STORIES OF THE IRON DUKE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7222, 10 January 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

STORIES OF THE IRON DUKE.

Somk capital stories are told both of and by the Duke of Wellington in the Croker Papers. The Duke «was next to Lord Anglesey at Waterloo when he was shot. Lord Anglesey cried out, " I have got it at last." *'No; have you, by God ?" was his Grace's characteristic comment. The Duke told Croker, apropos of the story of " Up, Guards, and at them !" that what he probably did say was, "Stand up, Guards," and then gave the order to attack. We do not know whether the following was told to Croker by the Duke, but it was told at a party where he was present " One day an offieer came very late to dinner at Talleyrand's —an unusual negligence in France, where everyone is exact. Ha made a kind of impertinent apology, alleging that he had been delayed by a pequin, & nickname which French soldiers give civilians. 11. Talleyraud, himself a pequin, asked what a 'pequin' was. ' A'ou-s appclons pequin,' replied the officer; ' tout cc qui nest pas m'dilaire.' 'Ah, ah!' replied Talleyraud ; 'cat commenous, nous appelons militaiie tout ce qui nest pas civil.''' The Duke said he could never discover " on what ground Talleyrand's great reputation as a Minister was built." "It is enough to be a successful Minister of Foreign Affairs to a Government which has military pessession of Europe." Talleyrand, after the .Restoration, wished thatthedeputiesshouldbepaid, Louis XVIII. thought not, and wished their service to be gratuitous. "Gratuity!" said Talleyrand; " mais ce serait trop clter." What amused the Duke of Wellington most was the " boldness" of Talleyrand's duplicity. " Would you believe it that at Lrfurtb, when Bonaparte met the Emperor of .Russia to persuade him to joi 1 in overwhelming Austria, Talleyrand, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who all day long laboured under Bonaparte's vigilant eye to carry out this object, used to visit Alexander secretly at night, and furnish him with every argument, reason, or pretence which he could discover or invent against Bonaparte's plan ?" This, he said, was told him not only by Talleyrand himself, but also by "the Princess of Tour and Texas," at whose house these private meetings took place. " When a foreign woman," added the Duke, "once gets a taste for this kind of a thing she never gives it up." The Duke of Wellington once told Croker a curious anecdote of the Prince de Jomville. " The Duke said he had never seen him but twice, and never had spoken to him; but on one of those occasions he saw and heard him guilty ot a piece of rudeness and bad taste to our Queen, which, he said made him quite satisfied to have no further acquaintance with him. It was at Windsor. The Queen, desirous of amusing everybody, was busy getting up a round game, and proposed, amongst others, to fcho Prince de Joinville to join the circle. He replied, "Madame, jc lie join qu'a la guerre." Talking to Croker in 1526, the Duke said he thought Marshal Beresford was the best officer we had for. the command of an army. The Archduke Charles he considered the most scientific soldier of the age; but he was only good for five or six hours at a time ; after that he used to fall into a kind of a stupor. Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterioo he thought the best of his own battles. We find from a correspondence with Croker in 1847 that the Duke was much annoyed at the proposed removal of his statue from the arch at Hyde Park Corner. He chose to say very little about it, but bis feelings were very clearly manifested.