Note 263 — BOOK VIII[239]

The modern apartments at Holyrood Palace were quite bare, when they were lent to Charles X. in 1830, and almost uninhabitable. The Wellington Administration, which made great difficulties about lending the palace to the King and his family at all, did so only on the express and almost barbarous condition that, "if there was a nail to be knocked in, they would have to do it at their own expense." In short, the unfortunate French exiles were allowed to arrive in Edinburgh, during a Scotch winter, to take possession of a lodging in which the very essentials of comfort were lacking, in which there was little but the four walls of each room: and these, the Duchesse de Gontaut, in 1831, informed M. P. J. Fallon, whose interesting little volume, Voyage à Holyrood pendant l'automne de 1831, is my authority, were, in the case of Mademoiselle's apartment, so cold and damp that at first they gave up the idea of occupying it. The state of the chimneys was such that it was impossible to warm the rooms without being stifled with smoke. M. Fallon gives a few details of the furniture supplied by Charles X. The throne-room or picture-gallery was left empty, but for a small table supporting an old lamp. The room before it was turned into a chapel, in which Mass was said daily: Charles X. used to hear Vespers at three o'clock on Sundays in the Catholic chapel next to the Adelphi Theatre. The large drawing-room leading out of the throne-room was fully but very simply furnished and contained a sofa with a back about four feet high: the little Duc de Bordeaux used to amuse himself by vaulting over it with one hand resting on the kick of it. The room leading out of this drawing-room, on the left, was almost empty; it contained a picture, by M. d'Hardivilliers, representing the landing of Charles X. at Leith. Next to this was the closet of Charles X., a large room completely furnished. The Dauphin and Dauphiness at first occupied a little eight-roomed house at 34 Regent's Terrace, in the New Town, at a rental of £80 a year, and did not move into Holyrood until October 1831. M, Fallon adds a further anecdote typical of the timorous policy of the Duke of Wellington's Ministry. So long as it remained in power, no guard was placed at the palace gate. Later, when the duke was succeeded by Earl Grey (November 1830), sentries were posted in the entrance-hall and at the foot of the two towers. But they were considered to be a guard of protection or convenience, not of honour, and they received no orders to present arms when the members of the Royal Family passed them.—T.