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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Countess of Albany + +Author: Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee) + +Release Date: March 7, 2009 [EBook #28268] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY *** + + + + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p><a name="im1" id="im1"> </a></p> +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" summary="Alfieri and the Countess of Albany"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/ca1a.jpg"> + <img src="images/ca1.jpg" height="400" + alt="ALFIERI AND THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <span class="caption">ALFIERI AND THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY<br /> + +<i>From the original portrait in the possession of<br /> +the Marchesa A. Alfieri de Sostegno</i>.<br /> + Click to <a href="images/ca1a.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<h1>THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY</h1> + +<p> </p> +<h4>BY</h4> +<p> </p> +<h2>VERNON LEE</h2> + +<p> </p> + +<h3>WITH PORTRAITS</h3> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + + +<h5>LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD<br /> +NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMX</h5> + +<h5>SECOND EDITION</h5> + + +<h6>Printed by <span class="smallcaps">Ballantyne and Co. Limited</span><br /> +Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, London</h6> + +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<p> </p> + + +<h4>TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND</h4> + +<h3>MADAME JOHN MEYER,</h3> + +<h4>I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME,<br /> +SO OFTEN AND SO LATELY TALKED OVER TOGETHER,<br /> +IN GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE REGRET.</h4> + +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="prf" id="prf"></a>PREFACE</h3> + + +<p>In preparing this volume on the Countess of Albany +(which I consider as a kind of completion of my +previous studies of eighteenth-century Italy), I have +availed myself largely of Baron Alfred von Reumont's +large work <i>Die Gräfin von Albany</i> (published in 1862); +and of the monograph, itself partially founded on the +foregoing, of M. St. René Taillandier, entitled <i>La +Comtesse d'Albany</i>, published in Paris in 1862. Baron +von Reumont's two volumes, written twenty years ago +and when the generation which had come into personal +contact with the Countess of Albany had not +yet entirely died out; and M. St. René Taillandier's +volume, which embodied the result of his researches +into the archives of the Musée Fabre at Montpellier; +might naturally be expected to have exhausted all the +information obtainable about the subject of their and +my studies. This has proved to be the case very +much less than might have been anticipated. The +publication, by Jacopo Bernardi and Carlo Milanesi, +of a number of letters of Alfieri to Sienese friends, +has afforded me an insight into Alfieri's character +and his relations with the Countess of Albany such +as was unattainable to Baron von Reumont and to +M. St. René Taillandier. The examination, by myself +and my friend Signor Mario Pratesi, of several +hundreds of MS. letters of the Countess of Albany +existing in public and private archives at Siena and +at Milan, has added an important amount of what I +may call psychological detail, overlooked by Baron +von Reumont and unguessed by M. St. René Taillandier. +I have, therefore, I trust, been able to +reconstruct the Countess of Albany's spiritual likeness +during the period—that of her early connection with +Alfieri—which my predecessors have been satisfied to +despatch in comparatively few pages, counterbalancing +the thinness of this portion of their biographies by a +degree of detail concerning the Countess's latter years, +and the friends with whom she then corresponded, +which, however interesting, cannot be considered as +vital to the real subject of their works.</p> + +<p>Besides the volumes of Baron von Reumont and +M. St. René Taillandier, I have depended mainly upon +Alfieri's autobiography, edited by Professor Teza, and +supplemented by Bernardi's and Milanesi's <i>Lettere di +Vittorio Alfieri</i>, published by Le Monnier in 1862. +Among English books that I have put under contribution, +I may mention Klose's <i>Memoirs of Prince +Charles Edward Stuart</i> (Colburn, 1845), Ewald's <i>Life +and Times of Prince Charles Stuart</i> (Chapman and +Hall, 1875), and Sir Horace Mann's <i>Letters to Walpole</i>, +edited by Dr. Doran. A review, variously attributed +to Lockhart and to Dennistoun, in the <i>Quarterly</i> for +1847, has been all the more useful to me as I have +been unable to procure, writing in Italy, the <i>Tales of +<ins title="original reads a">the</ins> Century</i>, of which that paper gives a masterly +account.</p> + +<p>For various details I must refer to Charles Dutens' +<i>Mémoires d'un Voyageur qui se repose</i> (Paris, 1806); +to Silvagni's <i>La Corte e la Società Romana nel secolo +XVIII</i>.; to Foscolo's <i>Correspondence</i>, Gino Capponi's +<i>Ricordi</i> and those of d'Azeglio; to Giordani's works +and Benassù Montanari's <i>Life of Ippolito Pindemonti</i>, +besides the books quoted by Baron Reumont; and for +what I may call the general pervading historical +colouring (if indeed I have succeeded in giving any) +of the background against which I have tried to +sketch the Countess of Albany, Charles Edward and +Alfieri, I can only refer generally to what is now a +vague mass of detail accumulated by myself during +the years of preparation for my <i>Studies of the +Eighteenth Century in Italy</i>.</p> + +<p>My debt to the kindness of persons who have put +unpublished matter at my disposal, or helped me to +collect various information, is a large one. In the +first category, I wish to express my best thanks to +the Director of the Public Library at Siena; to +Cavaliere Guiseppe Porri, a great collector of autographs, +in the same city; to the Countess Baldelli +and Cavaliere Emilio Santarelli of Florence, who +possess some most curious portraits and other relics +of the Countess of Albany, Prince Charles Edward, +and Alfieri; and also to my friend Count Pierre +Boutourline, whose grandfather and great-aunt were +among Madame d'Albany's friends. Among those who +have kindly given me the benefit of their advice and +assistance, I must mention foremost my friend Signor +Mario Pratesi, the eminent novelist; and next to +him the learned Director of the State Archives of +Florence, Cavaliere Gaetano Milanese, and Doctor +Guido Biagi, of the Biblioteca Vittorio Emanuel of +Rome, without whose kindness my work would have +been quite impossible.</p> + +<p>Florence,<br /> + +<span class="ind4">March 15, 1884.</span></p> + +<p> </p> + +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h2>CONTENTS.</h2> + +<div class="center"> +<table style= "margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top"> </td> <td align="left"><a href="#prf"><span class="smallcaps">Preface</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER I.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c1"><span class="smallcaps">The Bride</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER II.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c2"><span class="smallcaps">The Bridegroom</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER III.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c3"><span class="smallcaps">Regina Apostolorum</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER IV.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c4"><span class="smallcaps">The Heir</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER V.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c5"><span class="smallcaps">Florence</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER VI.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c6"><span class="smallcaps">Alfieri</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER VII.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c7"><span class="smallcaps">The Cavaliere Servente</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER VIII.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c8"><span class="smallcaps">The Escape</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER IX.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c9"><span class="smallcaps">Rome</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER X.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c10"><span class="smallcaps">Antigone</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XI.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c11"><span class="smallcaps">Separation</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XII.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c12"><span class="smallcaps">Colmar</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XIII.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c13"><span class="smallcaps">Rue de Bourgoyne</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XIV.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c14"><span class="smallcaps">Before the Storm</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XV.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c15"><span class="smallcaps">England</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XVI.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c16"><span class="smallcaps">The Misogallo</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XVII.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c17"><span class="smallcaps">Casa Gianfigliazzi</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XVIII.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c18"><span class="smallcaps">Fabre</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XIX.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c19"><span class="smallcaps">The Salon of the Countess</span></a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left" valign="top">CHAPTER XX.</td> <td align="left"><a href="#c20"><span class="smallcaps">Santa Croce</span></a></td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3>ILLUSTRATIONS</h3> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style= "margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="1" summary="Illustrations"> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps"><a href="#im1">Alfieri and the Countess of Albany</a></span><br /> + +<i>From the original portrait in the possession of the Marchesa A. +Alfieri de Sostegno</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps"><a href="#im2">Charles Edward Stuart</a></span><br /> + +<i>From a pastel, painter unknown, once in the possession of<br /> +the heir of the Countess of Albany's heir Fabre.<br /> +Now in the possession of Mrs. Horace Walpole, of Heckfield Place, Winchfield, Hants</i></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top"><span class="smallcaps"><a href="#im3">Louise, Countess of Albany</a></span><br /> +<i>From a pastel once in the possession of the heirs of Fabre,<br /> +now in the possession of Mrs. Horace Walpole, of Heckfield Place, +Winchfield, Hants</i></td></tr> +</table> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c1" id="c1"></a>CHAPTER I.</h3> + +<h4>THE BRIDE.</h4> + + +<p>On the Wednesday or Thursday of Holy Week of the +year 1772 the inhabitants of the squalid and dilapidated +little mountain towns between Ancona and +Loreto were thrown into great excitement by the +passage of a travelling equipage, doubtless followed +by two or three dependent chaises, of more than usual +magnificence.</p> + +<p>The people of those parts have little to do now-a-days, +and must have had still less during the Pontificate +of His Holiness Pope Clement XIV.; and we can +imagine how all the windows of the unplastered houses, +all the black and oozy doorways, must have been lined +with heads of women and children; how the principal +square of each town, where the horses were changed, +must have been crowded with inquisitive townsfolk +and peasants, whispering, as they hung about the +carriages, that the great traveller was the young Queen +of England going to meet her bridegroom; a thing to +be remembered in such world-forgotten places as these, +and which must have furnished the subject of conversation +for months and years, till that Queen of England +and her bridegroom had become part and parcel of the +tales of the "Three Golden Oranges," of the "King of +Portugal's Cowherd," of the "Wonderful Little Blue +Bird," and such-like stories in the minds of the children +of those Apennine cities. The Queen of England going +to meet her bridegroom at the Holy House of Loreto. +The notion, even to us, does savour strangely of the +fairy tale.</p> + +<p>What were, meanwhile, the thoughts of the beautiful +little fairy princess, with laughing dark eyes and +shining golden hair, and brilliant fair skin, more brilliant +for the mysterious patches of rouge upon the +cheeks, and vermilion upon the lips, whom the more +audacious or fortunate of the townsfolk caught a +glimpse of seated in her gorgeous travelling dress (for +the eighteenth century was still in its stage of pre-revolutionary +brocade and gold lace and powder and +spangles) behind the curtains of the coach? Louise, +Princess of Stolberg-Gedern, and ex-Canoness of Mons, +was, if we may judge by the crayon portrait and the +miniature done about that time, much more of a child +than most women of nineteen. A clever and accomplished +young lady, but, one would say, with, as yet, +more intelligence and acquired pretty little habits and +ideas than character; a childish woman of the world, a +bright, light handful of thistle-bloom. And thus, +besides the confusion, the unreality due to precipitation +of events and change of scene, the sense that +she had (how long ago—days, weeks, or years? in such +a state time becomes a great muddle and mystery) been +actually married by proxy, that she had come the whole +way from Paris, through Venice and across the sea, +besides being in this dream-like, phantasmagoric condition, +which must have made all things seem light—it +is probable that the young lady had scarcely sufficient +consciousness of herself as a grown-up, independent, +independently feeling and thinking creature, to feel or +think very strongly over her situation. It was the +regular thing for girls of Louise of Stolberg's rank to +be put through a certain amount of rather vague convent +education, as she had been at Mons; to be put +through a certain amount of balls and parties; to be +put through the formality of betrothal and marriage; +all this was the half-conscious dream—then would +come the great waking up. And Louise of Stolberg +was, most likely, in a state of feeling like that which +comes to us with the earliest light through the blinds: +pleasant, or unpleasant? We know not which; still +drowsing, dreaming, but yet strongly conscious that in +a moment we shall be awake to reality.</p> + +<p>There was, nevertheless, in the position of this girl +something which, even in these circumstances, must +have compelled her to think, or, at all events, to +meditate, however confusedly, upon the present and +the future. If she had in her the smallest spark of +imagination she must have felt, to an acute degree, the +sort of continuous surprise, recurring like the tick of +a clock, which haunts us sometimes with the fact that +it really does just happen to be ourselves to whom +some curious lot, some rare combination of the numbers +in life's lottery, has come. For the man whom +she was going to marry—nay, to whom, in a sense, she +was married already—the unknown whom she would +see for the first time that evening, was not the mere +typical bridegroom, the mere man of rank and fortune, +to whom, whatever his particular individual +shape and name, the daughter of a high-born but +impoverished house had known herself, since her childhood, +to be devoted.</p> + +<p>Louise Maximilienne Caroline Emanuele, daughter +of the late Prince Gustavus Adolphus of Stolberg-Gedern, +Prince of the Empire, who had died, a Colonel +of Maria Theresa, in the battle of Leuthen; and of +Elisabeth Philippine, Countess of Horn, born at Mons +in Hainaut, the 20th September 1752, educated there +in a convent, and subsequently admitted to the half-ecclesiastic, +half-worldly dignity of Canoness of Ste. +Wandru in that town: Louise, Princess of Stolberg, +now in her twentieth year, had been betrothed, and, a +few weeks ago, married by proxy in Paris to Charles +Edward Stuart, known to history as the Younger Pretender, +to popular imagination as Bonnie Prince Charlie, +and to society in the second half of the eighteenth +century as the Count of Albany. The match had been +made up hurriedly—most probably without consulting, +or dreaming of consulting, the girl—by her mother, +the dowager Princess Stolberg, and the Duke of Fitz-James, +Charles Edward's cousin. The French Minister, +Duc d'Aiguillon, in one of those fits of preparing Charles +Edward as a weapon against England, which had more +than once cost the Pretender so much bitterness, and +the Court of Versailles so much brazenly endured +shame, had intimated to the Count of Albany that he +had better take unto himself a wife. Charles Edward +had more than once refused; this time he accepted, +and his cousin Fitz-James looked around for a possible +future Queen of England. Now it happened that the +eldest son of Fitz-James, the Marquis of Jamaica and +Duke of Berwick, had just married Caroline, the +second daughter of the widow of Prince Gustavus +Adolphus of Stolberg-Gedern; so that the choice naturally +fell upon this lady's elder sister, Louise of Stolberg, +the young Canoness of Ste. Wandru of Mons.</p> + +<p>The alliance, short of royal birth, was, in the matter +of dignity, all that could be wished; the Stolbergs +were one of the most illustrious families of the Holy +Roman Empire, in whose service they had discharged +many high offices; the Horns, on the other hand, +were among the most brilliant of the Flemish aristocracy, +allied to the Gonzagas of Mantua, the Colonna, Orsinis, +the Medina Celis, Croys, Lignes, Hohenzollerns, and the +house of Lorraine, reigning or quasi-reigning families; +and Louise of Stolberg's mother was, moreover, on +the maternal side, the grand-daughter of the Earl of +Elgin and Ailesbury, a Bruce, and a staunch follower +of King James II. Such had been the inducements in +the eyes of the Duke of Fitz-James; and therefore in the +eyes of Charles Edward, for whom he was commissioned +to select a wife. The inducements to the Princess of +Stolberg had been even greater. Foremost among them +was probably the mere desire of ridding herself, poor +and living as she was on the charity of the Empress-Queen, +of another of the four girls with whom she +had been left a widow at twenty-five. It had been a +great blessing to get the two eldest girls, Louise and +Caroline, educated, housed for a time, and momentarily +settled in the world by their admission to the rich and +noble chapter of Ste. Wandru: it must have been a +great blessing to see the second girl married to the +son of Fitz-James; it would be a still greater one to +get Louise safely off her hands, now that the third and +fourth daughters required to be thought of. So far for +the desirability of any marriage. This particular marriage +with Prince Charles Edward was, moreover, such +as to tempt the vanity and ambition of a lady like the +widowed Princess of Stolberg, conscious of her high +rank, and conscious, perhaps painfully conscious of the +difficulty of living up to its requirements. The Count +of Albany's grandfather had been King of England; his +father, the Pretender James, had lived with royal state +in his exile at Rome, recognised as reigning Sovereign +by the Pope, and even, every now and then, by France +and Spain. No Government had recognised Charles +Edward as King of England; but, on the other hand, +Charles Edward had virtually been King of Scotland +during the '45; he had been promised the help of +France to restore him to his rights; and although +that help had never been satisfactorily given in the +past, who could tell whether it might not be given at +any moment in the future? The ups and downs of +politics brought all sorts of unexpected necessities; and +why should the French Government, which had ignominiously +kidnapped and bundled off Charles Edward +in 1748, have sent for him again only a year ago, +have urged him to marry, unless it had some scheme +for reinstating him in England? The Duke of Fitz-James +had doubtless urged these considerations; he +had not laid much weight on the fact that Charles +Edward was thirty-two years older than his proposed +wife; still less is it probable that he had bade the +Princess of Stolberg consider that his royal kinsman +was said to be neither of very good health, nor of +very agreeable disposition, nor of very temperate +habits; or, if such ideas were presented to the Princess +Stolberg, she put them behind her. Be it as it may, +these were matters for the judicious consideration of +a mother; not, certainly, for the thoughts of a daughter. +The judicious mother decided that such a match +was a good one; perhaps, in her heart, she was +even overwhelmed by the glory which this daughter of +hers was permitted by Heaven to add to all the glories +of the illustrious Stolbergs and Horns. Anyhow, she +accepted eagerly; so eagerly as to forget both gratitude +and prudence: for so far from consulting her benefactress, +Maria Theresa, about the advisability of this +marriage, or asking her sovereign permission for a +step which might draw upon the Empress-Queen some +disagreeable diplomatic correspondence with England, +the Princess of Stolberg kept the matter close, and +did not even announce the marriage to the Court of +Vienna; yet she must have foreseen what occurred, +namely, that Maria Theresa, mortified not merely in +her dignity as a sovereign, but also, and perhaps more, +in her ruling passion of benevolent meddlesomeness, +would suspend the pension which formed a large portion +of the Princess's income, and compel her to the +abject apology before restoring it. The marriage with +Charles Edward Stuart was worth all that!</p> + +<p>Louise of Stolberg was probably well aware of the +extreme glory of the marriage for which she had been +reserved. The Fitz-Jameses, in virtue of their illegitimate +descent from James II., considered themselves +and were considered as a sort of Princes of the +Blood; and as such they doubtless impressed Louise +with a great notion of the glory of the Stuarts, and the +absolute legitimacy of their claims. On his marriage +Charles Edward assumed the title, and attempted to +assume the position, of King of England; so his bride +must have considered herself as the wife not merely of +the Count of Albany, but of Charles III., King of Great +Britain, France, and Ireland. She was going to be a +<i>Queen</i>! We must try, we democratic creatures of a +time when kings and queens may perfectly be adventurers +and adventuresses, to put ourselves in the place +of this young lady of a century ago, brought up as a +dignitary of a chapter into which admission depended +entirely upon the number and quality of quarterings +of the candidate's escutcheon, under a superior—the +Abbess of Ste. Wandru—who was the sister of the late +Emperor Francis, the sister-in-law of Maria Theresa; +we must try and conceive an institution something +between a school, a sisterhood, and a club, in which +the ruling idea, the source of all dignity, jealousy, +envy, and triumph, was greatness of birth and connection; +we must try and do this in order to understand +what, to Louise of Stolberg, was the full value of +the fact of becoming the wife of Charles Edward Stuart. +One hundred and twelve years ago, and seventeen +years before the great revolution which yawns, an +almost impassable gulf, between us and the men and +women of the past, a woman, a girl of nineteen, and a +Canoness of Ste. Wandru of Mons, need have been of +no base temper if, on the eve of such a wedding as +this one, her mind had been full of only one idea: the +idea, monotonous and drowningly loud like some big +cathedral bell, "I shall be a Queen." But if Louise +of Stolberg was, as is most probable, in some such a +state of vague exultation, we must remember also that +there may well have entered into such exultation +an element with which even we, and even the most +austerely or snobbishly democratic among us, might +fully have sympathised. Her mother, her sister, her +brother-in-law, and the old Duke of Fitz-James, who +had made up her marriage and married her by proxy, +and every other person who had approached her during +the last month, must have been filling the mind of +Louise of Stolberg with tales of the '45 and of the +heroism of Prince Charlie. And her mind, which, +as afterwards appeared, was romantic, fascinated by +eccentricity and genius, may easily have become +enamoured of the bridegroom who awaited her, the +last of so brilliant and ill-fated a race, the hero of +Gladsmuir and Falkirk, at whose approach the Londoners +had shut their shops in terror, and the Hanoverian +usurper ordered his yacht to lie ready moored +at the Tower steps; the more than royal young man +whom (as the Jacobites doubtless told her) only the +foolish and traitorous obstinacy of his followers had +prevented from reinstating his father on the throne +of England. Historical figures, especially those of a +heroic sort, remain pictured in men's minds at their +moment of glory; and this was the case particularly +with the Young Pretender, who had disappeared +into well-nigh complete mystery after his wonderful +exploits and hairbreadth escapes of the '45; so that in +the eyes of Louise of Stolberg the man she was about +to marry appeared most probably but little changed +from the brilliant youth who had marched on foot +at the head of his army towards London, who had +held court at Holyrood and roamed in disguise about +the Hebrides.</p> + +<p>Still, it is difficult to imagine that as the hours of +meeting drew nearer, the little Princess, as her travelling +carriage toiled up the Apennine valleys, did not +feel some terror of the future and the unknown. +The spring comes late to those regions; in the middle +of April the blackthorn is scarcely budding on the rocks, +the violets are still plentiful underneath the leafless +roadside hedges; scarcely a faint yellow, more like +autumn that spring, is beginning to tinge the scraggy +outlines of the poplars, which rise in spectral regiments +out of the river beds. Wherever the valley +widens, or the road gains some hill-crest, a huge peak +white with newly-fallen snow confronts you, closes in +the view, bringing bleakness and bitterness curiously +home to the feelings. These valleys, torrent-tracks +between the steep rocks of livid basalt or bright red +sandstone, bare as a bone or thinly clothed with ilex +and juniper scrub, are inexpressibly lonely and sad, +especially at this time of year. You feel imprisoned +among the rocks in a sort of catacomb open +to the sky, where the shadows gather in the early +afternoon, and only the light on the snow-peaks and +on the high-sailing clouds tells you that the sun is +still in the heavens. Villages there seem none; and +you may drive for an hour without meeting more than +a stray peasant cutting scrub or quarrying gravel on +the hill-side, a train of mules carrying charcoal or +faggots; the towns are far between, bleak, black, +filthy, and such as only to make you feel all the more +poignantly the utter desolateness of these mountains. +No sadder way of entering Italy can well be imagined +<ins title="original reads that">than</ins> landing at Ancona and crossing through the +Apennines to Rome in the early spring. To a girl +accustomed to the fat flatness of Flanders, to the +market-bustle of a Flemish provincial town, this journey +must have been overwhelmingly dreary and +dismal. During those long hours dragging up these +Apennine valleys, did a shadow fall across the mind +of the pretty, fair-haired, brilliant-complexioned little +Canoness of Mons, a shadow like the cold melancholy +blue which filled the valleys between the +sun-smitten peaks? And did it ever occur to her, as the +horses were changed in the little post-towns, that it +was in honour of Holy Week that the savage-looking +bearded men, the big, brawny, madonna-like women +had got on their best clothes? Did it strike her that +the unplastered church-fronts were draped with black, +the streets strewn with laurel and box, as for a funeral, +that the bells were silent in their towers? Perhaps +not; and yet when, a few years later, the Countess of +Albany was already wont to say that her married life +had been just such as befitted a woman who had gone +to the altar on Good Friday, she must have remembered, +and the remembrance must have seemed fraught +with ill omen, that last day of her girlhood, travelling +through the black deserted valleys of the March, +through the world-forgotten mountain-towns with their +hushed bells and black-draped churches and funereally +strewn streets.</p> + +<p>At Loreto—where, as a good Catholic, the Princess +Louise of Stolberg doubtless prayed for a blessing on +her marriage, in the great sanctuary which encloses +with silver and carved marble the little house of the +Virgin—at Loreto the bride was met by a Jacobite +dignitary, Lord Carlyle, and five servants in the crimson +liveries of England. At Macerata, one of the +larger towns of the March of Ancona, she was awaited +by her bridegroom. A noble family of the province, +the Compagnoni-Marefoschis, one of whom, a cardinal, +was an old friend of the Stuarts, had placed their palace +at the disposal of the royal pair. We most of us know +what such palaces, in small Italian provincial towns +south of the Apennines, are apt to be; huge, gloomy, +shapeless masses of brickwork and mouldering plaster, +something between a mediaeval fortress and a convent; +great black archways, where the refuse of the house, +the filth of the town, has peaceably accumulated (and +how much more in those days); magnificent statued +staircases given over to the few servants who have +replaced the armed bravos of two centuries ago; long +suites of rooms, vast, resounding like so many churches, +glazed in the last century with tiny squares of bad +glass, through which the light comes green and thick +as through sea-water; carpets still despised as a new-fangled +luxury from France; the walls, not cheerful +with eighteenth-century French panel and hangings, but +covered with big naked frescoed men and women, or +faded arras; few fire-places, but those few enormous, +looking like a huge red cavern in the room. The +Marefoschis had got together all their best furniture +and plate, and the palace was filled with torches and +wax lights; a funereal illumination in a funereal place, +it must have seemed to the little Princess of Stolberg, +fresh from the brilliant nattiness of the Parisian houses +of the time of Louis XV.</p> + +<p>The bride alighted; a small, plump, well-proportioned, +rather childish creature, with still half-formed +childish features, a trifle snub, a trifle soulless, very +pretty, tender, light-hearted; a charming little creature, +very well made to steal folk's hearts unconscious to +themselves and to herself.</p> + +<p>The bridegroom met her. A faded, but extremely +characteristic crayon portrait, the companion of the +one of which I have already spoken, now in the possession +of Cavaliere Emilio Santarelli (the only man still +living who can remember that same Louise d'Albany), +a portrait evidently taken at this time, has shown +me what that bridegroom must have been. The +man who met Louise of Stolberg at Macerata as her +husband and master, the man who had once been +Bonnie Prince Charlie, was tall, big-boned, gaunt, and +prematurely bowed for his age of fifty-two; dressed +usually, and doubtless on this occasion, with the blue +ribbon and star, in a suit of crimson watered silk, which +threw up a red reflection into his red and bloated face. +A red face, but of a livid, purplish red suffused all over +the heavy furrowed forehead to where it met the +white wig, all over the flabby cheeks, hanging in big +loose folds upon the short, loose-folded red neck; +massive features, but coarsened and drawn; and dull, +thick, silent-looking lips, of purplish red scarce redder +than the red skin; pale blue eyes tending to a watery +greyness, leaden, vague, sad, but with angry streakings +of red; something inexpressibly sad, gloomy, helpless, +vacant and debased in the whole face: such was +the man who awaited Louise of Stolberg in the +Compagnoni-Marefoschi palace at Macerata, and who, +on Good Friday the 17th of April 1772, wedded her +in the palace chapel and signed his name in the +register as Charles III., King of Great Britain, France, +and Ireland.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c2" id="c2"></a>CHAPTER II.</h3> + +<h4>THE BRIDEGROOM.</h4> + + +<p>On the Wednesday after Easter the bride and bridegroom +made their solemn entry into Rome; the two +travelling carriages of the Prince and of the Princess +were drawn by six horses; four gala coaches, carrying +the attendants of Charles Edward and of his brother +the Cardinal Duke of York, followed behind, and the +streets were cleared by four outriders dressed in scarlet +with the white Stuart cockade. The house to which +Louise of Stolberg, now Louise d'Albany, or rather, +as she signed herself at this time, Louise R., was conducted +after her five days' wedding journey, has passed +through several hands since belonging to the Sacchettis, +the Muti Papazzurris, and now-a-days to the +family of About's charming and unhappy Tolla Ferraldi. +Clement XI. had given or lent it to the Elder Pretender: +James III., as he was styled in Italy, had settled in +it about 1719 with his beautiful bride Maria Clementina +Sobieska, romantically filched by her Jacobites from +the convent at Innsbruck, where the Emperor Charles +VI. had hoped to restrain her from so compromising +a match; here, in the year 1720, Charles Edward had +been born and had his baby fingers kissed by the +whole sacred college; and here the so-called King +of England had died at last, a melancholy hypochondriac, +in 1766. The palace closes in the narrow end +of the square of the Santissimi Apostoli, stately and +quiet with its various palaces, Colonna, Odescalchi, +and whatever else their names, and its pillared church +front. There is a certain aristocratic serenity about +that square, separated, like a big palace yard, from the +bustling Corso in front; yet to me there remains, a tradition +of my childhood, a sort of grotesque and horrid +suggestiveness connected with this peaceful and princely +corner of Rome. For, many years ago, when the +square of the Santissimi Apostoli was still periodically +strewn with sand that the Pope might not be jolted +when his golden coach drove up to the church, and +when the names of Charles Edward and his Countess +were curiously mixed up in my brain with those of +Charles the First and Mary Queen of Scots, there used +to be in a little street leading out of the square towards +the Colonna Gardens, a dark recess in the blank church-wall, +an embrasure, sheltered by a pent-house roof and +raised like a stage a few steep steps above the pavement; +and in it loomed, strapped to a chair, dark in +the shadow, a creature in a long black robe and a skull +cap drawn close over his head; a vague, contorted, +writhing and gibbering horror, of whose St. Vitus +twistings and mouthings we children scarcely ventured +to catch a glimpse as we hurried up the narrow street, +followed by the bestial cries and moans of the solitary +maniac. This weird and grotesque sight, more weird +and more grotesque seen through a muddled childish +fancy and through the haze of years, has remained +associated in my mind with that particular corner +of Rome, where, with windows looking down upon that +street, upon that blank church-wall with its little black +recess, the palace of the Stuarts closes in the narrow +end of the square of the Santissimi Apostoli. And +now, I cannot help seeing a certain strange appropriateness +in the fact that the image of that mouthing and +gesticulating half-witted creature should be connected +in my mind with the house to which, with pomp of +six-horse coaches and scarlet outriders, Charles Edward +Stuart conducted his bride.</p> +<p><a name="im2" id="im2"> </a></p> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="4" summary="Charles Edward Stuart"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/ca2.jpg"> + <img src="images/ca2a.jpg" height="400" + alt="CHARLES EDWARD STUART" /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <span class="caption">CHARLES EDWARD STUART<br /> + +<i>From a pastel, painter unknown, once in the possession of<br /> +the heir of the Countess of Albany's heir +Fabre.<br /> +Now in the possession of Mrs. Horace Walpole, of Heckfield Place, Winchfield, Hants</i>.<br /> + Click to <a href="images/ca2.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>For the beautiful and brilliant youth who had +secretly left that palace twenty-four years before +to re-conquer his father's kingdom, the gentle and +gallant and chivalric young prince of whose irresistible +manner and voice the canny chieftains had vainly +bid each other beware when he landed with his +handful of friends and called the Highlanders to +arms; the patient and heroic exile, singing to his +friends when the sea washed over their boat and +the Hanoverian soldiers surrounded their cavern or +hovel, who had silently given Miss Macdonald that +solemn kiss which she treasured for more than fifty +years in her strong heart—that Charles Edward Stuart +was now a creature not much worthier and not much +less repulsive than the poor idiot whom I still see, +flinging about his palsied hands and gobbling with +his speechless mouth, beneath the windows of the +Stuart palace. The taste for drinking, so strange in +a man brought up to the age of twenty-three among +the proverbially sober Italians, had arisen in Charles +Edward, a most excusable ill habit in one continually +exposed to wet and cold, frequently sleeping on the +damp ground, ill-fed, anxious, worn out by over-exertion +in flying before his enemies, during those +frightful months after the defeat at Culloden, when, +with a price of thirty thousand pounds upon his head, +he had lurked in the fastnesses of the Hebrides. We +hear that on the eve of his final escape from Scotland, +his host, Macdonald of Kingsburgh, prevented the +possible miscarriage of all their perilous plans only by +smashing the punch-bowl over which the Pretender, +already more than half drunk, had insisted upon +spending the night. Still more significant is the fact, +recorded by Hugh Macdonald of Balshair, that when +Charles Edward was concealed in a hovel in the isle of +South Uist, the prince and his faithful followers continued +drinking (the words are Balshair's own) "for +three days and three nights." Hard drinking was, we +all know, a necessary accomplishment in the Scotland +of those days; and hard drinking, we must all of us +admit, may well have been the one comfort and resource +of a man undergoing the frightful mental and bodily +miseries of those months of lying at bay. But Charles +Edward did not relinquish the habit when he was back +again in safety and luxury. Strangely compounded of +an Englishman and a Pole, the Polish element, the +brilliant and light-hearted chivalry, the cheerful and +youthfully wayward heroism which he had inherited +from the Sobieskis, seemed to constitute the whole of +Charles Edward's nature when he was young and, +for all his reverses, still hopeful; as he grew older, as +deferred and disappointed hopes, and endured ignominy, +made him a middle-aged man before his time, then +also did the other hereditary strain, the morose obstinacy, +the gloomy brutality of James II. and of his father +begin to appear, and gradually obliterated every trace +of what had been the splendour and charm of the +Prince Charlie of the '45. Disappointed of the assistance +of France, which had egged him to this great +enterprise only to leave him shamefully in the lurch, +Charles Edward had, immediately upon the peace of +Aix la Chapelle, become an embarrassing guest of Louis +XV., and a guest of whom the victorious English were +continually requiring the ignominious dismissal; until, +wearied by the indifference to all hints and orders to +free France from his compromising presence, the Court +of Versailles had descended to the incredible baseness +of having the Prince kidnapped as he was going to +the opera, bound hand and foot, carried like a thief to +the fortress of Vincennes, and then conducted to the +frontier like a suspected though unconvicted swindler, +or other public nuisance.</p> + +<p>This indignity, coming close upon the irreparable +blow dealt to the Jacobite cause by the stupid selfishness +which impelled Charles Edward's younger brother +to become a Romish priest and a cardinal, appears to +have definitively decided the extraordinary change in +the character of the Young Pretender. During the +many years of skulking, often completely lost to the +sight both of Jacobite adherents and of Hanoverian +spies, which followed upon that outrage of the year +1748, the few glimpses which we obtain of Charles +Edward show us only a precociously aged, brutish +and brutal sot, obstinate in disregarding all efforts to +restore him to a worthier life, yet not obstinate enough +to refuse unnecessary pecuniary aid from the very +government and persons by whom he had been so +cruelly outraged. We hear that Charles Edward's +confessor, with whom, despite his secret abjuration of +Catholicism, he continued to associate, was a notorious +drunkard; and that the mistress with whom he lived +for many years, and whom he even passed off as his +wife, was also addicted to drinking; nay, Lord Elcho +is said to have witnessed a tipsy squabble between the +Young Pretender and Miss Walkenshaw, the lady in +question, across the table of a low Paris tavern. The +reports of the many spies whom the English Government +set everywhere on his traces are constant and +unanimous in one item of information: the Prince +began to drink early in the morning, and was invariably +dead drunk by the evening; nay, some letters of +Cardinal York, addressed to an unknown Jacobite, +speak of the "nasty bottle, that goes on but too much, +and certainly must at last kill him." But, although +drunkenness undoubtedly did much to obliterate whatever +still remained of the hero of the '45, it was itself +only one of the proofs of the strange metamorphosis +which had taken place in his character. We cannot +admit the plea of some of his biographers, who would +save his honour at the price of his reason. Charles +Edward was the victim neither of an hereditary vice nor +of a mental disease; drink was in his case not a form +of madness, but merely the ruling passion of a broken-spirited +and degraded nature. He had the power when +he married, and even much later in life, when he sent +for his illegitimate daughter, of refraining from his usual +excesses; his will, impaired though it was, still existed, +and what was wanting in the sad second half of his +career was not resolution, but conscience, pride, an ideal, +anything which might beget the desire of reform. The +curious mixture of brow-beating moroseness with a +brazen readiness to accept and even extort favours, he +would appear, as he ceased to be young, to have +gradually inherited from his father; he was ready to +live on the alms of the French Court, while never losing +an opportunity of declaiming against the ignoble treatment +which that same Court had inflicted on him. He +became sordid and grasping in money matters, basely +begging for money, which he did not require, from +those who, like Gustavus III. of Sweden, discovered +only too late that he was demeaning himself from +avarice and not from necessity. While keeping a +certain maudlin sentiment about his exploits and those +of his followers, which manifested itself in cruelly +pathetic scenes when, as in his old age, people talked to +him of the Highlands and the Rebellion; he was wholly +without any sense of his obligation towards men who +had exposed their life and happiness for him, of the +duty which bound him to repay their devotion by +docility to their advice, by sacrifice of his inclinations, +or even by such mere decency of behaviour as would +spare them the bitterness of allegiance to a disreputable +and foul-mouthed sot. But, until the moment when +old and dying, he placed himself in the strong hands +of his natural daughter, Charles Edward seems to have +been, however obstinate in his favouritism, incapable +of any real affection. When his brother Henry became +a priest Charles held aloof for long years both from +him and from his father; and this resentment of +what was after all a mere piece of bigoted folly, may +be partially excused by the fact that the identification +of his family with Popery had seriously damaged the +prospects of Jacobitism. But the lack of all lovingness +in his nature is proved beyond possibility of +doubt by the brutal manner in which, while obstinately +refusing to part with his mistress at the earnest +entreaty of his adherents, he explained to their envoy +Macnamara that his refusal was due merely to resentment +at any attempted interference in his concerns; +but that, for the rest, he had not the smallest affection +or consideration remaining for the woman they wished +to make him relinquish. As if all the stupid selfishness +bred of centuries of royalty had accumulated in +this man who might be king only through his own and +his adherents' magnanimity, Charles Edward seemed, in +the second period of his life, to feel as if he had a right +over everything, and nobody else had a right over +anything; all sense of reciprocity was gone; he would +accept devotion, self-sacrifice, generosity, charity—nay, +he would even insist upon them; but he would give +not one tittle in return; so that, forgetful of the +heroism and clemency and high spirit of his earlier +days, one might almost think that his indignant answer +to Cardinal de Tenein, who offered him England and +Scotland if he would cede Ireland to France, "Everything +or nothing, Monsieur le Cardinal!" was dictated +less by the indignation of an Englishman than by the +stubborn graspingness of a Stuart. His further behaviour +towards Miss Walkenshaw shows the same indifference +to everything except what he considered his own +rights. He had crudely admitted that he cared nothing +for her, that it was only because his adherents wished +her dismissal that he did not pack her off; and subsequently +he seems to have given himself so little thought +either for his mistress or for his child by her, that, without +the benevolence of his brother the Cardinal, they +might have starved. But when, after long endurance +of his jealousy and brutality, after being watched like +a prisoner and beaten like a slave, the wretched woman +at length took refuge in a convent, Charles Edward's +rage knew no bounds; and he summoned the French +Government, despite his old quarrel with it, to kidnap +and send back the woman over whom he had no legal +rights, and certainly no moral ones, with the obstinacy +and violence of a drunken navvy clamouring for the +wife whom he has well-nigh done to death. Beyond +the mere intemperance and the violence born of intemperance +which made Charles Edward's name a byword +and served the Hanoverian dynasty better than +all the Duke of Cumberland's gibbets, there was at the +bottom of the Pretender's character—his second character +at least, his character after the year 1750—heartlessness +and selfishness, an absence of all ideal and all +gratitude, much more morally repulsive than any mere +vice, and of which the vice which publicly degraded +him was the result much more than the cause. The +curse of kingship in an age when royalty had lost all +utility, the habit of irresponsibility, of indifference, +the habit of always claiming and never giving justice, +love, self-sacrifice, all the good things of this world, +this curse had lurked, an evil strain, in the nature of +this king without a kingdom, and had gradually +blighted and made hideous what had seemed an almost +heroic character. Royal-souled Charles Edward Stuart +had certainly been in his youth; brilliant with all +those virtues of endurance, clemency, and affability +which the earlier eighteenth century still fondly associated +with the divine right of kings; and royal-souled, +hard and weak with all the hardness and weakness, +the self-indulgence, obstinacy, and thoughtlessness for +others of effete races of kings, he had become no less +certainly, in the second part of his life; branded with +God's own brand of unworthiness, which signifies that +a people, or a class, or a family, is doomed to extinction.</p> + +<p>Such was the man to whom the easy-going habit of +the world, the perfectly self-righteous indifference to a +woman's happiness or honour of the well-bred people +of that day, gave over as a partner for life a +half-educated, worldly-ignorant and absolutely will-less +young girl of nineteen and a half, who doubtless considered +herself extremely fortunate in being chosen +for so brilliant a match.</p> + +<p>There is a glamour, even for us, connected with the +name of Charles Edward Stuart; in his youth he forms +a brilliant speck of romantic light in that dull eighteenth +century, a spot of light surrounded by the halo of +glory of the devotion which he inspired and the enthusiasm +which he left behind him. We feel, in a way, +grateful to him almost as we might feel grateful to a +clever talker, a beautiful woman, a bright day, as to +something pleasing and enlivening to our fancy. But +the brilliant effect which has pleased us is like some +gorgeous pageant connected with the worship of a +stupid and ferocious divinity; nay, rather, if we let our +thoughts dwell upon the matter, if we remember how, +while the prisons and ship-holds were pestilent with the +Jacobite men and women penned up like cattle in +obscene promiscuity, while the mutilated corpses were +lying still green, piled up under the bog turf of Culloden, +while so many of the bravest men of Scotland, +who had supplicated the Young Pretender not to tempt +them to a hopeless enterprise, were cheerfully mounting +the scaffold "for so sweet a prince," Charles Edward +was dancing at Versailles in his crimson silk dress and +diamonds, with his black-eyed boast the eldest-born +Princess of France. Nay, worse, if we remember how +the man, for whose love and whose right so much needless +agony had been expended, let himself become a +disgrace to the very memory of the men who had +died for him: if we bear all this in mind, Charles +Edward seems to become a mere irresponsible and +fated representative of some evil creed; the idol, at +first fair-shapen and smiling, then hideous and loathsome, +to which human sacrifices are brought in +solemnity; a glittering idol of silver, or a foul idol of +rotten wood, but without nerves and mind to perceive +the weeping all around, the sop of blood at its feet. +And now, after the sacrifice of so many hundreds of +brave men to this one man, comes the less tragic, less +heroic, perfectly legitimate and correct sacrifice to him +of a pretty young woman, not brave and not magnanimous, +but very fit for innocent enjoyment and very +fit for honourable love.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c3" id="c3"></a>CHAPTER III.</h3> + +<h4>REGINA APOSTOLORUM.</h4> + + +<p>Charles Edward had refrained from drink, or at +least refrained from any excesses, in honour of +his marriage. Perhaps the notion that France was +again taking him up, a notion well-founded since +France had bid him marry and have an heir, and the +recollection of the near miscarriage of all his projects, +thanks to having presented himself, a year before, to +the French Minister so drunk that he could neither +speak nor be spoken to, perhaps the old hope of becoming +after all a real king, had turned the Pretender into +a temporarily-reformed character. Or, perhaps, weary +of the life of melancholy solitude, of debauched squalor, +of the moral pig-stye in which he had been rotting +so many years, the idea of decency, of dignity, of +society, of a wife and children and friends, may have +made him capable of a strong resolution. Perhaps, also, +the unfamiliar, wonderful presence of a beautiful and +refined young woman, of something to adore, or at +least to be jealous and vain of, may have wakened +whatever still remained of the gallant and high-spirited +Polish nature in this morose and besotten old Stuart. +Be this as it may, Charles Edward, however degraded, +was able to command himself when he chose, and, for +one reason or another, he did choose to command himself +and behave like a tolerably decent man and husband +during the first few months following on his marriage. +Besides the redness of his face, the leaden suffused +look of his eyes, the vague air of degradation all +about him, there was perhaps nothing, at first, that +revealed to Louise, Queen of Great Britain, France, +and Ireland, that her husband was a drunkard and +well-nigh a maniac. Engaging he certainly could not +have been, however much he tried (and we know he +tried hard) to show his full delight at having got so +charming a little wife; indeed, it is easy to imagine +that if anything might inspire even a properly educated +and high-born young Flemish or German lady of the +eighteenth century with somewhat of a sense of loathing, +it must have been the assiduities and endearments +of a man such as Charles Edward. But Louise of +Stolberg had doubtless absorbed, from her mother, +from her older fellow-canonesses, nay, from the very +school-girls in the convent where she had been educated, +all proper views, negative and positive, on +the subject of marriage; nor must we give to a girl +who was probably still too much of a child, too much +of an unromantic little woman of the world, undeserved +pity on account of degradation which she had most +probably, as yet, not sufficient moral nerve to appreciate. +Her husband was old, he was ugly, he was not +attractive; he may have been tiresome and rather loathsome +in his constant attendance; he may even have +smelt of brandy every now and then; but as marriages +had been invented in order to give young women a +position in the world, husbands were not expected to +be much more than drawbacks to the situation; and +as to the sense of life-long dependence upon an individual, +as to the desire for love and sympathy, it was +still too early in the eighteenth century, and perhaps, +also, too early in the life of a half-Flemish, half-German +girl, very childish still in aspect, and brought up in +the worldly wisdom of a noble chapter of canonesses, +to expect anything of that kind.</p> + +<p>There must, however, from the very beginning, +have been something unreal and uncanny in the girl's +situation. The huge old palace, crammed with properties +of dead Stuarts and Sobieskis, with its royal +throne and daïs in the ante-room, its servants in the +royal liveries of England, must have been full of +rather lugubrious memories. Here James III. of +England and VIII. of Scotland had moped away his +bitter old age; here, years and years ago, Charles +Edward's mother, the beautiful and brilliant grand-daughter +of John Sobieski, had pined away, bullied and +cajoled back from the convent in which she had taken +refuge, perpetually outraged by the violence of her +husband and the insolence of his mistress; it was an +ill-omened sort of place for a bride. Around extended +the sombre and squalid Rome of the second half of the +eighteenth century, with its huge ostentatious rococo +palaces and churches, its straggled, black and filthy +streets, its ruins still embedded in nettles and filth, its +population seemingly composed only of monks and +priests (for all men of the middle-classes wore the +black dress and short hair of the clergy), or of half-savage +peasants and workmen, bearded creatures, in wonderful +embroidered vests and scarves, looking exceedingly like +brigands, as Bartolomeo Pinelli etched them even +some thirty years later. A town where every doorway +was a sewer by day and a possible hiding-place +for thieves by night; where no woman durst cross the +street alone after dusk, and no man dared to walk +home unattended after nine or ten; where, driving +about in her gilded state-coach of an afternoon, the +Pretender's bride must often have met a knot of people +conveying a stabbed man (the average gave more than +one assassination per day) to the nearest barber or +apothecary, the blood of the murdered man mingling, +in the black ooze about the rough cobble-stones over +which the coaches jolted, with the blood trickling from +the disembowelled sheep hanging, ghastly in their +fleeces, from the hooks outside the butchers' and +cheesemongers' shops; or returning home at night +from the opera, amid the flare of the footmen's torches, +must have heard the distant cries of some imprudent +person struggling in the hands of marauders; or, again, +on Sundays and holidays have been stopped by the crowd +gathered round the pillory where some too easy-going +husband sat crowned with a paper-cap in a hail-storm +of mud and egg-shells and fruit-peelings, round the +scaffold where some petty offender was being flogged +by the hangman, until the fortunate appearance of a +clement cardinal or the rage of the sympathising mob +put a stop to the proceedings. Barbarous as we remember +the Rome of the Popes, we must imagine it +just a hundred times more barbarous, more squalid, +picturesque, filthy, and unsafe if we would know what it +was a hundred years ago.</p> + +<p>But in this barbarous Rome there were things more +beautiful and wonderful to a young Flemish lady of +the eighteenth century than they could possibly be +to us, indifferent and much-cultured creatures of +the nineteenth century, who know that most art is +corrupt and most music trashy. The private galleries +of Rome were then in process of formation; pictures +which had hung in dwelling-rooms were being +assembled in those beautiful gilded and stuccoed +saloons, with their out-look on to the cloisters of a +court, or the ilex tops or orange espaliers of a garden, +filled with the faint splash of the fountains outside, +the spectral silvery chiming of musical clocks, where, +unconscious of the thousands of beings who would +crowd in there armed with guide-books and opera-glasses +in the days to come, only stray foreigners were +to be met, foreigners who most likely were daintily +embroidered and powdered aristocrats from England +or Germany, if they were not men like Winckelmann, +or Goethe, or Beckford. It was the great day, +also, for excavations; the vast majority of antiques +which we now see in Rome having been dug up at +that period; and among the ilexes of the Ludovisi +and Albani gardens, among the laurels and rough +grass of the Vatican hill, porticoes were being built, +and long galleries and temple-like places, where a +whole people of marble might live among the newly-found +mosaics and carved altars and vases. Moreover, +there was at that time in Rome a thing of +which there is now less in Rome than anywhere, +perhaps, in the world—a thing for which English and +Germans came expressly to Italy: there was music. +A large proportion of the best new operas were always +brought out in Rome—always four or five new ones in +each season; and the young singers from the conservatorios +of Naples came to the ecclesiastical city, +where no actresses were suffered, to begin their career +in the hoop skirts and stomachers, and powdered +<i>toupés</i> with which the eighteenth century was wont +to conceive the heroines of ancient Greece and Rome. +The bride of Charles Edward was herself a tolerable +musician, and she had a taste for painting and sculpture +which developed into a perfect passion in after life; +so, with respect to art, there was plenty to amuse +her.</p> + +<p>It was different with regard to society. By insisting +upon royal honours such as had been enjoyed by his +father, but which the Papal Court, anxious to keep on +good terms with England, absolutely refused to give him, +the Pretender had virtually cut himself and his wife out +of all Roman society; for he would not know the nobles +on a footing of equality, and they, on the other hand, +dared know him on no other. The great entertainments +in the palaces where Charles Edward had so +often danced, the admired of all beholders, in his +boyhood, were not for the Count and Countess of +Albany. There remained the theatres and public +balls, to which the Pretender conducted his wife with +the assiduity of a man immensely vain of having on +his arm a woman far too young and too pretty for his +deserts. And, besides this, there was a certain amount +of vague, shifting foreign society, nobles on the loose, +and young men on their grand tour, who mostly considered +that a visit to the Palazzo Muti, or at least a +seemingly accidental meeting and introduction in the +lobby of a theatre or the garden of a villa, was an +indispensable part of their sight-seeing. Such people +as these were the guests of the Palazzo Muti; and, +together with a few Jacobite hangers-on, constituted +the fluctuating little Court of Louise, Queen of Great +Britain, France, and Ireland, whom the people of +Rome, hearing of the throne and daïs in the ante-room +and of the royal ceremonial in the palace near the +Santissimi Apostoli, usually spoke of as the <i>Regina +Apostolorum</i>; while only a very few, who had +approached that charming little blonde lady, corrected +the title to that of Queen of Hearts, Regina dei +Cuori. Among the few who bowed before Charles +Edward's wife, in consideration of this last-named +kingdom, was a brilliant, wayward young man, destined +to remain a sort of brilliant, wayward, impracticable +child until he was eighty; and destined, also, to cherish +throughout the long lives of both, the sort of half +genuine, half affected, boy's, or rather page's, passion +with which Queen Louise had inspired him. Karl +Victor von Bonstetten, of a patrician family of Bern, +a Frenchified German, more French, more butterfly-like +than any real Frenchman, even of the old <i>régime</i>, +came to Rome, already well-known by his romantic +friendship with the Swiss historian Müller, and by the +ideas which he had desultorily and gaily aired on most +subjects, in the year 1773. In his memoirs he wrote +as follows of the "Queen of Hearts": "She was of +middle height, fair, with dark-blue eyes, a slightly +turned-up nose, and a dazzling white English complexion. +Her expression was gay and <i>espiègle</i>, and +not without a spice of irony, on the whole more +French than German. She was enough to turn all +heads. The Pretender was tall, lean, good-natured, +talkative. He liked to have opportunities of speaking +English, and was given to talking a great deal about +his adventures—interesting enough for a visitor, but +not equally so for his intimates, who had probably +heard those stories a hundred times over. After every +sentence almost he would ask, in Italian, 'Do you +understand?' His young wife laughed heartily at +the story of his dressing up in woman's clothes." A +dull, garrulous husband, boring people with stories of +which they were sick; a childish little wife, trying to +make the best of things, and laughing over the stale +old jokes; this is what may be called the idyllic +moment in the wedded life of Charles Edward and +Louise. What would she have felt, that strong, calm +lady, growing old far off in the Isle of Skye, had she +been able to see what Bonstetten saw; had she heard +the Count and Countess of Albany laughing, the one +with the laughter of an old sot, the other with the +laughter of a giddy child, over the adventures of that +heroic Prince Charlie whose memory was safe in her +heart as the sheets he had slept in were safe in her +closet, waiting to be her grave-clothes?</p> + +<p>Forty-four years later, when the Queen of Hearts +was a stout, dowdy old lady, with no traces of beauty, +and himself a flighty, amiable old gossip of seventy, +Karl Victor von Bonstetten wrote to the Countess of +Albany from Rome: "I never pass through the +Apostles' square without looking up at that balcony, +at that house where I saw you for the first time."</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c4" id="c4"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + +<h4>THE HEIR.</h4> + +<p>In 1765 Horace Walpole, mentioning the now-ascertained +fact of the Pretender's abjuration of Catholicism, +informed his friend Mann that a rumour was about +that Charles Edward had declared his intention of +never marrying, in order that no more Stuarts should +remain to embroil England. This magnanimous resolution, +which was a mere repetition of an answer made +years ago by the Pretender's father, did not hold good +against the temptations of the Cabinet of Versailles. +There is something particularly disgusting in the +thought that, merely because the French Government +thought it convenient to keep a Stuart in reserve with +whom, if necessary, to trip up England, the once +magnanimous Charles Edward consented to marry in +consideration of a certain pension from Versailles; to +make money out of any possible or probable son he +might have. This, however, was the plain state of the +case; and Louise of Stolberg had been selected, and +married to a drunkard old enough to be her father, +merely that this honourable bargain between the man +outraged in 1748, and the Government which had +outraged him, might be satisfactorily fulfilled.</p> + +<p>The Court of Versailles wasted its money: the +officially-negotiated baby was never born. Nay, Sir +Horace Mann, the English Minister at Florence, whose +spies watched every movement of the Count and +Countess of Albany, was able to report to his Government, +in answer to a vague rumour of the coming +of an heir, that the wife of Charles Edward Stuart +had never, at any moment, had any reasons for +expecting to become a mother. And when, in the first +years of this century, Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, +the younger brother of Charles Edward, was buried +where the two melancholy genii of Canova keep watch +in St. Peter's, opposite to the portrait of Maria +Clementina Sobieska in powder and paint and patches, +a certain solemn feeling came over most Englishmen +with the thought that the race of James II. was now +extinct.</p> + +<p>But the world had forgotten that the children +of Edward IV. were resuscitated; that the son of +Louis XVI., whose poor little dead body had been +handled by the Commissary of the Republic, had +returned to earth in the shape of five or six perfectly +distinct individuals, Bruneau, Hervagault, Naundorff, +whatever else their names; that King Arthur is still +living in the kingdom of Morgan le Fay; and Barbarossa +still asleep on the stone table, waiting till +the rooks which circle round the Kiefhäuser hill shall +tell him to arise; and the world had, therefore, to +learn that a Stuart still existed. The legend runs as +follows.</p> + +<p>In 1773, a certain Dr. Beaton, a staunch Jacobite, +who had fought at Culloden, was attracted, while +travelling in Italy, by the knowledge that his legitimate +sovereigns were spending part of the summer at a +villa in the neighbourhood, to a vague place somewhere +in the Apennines between Parma and Lucca, distinguished +by the extremely un-Tuscan name of St. +Rosalie. Here, while walking about "in the deep +quiet shades," the doctor was one day startled by a +"calash and four, with scarlet liveries," which dashed +past him and up an avenue. During the one moment +of its rapid passage, the Scotch physician recognised +in the rather apocalyptic gentleman wearing the garter +and the cross of St. Andrew, who sat by the side of +a beautiful young woman, "the Bonnie Prince Charlie +of our faithful beau ideal, still the same eagle-featured, +royal bird, which I had seen on his own mountains, +when he spread his wings towards the south." Towards +dusk of that same day, as Dr. Beaton was pacing up +and down the convent church of St. Rosalie, doubtless +thinking over that "eagle-featured royal bird," whom +he had seen driving in the calash and four, he was +startled in his meditations by the jingle of spurs on +the pavement, and by the approach of a man "of +superior appearance."</p> + +<p>This person was dressed in a manner which was +"a little equivocal," wore a broad hat and a thick +moustache, which, joined with the sternness of his pale +cheek and the piercingness of his eye, must indeed +have suggested something extremely eerie to a well-shaven, +three-corner hat, respectable man of the +eighteenth century; so that we are not at all surprised +to hear that the doctor's imagination was crossed by "a +sudden idea of the celebrated Torrifino," who, although +his name sounds like a sweetmeat, was probably one of +the many mysterious Italians, brothers of the Count of +Udolpho and Spalatro and Zeluco, who haunted the +readers of the romances of the latter eighteenth +century. This personage enquired whether he was +addressing "il Dottor Betoni Scozzere."</p> + +<p>The physician having answered this question, asked, +for no conceivable reason, in bad Italian of a Scotchman +by a Scotchman (for we learn that the unknown +was a Chevalier Graham), the mysterious moustached +man requested him to attend at once upon "one who +stood in immediate need." Dr. Beaton's enquiries as +to the nature of the assistance and the person who +required it, having been answered with the solemn +remark that "the relief of the malady, and not the +circumstances of the patient, is the province of a +physician," and the proposal being made that he should +go to the sick person blindfolded and in a shuttered +carriage, the doctor's prudence and the thought of the +famous Torrifino dictated a flat refusal; but the mysterious +stranger would not let him off. "Signor," he +exclaimed (persistently talking bad Italian), "I respect +your doubts; by one word I could dispel them; but it +is a secret which would be embarrassing to the possessor. +It concerns the interest and safety of one—the most +illustrious and unfortunate of the Scottish Jacobites." +"What! Whom?" exclaimed Dr. Beaton. "I can +say no more," replied the stranger; "but if you would +venture any service for one who was once the dearest +to your country and your cause, follow me." "Let us +go," cried Dr. Beaton, the enthusiasm for Prince +Charlie entirely getting the better of the thought of +the famous Torrifino; and so, blindfolded, he was conveyed, +partly by land and partly by water (what water, +in those Apennine valleys where there are no streams +save torrents in which even a punt would be impossible, +it is difficult to understand), to a house +standing in a garden. That it did stand in a garden +appears to have been a piece of information volunteered +by the mysterious Chevalier Graham, for Dr. Beaton +expressly states that it was not till the two had passed +through a "long range of apartments" that the +bandage was removed from his eyes.</p> + +<p>The doctor found himself in a "splendid saloon, +hung with crimson velvet, and blazing with mirrors +which reached from the ceiling to the floor. At the +farther end a pair of folding doors stood open, and +showed the dim perspective of a long conservatory." +The mysterious Chevalier Graham rang a silver bell, +which summoned a little page dressed in scarlet, with +whom he exchanged a few rapid words in German. +The communication appeared to agitate the Chevalier; +and after dismissing the page, he turned to the doctor. +"Signor Dottore," he said, "the most important part +of your occasion is past. The lady whom you have +been unhappily called to attend, met with an alarming +accident in her carriage, not half an hour before I +found you in the church, and the unlucky absence of +her physician leaves her entirely under your charge. +Her accouchement is over, apparently without any +result more than exhaustion; but of that you will be +the judge."</p> + +<p>It was only at the mention of the carriage and the +accident that Dr. Beaton, whose wits appear to have +been wool-gathering, suddenly guessed at a possible +connection between these "most illustrious and unfortunate +of Scottish Jacobites," to whose house he +had been thus mysteriously introduced, and the lady +and gentleman in whom he had that same afternoon +recognised Charles Edward and his wife. The page +reappeared, and conducted Dr. Beaton through another +suite of splendid apartments, till they came to an ante-room +decorated with the portraits of no less remarkable +persons than the rebel Duke of Perth and King James +VIII., a fact which shows that the Stuarts must have +carried their furniture with them, from Rome to a +Lucchese villa hired for a few months, with more +recklessness than one might have imagined likely in +those days of post-chaises. Out of this ante-room the +physician was ushered into a large and magnificent +bed-room, lit with a single taper. From the side of a +crimson-draped bed stepped a lady, who saluted Dr. +Beaton in English, and led him up to the patient, while +a female attendant nursed an infant enveloped in a +mantle. The lady drew aside the curtain, and by the +faint light the doctor was able to distinguish a pale, +delicate face, and a slender white arm and hand lying +upon the blue velvet counterpane. The lady in waiting +said some words in German, in answer to which the +sick woman feebly attempted to stretch out her hand +to the physician. Having ascertained that the patient +was in a dangerous condition, Dr. Beaton asked for pen +and paper to write out a prescription, which, in that +Apennine wilderness, would doubtless be made up with +the greatest exactness and rapidity. By the side of +the writing-desk was a dressing-table; and on what +should the doctor's casual glance not rest but a miniature, +thrown carelessly among the scent bottles and +jewels, and in which he instantly recognised a portrait +of Charles Edward such as he had seen him riding on +the field of Culloden! But in a moment, when he +glanced again from his writing to the toilet-table, the +miniature was no longer visible.</p> + +<p>The lady having apparently recovered, Dr. Beaton +was dismissed, blindfolded as he had come, but only +after having taken an oath upon the crucifix "never +to speak of what he had heard, or seen, or thought, that +night, except it should be in the service of King +Charles," and also to quit Tuscany immediately. He +repaired, therefore, to the nearest seaport, but was +detained there three days before the departure of his +ship. One moonlight evening, as he was walking on +the sands, he was surprised by seeing an English man-of-war +at anchor. In answer to his enquiries, she +proved to be the <i>Albina</i>, Commodore O'Haloran. +While he was lying in a sequestered corner, watching +the frigate, he was startled by the sudden appearance +of a small closed carriage and of a horseman, in whom, +by the moonlight, he immediately recognised the +moustached stranger of St. Rosalie. The cavalcade +stopped at the water's brink, and the horseman blew a +shrill whistle. Immediately a man-of-war's boat shot +from behind some rocks and pulled straight towards +them. A man with glimmering epaulettes sprang from +the boat on to the beach, and helped into it a lady, +who had alighted from the carriage, and carried something +wrapped in a shawl. Dr. Beaton heard the cry +of an infant, the soothing voice of the lady; and, a +moment later, after a word and shake of the hand with +the moustached man, the boat pulled off from shore. +"For more than a quarter of an hour the tall black +figure of the cavalier continued fixed upon the same +spot, and in the same attitude; but suddenly the broad +gigantic shadow of the frigate swung round in the +moonshine, her sails filled to the breeze, and dimly +brightening in the light, she bore off slow and still +and stately towards the west."</p> + +<p>Such is the adventure of Dr. Beaton, and thus he is +said to have related it, in the year 1831, eighty-five +years after the battle of Culloden, where he had himself +seen Charles Edward; whence it is presumable +that the doctor was considerably over a hundred when +he made the disclosure. This story of Doctor Beaton +was published, not in a historical work, but in a +volume entitled <i>Tales of the Century; or Sketches of the +Romance of History between the years 1746 and 1846</i>, +published at Edinburgh in 1847. But although this +book might pass as a work of imagination, and could, +therefore, scarcely be impugned as a historical document, +there is every reason for supposing that, while +not officially claiming to reveal the existence of an heir +of the Stuarts, it was deliberately intended to convey +information to that effect; and as such, an anonymous +writer (either Lockhart or Dennistoun) made short +work of it in the <i>Quarterly Review</i> for June 1847, +from which I have derived the greater part of my knowledge +of this curious "romance of history."</p> + +<p>Nay, the <i>Tales of the Century</i> were undoubtedly +intended to insinuate a further remarkable fact: not +merely that there still existed heirs of Stuarts in the +direct male line, but that these heirs of the Stuarts +were no others but the joint authors of the book. The +two brothers styling themselves on the title-page John +Sobieski Stuart and Charles Edward Stuart, but whose +legal names were respectively John Hay Allan and +Charles Stuart Allan, had been known for some years +in the Highlands as persons enveloped in a degree of +romantic mystery, and claiming to be something much +more illustrious than what they were officially supposed +to be, the grandsons of an admiral in the service +of George III. According to the information collected +by Baron von Reumont, the joint authors of the +<i>Tales of the Century</i> had made themselves conspicuous +by their affectation of the Stuart tartan, to which, as +Hay Allans, they could have no right; by a certain +Stuart make-up (by the help of a Charles I. wig which +was once found and mistaken for a bird's-nest by an +irreverent Highlander) on the part of the elder, and by +a habit of bowing to his brother whenever the King's +health was drunk on the part of the younger. Moreover +the family circumstances of these gentlemen's +father coincided exactly with those of the hero of this +book, of the supposed son of Charles Edward Stuart +and Louise of Stolberg. Their father, Thomas Hay +Allan, once a lieutenant in the navy, was known before +the law as the younger son of a certain Admiral Carter +Allan, who laid claims to the earldom of Errol; and +the Jolair Dhearg (for such was the <ins title="sic">Keltic</ins> appellation +of the hero of the <i>Tales of the Century</i>) was the +reputed son of a certain Admiral O'Haloran, who laid +claim to the Earldom of Strathgowrie, to which curious +parallel the writer in the <i>Quarterly</i> adds the additional +point that Errol, being in the district of Gowrie, the +Earldom of Strathgowrie claimed by the imaginary +Admiral O'Haloran was evidently another name for +the Earldom of Errol claimed by the real Admiral +Carter Allan, two names, by the way, O'Haloran and +Carter Allan, of which the first seems intended to +reproduce in some measure the sound of the other. +The father of Messrs. John Hay and Charles Stuart +Allan, was married in 1792, and the hero of the +<i>Tales of the Century</i> was married somewhere about +1791, both to ladies more suited to the sons of an +admiral than to the sons of the Pretender. Taking all +these circumstances into consideration it becomes +obvious that when the two brothers Hay Allan assumed +respectively the names of John Sobieski and +Charles Edward Stuart, they distinctly, though +unofficially, identified themselves with the sons of the Jolair +Dhearg of their book, with the sons of that mysterious +infant at whose birth Dr. Beaton had been present, +who had been conveyed by night on board the <i>Albina</i> +and educated as the son of Admiral O'Haloran; in +other words, with the sons of the child, unknown to +history, of the Count and Countess of Albany.</p> + +<p>Now, not only are we assured by Sir Horace Mann, +whose spies surrounded the Pretender and his wife, and +included even their physicians, that there never was +the smallest or briefest expectation of an heir to the +Stuarts; but, added to this positive evidence, we have +an enormous bulk of even more convincing negative +evidence by which it is completely corroborated. This +negative evidence consists of a heap of improbabilities +and impossibilities, of which even a few will serve to +convince the reader. The Pretender married, and was +pensioned for marrying, merely that the French Court +might have another possible Pretender to use as a +weapon against England; is it likely, therefore, that +such an heir would be hid away so as to lose his +identity, and be completely and utterly forgotten? +The Pretender, separated from his wife in consequence +of circumstances which will be related further on, +called to him, as sole companion of his old age, his illegitimate +daughter by Miss Walkenshaw, after neglecting +and apparently forgetting both her and her mother +for twenty years; is it likely he would have done this +had he possessed a legitimate son? Cardinal York +assumed the title of Henry IX. immediately on the +decease of his brother; is it likely that he, always +indifferent to royal honours, always faithful to his +brother, and now almost dying, would have done so +had he known that his brother had left a son? The +Countess of Albany, who never relinquished her Stuart +position, and who was extremely devoted to children, +left her fortune to the painter Fabre; is it likely she +would have done so had she been aware that she +possessed a child of her own? But there is yet further +evidence—I scarcely know whether I should say positive +or negative, but in point of fact perhaps both at +once, since it is evidence that the word of one, at +least, of the joint authors of the <i>Tales of the Century</i> +cannot outweigh the silence of all other authorities. +Five years before the brothers Allan, or Stuart, whichever +they should be called, mysteriously informed the +world of the adventures of the Jolair Dhearg, the +elder of the two, once John Hay Allan, now John +Sobieski Stuart, had brought out a magnificent +volume, price five guineas, entitled <i>Vestiarium +Scoticum</i>, and purporting to be a treatise on family +tartans written somewhere in the 16th century, and +now edited for the first time. The history of this +work, as stated in the preface, was well-nigh as complicated +and as romantic as the history of the Jolair +Dhearg. The only reliable copy of three known by +Mr. Sobieski Stuart, of which one was said to exist +in the library of the Monastery of St. Augustine at +Cadiz, and another had been obtained from an Edinburgh +sword-player and porter named John Ross, was +in the possession of the learned editors, and had been +given by the fathers of the Scots College at Douay +to Prince Edward Stuart, from whom it had, in some +unspecified but doubtless extremely romantic manner +(probably <ins title="original reads sown">sewn</ins> in the swaddling clothes in which the +Jolair Dhearg was consigned to Admiral O'Haloran) +descended to Mr. John Sobieski Stuart. This venerable +heraldic document appears, if one may judge by the +review in the <i>Quarterly</i>, to have been well-deserving +of publication, owing to the extremely new and unexpected +information which it contained upon Scottish +archæology. Among such information may be mentioned +that it derived several clans from other clans +with which they were well known to have no possible +connection; that it extended the use of tartans to +border-families who had never heard of such a thing; +that it contained many words and expressions hitherto +entirely unknown in the particular dialect in which +it was written; and, moreover, that it multiplied +complicated and recondite patterns of tartans in a +manner so remarkable that Sir Walter Scott, to whom +part of Mr. Sobieski Stuart's transcript of the ancient +MS. was submitted, was led to suspect "that information +as to its origin might be obtained even +in a less romantic site than the cabin of a Cowgate +porter (or the Scots College at Douay), even behind +the counter of one of the great clan-tartan warehouses +which used to illuminate the principal thoroughfare of +Edinburgh."</p> + +<p>This important and well-nigh unique document was +apparently never submitted in its original MS. to +anyone; the copy from the Scots College at Douay, +and the copy from the old sword-player of Cowgate, +remained equally unknown to everyone save their +fortunate possessor. But transcripts of some portions +of the work were submitted, at the request of the +Antiquarian Society, to Sir Walter Scott, and as he +dismissed the deputation which had met to hear his +opinion upon the <i>Vestiarium Scoticum</i>, the author +of <i>Waverley</i> was pleased to remark by way of summing +up: "Well, I think the <i>March</i> of the next rising" +(alluding to the part of the Highlanders in the '45) +"must be not 'Hey tuttie tattie,' but 'The Devil +among the Tailors.'"</p> + +<p>However, perhaps the <i>Vestiarium Scoticum</i> may +have come out of the Scots College at Douay, and +perhaps also the son of Charles Edward Stuart and of +Louise of Stolberg may have been born in the room +hung with red brocade, and have been handed over to +a British Admiral one moonlight night, in the presence +of the venerable Dr. Beaton, whom Providence +permitted to attain the unusual age of a hundred years +or more, in order that, with unimpaired faculties and +unclouded memory, he might transmit to posterity +this strange romance of history.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c5" id="c5"></a>CHAPTER V.</h3> + +<h4>FLORENCE.</h4> + + +<p>It is quite impossible to tell the precise moment at +which began what Horace Mann, most light-hearted and +chirpy of diplomatists, called the Countess of Albany's +martyrdom. As we have seen, Charles Edward had +momentarily given up all excessive drinking at the time +of his marriage. Bonstetten thought him a good-natured +garrulous bore, and his wife a merry, childish young +woman, who laughed at her husband's oft-told stories. +This was the very decent exterior of the Pretender's +domestic life in the first year of his marriage. But +who can tell what there may have been before beneath +the surface? Who can say when Louise d'Albany, +hitherto apparently so childish, became suddenly +a woman with the first terrible suspicion of the +nature of the bondage into which she had been +sold? Such things are unromantic, unpoetical, +coarse, common-place; yet if the fears and the despair +of a guiltless and charming girl have any interest +for us, the first whiff of brandy-tainted breath which +met the young wife in her husband's embraces, the +first qualms and reekings after dinner which came +before her eyes, the first bestial and unquiet drunkard's +sleep which kept her awake in disgust and terror, these +things, vile though they be, are as tragic as any more +ideal horrors. At the beginning, most probably, +Charles Edward drank only in the evening, and slept +off his drunkenness over-night; nor does Bonstetten +appear to have guessed that there was any skeleton +in the palace at the Santissimi Apostoli. But the spies +of the English minister soon reported that Charles +Edward was returning to his old ways; that the +"nasty bottle," as Cardinal York called it, had got +the better of the young wife; and when, two years +after their marriage, the Count and Countess of Albany +had left Rome and settled in Florence, Charles Edward +seems very soon to have acquired in the latter place +the dreadful notoriety which he had long enjoyed in +the former.</p> + +<p>Circumstances also had conduced to replunge the +Pretender into the habits to which the renewed hope of +political support, the novelty of married life, and perhaps +whatever of good may still have been conjured +up in his nature by the presence of a beautiful young +wife, had momentarily broken through. The French +Government, after its sudden pre-occupation about the +future of the Stuarts, seemed to have completely forgotten +the existence of Charles Edward, except as +regarded the payment of the pension granted on his +marriage. The child that had been prepaid by that +wedding pension, who was to rally the Jacobites round +a man whose claims must otherwise devolve legitimately +in a few years to the Hanoverian usurpers, +the heir was not born, and, as month went by after +month, its final coming became less and less likely. +Nor was this all. Charles Edward seems to have +expected that the sudden interest taken by the Court +of Versailles in his affairs, and his new position as a +married man and the possible father of a line of +Stuarts, would bring the obdurate sovereigns of Italy, +and especially the Pope, to grant him those royal +honours enjoyed by his father, but hitherto obstinately +denied to the moody drunkard whose presence in the +paternal palace had been occasionally revealed only by +the rumour of some more than ordinarily gross +debauch, or the noise of some more than ordinarily +violent scene of blackguardly altercation.</p> + +<p>Charles Edward, as I have already had occasion to +remark, while absolutely callous to the rights which +self-sacrifice and heroism might give others over him, +was extremely alive to the rights which, as a Stuart +and as an obstinate and wilful man, he imagined himself +to possess over other folk; and, while it never +occurred to him that there might be something slightly +ungentlemanly in a prince who had secretly abjured +the Catholic faith for political reasons continuing to +live in a house and on a pension granted him by the +unsuspecting sovereign Pontiff in consideration of his +being a martyr for the glory of the Church, he was +fully persuaded of the cowardly meanness which prevented +Clement XIV., whose interest it was to jog +on amicably with England, from acknowledging the +grandson of James II. as a legitimate King of Great +Britain and Ireland. It is therefore easy to conceive +the accumulation of disappointment and anger with +which Charles Edward saw his hopes deluded. He had, +immediately on his return to Rome, officially announced +to Clement XIV. the arrival in the Eternal +City of King Charles III. and his Queen, and the +Pope had condescended no answer save that he had +hitherto been unaware of the existence of such persons, +and that he would suffer none such to live under his +jurisdiction. He had, for more than a year, imposed +upon his wife (despite Cardinal York's and her own +entreaties, if we may credit Sir Horace Mann) the +title and etiquette of a Queen, and had flaunted his +scarlet liveries along the Corso day after day, with no +result save that of making the Roman nobles keep +carefully out of the way wherever he and his wife +might go; nay, more, he had replaced over the doorway +of his residence the royal escutcheon of Great +Britain, only to return from the country one day and +find that the Pontifical police had taken it down during +his absence. After this we can understand, as I said, +the disappointment and rage which must have accumulated +in his heart, and which, fifteen months after his +wedding, made him abandon the base town of the +popes and seek sympathy and dignity in the capital of +Tuscany. But he was destined only to further disappointment. +The Grand Duke, Peter Leopold, the +practical, economical, priest-hating, paternally-meddlesome, +bustlingly and tyrannically-reforming son of +Maria Theresa, was not the man to console so mediæval +and antiquated and unphilosophical a thing as a Stuart. +The arrival, the presence of Charles Edward in Florence, +was absolutely ignored by the Court, and no invitations +of any sort were sent out either to King Charles +III. or to the Count of Albany. Except the Corsinis, old +friends of the Stuarts, who had known Charles Edward +in his brilliant boyhood, and who politely placed at +his disposal their half-suburban palace or casino, +opening on to the famous Oricellari Gardens, no one +seemed inclined to pay any particular respects to the +new-comers. There was, indeed, no pressure from the +Government (as had been the case in Rome), and the +Florentine nobles, whose exclusiveness and pride had +been considerably diminished by the inroad of swaggering +Lorenese favourites under the Grand Duke Francis, +and of cut and dry Austrian officials under his son +Peter Leopold, showed a sort of lukewarm willingness +to receive the Count and Countess of Albany on equal +terms into their society. But Charles Edward wanted +royal honours; he forbade his wife demeaning her +queenly position by returning the visits of Florentine +ladies, and the nobles of the Tuscan Court gradually +left the would-be King and Queen of England to their +own resources.</p> + +<p>These resources, with the exception of receiving +such few visitors as might care to know them on unequal +terms, and a dogged pushing into notice in +every place, promenade, theatre, or nobles' club, where +no invitation was required, these resources consisted on +the part of Charles Edward in the old, old consoler, +the flask of Cyprus or bottle of brandy, in the even +grosser pleasures of excessive eating, the indefatigable, +assiduous courtship of his young wife, and the occasional +rows with his servants and acquaintances. The +Count and Countess of Albany appear to have inhabited +the Casino Corsini until 1777, when they sent for the +greater part of the furniture of their Roman house, +and established themselves in a palace, bought of the +Guadagnis and later sold to the Duke of San Clemente, +between the now suppressed Porta San Sebastiano +and the Garden of St. Mark's. In both these places +Sir Horace Mann, the vigilant Minister to the Tuscan +Court and head spy over the Stuarts in Italy, kept +the Pretender well in sight; but, in fact, things had +now become so public that spying had grown unnecessary. +Already, the year following the removal from +Rome to Florence, Sir Horace Mann wrote to Walpole +that the Pretender's health was giving way beneath +his excesses of eating and drinking; dyspepsia and +dropsy were beginning, and a sofa had been ordered +for his opera-box, that he might conveniently snooze +through the performance. For neither drunkenness +nor ailments would induce Charles Edward to let his +wife out of his sight for a minute. His systematic +jealousy may possibly have originated, as the English +Minister reports Charles Edward to have himself +declared, from fear lest there might attach to the birth +of any possible heir of his those doubts of legitimacy +which are almost invariably the lot of a pretender; but +there can be no doubt that jealousy was an essential +feature of his character, in which it amounted almost +to monomania. He had caged his mistress long after +he had ceased, by his own avowal, to care for her; +he now caged his wife, and with probably about as +much or as little affection. He had fenced up Miss +Walkenshaw's bed with tables and chairs fitted with +bells which the slightest touch set ringing; he now +(and so early as 1775) barricaded all avenues to his +wife's room excepting the one through his own. Very +soon, also, the gross and violent language, the blows +which had fallen to the lot of the half-tipsy mistress, +were to be shared by the virtuous and patient wife.</p> +<p><a name="im3" id="im3"> </a></p> + +<div class="center"> +<table style="margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="0" summary="Countess of Albany"> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <a href="images/ca3a.jpg"> + <img src="images/ca3.jpg" height="400" + alt="LOUISE, COUNTESS OF ALBANY." /></a> + </td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td align="center"> + <span class="caption">LOUISE, COUNTESS OF ALBANY<br /> + +<i>From a pastel once in the possession of the heirs of Fabre,<br /> +now in the possession of Mrs. Horace +Walpole, of Heckfield Place, Winchfield, Hants.</i><br /> + Click to <a href="images/ca3a.jpg">ENLARGE</a></span> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p>For virtuous and patient all accounts unite in +showing the young Countess of Albany to have been. +In that corrupt Florence of the corrupt eighteenth +century, where every married woman was furnished, +within two years of her marriage, with an officially +appointed lover who sat in her dressing-room while +she was finishing her toilet, who accompanied her +on all her visits, who attended her to balls and +theatres, and, in fact, entirely replaced, by the strict +social necessities of the system of cicisbeism, the +husband, who was similarly employed about the wife +of another; in this society, where conjugal infidelity +was a social organisation supplemented by every kind +of individual caprice of gallantry; where women were +none the worse thought of if they added to the official +<i>cavaliere <ins title="original reads servante">servente</ins></i> a whole string of other lovers, varying +from the Cardinals of the Holy Church to the +singers who played women's parts, in powder and +hoops, at the opera; in this world of jog-trot immorality, +where jealousy was tolerated in lovers, but +ridiculous in husbands, such a couple as the Count and +Countess of Albany was indeed a source of pity, +wonder, and amazement. But if a husband who +barricaded his wife's room, never went out without her, +nor permitted her to go out without him, who was +never further off than the next room during the +presence of any visitor, was a marvellous sight; still +more marvellous was a beautiful and charming woman +of twenty-three or twenty-four, who cast no glances of +longing at the brilliant cavaliers all round her, who consoled +her dreary prison-hours with reading hard enough +for a professor at the university, and who showed towards +the peevish, violent, disgustingly-ailing old toper +who overshadowed her life with his presence nothing, +as Horace Mann tells us, but attention and tenderness. +The fact is that Louise of Stolberg, much as her subsequent +life and ways of thought proved her to be a woman +of the eighteenth century, and not at all above the +eighteenth century's easy-going habits and conventional +ideas, was a kind of woman rare at all times and rarest +of all in a time like her own, With a kindly and +affectionate temper, the immense bulk of her nature, the +overbalance, the top-heaviness of it, was intellectual; +and intellectual not in the sense of the ready society +intelligence, so common among eighteenth-century +women, but in the sense of actual engrossing interest +and in abstract questions and ideals. The portraits +done of her immediately after her marriage show, as I +have said, a remarkably childish person; and childish, +without much ballast of passion or even likings, the +likeness sketched by Bonstetten seems certainly to show +her. But there are women who, while immature as +women and human beings, are precocious as intellects, +and in whom the character, instead of rapidly developing +itself by the force of its own emotions and passions, +seems in a manner to be called into existence by the +intelligence: retarded natures, in whom the thoughts +seem to determine the feelings. Of this sort, I think, +we must imagine the Countess of Albany, if we would +understand the anomalies of her life: a person rather +deficient in sensitiveness; indifferent, light-hearted, in +her girlhood; not rebelling against the frightful negativeness +of existence, the want of love, of youth, of +brightness, of all that a young girl can want in the early +part of her married life; not rebelling against the positive +miseries, the constant presence of everything that was +mentally and physically loathsome in the second period +of this wedded slavery; a woman of cold temperament, +and even, you might say, of cold heart, and safe, safe +in the routine of duty and suffering, until a merely +intellectual flame burst out, white and cold, in her +hitherto callous nature. A creature, so to speak, only +half awake, or awake, perhaps, only when she devoured +her books and tried to puzzle out her mathematical +problems; and going through life by the side of her +jealous, brutal, sickly, drunken husband, in a kind of +somnambulistic indifferentism, perhaps not feeling her +miseries very acutely, and probably not envying other +women their meaningless liberty, their inane lovers, +their empty wholeness of life.</p> + +<p>Thus the routine continued. The Count and +Countess of Albany, cured by this time of any affectation +of royalty, had gradually got domesticated in +Florentine society. People began to go to their house, +the newly-bought palace in Via San Sebastiano. People +came to the opera-box where Charles Edward lay +stretched, dozing or snoring, his bottle of Cyprus wine +by his side, on his sofa. It is easy to read through +the lines of Sir Horace Mann's pages of social tittle-tattle, +that Florence, frivolous and unintellectual and +corrupt though it was, and, perhaps, almost in proportion +to its frivolity, emptiness, and corruption, felt a +strange sort of interest, experienced a vague, mixed +feeling, pity, fear, and general surprise and want of +comprehension towards this beautiful young woman, +with her dazzling white complexion, dark hazel eyes +and blonde hair, her childish features grown, perhaps +not less young, but more serious and solemn for her +five years of wasted youth and endured misery, with +her reputation for coldness, her almost legendary +eccentricities of intellectual interests. Women like +this one are apt to be regarded not so much with dislike +and envy, as with the mixed awe and pity which +peasants feel towards an idiot, by frivolous and immoral +people like those powdered Florentines of a hundred +years ago, whose brocaded trains and embroidered coats +have long since found their way into the cupboards of +curiosity shops, and been cut up into quaint room +decoration by æsthetically-minded foreigners; pity and +awe the more natural when, as in the case of Louise +d'Albany, it is evident to every man and woman, however +heartless and stupid, that the creature in question is a +victim, and an innocent one. People were led, perhaps +to some extent by impertinent curiosity, by the +lazy desire to have some opinion to give upon that +now legendary household of the besotten, sleepy, +nauseous old King of England and his terribly virtuous +and intellectual young Queen, to the palace in Via +San Sebastiano; and men and women of fashion led +thither, as to one of the curious sights of Florence, +their country cousins and their distinguished visitors +from other parts. And thus, one day in the autumn +of 1777, there was brought, we know not by whom, +half-curious and half-indifferent, to the <i>salon</i> of the +Countess of Albany a certain very tall, thin, pale young +man of twenty-eight, with handsome, mobile, rather +hard aquiline features, choleric, flashing blue eyes, and +a head of crisp, bright red hair; a man of fashion, +nattily dressed in the Sardinian uniform, but with +something strange, untamed, morose about his whole +aspect which contrasted singularly with the effete +gracefulness and amiability of young Florentine dandies. +He had heard of the Countess of Albany's +eccentricities long before; she had doubtless heard of +his.</p> + +<p>One can imagine the curiosity with which the wild, +moody young officer fixed those bright, hard, steel, +flashing blue eyes upon the beautiful young woman of +whom he had heard that she was, what no woman of +his acquaintance (and his acquaintance was but too +large) had been—intellectual and virtuous. One can +imagine the curiosity, much vaguer and more indifferent, +with which the woefully cold and woefully +weary young woman met the scrutiny of those hard, +flashing blue eyes, and took the moral measure of this +eccentric creature, come from Turin to Florence with +some ten or twelve half-tamed horses, in order to learn +Tuscan grammar for the sake of writing tragedies. +The common friend, whose name has been engulfed +into the unknowable, introduced to the Countess of +Albany Count Vittorio Alfieri.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c6" id="c6"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h3> + +<h4>ALFIERI.</h4> + + +<p>The childhood and early youth of Vittorio Alfieri had +been strangely vacant, dreary, one might almost say +intellectually and morally sordid; and the strangest, +the dreariest circumstance about them was exactly that +this vacuity, this dreariness, this total want of all that +can make the life of a boy and of a young man +pleasant to our fancy or attractive to our sympathy, +did not in the least depend upon any harshness or +stinginess of fate. Indeed, perhaps, no man had ever +prepared for him an easier existence; no man had ever +less misfortune sent to him by Providence, or less +unkindness shown towards him by mankind, than this +constantly struggling, this pessimistic and misanthropic +man. The only son of Count Alfieri of Cortemiglia, +of one of the richest and noblest families of Asti in +Piedmont, his early childhood was spent under the +care of his mother, a woman of almost saintly simplicity +and kindness, unworldly, charitable, devoted to +her children, and to the poor of the place; and of her +third husband, also an Alfieri, who appears to have +been, in his affection and generosity towards his wife's +children, everything that a step-father is usually supposed +not to be. Being delicate in health, the boy was +treated with every degree of consideration, never worried +with lessons, never exasperated with punishments, +as long as he remained at home. He was sent, under +the care of an uncle, the eminent architect, Benedetto +Alfieri, who appears to have been the ideally amiable +uncle as Giacinto Alfieri had been the ideally amiable +step-father, to the academy or nobles' college at +Turin, where again, provided with plenty of money, +and a most accommodating half-tutor, half-valet, he +enjoyed, or might have enjoyed, every advantage possible +to a young Piedmontese noble, either in the way +of study or of idleness. And, finally, when still in his +teens, he had been supplied with ample money, horses +and fine clothes <i>ad libitum</i>, and almost unlimited liberty +to wander all over the world, from Naples to Holland, +from St. Petersburg to Cadiz, in search of experience +or amusement. Nor during those years of youthful +wanderings, does he ever seem, except upon one +memorable occasion, to have been made to suffer from +the unconscientiousness, the harshness, the infidelity, +the indifference of the men and women whom he met, +any more than in his boyhood he had suffered from the +severity of his masters, the brutality of his tutor-servants, +or the ill-nature of his fellow pupils. Fate +and the world were extremely kind to Vittorio Alfieri: +giving him every advantage and comfort, and teaching +him no cruel lessons. But Vittorio Alfieri was nevertheless +one of the least happy of little boys, and one of +the least happy of young men. He was born with an +uncomfortable and awkward and unwieldy character, as +some men are born lame, or scrofulous, or dyspeptic. +The child of a father over sixty, and of a very young +mother; there was in him some indefinable imperfection +of nature, some jar of character, or some great want, +some original sin of mental constitution, which made +him different from other men, disabled him from +getting pleasure or profit out of the circumstances +which gave pleasure or profit to them; and turned his +youth into a long period of mental weakness and +suffering, from which he recovered, indeed, by a system +of moral and intellectual cold water, meagre diet, and +excessive exercise, but only to remain for the rest of +his days in a condition of character absolutely analogous +to the bodily condition of those self-martyring +invalids, who keep the gout down by taking exhausting +walks, eating next to no dinner, and filling the lives of +others with their excitable cantankerousness and gloomy +forebodings. There was a numbness and yet a sort of +over-sensitiveness about his youth; a strangeness which, +without giving the least promise of superior genius, +merely made him less happy than other lads.</p> + +<p>The word numbness returns to my mind in connexion +with this young Alfieri; it certainly does not express +the exact impressions left in me by his own narrative +of his boyhood and youth, and yet I can find no better +word: there was in him something like those irregularities +of the circulation due to dyspepsia, which, +while making some part of the body, say the head, +throb and ache at the least sound, yet leave the whole +man dull, heavy, only half-awake.</p> + +<p>As a child he had vague and wistful cravings, untempered, +unbeautified by such imaginative visions as +usually accompany the eccentric feelings of such +children as are subject to them. Obstinate and taciturn, +he tells us of the curious passion which he +experienced for the little choristers, boys of twelve or +thirteen, whom he saw serving mass, or heard singing +the responses, in the Carmine Church at Asti. Silently, +painfully, he seems to have yearned for them in solitude; +the daily visit to the church where they shone +out in their white surplices, being the only pleasure in +this black, blind little life of seven or eight. Some +physical ailment, some want of change and movement +may have underlain this morbid and sombre passionateness; +and we learn that when he was still a tiny +boy, having heard that the poisonous hemlock was a +sort of grass which brought death, and with no clear +notion what death was, but with a vague longing for +it, he gorged himself with grass out of the garden, in +the belief that there would be some hemlock in it.</p> + +<p>At school he learned nothing. The education given +at the Academy of Turin may, indeed, have been poor +in quantity and quality; still it was the best which a +young Piedmontese nobleman could obtain, and Alfieri +himself confesses that of his school-fellows most came +away with more profit, and some afterwards became +cultured and even learned men. He learned nothing +because he felt interest, emulation, curiosity about +nothing. His nature was still dull, dumb, dormant; +and what he calls a period of vegetation might more +fitly be termed a moral and intellectual hibernation. +His school life is a weary, colourless, featureless part +of his autobiography. He would seem to have made +neither friends nor enemies. The tricks practised by +or upon other school-boys are never mentioned by +him; never a practical joke, a lark, a scrape. Of his +intellectual tendencies, which were but little developed, +we learn only that he exchanged a copy of Ariosto, +finally confiscated by the authorities, for a certain +number of helpings of chicken, relinquished by him to +its possessor; and that he bribed, with eatables also, a +certain other boy to tell him stories.</p> + +<p>The one incident which sheds light upon the lad's +morbid constitution or condition, which reveals that +strange, apathetic obstinacy, that <i>vis inertiæ</i> which was +the spring even of his most decided actions in after +life, and which at the same time raises grave doubts in +my mind whether there may not have been an actual +taint of insanity in this extraordinary being, is the +incident of his having submitted, rather than give in +after some misdemeanour, to being confined to his +room in the Academy for nearly three months at a +stretch. Alfieri was fifteen; he might have been let +loose for the asking, since there was no real severity in +the school. He slept nearly all day long, rose in the +evening, but refused to let himself be combed or +dressed, and lay for hours on a mattress before the +fire, cooking a squalid meal of <i>polenta</i> instead of his +dinner, which he regularly sent down; receiving +the visits of his school-fellows without speaking or +even moving; deaf and dumb, as he describes himself, +by the hour together, his eyes fixed on the ground, +brimful with tears, but never permitting himself to +cry or complain—a strange sort of savage animal rather +than a human being.</p> + +<p>After leaving school at eighteen, he began his +long series of journeys, his series of passions for +women and for horses, passions dull and dumb, but +violent, yet never such as to break through the spell +of inarticulateness which seemed to freeze his nature. +Nothing more curious can be fancied than his +journeys. He went from place to place without being +attracted to any, without feeling the smallest interest +in anything which he saw, without contracting the +faintest attachment for any person or thing, driven +along by a sort of fury of restlessness and sombre +vacuity. Many youths have doubtless been to the +full as indifferent as Vittorio Alfieri to all the objects +of interest on their road; but they have been so from +frivolity and giddiness, and no one was ever less frivolous +or giddy than the young Alfieri. With no particular +purity of nature or principles of conduct to +restrain him from vice, his dissipation could yet scarcely +be called dissipation, so little did it wake up this +lethargic, ailing, restless nature. Despite the furious +passion which he had for horses, and the hysterical, +one might almost say epileptic passions which he experienced +for women, he remained characterless, chaotic, +only half alive. His many journeys gave him only the +negative pleasure of getting away from already known +places, the negative wisdom of seeing through a variety +of things, military and diplomatic distinctions and +national prejudices. He remained joyless and ignorant, +and, what was worse, without longing for pleasure +or desire for knowledge. More than once kindly men +of the world and scholars were smitten with pity for +this strange lad, in whom they could not but recognise +certain negative qualities rare in the eighteenth century—an +intense and cruel truthfulness, an absolute +disinterestedness, a constitutional contempt for all the +vanities and baseness of the world. They tried to talk +to him, to lend him books, to awaken him out of this +dormouse sleep of the intellect, to break the spell +which weighed him down. All in vain. He continued +his life of dull dissipation and dull wanderings, through +Italy, Germany, France, England, far into Spain, +Portugal, Russia, and even Finland. Periodic fits of +depression and of almost sordid avarice showed that he +was still the same person as the boy of fifteen who had +spent those three months unwashed, unkempt, in +savage squalor, by his fireside; and fits of brutal and +almost maniac violence, as when, because a hair +was sharply pulled out by the roots during the elaborate +process of frizzling, he cut open with a blow of a +heavy silver candlestick the temple of his faithful valet +Elia, who had nursed him like a mother, and whose +only revenge, after this fearful scene, was to keep the +two handkerchiefs steeped with his blood as a memorial +and a warning to his master.</p> + +<p>Still, seeing nothing, learning nothing, taking interest +in nothing, by turns morosely apathetic and brutally +violent, continually intriguing with women, mercenary +or depraved, Vittorio Alfieri had, at twenty-five, less +things to be proud of, but perhaps less also to regret +as absolutely dishonourable, than most young men of +his time. He had never lied, never seduced, never +stooped to anything which seemed to him demeaning. +He was splashed with vice from head to foot, but he +was neither unnerved nor warped by it. A subject of +constant gossip, of frequent scandal, with his teams of +half-tame horses, his flashy clothes, his furious passions +for worthless women, his moroseness and violence, he +was still, so far, a very negative character, a mere +mass of rough material, out of which a man might be +made. But who should mould that matter? It is +extremely difficult to understand how it came about, +as difficult almost as to understand how a certain +amount of inorganic molecules will sometimes suddenly +seem to obey an impulse from within, and become an +organism, a yeast plant, or a microscopic animal; but +whether or not we succeed in understanding the how +and why of the phenomenon, the phenomenon +nevertheless took place; and this unorganised mass of +passions called Vittorio Alfieri, this chaotic thing without +a higher life or a purpose in the world, only partially +sensitive, and seemingly quite impervious to +external influence, suddenly obeyed some inner impulse +(perhaps some accumulation of unnoticed effects from +without), and organised itself into a man, a thinker, +and a writer.</p> + +<p>Alfieri had always been capable of contempt for +others, and largely also of contempt for himself: blind +and dull, impulsive and indifferent by turns, he had yet +felt acutely the ignominy of certain excesses, whether +of avarice, or brutality, or love (if love it may +be called), which had ever and anon broken the +monotony of his aimless life. Of these ignominies +the one he had felt most, perhaps because it deprived +him of the independence which even in his stupidest +times he put his pride in, was the ignominy of love; +that is to say, of what love was to him, unworthy +incapacity of doing without a woman whom he despised +and even occasionally hated. The very fits of moral +hysterics, nay, of moral St. Vitus's dance, of which such +love maladies largely consisted, sickened him, degraded +him in his own eyes like some disgusting physical +infirmity. In his twenty-second year he had such a +love malady, he had been the scandal of all London in +an intrigue with a certain very lovely Lady Ligonier, +who, divorced by her husband for her guilt with the +young Italian, was on the point of being joyfully taken +to wife by Alfieri when it came out that before being +his mistress she had been the mistress of her own +groom; a termination of the adventure which, much +as it distressed the writer of Alfieri's autobiography, +is extremely satisfactory to the reader. A few years +later, after a variety of minor love affairs, he became +entangled at Turin in the nets of a Marchesa di Prié, +a rather faded Armida of very tarnished reputation, +and whom he thoroughly despised and even disliked at +the very height of his attachment. The struggles +between his sense of weariness and degradation and +his unworthy love for this woman half wore him out, +and brought on a severe malady, from which he recovered +only to swear he would never enter her house +again, and to return to it as soon as he could stand on +his feet. The beautiful social customs of eighteenth-century +Italy authorised and even imposed upon a man +who had accepted the position of <i>cavaliere servente</i> (a +sort of pseudo-platonic vice-husbandship which covered +illicit connections with a worldly propriety) to attend +upon his lady from the moment of her getting up in +the morning to the moment when she returned home or +dismissed her guests at night, with only a few +intervals during which the lover might have his meals +or pay his visits; so, when the Marchesa di Prié fell +ill of a malady which required absolute repose and +silence, Alfieri was bound to spend the whole morning +seated at the foot of her bed. During one of these +weary watches, it came into his head to kill time by +scribbling some dramatic scenes on loose sheets of +paper, which he hid during the intervals of his visits +under the cushion of an arm-chair. A Piedmontese +and a thorough ignoramus, he had scarcely ever +attempted to write even so much as a letter in Italian; +and as to a literary composition in any language, such +a thing had never occurred to him. The <i>Cleopatra</i> +thus written in his lady's bed-room and secreted under +the chair cushion, was a most worthless performance, +but it made Alfieri an author. Always devoured by a +desire to shine, hitherto by the excellence of his get-up, +the beauty of his person, and the number of his +horses, it suddenly flashed across him that he might +shine in future as a poet. This was the turning-point +of his life, or what he called his liberation. But, like +a man bound in all his limbs, and who at length has +slipped the cord from off one hand, there still remained +to Alfieri an infinite amount of struggle, of bitter +effort, of hopeless inaction, before he could completely +liberate himself from the bonds of sloth, of worldly +vanity, dissipation, and unworthy love, before he could +step forth and walk steadily along the new road which +had appeared to him. His ignorance was appalling. +He could no longer construe a line of Latin, he had +not for months opened a book; and as to Italian, he +knew it no better than any Piedmontese street porter. +His idleness, his habit of absolute vacuity, was even +worse; his desire to shine before the frivolous women, +the inane young men of Turin, nay, merely to have +himself, his well-cut coat, his well-frizzled hair, the +horse he rode or drove, noticed by any chance loafer in +the street, was another almost incredible obstacle; and, +worst of all, there was his degrading serfdom to a +woman whom he knew he neither loved nor respected, +and who had never loved, still less respected, him. But +Alfieri, once awakened out of that strange long torpor +of his youth, was able to put forth as active and +invincible forces all that extraordinary obstinacy, that +morose doggedness, that indifference to comfort and +pleasure, that brutal violence which had more than +once, in their negative condition, made him seem more +like some wild animal or half-savage monomaniac than +an ordinary young man under five-and-twenty. He +had, moreover, at this moment, when all the energies +of his nature suddenly burst out, a power of deliberate, +complacent, and pitiless moral self-vivisection, a power +of performing upon his character such cutting and +ripping-open operations as he thought beneficial to +himself, which makes one think of the abnormal +faculty of enduring pain, the abnormal and almost +cruel satisfaction in examining the mechanism of one's +own suffering, occasionally displayed by hysterical +women; and which brings back the impression already +conveyed by the morbid sensitiveness, the frenzied +violence, the moody torpor of his youth, that there +was something abnormal in Alfieri's whole nature. +He was now employing that very hysterical satisfaction +in pain and impatience of half measures, to reduce himself, +by heroic means, to at least such moral and mental +health as would permit the full exercise of his faculties. +There exists a diary of his, written in 1777, which is +an almost unique example of the seemingly cold, but +really excited and hysterical kind of self-vivisection of +which I have spoken. Alfieri had always been extraordinarily +truthful, not merely for his time and +country, but truthful quite beyond the limits of a +mere negative virtue. But he was also, what seems +almost incompatible with this ferocious truthfulness, +excessively self-conscious and morally attitudinising, +a thin-skinned <i>poseur</i>. To reconcile these seemingly +contradictory characteristics, to become what he wished +to appear, to pose as what he was, to make himself up +(if I may say so) as himself, to intensify what he +recognised as his main characteristics and efface all his +other ones, now became to Alfieri a sort of unconscious +aim of life, closely connected with his avowed desire to +become a great poet; "the reason of which desire," he +himself wrote in his diary, "is my immoderate ambition, +which, finding no other field, has devoted itself entirely +to literature." Nothing can be more serious, as I have +already remarked, than this diary of Alfieri's struggles, +where he notes, day by day, the laziness, the meanness, +the want of frankness to himself and others, the despicable +vanity, the attempt to appear what he is not, +the indulged unfounded suspiciousness towards his +friends, all the little base defects which must have +pained a nature like his more than any real sinfulness, +as the prodding of a surgeon's instruments would have +agonised such a man more than an actual amputation. +He narrates <i>in extenso</i> all his vacillations about nothing +at all, all his givings way to laziness, all his insincere +confidences made to others. One morning is consumed +in debating whether or not he will buy a certain +Indian walking-stick: "Torn by avarice and the +ambition of having it, I go away without deciding +whether I will buy it or not, yet I know full well that +before two days are out I shall have bought it. +Seeking to understand this contradiction, I discover a +thousand ridiculous dirtinesses in my character (<i>mille +ridicole porcherie</i>)." Another day he notes down, +after describing the mean envy with which he has +listened to the praises of another member of his little +club of dilettante authors: "I do believe that as much +praise as is being given and will ever be given to all +mankind for every sort of praiseworthy thing, I should +like to snap up for myself alone." Again, another +day he writes: "More lazy than ever. Walking with +a friend, and talking about our incomes, &c. I thought +I was giving him a perfectly open account of my +money matters; but, with the best intention of telling +him the truth, I find that, in order to deceive myself as +well as him, I increased my fortune by one-fifth." +Again, "I had some doubts whether, as it was blowing +hard on the promenade, I would go on as far as where +the ladies were walking; because, knowing that I was +looking pale and ill, and that the wind had taken the +powder out of my hair, I was unwilling to show myself +in a condition so unsuitable to my pretensions to +beauty."</p> + +<p>But while thus analyzing himself, while working at +Latin and grammar like a schoolboy, this fashionable +young man, ashamed of being seen when he was not in +good looks, ashamed of having one horse less than +usual, was continually ruminating over the glory for +which he intended living, and which he appears never +for a moment to have doubted of attaining. "In my +mind, which is completely given up to the idea of +glory, I frequently go over the plan of my life. I +determine that at forty-five I will write no more, but +merely enjoy the fame which I shall have obtained, or +imagine that I have obtained, and prepare myself for +death. One thing only makes me uneasy: I fear that +as I approach the prescribed limit, I may push it +continually back, and that at forty-five I may still be +thinking only of continuing to live and, perhaps, of +continuing to scribble. Hard as I try to think, or to +make others think, that I am different from the rest of +mankind, I fear, I tremble lest I be extremely like +them."</p> + +<p>But in order to devote himself to the pursuit of +literary glory, one thing remained to be achieved by +this strange, self-conscious, frank, contemptuous, and +vain creature, by this young man who, even in his +weaknesses, has a certain heroic air about him. It was +necessary to break through the bonds of unworthy +love. Unable to trust any longer to his often baffled +resolution and self-command, Alfieri devised a primitive +and theatrical remedy too much in harmony with his +whole nature to be otherwise than efficacious. The +lady occupied a house in the great rococo square +of San Carlo, opposite to the one which he rented; +she could not go in or out of her door without +being seen by Alfieri, and the sight of her was too +much for him: he invariably broke all his resolves +and went across the square to his Armida. Knowing +this, Alfieri obliged a friend of his to receive from him +a solemn written promise to the effect that he would +not merely never go to the lady, nor take any notice +of her messages, but that, until he felt himself absolutely +indifferent and beyond her reach, he would go +out only in solitary places and at unlikely hours, and +spend the greater part of the day seated at his window +looking at her house, seeing her pass, hearing her +spoken of, receiving her letters, without ever approaching +her or sending her the smallest message. As a +pledge of this engagement, Alfieri cut off his long red +hair, and sent the plait to his friend, leaving himself +in a state of crop-headedness, which made it utterly +impossible, in that day when wigs had been given up +but short hair had not yet been adopted, for him to +appear anywhere. And then he had himself tied to his +chair with ropes hidden under his cloak, and spent day +after day looking at his mistress' windows, quite unable +to read a word or attend to conversation, raging and +sobbing and howling like a demoniac, but never asking +to be untied; until, at the end of a fortnight or three +weeks, he was rewarded, most characteristically, by +being at once delivered of all love for his lady, and +inspired with the idea for a sonnet.</p> + +<p>Alfieri worked harder and harder at his Latin and +Italian lessons, sketched out the plan of several plays: +and, then, in the early summer of 1776, got together +his horses, procured a permission to travel from the +King of Sardinia, and set out for Tuscany in order to +learn the language in which he was to achieve that +great literary glory to which he had dedicated his +life.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c7" id="c7"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h3> + +<h4>THE CAVALIERE SERVENTE.</h4> + + +<p>Alfieri's greatest terror in life was to fall in love +once more. All his love affairs had been degrading to +his good sense, his will and his manhood; they had +been odious, even at the moment, to his extraordinary +innate passion, or, one might almost say, monomania +for independence; he who even in his dullest and most +inane years had hated the thought of any sort of +military or diplomatic position which should imply +subjection to a despotic government, whose only strong +feeling about the world in general had long been a +fierce hatred and contempt both for those who tyrannised +and those who were tyrannised over, this Alfieri +had always, as he tells us, fled, though unsuccessfully, +from the presence of women whose social position +(though the words sound like a sarcasm) was sufficiently +good to make any regular love intrigue possible or +probable. How much more must he not defend his +liberty now that he saw before him the direct road to +glory, and felt within himself the power to journey +along it.</p> + +<p>Thus it was, as he explains in his autobiography, +that on his first arrival in Florence, hearing everyone +praising the character and talents of the wife of Charles +Edward Stuart, and seeing the beautiful young woman +at theatres and in the public promenade, he resolutely +declined to be introduced to her. The very charm +of the impression which she had thus accidentally +made upon him, the vivid image of those very dark +eyes (I am translating his words, and must explain +that her eyes, which seemed blue to Bonstetten and +dark to Alfieri's, were in reality of that hazel colour +which gives great prominence to the pupil, and therefore +leaves the idea of black eyes) contrasting with the +brilliant fair skin and pale blonde hair, of the graciousness +and sweetness and perhaps even a certain sad +austerity in her whole appearance and manner,—all this +made Alfieri determine to avoid all personal acquaintance.</p> + +<p>But after some months at Siena, where his thoughts +had been entirely absorbed in the literary projects +which he discussed with his new friend, the grave and +good and serious-minded Gori, and one or two Sienese +professors, after that first feeling of attraction had +died away, and he felt himself covered, as it were, +with an impenetrable armour of poetic interests, Alfieri +decided, on his return to Florence, that he was quite +sufficiently of a new man to expose himself without +any danger to such a lady as the Countess of Albany. +He was, after all, a different individual from that +inane, dull, violent young man who in the vacuity of +life had raged and roared in the chains of unworthy +love. And she, she also, was quite a different woman +from the Lady Ligonier and from the Marchesa di +Prié, the shameless, unfaithful wives, and heartless, +vain, worldly coquettes who had made such havoc of +his heart. She was a cold, virtuous, extremely intellectual +woman, trying to find consolation for her +quietly and bravely supported miseries in study, in +abstract interests which should take away her thoughts +from the sickening reality of things; a woman who +would be valuable as a friend to a poet, and who +would know how to value his friendship. And he, +continually seeking for people who could understand +his literary ambitions, with whom he could discuss all +his poetical projects, and from whom he might receive +assistance in this new intellectual life, was he not in +need of such a friendship? Would he not appreciate +its usefulness and uniqueness sufficiently to see +that it did not turn to a mere useless and demoralising +love affair? There may also have been something +very reassuring to Alfieri's apprehensions in the knowledge +that he would be dealing, not with an Italian +woman, accustomed and almost socially obliged to +hold a man in the degrading bonds of cicisbeism, but +with a foreigner, the jealously-guarded wife of a sort +of legendary ogre, with whom, however much the +old fury of love might awaken in him, there could by +no possibility be anything beyond the most strictly +watched friendship. So Alfieri went to the palace of +the Count of Albany; and, having once been, returned +there.</p> + +<p>The palace bought by Charles Edward about 1776 +stands in the most remote and peaceful quarter of +Florence. A few quiet streets, unbroken by shop-fronts +and unfrequented by vehicles, lead up to that +quarter; streets of low whitewashed convent walls +overtopped by trees, of silent palaces, of unpretending +little houses of the seventeenth or eighteenth century, +from behind whose iron window-gratings and blistered +green shutters one expects even now, as one passes in +the silence of the summer afternoons, to hear the faint +jangle of some harpsichord-strummed minuet, the +turns and sudden high notes of some long-forgotten +song by Cimarosa or Paisiello. It is a region of dead +walls, over which bend the acacias and elms, over +which shoot up the cypresses and cedars of innumerable +convent and palace-gardens, on whose flower-beds +and fountains and quincunxes the first-floor windows +look down. In the midst of all this, at the corner +of two very quiet streets, stands the palace, now of the +Duke of San Clemente, an ungainly, yellow structure +of various epochs, with a pretty late sixteenth-century +belvedere tower on one side; a lot of shuttered and +heavily-grated seventeenth-century windows, ornamented +with stone stay-laces and tags, upon the dark +street; and to the back a desolate old garden, where +the vines have crawled over the stonework, and the +grotesque seventeenth-century statues, green and +yellow with lichen, stand in niches among the ill-trimmed +hedges of ilex and laurel: the most old-world +house and garden in the old-world part of the town. +The eighteenth century still seems very near as we +walk in those streets and look in, through the railings, +at the ilex and laurel quincunxes, the lichened statues +of that garden; and from the roof of the house still +floats, creaking in the wind, regardless of the triumph +of the Hanoverians, unconscious of the many banners +which have been thrown, mere heaps of obsolete +coloured tatters, on the dust-heap, a rusty metal +weather-vane, bearing the initials of Carolus Rex, the +last successor of the standard that was raised in +Glenfinnan.</p> + +<p>In this house was now developing one of the most +singular loves that ever were. Shortly after his introduction +to the Countess of Albany, Alfieri, terrified +lest he might be forfeiting his spiritual liberty once +more, took to flight and tried to forget the lady in a +mad journey to Rome. But he had not forgotten +her; and on his passage through Siena, returning to +Florence, he had explained his feelings, his fears, to his +friend Francesco Gori. This Gori, a young Sienese +of the middle class, extremely cultured, of "antique +uprightness," to use the eighteenth-century phrase, +seems to have taken to his heart, as one might some +wild younger brother, or some eccentric, moody child, +the strange, self-engrossed, passionate Piedmontese. A +gentle, grave, and quiet man, he had loved the magnanimity +and independence so curiously mingled with +mere vanity and egotism in Alfieri's nature; he had +never tired of hearing his friend's plans for the future, +had never smiled at his almost comic certainty of +supreme greatness, he had never lost patience with the +self-meritorious egotism which made all Alfieri's actions +seem the one interest of the world in Alfieri's own eyes. +To Francesco Gori, therefore, Alfieri went for advice: +ought he, or ought he not, to fly from this new love +while it was still possible to do so?</p> + +<p>The grave and virtuous Gori answered that he should +not: this new love had been sent to him as a cure for +all baser loves; instead of crushing it as an obstacle to +his higher life and his glory, he should thankfully +cultivate it as an incentive and assistance in working +out his intellectual redemption.</p> + +<p>Let us pause, and consider for a moment the meaning +of Alfieri's question, and the meaning of Gori's +answer; let us try and realise the ideas and feelings of +two honourable men, seeking a higher life, in a country +so near our own as Italy, and so short a while ago as +the year 1777. Here was Alfieri, passionately desirous +to redeem his own existence by intellectual efforts, and +confident of a vague mission to awaken his countrymen +to his own nobler feelings: to the contempt of +sensual pleasures and worldly vanities, the hatred of +political and religious servitude, the love of truth and +justice, the love of Italy. Here was this Alfieri, at +the very outset of his new career, solemnly confiding to +his kindest and wisest friend the scruples, the fears, +which restrained him from seeking the company of a +woman whom he was beginning to love, and who was +beginning to love him, a young woman married by +mere worldly convention to a sickly, brutal, and brutish +drunkard, old enough to be her father. And what +were these scruples? Merely that a new love might +distract Alfieri from his plans of study and work, that +a woman might cheat him of glory, and Italy of the +tragic drama which would school her to virtue. That +there could be any other scruples appears never to have +crossed Alfieri's brain: that there could be any reason +to pause and ask himself whether he was doing wrong +or ill before exposing to temptation the woman whom +he loved, and the honour which he loved more than +her; whether he had a right to return to the palace of +Charles Edward and, while receiving his hospitality, +while enjoying his confidence, to teach the wife of his +host how to love another man than her husband; +whether he had a right to return to the presence of +that beautiful and intellectual lady, who had hitherto +suffered only from the brutishness of her husband, and +add to these sufferings the sufferings of hopeless love, +the sufferings of a guilty conscience?</p> + +<p>But to the Italian of the eighteenth century, even to +the man who most thoroughly despised and loathed his +country's and century's corruption, no such scruple +ever came. What consideration need any man or any +woman waste upon a husband? What possible disgrace +could come to a woman in having a lover? And did +not the frantic jealousy of the besotted old husband, +his continual attendance, his perpetual spying, most +effectually remove any further consideration there +might be for him?</p> + +<p>I scarcely know whether it is a thing about which to +be cheerful or sad, proud or ashamed; but the more +one studies the ideas and feelings of even one's nearest +neighbours, in place or in time, the more is one impressed +with the sense that, say what people choose, +men and women do not think and feel, even upon the +most important subjects, in anything like a uniform +manner. Social misarrangements, which are crimes +towards the individual, are invariably partially righted, +made endurable, by individual rearrangements, which +are crimes towards society. The woman was not consulted +by her parents before her marriage, she was not +restrained by her conscience afterwards; she was given +for ambition to a man whose tenure of her received +legal and religious sanction; she gave herself for love +to a man whose possession of her was against society +and against religion; but society received her to its +parties, and the Church gave her its communion. And +thus, in Italy, and in the eighteenth century, where no +one had found any fault at a girl of nineteen being +married by proxy to a man who turned out to be a +disgusting and brutal sot; no one also could find any +fault at a young man of twenty-eight seeking, and +obtaining, the love of a married woman of twenty-five. +The immoral law had produced the immoral lawlessness. +So, to the scruples of Alfieri, Francesco Gori +had answered: "Return to Florence."</p> + +<p>We shall now see how, out of this vile piece of prose, +the higher nature of Alfieri and of the Countess of +Albany, and (what a satire upon poetic and platonic +affection!) most of all, the monomaniac jealousy of +Charles Edward, contrived to make a sort of poetry.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c8" id="c8"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<h4>THE ESCAPE.</h4> + + +<p>Alfieri's fears had been groundless. His love for the +wife of Charles Edward Stuart—a love, he tells us, +quite different from any he had previously experienced, +quiet, pure, and solemn—was destined not to interfere +with that austere process of detaching his soul from +the base passions of the world, and devoting it to the +creation of a new style of poetry, to the achievement +of a new kind of glory; nay, rather, by bringing to the +surface whatever capacity for tenderness and self-restraint +and respect for others had hitherto lurked +within this fantastic nature, this new love helped to +complete that strange monumental personality of +Alfieri—a personality more striking, more ideal, than +any of those plays by which he hoped to regenerate +Italy, and which has been far more potent than his +works in the moral regeneration of his country. +Alfieri's youth had been illiterate and stupid; and he +required, in order to make up for so much waste of +time and waste of spirit, that he should now be surrounded +by an atmosphere as intensely intellectual as +the atmosphere in which he had previously lived had +been the reverse. After the long spiritual numbness +of his earlier years, this soul, if it was to be kept +alive, must be kept in an almost artificially high +spiritual temperature, and continually plied with +spiritual cordials. These advantages he obtained in +the love, or, we ought rather to say, the friendship of +the Countess of Albany, and it is extremely improbable +whether he would have obtained them otherwise. Irritable +and vain and moody, at once excessively persuaded +of his own dramatic mission and morbidly +diffident of his actual powers of carrying it out, contemptuous +of others and of himself, Alfieri, who +required such constant sympathy and encouragement +in his work, was not the man who could hope to obtain +much of either from other men, whom his excessive +pretensions, his ups and downs of humour, his very +dissatisfaction with himself, must have quickly exhausted +of the small amount of brotherly tenderness +which seems to exist in the literary brotherhood. He +did, indeed, meet a degree of sincere helpfulness and +friendliness from the members of the Turinese Literary +Club; from Cesarotti, the translator of <i>Ossian</i>; from +Parini, the great Milanese satirist, and from one or +two other men of letters; which shows that there is +more kindness in the world than he ever would admit, +and confirms me in my remark that he was singularly +well treated by fate and mankind. But all this was +very lukewarm sympathy; and except from his two +great friends, Francesco Gori and Tommaso di Caluso, +a difficult-tempered man like Alfieri could receive only +lukewarmness. Now what he required was sympathy, +admiration, adoration, of the most burning description. +This was possible, towards such a man, only from a +woman. But where find the woman who could give +it, among the convent-educated, early corrupted, frivolous +ladies of Italy, to whom love-making was the +highest interest in life, but an interest only a trifle +higher than card-playing, dancing, or dressing? +Where, even among the very small number of women +like Silvia Verza at Verona, Isabella Albrizzi at Venice, +or Paolina Castiglione at Milan, who actually had +some amount of culture, and actually prided themselves +on it? The rank and file of Italian ladies could +give him only another Marchesa di Prié, a little better +or a little worse, another woman who would degrade +him in the sensual and inane routine of a <i>cicisbéo</i>. +The exceptional ladies were even worse. Fancy this +morbid, conceited, self-doubtful, violent, moody Alfieri +accepting literary sympathy in a room full of small +provincial lions—sympathy which had to be divided +with half a dozen others; learned persons who edited +Latin inscriptions, dapper poet priestlets, their pockets +crammed with sonnets on ladies' hats, opera-singers, +canary birds, births, deaths, and marriages, and ponderous +pedants of all sorts and descriptions. Why, a +lady who set up as the muse of a hot-tempered and +brow-beating creature like Alfieri, a man whom consciousness +of imperfect education made horribly sensitive—such +a lady would have lost all the accustomed +guests of her <i>salon</i> in ten days' time. Herein, therefore, +consisted the uniqueness of the Countess of +Albany, in the fact that she was everything to Alfieri, +which no other woman could be. Originally better +educated than her Italian contemporaries, the ex-canoness +of Mons, half-Flemish, half-German by +family, French by training, and connected with England +through her marriage with the Pretender, had the +advantage of open doors upon several fields of culture. +She could read the books of four different nations—a +very rare accomplishment in her day; and she was, +moreover, one of those women, rarer even in the +eighteenth century than now-a-days, whose nature, +while unproductive in any particular line, is intensely +and almost exclusively intellectual, and in the intellectual +domain even more intensely and almost exclusively +literary—women who are born readers, to +whom a new poem is as great an excitement as a new +toilette, a treatise of philosophy (we shall see the +Countess devouring Kant long before he had been +heard of out of Germany) more exquisitely delightful +than a symphony. And this woman, thus educated, +with this immense fund of intellectual energy, was +living, not a normal life with the normal distracting +influences of an endurable husband, of children and +society, but a life of frightful mental and moral +isolation, by the side, or rather in the loathsome +shadow, of a degraded, sordid, violent, and jealous +brute, from the reality of whose beastly excesses and +bestial fury, of whose vomitings and oaths and outrages +and blows, she could take refuge only in the +unreal world of books.</p> + +<p>With such a woman, Alfieri, accepted as an intimate +by the husband, who doubtless thought one hare-brained +poet more easy to manage than two or three fashionable +gallants—with such a woman as this, Alfieri might talk +over plans of self-culture and work, his plays, his +essays on liberty and literature, and all the things by +which he intended to redeem Italy and make himself +immortal, without any fear of his listener ever growing +weary; from her he could receive that passionate +sympathy and encouragement without which life and +work were impossible to him. For we must bear in +mind what a man like Alfieri, in the heyday of his +youth, his beauty, and that genius which was the +indomitable energy and independence of his nature, +must have been in the eyes of the Countess of Albany. +She had been married at nineteen—she was now +twenty-six: in those seven years of suffering there +had been ample time to obliterate all traces of the frivolous, +worldly girl whom Bonstetten had seen light-heartedly +laughing at her old husband's jokes; there +had been plenty of time to produce in this excessively +intellectual nature that vague dissatisfaction, that +desire for the ideal, which is the price too often paid +for the consolation of mere abstract and literary +interests. The pressure of constant disgust and terror +at her husband's doings, the terrible mental and moral +solitude of living by such a husband's side, had probably +wrought up Louise d'Albany to the very highest +and almost morbid refinement of nature—a refinement +far surpassing the normal condition of her character, +even as the extra fining off of already delicate features +by illness will make them surpass by far their healthy +degree of beauty. In such a mental condition the +sense of what her husband was must have exasperated +her imagination quite as much as his actual loathsomeness +must have repelled her feelings; the knowledge +of the frightful moral and intellectual fall of +Charles Edward must have been as bad as the filthy +place to which he had fallen. And opposite to the +image of the Pretender must constantly have arisen +the image of Alfieri—opposite to the image of the +man, once heroic and charming and brilliant, who had +sold his heroism and his charm, his mind and his +manhood, for the bestial pleasure of drink—who had +rewarded the devotion and self-sacrifice and noble +enthusiasm of his followers by the sight, worse than +the scaffold on Tower Hill, of their idol turning into a +half-maniac, besotted brute; opposite to this image of +degradation must have arisen the image of the man who +had wrestled with the baser passions of his nature, +who had broken through the base habits of his youth, +who had fashioned himself into a noble moral shape +as the marble is fashioned by the hand of the sculptor; +who was struggling still, not merely with the difficulties +of his art, but with whatever he thought mean and +slothful in himself.</p> + +<p>Some eighteen months after their first acquaintance, +Alfieri announced to the wife of Charles Edward that +he had just happily settled a most important piece of +business, the success of which was one of the most +fortunate things of his life. He had made a gift of +all his estates to his sister, reserving for himself only +a very moderate yearly income; he had reduced himself +from comparative wealth to comparative poverty; +he had cut himself off from ever making a suitable +marriage; he had made himself a pensioner of his +sister's husband: but at this price he had bought +independence—he was no longer the subject of the +King of Sardinia, nor of any sovereign or State in +the world.</p> + +<p>The passion for political liberty, the abhorrence of +any kind of despotism, however glorious or however +paternal, had grown in Alfieri with every journey he +had made through France, Spain, Germany, Russia—with +every sojourn in England; it had grown with +every page of Livy and Tacitus, with every line of +Dante and Petrarch which he had read; it had grown +with every word that he himself had written. He had +determined to be the poet who should make men +ashamed of being slaves and ashamed of being tyrants. +But he was himself the subject of the little military +despotism of Piedmont, whose nobles required, every +time they wished to travel or live abroad, to beg +civilly for leave of absence, which was usually most +uncivilly granted; and one of whose laws threatened +any person who should print books in foreign countries, +and without the permission of the Sardinian censor, +with a heavy fine, and, if necessary, with corporal +chastisement.</p> + +<p>In order to become a poet, Alfieri required to +become a free agent; and the only way to become a +free agent, to break through the bars of what he called +his "abominable native cage," the only way to obtain +the power of writing what he wished to write, was to +give up all his fortune, and live upon the charity of +the relatives whom he had enriched. So, during the +past months, he had been in constant correspondence +with his sister, his brother-in-law, and his lawyer; and +now he had succeeded in ridding himself of all his +estates and all his capital. The Countess of Albany +knew Alfieri sufficiently well by this time to understand +that this alienation of all his property was a real +sacrifice. Alfieri was the vainest and most ostentatious +of men; young, handsome, showy and eccentric, +accustomed to cut a grand figure wherever he went, +it must have cost him a twinge to be obliged to reduce +his hitherto brilliant establishment, to dismiss nearly +all his servants, to sell most of his horses, to exchange +his embroidered velvets and satins for a plain black +coat for the evening, and a plain blue coat for the +afternoon. The worst sacrifice of all he doubtless confided, +with savage bitterness, to the Countess, as he +confided it to the readers of his autobiography, it was to +resign the nominal service of Piedmont—to put aside, for +good and all, that brilliant Sardinian uniform in which +he looked to such advantage. We can imagine how +this subject was talked over—how Alfieri, with that +savage pleasure of his in the self-infliction of pain and +humiliation, exposed to the Countess all the little, +mean motives which had deterred him or which had +encouraged him in his liberation from political servitude; +we can imagine how she chid him for his rash +step, and how, at the same time, she felt a delicious +pride in the meanness which he so frankly revealed, in +the rashness which she so severely reproved; we can +imagine how the thought of Alfieri, who had thus +sacrificed fortune, luxury, vanity, to the desire to be +free, met in the Countess of Albany's mind the thought +of Charles Edward, living the pensioner of a sovereign +who had insulted him and of a sovereign whom he had +cheated, spending in liquor the money which France +had paid him to get himself an heir and the Stuarts +another king.</p> + +<p>A strange and dangerous situation, but one whose +danger was completely neutralised. Of all the various +persons who speak of the extraordinary friendship +between Vittorio Alfieri and Louise d'Albany which +existed at this time, not one even ventures to hint that +the relations between them exceeded in the slightest +degree the limits of mere passionate friendship; and the +solemn words of Alfieri, in whom truthfulness was not +merely an essential part of his natural character, but +an even more essential part of his self-idealised personality, +merely confirm the words of all contemporary +writers. Now, if there was a country where an intrigue +between a woman noted for her virtue and a poet noted +for his eccentricity would, had it existed, have been +joyfully laid hold of by gossip, it was certainly this +utterly-demoralised Italy of <i>cavalieri serventi</i>: every +fashionable woman and every fast man would have felt +a personal satisfaction in tearing to pieces the reputation +of a lady whose whole character and life had been +a censure upon theirs. But, as there are women the +intensity of whose pure-mindedness, felt in every +feature and gesture and word, paralyses even the +most ribald wish to shock or outrage, and momentarily +drags up towards themselves the very people who would +dearly love to drag them down even for a second; so +also it would appear that there are situations so +strange, meetings of individuals so exceptional, that +calumny itself is unable to attack them. No one said +a word against Alfieri and the Countess; and Charles +Edward himself, jealous as he was of any kind of +interference in his concerns, appears never to have +attempted to rid himself of his wife's new friend.</p> + +<p>Much, of course, must be set down to the very +madness of the Pretender's jealousy, to his more than +Oriental systematic guarding and watching of his wife. +Mann, we must remember, had written, long before +Alfieri appeared upon the scene, that Charles Edward +never went out without his wife and never let her go +out without him; he barricaded her apartment, and +was never further off than the next room. Charles +Edward undoubtedly conferred upon two people, living +in a day of excessive looseness of manners, the inestimable +advantage of confining their love within the +bounds of friendship, of crushing all that might have +been base, of liberating all that could be noble, of +turning what might have been merely a passion after +the pattern of Rousseau into a passion after the pattern +of Dante. But what Charles Edward could not do, +what no human being or accidental circumstances could +bring about, was due to the special nature of Alfieri +and of the Countess; namely, that this strange platonic +passion, instead of dying out after a very brief time, +merely intensified, became long-lived, inextinguishable, +nay continued, in its absolute austerity and purity, +long after every obstacle and restraint had been removed, +except the obstacles and restraints which, from +the very ideality of its own nature, increased for itself. +And, if we look facts calmly in the face, and, letting +alone all poetical jargon, ask ourselves the plain +psychological explanation, we see that such things not +only could, but, considering the character of the +Countess of Albany and of Alfieri, must have been. +The Countess had found in Alfieri the satisfaction of +those intellectual and ideal cravings which in a nature +like hers, and in a situation like hers, must have been +the strongest and most durable necessities. Alfieri, on +the other hand, sick of his past life, mortally afraid of +falling once more under the tyranny of his baser +nature, seeking on all sides assistance in that terrible +struggle of the winged intellect out of the caterpillar +cocoon in which it had lain torpid so long, was wrought +up, if ever a man was, to the pitch of enjoying, of +desiring a mere intellectual passion just in proportion +as it was absolutely and completely intellectual.</p> + +<p>A poet especially in his conception of his own personality, +an artist who manipulated his own nature, +a <i>poseur</i> whose <i>pose</i> was his concentrated self cleared +of all things which recalled the vulgar herd; moreover, +a furiously literary temper with a mad devotion +to Dante and Petrarch: Alfieri must have found in this +love, which fate in the Pretender's person ordained to +be platonic, the crowning characteristic of his present +personality, the almost miraculous confirmation of his +mystic relationship to the lover of Beatrice and the +lover of Laura. And, in the knowledge of what he +was to this poor, tormented young wife; in the +consciousness of being the only ray of light in this +close-shuttered prison—nay, rather bedlam-like existence; +in the sense of how completely the happiness of +Louise d'Albany depended upon him, whatever there +was of generous and dutiful in the selfish and self-willed +nature of Alfieri must have become paramount, +and enjoined upon him never to vacillate or grow +weary in this strange mixture of love and of friendship.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c9" id="c9"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<h4>ROME.</h4> + +<p>This strange intellectual passion, the meeting, as it +were, of two long-repressed, long solitary intellectual +lives, austerely satisfied with itself and contemptuous +of all baser loves, might have sufficed for the happiness +of two such over-wrought natures as were at that +moment Vittorio Alfieri and Louise d'Albany.</p> + +<p>But there could be no happiness for the wife of the +Pretender, and no happiness, therefore, for the man +who saw her the daily victim of the cantankerousness, +the grossness and the violence of her drunken husband. +To an imaginative mind, loving in things rather the +ideal than the reality, striving for ever after some +poetical or heroic model of love and of life, trying to +be at once a patriot out of Plutarch and a lover after +the fashion of the <i>Vita Nuova</i>, there are few trials +more exasperating than to have to see the real +creature who for the moment embodies one's ideal, +the creature whom one carefully garlands with flowers +and hangs round with lamps, raised above all +vulgar things in the niche in one's imagination, +elbowed by brutish reality, bespattered with ignoble +miseries. And this Alfieri had constantly to bear. +Perhaps the very knowledge of the actual suffering, +of the unjust recriminations, the cruel violence, the +absolute fear of death, among which Louise d'Albany +spent her life, was not so difficult for her lover to +bear as to see her, the beautiful and high-minded +lady of his heart, seated in her opera box near the +sofa where the red and tumid-faced Pretender lay +snoring, waking up, as Mann describes him, only to +summon his lacqueys to assist him in a fit of drunken +sickness, or to be carried, like a dead swine, with +hanging bloated head and powerless arms, down-stairs +to his carriage; not so difficult to bear as to hear her, +his Beatrice, his Laura, made the continual victim of +her bullying husband's childish bad-temper, of his +foul-mouthed abuse, to hear it and have to sit by in +silence, dependent upon the good graces of a besotted +ruffian against whom Alfieri's hands must have continually +itched.</p> + +<p>A little poem, poor, like all Alfieri's lyrics, written +about this time, and complaining of having to see a +beautiful pure rose dragged through ignoble filth, +shows that Alfieri, like most poetical minds, resented +the vulgar and the disgusting much more than he +would have resented what one may call clean tragedy. +But things got worse and worse, and the real tragedy +threatened. Charles Edward had outraged and beaten +his mistress; older and much more profoundly degraded, +he now outraged and beat his wife. In 1780 Sir +Horace Mann reports upon the "cruel and indecent +behaviour" of which Mme. d'Albany was the victim. +Ill-treatment and terror were beginning to undermine +her health, and there can be no doubt, I think, that +the symptoms of a nervous disorder, of which she complained +a couple of years later to Alfieri's bosom friend +Gori, must originally have been produced in this unusually +robust young woman by the horrible treatment +to which she was at this time subjected. Mme. +d'Albany, who had astonished the world by her +resignation, appears to have fairly taken fright; she +wrote to her brother-in-law Cardinal York, entreating +him to protect her from her husband. The weak-minded, +conscientious cardinal was not the man to +take any bold step; he promised his sister-in-law all +possible assistance if she were driven to extremities, +but begged her to endure a little longer and save him +the pain of a scandal. So the Countess of Albany, +long since abandoned by her own kith and kin, abandoned +also by her brother-in-law, alone in the world +between a husband who was daily becoming more and +more of a wild beast, and a lover who was fearful +of giving any advice which might compromise her +reputation or separate them for ever, went on suffering.</p> + +<p>But the moment came when she could suffer no +more. At the beginning of the winter of 1780, the +celebration of St. Andrew's day by Charles Edward +and his drinking companions, was followed by a scene +over which Alfieri drops a modest veil, calling it +vaguely a violent bacchanal which endangered the life +of his lady. From the biographers of Charles Edward +we learn that the Pretender roused his wife in the +middle of the night with a torrent of insulting language +which provoked her to vehement recriminations; +that he beat her, committed foul acts upon her, +and finished off with attempting to choke her in her +bed, in which he would probably have succeeded had +the servants not been waked by the Countess's screams +and dragged Charles Edward away.<a href="#ca1"><small><sup>1</sup></small></a> +<a name="ca1r" id="ca1r"></a></p> + +<p>Alfieri, partly from an honourable reluctance to see +his lady made the heroine of a public scandal, and +partly, no doubt, from the more selfish fear lest a +separation from her husband might imply a separation +also from her lover, had long persisted in advising +the Countess against any extreme measure. +Alfieri tells us that with the desire for freedom of +speech and writing at the bottom of his act of self-spoliation +in his sister's favour, there had mingled a +sense also that by breaking all connections with Piedmont, +and liberating himself from all temptation of +marrying for the sake of his family, he was, in a +manner, securing the continuation of his relations +with Mme. d'Albany. The Countess's flight from her +husband, they both well knew, would in all probability +put an end to these relations; the Catholic Church +could grant no divorce, and Charles Edward would +probably refuse a separation; so that the honour, nay, +the life of the fugitive wife would be safe only in a +convent, whence Alfieri would be excluded together +with Charles Edward. The choice was a hard one +to make; the choice between a life of peace and safety, +but separated from all that made life dear to her, and +a life consoled by the presence of Alfieri, but made +wretched and absolutely endangered by the violence +of a drunken maniac. But after that frightful night +of St. Andrew no choice remained; to remain under +the Pretender's roof was equivalent for his wife either +to a violent death in another such fit of madness, or +to a lingering death from sheer misery and daily +terror. The Countess of Albany must leave her husband.</p> + +<p>To effectuate this was the work of Alfieri—of Alfieri, +who, of all men, was most interested to keep Mme. +d'Albany in her husband's house; of Alfieri, who, of +all men, was the least fitted for any kind of underhand +practices. The actual plot for escape was +the least part of the business; the conspiracy would +have utterly miscarried, and Mme. d'Albany have +been condemned to a life of much worse agony, had +not provision been made against the Pretender's certain +efforts to get his wife back. Mme. d'Albany +may have remembered how her mother-in-law Clementina +Sobieska, although protected by the Pope, had +been eventually got out of the convent whither she +had escaped, and had been restored to her husband +the Pretender James; she was probably +aware, also, how Charles Edward had stormed at the +French Government to have Miss Walkenshaw sent +back to him from the convent at Meaux. No Government +could give a man back his mistress, but it was +different with a wife; and both Alfieri and the Countess +must have known full well that however lax the Grand +Ducal Court might be on the subject of conjugal +infidelity, when quietly carried on under the domestic +roof and dignified by the name of <i>serventismo</i>, no +court, no society, could do otherwise than virtuously +resent so great a turpitude as a wife publicly running +away by herself from her husband's house. It became +necessary to win over the sympathies of those in power, +to secure their connivance, or at all events their +neutrality; and this task of talking, flattering, wheedling, +imploring, fell to Alfieri, whose sense of self-debasement +appears to have been mitigated only by +the knowledge that he was working for the good of a +guiltless and miserable woman, of the woman whom +he loved more than the whole world; by the bitter +knowledge that the success of his efforts, the liberation +of his beloved, meant also the sacrifice of that +intercourse which made the happiness of his life.</p> + +<p>Alfieri succeeded; the Grand Duke and the Grand +Duchess were won over. The actual flight alone +remained to be accomplished.</p> + +<p><a href="#ca2"><small><sup>2</sup></small></a> +<a name="ca2r" id="ca2r"></a> In the first days of December 1780 a certain +Mme. Orlandini, a half Irish lady connected with the +Jacobite Ormonds, was invited to breakfast at the +palace in the Via San Sebastiano. She skilfully led the +conversation into a discussion on needle-work, and +suggested that the Countess of Albany should go and +see the last embroidery produced at the convent of +Bianchette, a now long-suppressed establishment in +the adjoining Via del Mandorlo. The Countess of +Albany ordered her carriage for immediately after +breakfast, and the two ladies drove off, accompanied, +of course, by Charles Edward, who never permitted +his wife to go out without him. Near the convent-gate +they met a Mr. Gahagan, an Irish Jacobite and +the official <i>cavaliere servente</i> of Mme. Orlandini, who, +hearing that they were going to pay a visit to the +nuns, offered to accompany them. Gahagan helped +out the Countess and Mme. Orlandini, who rapidly +ran up the flight of steps leading to the convent door; +he then offered his arm to Charles Edward, whose legs +were disabled by dropsy. Leaning on Gahagan's arm, +the Pretender was slowly making his way up the steps +when his companion, looking up, suddenly exclaimed +that the two ladies had already entered the convent +and that the nuns had stupidly and rudely shut the +door in his and the Count of Albany's face. "They will +soon have to open," answered Charles Edward, and +began to knock violently. Mr. Gahagan doubtless +knocked also. But no answer came. At length the +door opened, and there appeared behind a grating no +less a person than the Lady Abbess, who ceremoniously +informed the Count that she was unable to let him +in, as his wife had sought an asylum in her convent +under the protection of Her Highness the Grand +Duchess of Tuscany.</p> + +<p>Sir Horace Mann says that Alfieri, who is not +mentioned in the very circumstantial narrative of +Dutens, was hanging about the convent, in order to +prevent the Pretender, who always carried pistols in +his pockets, from committing any violence. This seems +extremely unlikely, as the first use to which Charles +Edward would naturally have put his pistols would have +been shooting Alfieri, for whose murder he immediately +offered a thousand sequins. At any rate, raging +like a maniac, the discomfited husband went back to +his empty house.</p> + +<p>It would be pretty and pathetic to insert in this part +of my narrative a page of half-condemnatory condolence +with Charles Edward. But this I find it +perfectly impossible to do. Of course, if we call to +mind Falkirk and Skye, if we conjure up in our fancy +the Prince Charlie who still lived in the thoughts of +Flora MacDonald, there is something very frightful in +this tragi-comic flight of the Countess of Albany: the +slamming of that convent door in his face is the +worst injury, the worst injustice, the worst ignominy +reserved by fate for the last of the unhappy Stuarts.</p> + +<p>But of the Charles Edward of the Forty-five there remained +so little in this Count of Albany that we have no +right to consider them any longer as one individual, to +condone the brutishness of the Count of Albany for the +sake of the chivalry of Prince Charles, to degrade our +conception of the young man by tacking on to it the just +ignominy inflicted upon the old man, the man who had +inherited his name and position, but scarcely his personality. +Above all, we have no right to add to +whatever reproaches we may think fit to shower upon +the Countess of Albany and on Alfieri, the imaginary +reproach that the husband whose rights they were +violating was the victor of Gladsmuir and Falkirk.</p> + +<p>There must always be something which shocks us in +the behaviour, however otherwise innocent and decorous, +of a woman who runs away from her husband with the +assistance of her lover; but this quality of offensiveness +is not, in such a case as the present one, a fault +of the woman: it is one of her undeserved misfortunes, +as much as is the bad treatment, the solitude, the +temptation, to which she has been subjected. The +evil practice of the world, its folly and wickedness in +permitting that a girl like Louise of Stolberg should be +married to a man like Charles Edward, its injustice and +cruelty in forbidding the legal breaking of such an +unrighteous contract; the evil practice of the world +which condemned the Countess of Albany to be for +so much of her life an unhappy woman, also condemned +her to be in some of her actions a woman deserving of +blame. We shall see further on how, in the attempt +to work out their happiness in despite of the evil world +in which they lived, the Countess and Alfieri, infinitely +intellectually and morally superior to many of us +whom circumstances permit to live blameless and comfortable, +were splashed with the mud of unrighteousness, +which was foreign to their nature, and remained spotted +in the eyes of posterity.</p> + +<p>Charles Edward did what he had done once before in +his life: he applied to the Government to put him +again in possession of the woman whom he had +victimised; but as the French Government had refused +to recognise his claims over his fugitive mistress, so +the Government of the Grand Duke of Tuscany now +refused to give him back his fugitive wife. The +Countess of Albany had naturally taken no clothes +with her in her flight; and she presently sent a maid +to the palace in Via San Sebastiano to fetch such things +as she might require. But Charles Edward would not +permit a single one of her effects to be touched; if +she wanted her clothes and trinkets, she might come +and fetch them herself. However, after a few days, a +message came from the Pope, ordering the Pretender +to supply his wife with whatever she might require; +a threat to suspend the pension was probably expressed +or implied, for Charles Edward immediately obeyed.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, the Countess of Albany was anxiously +awaiting at the convent of the Bianchette a decision +from her brother-in-law, to whom she had written immediately +after her flight. Those first days must have +been painfully unquiet. What if the Tuscan Court +should listen to the Count of Albany's entreaties? What +if Cardinal York should take part with his brother? +Return to the house of her husband would be death or +worse than death. Cardinal York answered immediately: +a long, kind, rather weak-minded letter, the +ideal letter of a well-intentioned, rather silly priest, in +curious Anglo-Roman French. He informed her that +for some time past he had expected to hear of her +flight from her husband; he protested that he had had +no hand in her unhappy marriage, and begged her to +believe that it had been out of his power to protect +her. He had informed the Pope of the whole affair, +and with His Holiness' approval had prepared for his +sister-in-law a temporary asylum in the Ursuline convent +in Rome, whither he invited her to remove as +soon as possible. In January 1781 the Countess of +Albany, accompanied by a Mme. de Marzan, who +appears to have formed part of her household, and two +maids, started for Rome; but such had been the threats +of Charles Edward, and his ravings to get his wife +back, that Alfieri and Gahagan, armed and dressed as +servants, accompanied the carriage a considerable part +of its way. The Pretender, we must remember, had +offered a thousand sequins to anyone who would kill +Alfieri; and even in that humdrum late eighteenth +century a man of position might easily hire a couple of +ruffians to waylay a carriage and kidnap a woman.</p> + +<p>The Countess of Albany was installed in the Ursuline +convent in Via Vittoria, a street near the Piazza di +Spagna. A gloomy family memory hung about the +place: it had been the asylum of Clementina Sobieska +when she had fled from the elder Pretender as Louise +d'Albany had fled from the younger. But the wife of +Charles Edward was in a very different mood from the +wife of James III.; and it is probable that, despite the +many charms of the convent, and the excellent manners +of its aristocratic inmates, upon which Cardinal York +had laid great store, the Countess, with her heart full +of the thought of Alfieri, was not at all inclined to +give her pious brother-in-law the satisfaction, which he +apparently expected, of developing a sudden vocation +for Heaven.</p> + +<p>She had left Florence at the end of the year; in the +spring she saw Alfieri again. The quiet work which +had seemed so natural and easy while he was sure of +seeing his lady every day, had become quite impossible +to him. He felt that he ought to remain in Florence, +that he ought not to follow her to Rome. But Florence +had become insufferable to him; and he determined to +remove to Naples, because to get to Naples it was +necessary to pass through Rome. The melancholy +barren approach to the Eternal City, which, three years +before, had inspired Alfieri with nothing but melancholy +and disgust, now seemed to him a sort of earthly +paradise; and Rome, which he hated, as the most +delightful of places. He hurried to the Ursuline +convent, and was admitted to speak to the Countess of +Albany. "I saw her," he wrote many years later, +"but (O God! my heart seems to break at the mere +recollection) I saw her a prisoner behind a grating; +less tormented than in Florence, but yet not less unhappy. +We were separated, and who could tell how +long our separation might not last? But, while +crying, I tried to console myself with the thought that +she might at least recover her health, that she would +breathe freely, and sleep peacefully, no longer trembling +at every moment before the indivisible shadow of her +drunken husband; that she might, in short, live."</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c10" id="c10"></a>CHAPTER X.</h3> + +<h4>ANTIGONE.</h4> + + +<p>About three months after the Countess of Albany's +flight from her husband, the Pope granted her permission +to leave the Ursuline convent; and her +brother-in-law, Cardinal York, offered her hospitality +in his magnificent palace of the Cancelleria. Alfieri +was at Naples when he received this news, riding +gloomily along the sea-shore, weeping profusely (for +we must remember that to an Italian, especially of the +eighteenth century, there is no incongruity in a would-be +ancient Roman shedding love-sick tears), unable to +give his attention to work, living, as he expresses it, +on the coming in and going out of the post. "I +wished to return to Rome," he writes, "and at the +same time I felt very keenly that I ought not to do it +yet. The struggles between love and duty which take +place in an honourable and tender heart, are the most +terrible and mortal pain that a man can suffer. I +delayed throughout April, and I determined to drag +on through May; but on the 12th May I found myself, +I scarcely know how, back in Rome."</p> + +<p>Alfieri found the Countess of Albany established in +the palace of the Cancelleria, the mistress of the establishment, +for her brother-in-law was living in his +episcopal town of Frascati. They were free to see +each other as much as they chose, to love each other +as much as they would; for the Cardinal and the +priestly circles seem to have gone completely to sleep +in the presence of this critical situation; and the +habits of Roman society, which were even a shade +worse than those of Florence, were not such as to give +umbrage to the lovers. But those years during which +they had loved under the vigilant jealousy of Charles +Edward, had apparently fostered a love which was +accustomed and satisfied with being only a more passionate +kind of friendship; the indomitable power of +resistance to himself, the passion for realising in himself +some heroic attitude which he admired, and the almost +furious desire to reverse completely his former habits +of life, kept Alfieri up to the point of a platonic connexion; +and the Countess of Albany, intellectual, cold, +passive, easily moulded by a more vehement nature, +loved Alfieri much more with the head than with the +heart, and loved in him just that which made him +prefer that they should meet and love as austerely as +Petrarch and Laura. The fact was, I believe, that the +Countess of Albany had much more mind than personality, +and that she was therefore mere wax in the +hands of a man who had become so exclusively and +violently intellectual as Alfieri: she had seen too much +of the coarse realities of life, of the brutal giving way +to sensual impulse: the heroic, the ideal, nay the +deliberately made up, the artificial, had a charm for her. +Be this as it may, the Countess and Alfieri continued, +in the opinion of all contemporaries, and according to +the assurance of Alfieri himself, whose cynicism and +truthfulness are equal, on the same footing as in +Florence.</p> + +<p>And these months in Rome seem to have been the +happiest months of Alfieri's life, the happiest, probably, +of the life of the Countess of Albany. Alfieri hired the +villa Strozzi, on the Esquiline, a small palace built by +one of Michel Angelo's pupils, and for which, including +the use of furniture, stables, and garden, he paid the +now incredibly small sum of ten scudi a month, about +two pounds of our money. Permitting himself only +two coats, the black one for the evening, and the +famous blue one for ordinary occasions, and limiting +his dinner to one dish of meat and vegetables, without +wine or coffee, Alfieri contrived to make the comparatively +small pension paid to him by his sister, go almost +as far as had the fine fortune of which he had despoiled +himself. He spent lavishly on books, and more lavishly +on horses, on horses which, according to his own account, +were his third passion, coming only after his love for +Mme. d'Albany, and sometimes usurping the place +of his love of literary glory.</p> + +<p>The mania for systematic division of his time, the +invincible tendency to routine, which follows in most +Italians after the disorder and wastefulness of youth, +had already got the better of Alfieri. He had, almost +at the moment when the passion for literature first disclosed +itself, made up his mind to write a definite +number of tragedies, first twelve, then fourteen, and +no more; and to devote a certain number of years to +the elaborate process of first constructing them mentally, +then of writing them full length in prose, and +finally of turning this prose into verse; and he was +later to devise a corresponding plan of writing an +equally fixed number of comedies and satires in an +equally fixed number of years, after which, as we have +seen, he was to give up his thoughts, having attained +the age of forty-five, to preparing for death.</p> + +<p>This routine is a national characteristic, and absorbs +many an Italian, turning all the poetry of his nature to +prose, with a kind of dreadful inevitableness; but +Alfieri did not merely submit to routine, he enjoyed it, +he devised and carried it out with all the ferocity of +his nature. To this man, who cared so much for the +figure he cut, and so little for all the things which surrounded +him, a life reduced to absolute monotony of +grinding work was almost an object of æsthetic pleasure, +almost an object of sensual delight: he enjoyed +a dead level, an endless white-washed wall, as much as +other men, and especially other poets, enjoy the ups +and downs, the irregularities and mottled colours of +existence. So Alfieri arranged for himself, in his +house near Santa Maria Maggiore, what to him was a +life of exquisite delightfulness.</p> + +<p>He spent the whole early morning reading the Latin +and Italian classics, and grinding away at his tragedies, +which, after repeated sketching out, repeated writing +out in prose, were now going through the most elaborate +process of writing, re-writing, revising, and re-revising +in verse. Then, before resuming his solitary studies in +the afternoon, he would have one of his many horses +saddled, and ride about in the desolate tracts of the +town, which in papal times extended from Santa Maria +Maggiore to the Porta Pia, the Porta San Lorenzo, and +St. John Lateran: miles of former villa gardens, with +quincunxes and flower-beds, cut up for cabbage-growing, +wide open spaces where the wall of a temple, +the arch of an aqueduct, rose crowned with wall-flower +and weeds out of the rank grass, the briars and nettles, +the heaps of broken masonry and plaster, among +which shone beneath the darting lizards, scraps of vermilion +wall-fresco, the chips of purple porphyry or +dark-green serpentine; long avenues of trees early +sere, closed in by arum-fringed walls, or by ditches +where the withered reeds creaked beneath the festoons +of clematis and wild vine; solemn and solitary wildernesses +within the city walls, where the silence was broken +only by the lowing of the herds driven along by the +shaggy herdsman on his shaggy horse, by the long-drawn, +guttural chant of the carter stretched on the +top of his cart, and the jingle of his horse's bells; places +inaccessible to the present, a border-land of the past, +and which, as Alfieri says, thinking of those many +times when he must have reined in his horse, and +vaguely and wistfully looked out on to the green desolation +islanded with ruins and traversed by the vast +procession of the aqueducts, invited one to meditate, +and cry, and be a poet. And sometimes—we know it +from the sonnets to his horse Fido, who had, Alfieri +tells us, carried the beloved burden of his lady—Alfieri +did not ride out alone. One of the horses of the villa +Strozzi was saddled for the Countess of Albany; and +this strange pair of platonic lovers rode forth together +among the ruins, the wife of Charles Edward listening, +with something more than mere abstract interest, to +Alfieri's fiercest contemptuous tirades against the +tyranny of soldiers and priests, the tyranny of sloth +and lust which had turned these spots into a wilderness, +and which had left the world, as Alfieri always felt, and +a man not unlike Alfieri in savage and destructive +austerity, St. Just, was later to say, empty since the +days of the Romans.</p> + +<p>Towards dusk Alfieri put by his books, and descended +through the twilit streets of the upper city—where the +troops of red and yellow and blue seminarists, and +black and brown monks, passed by like ants, homeward +bound after their evening walk—into the busier +parts of Rome, and crossing the Corso filled with +painted and gilded coaches, and making his way +through the many squares where the people gathered +round the lemonade-booth near the fountain or the +obelisk, through the tortuous black streets filled with +the noise of the anvils and hammers of the locksmiths +and nailors behind the Pantheon, made his way towards +the palace, grand and prim in its architecture of Bramants, +of the Cancelleria, perhaps not without thinking +that in the big square before its windows, where the +vegetable carts were unloaded every morning, and the +quacks and dentists and pedlars bawled all day, a man +as strange, as wayward and impatient of tyranny as +himself, Giordano Bruno, had been burned two centuries +before by Cardinal York's predecessor in that +big palace of the Cancelleria. Fortunately there was +no Cardinal York in the Cancelleria, or at least only +rarely; but instead only the beautiful blonde woman +with the dark hazel eyes, whom Alfieri spoke of as his +"lady," and, somewhat later, "as the sweet half of +himself," and in whose speech Alfieri was never Alfieri, +or Vittorio, or the Count, but merely "the poet," so +completely had these strange, self-modelling, unconsciously-attitudinising +lovers, arrayed themselves and +their love according to the pattern of Dante and +Petrarch.</p> + +<p>To the Countess, we may be sure, Alfieri never +failed to give a most elaborate account of his day's +work, nor to read to her whatever scenes of his plays +he had blocked out, in prose, or worked up in verse. +By 11 o'clock, he tells us, he was always back in his +solitary little villa on the Esquiline.</p> + +<p>But this, although it is probably correct with regard +to his visits to Mme. d'Albany, with whom consideration +for gossip prevented his staying much after ten +at night, must not be taken as the invariable rule; +for Alfieri, devoted as he was to his lady, by no means +neglected other society. He was finishing his allotted +number of tragedies, and, as the solemn moment of +publication approached, he began to be tormented with +that same desire to display his work to others, to hear +their praises even if false, to understand their opinion +even if unfavourable, which came, by gusts, as one +of the passions of his life. Rome was at that time, +like every Italian town, full of literary academies, +conventicles of very small intellectual fry meeting +in private drawing-rooms or at coffee-houses, and +swayed by the overlordship of the famous Arcadia, +which had now sunk into being a huge club to which +every creature who scribbled, or daubed, or strummed, +or had a coach-and-pair, or a bad tongue, or a pretty +face, or a title, belonged without further claims. +There were also several houses of women who affected +intelligence or culture, having no claims to beauty or +fashion; and foremost among these, but differing from +them by the real originality and culture of the lady of +the house, the charm of her young daughter, and the +superior quality of the conversation and music to be +enjoyed there, was the house of a Signora Maria +Pizzelli, of all women in Rome the one to whom, after +the Countess of Albany, Alfieri showed himself most +assiduous. In her house and in many others Alfieri +began to give almost public readings of his plays; +trying to persuade himself that his object in so doing +was to judge, from the expression of face and even +more from the restlessness or quiescence of his listeners +on their chairs, how his work might affect the mixed +audience of a theatre; but admitting in his heart of +hearts that the old desire to be remarked had as much +to do with these exhibitions as with the six-horse +gallops which used to astonish the people of Turin and +Florence.</p> + +<p>But something better soon offered itself. The Duke +Grimaldi had had a small theatre constructed in the +Spanish palace, his residence as Ambassador from the +Catholic King, and a small company of high-born +amateurs had been playing in it translations of +French comedies and tragedies. To these ladies and +gentlemen Alfieri offered his <i>Antigone</i>, which was +accepted with fervour. The beautiful and majestic +Duchess of Zagarolo was to act the part of the heroine; +her brother and sister-in-law, the Duke and Duchess +of Ceri, respectively the parts of Hæmon and of Argia, +while the character of Creon, the villain of the piece, +was reserved for Alfieri himself. The performance of +<i>Antigone</i> was a great solemnity. The magnificent +rooms of the Spanish Embassy were crowded with the +fashionable world of Rome, which, in the year 1782, +included priests and princes of the Church quite as +much as painted ladies and powdered cavaliers. A +contemporary diary, kept by the page of the Princess +Colonna, a certain Abate Benedetti, enables us to form +some notion of the assembly. Foremost among the +ladies were the two rival beauties, equally famous for +their conquests in the ecclesiastical as well as the secular +nobility, the Princess Santacroce and the Princess +Altieri, vying with each other in the magnificence of +their diamonds and of their lace, and each upon the +arm of a prince of the Church who had the honour of +being her orthodox <i>cavaliere servente</i>; the Princess +Altieri led in by Cardinal Giovan Francesco Albani, +the very gallant and art-loving nephew of Winckelmann's +Cardinal Alessandro; the Princess Santacroce +escorted by the French Ambassador Cardinal de Bernis, +the amiable society rhymester of Mme. de Pompadour, +whom Frederick the Great had surnamed <i>Babet la +bouquetière</i>. In the front row sat the wife of the +Senator Rezzonico, who, in virtue of being the niece +of the late Pope Clement XIII., affected an almost +royal pomp, and by her side sat the wittiest and most +literary of the Sacred College, the still very flirtatious +old Cardinal Gerdil. The hall was nearly full when +the stir in the crowd, and the general looking in one +direction, announced the arrival of a guest who excited +unwonted attention. A young woman, who scarcely +looked her full age of thirty, small, slender, very simply +and elegantly dressed, with something still girlish in her +small irregular features and complexion of northern +brilliancy, was conducted along the gangway between +the rows of chairs, and, as if she were the queen +of the entertainment, solemnly installed by the side of +the Princess Rezzonico in the first row. Was it +because her husband had called himself King of +England, or because her lover was the author of the +play about to be performed? Be it as it may, the +Countess of Albany was the object of universal +curiosity, and the emotion which she displayed during +the play was a second and perhaps more interesting +performance for the scandal-loving Romans.</p> +<p> </p> + +<p>While the ghosts of these long dead men and women, +ladies in voluminous brocaded skirts and diamond-covered +bosoms, bursting out of the lace and jewels of +their stiff bodices, cardinals in trailing scarlet robes +and bishops with well-powdered hair contrasting +curiously with their Dominican or Franciscan dress, +Roman nobles all in the strange old-world costumes, with +ruffs and trunk hose and emblazoned mantles, of the +Pope's household and of the military orders of Malta and +Calatrava, secular dandies in elaborately-embroidered +silk coats and waistcoats, ecclesiastical dandies to the +full as dapper with their heavy lace, and abundant fob +jewels and inevitable two watches on the sober black +of their clothes;—while these ghosts whom we have +evoked in all their finery (long since gone to the <i>bric-à-brac</i> +shops) to fill the theatre-hall of the Spanish +palace, sit and listen to the symphony which Cimarosa +himself has written for <i>Antigone</i>, sit and watch the +magnificent Duchess of Zagarolo, dressed as Antigone +in hoop and stomacher and piled-up feathered hair, +and the red-haired eccentric Piedmontese Count, the +d'Albany's lover, bellowing the anger of Creon; let us +try and sum up what the tragedies of Alfieri are for us +people of to-day, and what they must have been for +those people of a hundred years ago.</p> + +<p>While scribbling for mere pastime at his earliest +play, Alfieri had felt his mind illumined by a sort of +double revelation: he would make his name immortal, +and he would create a new kind of tragedy. These +two halves of a proposition, of which he appears never +to have entertained a single moment's doubt, had +originated at the same time and developed in close +connection: that he could be otherwise than an innovator +was as inconceivable to Alfieri as that he could +be otherwise than a genius, although, in reality, he +was as far from being the one as from being the other. +The fact was that Alfieri felt in himself the power of +inventing a style and of producing works which should +answer to the requirements of his own nature: considering +himself as the sole audience, he considered +himself as the unique playwright. Excessively limited +in his mental vision, and excessively strong in his +mental muscle, it was with his works as with his life: +the ideal was so comparatively within reach, and the +will was so powerful, that one feels certain that he +nearly always succeeded in behaving in the way <ins title="original reads in">of</ins> +which he approved, and in writing in the style which +he admired. And the most extraordinary part of the +coincidence was, that as he happened to live in a time +and country which had entirely neglected the tragic +stage, and consequently had no habits or aspirations +connected with it, his own desires with reference to +Italian tragedy preceded those of his fellow-countrymen, +his own ideal was thrust upon them before they +well knew where they were; and his own nature and +likings became the sole standard by which he measured +his works, his own satisfaction the only criterion by +which they could be judged. In order, therefore, to +understand the nature of Alfieri's plays, it is necessary, +first of all, to understand what were Alfieri's innate +likings and dislikings in the domain of the drama. +Before all other things, Alfieri was not a poet: he lacked +all, or very nearly all, the faculties which are really +poetical. To begin with the more gross and external +ones, he had no instinct for, no pleasure in, metrical +arrangements for their own sake; he did not think nor +invent in verse, ideas did not come to him on the wave +of metre; he thought out, he elaborately finished, every +sentence in prose, and then translated that prose into +verse, as he might have translated (and in some +instances actually did translate) from a French version +into an Italian one. Moreover he was, to a degree +which would have been surprising even in a prose +writer, deficient in that which constitutes the intellectual +essence of poetry as metre constitutes its +material externality; in that tendency to see things +surrounded by, disguised in, a swarm, a masquerade, of +associated ideas; deficient in the power of suggesting +images, of conceiving figures of speech; in fancy, +imagination, in the metaphorical faculty, or whatever +else we may choose to call it. Nor did he perceive or +describe visible things, visible effects, in their own +unmetaphorical shapes and colours: not a line of description, +not an adjective can be found in his works +except such as may be absolutely indispensable for +topographical or similar intelligibility; Alfieri obviously +cared as little for beautiful sights as for beautiful +sound. This being the case, everything that we might +call distinctly poetical, all those things which are +precious to us in Shakespeare, or Marlowe, or Webster, +in Goethe or Schiller, nay, even, occurring at intervals, +in Racine himself, at least as much as mere psychology +or oratory or pathos, appeared to Alfieri in the light of +mere meretricious gewgaws, which took away from the +interest of dramatic action without affording him any +satisfaction in return. As it was with metre and +metaphor and description, so it was also with the +indefinable something which we call lyric quality: +the something which sings to our soul, and which sends +a thrill of delight through our nerves or a gust of +emotion across our nature in the same direct way as +do the notes of certain voices, the phrases of certain +pieces of music: instantaneously, unreasoningly and +unerringly. Of this Alfieri had little, so little that we +may also say that he had nothing; the presence of this +quality being evidently unnoticed by him and unappreciated. +So much for the absolutely poetical +qualities. Of what I may call the prose qualities of a +playwright, only a certain number appealed to Alfieri, +and only a certain number were possessed by him. In +a time when the novel was beginning to become a +psychological study more minute than any stage play +could ever be, Alfieri was only very moderately interested +in the subtle analysis or representation of +character and state of mind; the fine touches which +bring home a person or a situation did not attract his +attention; nor was he troubled by considerations concerning +the probability of a given word or words +being spoken at a particular moment and by a particular +man or woman: realism had no meaning for him. +As it was with intellectual conception, so was it also +with instructive sympathy: Alfieri never subtly analysed +the anatomy of individual nature, nor did he unconsciously +mimic its action and tones; what most of +us mean by pathos did not appeal to him. Neither +metrical nor imaginative pleasurableness, nor descriptive +charm, nor lyric poignancy, nor psychological +analysis or intention entered, therefore, into Alfieri's +conception of a desirable tragedy, any more than any +of these things fell within the range of his special +talents; for, we must always bear in mind that with +this man, whose feelings and desires were in such +constant action and reaction, with this man whose +will imposed his intellectual notions on his feelings, +and his emotional tendencies on his thoughts, the +thing which he enjoys is always as the concave to the +convex of the thing which he produces. But although +Alfieri was not a poet, and was not even a potential +novel writer, he was, in a sense, essentially a dramatist; +though even here we must distinguish and diminish. +Alfieri was not a man who cared for rapid action or +for intricate plot: he never felt the smallest inclination +to violate the old traditions of the pseudo-classic stage +by those thrilling scenes or sights which had to be +described and not shown, nor by those complications of +interest which require years for an action instead of the +orthodox twenty-four hours.</p> + +<p>He was perfectly satisfied with the no-place, no-where—with +the vague temple, or palace hall, or +public square where, as in the country of the abstract, +the action of pseudo-classic tragedy always takes place, +or, more properly speaking, the talking of pseudo-classic +tragedy always goes on; he was perfectly satisfied +with sending in a servant or a messenger to inform +the public of a murder or suicide committed behind +the scenes; he was perfectly satisfied with taking up +a story, so to speak, at the eleventh hour, without +tracing it to its original causes or developing it through +its various phases. In such matters Alfieri was as +undramatic as Corneille or Racine. Nevertheless +Alfieri had a distinct dramatic sense: an intense +<i>poseur</i> himself, enjoying nothing so much as working +himself up to produce a given effect upon his own +mind or upon others, he had an extraordinary instinct +for the theatrical, for the moral attitude which may +be struck so as to be effective, and for the arrangement +of subordinate parts so that this attitude surprise +and move the audience. The moral attitude, the +psychological gesture, which thus became the main +interest of Alfieri's plays, was, as might be expected +from such a man, nearly always his own moral attitude, +his own psychological gesture; he himself, his +uncompromising, unhesitating, unflinching, curt and +emphatic nature, is always the hero or heroine of the +play, however much the situation, the incidents, the +other characteristics may vary. Antigone is generous +and tender, Creon is inhuman in all save paternal +feeling, Saul is a suspicious madman, Agamemnon a +just and confiding hero, Clytæmnestra is sinful and +self-sophisticating, Virginia pure and open-minded; +yet all these different people, despite all their differences, +speak and act as Alfieri would speak and act, +could he, without losing his peculiar characteristics, +adopt for the moment vices or virtues which would +become quite secondary matters by the side of his +essential qualities of pride, narrowness, decision, violence, +and self-importance. Whether he paint his face +into a smile or a scowl, whether he put on the blond +wig of innocence, or the black wig of villainy, the +man's movement and gesture, the tone of his voice, +the accent of his words, the length of his sentences, are +always the same: so much so that in one play there +may be two or three Alfieris, good and bad, Alfieris +turned perfectly virtuous or perfectly vicious; but +anything that is not an Alfieri in some tolerably +transparent disguise, is sure to be a puppet, a lay +figure with as few joints as possible, just able to stretch +out its arms and clap them to its sides, but dangling +suspended between heaven and earth.</p> + +<p>The attitude and the gesture, which are the things +for whose sake the play exists, are, as I have said, the +attitude and gesture of Alfieri. But the moral attitude +and gesture of Alfieri happened to be just those which +were rarest in the eighteenth century in all countries, +and more especially rare in Italy; and they were the +moral attitude and gesture which the eighteenth +century absolutely required to become the nineteenth, and +which the Italy of Peter Leopold and Pius VI. and +Metastasio and Goldoni absolutely required to become +the Italy of Mazzini and Garibaldi, the Italy of Foscolo +and Leopardi: they were the attitude and the gesture +of single-mindedness, haughtiness, indifference to one's +own comfort and one's neighbours' opinion, the attitude +and gesture of manliness, of strength, if you will, of +heroism. To have written tragedies whose whole value +depended upon the striking exhibition of these qualities; +and to have made this exhibition interesting, nay, +fascinating to the very people, to the amiable, humane, +indifferent, lying, feeble-spirited Italians of the latter +eighteenth century, till these very men were ashamed +of what they had hitherto been; to stamp the new +generation with the clear-cut die of his own strong +character; this was the reality of the mission which +Alfieri had felt within himself: a reality which will be +remembered when his plays shall have long ceased to +be acted, and shall long have ceased to be read. Alfieri +imagined himself to be a great poetic genius, and a +great dramatic innovator: he scorned with loathing +the works of Corneille, of Racine, and of Voltaire, all +immeasurably more valuable as poetry and drama than +his own; he hated the works of Metastasio, a poet and +a playwright by the divine right of genius; he refused +to read Shakespeare, lest Shakespeare should spoil the +perfection of his own conceptions. He slaved for +months and years perfecting each of his plays, recasting +the action and curtailing the dialogue and polishing +the verse; yet the action was always heavy, the dialogue +unnatural to the last degree, the verse unpoetical. +But all this extraordinary self-sufficiency was not a +delusion, all this extraordinary labour was not a waste: +Alfieri, who never had a single poetical thought, nor a +single art-revolutionising notion, was yet a great genius +and a great innovator, inasmuch as he first moulded in +his own image the Italian patriot of the nineteenth +century. His use consisted in his mere existence +among men so different from himself; and his dramas, +his elaborately constructed and curtailed and corrected +dramas, were, so to speak, a system of mirrors by +which the image of this strange new-fangled personality +might be flashed everywhere into the souls of his +contemporaries. To perceive the moral attitude and +gesture specially characteristic of himself, to artificially +correct and improve and isolate them in his own reality, +and then to multiply their likeness for all the world; +to know himself to be Alfieri, to make himself up as +Alfieri, and to write plays whereof the heroes and +heroines were mere repetitions of Alfieri; such was +the mission of this powerful and spontaneous nature, +of this self-conscious and self-manipulating <i>poseur</i>.</p> + +<p>The success of that performance of <i>Antigone</i> on the +amateur stage in the Spanish palace was very great. +A young man, half lay, half ecclesiastic, a dubious +sort of poet, secretary, factotum, accustomed to write +not the most sincere poetry, and to execute, perhaps, +not the most creditable errands, of the Pope's dubious +nephew, Duke Braschi—a young man named Vincenzo +Monti, was present at this performance, or one of the +succeeding ones; and from that moment became the +author of the revolutionary tragedy of <i>Aristodemo</i>, the +potential author of that famous ode on the battle of +Marengo, one of the forerunners of new Italy. Nay, +even when, some few months later, there died at +Vienna the old Abate Metastasio, and his death brought +home to a rather forgetful world what a poet and what +a dramatist that old Metastasio had been; even then, an +intimate friend of the dead man, a worldly priest, a +quasi prelate, the Abate Taruffi, could find no better +winding up for the funeral oration, delivered before all +the pedants and prigs and fops and spies of pontifical +Rome assembled in the rooms of the Arcadian academy, +than to point to Count Vittorio Alfieri, and prophesy +that Metastasio had found a successor greater than +himself.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c11" id="c11"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h3> + +<h4>SEPARATION.</h4> + +<p>Alfieri and the Countess were happy, happier, perhaps, +than at any other time of their lives; but this +happiness had to be paid for. The false position in +which, however faultlessly, they were placed; the +illegitimate affection in which, however blamelessly, +they were indulging; these things, offensive to social +institutions, although in no manner wrong in themselves, +had produced their fruit of humiliation, nay, of +degradation. Fate is more of a Conservative than we +are apt to think; it resents the efforts of any individual, +be he as blameless as possible, to resist for his +own comfort and satisfaction the uncomfortable and +unsatisfactory arrangements of the world; it punishes +the man who seeks to elude an unjust law by condemning +him to the same moral police depôt, to the +same moral prison-food, as the villain who has eluded +the holiest law that was ever framed; and Fate, therefore, +soiled the poetic passion of Alfieri and his lady +by forcing it to the base practices of any illicit love. +The manner in which Fate executes these summary +lynchings of people's honour could not usually be more +ingenious; there seems to be a special arrangement by +which offenders are punished in their most sensitive +part. The punishment of Alfieri and of Mme. d'Albany +for refusing to sacrifice their happiness to the proprieties +of a society which married girls of nineteen to +drunkards whom they had never seen, but which would +not hear of divorce; this punishment, falling directly +only upon the man, but probably just as heavy upon +the woman who witnessed the humiliation of the +person whom she most loved and respected, consisted +in turning Alfieri, the man who was training Italy to +be self-respecting, truthful, unflinching, into a toady, +a liar, and an intriguer.</p> + +<p>The Countess of Albany, living in the palace of her +brother-in-law, Cardinal York, and under the special +protection of the Pope, was entirely dependent on the +good pleasure of the priestly bureaucracy of the Rome +of Pius VI., that is to say, of about the most contemptible +and vilest set of fools and hypocrites and sinners +that can well be conceived; the Papacy, just before +the Revolution, had become one of the most corrupt of +the many corrupt Governments of the day. Cardinal +York himself was a weak and silly, but honest and kind-hearted +man; but Cardinal York was entirely swayed +by the prelates and priests and priestlets and semi-priestly +semi-lay nondescripts among whom he lived. +He was responsible for the honour of the Countess of +Albany, that is to say, of her husband and his brother; +and the honour of the Countess of Albany depended +exactly upon the remarks which the most depraved +and hypocritical clergy in Europe, the people who did +or abetted all the dirty work of Pius VI. and his Sacred +College, chose to make or not to make about her +conduct.</p> + +<p>Such were the persons upon whom depended the +liberty and happiness of Alfieri's lady, the possibility +of that high-flown Platonic intercourse which constituted +Louis d'Albany's whole happiness, and Alfieri's +strongest incentive to glory; a word from them could +exile Alfieri and lock the Countess up in a convent. +The consequence of this state of things is humiliating +to relate, since it shows to what baseness the most +high-minded among us may be forced to degrade themselves. +Already, during those few days' sojourn in +Rome, before his stay in Naples and Mme. d'Albany's +release from the Ursuline convent, Alfieri had spent +his time running about flattering and wheedling the +powers in command (that is to say, the corrupt ministers +of the Papacy and their retinue of minions and +spies), in order to obtain leave to inhabit the same +city as his beloved and to see her from time to time; +doing everything, and stooping to everything, he tells +us, in order to be tolerated by those priests and priestlets +whom he abhorred and despised from the bottom +of his heart. "After so many frenzies, and efforts to +make myself a free man," he writes, in his autobiography, +"I found myself suddenly transformed into a +man paying calls, and making bows and fine speeches +in Rome, exactly like a candidate on promotion in +prelatedom." At this price of bitter humiliation, nay, +of something more real than mere humiliation, Alfieri +bought the privilege of frequenting the palace of Cardinal +York. But it was a privilege for which you could +not pay once and for all; its price was a black-mail of +humbugging, and wheedling, and dirt-eating.</p> + +<p>Alfieri hated and despised all sovereigns and all +priests; and if there were a sovereign and a priest whom +he despised and hated more than the rest, it was the +then reigning Pius VI., a vain, avaricious, weak-minded +man, stickling not in the least at humiliating +Catholicism before anyone who asked him to do it, by +no means clean-handed in his efforts to enrich his +family, without courage, or fidelity to his promise; a +man whose miserable end as the brutally-treated +captive of the French Republic has not been sufficient +to raise to the dignity of a martyr. Of this Pope +Pius VI. did Alfieri crave an audience, and to him did +he offer the dedication of one of his plays; nay, the +man who had sacrificed his fortune in order to free +himself from the comparatively clean-handed despotism +of Sardinia, who had stubbornly refused to be presented +to Frederick the Great and Catherine II., who +had declined making Metastasio's acquaintance on +account of a too deferential bow which he had seen the +old poet make to Maria Theresa; the man who had in +his portfolios plays and sonnets and essays intended +to teach the world contempt for kings and priests, +this man, this Alfieri, submitted to having his cheek +patted by Pope Braschi. This stain of baseness and +hypocrisy with which, as he says, he contaminated +himself, ate like a hidden and shameful sore into +Alfieri's soul; yet, until the moment of writing his +autobiography, he had not the courage to display this +galling thing of the past even to his most intimate +friends. To Louise d'Albany, to the woman between +whom and himself he boasted that there was never the +slightest reticence or deceit, he screwed up the force to +tell the tale of that interview only some time later. +Alfieri, honest enough to lay bare his own self-degradation, +was not generous enough to hide the +fact that this self-degradation was incurred out of love +for her. That her hero should have stooped so low, so +low that he scarcely dared to tell even her, surely this +must have been as galling to the Countess of Albany +as was the caress of Pius VI. to Alfieri himself; this +high poetic love of theirs, this exotic Dantesque passion, +had been dragged down, by the impartial legality of +fate, to the humiliating punishment which awaited all +the basest love intrigues in this base Rome of the +base eighteenth century.</p> + +<p>And, after some time, the stock of toleration bought +at the price of this baseness was exhausted. The +clerical friends and advisers of Cardinal York, who had +hitherto assured the foolish prince of the Church that +he was acting for the honour of his brother and his +brother's wife in leaving a young woman of thirty-one +to the sole care of a young poet of thirty-four, each +being well known to be over head and ears in love with +the other; these prudent ecclesiastics, little by little, +began to change their minds, and the success of +Alfieri's plays, the general interest in him and his lady +which that success produced, suggested to them that +there really might be some impropriety in the familiarity +between the wife of Charles Edward and the +author of <i>Antigone</i>. The train was laid, and the match +was soon applied. In April 1783 the Pretender fell ill +in Florence, so ill that his brother was summoned at +once to what seemed his death-bed. Charles Edward +recovered. But during that illness the offended husband, +who, we must remember, had offered a reward +for Alfieri's murder, poured out to his brother, moved +and reconciled to him by the recent fear of his death, +all his grievances against the Tuscan Court, against his +wife, and against her lover. A letter of Sir Horace +Mann makes it clear that Charles Edward persuaded +his brother that his ill-usage of his wife (which, +however, Mann, with his spies everywhere, had vouched +for at the time) was a mere invention, and part of an +odious plot by which Alfieri had imposed upon the +Grand Duke, the Pope, the society of Florence and +Rome, nay, upon Cardinal York himself, in order to +obtain their connivance in a shameful intrigue development. +The Cardinal returned to Rome in a state of +indignation proportionate to his previous saintly indifference +to the doings of Alfieri and Mme. d'Albany; +he discovered that he had been shutting his eyes to +what all the world (by Alfieri's own confession) saw as +a very hazardous state of things; and, with the tendency +to run into extremes of a foolish and weak-minded +creature, he immediately published from all +the housetops the dishonour whose existence had never +occurred to him before. To the Countess of Albany +he intimated that he would not permit her to receive +Alfieri under his roof; and of the Pope (the Pope who +had so recently patted Alfieri's cheek) he immediately +implored an order that Alfieri should quit the Papal +States within a fortnight. The order was given; but +Alfieri, in whose truthfulness I have complete faith, +says that, knowing that the order had been asked for, +he forestalled the ignominy of being banished by spontaneously +bidding farewell to the Countess of Albany +and to Rome.</p> + +<p>"This event," says Alfieri, "upset my brains for +nearly two years; and upset and retarded also my +work in every way." In speaking of Alfieri's youth +I have already had occasion to remark that there +was in this man's character something abnormal; he +was, as I have said, a moral invalid from birth; his +very energy and resolution had somewhat of the frenzy +and rigidity of a nervous disease, and though he +would seem morally stronger than other men +when strictly following his self-prescribed rule of +excessive intellectual exercise, and when surrounded +by a soothing atmosphere of affection and encouragement, +his old malady of melancholy and rage (melancholy +and rage whom he represents in one of +his sonnets as two horrible-faced women seated on +either side of him), his old incapacity for work, for +interest in anything, his old feverish restlessness of +place, returned, as a fever returns with its heat and +cold and impotence and delirium, whenever he was +shut out of this atmosphere of happiness, whenever he +was exposed to any sort of moral hardship. On leaving +Rome Alfieri went to Siena, where, years before, when +he had come light-hearted and bent only upon literary +fame, to learn Tuscan, he had been introduced into a +little circle of men and women whom he faithfully +loved, and to that Francesco Gori who shared with +Tommaso di Caluso the rather trying honour of being +his bosom friend. This Gori, "an incomparable man," +writes Alfieri, "good, compassionate, and with all his +austerity and ruggedness of virtue (<i>con tanta altezza e +ferocia di sensi</i>) most gentle," appears literally to have +nursed Alfieri in this period of moral sickness as one +might nurse a sick or badly-bruised child. "Without +him," writes Alfieri, "I think I should most likely +have gone mad. But he, although he saw in me a +would-be hero so disgracefully broken in spirit and +inferior to himself" (this passage is characteristic, as +showing that Alfieri considered himself, when in a +normal condition, far superior to his much-praised +Gori), "although he knew better than any the meaning +of courage and endurance, did not, therefore, cruelly +and inopportunely, oppose his severe and frozen reason +to my frenzies, but, on the contrary, diminished my pain +by dividing it with me. O rare, O truly heavenly +gift, this of being able both to reason and to feel."</p> + +<p>Weeping and raving, Alfieri was living once more +upon letters received and sent as during his previous +separation from Mme. d'Albany; and of all these +love-letters, none appear to have come down to us. +Carefully preserved by Mme. d'Albany and by her +heir Fabre, they fell into the hands of a Mr. Gache +of Montpellier, who assumed the grave responsibility of +destroying them and of thus suppressing for ever the +most important evidence in the law-suit which posterity +will for ever be bringing against Alfieri and Mme. +d'Albany in favour of Charles Edward, or against +Charles Edward in favour of Alfieri and Mme. +d'Albany. But some weeks ago, among the pile of +the Countess's letters to Sienese friends preserved by +Cavaliere Guiseppe Porri at Siena, I had the good +fortune to discover what are virtually five love-letters of +hers, obviously intended for Alfieri although addressed +to his friend Francesco Gori. I confess that an eerie +feeling came over me as I unfolded these five closely-written, +unsigned and undated little squares of yellow +paper, things intended so exclusively for the mere +moment of writing and reading, all that long-dead +momentary passion of a long-dead man and woman +quivering back into reality, filling, as an assembly of +ghosts might fill a house, and drive out its living occupants, +this present hour which so soon will itself have +become, with all its passions and worries, a part of +the past, of the indifferent, the passionless. One is +frightened on suddenly being admitted to witness, +unperceived, as by the opening of a long-locked door, +or by some spell said over a crystal globe or a beryl-stone, +such passion as this; one feels as if one would +almost rather not. These five letters, as I have said, +are addressed to a "Dear Signor Francesco, friend of +my friend," and who, of course, is Francesco Gori; +and are written, which no other letters of Mme. +d'Albany's are, not in French, but in tolerably idiomatic +though far from correct Italian. Only one of them +has any indication of place or date, "Genzano, +Mardi"; but this, and the references to Alfieri's approaching +journey northward and to Gori's intention +of escorting him as far as Genoa, is sufficient to show +that they must have been written in the summer of +1783, when Cardinal York, terrified at the liberty which +he had allowed to his sister-in-law, had conveyed her +safely to some villa in the Alban Hills. The woman +who wrote these letters is a strangely different being +from the quiet jog-trot, rather cynically philosophical +Countess of Albany whom we know from all her +other innumerable manuscript letters, from the published +answers of Sismondi, of Foscolo and of Mme. +de Souza to letters of hers which have disappeared. +The hysterical frenzy of Alfieri seems to have entered +into this woman; he has worked up this naturally +placid but malleable soul, this woman in bad health, +deprived of all friends, jealously guarded by enemies, +weak and depressed, until she has become another +himself, "weeping, raving," like himself, but unable +to relieve, perhaps to enjoy, all this frantic grief by +running about like the mad Orlando, or talking and +weeping by the hour to a compassionate Gori.</p> + +<p>"Dear Signor Francesco," she writes; "how grateful +I am to you for your compassion. You can't have a +notion of our unhappiness. My misery is not in the +least less than that of our friend. There are moments +when I feel my heart torn to pieces thinking of all that +he must suffer. I have no consolation except your +being with him, and that is something. Never let +him remain alone. He is worse, and I know that he +greatly enjoys your society, for you are the only person +who does not bore him and whom he always meets +with pleasure. Oh! dear Signor Francesco, in what +a sea of miseries are we not! You also, because our +miseries are certainly also yours. I no longer live; +and if it were not for my friend, for whom I am +keeping myself, I would not drag out this miserable +life. What do I do in this world? I am a useless +creature in it; and why should I suffer when it is of +no use to anyone? But my friend—I cannot make +up my mind to leave him, and he must live for his +own glory; and, as long as he lives, even if I had to +walk on my hands, I would suffer and live. Who +knows what will happen, it is so long since the man +in Florence (Charles Edward) is ill, and still he lives, +and it seems to me that he is made of iron in order +that we may all die. You will say, in order to console +me, that he can't last; but I see things clearly. This +illness has not <ins title="original reads mad">made</ins> him younger, but he may live +another couple of years. He may at any moment +be suffocated by the humours which have risen to his +chest. What a cruel thing to expect one's happiness +from the death of another! O God! how it degrades +one's soul! And yet I cannot refrain from wishing +it. What a thing, what a horrible thing is life; and +for me it has been a continual suffering, all except the +two years that I spent with my friend, and even +then I lived in the midst of tears. And you also +are probably not happy; with a heart like yours it is +not possible that you should be. Whoever is born +with any feeling can scarcely enjoy happiness. I +recommend our friend to your care, particularly his +health. Mine is not so bad; I take care of myself and +stay much in bed to kill the time and to rest my +nerves, which are very weak. Good-bye, dear Signor +Francesco, preserve your friendship for me; I deserve +it, since I appreciate you."</p> + +<p>Later on she writes again:—</p> + +<p>"Dear Signor Francesco, friend of ours. I do all +I can to take courage. I study as much as I can. +Music alone distracts my thoughts, or rather deadens +them, and I play the harp many hours a day, and I +do so also because I know that my friend wishes me +to get to play it well. I work at it as hard as I can. +I live only for him; without him life would be odious +to me, and I could not endure it. I do nothing in +this world; I am useless in it; and where is the use +of suffering for nothing? But there is my friend, and +I must remain on this earth. I do not doubt of him; +I know how much he loves me. But in moments of +suffering I have fears lest he should find someone who +would give him less pain than myself, with whom he +might live cheerful and happy. I ought to wish it, +but I have not got the strength to do so. But I believe +so fully in him that I am satisfied as soon as he tells +me that such a thing cannot happen. I love him more +than myself; it is a union of feeling which we only +can understand. I find in him all that I can desire; +he is everything for me; and yet I must suffer separation +from him. Certainly if I could come to a +violent decision I should be the happiest woman in the +world; I should never think of the past; I should live +in him and for him; for I care for nothing in this +world. Comfort, luxury, position, all is vanity for +me; peace by his side would suffice for me. And yet +I am condemned to languish far from him. What a +horrible life!"</p> + +<p>Again she writes to Gori:—</p> + +<p>"Dear friend, I am so very, very grateful for the +interest you take in my unhappy situation, which is really +terrible. Time serves only to aggravate it, and certainly +it will bring no alleviation to my misery until I shall +meet our friend. There is no peace, no tranquillity for +me. I would give whatever of life may remain to me in +order to live for one day with him, and I should be +satisfied. My feelings for him are unchangeable, and +I am sure that his for me are the same. When shall +I see the end of my woes? Who knows whether I +shall ever see it? That man (Charles Edward) does +not seem inclined to depart … I suffer a little from +my nerves … but those are the least of my +sufferings. It is the heart which suffers. I have +moments of despair when I could throw myself out +of the window were it not for the thought that I +must live for my friend's sake; that my life is his. +I feel a disgust for life which is so reasoned out +that I say to myself sometimes, 'Why do I live? +What good do I do?' and then I continue to suffer +patiently, remembering my friend. Forgive me for +unbosoming myself with you, who alone can understand +me; you alone, except my friend, understand +what I suffer. Do you know, you ought to come +and see me this winter, you would give me such a +pleasure. Good-bye, dear Signor Francesco; preserve +your friendship for me."</p> + +<p>Thus she runs on, repeating and re-repeating the +same ideas, the same words, her love for Alfieri, her +desperate situation, her hatred of life, her uselessness, +her desire to play the harp well for Alfieri's sake, her +hopes that Charles Edward may die; disconnected +phrases, run into each other without so much as a +comma or a full stop (since I have had to punctuate my +translation, at least partially, to make it intelligible); +the excited, unconsecutive, unceasing, discursive, reiterating +gabble of hysteria, eager, vague, impotent, +thoughts suddenly vanishing and as suddenly coming +to a dead stop; everything rattled off as if between +two sobs or two convulsions. Did Alfieri enjoy receiving +letters such as these? Doubtless: they +were echoes of his own ravings; fuel for his own +passion and vanity. It did not strike him, for all the +Greek and Roman heroes and heroines whom he had +made to speak with stoical, unflinching curtness, that +there could be anything to move shame, and compassion +sickened by shame, in the fact that this should +be the expression of that high and pure love imitated +from Dante and Petrarch. What could he do? Give +up Louise d'Albany, forget her; and bid her, who +lived only in him, whom a few years must free, forget +him at the price of breaking her heart? Certainly +not. But he, the man, the man free to move about, +to work, with friends and occupations, should surely +have tried to teach resignation and patience to this +poor lonely, sick, hysterical woman, pointing out to +her that if only they would wait, and wait courageously, +the moment of liberation and happiness must come. +Surely more difficult and humiliating for this lover to +bear than the sight of his lady degraded by the foul +words and deeds of the drunken Pretender, ought to +have been the reading of such letters as these; the +sight of this once calm and dignified woman, of this +Beatrice or Laura, in her disconnected hysterical +ravings. And for myself, the thought of all that +the Countess of Albany endured at the hands of +Charles Edward awakens less pity, though pity mixed +with indignation at the fate which humiliated her so +deeply, and with shame for that deep humiliation, +than that sudden cry with which she stops in the +midst of the light-headed gabble about her miseries, +and seems to start back ashamed as at the sight of +her passion and tear-defiled face in a mirror: "What +a cruel thing to expect one's happiness from the death +of another! O God! how it degrades one's soul!"</p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c12" id="c12"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h3> + +<h4>COLMAR.</h4> + +<p>"On the 17th August 1784, at eight in the morning, +at the inn of the <i>Two Keys</i>, Colmar, I met her, and +remained speechless from excess of joy." So runs an +annotation of Alfieri on the margin of one of his +lyrics.</p> + +<p>The hour of liberty and happiness had come for +Alfieri and Mme. d'Albany; sooner by far than they +expected, and sooner, we may think, than they deserved. +Liberty and happiness, however, not in the face of the +law. Charles Edward was still alive; but, pressed by +King Gustavus III. of Sweden, whom he contrived to +wheedle out of some most unnecessary money, he had +consented to a legal separation from his fugitive wife; +as a result of which the Countess of Albany, renouncing +all money supplies from the Stuarts, and subsisting +entirely upon a share of the two pensions, French and +Papal, granted to her husband, was permitted to spend +a portion of the year wheresoever she pleased, provided +she returned for awhile to show herself in the Papal +States. On hearing the unexpected news, Alfieri, who +was crossing the Apennines of Modena with fourteen +horses that he had been to buy in England, was seized +with a violent temptation to send his caravan along the +main road, and gallop by cross-paths to meet the +Countess, who was crossing the Apennines of Bologna +on her way from Rome to the baths of Baden in +Switzerland. The thought of her honour and safety +restrained him, and he pushed on moodily to Siena. +But, as on a previous occasion, his stern resolution not +to seek his lady soon gave way; and two months later +followed that meeting at the <i>Two Keys</i> at Colmar on +the Rhine.</p> + +<p>For the first time in those seven long years of platonic +passion, Alfieri and Mme. d'Albany found themselves +settled beneath the same roof. To the mind of this +Italian man, and this half-French, half-German woman +of the eighteenth century, for whom marriage was one of +the sacraments of a religion in which they wholly disbelieved, +and one of the institutions of a society which +alleviated it with universal adultery; to Alfieri and Mme. +d'Albany the legal separation from Charles Edward +Stuart was equivalent to a divorce. The Pretender +could no longer prescribe any line of conduct to his +wife; she was free to live where and with whom she +chose; and if she were not free to marry, the idea, the +wish for marriage, probably never crossed the brains of +these two platonic lovers of seven years' standing. +Marriage was a social contract between people who +wished to obtain each other's money and titles and +lands—who wished to have heirs. Alfieri, who had +made over all his property to his sister, and the +Countess, who lived on a pension, had no money or +titles or lands to throw together; and they certainly +neither of them, the man living entirely for his work, +the woman living entirely for the man, had the +smallest desire to have children, heirs to nothing at all. +What injury could their living together now do to +Charles Edward, who had relinquished all his husband's +rights? None, evidently. On the other hand, what +harm could their living together do to their own honour +or happiness, now that they had had seven years' experience +that only death could extinguish their affection? +None, again evidently. And as to harm to the institutions +of society, what were those institutions, and what +was their value, that they should be respected? Such, +could we have questioned them, would have been the +answers of Alfieri and the Countess. That they were +setting an example to others less pure in mind, less +exceptional in position; that they were making it more +difficult for marriage to be reorganised on a more +rational plan, by showing men and women a something +that might do instead of rationally organised marriage; +that they were, in short, preventing the law from being +rectified, by taking the law into their own hands: +such thoughts could not enter into the mind of continentals +of the eighteenth century, people for whom +the great Revolution, Romanticism, and the new views +of society which grew out of both, were still in the +future. That a punishment should await them, that as +time went on and youthful passion diminished, their +lives should be barren and silent and cold for want of +all those things: children, legal bonds, social recognition, +by which their union should fall short of a real +marriage; this they could never anticipate.</p> + +<p>For the moment, united in the "excessively clean +and comfortable" little château, rented by Madame +d'Albany at a short distance from Colmar; riding and +driving about in the lovely Rhine country; the Countess +deep in her reading again, Alfieri deep once more in +his writings; together, above all, after so many months +of separation: they seemed perfectly happy. So happy +that it seemed as if a misfortune must come to restore +the natural balance of things; and the misfortune +came, in the sudden news of the death of poor Francesco +Gori. A sense as of guiltiness at having half +forgotten that thoughtful and gentle friend in the first +flush of their happiness, seems to have come over +them.</p> + +<p>"O God," wrote Alfieri to Gori's friend Bianchi at +Siena, "I don't know what I shall do. I always see +him and speak to him, and every smallest word and +thought and gesture of his returns to my mind, and +stabs my heart. I do not feel very sorry for him: he +cared little for life for its own sake, and the life +which he was forced to lead was too far below his great +soul, and the goodness and tenderness of his heart, +and the nobility of his noble scornfulness. The person +dearest to me of any, and immediately next to whom +I loved Checco [Gori] most, knew and appreciated him +and is not to be consoled for such a loss. I told him +already last July, so many, many times, that he was +not well, that he was growing visibly thinner day by +day. Oh! I ought never to have left him in this +state."</p> + +<p>A letter, this one on Gori's death, which may induce +us to forgive the letters of Alfieri of which we have +seen a reflection in those of Mme. d'Albany: the +passionate grief for the lost friend making us feel that +there is something noble in the possibility of even the +morbid grief at the lost mistress. More touching +still, bringing home what each of us, alas! must have +felt in those long, dull griefs for one who is not our +kith and kin, whom the thoughts of our nearest and +dearest, of our work, of all those things which the +world recognises as ours in a sense in which the poor +beloved dead was not, does not permit us to mourn in +such a way as to satisfy our heart, and the longing for +whom, half suppressed, comes but the more pertinaciously +to haunt us, to make the present and future, +all where he or she is not, a blank; more touching than +any letter in which Alfieri gives free vent to his grief +for poor Gori, is that note which he wrote upon the +manuscript of his poem on Duke Alexander's murder, +after the annotation saying that this work was resumed +at Siena, the 17th July 1784—"O God! and the +friend of my heart was still living then"; the words +which a man speaks, or writes only for himself, feeling +that no one, not those even who are the very flesh and +blood of his heart, can, since they are not himself, +feel that terrible pang at suddenly seeing the past +so close within his reach, so hopelessly beyond his +grasp.</p> + +<p>The death of Gori seemed the only circumstance +which diminished the happiness of Alfieri and Mme. +d'Albany; nay, it is not heartless, surely, to say that, +cruel as was that wound, there was doubtless a quite +special sad sweetness in each trying to heal it in the +other, in the redoubled love due to this fellow-feeling +in affliction, the new energy of affection which comes +to the survivors whenever Death calls out the +warning, "Love each other while I still let you." +But they had still to pay, and pay in many instalments, +the price of happiness snatched before its legitimate +time.</p> + +<p>Supposed to be living apart from Alfieri, the Countess +could not, therefore, take him back with her to Italy, +where, according to the stipulations of the act of separation, +she was bound to spend the greater part of every +year. Hence the stay at Colmar in 1784, and those in +the succeeding years, were merely so many interludes +of happiness in the dreary life of separation; happiness +which, as Alfieri says in one of his sonnets, was constantly +embittered by the thought that every day and +every hour was bringing them nearer to a cruel parting. +The day came: Alfieri had to take leave of Mme. +d'Albany; and, as he expresses it, had to return to +much worse gloom than before, being separated from +his lady without having the consolation of seeing Gori +once more. Mechanically he returned to Siena, to +Siena which it was impossible to conceive without his +friend Checco; but when he realised the empty house, +the empty town, he found the place he had so loved insupportable, +and went to spend his long solitary winter +writing, reading, translating, breaking in horses, leading +a slave's life to pass the weary time, at Pisa. In April +1785 Mme. d'Albany obtained permission to quit +Bologna, where she had spent the winter, and to go to +her sisters in France. In September she and her lover +met once more in the beloved country-house on the +Rhine. But again, in December, came another separation; +Mme. d'Albany went to Paris, and Alfieri remained +behind at Colmar.</p> + +<p>"Shall we then be again separated," he writes in a +sonnet, "by cruel and lying opinion, which blames us +for errors which the whole world commits every day? +Unhappy that I am! The more I love thee with true +and loyal love, the more must I ever refuse myself that +for which I am always longing: thy sweet sight, +beyond which I ask for nothing. But the vulgar +cannot understand this, and knows us but little, and +does not see that thy pure heart is the seat of virtue."</p> + +<p>Strange words, and which, coming from a man cynical +and truthful as Alfieri, may make us pause and refuse +to affirm that this strange love, platonic for seven long +years, ceased to be a mere passionate friendship even +when it resorted to the secrecy and deceptions of a mere +common intrigue; even when it openly braved, in the +semblance of marriage, the opinion of the world at +large. During those many months of solitude in the +villa at Colmar, with no other company than that of his +Sienese servant or secretary and of the horses, whose +news he carefully sent, in letters and sonnets, to the +Countess, Alfieri appears for the first time to have got +into a habit of excessive overwork, and to have had the +first serious attack of the gout; overwork and gout, +the two things which were to kill him. A six months' +stay in Paris, where society, the business of printing +his works, and the great distance of his lodgings from +the house of Mme. d'Albany, diminished his intellectual +work, kept him up for the moment. But in +the following summer of the year 1787, shortly after +he had returned to Colmar with the Countess, and had +welcomed as a guest Tommaso di Caluso, his greatest +friend since Gori's death, he suddenly broke down +under a terrific attack of dysentery. For many days, +reduced to a skeleton, ice cold even under burning +applications, and just sufficiently alive to feel in his +intensely proud and masculine nature the cruel degradation +of an illness which made him an object of +loathing to himself, Alfieri remained at death's door, +devotedly tended by his beloved and by his friend.</p> + +<p>"It grieved me dreadfully to think that I should die, +leaving my lady, and my friend, and that fame scarcely +rough hewn for which I had worked and frenzied +myself so terribly for more than ten years," writes +Alfieri; "for I felt very keenly that of all the writings +which I should leave behind me, not one was completed +and finished as it should have been had time been given +me to complete and to perfect according to my ideas. +On the other hand, it was a great consolation to know +that, if I must die, I should die a free man, and between +the two best beloved persons that I had, and whose +love and esteem I believed myself to possess and to +deserve."</p> + +<p>Alfieri recovered. But with that illness ends, I think, +the period of his youth, and of his genius, that is to +say, of that high-wrought and passionate austerity and +independence of character which was to him what +artistic endowment is to other writers; and with that +illness begins a premature old age, mental and moral, +decrepitude gradually showing itself in a kind of ossification +of the whole personality; the decrepitude which +corresponds, on the other side of a brief manhood of +comparative strength and health, to the morally inert +and sickly years of Alfieri's strange youth.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c13" id="c13"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h3> + +<h4>RUE DE BOURGOYNE.</h4> + +<p>Alfieri's mother, an old lady of extreme simplicity +of mind and gentleness of spirit, was still living at +Asti, cheerfully depriving herself of every luxury in +order to devote her fortune, as she devoted her +thoughts and her strength, to the services of the poor +and of the sick. Alfieri, who had left her as a boy, +and scarcely seen her except for a few hours at rare +intervals, looked up to her less with the affection of a +son than with the satisfaction of an artist who sees in +the woman of whom he is born the peculiar type of +features or character which he prizes most in womankind; +if he, for all his conscious weaknesses, was +more like his own heroes than any man of his acquaintance, +if Mme. d'Albany might be judiciously got up +as the Laura of his affections, the old Countess Alfieri +was even more unmistakably the mother who suited +his ideas, the living model of his mother of Virginia, +or his mother of Myrrha. To the Countess Alfieri he +had, already in 1784, introduced the Countess of +Albany, whom she invited to stay with her on her passage +through Asti as she returned from Colmar into Italy. +Mme. d'Albany found an excuse for not accepting +in the bad state of the roads, which rendered another +route than that of Asti preferable. Frank and indifferent +to the world's opinion as was Mme. d'Albany, +her originally cut and dry intellectual temper hardened +by many years' misery, one can conceive that +she should shrink from accepting the hospitality +of Alfieri's mother. Alfieri had doubtless shown her +his mother's letters, and from these letters, as reflected +in his answers, it is clear that the Countess of Albany, +returning from that first stay with her lover at Colmar, +would have felt that she was tacitly deceiving the +noble old lady under whose roof she was staying. For +the Countess Alfieri, noble, and Italian, and woman +of the eighteenth century though she was, seems to +have been one of those persons into whose mind, high +removed above all worldly concerns, no experience of +vice, of weakness, nay, of mere equivocal situations, +can enter. Whatever she may have seen or heard in +her youth of the habits of women of her century and +station, of the virtual divorce which, after a few years, +reigned in aristocratic houses, of authorised lovers and +socially accepted infidelity, seems to have passed out +of her memory and left her mind as innocent as it +may have been during her convent school-days. She +had taken great interest in this poor young woman, +maltreated by a drunken husband, and finally saved +from his clutches by the benevolence of the Grand +Duke of Tuscany and of a prince of the church, about +whom her son had written to her. That her son +experienced more than her own pity for so worthy an +object, that he was at all compromised in the fate of +this virtuous, unhappy lady, never entered her mind. +So little could she understand the muddy things of +this world, that in 1789, when Alfieri was publicly +living with Mme. d'Albany at Colmar, the Countess +Alfieri sent him, through his friend Caluso, the suggestion +of a match which she had greatly at heart, between +him and a young lady of Asti, "fifteen or sixteen +years old, without any faults, such as he would certainly +like, cultivated, docile, and clever." It is one +of the things which grate upon one most in Alfieri's +character, and which show that however much he might +be cast and have chiselled himself in antique heroic form +he was yet made of the same stuff as his contemporaries, +to find that he and his friend Caluso merely +amused themselves immensely at this proposal of marriage, +and concocted a dutiful letter to the old Countess +explaining that matrimony was not at present in his +plans. What would Madame Alfieri have thought +had she known the truth! It is very sad to think +how, in some cases, the very noblest and purest, just +because they are so completely noble and pure and +above all the base necessities of the world of passion, +must be unable to see, in the doings of others less +fortunate than themselves, those very elements of +nobility and purity which redeem the baser circumstances +of their lives. That Mme. d'Albany had loved +a man not her husband, had fled from her husband +and united her life to that of her lover, would be a +horror visible to the old Countess' eyes; the platonic +purity, the fidelity, the loyalty of this long and illegitimate +love, would have escaped her. No art is so cruelly +contemptuous of whatever of beauty and sweetness +imperfect reality may contain, as the art which is +able to attain an ideal perfection; and thus it is also +in matters of appreciation of man by man and woman +by woman. The Countess of Albany was apparently +more frank than Alfieri, because frank rather from +temperament than from pre-occupation about a given +ideal of conduct. That the mother of Alfieri should +understand so little seems to have worried her; and +when the unsuspecting old lady asked her sympathisingly +for news of Charles Edward, she wrote back as +follows: "As to my husband, he is better; but I must +confess to you, Madame, that I cannot take so lively +an interest in him as you suppose, for he made me, +during nine years, the most wretched woman that ever +lived. If I do not hate him it is a result of Christian +charity, and because we are desired to pardon. He +drags out a miserable life, abandoned by all the world, +without relatives or friends, given over to his servants; +but he has willed it thus, since he has never been able +to live with anyone. Forgive me, Madame, for having +entered into such details with you; but the friendship +which you have shown towards me obliges me to speak +sincerely." Mme. d'Albany, writing some time before +to condole about the death of Alfieri's half-brother, had +tried to insinuate to the old Countess what her son +was for her, and what position she herself might one +day assume in the Alfieri family: "I hope that if circumstances +change, you will not see a family die out +to which you are so attached, and that you will receive +the greatest consolation from M. le Comte Alfieri." +Words which could only mean that when the Pretender +died Mme. Alfieri might hope for a daughter-in-law +in the writer, and for grand-children through her. +But Madame Alfieri did not understand; imagining, +perhaps, that Mme. d'Albany was alluding to some +project of marriage of her friend M. le Comte Alfieri; +and the letter in which the ill-treated wife's aversion +to her husband was first openly revealed appears to +have acted as a thunder-clap, and to have, at least +momentarily, put an end to all correspondence.</p> + +<p>The Countess of Albany was mistaken in supposing +that Charles Edward would die in the arms of mere +servants. The very year after her own separation from +Alfieri, the Pretender had called to Florence the +natural daughter born to him by Miss Walkenshaw, +and whom he had left, apparently forgotten for twenty-five +years, in the convent at Meaux, where her mother +had taken refuge from his brutalities, even as Louise +d'Albany had taken refuge from them in the convent of +the Bianchette. Partly from a paternal feeling born +of the unexpected solitude in which his wife's flight +had left him; partly, doubtless, from a desire to spite +the Countess; he had solemnly, as King of England, +legitimated this daughter, and created her Duchess of +Albany: he had made incredible efforts, abandoning +drink, going into the world and keeping open house, +to attach this young woman to him, and to treat her +as well as he had treated his wife ill.</p> + +<p>Charlotte of Albany, a strong, lively, good-humoured, +big creature, devoted to gaiety, effectually reformed her +father in his last years, and turned him, from the brute +he had been, to a tolerably well-behaved old man. But +we must not therefore conclude that Charlotte was a +better woman, or a woman more desirous of doing her +duty, than Louise d'Albany. Between the two there +was an abyss: Charlotte had been sent for by a man +weary of solitude, smarting under the frightful punishment +brought upon his pride by the flight of his wife; +ready to do anything in order not to be alone and +despised by the world; a man broken by illness and +age, weak, hysterical, incapable almost of his former +excesses; and Charlotte was a woman of thirty, she +was a daughter, she was free to go where she would to +marry, and her father could buy her presence only at +the price of submission to her tastes and to her desires. +How different had it not been with Louise of Stolberg: +united to this man twelve years before, a mere child of +nineteen, given over to him as his wife, his chattel, his +property, to torment and lock up as he might torment +and lock up his dog or his horse; losing all influence +over him with every day which made her less of a +novelty and diminished the chance of an heir; and +sickened and alarmed more and more by the obstinate +jealousy and drunkenness and brutality of a man still in +the vigour of his odious passions. Still, the fact remains +that while Louise d'Albany was secretly or openly +making light of all social institutions, and living as the +mistress, almost the wife, of Alfieri; this insignificant +Charlotte, this bastard of a Miss Walkenshaw, this +woman who had probably never had an enthusiasm, or +an ideal, or a thought, had succeeded in reclaiming +whatever there remained of human in the degraded +Charles Edward; had succeeded in doing the world the +service of laying out at least with decency and decorum +this living corpse which had once contained the soul +of a hero, so that posterity might look upon it without +too much contempt and loathing, nay, almost, seeing it +so quiet and seemingly peaceful, with compassion and +reverence.</p> + +<p>And when, at the beginning of February 1788, the +Countess of Albany, in the full enjoyment of her love +for Alfieri, and of the pleasures of the most brilliant +Parisian society, received the news that on the last +day of January Charles Edward had passed away peacefully +in the arms of the Duchess Charlotte; and that +the drink-soiled broken body, from which she must so +often have recoiled in disgust and terror, had been laid +out, with the sad mock royalty of a gilt wooden sceptre +and pinchbeck crown, in state in the cathedral of Frascati; +when, I say, the news reached Paris, this woman, +so confident of having been in the right, and who had +written so frankly that if she did not hate her husband +it was from mere Christian charity and the duty of +forgiveness, felt herself smitten by an unexpected +grief.</p> + +<p>Alfieri, who witnessed it with astonishment, and to +whose cut-and-dry nature it must have seemed highly +mysterious, was, nevertheless, in a way overawed by +this sudden emotion at the death of the man who had +made both lovers so miserable. His appreciation, +difficult to so narrow a temper, of all that may move +our sympathy in that, to him, unintelligible grief, is, I +think, one of the facts in his life which brings this +strange, artificial, heroic, admirable, yet repulsive +character, most within reach of our affection; as that +same grief, so unexpected by herself, at what was after +all her final deliverance, is, together with the letter to +Alfieri's mother, telling of her hatred to Charles +Edward, and that exclamation in the hysterical love-letter +at Siena—"O God! how this degrades the soul!"—one +of the things which persuade us that this woman, +whom we shall see inconsistent, worldly, and cynical, +did really possess at bottom what her lover called "a +most upright and sincere and incomparable soul."</p> + +<p>"For the present," wrote Alfieri to his Sienese +friends on the occasion of Charles Edward's death, +"nothing will be altered in our mode of life." In +other words, the Countess of Albany and her lover, +established publicly beneath the same roof in Paris, +did not intend getting married. Whatever hopes may +have filled Mme. d'Albany's heart when, years +before, she had hinted to Alfieri's mother that when +certain circumstances changed, the Alfieri family +should be saved from extinction; whatever ideas +Alfieri had had in his mind when he prayed in +a sonnet for the happy day when he might call his +love holy; whatever intention of repairing the injury +done to social institutions, may at one time have +mingled with the lovers' remorse and the lovers' temptations,—had +now been completely forgotten. We have +seen how, more than once, love, however self-restrained, +had induced Alfieri to put aside all his Republican +sternness and truthfulness, and to cringe before people +whom he thoroughly despised; we cannot easily forget +that ignominious stroking of the Brutus poet's cheek by +Pope Pius VI. We shall now see how this peculiar sort +of Roman and stoical virtue, cultivated by Alfieri in himself +and in his beloved as the one admirable thing in the +world, a strange exotic in this eighteenth-century baseness, +had nevertheless withered in several of its branches, +beaten by the wind of illegitimate passion, and dried +up by the callousness of an immoral state of society: +an exotic, or rather a precocious moral variety, come +before its season, and bleached and warped like a +winter flower.</p> + +<p>Alfieri and the Countess did not get married, simply, +I think, because they did not care to get married; +because marriage would entail reorganisation of a mode +of life which had somehow organised itself; because it +would give a common-place prose solution to what +appeared a romantic and exceptional story; and finally +because it might necessitate certain losses in the way +of money, of comfort, and of rank.</p> + +<p>One sees throughout all his autobiography and letters +that Alfieri drew a sharp distinction between love and +marriage; that he conceived marriage as the act of a +man who sets up shop, so to say, in his native place, +goes in for having children, for being master in his +own house, administering and increasing his estates, and +generally devoting himself to the advancement of his +family. As such Alfieri, who was essentially a routinist, +respected and approved of marriage; and anything +different would have struck his martinet, rule and +compass, mind, as ridiculous and contemptible. In +giving up his fortune to his sister, Alfieri had deliberately +cut himself off from the possibility of such a marriage; +moreover, putting aside the financial question, his +notion of the liberty of a writer, who must be able to +speak freely against any government, was incompatible +with his notion of a father of a family, settled in dignity +in his ancestral palace; and finally, I feel perfectly +persuaded that in the mind of Alfieri, which saw things +only in sharpest black and white contrasts, there +existed a still more complete incompatibility between +a woman like the Countess of Albany, and a wife such +as he conceived a wife: to marry Mme. d'Albany +would be to degrade a poetical ideal into vulgar +domesticity, and at the same time to frightfully depart +from the normal type of matrimony, which required +that the man be absolute master, and not afflicted with +any sort of sentimental respect for his better half.</p> + +<p>According to Alfieri, there were two possibilities for +the ideal man: a handsome and highly respectable +marriage with a girl twenty years his junior, fresh +from the convent, provided with the right number of +heraldic quarterings, acres, diamonds, and domestic +virtues, and who would bear him, in deep awe for his +unapproachable superiority, five or six robust children; +and a romantic connexion with a married woman or a +widow, a woman all passion and intellect and aspiration, +with whom he should go through a course of +mutual soul improvement, who should be the sharer of +all his higher life, and whom he would diligently deck +out as a Beatrice or a Laura in the eyes of society.</p> + +<p>The Countess of Albany did not fit into the first +ideal; nor, for the matter of that, did Alfieri, poor, +expatriated, mad for independence, engrossed in literature, +fit into it himself; and both, as it happened, +fitted in perfectly to the second ideal possibility. To +get married with a view to turning into domestic +beings, would be a failure, a trouble, an interruption, +a desecration, and a bore; to get married merely to go +on as they were at present, would, in the eyes of +Alfieri, have been a profanation of the poetry of their +situation, a perfectly unnecessary piece of humbug.</p> + +<p>Such were, doubtless, Alfieri's views of the case. +Mme. d'Albany, on the other hand, had evidently +no vocation as a housewife or a mother; marriage +was full of disagreeable associations to her: a husband +might beat one, and a lover might not. She, probably, +also, guessed instinctively that to Alfieri a Laura must +always be a mere mistress, and a wife must always be +a mere Griselda; she knew his cut-and-dry views, his +frightful power of carrying theory into practice; she +may have guessed that the most respectful of lovers +would in his case make the most tyrannical of husbands. +But while Alfieri doubtless brought Mme. +d'Albany to share his abstract reasons, Mme. +d'Albany probably brought home to him her own +more practical ones. Alfieri, we must remember, +had been a man of excessive social vanity; and +much as he despised mankind, he certainly still +liked to enjoy its admiring consideration. Mme. +d'Albany, on the other hand, had been brought up in +the full worldliness of a canoness of Ste. Wandru, and +had grown accustomed to a certain amount of state +and of luxury; and these worldly tendencies, thrown +into the background by the passion, the poetry which +sprang up with the irresistible force of a pressed down +spring during her married misery, had returned to +her as years went on, and as passion cooled and poetry +diminished. Now marriage would probably involve a +great risk of a diminution of income, since the Pope +and the Court of France might easily refuse to support +Charles Edward's widow once she had ceased to +be a Stuart; and it must inevitably mean an end to a +quasi-regal mode of life to which the widow of the +Pretender could lay claim, but the wife of a Piedmontese +noble could not. It is one of the various +meannesses, committed quite unconsciously by Mme. +d'Albany, and apparently not censured by the people +of the eighteenth century, that, so far from being +anxious to shake off all vestiges of her hateful married +life, the Countess of Albany, on the contrary, seemed +determined to enjoy, so to speak, her money's worth; +to get whatever advantages had been bought at the +price of her marriage with Charles Edward. Mme. +d'Albany enjoyed being the widow of a kind of +sovereign. Rather easy-going and familiar by nature, +she nevertheless assumed towards strangers a certain +queenly haughtiness which frequently gave offence; +and Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who was introduced at her +house in 1788, found, to his surprise, that all the plate +belonging to Mme. d'Albany was engraved with the +royal arms of England; that guests were conducted +through an ante-room in which stood a royal throne +also emblazoned with the arms of England; nay, that +the servants had orders to address the lady of the +house by the title of a queen: a state of things whose +institution by a woman who affected nobility of sentiment +and who made no secret of her hatred of Charles +Edward, whose toleration by a man who scorned the +world and abhorred royalty, is one of those strange +anomalies which teach us the enormous advance in self-respect +and self-consistency due to social and democratic +progress, an improvement which separates in feeling +even the most mediocre and worldly men and women of +to-day from the most high-minded and eccentric men +and women of a century ago. To marry Alfieri would +mean, for the Countess of Albany, to risk part of her +fortune and to relinquish her royal state, as well as to +sink into a mere humdrum housewife. Hence, in +both parties concerned, a variety of reasons, contemptible +in our eyes, excellent in their own, against legitimating +their connection. And, on the other hand, +no corresponding inducement. Why should they get +married? The Countess, going in state every Sunday +to a convent where she was received with royal honours, +Alfieri writing to his mother that although he was not +regular at confession, he was yet provided with a most +austere and worthy spiritual director in case of need, +neither of them had the smallest belief in Christianity +nor in its sacraments. To please whom should they +marry, pray? To please religion? Why, they had none. +To please society? Why, society, in this Paris of the +year 1788, at least such aristocratic society as they +cared to see, consisted entirely either of devoted couples +of high-minded lovers each with a husband or wife somewhere +in the background, or of even more interesting +triangular arrangements of high-minded and devoted +wife, husband, and lover, all living together on charming +terms, and provided, in case of disagreement, each +with a <i>lettre de cachet</i> which should lock the other up +in the Bastille. A Queen of England by right divine, +keeping open house in company with a ferociously +republican Piedmontese poet, was indeed a new and +perhaps a questionable case; but the pre-revolutionary +society of Paris was too philosophical to be surprised +at anything; and, after very little hesitation, resorted +to the charming Albany-Alfieri hotel in the Rue de +Bourgoyne. Now, if the well-born and amusing people +in Paris did not insist upon Alfieri and the Countess +getting married, why should they go out of their way +to do so? We good people of the nineteenth century +should have liked them the better; but then, you see, +it was the peculiarity of the men and women of the +eighteenth century to be quite unable to conceive that +the men and women of the nineteenth century would +be in the least different from themselves.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c14" id="c14"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h3> + +<h4>BEFORE THE STORM.</h4> + +<p>The well-born and amusing people of the end of the +eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century +did not stickle at the question of the marriage. They +flocked to the hotel of the Rue de Bourgoyne, attracted +by the peculiar cosmopolitan charm, the very undeniable +talent for society, the extraordinary intellectual +superiority of Mme. d'Albany; attracted, also, by a +certain easy-going and half-motherly kindliness which +seems, to all those who wanted sympathy, to have been +quite irresistible. It was the moment of the great +fermentation, when even trifling things and trifling +people seemed to boil and seethe with importance; +when cold-hearted people were suddenly full of tenderness +and chivalry, selfish people full of generosity, +prosaic people full of poetry, and mediocre people full +of genius: the brief carnival-week of the old world, +when men and women masqueraded in all manner of +outlandish and antiquated thoughts and feelings, and +enjoyed the excitement of dressing-up so much that +they actually believed themselves for the moment to +be what they pretended: it was the brief moment, +grotesque and pathetic, when the doomed classes of +society, who were fatally going to be exterminated for +their long selfishness and indifference, enthusiastically +caught up pick-axe and shovel and tore down the bricks +of the edifice which was destined to fall and to crush +them all beneath its ruins.</p> + +<p>All these men and women, their deep in-born corruption +momentarily transfigured by this enthusiasm +for liberty, for equality, for sentiment, for austerity, +which mingled oddly with their childish pleasure in all +new things, in mesmerism, in America, in electricity, +in Montgolfier balloons, with their habitual pleasure in +all their big and small futile and wicked pleasures of +worldliness;—all these men and women, these <i>morituri</i> +delighted at the preparations, the scaffoldings, red +clothes, black crape, torches and drums and bugles, +for their own execution, all assembled at that hotel +of the Rue de Bourgoyne.</p> + +<p>A brilliant crowd of ministers and diplomatists, and +artists and pamphleteers, and wits and beautiful women; +perishable and perished things, out of which we must +select one or two, either as types of that which has +perished, or as types of the imperishable; and the +perished, the amiable and beautiful women, the amusing +and brilliantly-improvising orators and philosophers of +the half-hour, are often that which, could we have +chosen, we should have preserved. Most notable +among the women, the young daughter of Necker, the +wife of the Swedish ambassador, Mme. la Baronne de +Staël Holstein: a rather mannish superb sort of +creature, with shoulders and arms compensating for +thick swarthy features; eyes like volcanoes; the laugh +of the most kind-hearted of children; the stride, the +attitude, with her hands for ever behind the back, of an +unceremonious man; a young woman already accounted +a genius, and felt to be a moral force. Next to her a +snub, drab-coloured Livonian, with northern eyes +telling of future mysticism, that Mme. de Krüdener, +as yet noted only for the droll contrast of her enthusiasm +for St. Pierre and the simplicity of nature with her +quarterly bills of twenty thousand francs from Mdlle. +Bertin, the Queen's milliner; but later to be famous +for her literary and religious vagaries, her influence on +Mme. de Staël, her strange influence on Alexander of +Russia. Near her, doubtless, that fascinating Suard, +in the convent of whose sister Mme. de Krüdener was +wont to spend a month in religious exercises, thanking +God, at the foot of the altar, for giving her a sister +like Mdlle. Suard, and a lover like Suard himself. As +yet but little noticed, except as the pet friend, the +"younger sister" of Mme. d'Albany, a Mme. de +Flahault, later married to the Portuguese Souza; a +simple-natured little woman, adoring her children and +the roses in her garden, and who, if I may judge by the +letters which, many, many years later, she addressed to +Mme. d'Albany, would be the woman of all those one +would rather resuscitate for a friend, leaving Mmes. de +Staël and de Krüdener quiet in their coffins. Further +on, the delicate and charming Pauline de Beaumont, +who was to be the Egeria of Joubert and the tenderly-beloved +friend of Châteaubriand; and a host of women +notable in those days for wit or heart or looks, wherewith +to make a new Ballade of Dead Ladies, much +sadder than the one of Villon: "But where are the +snows of yester-year?"</p> + +<p>Round about these ladies an even greater number of +men of what were, or passed for, eminent qualities; +political for the most part, or busied with the new +science of economy, like the Trudaines; and most +notable among them, as the typical victim of genius of +the Reign of Terror, poor André Chénier, his exquisite +imitations of Theocritus still waiting to be sorted and +annotated in prison; and the typical blood-maniac of +genius, the painter David, who was to startle Mme. +d'Albany's guests, soon after the 10th August, by +wishing that the Fishwives had stuck Marie Antoinette's +head without more ado upon a pike. Imagine all these +people assembled in order to hear M. de Beaumarchais, +in the full glory of his millions and his wonderful +garden, give a first reading of his <i>Mère Coupable</i>, after +inviting them to prepare themselves to weep (which was +easy in those days of soft hearts) "<i>à plein canal</i>." Or +else listening to the cold and solemn M. de Condorcet, +prophesying the time when science shall have abolished +suffering and shall abolish death; little dreaming of +those days of wandering without food, of those nights +in the quarries of Montrouge, of that little bottle of +poison, the only thing that science could give to abolish +his suffering.</p> + +<p>To all these great and illustrious people the Countess +of Albany—I had almost said the Queen of England—introduced +her "incomparable friend" (style then in +vogue) Count Vittorio Alfieri; and all of them doubtless +took a great interest in him as her lover, and a +little interest in him as <i>the</i> great poet of Italy; not +certainly without wondering—amiable people as they +were, and persuaded that France and Paris alone +existed—that Mme. d'Albany should find anything to +love in this particularly rude and disagreeable man, +and that a country like Italy should have the impudence +to set up a poet of its own. The Countess of Albany, +made to be a leader of intellectual society, was happy; +but Alfieri was not. Ever since his childhood, when a +French dancing-master had vainly tried to unstiffen his +rigid person, he had mortally hated the French nation; +ever since his first boyish travels he had loathed Paris +as the sewer, the <i>cloaca maxima</i> (the expression is +his own) of the world; his whole life had been a +struggle with the French manners, the French language, +which had permeated Piedmont; one of the +chief merits of the new drama he had conceived was +(in his own eyes) to sweep Corneille, Racine, and +particularly Voltaire, his arch-aversion Voltaire, off +the stage.</p> + +<p>Alfieri, with his faults and his virtues, was specially +constructed, if I may use the expression, to ignore all +the good points, and to feel with hysterical sensitiveness +all the bad ones, of the French nation; and more +especially of the French nation of the pre-revolutionary +and revolutionary era. Alfieri's reality and Alfieri's +ideal were austerity, inflexibility, pride and contemptuousness +of character, coldness, roughness, decision +of manner, curtness, reticence, and absolute truthfulness +of speech; above all, no consideration for other +folks' likings and dislikings, no mercy for their foibles. +His ideal, even more so than the ideal of other idealising +minds, was the mere outcome of himself; it contained +his faults as well as his virtues. Now all that +fell short of, or went beyond, his ideal—that is to say, +himself—was abomination in Alfieri's eyes. Consequently +France and the French, all the nobility, the wit, +the sentiment, the warm-heartedness, the enthusiasm, +the wide-mindedness, the childishness, the frivolity, the +instability, the disrespectfulness, the sentimentality, +the high falutinism, the superficiality, the looseness of +principle, everything that made up the greatness and +littleness of the France of the end of last century, +everything which will make up the greatness and littleness +of France, the glories and weaknesses which the +world must love, to the end of time; all these things +were abhorrent to Alfieri; and Alfieri, when once he +disliked a person or a thing, justly or unjustly, could +only increase but never diminish his dislike. Let us +look at this matter, which is instructive to all persons +whose nobility of character runs to injustice, a little +closer; it will help us to understand the <i>Misogallo</i>, +the extraordinary apostasy which, quite unconsciously, +Alfieri was later to commit towards the +principle of freedom. Alfieri, intensely Italian, if +mediæval and peasant Italy may give us the Italian type, +in a certain silent or rather inarticulate violence of +temper—violence which roars and yells and stabs and +strangles, but which never talks, and much less argues—could +not endure the particular sort of excitement +which surrounded him in France; excitement mainly +cerebral, heroism or villainy resulting, but only as the +outcome of argument and definition of principle and +of that mixture of logic and rhetoric called by the +French <i>des mots</i>. Alfieri was not a reasoning mind, +he was not an eloquent man; above all, he was not a +witty man; his satirical efforts are so many blows upon +an opponent's head; they are almost physical brutalities; +there is nothing clever or funny about them. +In such a society as this Parisian society of the years +'87, '88, '89, '90, he must have been at a continual +disadvantage; and at a disadvantage which he felt +keenly, but which he felt, also, that any remarkable +piece of Alfierism which would have moved Italy to +admiration, such as glaring, or stalking off in silence, +or punching a man's head, could only increase. To +feel himself at a disadvantage on account of his very +virtues, and with people whom those virtues did not impress, +must have been most intolerable to a man as vain +and self-conscious as Alfieri, and to this was added the +sense that, from mere ignorance of the language (the +language whose nobility, as contrasted with the "low, +plebeian, nasal disgustingness" of French, he so often +descanted on) in which he wrote, it was quite impossible +for these people to be reduced to their right place +and right mind by the crushing superiority of his +dramatic genius. He, who hungered and thirsted +for glory, what glory could he hope <ins title="original lacks for">for</ins> among all these +monkeys of Frenchmen, jabbering and gesticulating +about their States-General, their Montgolfier, their St. +Pierre, their Condorcet, their Parny, their Necker, who +had not even the decent feeling to know Italian, and +who bowed and smiled and doubtless mixed him up +with Metastasio and Goldoni when introduced by the +Countess to so odd a piece of provincialism as an +Italian poet. "Does Monsieur write comedies or +tragedies?" One fancies one can hear the politely +indifferent question put with a charming smile by +some powdered and embroidered French wit to +Mme. d'Albany in Alfieri's hearing; nay, to Alfieri +himself.</p> + +<p>Mixed with such meaner, though unconscious motives +for dissatisfaction, must have been the sense, intolerable +to a man like Alfieri, of the horrid and grotesque +jumble of good and bad, of real and false, not merely +in the revolutionary movement itself, but in all these +men of the <i>ancien régime</i> who initiated it. Alfieri +conceived liberty from the purely antique, or, if you +prefer, pseudo-antique, point of view; it was to him +the final cause of the world; the aim of all struggles; +to be free was the one and only desideratum, to be +master of one's own thoughts, actions, and words, +merely for the sake of such mastery. The practical +advantages of liberty entirely escaped him, as did +the practical disadvantages of tyranny; nay, one can +almost imagine that had liberty involved absolute +misery for all men, and tyranny absolute happiness, +Alfieri would have chosen liberty. To this pseudo-Roman +and intensely patrician stoic, who had never +known privation or injustice towards himself, and +scarcely noticed it towards others, the humanitarian, +the philanthropic movement, characteristic of the +eighteenth century, and which was the strong impulse +of the revolution, was absolutely incomprehensible. +Alfieri was, in the sense of certain ancients, a hard-hearted +man, indifferent, blind and deaf to suffering. +That a man of education and mind, a gentleman, +should have to sweep the ground with his hat on the +passage of another man, because that other happened +to wear a ribbon and a star; that he should be liable +to exile, to imprisonment, for a truthful statement of +his opinion: these were to Alfieri the insupportable +things of tyranny. But that a man in wooden shoes +and a torn smock frock, sleeping between the pigs +and the cows on the damp clay floor, eating bread +mainly composed of straw, should have all the profits +of his hard labour taken from him in taxes, while +another man, a splendid gentleman covered over with +gold, riding over acres of his land with his hounds, +or a fat priest dressed in silk, snoozing over his +Lucullus dinner, should be exempt from taxation and +empowered to starve, rob, beat, or hang the peasant: +such a thing as this did not fall within the range of +Alfieri's feelings. To his mind, for ever wrapped in +an intellectual toga, there was no tragedy in mere +misery; there was no injustice in mere cruelty, or +rather misery, cruelty, nay, all their allied evils, +ignorance, brutality, sickness, superstition, vice, were +unknown to him. Hence, as I have said, all the +philanthropic side of the revolutionary movement was +lost to him; just as the defence of Labarre, the vindication +of Calas, never disturbed the current of his +contempt for Voltaire. So also the abolition of privileges, +the secularisation of church property, the +equalisation of legal punishment, the abrogation of +barbarous laws, the liberation of slaves; all these things, +which stirred even the most corrupt and apathetic +minds of the late eighteenth century, seemed merely +so much declamation to Alfieri. To him, who could +conceive no virtues beyond independent truthfulness, +such things were mere sentimental trash, mere hypocritical +nonsense beneath which base men hid their +baseness. And the baseness, unhappily, was there: +baseness of absolute corruption, or of scandalous +levity, even in the noblest. To Alfieri, a man like +Beaumarchais, for all his quick philanthropy, his +audacious outspokenness, must have seemed base, +with his background of money-jobbing, of dirty +diplomatic work, of legal squabbles. How much +more such a man as Mirabeau, with his heroic resolution, +his heroic kindliness, his whole Titan nature, +carous, eaten into by a hundred mean vices. That +Mirabeau should have gained his bread writing libels +and obscene novels, meant to Alfieri not that a +man born in corruption and tainted thereby had, by +the force of his genius, by the force of the great +humanitarian movement, raised himself as morally high +as he had hitherto grovelled morally low; it merely +meant that the immaculate name of hero was degraded +by a foul writer.</p> + +<p>From such figures as these Alfieri turned away in +indignant disgust. The great movement of the eighteenth +century seemed to him a mere stirring and +splashing in a noisome pool, in that <i>cloaca maxima</i>, as +he had called it.</p> + +<p>Already before settling in Paris in 1787, he had +written to his Sienese friends that, were it not for the +necessity of attending to the printing of his works (to +print which permission would not be obtainable in +Italy), he would rather have established himself at +Prats, at Colle, at Buonconvento, at any little town of +two thousand inhabitants near Florence or Siena. Surrounded +by, in daily contact with, some of the noblest +minds of the century, nay, of any century, by people +like Mme. de Staël, André Chénier, Condorcet, Mirabeau, +Alfieri could write, with a sort of bitter pleasure +at his own narrow-mindedness: "Now I am among a +million of men, and not one of them that is worth +Gori's little finger."</p> + +<p>I am almost prepared to say that Alfieri really felt +as if living in Paris, among such people and at such a +moment, was a sort of saintly sacrifice, the crowning +heroism of his life, which he made in order to print +his books; that he endured the contact of this plague-stricken +city, merely because he knew that unless he +corrected a certain number of manuscript pages, and +revised a certain number of proof-sheets, the world +would be defrauded of the great and sovereign antidote +to all such baseness as this in the shape of his own +complete works.</p> + +<p>Writing to his mother towards the end of the year +1788, he mentions contemptuously the excitement and +enthusiasm created by the approaching election of the +States-General, and adds calmly: "But all these sort +of things interest me very little; and I give my attention +only to the correction of my proofs, a piece of work +with which I am pretty well half through."</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c15" id="c15"></a>CHAPTER XV.</h3> + +<h4>ENGLAND.</h4> + +<p>The contradictions in complex and self-contradictory +characters like those of the Frenchmen of the early +revolution can be easily explained, and, say what we +will, must be easily pardoned: rich natures, creatures +of impulse, intensely sensitive to external influences, we +feel that it is to the very richness of nature, the warmth +of impulse, the susceptibility to influence, that we owe +not merely these men's virtues but their vices. But +the contradictions of the self-righteous are an afflicting +spectacle, over which we would fain draw the veil: +there is no room in a narrow nature for any flagrant +violation of its own ideals to be stuffed away unnoticed +in a corner. And now we come to one of the strangest +self-contradictions in the history of Mme. d'Albany, +that is to say, of her lord and master Alfieri.</p> + +<p>The revision and printing of Alfieri's works had been +brought to an end; but neither he nor the Countess +seems to have contemplated a return to Italy. The +fact was that they were both of them retained by +money matters. A proportion of Mme. d'Albany's +income consisted in the pension which she received +from the French Court; and the greater part of Alfieri's +income consisted in certain moneys made over to him +by his sister as the capital of his life pension, and +which he had invested in French funds.</p> + +<p>By the year 1791, the French Court and the French +funds had got to be very shaky; and those who +depended upon them did not dare go to any distance, +lest on their return they should find nothing to claim, +or no one to claim from. Hence the necessity for +Alfieri and the Countess to remain in France, or, at +least, hover about near it.</p> + +<p>Now, whether the unsettled state of French affairs +suggested to Mme. d'Albany, and through her to +Alfieri, that it would be wise to see what sort of home, +nay, perhaps, what sort of pecuniary assistance, might +be found elsewhere, I cannot tell; but this much is +certain, that on the 19th May, 1791, Horace Walpole +wrote as follows to Miss Barry:—</p> + +<p>"The Countess of Albany is not only in England, in +London, but at this very moment, I believe, in the +palace of St. James; not restored by as rapid a revolution +as the French, but, as was observed at supper at +Lady Mount Edgecumbe's, by that topsy-turvihood +that characterises the present age. Within these two +days the Pope has been burnt at Paris; Mme. du +Barry, mistress of Louis Quinze, has dined with the +Lord Mayor of London; and the Pretender's widow is +presented to the Queen of Great Britain."</p> + +<p>That we should have to learn so striking an episode +of the journey to England from the letters of a total +stranger, who noticed it as a mere piece of gossip, while +the memoirs of Alfieri, who accompanied Mme. d'Albany +to England, are perfectly silent on the subject, is, to +say the least of it, a suspicious circumstance.</p> + +<p>As he grew old, Alfieri seems to have lost that power, +nay that irresistible desire, of speaking the truth and +the whole truth which made him record with burning +shame the caress of Pius VI. Perhaps, on the other +hand, Alfieri, who, after all, was but a sorry mixture +of an ancient Roman and a man of the eighteenth +century, thought that a certain amount of baseness and +dirt-eating, quite degrading in a man, might be permitted +to a woman, even to the lady of his thoughts. +And still I cannot help thinking that Alfieri, who +could certainly, with his strong will, have prevented +the Countess from demeaning herself, and in so far +demeaning also his love for her, quietly abetted this +step, and then as quietly consigned it to oblivion.</p> + +<p>But oblivion did not depend upon registration, or +non-registration, in Alfieri's memoirs. The letters of +Walpole, the memoirs of Hannah More, the political +correspondence collected by Lord Stanhope, furnish +abundant detail of this affair. The Countess of Albany +was introduced by her relation, or connexion, the +young Countess of Aylesbury, and announced by her +maiden name of Princess of Stolberg. Horace Walpole's +informant, who stood close by, told him that she +was "well-dressed, and not at all embarrassed." George +III. and his sons talked a good deal to her, about her +passage, her stay in England, and similar matters; but +the princesses none of them said a word; and we hear +that Queen Charlotte "looked at her earnestly." The +strait-laced wife of George III. had probably consented +to receive the Pretender's widow, only because this +ceremony was a sort of second burial of Charles +Edward, a burial of all the claims, the pride of the +Stuarts; but she felt presumably no great cordiality +towards a woman who had run away from her husband, +who was travelling in England with her lover; and +who, while affecting royal state in her own house, +could crave the honour of being received by the family +of the usurper.</p> + +<p>Mme. d'Albany was not abashed: she seems to +have made up her mind to get all she could out of +royal friendliness. She accepted a seat in the King's +box at the opera; nay, she accepted a seat at the foot +of the throne ("the throne she might once have expected +to mount," remarks Hannah More), on the occasion of +the King's speech in the House of Lords. It was the +10th of June, the birthday of Prince Charlie; and the +woman who sat there so unconcernedly, kept a throne +with the British arms in her ante-room, and made her +servants address her as a Queen!</p> + +<p>What were Alfieri's feelings when Mme. d'Albany +came home in her Court toilette, and told him of all +these fine doings? The more we try to conceive +certain things, the more inconceivable they become: it +is like straining to see what may be hidden at the +bottom of a very deep well. In the case of Alfieri, I +think we may add that the well was empty. Since his +illness at Colmar, he had aged in the most extraordinary +way: the process of dessication and ossification of his +moral nerves and muscles, which, as I have said, was +the form that premature decrepitude took in this +abnormal man, had begun. The creative power was +extinct in him, both as regards his works and himself: +there was no possibility of anything new, of any +response of this wooden nature to new circumstances. +He had attained to the age of forty-two without any +particular feelings such as could fit into this present +case, and the result was that he probably had no +feelings. The Countess of Albany was the ideal woman +he had enshrined her as such ages ago, and an ideal +woman could not change, could not commit an impropriety, +least of all in his eyes. If she had condescended +to ridiculous meanness in order to secure +for herself an opening in English society, a subsidy +from the English Government (apparently already +suggested at that time, but granted only many years +later) in case of a general break-up of French things; if +she had done this, it was no concern of Alfieri: Mme. +d'Albany had been patented as the ideal woman. As +to him, why should he condescend to think about state +receptions, galas, pensions, kings and queens, and +similar low things? He had put such vanities behind +him long ago.</p> + +<p>Alfieri and the Countess made a tour through +England, and projected a tour through Scotland. +Whether the climate, the manners, the aspect of +England and its inhabitants really disappointed the +perhaps ideal notions she had formed; or whether, +perhaps, she was a little bit put out of sorts by no +pension being granted, and by a possible coldness of +British matrons towards a widow travelling about with +an Italian poet, it is not for me to decide. But her +impressions of England, as recorded in a note-book +now at the Musée Fabre at Montpellier, are certainly +not those of a person who has received a good +welcome:</p> + +<p>"Although I knew," she says, repeating the stale +platitudes (or perhaps the true impressions?) of all +foreigners, "that the English were melancholy, I had +not imagined that life in their capital would be so to +the point which I experienced it. No sort of society, +and a quantity of crowds … As they spend nine +months in the country—the family alone, or with only +a very few friends—they like, when they come to town, +to throw themselves into the vortex. Women are +never at home. The whole early part of the day, +which begins at two (for, going to bed at four in the +morning, they rise only at mid-day), is spent in visits +and exercise, for the English require, and their climate +absolutely necessitates, a great deal of exercise. The +coal smoke, the constant absence of sunshine, the +heavy food and drink, make movement a necessity to +them…. If England had an oppressive Government, +this country and its inhabitants would be the +lowest in the universe: a bad climate, bad soil, hence +no sort of taste; it is only the excellence of the +political constitution which renders it inhabitable. +The nation is melancholy, without any imagination, +even without wit; the dominant characteristic is a +desire for money."</p> + +<p>The same note as that even of such a man as Taine. +The almost morbid love of beauty which a civilisation, +whose outward expression are the lines and lines of black +boxes, with slits for doors and windows of Bloomsbury, +produced in men like Coleridge, Blake, and Turner, +naturally escaped Mme. d'Albany; but the second +great rebellion of imagination and love of beauty, +the rebellion led by Madox Brown and Morris, and +Rossetti and Burne Jones, escaped Taine. But of +all the things which most offended this quasi-Queen of +England in our civilisation, the social arrangements did +so most of all. With the instinct of a woman who +has lived a by no means regular life in the midst of a +society far worse than herself, with the instinct of one +of those strange pseudo-French Continental mongrels +with whom age always brings cynicism, she tries to +account for the virtue of Englishwomen by accidental, +and often rather nasty, necessities. Mme. d'Albany +writes with the freedom and precision of a Continental +woman of the world of eighty years ago; and her +remarks lose too much or gain too much by translation +into our chaster language. "The charm of intimate +society," she winds up, conscious of the charms of her +own little salon full of clever men and pretty women +all well-acquainted with each other—"the charm of +intimate society is unknown in England."</p> + +<p>In short, the sooner England be quitted, the better. +Political, or rather financial circumstances—that is to +say, the frightful worthlessness of French money (and +Alfieri's and her money came mainly from France), +made a return to Paris urgent.</p> + +<p>An incident, as curious perhaps as that of Mme. +d'Albany's presentation at Court, but which, unlike +that, Alfieri has not thought fit to suppress, marked +their departure from England. As Alfieri, who had +preceded the Countess by a few minutes to see whether +the luggage had been properly stored on the ship at +Dover, turned to go and meet her, his eyes suddenly +fell with a start of recognition upon a woman standing +on the landing-place. She was not young, but still +very handsome, as some of us may know her from +Gainsborough's portrait; and she was no other than +Penelope Lady Ligonier, for whom Alfieri had been so +mad twenty years before, for whom he had fought his +famous duel in St. James' Park, and got himself disgracefully +mixed up in a peculiarly disgraceful divorce +suit. He had several times inquired after her, and +always in vain; and now he would scarcely have +believed his eyes had his former mistress not given him +a smile of recognition. Alfieri was terribly upset. +The sight of this ghost from out of a disgraceful past, +coming to haunt what he considered a dignified +present, seems fairly to have terrified him; he ran +back into the ship and dared not go to meet Mme. +d'Albany, lest in so doing he should meet Lady +Ligonier. Presently, Mme. d'Albany came on board. +With the indifference of a woman of the world, of that +easy-goingness which was rapidly effacing in her the +romantic victim of Charles Edward, she told Alfieri +that the friends who had escorted her to the ship (and +who appear to have perfectly understood the temper of +the Countess) had pointed out his former flame and +entertained her with a brief biography of her predecessor +in Alfieri's heart. Mme. d'Albany took it all as +a matter of course: she was probably no longer at all +in love with Alfieri, but she admired his genius and +character as much and more than ever; and was +probably beginning to develop a certain good-natured, +half-motherly acquiescence in his eccentricities, such as +women who have suffered much, and grown stout and +strong, and cynically optimistic now that suffering is +over, are apt to develop towards people accustomed to +resort to them, like sick children, in all their ups and +downs of temper.</p> + +<p>"Between us," says Alfieri, "there was never any +falsehood, or reticence, or coolness, or quarrel";—and, +indeed, when a woman, such as Mme. d'Albany must +have been at the age of forty, has once determined to +adore and humour a particular individual in every +single possible thing, all such painful results of more +sensitive passion naturally become unnecessary. If +Mme. d'Albany merely smiled over bygone follies, +Alfieri had been put into great agitation by the sight of +Lady Ligonier. From Calais he sent her a letter, of +which no copy has been preserved, but which, according +to his account, "was full, not indeed of love, but of a +deep and sincere emotion at seeing her still leading +a wandering life very unsuited to her birth and position; +and of pain in thinking that I, although innocently +(that "although innocently," on the part of a man +who had been the cause of her scandalous downfall, is +perfectly charming in its simple revelation of Continental +morals), might have been the cause or the +pretext thereof."</p> + +<p>Lady Ligonier's answer came to hand in Brussels. +Written in bad French, it answered Alfieri's tragic +grandiloquence with a cold civility, which shows how +deeply his magnanimous compassion had wounded a +woman who felt herself to be no more really corrupt +than he.</p> + +<p>"Monsieur," so runs the letter, "you could not +doubt that the expression of your remembrance of me, +and of the interest which you kindly take in my lot, +would be duly appreciated and received gratefully by +me; the more especially as I cannot consider you as +the cause of my unhappiness, since I am not unhappy, +although the uprightness of your soul makes you fear +that I am. You were, on the contrary, the agent of +my liberation from a world for which I was in no way +suited, and which I have not for a moment regretted…. I +am in the enjoyment of perfect health, increased +by liberty and peace of mind. I seek the society only +of simple and virtuous persons without pretensions +either to particular genius or to particular learning; +and besides such society I entertain myself with books, +drawing, music, &c. But what constitutes the basis of +real happiness and satisfaction is the friendship and +unalterable love of a brother whom I have always +loved more than the whole world, and who possesses +the best of hearts." "I hear," goes on Lady Ligonier, +after a few compliments on Alfieri's literary fame, +"that you are attached to the Princess with whom you +are travelling, whose amiable and clever physiognomy +seems indeed formed for the happiness of a soul as +sensitive and delicate as yours. I am also told that +she is afraid of you: I recognise you there. Without +wishing, or perhaps even knowing it, you have an irresistible +ascendancy over all who are attached to you."</p> + +<p>Was it this disrespectful hint concerning what he +wished the world to consider as his ideal love for Mme. +d'Albany, or was it Lady Ligonier's determination to +let him know that desertion by him had made her +neither more disreputable nor more unhappy than +before, I cannot tell; but certain it is that something +in this letter appears to have put Alfieri, who had not +objected to Mme. d'Albany's mean behaviour towards +George III., into a condition of ruffled virtue and +dignity.</p> + +<p>"I copy this letter," he writes in his memoirs, "in +order to give an idea of this woman's eccentric and +obstinately evilly-inclined character."</p> + +<p>Did it never occur to Alfieri that his own character, +whose faults during youth he so keenly appreciated, +was not improving with years?</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c16" id="c16"></a>CHAPTER XVI.</h3> + +<h4>THE MISOGALLO.</h4> + + +<p>Alfieri and Madame d'Albany were scarcely back in +Paris, and settled in a new house, when the disorders +in Paris and the movements of the Imperial troops on +the frontier began to make the situation of foreigners +difficult and dangerous. The storming of the Tuileries, +the great slaughter of the 10th August 1792, admonished +them to sacrifice everything to their safety. +With considerable difficulty a passport for the Countess +had been obtained from the Swedish Minister, one for +Alfieri from the Venetian Resident (almost the only +diplomatic representatives, says Alfieri, who still +remained to that ghost of a king), and a passport for +each of them and for each of their servants from +their communal section. Departure was fixed for the +20th August, but Alfieri's black presentiments hastened +it to the 18th. Arrived at the Barrière Blanche, on +the road to Calais, passports were examined by two or +three soldiers of the National Guard, and the gates +were on the point of being opened to let the two +heavily-loaded carriages pass, when suddenly, from +out of a neighbouring pot-house, rushed some twenty-five +or thirty ruffians, ragged, drunken, and furious. +They surrounded the carriages, yelling that all the +rich were running away and leaving them to starve +without work; and a crowd rapidly formed round them +and the National Guards, who wanted the travellers to +be permitted to pass on. Alfieri jumps out of the +carriage, brandishing his seven passports, and throws +himself, a long, lean, red-haired man, fiercely gesticulating +and yelling at the top of his voice, among the +crowd, forcing this man and that to read the passports, +crying frantically, "Look! Listen! Name Alfieri. +Italian and not French! Tall, thin, pale, red-haired; +that is I; look at me. I have my passport! We +have our passports all in order from the proper +authorities! We want to pass; and, by God! we will +pass!"</p> + +<p>After half an hour of this altercation, with voices +issuing from the crowd, "Burn the carriages!" "Throw +stones at them!" "They are running away, they are +noble and rich; take them to the Hotel de Ville to be +judged!" at last Alfieri's vociferations and gesticulations +wearied even the Paris mob, the crowd became +quieter, the National Guards gave the sign for departure, +and Alfieri, jumping into the carriage where +Mme. d'Albany was sitting more dead than alive, +shouted to the postillions to gallop off.</p> + +<p>At a country house near Mons, belonging to the +Countess of Albany's sister, the fugitives received the +frightful news of the September massacres; of those +men and women driven, like beasts into an arena, +down the prison-stairs into the prison yard, to fall, +hacked to pieces by the bayonets and sabres and pikes +of Maillard's amateur executioners, on to the blood-soaked +mattresses, while the people of Paris, morally +divided on separate benches, the gentlemen here, the +ladies there, sat and looked on; of those men and +women many had frequented the salon of the Rue de +Bourgoyne, had chatted and laughed, only a few weeks +back, with Alfieri and the Countess; amongst those +men and women Alfieri and the Countess might themselves +easily have been, had the ruffians of the Barrière +Blanche dragged them back to their house, where an +order to arrest Mme. d'Albany arrived two days later, +that very 20th August which had originally been +fixed for their departure. The thought of this narrow +escape turned the recollection of that scene at the +Barrière Blanche into a perfect nightmare, which +focussed, so to speak, all the frenzied horror conceived +by Alfieri for the French Revolution, for the "Tiger-Apes" +of France.</p> + +<p>By November Alfieri and Mme. d'Albany were in +Florence, safe; but established in a miserable inn, +without their furniture, their horses, their books; all +left in Paris; nay, almost without the necessary clothes, +and with very little money. From the dirty inn they +migrated into rather unseemly furnished lodgings, and +finally, after some debating about Siena and inquiring +whether a house might not be had there on the promenade +of the Lizza, they settled down in the house, one +of a number formerly belonging to the Gianfigliazzi +family, on the Lung Arno, close to the Ponte Santa +Trinita, in Florence. The situation is one of the most +delightful in Florence: across the narrow quay the +windows look almost sheer down into the river, sparkling +with a hundred facets in the spring and summer +sunlight, cut by the deep shadows of the old bridges, +to where it is lost to sight between the tall poplars by +the Greve mouth and the ilexes and elms of the Cascine, +closed in by the pale blue peaks of the Carrara Alps; +or else, in autumn and winter, scarcely moving, +a mass of dark-greens and browns, wonderfully veined, +like some strange oriental jasper, with transparent +violet streakings, and above which arise, veiled, half +washed out by mist, the old corbelled houses, the +church-steeples and roofs, the tiers and tiers of pine and +ilex plumes on the hill opposite.</p> + +<p>For a moment, with the full luminousness of the +Tuscan sky once more in his eyes, and the guttural +strength of the Tuscan language once more in his ears, +Alfieri seems to have been delighted. But his cheerfulness +was not of long duration. Ever since his great +illness at Colmar, Alfieri had, I feel persuaded, +become virtually an old man; his strength and spirits +were impaired, and the strange morose depression of +his half-fructified youth seemed to return. Coming at +that moment, the disappointment, the terror, the horror +of the French Revolution became, so to speak, part of +a moral illness which lasted to his death. Alfieri was +not a tender-hearted nor a humane man; had he been, +he would have felt more sympathy than he did with the +beginning of the great movement, with the strivings +after reform which preceded it; he had, on the contrary, +the sort of cold continuous rage, the ruthless +self-righteousness and cut-and-dryness which would +have made him, had he been a Frenchman, a terrorist +of the most dreadful type; a regular routinist in extermination +of corrupt people. Hence I cannot believe +that, much as he may have been shocked by the news +of the September massacres, of the <i>grandes fournées</i> +which preceded Thermidor, and much as he may have +been distressed by Mme. d'Albany's anxiety and grief +for so many friends who lost their property or life, +Alfieri was the man to be driven mad by the mere +thought of bloodshed. But Alfieri had, ever since his +earliest youth, made liberty his goddess, and the +worship of liberty his special religion and mission. +That such a religion and mission, to which he had +devoted himself in a time and country when and where +no one else dreamed of anything of the sort, should +suddenly become, and without the smallest agency of +his, the religion and mission of the very nation and +people whom he instinctively abhorred from the depths +of his soul; that liberty, which he alone was to teach +men to desire, should be the fashionable craze, mixed +up with science, philanthropy, sentiment, and everything +he hated most in the French, this was already a +pain that gnawed silently into Alfieri's soul. But when +liberty was, as it were, dragged out of his own +little private temple, where he adored and hymned it, +decked out in patrician dignity of Plutarch and Livy, +and carried about, dressed in the garb of a Paris fish-wife, +a red cotton night-cap on her head, by a tattered, +filthy, drunken, blood-stained crew of <i>sansculottes</i>, +nay, worse, rolled along on a triumphal car by an +assembly of lawyers and doctors and ex-priests and +journalists—when liberty, which had been to him +antique and aristocratic, became modern and democratic; +when the whole of France had turned into a +blood-reeking and streaming temple of this Moloch +goddess, then a sort of moral abscess, long growing +unnoticed, seemed to burst within Alfieri's soul, and +a process of slow moral blood-poisoning to begin.</p> + +<p>The Reign of Terror came to an end, the reaction of +Thermidor set in; but this was nothing to Alfieri, for, +whereas the unspeakable profanation of what was his +own personal and quasi-private property, liberty, had +hitherto been limited to France, it now spread, a +frightful invading abomination, with the armies of the +Directory all over the world; nay, to Italy itself.</p> + +<p>It was as an expression, an eternal, immortal expression, +the severest conceivable retribution, Alfieri +sincerely thought, of this rage, all the stronger as there +entered into it the petty personal vanity as well as +the noble abstract feeling of the man—it was as an expression +of this gallophobia that Alfieri composed his +famous but little-read <i>Misogallo</i>. This collection of +prose arguments and vituperations and versified epigrams, +all larded and loaded with quotations from all +the Latin and Greek authors whom Alfieri was busy +spelling out, does certainly contain many things which, +old as they are, strike even us with the force of living +contempt and indignation. Nay, even including its +most stupid and dullest violent parts, we can sympathise +with its bitterness and violence, when we think +of the frightful deeds of blood which, talking heroically +of justice and liberty, France had been committing; +of the miserable series of petty rapines and +extortions which, talking patronisingly of the Greeks +and Romans, the French nation was practising upon +the Italians whom it had come to liberate. That such +feeling should be elicited was natural enough. But +we feel, as we turn over the pages of the <i>Misogallo</i>, +and collate with its epigrams a certain passage in +Alfieri's memoirs and letters, that when we meet it +in this particular man, in this hard, savage, narrow, +pedantic doctrinaire, whose very magnanimity is vanity +and egotism, we can no longer sympathise with the +hatred of the French, which in juster and more modest +men, as for instance Carlo Botta, invariably elicits our +sympathy. Much as we dislike the republican French +who descended into Italy, the <i>Misogallo</i> makes us like +Alfieri even less. Whether this revolution, despite the +oceans of blood which it shed, might not be bringing +a great and lasting benefit to mankind by sweeping +away the hundred and one obstacles which impeded +social progress; whether this French invasion, despite +the money which it extorted, the statues and pictures +which it stole, the miserable high-flown lies which it +told, might not be doing Italy a great service in accustoming +it to modern institutions, in training it to warfare, +in ridding it of a brood of inept little tyrants: +such questions did not occur to Alfieri, for whom +liberty meant everything, progress and improvement +nothing. As the century drew to a close, and the +futility of so many vaunted reforms, the hollowness of +so many promises, became apparent to the Italians +with the shameful treaty which gave Venice, liberated +of her oligarchy, to Austria, all the nobler men of +the day, Pindemonti, Botta, Foscolo, and the crowds of +nameless patriotic youths who filled the universities, +were seized by a terrible soul-sickness; everything +seemed to have given way, each course was as bad as +the other, and Italy seemed destined to servitude and +indignity, whether under her new masters the French, +or under her old masters the Austrians and Bourbons +and priests. But the feelings of Alfieri were not of +this kind; he was not torn by patriotism; he was +simply pushed into sympathy with the tyrannies which +he had so hated by the intolerable pain of finding that +the liberty which he had preached was being propagandised +by the nation and the class of society which he +detested most.</p> + +<p>Such Alfieri appears to me, and such I think he +must appear to everyone who conscientiously studies +the extraordinary manner in which this apostle of +liberty came to preach in favour of despotism. But in +his own eyes, and in the eyes of the Countess of Albany, +Alfieri doubtless found abundant arguments to prove +himself perfectly logical and magnanimous. This +French Revolution was merely a revolt of slaves; and +what tyranny could be more odious than the tyranny +of those whom nature had fitted only for slavery? +What are the French? "The French," answers one +of the epigrams of the <i>Misogallo</i>, "have always been +puppets; formerly puppets in powder, now stinking +and blood-stained puppets." "We indeed are slaves," +says another epigram, "but at least indignant slaves" +(a statement which the whole history of Italy in the +nineties goes to disprove); "not, as you Gauls always +have been and always will be, slaves applauding power +whatever it be." The nasal and guttural pronunciation +of the French language, the bare existence of such +a word as <i>quatrain</i>, is enough to prove to Alfieri that +the French can never know true liberty. Alfieri, who +had looked the <i>ancien régime</i> more than once in the +face, actually persuaded himself that, as he writes, +"the frightful French mob robbed and slaughtered the +upper classes because those upper classes had always +treated it too kindly." Alfieri actually got to believe +these things. He would, had power been put in his +hands, have headed a counter revolution and exterminated +as many people again as the republicans had +exterminated. Power not being in his hands, he +hastened to do what seemed to him a vital matter to +all Europe, a sort of fatal thrust to France; he +solemnly recanted all his former writings in favour of +revolutions and republics. He, who had witnessed the +taking of the Bastille and sung it in an ode, deliberately +wrote as follows: "The famous day of the 14th +July 1789 crowned the victorious iniquity (of the +people). Not understanding at that time the nature +of these slaves, I dishonoured my pen by writing an +ode on the taking of the Bastille." Surely, if we +admit that to see liberty degraded by its association +with revolutionary horrors must have been unbearably +bitter to the nobler portion of Alfieri's nature, +we must admit that to see Alfieri himself, Alfieri so +proud of his former ferocious love of liberty, turned +into a mere ranting renegade, is an unendurable +spectacle also; we should like to wash our hands of +him as he tried to wash his hands of the Revolution.</p> + +<p>All this political atrabiliousness did not improve +Alfieri's temper; and could not have made it easier or +more agreeable to live with him. The Countess of +Albany naturally disliked the Revolution and the +French, after all the grief and inconvenience which +she owed them; she naturally, also, disliked everything +that Alfieri disliked. Still, I cannot help fancying +that this woman, far more intellectual than passionate, +and growing more indifferent, more easy-going, more +half-optimistically, half-cynically charitable towards +the world with every year that saw her grow fat, and +plain, and dowdy,—I cannot help fancying that the +Countess of Albany must have got to listen to Alfieri's +misogallic furies much as she might have listened to +his groans had he been afflicted with gout or the toothache, +sympathising with the pain, but just a little +weary of its expression. She must also, at times, +have compared the little company of select provincial +notabilities, illustrious people never known beyond +their town and their lifetime, which she collected +about herself and Alfieri in the house by the Arno, +with the brilliant society which had assembled in her +hotel in Paris. To her, who was, after all, not Italian, +but French by education and temper, and who had +been steeped anew in French ideas and habits, this +small fry of Italian literature, professional and pedantic, +able to discuss and (alas! but too able) to hold +forth, but absolutely unable to talk, to <i>causer</i> in the +French sense, must have become rather oppressive. +She and Alfieri were both growing elderly, and the +hearth by which they were seated, alone, childless, +with nothing but the ghost of their former passion, +the ghost of their former ideal, to keep them company, +was on the whole very bleak and cheerless. Alfieri, +working off his over-excitement in a system of tremendous +self-education, sitting for the greater part of the +day poring over Latin and Greek and Hebrew grammars, +and exercises and annotated editions, till he was +so exhausted that he could scarcely digest his dinner; +the Countess killing the endless days reading new +books of philosophy, of poetry, of fiction, anything +and everything that came to hand, writing piles and +piles of letters to every person of her acquaintance; +this double existence of bored and overworked dreariness, +was this the equivalent of marriage? was this +the realisation of ideal love?</p> + +<p>But there were things to confirm Mme. d'Albany +in that easy-going indifferentism which replaced passion +and suffering in this fat, kindly, intellectual +woman of forty; things which, as they might have +made other women weep, probably made this woman +do what in its way was just as sad—smile.</p> + +<p>Alfieri had always had what, to us, may seem very +strange notions on the subject of love, but which were +not strange when we consider the times and nation +in general, and the man in particular. After the +various love manias which preceded his meeting with +Mme. d'Albany, he had determined, as he tells us, +to save his peace of mind and dignity by refusing to +fall in love with women of respectable position. The +Countess of Albany, by enchaining him in the bonds +of what he called "worthy love," had saved him from +any chance of fresh follies with these alarming "virtuous +women." But follies with women of less respectable +position and less obvious virtue appear to have +presented no fear of degradation to Alfieri's mind. +And now, late on in the nineties, when Mme. +d'Albany was rapidly growing plain and stout and +elderly, and he was getting into the systematic habit of +regarding her less in her reality than in the ideal +image which he had arranged in his mind; now, when +he was writing the autobiography where the Countess +figured as his Beatrice, and when he was composing the +Latin epitaphs which were to unite his tomb with that +of the woman "a Victorio Alferio, ultra resomnia +dilecta," just at this time Alfieri appears to have +returned to those flirtations with women neither +respectable nor virtuous which seemed to him so +morally safe to indulge in. A very strange note, preserved +at Siena, to a "Nina padrona mia dilettissima," +shows that the memory of Gori and the friendship +of Gori's friends were not the only things which +attracted him ever and anon from Florence to Siena. +A collection of wretched bouts-rimés and burlesque +doggrel, written at Florence in a house which Mme. +d'Albany could not enter, and in the company of +women whom Mme. d'Albany could not receive, and +among which is a sonnet in which Alfieri explains his +condescension in joining in these poetical exercises +of the demi-monde by an allusion to Hercules and +Omphale, shows that Alfieri frequented in Florence +other society besides that which crowded round his +lady in Casa Gianfigliazzi.</p> + +<p>Mme. d'Albany was far too shrewd and far too worldly +not to see all this; and Alfieri was far too open and +cynical to attempt to hide it. Mme. d'Albany, having +her praises and his love read to her in innumerable +sonnets, in the autobiography and in the epitaphs, +probably merely smiled; she was a woman of the +eighteenth century, a foreigner, an easy-going woman, +and had learned to consider such escapades as these +as an inevitable part of matrimony or quasi-matrimony. +But, for all her worldly philosophy, did she never feel +a vague craving, a void, as she sat in that big empty +house reading her books while Alfieri was studying his +Greek, a vague desire to have what consoles other +women for coldness or infidelity, a son or a daughter, +a normal object of devotion, something besides Alfieri, +and which she could love whether deserving or not; +something besides Alfieri's glory, in which she could +take an interest whether other people did or did not +agree? Such a connection as hers with Alfieri may +have had an attraction of romance, of poetry, connected +with its very illegitimacy, its very negation of +normal domestic life, as long as both she and Alfieri +were young and passionately in love; but where was +the romance, the poetry now, and where was the humdrum +married woman's happiness, at whose expense +that romance, that poetry, had been bought?</p> + +<p>Mme. d'Albany, if I may judge by the enormous +piles of her letters which I have myself seen, and by +the report of my friend Signor Mario Pratesi, who +has examined another huge collection for my benefit, +was getting to make herself a sort of half-vegetating +intellectual life, reading so many hours a day, writing +letters so many more hours; taking the quite unenthusiastic, +business-like interest in literature and +politics of a woman whose life is very empty, and, it +seems to me, from the tone of her letters, growing +daily more indifferent to life, more desultory, +more cynical, more misanthropic and tittle-tattling. +And Alfieri, meanwhile, was growing more unsociable, +more misanthropic, more violent in temper, hanging +a printed card stating that he wished no visits (one +such is preserved in the library at Florence) in the +hall, pursuing and flogging street-boys because they +splashed his stockings by playing in the puddles; +insulting Ginguené and General Miollis when they +attempted to be civil; groaning over the victories of +the French, rejoicing over the brutal massacres by the +priest-hounded Tuscan populace; going to Florence +(when they were spending the summer in a villa) for +the pleasure of seeing the Austrian troops enter, and +of witnessing (as Gino Capponi records) the French +prisoners or Frenchly-inclined Florentines being pilloried +and tortured by the anti-revolutionary mob. +Besides such demonstrations of an unamiable disposition +as these, working with the fury of an alchemist, +and, perhaps, taking a holiday at that house where +the doggrel verses were written. The Countess of +Albany, who had been so horribly unhappy with her +legitimate husband, must have been rather dreary of +soul with her world-authorised lover.</p> + +<p>It was at this moment, as she sat, an idle, desultory, +neither happy nor unhappy woman, rapidly growing +old, watching the century draw to a close amid chaos +and misery,—it was at this moment that an eccentric +English prelate, Lord Bristol, Bishop of Derry, introduced +at the house on the Lung Arno a friend of his, +a French painter, a former pupil of David, and who +had won the <i>Prix de Rome</i>, by name François Xavier +Fabre. M. Fabre was French, but he was a royalist; +he hated the Revolution; he had settled in Italy; +and, in consideration of this, he was tolerated by +Alfieri. To Mme. d'Albany, on the other hand, the +fact of Fabre being French must secretly have been a +great recommendation. French in language, habits, +mode of thought, French in heart, cut off, as it seemed, +for ever from Paris and Parisian society, cooped up +among this pedantic small fry of Florentines, listening +all day to Alfieri's tirades against the French +nation, the French reforms, the French philosophy, +the French language, the French everything, the poor +woman must have heartily enjoyed an hour's chat in +good French with a real Frenchman, a Frenchman +who, for all Alfieri might say, was really French; she +must have enjoyed talking about his work, his pictures, +about everything and anything that was not Alfieri's +Greek, or Alfieri's Hebrew, or Alfieri's tragedies, or +comedies or satires. Alfieri was a great genius and a +great man; and she loved, or imagined she loved, +Alfieri like her very soul. But still—still, it was +somehow a relief when young Fabre, with his regular +south-of-France face, his rather mocking and cynical +French expression, his easy French talk, came to give her +a painting lesson while Alfieri was pacing up and down +translating Homer and Pindar with the help of a +lexicon.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c17" id="c17"></a>CHAPTER XVII.</h3> + +<h4>CASA GIANFIGLIAZZI.</h4> + + +<p>Thus things jogged on. Occasionally a grand performance +of one of Alfieri's plays enlivened the house +on the Lung Arno. A room was filled with chairs, +arranged with curtains, and a select company invited +to see the poet (for by this respectful title he appears +always to have been mentioned) play Saul or Creon, +to his own admiration, but apparently less so to that +of his guests. Occasionally, also, Alfieri and Mme. +d'Albany would go for a few days to Siena to enjoy the +conversation of a little knot of friends of their dead +friend Gori; a certain Cavaliere Bianchi, a certain +Canon Ansano Luti, a certain Alessandro Cerretani, +and one or two others, who met in the house of a +charming and intellectual woman, Teresa Regoli, +daughter of a Sienese shopkeeper, married to another +shopkeeper, called Mocenni, and who was one of Mme. +d'Albany's most intimate friends. Occasionally, also, +some of these would come for a jaunt to Florence, +when Alfieri and the Countess moved heaven and earth +(recollecting their own aversion to husbands) that the +<i>Grumbler</i>, as Signor Mocenni was familiarly called, +should be left behind, and <i>la chère</i> Thérèse come +accompanied (in characteristic Italian eighteenth-century +fashion) only by her children and by her +<i>cavaliere servente</i>, Mario Bianchi. These were the +small excitements in this curious double life of more +than married routine. Alfieri, who, as he was getting +old and weak in health, was growing only the more +furiously active and rigidly disciplinarian, had determined +to learn Greek, to read all the great Greek +authors; and worked away with terrific ardour at this +school-boy work, crowning his efforts with a self-constituted +Order of Homer, of which he himself was +the sole founder and sole member. He was, also, +having finally despatched the sacramental number of +tragedies, working at an equally sacramental number +of satires and comedies, absolutely unconscious of his +complete deficiency in both these styles, and persuaded +that he owed it to his nation to set them on the right +road in comedy and satire, as he had set them on the +right road in tragedy.</p> + +<p>A ridiculous man! Not so. I have spoken many +hard words against Alfieri; and I repeat that he seems +to me to have often fallen short, betrayed by his +century, his vanity, his narrowness and hardness of +temper, even of the ideal which he had set up for +himself. But I would not have it supposed that I do +not see the greatness of that ideal, and the nobleness +of the reality out of which it arose. That Alfieri, a +strange mixture of the passionate man of spontaneous +action, and of the self-manipulating, idealising <i>poseur</i>, +should have fallen short of his own ideals, is perhaps +the one pathetic circumstance of his life; the one dash +of suffering and failure which makes this heroic man a +hero. Alfieri did not probably suspect wherein he fell +short of his own ideal; he did not, could not see that +his faults were narrowness of nature, and incompleteness, +meanness of conception, for, if he had, he would +have ceased to be narrow and ceased to be mean. But +Alfieri knew that there was something very wrong +about himself, he felt a deficiency, a jar in his own +soul; he felt, as he describes in the famous sonnet at +the back of Fabre's portrait of him, that he did not +know whether he was noble or base, whether he was +Achilles or Thersites.</p> + +<p>"<i>Uom, sei tu grande o vile? Mori, il saprai.</i>" +("Man, art thou noble or base? Die, and thou shalt +know it.") Thus wrote Alfieri, making, as usual, fame +the arbiter of his worth; and showing, even in the +moment of seeking for truth about himself, how utterly +and hopelessly impossible it was for him to feel it. +Mean and great; both, I think, at once. But of the +meanness, the narrowness of nature, the want of +resonance of fibre, the insufficiency of moral vitality in +so many things; of Alfieri's vanity, intolerance, injustice, +indifference, hardness; of all these peculiarities +which make the real man repulsive, the ideal man +unattractive, to us, I have said more than enough, +and when we have said all this, Alfieri still remains, +for all his vanity, selfishness, meanness, narrow-mindedness, +a man of grander proportions, of finer +materials, nay, even of nobler moral shape, than the +vast majority of men superior to him in all these +points. Let us look at him in those last decaying +years, at those studies which have seemed to us +absurd: self-important, pedantic, almost monomaniac; +or brooding over those feelings which were, doubtless, +selfish, morbid; let us look at him, for, despite all his +faults, he is fine. Fine in indomitable energy, in +irrepressible passion. Alfieri was fifty; he was tormented +by gout; his health was rapidly sinking; but +the sense of weakness only made him more resolute to +finish the work which (however mistakenly) he thought +it his duty to leave completed; more determined that, +having lived for so many years a dunce, he would go +down to the grave cleansed of the stain of ignorance, +having read and appreciated as much of the great +writers of antiquity as any man who had had a well-trained +youth, a studious manhood. Soon after his +great illness (which, I believe, changed him so much +for the worse by hastening premature old age) at +Colmar, he had written to his friends at Siena that he +had very nearly been made a fool of by Death; but +that, having escaped, he intended, by hurrying his work, +to make a fool of Death instead. And in 1801 he +wrote in his memorandum-book: "Health giving way +year by year; whence, hurrying to finish my six +comedies, I make it decidedly worse."</p> + +<p>Soon after, as Mme. d'Albany later informed his +friend Caluso, Alfieri, finding that his digestion had +become so bad as to produce inability to work after +meals, began systematically to diminish his already +extremely sober allowance of food; while, at the same +time, he did not diminish the exercise, walking, riding, +and driving, which he found necessary to keep himself +in spirits. Knowing that death could not be far +ahead, and accustomed since his youth to think that +his life ought not to extend over sixty years, Alfieri +was calmly and deliberately walking to meet Death.</p> + +<p>Calmly and deliberately; but not heartlessly. +Engrossed in his studies, devoted to his own glory as he +was, he was still full of a kind of mental passion for +Mme. d'Albany. He was unfaithful to her for the +sake of low women, he was neglectful of her for the +sake of his work; he did not, perhaps, receive much +pleasure from this stout, plain, prosaic lady (like one +of Rubens's women grown old, as Lamartine later +described her) whom he left to her letter-writing, her +reading of Kant, of La Harpe, of Shakespeare, of +Lessing; to her painting lessons, and long discussions +on art with Monsieur Fabre. The woman whose presence, +no longer exciting, was doubtless a matter of +indifference to him. But, nevertheless, it seems to me +probable that Alfieri never wrote more completely +from his heart than when, composing the epitaph of +the Countess, he said of Mme. d'Albany that she had +been loved by him more than anything on earth, and +held almost as a mortal divinity. "A Victorio Alferio … ultra +res omnes dilecta, et quasi mortale numen ab +ipso constanter habita et observata." For a thought +begins about the year 1796 to recur throughout +Alfieri's letters and sonnets, and whenever he mentions +the Countess in his autobiography; a thought too +terrible not to be genuine: he or his beloved must die +first; one or the other must have the horror of remaining +alone, widowed of all interest on earth. How +constantly this idea haunted him, and with what painful +vividness, is apparent from a letter which I shall +translate almost <i>in extenso</i>; as, together with those +few words which I have quoted about Gori's death, it +shows the passionate tenderness that was hidden, like +some aromatic herb beneath the Alpine snow, under +the harsh exterior of Alfieri.</p> + +<p>The letter is to Mme. Teresa Mocenni at Siena, and +relates to the death of Mario Bianchi, who had long +been her devoted <i>cavaliere servente</i>. "Your letter," +writes Alfieri, "breaks my heart. I feel the +complete horror of a situation which it gives me the +shivers merely to think may be my situation one day or +other; and oh! how much worse would it not be for +me, living alone, isolated from everyone, closed up in +myself. O God! I hope I may not be the survivor, +and yet how can I wish that my better self (<i>la parte +migliore di me stesso</i>) should endure a situation which +I myself could never have the courage to endure? +These are frightful things. I think about them very +often, and sometimes I write some bad rhymes about +them to ease my mind; but I never can get accustomed +either to the thought of remaining alone, nor +to that of leaving my lady." "Some opinions," he +goes on—and this hankering after Christianity on the +part of a man who had lived in eighteenth-century +disbelief seems to bear out what Mme. d'Albany told +the late Gino Capponi, that had Alfieri lived much longer +he would have died telling his rosary,—"some opinions +are more useful and give more satisfaction than others +to a well-constituted heart. Thus, it does our affection +much more good to believe that our Mario +(Bianchi) is united to Candido (another dead friend) +and to Gori, that they are talking and thinking about +us, and that we shall meet them all some day, than to +believe that they are all of them reduced to a handful +of ashes. If such a belief as the first is repugnant to +physics and to mathematical evidence, it is not, therefore, +to be despised. The principal advantage and +honour of mankind is that it can feel, and science +teaches us how not to feel. Long live, therefore, +ignorance and poetry, and let us accept the imaginary +as the true. Man subsists upon love; love makes him +a god: for I call <i>God</i> an intensely felt love, and I call +dogs, or French, which comes to the same, the frozen +philosophisers who are moved only by the fact that +two and two make four."</p> + +<p>Alfieri's secret desire that he might not survive his +beloved was fulfilled sooner, perhaps, than he expected. +The eccentric figure, the tall, gaunt man, thin and +pale as a ghost, with flying red hair and flying scarlet +cloak, driving the well-known phaeton, or sauntering +moodily along the Lung Arno and through the Boboli +gardens, was soon to be seen no more. As the year +1803 wore on he felt himself hard pressed by the gout; +he ate less and less, he took an enormous amount of +foot exercise; he worked madly at his memoirs, his +comedies, his translations, he felt almost constantly +fatigued and depressed. On the 3rd October 1803, +after his usual morning's work, he went out for a +drive in his phaeton; but a strange and excessive +cold, despite the still summer weather, forced him to +alight and to try and warm himself by walking. Walking +brought on violent internal pains, and he returned +home with the fever on him. The next day he rose +and dressed, but he was unable to eat or work, and fell +into a long drowse; the next day after that he again +tried to take a walk, but returned with frightful +pains. He refused to go to bed except at night, and +tore off the mustard plaisters which the doctors had +placed on his feet, lest the blisters should prevent his +walking; dying, he would still not be a sick man. +The night of the 8th he was unable to sleep, and talked +a great deal to the Countess, seated by his bedside, +about his work, and repeated part of Hesiod in Greek +to her. Accustomed for months to the idea of +death, he does not seem to have guessed that it was +near at hand. But the news that he was dying spread +through Florence. A Piedmontese lady—strangely +enough a niece of that Marchesa de Prié opposite to +whose windows Alfieri had renewed the device of +Ulysses and the sirens by being tied to a chair—hastened +to a learned and eccentric priest, a Padre +Canovai, entreating him to run and offer the dying +poet the consolations of religion. Canovai, knowing +that both Alfieri and Mme. d'Albany were unbelievers, +stoutly refused; but later on, seized with remorse, he +hurried to the house on the Lung Arno. Admitted +into the sick room, he came just in time to see Alfieri, +who had got up during a momentary absence of Mme. +d'Albany, rise from his arm-chair, lean against his +bed, and, without agony or effort, unconscious "like +a bird," says the Countess, give up the ghost. It was +between nine and ten of the morning of the 9th +October 1803. Vittorio Alfieri was in his fifty-fifth +year.</p> + +<p>The Abate di Caluso, the greatest friend he had, +after Gori, was summoned from Turin to console +the Countess and put all papers in order. Alfieri's +will, made out in 1799, left all his books and MSS., +and whatever small property he possessed, to the +Countess Louise d'Albany, leaving her to dispose of +them entirely according to her good pleasure. Among +these papers was found a short letter, undated, addressed +"To the friend I have left behind, Tommaso +di Caluso, at Turin," and which ran as follows:—</p> + +<p>"As I may any day give way beneath the very serious +malady which is consuming me, I have thought it +wise to prepare these few lines in order that they may +be given to you as a proof that you have always, to +my last moment, been present to my mind and very +dear to my heart. The person whom above everything +in the world I have most respected and loved, may +some day tell you all the circumstances of my illness. +I supplicate and conjure you to do your best to see +and console her, and to concert with her the various +measures which I have begged her to carry out with +regard to my writings.</p> + +<p>"I will not give you more pain, at present, by saying +any more. I have known in you one of the most +rare men in every respect. I die loving and esteeming +you, and valuing myself for your friendship if I +have deserved it. Farewell, farewell."</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c18" id="c18"></a>CHAPTER XVIII.</h3> + +<h4>FABRE.</h4> + +<p>"Happiness has disappeared out of the world for me," +wrote Mme. d'Albany, in January 1804, to her old +friend Canon Luti, at Siena. "I take interest in +nothing; the world might be completely upset without +my noticing it. I read a little, and reading is the +only thing which gives me any courage, a merely +artificial courage; for when I return to my own +thoughts and think of all that I have lost, I burst into +tears and call Death to my assistance, but Death will +not come. O God! what a misfortune to lose a +person whom one adores and venerates at the same +time. I think that if I still had Thérèse (Mme. +Mocenni) it would be some consolation; but there is +no consolation for me. I have the strength to hide +my feelings before the world, for no one could conceive +my misfortune who has not felt it. A twenty-six +years' friendship with so perfect a being, and then +to see him taken away from me at the very age when I +required him most."</p> + +<p>Alfieri a perfect being—a being adored and +venerated by Mme. d'Albany! One cannot help, in +reading these words, smiling sadly at the strange magic +by which Death metamorphoses those whom he has +taken in the eyes of the survivors; at the strange +potions by means of which he makes love spring up in +the hearts where it has ceased to exist, saving us from +hypocrisy by making us really feel what is false to our +nature, enabling us to lie to ourselves instead of lying +to others. The Countess of Albany's grief was certainly +most sincere; long after all direct references to +Alfieri have ceased in her correspondence (I am speaking +principally of that with her intimates at Siena), +there reigns throughout her letters a depression, an +indifference to everything, which shows that the world +had indeed become empty in her eyes. But though +the grief was sincere, I greatly question whether the +love was so. Alfieri had become, in his later years, +the incarnation of dreary violence; he could not have +been much to anyone's feelings; and Mme. d'Albany's +engrossment in her readings, in political news and +town gossip, even with her most intimate correspondents, +shows that Alfieri played but a very small +part in her colourless life. So small a part, that one +may say, without fear of injustice, that Mme. d'Albany +had pretty well ceased to love him at all; for had she +loved him, would she have been as indifferent, as +serene as she appears in all her letters, while the man +she loved was killing himself as certainly as if he were +taking daily doses of a slow poison? Love is vigilant, +love is full of fears, and Mme. d'Albany was so little +vigilant, so little troubled by fears, that when this +visibly dying man, this man who had prepared his +epitaph, who had settled all his literary affairs, who +had written the farewell letter to his friend, actually +died, she would seem to have been thunder-stricken +not merely by grief, but by amazement.</p> + +<p>The Countess of Albany was not a selfish woman; +she had, apparently without complaining, sacrificed +her social tastes, made herself an old woman before +her time, in acquiescence to Alfieri's misanthropic and +routinist self-engrossment; she had been satisfied, or +thought herself satisfied, with the cold, ceremonious +adoration of a man who divided his time between his +studies, his horses, and his intrigues with other women; +but unselfish natures are often unselfish from their very +thinness and coldness. Alfieri, heaven knows, had +been selfish and self-engrossed; but, perhaps because +he was selfish and self-engrossed, because he was +always listening to his own ideas, and nursing his own +feelings, Alfieri had been passionate and loving; and, +as we have seen, while he seemed growing daily more +fossilised, while he was at once engrossed with his own +schemes of literary glory, and indifferently amusing +himself by infidelities to his lady, he was then, even +then, constantly haunted by the thought that, unless +he himself were left behind in the terrors of widowhood, +the Countess of Albany would have to suffer those +pangs which he felt that he himself could never +endure.</p> + +<p>Alfieri saw the Countess through the medium of his +own character, and he proved mistaken. Perhaps the +most terrible ironical retribution which could have +fallen upon his strange egomania, would have been, +had such a thing been possible, the revelation of how +gratuitous had been that terrible vision of Mme. +d'Albany's life after his death; the revelation of how +little difference, after the first great grief, his loss had +made in her life; the revelation that, unnoticed, unconsciously, +a successor had been prepared for him.</p> + +<p>In a very melancholy letter, dated May 31, 1804, in +which Mme. d'Albany expatiates to her friend Canon +Luti upon the uselessness of her life, and her desire to +end it, I find this unobtrusive little sentence: "Fabre +desires his compliments to you. He has been a great +resource to me in everything."</p> + +<p>This sentence, I think, explains what to the enemies +of Mme. d'Albany has been a delightful scandal, and +to her admirers a melancholy mystery; explains, +reduces to mere very simple, conceivable, neither commendable +nor shameful every-day prose, the fact that +little by little the place left vacant by Alfieri was filled +by another man. Italian writers, inheriting from +Giordani, even from Foscolo, a certain animosity +against a woman who, as soon as Alfieri was dead, +became once more what nature had made her, half +French, with a great preference for French and French +things—Italian writers, I say, have tried to turn the +Fabre episode into something extremely disgraceful to +Mme. d'Albany. Massimo d'Azeglio, partly out of +hatred to the Countess, who was rather severe and +acrimonious upon his youthful free-and-easiness, partly +out of a desire to amuse his readers, has introduced +into his autobiography an anecdote told him by +Mme. de Prié (the niece of Alfieri's famous Turin +mistress, and the lady who took it upon herself to send +him a priest without consulting the Countess), to the +effect that she had watched Fabre making eyes, kissing +his fingers, and generally exchanging signals with +Mme. d'Albany at a party where Alfieri was present. +Let those who are amused by this piece of gossip +believe it implicitly; it does not appear to me either +amusing, or credible, or creditable to the man who +retailed it. The Florentine society of the early years +of this century was, if we may trust the keen observation +of Stendhal, almost as naïvely and openly profligate +as that of a South Sea Island village; and such a +society, which could talk of the things and in the way +which it did, which could permit certain poetical compositions +(found highly characteristic by Stendhal) to +be publicly performed before the ladies and gentlemen +celebrated therein, such a society naturally enjoyed +and believed a story like that retailed by d'Azeglio. +But surely we may put it behind us, we who are not +Florentines of the year 1800, and who can actually +conceive that a woman who had exchanged irreproachable +submission to a drunken husband, for legally +unsanctioned, but open and faithful attachment for a +man like Alfieri, might at the age of fifty take a liking +to a man of thirty-five without that liking requiring a +disgusting explanation. The clean explanation seems +so much simpler and more consonant. Fabre had +become an intimate of the house during Alfieri's last +years. He was French, he was a painter; two high +recommendations to Mme. d'Albany. He was, if we +may trust Paul Louis Courier, who made him the hero +of a famous imaginary dialogue, clever with a peculiarly +French sort of cleverness; he gave the Countess lessons +in painting while Alfieri was poring over his work. The +sudden death of Alfieri would bring Fabre into still +closer relations with Mme. d'Albany, as a friend of the +deceased, the brother of his physician, and the virtual +fellow-countryman of the Countess; he would naturally +be called upon to help in a hundred and one melancholy +arrangements: he received visitors, answered +letters, gave orders; he probably laid Alfieri in his +coffin. When all the bustle incident upon death had +subsided, Fabre would remain Mme. d'Albany's most +constant visitor. He, who had seen Alfieri at the very +last, might be admitted when the door was closed to +all others; he could help to sort the dead man's +papers; he could, in his artistic capacity, discuss the +plans for Alfieri's monument, write to Canova, correspond +with the dignitaries of Santa Croce, and so forth; +come in contact with the Countess in those manifold +pieces of business, in those long conversations, which +seem, for a time, to keep the dead one still in the +company of the living. There is nothing difficult to +understand or shameful to relate in all this; and the +friends of the Countess, delicate-minded women like +Mme. de Souza, puritanic-minded men like Sismondi, +misanthropic or scoffing people like Foscolo or Paul +Louis Courier, found nothing at which to take +umbrage, nothing to rage or laugh at, in this long +intimacy between a woman over fifty and a man +many years her junior; a man who lived at the +other end of Florence, who (if I may trust traditions +yet alive) was supposed to be attached to a woman well +known to Mme. d'Albany; nor have we, I think, any +right to be less charitable than they.</p> + +<p>Louise d'Albany, careless, like most women of her +day, of social institutions, and particularly hostile to +marriage, was certainly not an impure woman; her +whole life goes to prove this. But Louise d'Albany +was an indifferent woman, and the extinction of all +youthful passion and enthusiasm, the friction of a +cynical world, made her daily more indifferent. She +had been faithful to Alfieri, devotedly enduring one +of the most unendurable of companions, loving and +admiring him while he was still alive. But once the +pressure of that strong personality removed, the image +of Alfieri appears to have been obliterated little by +little from the soft wax of her character. She +continued, nay instituted, a sort of cultus of Alfieri; +became, as his beloved, the priestess presiding over +what had once been his house, and was now his temple. +The house on the Lung Arno remained the Casa +Alfieri; the rooms which he had inhabited were kept +carefully untouched; his books and papers were +elaborated and preserved as he had left them; his +portraits were everywhere, and visitors, like Foscolo, +Courier, Sismondi, and the young Lamartine, were +expected to inquire respectfully into the legend +of the divinity, to ask to see his relics, as the +visitors of a shrine might be expected to enquire +into the legend, to ask to see the relics, of some +great saint. Mme. d'Albany conscientiously devoted a +portion of her time to seeing that Alfieri's works were +properly published, and that Alfieri's tomb in Santa +Croce was properly executed. She was, as I have said, +the priestess, the divinely selected priestess, of the +divinity. But at the same time Mme. d'Albany +gradually settled down quite comfortably and happily +without Alfieri. After the first great grief was over +a sense of relief may have arisen, a sense that after +all "'tis an ill wind that blows no good"; that if she +had lost Alfieri she had gained a degree of liberty, of +independence, that she had acquired a possibility of +being herself with all her tastes, the very existence +of which she had forgotten while living under the +shadow of that strange and disagreeable great man. +A negative sense of compensation, of pleasure in the +foreign society to which she could now devote herself; +of satisfaction in the miniature copy of her former +Parisian salon which she could arrange in her Florentine +house; of comfort in a gently bustling, unconcerned, +cheerful old age; negative feelings which, +perhaps as a result of their very repression, seem +little by little to have turned to a positive feeling, a +positive aversion for the past which she refused to +regret, a positive dislike to the memory of the man +whom she could no longer love. Horrible things to +say; yet, I fear, true. A man such as Alfieri had permitted +himself to become, admirable in many respects, +but intolerant, hard, arrogant, selfish, self-engrossed, +cannot really be loved; he may be endured as a result +of long habit, he may inflict his personality without +effort upon another; but in order that this be the case +that other must be singularly apathetic, indifferent, +malleable; and apathetic, indifferent, and malleable +people, those who never resist the living individual, +rarely remember the dead one. "She was," +writes one of the most conscientious and respectful +of men, the late Gino Capponi, "heavy in feature +and form, and, if I may say so, her mind, like her +body, was thick-set…. Since several years she had +ceased to love Alfieri."</p> + +<p>We cannot be indignant with her; she had never +pretended to be what she was not. A highly intellectual, +literary mind, a pure temperament, a passive, rather +characterless character, taking the impress of its surroundings; +passionate when Alfieri was passionate, +depressed when Alfieri was depressed; cheerful when +Alfieri's successors, Fabre and mankind and womankind +in general, were cheerful. To be angry with +such a woman would be ridiculous; but, little as we +may feel attached to the memory of Alfieri, we cannot +help saying to ourselves, "Thank Heaven he never +understood what she was; thank Heaven he never +foresaw what she would be!"</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c19" id="c19"></a>CHAPTER XIX.</h3> + +<h4>SALON OF THE COUNTESS.</h4> + + +<p>A shadowy being, nay, a shadow cast in the unmistakable +shape of another, so long as Alfieri was alive, +the Countess of Albany seems to gain consistency +and form, to become a substantive person, only +after Alfieri's death. This woman, whom, in the last +ten years, we have seen consorting almost exclusively +with Italians, and spending the greater proportion of +her days in solitary reading of Condillac, Lock, Kant, +Mme. de Genlis, Lessing, Milton, everything and anything; +whose letters, exclusively (as far as I know +them) to Italians of the middle classes, are full of +fury against everything that is French; this woman, +who has hitherto been a feeble replica of Alfieri, suddenly +turns into an extremely sociable, chatty woman +of the world, and a woman of the world who is, to +all intents and purposes, French.</p> + +<p>To be the rallying point of a very cosmopolitan, +literary, but by no means unworldly society, seems +suddenly to have become Mme. d'Albany's mission; +and reading the letters copied from the Montpellier +Archives, and published by M. Saint René Taillandier, +one wonders how this friend of Mme. de Staël, of Sismondi, +of Mme. de Souza, this hostess of Moore, of +Lamartine, of Lady Morgan, of every sort of French, +English, German, Russian, or polyglot creature of +distinction that travelled through Italy in the early +part of this century, could ever have been the beloved +of Alfieri, the misanthropic correspondent of a lot of +Sienese professors, priests, and shop-keepers.</p> + +<p>The fact was that Mme. d'Albany could now +become, so to speak, what she really was; or, at +least, show herself to be such. Worldly wise and a +trifle cynical she had always been; in the midst of the +pages of literary review and political newspaper constituting +her letters to Mme. Mocenni, Canon Luti +and Alessandro Cerretani of Siena, there is a good +deal of mere personal gossip, stories of married +women's lovers, married men's mistresses, domestic +bickerings, &c., interspersed with very plain-spoken +and (according to our ideas) slightly demoralised +moralisings. It is evident that this was not a woman +to shrink from the reality of things, to take the world +in disgust, to expect too much of her acquaintances. +On the other hand these letters of the Alfieri period +show Mme. d'Albany to have been decidedly a good-natured +and friendly woman. She has the gift of +getting people to trust her with their little annoyances +and grievances; she is constantly administering +sympathy to Mme. Mocenni for the tiresomeness +and stupidity and harshness of her husband; she keeps +up a long correspondence, recommending books, correcting +French exercises, exhorting to study and to +virtue (particularly to abstinence from gambling), +encouraging, helping Mme. Mocenni's boy Vittorio. +She is clearly a woman who enjoys hearing about other +folk's concerns, enjoys taking an interest in them, +sympathising and, if possible, assisting them.</p> + +<p>These two qualities, a dose of cynical worldliness, +sufficient to prevent all squeamishness and that coldness +and harshness which springs from expecting people to +be better than they are, and a dose of kindliness, helpfulness, +pleasure in knowing the affairs and feelings +and troubles of others; these two qualities are, I should +think, the essentials for a woman who would keep a +salon in the old sense of the word, who would be the +centre of a large but decidedly select society, the friend +and correspondent of many and various people possessed +of more genius or more character than herself. Such +a woman, thanks to her easy-going knowledge of the +world, and to her cordial curiosity and helpfulness, +is the friend of the most hostile people; and she is so +completely satisfied with, and interested in, the particular +person with whom she is talking or to whom +she is writing, that that particular person really believes +himself or herself to be her chief friend, and overlooks +the scores of other chief friends, viewed with +exactly the same degree of interest, and treated with +the same degree of cordiality all round. The world +is apt to like such women, as such women like it, +and to say of them that there must be an immense +richness of character, an extraordinary power of bringing +out the best qualities of every individual, in a +woman who can drive such complicated teams of +friends. But is it not more probable that the secret +of such success is poverty of personality rather than +richness; and that so many people receive a share of +friendship, of sympathy, of comprehension, because +each receives only very little; because the universal +friend is too obtuse to mind anybody's faults, and too +obtuse, also, to mind anybody's great virtues? In short, +do not such women pay people merely in the paper +money of attention, which can be multiplied at +pleasure, rather than in the gold coin of sympathy, of +which the supply is extremely small?</p> + +<p>Be this as it may, Mme. d'Albany, after having +been, in the earlier period of her life, essentially the +woman who had one friend, who let the wax of her +nature be stamped in one clear die, became, in the +twenty years which separate the death of Alfieri from +her own, pre-eminently the woman with many friends, +a blurred personality in which we recognise traces of +the mental effigy of many and various people. Mme. +d'Albany was, therefore, in superficial sympathy with +nearly everyone, and in deep antagonism with no one: +she was the ideal of the woman who keeps a literary +and political salon. At that time especially, when +Italy was visited only by people of a certain social +standing, society was carried on by a most complicated +system of letters of introduction, and everyone of any +note brought a letter to Mme. d'Albany. "<i>La grande +lanterne magique passe tout par votre salon</i>," wrote +Sismondi to the Countess; and the metaphor could +not be truer. Writers and artists, beautiful women, +diplomatists, journalists, pedants, men of science, +women of fashion, Châteaubriand and Mme. de Staël, +Lamartine and Paul Louis Courier, Mme. Récamier +and the Duchess of Devonshire, Canova and Foscolo, +and Sismondi and Werner, the whole intellectual +world of the Empire and the Restoration, all seem to +be projected, figures now flitting past like shadows, now +dwelling long, clear and coloured, upon the rather colourless +and patternless background of Mme. d'Albany's +house; nay, of Mme. d'Albany herself. Such readers +as may wish to have all these figures, remembered or +forgotten, pointed out to them, called by their right +names and titles, treated with the perfect impartiality of +a <i>valet de place</i> expounding monuments, or of a chamberlain +announcing the guests at a <i>levée</i>, may refer to the +two volumes of Baron Alfred von Reumont; and such +readers (and I hope they are more numerous) as may +wish to examine some of the nobler and more interesting +of these projected shadows of men and women, +may read with pleasure and profit the letters of Sismondi, +Bonstetten, Mme. de Souza and Mme. de +Staël to the Countess of Albany, and the interesting +pages of criticism in which they have been imbedded +by M. St.-René Taillandier. With regard to myself, +I feel that the time and space which have been given me +in order to analyse or reconstruct the curious type and +curious individual called Louise d'Albany are both +nearly exhausted; and I can therefore select to dwell +upon, of these many magic-lantern men and women, +of these friends of the Countess, only two, because +they seem to me to exemplify my remarks about the +friendship of a woman whose vocation it is to have +many friends. The two are Sismondi and Foscolo.</p> + +<p>Two or three years after Alfieri's death, somewhere +about the year 1806 or 1807, there was introduced to +Mme. d'Albany a sort of half-Italian, half-French +Swiss, a man young in years and singularly young—with +the peculiar earnestness, gravity, purity which +belongs sometimes to youth—in spirit, Jean +Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi. Quietly +idealistic, with one of those northern, eminently +Protestant minds which imagine the principle of good +to be more solemnly serious, the principle of evil more +vainly negative, than is, alas, the case in this world—M. +de Sismondi, full of the heroism of mediæval Italy +which he was studying with a view to his great work, +came to the house of Alfieri, to the woman whom +Alfieri had loved, as to things most reverend and almost +sacred. The Countess of Albany received him very +well; and this good reception, the motherly cordiality +of this woman with that light in her hazel eyes, that +welcoming graciousness in the lines of her mouth, which +Lamartine has charmingly described, with the "<i>parole +suave, manières sans apprêt, familiarité rassurante</i>," +"which made one doubt whether she was descending +to the level of her visitor, or raising him up to her +own,"—this reception by this woman, who was, moreover, +still surrounded by a halo of Alfieri's glory, fairly +conquered the heart, the pure, warm, grave and truthful +heart of young Sismondi. He saw her often, on +his way between Geneva, whither he was called by his +family business and his lectures, and Pescia, a little +town nestled among the olives of the Lucchese Apennine, +where he was for ever sighing to join his mother, +to resume his walks, his readings with this noble old +woman. Florence, the house on the Lung Arno, had +an almost romantic fascination for Sismondi; those +passing visits, at intervals of months, when Mme. +d'Albany would devote herself entirely to the traveller, +sit chatting, or rather (we feel that) listening to the +young man's enthusiastic talk about liberty, letters, and +philanthropy, about Alfieri and Mme. de Staël, enabled +Sismondi to make up for himself a sort of half-imaginary +Countess of Albany, to whom he poured out all +his hopes and fears in innumerable letters, for whom +he longed as (alas!) we perhaps long only for the phantoms +of our own creating. That Mme. d'Albany was, +after all, a shallow woman; that she adored a mediocre +M. Fabre (to whom Sismondi invariably sent respectful +messages) and half disliked the memory of Alfieri; +that she had called Mme. de Staël, Sismondi's goddess, +about whom he was for ever expatiating, "a mad +woman who always wants to inspire passions, and +feels nothing, and makes her readers feel nothing" (I +am quoting from an unpublished letter at Siena); that +she preferred despotism on the whole to liberty, and +had no particular belief or interest in the heroic things +of the present and future; that she was a lover of +gossip and scandal, sometimes (as Gino Capponi says) +hard and disagreeable; that she inspired some men, +like d'Azeglio and Giordani, with a positive repulsion +as a vulgar-minded, spiteful, meddlesome old thing; +that there should be any other Mme. d'Albany than +the one of his noble fancy, than the woman whose +image (fashioned by himself) he loved to unite with +the image of his own sweet, serious, shy, noble-minded +mother: all these things M. de Sismondi, who never +guessed himself to be otherwise than the most unpoetical +and practical of men, never dreamed of. So +Sismondi went on writing to Mme. d'Albany, pouring +out his grief at Mme. de Staël's persecutions, his +schemes of general improvement, all the interests +which filled his gentle, austere, and enthusiastic mind. +1814 came, and 1815. Sismondi had always hated, +with the hatred of an Italian mediæval patriot, and +the hatred of an eighteenth-century philanthropist, the +despotism, the bureaucratic levelling, the great military +slaughters of Napoleon; but when he saw Napoleon +succeeded by the inept and wicked governments of the +Restoration, his heart seemed to burst. A Swiss, +scarcely acquainted with France, the passion for the +principles of liberty and good sense and progress which +France had represented, the passion for France itself, +burst out in him with generous ardour. This man +suffered intensely at what to him, as to Byron and to +Shelley (we must recollect the introduction of the +<i>Revolt of Islam</i>), seemed the battle between progress +and retrogression; and suffered all the more as he was +too pure and just-minded not to feel the impossibility +of complete sympathy with either side. Mme. d'Albany +answered his letters with Olympic serenity. What +was it to her which got the upper hand? She was +by this time one of those placid mixtures of optimism +and pessimism which do not expect good to triumph, +simply because they do not care whether good does +triumph. Sismondi, in his adoration of her, thought +this might be the result of a superior magnanimity of +character; yet he kept conjuring her to take an +interest in the tragedy which was taking place before +her eyes. If she will take no interest, will not Fabre? +"Does M. Fabre not feel himself turning French +again?" writes Sismondi, and there is a pathetic +insistency in the question. Fabre thought of his +pictures, his collections of antiques, perhaps of his +dinner; of anything save France and political events. +Mme. d'Albany smiled serenely, and chaffed Sismondi +a little for his political passions. Sismondi, of all men +the most loyal to the idea he had formed of his friends, +seems never to have permitted himself to see the real +woman, the real abyss of indifference, beneath his ideal +Mme. d'Albany. But there are few things more +pathetic, I think, than the letters of this enthusiastic +man to this cold woman; than the belief of Sismondi—writing +that the retrograde measures of which he +reads in the papers give him fits of fever, that the post +days on which he expects political news are days of +frenzied expectation—in the moral fibre, the faculty +for indignation, of this pleasant, indifferent, cynical +quasi-widow of Alfieri.</p> + +<p>The story of the Countess and Foscolo is an even +sadder instance of those melancholy little psychological +dramas which go on, unseen to the world, in a man's +soul; little dramas without outward events, without +deaths or partings or such-like similar visible catastrophes, +but the action of which is the slow murder of +an affection, of an ideal, of a belief in the loyalty, +sympathy, and comprehension of another. The +character and history of Ugo Foscolo, like Chénier, +half a Greek in blood, and more than half a Greek in +passionate love of beauty and indomitable love of +liberty, are amongst the most interesting in Italian +literature; and I regret that I can say but little of +them in this place. Reviewing his brief life, his long +career from the moment when, scarcely more than a +boy, he had entered the service of liberty as a soldier, +a political writer, and a poet, only to taste the bitterness +of the betrayal of Campo Formio, he wrote, in +1823, from London, where he was slowly dying, to his +sister Rubina: "I am now nearly forty-six; and you, +although younger than myself, can recollect how +miserable, how unquiet and uncertain our lives have +always been ever since our childhood." Poor, vain, +passionate and proud, torn between the selfish impulses +of an exactingly sensuous and imaginative nature, and +the rigid sense of duty of a heroic and generous mind, +Ugo Foscolo was one of the earliest and most +genuine victims of that sickness of disappointed hope +and betrayed enthusiasm, of that <i>Weltschmerz</i> of +which personal misfortunes seemed as but the least +dreadful part, that came upon the noblest minds +after the Revolution, and which he has painted, with +great energy and truthfulness, in his early novel <i>Jacopo +Ortis</i>. His career broken by his determination never +to come to terms with any sort of baseness, his happiness +destroyed by political disappointment, literary +feuds, and a number of love affairs into which his +weaker, more passionate and vainer, yet not more ungenerous +temper was for ever embroiling him, Foscolo +came to Florence, ill and miserable, in the year 1812. +The Countess of Albany, recognising in him a something—a +mixture of independence, of passion, of +vanity, of truthfulness, of pose—which resembled Alfieri +in his earlier days (though, as she was unable to see, +a nobler Alfieri, wider-minded, warmer-hearted, born +in a nobler civilization and destined to give to Italy a +nobler example, the pattern for her Leopardi, than +Alfieri had been able to give)—the Countess of Albany +received Foscolo well. His letters are full of allusions +to the hours which he spent seated at the little round +table in Mme. d'Albany's drawing-room, opposite to +the "Muse" newly bought of Canova, narrating to her +his many and tangled love affairs; love affairs in which +he left his heart on all the briars, and in which, however, +by an instinct which shows the very nobleness +of his nature, he seems to have been impelled rather +towards women whom he must love sincerely and unhappily, +than towards Marchesa di Prié and Lady +Ligonier, like Alfieri; love affairs in which, alas, there +was also a good dose of the vanity of a poet and a +notorious beau. Mme. d'Albany, as we have seen, +loved gossip; and, being a kind, helpful woman, she +also sincerely liked becoming the confidant of other +folk's woes. She took a real affection for this strange +Foscolo. Foscolo, in return, ill, sore of heart, solitary, +gradually got to love this gentle, sympathising +Countess with a sort of filial devotion, but a filial +devotion into which there entered also somewhat of +the feeling of a wounded man towards his nurse, of +the feeling of a devout man towards his Madonna.</p> + +<p>His letters are full of this feeling: "My friend and +not the friend of my good fortune," he writes to Mme. +d'Albany in 1813, "I seem to have left home, mother, +friends, and almost the person dearest to my heart in +leaving Florence." Again, "I had in you, <i>mia Signora</i>, +a friend and a mother; a person, in short, such as no +name can express, but such as sufficed to console me +in the miseries which are perhaps incurable and interminable." +Her letters are a real ray of sunlight in +his gloomy life, they are "so full of graciousness, and +condescension and benevolence and love. I venture to +use this last word, because I feel the sentiment which +it expresses in myself towards you."</p> + +<p>His health, his work, his money-matters, his love-affairs, +were all getting into a more and more lamentable +condition, in which Mme. d'Albany's sympathy +came as a blessing, when the catastrophes of 1814 +and 1815, which to Italy meant the commencement +of a state of degradation and misery much more +intolerable and hopeless than any previous one, +came and drowned the various bitternesses of poor +Foscolo's life in a sea of bitterness. "Italy," wrote +Foscolo to Mme. d'Albany in 1814, "is a corpse; and +a corpse which must not be touched if the stench +thereof is not to be made more horrible. And yet I +see certain crazy creatures fantasticating ways of +bringing her to life; for myself, I should wish her to +be buried with myself, and overwhelmed by the seas, or +that some new Phaeton should precipitate upon her the +flaming heavens, so that the ashes should be scattered +to the four winds, and that the nations coming and to +come should forget the infamy of our times. Amen."</p> + +<p>How strongly we feel in this outburst that, despite +his despair, or perhaps on account of it, Foscolo is +himself one of those "crazy creatures fantasticating +ways of bringing Italy to life!" But the Countess +did not understand; she could conceive liking Bonaparte +and serving him, or liking the Restoration and +serving it; but to love an abstract Italy which did not +yet exist, to hate equally all those who deprived it of +freedom, that was not within her comprehension. +And as she could not comprehend this feeling, the +mainspring of Foscolo's soul, so she could understand +of Foscolo only the slighter, meaner things: his +troubles and intrigues, his loves and quarrels. The +moment came when the grief of miscomprehension was +revealed to poor Foscolo; when he saw how little he +was understood by this woman whom he loved as a +mother. Foscolo had refused, latterly, to serve +Napoleon; he refused, also, to serve the Austrians. +Hated for his independent ways both by the Bonapartists +and the reactionists, surrounded by spies, he +was forced to quit Italy never to return. He wrote +to explain his motives to Mme. d'Albany. Mme. +d'Albany wrote back in a way which showed that she +believed the assertions of Foscolo's enemies; that she +ascribed to cowardice, to meanness, to a base desire to +make himself conspicuous, the self-inflicted exile which +he had taken upon him: a letter which the editor of +Foscolo's correspondence describes to us in one word—unworthy.</p> + +<p>This letter came upon Foscolo like a thunder-clap. +"So thus," he wrote to the Countess in August 1815, +"generosity and justice are banished even from nobler +souls. Your letter, Signora Contessa, grieves me, and +confers upon me, at the same time, two advantages: +it diminishes suddenly the perpetual nostalgia which +I have felt for Florence, and it affords me an occasion +to try my strength of spirit…. My hatred for the +tyranny with which Bonaparte was oppressing Italy +does not imply that I should love the house of Austria. +The difference for me was that I hoped that Bonaparte's +ambition might bring about, if not the independence +of Italy, at least such magnanimous deeds as +might raise the Italians; whereas the regular government +of Austria precludes all such hopes. I should be +mad and infamous if I desired for Italy, which requires +peace at any price, new disorders and slaughterings; +but I should consider myself madder still and +more infamous if, having despised to serve the foreigner +who has fallen, I should accept to serve the foreigner +who has succeeded…. But if your accusation of inconstancy +is unjust, your accusation that I want to '<i>passer +pour original</i>' is actually offensive and mocking."</p> + +<p>Later, in his solitary wanderings, Foscolo's heart +seems to have melted towards his former friend; he +wrote her one or two letters, conciliating, friendly, +but how different from the former ones! The Countess +of Albany, whom he had loved and trusted, was +dead; the woman who remained was dear to him as a +mere relic of that dead ideal.</p> + +<p>Such is the story of Mme. d'Albany's friendship for +two of the noblest spirits, Sismondi and Foscolo, of +their day; the noblest, the one in his pure austerity, +the other in his magnanimous passionateness, that +ever crossed the path of the beloved of Alfieri.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3><a name="c20" id="c20"></a>CHAPTER XX.</h3> + +<h4>SANTA CROCE.</h4> + + +<p>With her other friends, who gave less of their own +heart and asked less of hers, Mme. d'Albany was more +fortunate. She contrived to connect herself by correspondence +with the most eminent men and women of +the most different views and tempers; she made her +salon in Florence, as M. St. René Taillandier has +observed, a sort of adjunct to the cosmopolitan salon +of Mme. de Staël at Coppet. Her efforts in so doing +were crowned with the very highest success. In 1809 +Napoleon requested Mme. d'Albany to leave Florence +for Paris, where, he added with a mixture of brutality +and sarcasm, she might indulge her love of art in the +new galleries of the Louvre, and where her social +talents could no longer spread dissatisfaction with his +government, as was the case in Italy.</p> + +<p>The one year's residence in Paris, which Napoleon's +jealous meddlesomeness forced upon her, was, in itself, +a very enjoyable time, spent with the friends whom +she had left in '93, and with a whole host of new ones +whom she had made since. She returned to Florence +with a larger number of devoted correspondents than +ever; her salon became more and more brilliant; and +when, after Waterloo, the whole English world of +politics, fashion, and letters poured on to the Continent, +her house became, as Sismondi said, the wall on which +all the most brilliant figures of the great magic lantern +were projected.</p> + +<p>Thus, seeing crowds of the most distinguished and +delightful people, receiving piles of the most interesting +and adoring letters, happy, self-satisfied, Mme. d'Albany +grew into an old woman. Every evening until ten, +the rooms of the Casa Alfieri were thrown open; the +servants in the Stuart liveries ushered in the guests, +the tea was served in those famous services emblazoned +with the royal arms of England. The Countess +had not yet abandoned her regal pretensions; for all +her condescending cordiality towards the elect, she +could assume airs of social superiority which some +folk scarcely brooked, and she was evidently pleased +when, half in earnest, Mme. de Staël addressed her as +"My dear Sovereign," "My dear Queen," and even +when that vulgar woman of genius, Lady Morgan, +made a buffoonish scene about the "dead usurper," on +the death of George III. But Mme. d'Albany herself +was getting to look and talk less and less like a queen, +either the Queen of Great Britain or the Queen of +Hearts; she was fat, squat, snub, dressed with an +eternal red shawl (now the property of an intimate +friend of mine), in a dress extremely suggestive of an +old house-keeper. She was, when not doing the queen, +cordial, cheerful in manner, loving to have children +about her, to spoil them with cakes and see them +romp and dance; free and easy, cynical, Rabelaisian, if +I may use the expression, as such mongrel Frenchwomen +are apt to grow with years; the nick-name +which she gave to a member of a family where the +tradition of her and her ways still persists, reveals a +wealth of coarse fun which is rather strange in a +woman who was once the Beatrice or Laura of a poet. +She was active, mentally and bodily, never giving up +her multifarious reading, her letter-writing; never +foregoing her invariable morning walk, in a big bonnet +and the legendary red shawl, down the Lung Arno and +into the Cascine.</p> + +<p>Such was Louise of Stolberg, Countess of Albany, +widow of Prince Charles Edward, widow, in a sense, of +the poet Vittorio Alfieri; and such, at the age of +seventy-two, did death overtake her, on the 29th +January 1824. Her property she bequeathed to Fabre +whom a false rumour had called her husband; and Fabre +left it jointly to his native town of Montpellier, and to +his friend the Cavaliere Emilio Santarelli, who still +lives and recollects Mme. d'Albany.</p> + +<p>The famous epitaph, composed by Alfieri for himself, +had been mangled by Mme. d'Albany and those who +helped her and Canova in devising his tomb; the +companion epitaph, the one in which Alfieri described +the Countess as buried next to him, was also mangled +in its adaptation to a tomb erected in Santa Croce, +entirely separate from Alfieri's. On that monument +of Mme. d'Albany, in the chapel where moulder the +frescoes of Masolino, there is not a word of that +sentence of Alfieri's about the dead woman having +been to him dearer and more respected than any other +human thing. Mme. d'Albany had changed into quite +another being between 1803 and 1824; the friend of +Sismondi, of Foscolo, of Mme. de Staël, the worldly +friend of many friends, seemed to have no connection +with the lady who had wept for Alfieri in the convent +at Rome, who had borne with all Alfieri's misanthropic +furies after the Revolution, any more than with the +delicate intellectual girl whom Charles Edward had +nearly done to death in his drunken jealousy. So, on +the whole, Fabre, and whosoever assisted Fabre, was +right in concocting a new epitaph.</p> + +<p>But to us, who have followed the career—whose +lesson is that of the meanness which lurks in noble +things, the nobility which lurks in mean ones—of this +woman from her inauspicious wedding-day to the +placid day of her death, to us Louise of Stolberg, +Countess of Albany, Queen of Great Britain, France, +and Ireland, will remain, for all blame we may give +her and her times, a figure to remember and reflect +upon, principally because of those suppressed words +of her epitaph: "<i>A Victorio Alferio ultra res omnes +dilecta, et quasi mortale numen ab ipso constanter +habita et observata.</i>"</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3> + +<p class="noindent"><a name="ca1" id="ca1"></a><a href="#ca1r">1</a>: +I have purposely quoted, almost textually, the account given +by Ewald, lest I should be accused of following Alfieri's vague +version.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><a name="ca2" id="ca2"></a><a href="#ca2r">2</a>: +The chief sources for this account are Mann's despatches and +the <i>Mémoires</i> of Louis Dutens. Alfieri gives no details.</p> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> + +<h4><i>UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME</i></h4> + +<div class="center"> +<table class="sm" style= "margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="3" summary="OTHER WORKS"> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">THE ENCHANTED WOODS<br /> +and other Essays on<br /> +the Genius of Place</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">HORTUS VITÆ, or<br /> +the Hanging Gardens.<br /> +Moralising Essays</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">THE SPIRIT OF ROME.<br /> +Leaves from a Diary</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">HAUNTINGS:<br /> +Fantastic Tales<br /> +Second Edition</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">THE SENTIMENTAL TRAVELLER.<br /> +Notes on Places</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">GENIUS LOCI.<br /> +Second Edition</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">POPE JACYNTH.<br /> +Second Edition</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">LIMBO; and Other Essays;<br /> +to which is now added<br /> +<span class="smallcaps">Ariadne +in Mantua</span>.<br /> +Second Edition</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">RENAISSANCE FANCIES AND STUDIES.<br /> +Second Edition</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">ALTHEA.<br /> +Second Edition</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">VANITAS:<br /> +Polite stories.<br /> +Second Edition</td></tr> + +<tr><td align="center" valign="top">LAURUS NOBILIS:<br /> +Chapters on Art and Life</td></tr> +</table> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<hr class="narrow" /> +<p> </p> + +<table border="0" style="background-color: #E6E6FA; margin: 0 auto" cellpadding="10" summary="Changes"> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"> + <div class="center">TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:</div> + +<p class="noindent" style="background-color: #E6E6FA">Contemporary spellings have generally been retained even +when inconsistent. A small number of obvious typographical errors have been +corrected and missing punctuation has been silently added. The information about further volumes by the author +has been moved to the end.<br /> +<br /> +The following additional changes have been made; they can be identified +in the body of the text by a grey dotted underline:</p> + </td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign="top">Tales of <i>a</i> Century</td> + <td valign="top">Tales of <i>the</i> Century</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td valign="top">No sadder way (…) can well be imagined<br /> +<i>that</i> landing</td> + <td valign="top">No sadder way (…) can well be imagined<br /> +<i>than</i> landing</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td valign="top">has not <i>mad</i> him younger</td> +<td valign="top">has not <i>made</i> him younger</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top">probably <i>sown</i> in the swaddling clothes</td> +<td valign="top">probably <i>sewn</i> in the swaddling clothes</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td valign="top">cavaliere serv<i>a</i>nte </td> + <td valign="top">cavaliere serv<i>e</i>nte</td> +</tr> + +<tr> + <td valign="top">behaving in the way <i>in</i> which he approved</td> + <td valign="top">behaving in the way <i>of</i> which he approved</td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td valign="top">what glory could he hope among all these monkeys</td> +<td valign="top">what glory could he hope <i>for</i> among all these monkeys</td> +</tr> + +</table> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Countess of Albany, by +Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY *** + +***** This file should be named 28268-h.htm or 28268-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/2/6/28268/ + +Produced by Delphine Lettau and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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