Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/167

Rh French officer, who had actually travelled in the diligence from Paris for the purpose, as he boasted to his fellow-travellers, of killing an Englishman.

I recollect dining, in 1816, at Hervey Aston's, at the Hôtel Breteuil in the Rue de Rivoli, opposite the Tuileries, where I met Seymour Bathurst and Captain E, of the Artillery, a very good-looking man. After dinner, Mrs. Aston took us as far as Tortoni's, on her way to the Opera. On entering the café, Captain E did not touch his hat according to the custom of the country, but behaved himself, à la John Bull, in a noisy and swaggering manner; upon which General, then Colonel J, went up to E and knocked off his hat, telling him that he hoped he would in future behave himself better. Aston, Bathurst, and I, waited for some time, expecting to see E knock J down, or, at all events, give him his card as a preliminary to a hostile meeting, on receiving such an insult; but he did nothing. We were very much disgusted and annoyed at a countryman's behaving in such a manner, and, after a meeting at my lodgings, we recommended Captain E, in the strongest terms, to call out