Lady Shelley certainly possessed one quality which eminently fitted her to play the part of Boswell to the Duke.  The worship of her hero was without the least mixture of alloy.  She had a pheasant, which the Duke had killed, stuffed, and “added to other souvenirs which ornamented her dressing-room”; and she records, with manifest pride, that “amongst her other treasures” was a chair on which he sat upon the first occasion of his dining with her husband and herself in 1814.  It was well to have that pheasant stuffed, for apparently the Duke, like his great antagonist, did not shoot many pheasants.  He was not only “a very wild shot,” but also a very bad shot.  Napoleon, Mr. Oman tells us,[84] on one occasion “lodged some pellets in Massena’s left eye while letting fly at a pheasant,” and then without the least hesitation accused “the faithful Berthier” of having fired the shot, an accusation which was at once confirmed by the mendacious but courtierlike victim of the accident.  Wellington also, Lady Shelley records, “after wounding a retriever early in the day and later on peppering the keeper’s gaiters, inadvertently sprinkled the bare arms of an old woman who chanced to be washing clothes at her cottage window.”  Lady Shelley, who “was attracted by her screams,” promptly told the widow that “it ought to be the proudest moment of her life.  She had had the distinction of being shot by the great Duke of Wellington,” but the eminently practical instinct of the great Duke at once whispered to him that something more than the moral satisfaction to be derived from this reflection was required, so he very wisely “slipped a golden coin into her trembling hand.”

For many years Lady Shelley lived on very friendly and intimate terms with the Duke, who appears to have confided to her many things about which he would perhaps have acted more wisely if he had held his tongue.  When he went on an important diplomatic mission to Paris in 1822, she requested him to buy her a blouse—­a commission which he faithfully executed.  All went well until 1848.  Then a terrific explosion occurred.  It is no longer “My dearest Lady!  Mind you bring the blouse!  Ever yours most affectionately, Wellington,” but “My dear Lady Shelley,” who is addressed by “Her Ladyship’s most obedient humble servant, Wellington,” and soundly rated for her conduct.  The reason for this abrupt and volcanic change was that owing to an indiscretion on the part of Lady Shelley a very important letter about the defenceless state of the country, which the Duke had addressed to Sir John Burgoyne, then the head of the Engineer Department at the Horse Guards, got into the newspapers.  The Duke’s wrath boiled over, and was expressed in terms which, albeit the reproaches were just, showed but little chivalrous consideration towards a peccant but very contrite woman.  He told her that he “had much to do besides defending himself from the consequences of the meddling gossip of the ladies of modern times,” and he