{19} "D-n your eyes!" he said once, in a moment of irritation, to his attache, Mr. Hay. "D-n your Excellency's eyes!" was the answer, delivered with deep respect but with sufficient emphasis. Dismissed on the spot, the candid attache went in great anger to pack up, but was followed after a time by Lady Canning, habitual peacemaker in the household, who besought him if not to apologize at least to bid his Chief good-bye. After much persuasion he consented. "Hardly had he entered the room when Sir Stratford had him by the hand. 'My dear Hay, this will never do; what a devil of a temper you have!' The two were firmer friends than ever after this" (LANE POOLE'S Life of Lord Stratford, chapter xiii.). {20} The story of an old quarrel between Sir Stratford Canning and the then Grand Duke Nicholas at St. Petersburg in 1825 is disproved by Canning's own statement. The two met once only in their lives, at a purely formal reception at Paris in 1814. {21} La Femme was a "Miss" or "Mrs." Howard. She followed Louis Napoleon to France in 1848, and lived openly with him as his mistress. In the once famous "Letters of an Englishman" we are told how shortly after the December massacre the elite of English visitors in Paris were not ashamed to dine at her house in the President's company: and in 1860, Mrs.