Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/301

 eminence you deserve, as you make the antipodes your home, I don't think Irishmen can do better than work out a career iclogged by native impediments. "."

Another fatal illness deprived me of the society of a man of more importance. Count Montalembert was my ideal of what a Catholic gentleman should be genuinely pious, and a strict disciplinarian, but entirely free from bigotry or intolerance. The rooted enemy of despotism, and the friend of personal and public liberty everywhere. A mutual friend had written to him from London that I was coming to Paris, and I counted on a political and intellectual treat, but a letter from Madame la Comtesse put an end to my hopes, and I never saw him.

"M. le Comte de Montalembert retenu au lit depuis plus de quinze jours, par une grave indisposition, regrette infiniment de ne pouvoir reçevoir l'honorable Monsieur Gavan Duffy. S'il est suffisamment rétabli la semaine prochaine il se fera un plaisir d'en prévenir Monsieur Duffy dont il sera très heureux de faire la connaissance personnelle.

"40,, ce 6 Mai, 1866."

Under the Constitution Act I was entitled to a retiring pension, and as this was the first occasion of the right being exercised, the Government determined to have the decision of the Supreme Court on the subject. A similar application from Mr. Ireland was considered at the same time, and our counsel was Mr. Fellows, the leader of the Bar, who had framed the regulations as Attorney-General of a former Government, the other side being represented by the law officers of the Crown. The case was decided in favour of the applicants, but I was greatly embarrassed when my solicitor reported that Mr. Fellows positively refused to receive a fee from a brother barrister. In Paris, when I reached it, I bought some artistic bronzes and sent them to him with the thanks of a grateful client, which he acknowledged in the following note:—

",—Although I am sorry that any feeling of