Adeline Horsey Recollections. On September 28, 1858, my marriage took place at the Military Chapel Gibraltar, and I was the first Countess of Cardigan to be married on foreign soil, I wore a white silk gown draped with a blue scarf, and a large hat adorned with many feathers; Lord Cardigan's (age 60) friends, Stuart Paget, Mrs, Paget and the Misses Paget, were present, and we gave a ball on the yacht in the evening. We spent a very gay week at Gibraltar, and then left for Cádiz, touching at Malacca and Alicante; then we took rail to Madrid, where we arrived on October 16 in time to witness a review of 30,000 troops on Queen Isabella's (age 27) birthday. After a short stay at Madrid we rejoined the Airedale at Barcelona, and went 500 miles by sea to Leghorn. We experienced bad weather and many storms, and every one on board was ill except myself. The cook was a great sufferer, and his absence was naturally felt by those who were able to look at food without aversion.

From Leghorn we went to Elba, when I saw the place Napoleon embarked from after the "hundred days". We left the Airedale at Civiti Vecchia and started for Rome, Italy in our travelling-carriage with six horses, escorted by some of the Papal Guard sent by the Pope to protect us. I met many of my friends in the Eternal City; I saw everything worth seeing during my delightful sojourn there, and before we left Lord Cardigan and I were blessed by the Pope at an audience we had with his Holiness. As I wished to go to Genoa by sea, we returned to Civita Vecchia and set out in the yacht for Genoa, where we landed; we went from there to Turin, and on by rail by the Mont Cenis route to Paris [Map].

Paris was then a city of delight, revelling in the palmy days of the Second Empire, and I greatly enjoyed my visit there. One night I went to the Opera with Cardigan and we saw Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Trelawney in a box. Mrs. Trelawney was the famous Miss Howard, once the English mistress of Louis Napoleon (age 50), who paid her £250,000 when he renounced her to marry Eugenie de Montijo (age 32). Mrs. Trelawney annoyed the Emperor (age 50) and Empress (age 32) as much as she dared by sitting opposite the Royal box at the Opera, and driving almost immediately behind the Empress's (age 32) carriage in the Bois de Boulogne. She was a very fat woman, and her embonpoint increased to such an extent that the doors of her carriage had to be enlarged to allow her to get in and out with comfort.

Clarence Trelawney was a friend of mine, and the poor fellow came to a sad end. After his wife's death he married an American lady, but unfortunately he got into debt. He appealed to his relations, who were very wealthy but apparently equally mean, for they refused to lend him the £400 he asked for, and driven desperate by worry he blew out his brains.

From Paris we came to London and stayed at Lord Cardigan's town-house in Portman Square Marylebone; then we went to Deene [Map] on December 14, where we met with a royal reception, six hundred tenants on horseback escorting our carriage from the station to the house.