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8 July 1870 — La Granja | |
Friday. 8th [July 1870]. Henry got up early to write & directly after breakfast I set to work to copy despatches for him & then Mr Ashburnham helped us to make up the bags & at 12 o’cl: he went off to Villalba. At 11. Baron Benifayo came in with a message from the Regent to say that the news from Madrid was that the French were furious about the Hohenzollern candidature & menaced war & that Prim had telegraphed to the Regent to return to Madrid. Henry sent back word how sorry he was at the news & that he would probably also return tomorrow to Madrid. At 12.30 I went as usual to sew with the Dss & found her in a very low state of mind. She said she was convinced that the Regent would not be able to return to La Granja & that there would be a dreadful war with France. Mlle Paz also did nothing but sigh & at last the Dss began to cry and altho I kissed her & said all I could to comfort her I could not help crying too & seeing Paz beginning to give way I rushed home. We lunched & wrote & at 5 had tea when it suddenly struck us that it would be better to travel at night than in the heat of the day & we resolved to start in the evening at 11. So we got our things packed & ready. At 6 we went out driving on the Segovia Road & got out at the bridge & walked a good way along the river fishing, but Henry caught nothing– We then drove to the Casa de los Canonicos to say good bye to the Dss; we found her sitting in the same place as I left in this morning looking very dull & sad & we told her we were going this eveng. She takes a very gloomy view of things—expects war—& says that this interference or ebullition of the French will only make the Spaniards more obstinate & Prince Leopold was surer than ever of his election– She said she did not expect us back at La Granja—that Prince Leopold had written a letter accepting & that it was accompanied by one from Bismarck wh showed that Prussia meant to back up the Prince. We bid her good bye & went home to dinner & whilst at table the children came to bid us good bye & I gave Ventura & Pepa each a picture book & Concha a large green paper fan– At 11 we started in a carriage with 4 mules– We took Hill inside & Tomas on the box & sent the cook by the diligence. It was a lovely cool moonlight night and if it were not that we soon got sleepy & the carriage was very hard & cushionless so that one could not lean comfortably we should have enjoyed our drive– Being a tremendous pull over the mountain we went very slowly & did [not] arrive at Villalba till 6 in the morning when of course it was quite day. | |
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