Page:Englishmen in the French Revolution.djvu/45

 II. AT THE EMBASSY. Duke of Dorset—Lord R. Fitzgerald—Earl Gower—Huskisson— Gem—Warner—Lindsay—Monro—Somers—Elliot. British Embassy at first fully shared in the general enthusiasm. The Duke of Dorset, though a favourite with Marie Antoinette, sent the Duke of Leeds a glowing despatch on the fall of the Bastille:—

"Nothing," he wrote on July 16, 1789, "could exceed the regularity and good order with which all this extraordinary business [the assumption of the government of Paris by a Volunteer National Guard] has been conducted. Of this I have myself been a witness upon several occasions during the last three days as I have passed through the streets, nor had I at any moment reason to be alarmed for my personal safety. . . . Thus, my Lord, the greatest revolution that we know anything of has been effected with, comparatively speaking—if the magnitude of the event is considered—the loss of very few lives. From this moment we may consider France as a free country, the King a very limited monarch, and the nobility as reduced to a level with the rest of the nation."

The Duke little foresaw that the fall of the