Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/29

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St. Jean de Luz.
11

At St. Jean de Luz, we were more attentive to our devotions than we had been for some time. Divine service was performed punctually every Sunday on the sand-hills near the town; Lord Wellington and his numerous Staff placed themselves in the midst of our square, and his lordship's chaplain read the service, to which Lord Wellington always appeared to listen with great attention.

The mayor of the town, thinking to please "the great English lord," gave a ball at the Hôtel de Ville: our Commander-in-Chief did not go, but was represented by Waters. I was there, and expected to see some of the young ladies of the country so famed for their beauty; they were, however, far too patriotic to appear, and the only lady present was Lady Waldegrave, then living with her husband at head-quarters. What was one partner among so many? The ball was a dead failure, in spite of the efforts of the mayor, who danced, to our intense amusement, an English hornpipe, which he had learnt in not a very agreeable manner, viz., when a prisoner of war in the hulks at Plymouth,

There were two packs of hounds at St. Jean de Luz; one kept by Lord Wellington, the other

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