Why not try this kid?

Yeah, no definitely.

At risk of backtracking ever so slightly just because I think it's just a very interesting story to share with the viewers that actually just before he becomes

prime minister when he's sort of in his wilderness years before the India Act gets passed.

He actually does leave the country for the one and only time in his life.

This is when his trip to France is. And I'll be very brief about it. But he goes with two of his friends from Cambridge he goes with Wilbur Wilberforce and with

Edward Elliot apparently had a pongchamp for the illiterate names, you know, as his friends, but he,

they get to a sitting barn ready to cross the channel and obviously to Dover, and they all sort of do that classic thing where, oh and you've brought the travel

papers, haven't you?

I thought you were doing it.

You know, and all three of them find that they haven't got their documents. They're the letters of approval.

So the general idea was that if you're traveling

to another country back then, you knew someone in that country

who was going to vouch for your character

almost like a reference you know admit you as safe to go there and they managed to

get some of those documents from a friend for a gentleman living in Reims and they

get there and find that he's just a grocer and he's got one room in the back and so they're also huddled.

They've gone from Lincoln's Inn and all these great, you know, to just huddling in the back of this

grosser's room for a few weeks and then word spreads in France that the son of the great Chatham is about and before you know it he's

Invited to the great you know states of Fontainebleau and he actually does get to meet Louis the 16th

Marie Antoinette and he very... I didn't know that. Yeah he very briefly meets the French aristocracy, which is very interesting because I think obviously,

as you know, students of history will know, those people aren't going to be around much longer.

...