My Days of Adventure | Page 3

OF BRITTANY"
XI. BEFORE LE MANS
XII. LE MANS AND AFTER
XIII. THE BITTER END
INDEX

MY DAYS OF ADVENTURE

I
INTRODUCTORY--SOME EARLY RECOLLECTIONS
The Vizetelly Family--My Mother and her Kinsfolk--The Illustrated
Times and its Staff--My Unpleasant Disposition--Thackeray and my
First Half-Crown--School days at Eastbourne--Queen
Alexandra--Garibaldi--A few old Plays and Songs--Nadar and the
"Giant" Balloon--My Arrival in France-- My Tutor
Brossard--Berezowski's Attempt on Alexander II--My Apprenticeship
to Journalism--My first Article--I see some French Celebrities--Visits
to the Tuileries--At Compiègne--A few Words with Napoleon III--A
"Revolutionary" Beard.
This is an age of "Reminiscences," and although I have never played
any part in the world's affairs, I have witnessed so many notable things
and met so many notable people during the three-score years which I
have lately completed, that it is perhaps allowable for me to add yet
another volume of personal recollections to the many which have
already poured from the press. On starting on an undertaking of this
kind it is usual, I perceive by the many examples around me, to say
something about one's family and upbringing. There is less reason for
me to depart from this practice, as in the course of the present volume it
will often be necessary for me to refer to some of my near relations. A
few years ago a distinguished Italian philosopher and author, Angelo de
Gubernatis, was good enough to include me in a dictionary of writers
belonging to the Latin races, and stated, in doing so, that the Vizetellys
were of French origin. That was a rather curious mistake on the part of
an Italian writer, the truth being that the family originated at Ravenna,
where some members of it held various offices in the Middle Ages.
Subsequently, after dabbling in a conspiracy, some of the Vizzetelli
fled to Venice and took to glass-making there, until at last Jacopo, from
whom I am descended, came to England in the spacious days of Queen
Elizabeth. From that time until my own the men of my family

invariably married English women, so that very little Italian blood can
flow in my veins.
Matrimonial alliances are sometimes of more than personal interest.
One point has particularly struck me in regard to those contracted by
members of my own family, this being the diversity of English counties
from which the men have derived their wives and the women their
husbands. References to Cheshire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Staffordshire,
Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Berkshire, Bucks, Suffolk, Kent, Surrey,
Sussex, and Devonshire, in addition to Middlesex, otherwise London,
appear in my family papers. We have become connected with
Johnstons, Burslems, Bartletts, Pitts, Smiths, Wards, Covells, Randalls,
Finemores, Radfords, Hindes, Pollards, Lemprières, Wakes, Godbolds,
Ansells, Fennells, Vaughans, Edens, Scotts, and Pearces, and I was the
very first member of the family (subsequent to its arrival in England) to
take a foreigner as wife, she being the daughter of a landowner of
Savoy who proceeded from the Tissots of Switzerland. My elder
brother Edward subsequently married a Burgundian girl named Clerget,
and my stepbrother Frank chose an American one, née Krehbiel, as his
wife, these marriages occurring because circumstances led us to live for
many years abroad.
Among the first London parishes with which the family was connected
was St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, where my forerunner, the first Henry
Vizetelly, was buried in 1691, he then being fifty years of age, and
where my father, the second Henry of the name, was baptised soon
after his birth in 1820. St. Bride's, Fleet Street, was, however, our
parish for many years, as its registers testify, though in 1781 my
great-grandfather was resident in the parish of St. Ann's, Blackfriars,
and was elected constable thereof. At that date the family name, which
figures in old English registers under a variety of forms--Vissitaler,
Vissitaly, Visataly, Visitelly, Vizetely, etc.--was by him spelt
Vizzetelly, as is shown by documents now in the Guildhall Library; but
a few years later he dropped the second z, with the idea, perhaps, of
giving the name a more English appearance.
This great-grandfather of mine was, like his father before him, a printer

and a member of the Stationers' Company. He was twice married,
having by his first wife two sons, George and William, neither of
whom left posterity. The former, I believe, died in the service of the
Honourable East India Company. In June, 1775, however, my
great-grandfather married Elizabeth, daughter of James Hinde, stationer,
of Little Moorfields, and had by her, first, a daughter Elizabeth, from
whom some of the Burslems and Godbolds are descended; and,
secondly, twins, a boy and a girl, who were respectively christened
James Henry and Mary Mehetabel. The former became my grandfather.
In August, 1816, he married, at St. Bride's, Martha Jane Vaughan,
daughter of a stage-coach proprietor of Chester, and had by her a
daughter, who died unmarried,