Page:A French Volunteer of the War of Independence.djvu/300

276 Statesman, with a cultivated literary taste. He is, perhaps, best known as the guardian of Lord Byron, who dedicated the Hours of Idleness to him, abused him in English Bards and Scotch Reviewers ("The paralytic puling of Carlisle ") and made the amende honorable in Childe Harold c. iii, 29, 30. His reply to La Fayette's challenge was not quite as given by our author, but was to the effect that " he considered himself solely responsible to his country and king, and not to an individual." It is quite true that the opposition papers in England made sarcastic remarks about him, and no doubt, if he still continued to wear paint and patches, the fact was not forgotten. Horace Walpole said of him, that, "he was very fit to make a treaty that will not be made."

If Charles Hector, Comte d'Estaing (b. 1729), had been able to do the English half the harm that he wished them, they would have been swept off the face of the earth. The cause of his animosity was not very creditable to him. He was taken prisoner by the English at the siege of Madras (he was then a soldier) and released on parole. He broke his