Lives of the Queens of England of the House of Hanover, volume 2 (of 2)

The early period of the travels of the Princess on the Continent calls for nothing more than simple record. She left the ‘Jason’ under all the customary honours; and when she entered Hamburgh on the 16th she dropped her English to assume a German title, that of the Countess of Wolfenbüttel. Her suite consisted of the two ladies we have already named, with Mr. St. Leger and Sir William Gell. Mr. Keppel Craven subsequently joined her at Brunswick. Dr. Holland accompanied her as physician, and Captain Hesse as equerry. Thus attended she appeared at the theatre at Hamburgh, where she was received with a storm of applause, and entered Brunswick, where she was welcomed by her brother the Duke, and with a loud-tongued cordiality by the inhabitants.

The reception touched her, but not deeply enough to induce her to profit by it. Within a fortnight she brushed the tears from her eyes, left Brunswick behind her, and was on the high-road of Europe, as self-willed and as obstinate a Princess as ever destroyed a reputation and rushed blindfold upon ruin.

She now travelled under the appellation of Countess of Cornwall, and had one English gentleman less in her train, Mr. St Leger having withdrawn from the honour of waiting on her at Brunswick. The time had not yet arrived when the mot d’ordre had been given to treat her with disrespect. The governors of German cities were courteous to her as she passed, and the Marshal Duke de Valmy, with all the authorities of Strasburg, offered her the expression of their homage when she traversed that portion of France. After spending the greater portion of September in a tour through Switzerland, she finally sojourned for a while at Geneva, where she met with the ex-Empress of France, Maria Louisa, and became for a time on intimate terms with an imperial lady who, like herself, was separated from her husband. Like her, she was stripped of her old dignity, and, like her, she was accompanied by a young boy. But those boys were not more different in their rank than the two women were in their position, similar as this was in many respects. The boys were Napoleon Francis, ex-King of Rome, and William Austin, son of the Blackheath labourer.

The two women, illustrious by rank rather than character, lived much in each other’s society. They dined together, sang together, together listened to the discussions of the philosophers whom they assembled around them, and when together they attended a fancy dress ball one at least astonished the other—the Princess surprising the ex-Empress by appearing in what was called the costume of Venus, and waltzing with a lack of grace that might have won laughter from the goddess of whom the waltzer was the over-fat representative.

Maria Louisa was not the only unhusbanded wife whom the wandering Princess encountered in Switzerland. The divorced wife of the Grand Duke Constantine was of this illustrious society. This lady was the Juliana of Saxe-Coburg who, on marrying the Russian Prince, took for her new appellation the name of Anna Feodorowna, and who was so rejoiced to lay that name down again after she had escaped from the brutalities of her husband. The Countess of Cornwall looked upon her with more than ordinary interest, for she was the sister of that Prince Leopold who ultimately married the Princess Charlotte, and whose aspiring hopes were known to, and sanctioned by, the wandering ‘Countess’ herself. The presence in one spot of three princesses, all separated from their then living husbands, had something as singular in it as the meeting of Voltaire’s unsceptred kings at the table-d’hôte at Venice. The ex-Empress was separated from her husband because she did not care to share his fallen fortunes; the Grand Duchess was living alone because the Grand Duke did not care for his wife; and the other lady and her husband had the ocean between them because they heartily hated each other—three sufficient reasons to unite the triad of wanderers within the territories of the Swiss republic.

In October, the Countess of Cornwall, or Princess of Wales, as it will be more convenient to call her, had passed into the imperial city of Milan. Her passage had something of a triumphant aspect; she reviewed the troops drawn up in honour of her visit, smiled at the shouts of welcome, mingled with cries for the liberty of Italy, which greeted her, and endured the noisy homage uttered by a dozen bouches à feu. She had now but one English lady in her suite, Lady Charlotte Lindsey having resigned her office when in Germany.

It was at Milan that her suite first began to assume a foreign aspect. The Princess was about to enter on a wide course of travel, and it was said that she needed the services of those who had had experience in that way. The first and most celebrated official engaged to help her with his service was a Bartholomew Bergami, a handsome man, of an impoverished family, who had served in the army as private courier to General Count Pino (bearer of his despatches, it is to be presumed), had received the decoration of some ‘order,’ and—whether by right of an acre or two of land belonging to his family, or because of his merits—bore the high-sounding name, but not very exalted dignity, of ‘Il Signor Barone.’ He had three sisters, all of whom were respectably married; the eldest and best known was a Countess Oldi, a true Italian lady, who loved and hated with equal intensity.

At Milan, as at Geneva, the Princess, undoubtedly, failed to leave a favourable impression of her character. At the latter place the sight of herself and the great Sismondi, both stout, and the former attired as the Queen of Love, waltzing together, was a spectacle quite sufficient to make the beholders what, it is said, the Princess herself would have called, ‘all over shock.’ Then she insisted on undue homage from her attendants, and made such confusion in the geographical programme of her travels ‘that it was enough,’ as she herself used to say on other occasions, ‘to die for laugh.’

On the progress of the Princess through Italy her English attendants fell off, one by one, till she was finally left without a single member of her suite with whom she had originally set out. They probably ventured to give her some good advice, for she complained of their tyranny. They certainly counselled her to return and live quietly in England; but this counsel was always under consideration, yet never followed by the result desired. She was rendered peevish, too, by receiving no letters from her daughter, of whom she had taken but brief and hurried leave previous to her departure from England.

Meanwhile, she traversed Italy from Milan to Naples, and was everywhere received with great distinction. In the little states the minor potentates did their poor but hearty best to exhibit their sympathy. The crownless sovereigns, like those of Spain and Etruria, condoled with her. At Rome the very head of the faithful stooped to imprint a kiss or whisper a word of welcome to the wandering lady. After a week of lionising at Rome she proceeded to Naples, where Murat received her with the splendour and ostentation which marked all his acts. He had a guest who was quite as demonstrative as her host. Court and visitor seemed to vie with each other in extravagance of display. Fêtes and festivals succeeded each other with confusing rapidity, and never had Parthenope seen a lady so given to gaiety, or so closely surrounded by spies, so narrowly watched, and so abundantly reported, as this indiscreet Princess. It was at Naples that she appeared at a masked ball attired as the Genius of History, and accompanied, it is said, by Bergami. She changed her dress as often as Mr. Ducrow in one of his ‘daring acts;’ and, finally, she enacted a sort of pose plastique, and crowned the bust of Joachim Murat with laurel.

It seemed as if she wished to bury memory of the past and to destroy the hopes of the future in the dissipation of the present. To say the least of her conduct, her imprudence and indiscretion were great and gross enough to have destroyed any reputation; and yet she herself described her course of life as sedentary, when she often retired to bed ‘dead beat’ with fatigue from sight-seeing by day and vigorous dancing by night. It was here that she made the longest sojourn, and enjoyed herself, as she understood enjoyment, the most. The purchase of the villa on the Lake of Como was also now effected; and Bergami was soon after raised to the dignity of chamberlain, and to the privilege of a seat at her own table. She claimed a right to bestow honours, and to distinguish those on whom she bestowed them; but her want of judgment in both regards amounted to almost a want of intellect, or a want of respect for herself, or for the opinions of those whose good opinion was worth having.

At one of her festivals at Como she indulged in some freedoms with a guest whom she strongly suspected of being a spy upon her. Her conversation was of a light and thoughtless nature, well calculated to give him abundance of matter to be conveyed to the ears of his employers. A friend present suggested to her that caution, on her part, was not unnecessary, as within a fortnight everything she said or did was known at Carlton House. ‘I know it,’ was her reply, ‘and therefore do I speak and act as you hear and see. The wasp leaves his sting in the wound, and so do I. The Regent will hear it? I hope he will; I love to mortify him.’ And to satisfy this peevish love she courted infamy; for even if she did not practise it, her self-imposed conduct made it appear as if she and infamy were exceedingly familiar.

Still errant, she wandered from Como to Palermo, visiting the court there, and receiving a welcome which could not have been more hearty had she been really of as indifferent character as she seemed to be. At this court she presented Bergami, on his appointment of chamberlain, and shortly after she proceeded to Genoa, where she intended to sojourn for a considerable time. She was conveyed thither in the ‘Clorinde’ frigate, the captain of which spoke to those around him in no measured terms of her conduct and course of life, particularly at Naples. She was well-lodged at Genoa. The scene, and she who figured on it so strangely, are thus described by the writer of a letter in the ‘Diary’—‘The Princess of Wales’s palace is composed of red and white marble. Two large gardens, in the dressed formal style, extend some way on either side of the wings of the building, and conduct to the principal entrance by a rising terrace of grass, ill-kept, indeed, but which in careful hands would be beautiful. The hall and staircase are of fine dimensions, although there is no beauty in the architecture, which is plain even to heaviness; but a look of lavish magnificence dazzles the eyes. The large apartments, decorated with gilding, painted ceilings, and fine, though somewhat faded, furniture, have a very royal appearance. The doors and windows open to a beautiful view of the bay, and the balmy air they admit combines with the scene around to captivate the senses. I should think this palace, the climate, and the customs must suit the Princess, if anything can suit her. Poor woman! she is ill at peace with herself; and when that is the case what can please?’... Referring more directly to the Princess, the writer says: ‘The Princess received me in one of the drawing-rooms opening on the hanging terraces, covered with flowers in full bloom. Her Royal Highness received Lady Charlotte Campbell (who came in soon after me) with open arms and evident pleasure, and without any flurry. She had no rouge on, wore tidy shoes, was grown rather thinner, and looked altogether uncommonly well. The first person who opened the door to me was the one whom it was impossible to mistake, hearing what is reported—six feet high, a magnificent head of black hair, pale complexion, mustachios which reach from here to London. Such is the stork. But, of course, I only appeared to take him for an under-servant. The Princess immediately took me aside and told me all that was true, and a great deal that was not.... Her Royal Highness said that Gell and Craven had behaved very ill to her, and I am tempted to believe that they did not behave well; but then how did she behave towards them?... It made me tremble to think what anger would induce a woman to do, when she abused three of her best friends for their cavalier manner of treating her.... “Well, when I left Naples, you see, my dear,” continued the Princess, “those gentlemen refused to go with me, unless I returned immediately to England. They supposed I should be so miserable without them that I would do anything they desired me, and when they found I was too glad to get rid of ’em (as she called it) they wrote the most humble letters, and thought I would take them back again, whereas they were very much mistaken. I had got rid of them, and I would remain so.”’

The Princess appears to have corresponded with Murat. The soldier-king is said to have addressed to her a very flattering note, beginning ‘Madame, ma chere, chere sœur,’ as if she had already been a queen, and that he were treating with her on a footing of equality. Her reply is described as clever but flippant, beneath her dignity, and so wild and strange as to be entitled to be considered one of the most extraordinary specimens of royal letter-writing that had ever been seen.

There was yet no inconsiderable number of English guests who gathered round the table of the Princess, and some of the former ladies of her suite here rejoined her. Among the guests is noticed a ‘Lord B——,’ who had been a great favourite with the Prince of Wales, and was equally esteemed by the Princess. He had been a witness of the marriage of Mrs. Fitzherbert with the Prince, and was now the most welcome visitor of the Princess. The illustrious pair, it has been often observed, had ‘a strange sympathy in their loves and habits.’ Alluding to the style of the Princess’s conversation with her guests, the ‘Diary’ affords us another illustration. ‘Sometimes Monsieur —— opened his eyes wide at the Princess’s declarations, and her Royal Highness enjoys making people stare, so she gave free vent to her tongue, and said a number of odd things, some of which she thinks, and some she does not; but it amuses her to astonish an innocent-minded being, and really such did this old man appear to be. He won her heart, upon the whole, however, by paying a compliment to her fine arm and asking for her glove. Obtaining it, he placed it next his heart; and, declaring it should be found in his tomb, he swore he was of the old school in all things.’ The little vanity of being proud of a fine arm was one as strong in Queen Charlotte as in her daughter-in-law. The former had as fine an arm as, and perhaps not a better temper than, the latter, but she could better control that temper, and had the additional advantage of being possessed of a more refined taste. This was not, perhaps, always shown when she sat and listened to rather loose talk from the Regent, with no more of reproof than her gently-uttered ‘George, George!’ by way of remonstrance. She, however, never erred so grossly as the Princess of Wales, who not only would listen unabashed to conversation coarse in character, but was not at all nice herself in either story or epithet. In Italy such things were then accounted of but as being small foibles; and when the Pope visited her at Genoa he probably thought none the worse of her, nor bated no jot in his courtesy towards her, because of her reputation in this respect. She certainly loved to mystify people, and took an almost insane pleasure in exciting converse against herself. Her adoption of Victorine, a daughter of Bergami, was a proof that she had acquired no profitable experience from the consequences which followed her adoption of young Austin.

During 1815 the Princess was ever restless and on the move. She was now entirely surrounded by Italians. Mr. St. Leger refused to be of her household, nor would he allow his daughter to be of it. Many others were applied to, but with similar success. Sir Humphrey and Lady Davy also declined the honour offered them. Mr. William Rose, Mr. Davenport, and Mr. Hartup pleaded other engagements. Dr. Holland, Mr. North, and Mrs. Falconet were no longer with her. Lord Malpas begged to be excused, and Lady Charlotte Campbell withdrew, after her Royal Highness’s second arrival at Milan. The Princess, however, had no difficulty in forming an Italian Court. Some of her appointments were unexceptionable. Such were those of Dr. Machetti, her physician, and of the Chevalier Chiavini, her first equerry. Many of the Italian nobility now took the place of former English visitors at her ‘court,’ and two of the brothers of Bergami held respectable offices in her household, while the Countess of Oldi, sister of the chamberlain, was appointed sole lady of honour to the lady, her mistress. On several of the excursions made by her Royal Highness from her villa on the Lake of Como to Milan, Venice, and other parts of Italy, she was accompanied by Mr. Burrell, a son of Lord Gwydyr. This gentleman ultimately took his leave of her in August, to return to England. He was sojourning at Brussels, on his way, when his servant, White, narrated to his fellows some accounts of what he described as the very loose way of life of the Princess at Milan. These stories, all infamous, but few, perhaps, which could not be traced back to some indiscretion of this most unhappy lady, and marvellously amplified and exaggerated, came to the ears of the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, then sojourning at the same hotel; and it is declared that on the report made by the former to his brother, the Regent, was founded the famous ‘Milan Commission,’ which was one of investigation, appointed to sit at Milan, to inquire into the conduct of the Princess, and to report accordingly. The commissioners sat and took evidence without making the Princess aware of the fact; and to an indignant remonstrance addressed to the Regent, wherein she demanded to know the object of the commission, no answer was returned. It was soon known, however, that the report was of a most condemnatory character, but no proceedings were immediately instituted. Meanwhile, the Princess continued her roving life, now on sea, now on land; now on board the ‘Leviathan,’ and sometimes on the backs of horses or mules. Her familiarity on all these occasions with her chamberlain was offensive to persons of strict ideas and good principles, and those were precisely the persons whose prejudices she loved, perhaps out of mere mischief, to startle. He dined with her at her table, and she leant upon his arm in their walks.

Early in January 1816, she again embarked on board the ‘Clorinde,’ Captain Pechell, with the intention of proceeding to Syracuse. The captain, having previously seen Bergami occupying a menial state about her Royal Highness, declined to admit him to his table, at which he entertained the Princess—who refused such entertainment, however, on the captain persisting on the ejection of the chamberlain. The desired port was reached only with difficulty, and for some months the Princess resided in Sicily, with no one near her but this Italian household. To her chamberlain she certainly was some such a mistress as Queen Guinever to Sir Lancelot. In liberality of sunny smiles and largesses there can be no doubt of this; and perhaps the quality of her favour is best illustrated by the fact of her having bestowed her picture upon him, for which she had sat in the character of a ‘Magdalen.’ She professed to have procured for him also his elevation to be a Knight of Malta, and she did obtain for him the dignity of Baron de la Francino, to heighten the imaginary grandeur.

The next seven months were spent in continual travelling and change of scene. The limit of her wandering was Jericho, whither she went actually, and also in the popular sense of the word, which describes a person as having gone thither when ruin has overtaken him on his journey through life.

She embarked, with her Italian followers, on the 26th of March, and nine days subsequently, after being beaten about by equinoctial storms till the little ‘Royal Charlotte’ had scarcely a sound plank about her, she reached Tunis, and struck up a very warm acquaintance with the Bey. He lodged and partially fed her, introduced her to his seraglio, perfumed her with incense till she was nearly suffocated, and then as nearly choked her with laughter by causing to play before her his famous female band, consisting of six women who knew nothing of music, every one of whom laboured under some unsightly defect, and of whom the youngest confessed to an honest threescore years. For this entertainment she made a really noble return, by purchasing the freedom of several European slaves. A greater liberator than she, however, was at hand, in Exmouth and his fleet. It was in obedience to the advice of the Admiral, who expected to have to demolish Tunis, as the Bey seemed disinclined to ransom the Christian slaves he held in durance, that the Princess, after a hasty glance at the sites of Utica and Carthage, re-embarked, after a month’s sojourn with the most splendidly hospitable of barbarians, and, passing through the saluting English fleet, directed the prow of her vessel to be turned towards Greece. She went on her way accompanied by storms, which prevented her from landing until, with infinite difficulty, she reached the Piræus, early in May, and proceeded to Athens, where she took up her residence in the house of the gallant French consul. Since the days of Aspasia, Athens had seen no such lively times as marked the period of the residence there of the Princess. Her balls were brilliant festivities. In return for them she was permitted to witness the piously ecstatic dancing of the Dervises (for the city of Minerva was under the Crescent then), who have plagiarised a maxim of St. Augustine, only altering it to suit their purpose, as ecstatic persons will do with sacred texts, and proclaiming orat qui saltat. The Princess had some nerve, and was by no means a fastidious woman, but she saw here more than she had reckoned upon, and was glad to escape from the exhibition of uncleanness and ferocity. Athens, however, afforded more interesting spectacles than this; she exhausted them all, according to the guide-books and the cicerones; and she gratefully expressed her pleasure by liberating three hundred captives, whom she found languishing in the debtors’ prison. The fame of the deed travelled as swiftly as if it had been a deed disgraceful to the actor, and at Corinth she was subsequently entertained, during two whole days, with a profusion and a gaiety that would have gladdened the heart of Laïs, who was herself so often and so splendidly ‘at home’ in this ancient city.

From Hellas to the Troad was a natural sequence She went thither, as before, storm-tost—stood on the plain where infidels assert that Troy had never stood, and, leaning on the arm of the noble and bearded Bergami, twice crossed the Scamander. With the first day of June she was in Constantinople, making her entry with Mdlle. Dumont and another lady, in the springless cart or carriage of the country, drawn by a pair of lusty bulls. She resided in the house belonging to the British embassy. It was the last time in the course of her travels that she found rest and protection beneath our flag. The plague, however, being then in the city, she quitted it for a residence some fifteen miles distant, from which she made excursions into the Black Sea, till, growing weary of the amusement, she once more embarked and spent a week at sea, on a frail boat, tossed by storms and watched by corsairs; and at length reaching Scio, sought repose, and indulged in contemplation, or may be supposed to have done so, in the school of Homer. By the end of the month she was amid the ruins of Ephesus. Beneath the ruined vestibule of an ancient church she pitched her tent. The heat was great even at night, the errant lady was sleepless, and the Baron di Francino, ever assiduous, watched near his mistress till dawn, and performed all faithful service required of him.

From the locality once jealously guarded by chaste Diana she passed to the spot where her old Blackheath friend, Sir Sidney Smith, had gained imperishable fame by gallantly vanquishing a foe ever bravely reluctant to confess that he had met his conqueror. Even this place might have interested the Princess by the association of ideas which it may have furnished her as matter for meditation. She did not, however, lose much time in contrasting the gossiping Sir Sidney, who made Montague House ring with his laughter, with the stern warrior who here turned back Napoleon from his way toward India. She was longing to find rest within the Holy City, and this she accomplished at last, but not till many an obstacle which lay in her way had been surmounted.

Her progress was suddenly checked at Jaffa. The party, which consisted of more than two dozen persons, had no written permission to pass on to Jerusalem, and the Pacha could give his consent only to five of the number to visit the city. After some negotiations with the governor of St. Jean d’Acre, the difficulty was removed, a large armed escort was provided, with tents, guides, and other necessary appendages. Surrounded by these, the Princess and her attendants had very much the air of a strolling party of equestrians on a summer tour. They had a worn, yet ‘rollicking’ look. There was a loose air about the men and a rompish aspect about the ladies, while the sorry steeds, mules and donkeys, on which they were mounted, seemed denizens of the circus and saw-dust, with the sun-bronzed Princess as manageress of the concern. The similitude was not lessened by the circumstance that, more than once on the road, the Princess, from sheer fatigue and want of sleep, rolled off her donkey to the ground.

The journey was performed beneath one of the very fiercest of suns, and the travellers, light of heart as they were, groaned beneath the hot infliction and the blisters raised by it. They passed many an interesting spot on the way, but were too listless or weary to heed the objects as they passed. Her Royal Highness bore the perils and minor troubles of the way better than any of her followers, but she too became almost vanquished by fatigue; and when she entered Jerusalem, on the 12th of July, seated on an ass, Mdlle. Dumont impiously contrasted her virtues, sufferings, equipage, and person with those of the Saviour. This lady was subsequently the very first who, with eager alacrity, swore away the reputation of her mistress, and heaping her indiscretions together, gave them the bearing of crimes, and did her unblushing utmost to destroy what she had professed to reverence.

The Capuchin friars gave her Royal Highness a cordial reception, and within their sacred precincts even allowed her and some of her French attendants to sleep. In return for this knightly rather than saintly courtesy, she instituted an order of chivalry, and, after looking about for a saint by way of godmother to the new institution, she fixed upon St. Caroline. In vain was it suggested to her that there was no such saint in the Calendar. She had a precedent by way of authorisation. Napoleon had compelled St. Roch to make way for St. Napoleon, and why should not Caroline have ‘Saint’ prefixed to it, and shine as the patroness of the new order? She, of course, had her way, created poor young Austin a knight, and solemnly instituted Baron Bergami as grand master. They looked more like strolling players than ever; the Baron none the less so when his royal mistress placed on his breast the insignia of the order of ‘St. Sepulchre’ by the side of the star of the newly-appointed St. Caroline.

With these new dignitaries the party proceeded to view all the spots where there is nothing to be seen, but where much that is false may be heard if the guides be listened to. For miles round there was not a scene that had been the stage of some great event, or was hallowed by the memory of some solemn deed or saintly man, that the Princess did not visit. Having spent upon them all the emotion she had on hand, she trotted off to Jericho, her panting attendants following her; and, having found the place uninhabitable from the fierce heat which prevailed there, the strolling Princess and her fellow-players rushed back to the sea, and, scarcely pausing at Jaffa, embarked hurriedly on board the polacca there awaiting them, and set sail in hopes of speedily encountering refreshing gales and recovering the vigour they had lost.

Their singing ‘Veni Aura’ brought not the gale they invoked. The sun darted his rays down upon them with greater intensity than ever, and accordingly the Princess raised a gay tent upon the deck, beneath its folds sat by day, took all needful refreshment, and slept by night; the Grand Master of the Order of St. Caroline fulfilling during all that time the office of chamberlain.

The weary and feverish hours were further enlivened by a grand festival held on board on St. Bartholomew’s day, in honour of Bartholomew Bergami and the saint of the former name, who was supposed to be the patron and protector of all who bore it. The Princess drank to the Baron, and the latter drank to the Princess, and mirth and good humour, not to say jollity, abounded; and perhaps by the time the incident is as old as the descent of the Nile by Cleopatra is now it may appear as picturesque and poetical as that does. It certainly lacks the picturesque and poetical elements at present.

It is the maxim of sailors that they who whistle for a breath of air will bring a storm. Our travellers only longed for the former, but they were soon enveloped by the latter, through which they contrived to struggle till, on the 20th of September, they made Syracuse, and were inexorably condemned to a quarantine of the legitimate forty days’ duration. At the end of this time an Austrian vessel conveyed them to Rome. After a brief but by no means a dull sojourn in that city, the Princess led the way to her home in the Villa d’Este, on the Lake of Como, where she and the Countess Oldi exhibited the proficiency they had acquired as travellers by cooking their own dinners and performing other little feats of amiable independency.

And now, as if to authorise the simile made with respect to the illustrious party, and their resemblance to a strolling company of players, private theatricals became the most frequent pastime of the lady of the villa and her friends. If she enacted the heroine, the Baron was sure to be the lover. Marie Antoinette, it was said, used to act in plays on the little stage at Trianon. The case was not to be denied; but then the wife of Louis XVI. did not exchange mock heroics with an ex-courier. On the other hand, the dukes and counts she played with were often less respectable than the loosest of menials.

The agents, whose employers were to be found in England, had not been idle during the Princess’s period of travel. They had been helped by none so effectually as by herself. She had courted infamy by her heedless conduct, and, cruelly as she was used, the blame does not rest wholly with her persecutors. Her indiscretions seemed indulged in expressly to give warrant for suspicion that she was more than indiscreet, and therewith even the most innocent incidents were twisted by the ingenuity of spies and their agents into crimes. The Baron d’Ompteda had been the most assiduous and the best paid of the spies who hovered incessantly about her, to misrepresent all he was permitted to see. He was banished from the Austrian territory at the request of the Princess, whose champion, the gallant Lieutenant Hownam, sought in vain to bring him to battle and punish him for his treachery towards a lady. On the other hand, the Austrian authorities commanded Bergami to divest himself of the Cross of Malta, which he was wearing without legal authorisation—a disgrace which his rash and imprudent mistress thought she had effaced by purchasing for the disknighted chevalier an estate, and putting him in full possession of the rights and dignity of lord of the manor.

Early in 1817 the Princess repaired to Carlsruhe, on a visit to the Grand Duke of Baden. She was received courteously, but not warmly enough to induce her to make a long sojourn. This Duke was not anxious to detain a guest so eccentric. Lord Redesdale told Miss Wynn, who set the story down in her ‘Diaries,’ that ‘when the Princess was at Baden, and the Grand Duke made a partie de chasse for her, she appeared on horseback with a half pumpkin on her head. Upon the Grand Duke’s expressing astonishment, and recommending a coiffeur rather less extraordinary, she only replied that the weather was hot, and that nothing kept the head so cool and comfortable as a pumpkin. Her next point was Vienna, from which city she had frightened Lord Stewart, the British ambassador, by an intimation that she was coming to take up her residence with him, and to demand satisfaction for the insults to which she had been subjected by persons who were spies upon her conduct. She experienced nothing but what she might have expected in Vienna—a contemptuous neglect; and soon quitting that city she repaired to Trieste, and tarried long enough there to compel the least scrupulous to think that, if she possessed the most handsome of chamberlains, she was herself the weakest and least wise of ladies. He was now her constant and almost only attendant in public. English families had long ceased to show her any respect. They could not manifest it for a woman who, by courting an evil reputation, evidently did not respect herself. What was her being innocent, if she always so acted as to make herself appear guilty? She might as well have asserted that her openly attending Mass with Bergami was not to be taken as proof of her being a very indifferent Protestant.

She became in every sense of the word a mere wanderer, apparently without object, save flying from the memories which she could not cast off. She was constantly changing her residence—so constantly as to make her career somewhat difficult to follow; but we know that she was residing at Pescaro when she received intelligence which she least expected, and which deeply affected her. During her absence from England her daughter had married Prince Leopold, and the mother had hoped to find friends at least in this pair, if not now, at some future period. But now she had heard that her child and her child’s child were dead. ‘I have not only,’ she wrote to a friend in England, ‘to lament an ever-beloved child, but one most warmly attached friend, and the only one I have had in England; but she is only gone before—I have not lost her, and I now trust we shall soon meet in a much better world than the present one. For ever your truly sincere friend, C. P.’

This calamity, however, had no effect in rendering the writer more circumspect. Her course of life, without being one of the gross guilt it was described, was certainly one not creditable to her. Exaggerated reports, which grew as they were circulated, startled the ears of her friends and gladdened the hearts of her enemies. They were at their very worst when, in 1820, George III. ended his long reign, and Caroline Princess of Wales became Queen-consort of England.

As a sample of the effect produced by the above-named reports the following, from a letter by Lady Charleville to Lady Morgan, in February 1820, may be quoted:—‘The report of all travellers who have had any knowledge of the Princess of Wales renders it imperative that such a woman should not preside in Great Britain over its honest and virtuous daughters, and something is to be done to prevent it.’ In April of the same year Lady Morgan was in Rome, and she wrote thence to Lady Clarke more favourably: ‘We have Queen Caroline here; at first this made a great fuss, whether she was or was not to be visited by her subjects, when, lo! she refused to see any of them, and leads the most perfectly retired life! We met her one day driving out in a state truly royal; I never saw her so splendid. Young Austin followed in an open carriage; he is an interesting-looking young man. She happened to arrive at an inn near Rome when Lord and Lady Leitrim were there. She sent for them, and invited them to tea. Lady Leitrim told me her manner was perfect, and altogether she was a most improved woman. The Baron attended her at tea, but merely as a chamberlain, and was not introduced. Before you receive this; if accounts be true, her Majesty will be in England.’

The Roman authorities treated her with scant courtesy. As soon as the death of almost the only friend she ever had in England, George III., was certified, Cardinal Gonzalvi, refusing to recognise in her person a Queen of Great Britain, sent her passport to her as Princess Caroline of Brunswick.