Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/204

 This haughty assumption of superiority over others on almost all occasions was a salient feature in her character. It must have created her a host of enemies, during the period when she exercised so much power in Mr. Pitt’s time; and probably those persons were not sorry afterwards to witness her humiliation and downfall.

Once, at Walmer Castle, the colonel of the regiment stationed there thought himself privileged to take his wife occasionally to walk on the ramparts of the castle. I do not know the localities, and am ignorant how far, in so doing, these two persons might infringe on the privacy of Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester Stanhope: but, without intimating by a note or a message that such a thing was disagreeable, she gave orders to the sentry to stop them when they came, and tell them they were not to walk there. Let any one put himself in the place of Colonel W., and fancy how such an affront must have wounded his pride.

Mr. B, a Frenchman, who for many years had been her secretary, and who afterwards held the post of French vice-consul at Damascus, paid her a visit at Jôon, and, in the leisure of the morning, took his gun and went out partridge-shooting. On his return to the house, he gave the birds he had shot to the cook, desiring they might be dressed for Lady Hester’s