CHAPTER VIII
ON THE 14TH THE DIRECTORS and their legal advisers met for the reading of the report, with closed doors. These were the terms in which the Commissioners related the results of their inquiry: ‘Private and confidential.
‘We have the honour to inform our Directors that we arrived in Venice on December 6, 1860. On the same day we proceeded to the palace inhabited by Lord Montbarry at the time of his last illness and death.
‘We were received with all possible courtesy by Lady Montbarry’s brother, Baron Rivar. “My sister was her husband’s only attendant throughout his illness,” the Baron informed us. “She is overwhelmed by grief and fatigue—or she would have been here to receive you personally. What are your wishes, gentlemen? and what can I do for you in her ladyship’s place?”
