte was in Paris, the papers declared, inaccurately, also reporting that the King had fled. Rioting over the Corn Law was reported from Norwich, but spirits rose on Saturday when another falsely encouraging report arrived from Paris.
Meanwhile Napoleon arrived in Auxerre where he was met by Marshal Ney (above) who had promised the King to bring the invader back to Paris “in an iron cage.” The two men embraced and Ney rejoined his old commander.
Despite the worrying news, or lack of it, from France, at least there was no rioting on the streets of London and audiences venturing out could be entertained to a rather strange combination of performances at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane – King Richard III, with Edmund Kean as the king, followed by “A new Farce called ‘Past Ten O’clock & a Rainy Night.’” The print to the right shows Kean in the role and below is a detail of the Ackermann’s Repository plate of the theatre in 1809. The artist must have been standing right outside the Bow Street Runners’ HQ. The theatre is little changed today and you can visit it on walk 7 in Walking Jane Austen’s London.