LORD  BYRON  and  his  TIMES
Byron
Documents Biography Criticism
The “Pope” of Holland House
John Whishaw to Thomas Smith, 16 November 1816
INTRODUCTION & INDEXES
DOCUMENT INFORMATION
GO TO PAGE NUMBER:
Preface
Contents
Introduction
Chapter I: 1813
Chapter II: 1814
Chapter III: 1815
Chapter IV: 1816
Chapter V: 1817
Chapter VI: 1818
Chapter VII: 1819
Chapter VIII: 1820
Chapter IX: 1821
Chapter X: 1822
Chapter XI: 1824-33
Chapter XII: 1833-35
Chapter XIII: 1806-40
Chapter XIV: Appendix
Creative Commons License

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Produced by CATH
 
Nov. 16, 1816.

We are going to Holland House to spend to-day and to-morrow. The Abercrombys come from Paris. Abercromby dined with Pozzo di Borgo,1 and also

1 Ambassador of the Emperor Alexander to Louis XVIII. In 1797 he had taken refuge in London and had lived in great poverty.

159
Pozzo di Bergo
with Gallatin, who retains all his Republican opinions and is not backward to avow them. His wife, a shrewd American, is a singular personage at Paris, and somewhat quizzed by the Court and Corps diplomatique; but she takes her revenge by her keen remarks, and congratulates herself on the freedom and public spirit of America.

These dinners gave Abercromby an opportunity of seeing most of the foreign ministers and some of the most distinguished of the French Cabinet, viz., the Duc de Richelieu, M. Laisne, and M. de Cazes, the Minister of Police, and originally a protégé of the Napoleon family. He is a young man, somewhat of a coxcomb, and by no means well bred, but of insinuating manners, and a great favourite of Louis XVIII. He is understood to exercise his powers very harshly; and in the case of Sir Robert Wilson and his friends certainly acted with great injustice and oppression.

Abercromby says that Pozzo di Borgo’s dinner was without exception one of the most splendid things he ever saw. It was rather curious to contrast this magnificence with Pozzo’s situation three years ago, when he lived in poor lodgings up two pair of stairs in Soho. Now he is at the head of affairs in Paris and was the adviser of the dissolution of the Administrative Body, to which the Ministers of England, Austria, and Prussia assented.

I was glad to read this morning of the proceedings of the Gloucester Whig Club; I hope things went on smoothly and look promising. I trust Ricardo will join you.