Somerset looked out of the window, across the public square outside the palace, and saw that the crowds had already begun to mass along the route of the procession.‘You’ll have quite an audience today, your grace. All come to see the general who trounced Bonaparte’s marshals.’ Somerset paused. ‘It is a shame that you never had the chance to face him in battle.’

Arthur shook his head. ‘No, I am glad that I never did. I would at any time rather have heard that a reinforcement of forty thousand men had joined the French army, than that he had arrived to take command.’

‘Be that as it may, I have every confidence that you would have beaten him, your grace. You are the better general.’

‘Well, we shall never put it to the test. In any case, I’ll not be appearing before Paris as a soldier. The war is at an end, and as I am to be ambassador, then I shall dress as a diplomat. A plain coat, white stock and breeches and round hat will give the right impression, I think. Now then, if I might finish my breakfast in peace?’

‘As you wish, your grace.’ Somerset bowed his head and left the room.

Popping another chunk of lamb into his mouth Arthur chewed quickly. It was a strange quirk of fate that while he had beaten the cream of Bonaparte’s marshals, and Bonaparte had beaten most of the allies’ finest commanders, the two of them had not clashed. It was inevitable that the Corsican’s apologists would for ever claim that their hero would have mastered the British commander had they met, Arthur mused.

The parade of the allied leaders and their finely turned out soldiers was greeted by cheers of joy by the vast majority of the crowd. Only a handful watched with sullen resentment, Arthur noticed as he rode beside Castlereagh, returning the crowd’s acclaim with a curt nod of the head or brief wave of his gloved hand.

Castlereagh leaned towards him. ‘Odd, ain’t it? You fight the French for over twenty years, and then they greet you like a hero.’

‘Peace and deliverance from tyranny are apt to make one cheerful,’ Arthur replied drily.

‘Indeed.’ Castlereagh waved to the crowd, and drew a fresh cheer from them as they waved hats and coloured strips of cloth in a shimmering frenzy. His expression hardened briefly. ‘Then ’tis a shame that the new King of Spain has failed to learn the lesson. You have heard of the troubling situation in Spain, I take it.’