Queen Caroline’s trial――In what manner the first inquiry was
suppressed――Lady Hester’s opinion of the P――――ss of W.――Young
Austin――Lord Y.――P. of W.――His disgust at the slovenly habits of the
P――――ss.――Mrs. Fitzherbert――Mrs. Robinson――Mr. Canning――His
person――His duplicity――and deceit――His incapability of acting without
guidance――His disposition to babble――Lady Hester’s account of a great
serpent――Mr. T. Moore――Lord Camelford――His liberality――Some anecdotes
of that high-spirited nobleman――Arrival of Madame L.――She is seized
with brain-fever, and dies raving mad――Visit of General Cass.
Some allusion having been made to Queen Caroline, Lady Hester asked
me what they said in England about her trial. “Do,” said she, “tell
me something about it: did you see her?――I suppose it was like Warren
Hastings’s trial.” She continued: “I prevented the explosion the first
time, and I will tell you how. One day, the Duke of Cumberland called
on me, and, in his accustomed manner, began――‘Well, Lady Hester, it
will be all out to-morrow: we have printed it all, and to-morrow it
will be all out.’ I knew what he meant, and said to him, ‘Have you got
the chancellor’s leave? I, for my part, don’t like the business at
all.’――‘Why don’t you like it?’ asked the duke. ‘Because,’ answered I,
‘I have too much respect for royalty to desire to see it made a subject
for Grub Street songs.’ I did not say this so much on the P. of W.’s
account, as for the sake of the P――――ss ――――; I dreaded the _other_
disclosures to which a business like this might lead. The duke turned
away, as if in thought, and I saw that the same idea struck him; for,
after a pause, he resumed his position, and answered――‘You are quite
right, Lady Hester; by God! you are quite right: but what am I to do?
we have gone too far: what am I to do?’――‘Why, I think,’ rejoined I,
‘the best thing you can do, is to go and ask the chancellor.’ So off he
packed; and I fancy Mr. Percival, and the chancellor, and he, talked it
over, and decided on quashing the business.
“Why, doctor, the papers were all printed, and it cost Mr. Percival
£10,000 out of the secret service money to recover one copy which had
been taken off his table. Going out in a hurry, and forgetting to lock
it up, he had left the book open in his room. It was not a thing to
escape. Somebody stole it; and I know, to a certainty, that it cost
him £10,000 to get it back again.
“As for the P――ss of W., I did not care about her. She was a nasty,
vulgar, impudent woman, that was not worth telling a lie about. I never
could feel for her. If she had been a different kind of person, one
might have made up one’s mind to swear that it was one’s self that was
walking in one’s night-clothes from one bed-room to another, and not
her royal highness. I always used to tell the ladies in waiting, if
ever they saw me closeted with her, to contrive some excuse or other
to come in and break up the conversation. I was determined she should
never make a confidante of me. Sometimes she would begin, ‘You know,
Lady Hester, that Sir Richard’――and then I was sure to begin to cough
or to interrupt her with, ‘Oh! I am going out to walk,’ or whatever
happened to come into my head, so as to put a stop to her revelations.
“I warned the D. of B*********, that if the commission examined me,
I would make his old uncle blush finely. If they ask me an impudent
question, I will always answer――‘I don’t understand,’ and so go on with
‘I don’t understand, I don’t understand,’ until I make them, by that,
put their questions in such clear terms that their primosity will be
finely puzzled: and then I’ll put the examination into the newspapers.
This frightened them all so, that they did not know what to do. But it
was I that was really frightened――terribly, doctor, and I pretended
to be so bold about it, only to drive them from their purpose; and I
succeeded too.
“Oh! what an impudent woman was that P――ss of W.! she was a downright
――――. She had a Chinese figure in one of her rooms at Blackheath, that
was wound up like a clock, and used to perform the most extraordinary
movements. How the sea-captains used to colour up when she danced
about, exposing herself like an opera girl; and then she gartered
below the knee:――she was so low, so vulgar! I quarrelled with her at
Plymouth, for I was the only person that ever told her the truth; and
Lady Carnarvon assured me afterwards that they had never seen her moved
so much as after a conversation I had with her. I plainly told her it
was a hanging matter, and that she should mind what she was about. The
Prince, I intimated to her, might do her a great deal of mischief when
he became king. ‘Oh, he will never be _kink_!’ she would reply; for a
German fortune-teller had told her she never would be queen, and, as
she believed the fortune-teller, she thought she was safe.
“There was a handsome footman, who might have been brought into the
scrape, if the trial had related to anybody but the Italian courier.”
Then Lady Hester asked me what had become of young Austin. “I did
not believe,” added she, “that the child was anybody else’s but the
reputed mother’s at Greenwich; and, as for the P――ss of W.’s adopting
it, and making such a fuss about it, it was only pure spite to vex the
Prince. He was a nasty boy. Oh! how Mr. Pitt used to frown, when he was
brought in after dinner, and held by a footman over the table to take
up anything out of the dessert that he liked: and, when the P――ss used
to say to Mr. Pitt――‘Don’t you think he is a nice boy?’ he would reply,
‘I don’t understand anything about children; your R. H. had better ask
his nurse, for she knows those things better than I do.’ He was indeed
a nasty, mischievous boy. I once saw him at Lord Mount Edgecumbe’s,
turning over the leaves of a valuable book of plates backward and
forward with his nasty fingers, that he had just before smeared in the
ink. I told the P――ss it was a shame to let him dirt and tear books of
such value, and she gave him another, a common one, but he cried and
whimpered, and said he would have the first. I declared he shouldn’t,
and said, if he dared touch it, he should see what I would do. My
resolute manner frightened him. Once, he cried for a spider on the
ceiling, and, though they gave him all sorts of playthings to divert
his attention, he would have nothing but the spider. Then there was
such a calling of footmen, and long sticks, and such a to-do! He was a
little, nasty, vulgar brat.
“It was unpardonable in the P――ss to lavish her love upon such a
little urchin of a boy, a little beggar, really no better. To see him
brought in every day after dinner, bawling and kicking down the wine,
and hung up by his breeches over the table for people to laugh at; and
so ugly! Then she had five or six more, not one of whom was pretty,
except a little midshipman, son of a beautiful woman in the Isle of
Wight. It was supposed that she kept these little urchins to carry her
love-letters: she certainly used to employ them in that way, sometimes
as a sort of make-believe. I know that when she used to invite a
sea-captain to dinner, instead of sending a scarlet footman in a barge,
as she ought to have done, she would tell one of these boys to go on
board and give her billet to Captain Such-a-one, and on no account to
let it fall into anybody else’s hands; making people imagine there was
a mystery, when there really was none.
“Indeed, when one thinks of Lady ――――, of Lord ――――, and such
characters, the P――ss is not so much to blame, after all. There was
no lack of bad example. In all London, you could not find a more
abandoned character than Lord ――――. He had exhausted every species of
vice known in the Palais Royal, and was so notorious in that way that
some gentlemen refused to meet him at dinner unless they were sure of
having grave and weighty people present who could keep him in order.
Yet he is a clever, sharp man; no person has carried on more intrigues
in the very first classes: and then to finish by marrying a woman who
really did not know who her father and mother were――strange enough, you
will say. She left him for a Frenchman, and lives at Paris: but he is
on very good terms with her. He says she is in the right, if she likes
a Frenchman better. She came over to England sometimes, by means of a
passport, during the war, to see him, and arrange matters about their
children.
“The P. had always been used to women of such perfect cleanliness and
sweetness, that it is no wonder he was disgusted with the P――ss of
W., who was a sloven, and did not know how to put on her own clothes.
Those kind of people should let themselves be dressed as you dress a
doll. She did sometimes; but then she was sure to spoil it all again
by putting on her stockings with the seam before, or one of them wrong
side outwards: and then her manner of fastening them――it was shocking!
“Mrs. Fitzherbert had a beautiful skin; at sixty it was like a child’s
of six years old: for I knew her well, having passed at one time six
weeks in the same house with her: so had Lady ―――― and her daughters.
There are some people who are sweet by nature, and who, even if they
are not washed for a fortnight, are free from odour; whilst there are
others, who, two hours after they have been to a bath, generate a fusty
atmosphere about them. Mrs. Fitzherbert, likewise, had a great deal
of tact in concealing the Prince’s faults. She would say, ‘Don’t send
your letter to such a person――he is careless, and will lose it:’ or,
when he was talking foolish things, she would tell him, ‘You are drunk
to-night; do hold your tongue.’[65]
“Poor Mrs. Robinson was a woman of a different kind, naturally good
and innocent; and, perhaps, there was personal love towards him in her
composition: but then she had no cleverness. I don’t mean in politics,
but none in common matters: she possessed no guiding influence over
him, so that he scribbled and wrote to her things, that, if they had
been brought to light, would have stamped him with infamy. When she
died, she charged her daughter never to part with a certain casket;
but they got it out of her for £10,000. I believe it was Lord M****
who got possession of it. But a peer told me that there were most
abominable things in those letters, not of common debauchery, but of
every nature. I, for my part, believe he was really married to Mrs.
Robinson, and yet he left her to starve; and she would have starved,
if it had not been for Sir Henry Halford.”
August 6.――This being Sunday, I spent it as usual with my family.
August 7.――Lady Hester Stanhope spoke of Mr. Canning. She said, “The
first time he was introduced to Mr. Pitt, a great deal of prosing had
been made beforehand of his talents, and when he was gone, Mr. P. asked
me what I thought of him. I said I did not like him; for, doctor, his
forehead was bad, his eyebrows were bad, he was ill-made about the
hips; but his teeth were evenly set, although he rarely showed them.
I did not like his conversation. Mr. C. heard of this, and, some time
after, when upon a more familiar footing with me, said, ‘So, Lady
Hester, you don’t like me.’――‘No,’ said I; ‘they told me you were
handsome, and I don’t think so.’”
Upon this point I ventured to observe, that much admiration was
generally expressed of Mr. C.’s features, more especially of the
forehead. (The reader is probably familiar with Sir Thomas Lawrence’s
portrait of him.) “Good God!” she exclaimed, “what fools people are! A
man in London does not even know what his next door neighbour is; but
he sees him go in and out, and he says, he has a fine open countenance
and a fine forehead. Some people thought Mr. C. had a fine forehead,
because it was bald. There was not one feature or one limb in C. but
what was vulgar, except his teeth, and I am not sure those were not
false: and why I think so is, that once, in the House of Commons, he
spit blood in his pocket-handkerchief, and said he had a dreadful
toothache. People don’t spit blood with toothaches.
“I recollect once, when we were sitting at breakfast, C. began reading
some advertisements about Macassar Oil and those sort of things, and
pretended not to know what they meant; and afterwards my maid told me
that she entered his dressing-room when he was at Putney, and was shown
by his valet one of the finest dressing-cases she had ever seen, filled
with all sorts of perfumes, which his man drew out one by one before
her.”
Lady Hester went on (for of Mr. C. she could never speak calmly, and
his name once introduced was sure to lead to an angry diatribe), “Oh!
Lord, when I think of his duplicity! for it was not on matters of
this sort only, but in everything that he was deceitful. I only regret
that he ever took me in as he did. But he was so artful as to make me
believe at last in his protestations of admiration for Mr. Pitt; and as
Mr. Pitt was surrounded by such fools as C――tl――h and H――k――b――y,[66]
I thought he might be useful to him in lightening his labours, for he
was clever and wrote well, whilst Mr. Pitt could never trust Lord C.
to draw up an official paper, without having to cross out and correct
half of it. But the first time I saw him I thought him insincere, and
told Mr. Pitt so, and I did not scruple to add how much I disliked
him. ‘Oh!’ Mr. Pitt replied, ‘he is very amusing, and when you have
seen more of him you will think so too.’――‘Well, we shall see,’ said
I. ‘You must like him,’ rejoined Mr. Pitt, ‘he is so brilliant.’ I
answered, ‘Well, if I must I must’――but I never did. It is true I took
a great deal of pains to get him into favour again, when he was out of
favour with Mr. Pitt, but it was because I really believed him to be
Mr. Pitt’s friend, and thought he would be another strong horse in the
stable. It was so with Sir H*** P*****. The first time I saw his face,
I thought I had never seen so bad a countenance: it was the spirit of
evil rising up before me; and I was not mistaken in his case any more
than in the other.
“Oh! when I think of C.’s deceit: how he used to come to me, and cry
out, ‘Ah, Lady Hester, what have I not done to please you? I have drunk
a glass of wine with that fool H.; a glass of wine!――such a glass of
wine!――’twas like physic to me.’ Why, I have seen him, at Mr. Pitt’s
table, pretend not to hear when Lord H. spoke to him. Mr. Pitt used
to say, ‘What does he mean by all this? If he does not like him, why
does he come to my table when he is to be there? But I know how I could
reconcile them; if I would but give C. a place in the cabinet, he would
make it up directly; but he shan’t have it. No,’ said he, ‘C. shall
never have a place in the cabinet whilst I have a voice.’
“His duplicity was perfect. He used to say to me, ‘My dear Lady Hester,
how could I ever drink a glass of wine with a man whom I have so
ridiculed, whom I have made verses on?’ and after that I have seen him
professing the warmest friendship for this same man, the object of so
much ridicule and contempt. I have still by me one of his letters――one
of the only two I ever kept――that he wrote me, of four sheets, before
Mr. Pitt’s death (and which I always kept, because I feared how it
would be), in which he goes on, for ten pages I really think, with ‘My
dearest Lady Hester, what is the meaning of all this? I know no more
of all that is passing than the child unborn. Do write to me; do tell
me; they have made Lord Mulgrave minister,’ &c.; and all this time he
was...!
“One day Miss Williams saw the paragraph in the newspaper where Mr.
C. was gazetted as prime minister, and she immediately brought it,
and showed it to me. I said to her, ‘Was ever anything so monstrous?
why, when he paces those rooms in Downing Street, which have witnessed
his lies and his deceit, the very stones will rise up to crush him.’
I remember, when Mr. Pitt was lying ill at Bath, one day there
were no letters. Charles came in, and Mr. Pitt said, ‘Are there no
letters?’――‘None,’ replied Charles; ‘nothing but that C. is going on
very well.’――‘Very well!’ was Mr. Pitt’s reply; ‘to be sure he will go
on very well, as long as he has got your sister to guide him; but if
ever she quits him, that ambitious ―――― of his――badly ambitious――will
soon spoil all the good Hester has done for him.’ How could he live in
Downing Street, and enter those rooms where I have had him before me,
crying like a child――yes, doctor, I used to make him cry and blubber
like a schoolboy――and making a thousand protestations, which he never
kept! How could he dare to talk of Mr. Pitt’s principles![67]
“He sent me once a fine copy of verses――they were very well written――in
which he compared Mr. Pitt to a bound eagle. Oh! how Lord Temple tried
to steal them! He snatched them away from me one evening, when he,
James, and I were together, and, jumping into a chair, held them out
of my reach. I was so angry that I pulled a fine repeater out of his
fob, and dashed it the ground. He then ran into the street without his
hat, and James after him, and the watchman took him for a thief, and
joined in the pursuit: but I got them back.” Lady Hester here made a
pause, and then added: “I know C. would, if he could, he and all his
creatures, have annihilated me.
“Another reason why Mr. Pitt disliked C. was, that he was not to be
trusted. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘I don’t understand what it is that
people mean, when they go and repeat every word they hear in society
to their intimate friend, their _as myself_.’ For he had seen in ‘The
Oracle’ whole conversations:[68] not that C. put them in himself, but
that he told them to some friend, and then, a week or a fortnight
after, one saw, ‘We are credibly informed――we have reason to believe,’
with every syllable Mr. Pitt had talked about, put down as a piece of
exclusive political information.”
August 10.――I went to Mar Elias, and remained a couple of days. In
the morning of the 10th, Lady Hester Stanhope, in the course of
conversation, said, “I must send you to the chief of the serpents.
You don’t know what that means――I’ll tell you. There is a cavern in a
distant part of this country, inhabited by a great serpent, who has
hundreds of others at his command. He has got the head of a man, the
body of a serpent, and wings: he has been seen by many persons,
and it is all perfectly true: perhaps you don’t believe in such
things?” This was an embarrassing question; but I tried to evade the
difficulty, by observing, that nothing was impossible to the Almighty.
“Well,” rejoined Lady Hester, “you shall go and take a drawing of
the cave.”
She asked me what had become of Tom Moore. I said he had latterly made
a profession of faith, and had written a book to prove himself a good
Catholic. “I dare say it was very well written,” said she; “I always
liked that man.”――“It might be well written,” I replied, “but his other
works have been more read.”――“What are they?” she asked. I enumerated
them; and, among the rest, his life of Sheridan, of Byron, and of Lord
E. F. “Ah! those I should like to read,” observed Lady Hester; “we must
get them.”[69]
Sunday, August 13.――I remained with Lady Hester, reading and talking,
until midnight. She was greatly pleased with the “Penny Magazine,” a
volume or two of which I had with me; and, some conversation having
arisen respecting English poetry, I selected Lord Byron’s stanzas on
the dying gladiator, Wolfe’s lines on the death of General Moore, Mr.
Moore’s on his own birthday, and Pringle’s “Alone in the desert I love
to ride.” Of Byron’s, she said, “I don’t see much in them;” Wolfe she
extolled greatly, and thought his poetry finer than Lord Byron’s. Of
Mr. Moore she said again; “I always liked that little man” and she
laughed where he expresses a wish to live his life over again,
exclaiming, in another sense, “Ah, I dare say he does.” Her remark on
Pringle was, “That’s a good man, I’ll venture to say; there are some
good thoughts there.” I then read the death of Mary Queen of Scots, of
Lady Jane Grey――on the effects of tight-lacing, and on boarding-school
mismanagement. “Oh!” observed she, “if I had time, I would write a
book on Swiss governesses: they are the most artful, nasty
creatures!――you can’t imagine.”
It may be recollected by some of my readers that in her correspondence
with Lord Palmerston, Lady Hester Stanhope made use of this expression,
“Whoever had been the bearer of a disagreeable message to me, would
have found me to be a cousin of Lord Camelford’s. She admired Lord C.’s
character, and, in some things, imitated him. His name happened to be
mentioned, and she spoke of him in the following words:
“Lord Camelford was not such a man as you would have supposed. He was
tall and bony――rather pale――with his head hanging generally a little
on one side――so. What a fright people were in wherever he came! I
recollect his taking me one evening to a party, and it was quite a
scene to notice how the men shuffled away, and the women stared at
him. At last there was a countess, then a little _passée_, with a ten
years’ reputation for fashionable intrigues, who came and sat down by
him on the sofa, and began talking to him. She was a woman who had
seen a great deal of the world, and knew, as well as anybody, the true
characteristics of men of high breeding and fashion. He went away
before supper; and then how she broke out about him! she could talk
of nothing else but Lord Camelford. Such delightful manners, such
fascinating conversation! He was quite charming, irresistible; so
well-bred, such a _ton_ about him!――and so she ran on, in a perfect
ecstasy of admiration.
“People were very much mistaken about him. His generosity, and the good
he did in secret, passes all belief. He used to give £5,000 a-year to
his lawyer to distribute among distressed persons. ‘The only condition
I enjoin,’ he used to say, ‘is not to let them know who it comes from.’
He would sometimes dress himself in a jacket and trowsers, like a
sailor, and go to some tavern or alehouse; and if he fell in with a
poor-looking person, who had an air of trouble or poverty, he would
contrive to enter into conversation with him, and find out all about
him. ‘Come,’ he would say, ‘tell me your story, and I will tell you
mine.’ He was endowed with great penetration, and, if he saw that the
man’s story was true, he would slip fifty or a hundred pounds into his
hand, with this admonitory warning――‘Recollect, you are not to speak
of this; if you do, you will have to answer for it in a way you don’t
like.’
“Mr. Pitt liked him personally as much as I did; but considerations of
propriety, arising out of his position, obliged him to keep him at a
distance. How frightened Lady Chatham was for fear he should marry me!
Lord Chatham thought to have the Bowcourt estate (or some such name),
but he was prettily taken in; for Lord Camelford paid £50,000 to cut
off the entail, and left it to his sister. Mr. Pitt took little or no
notice of him, out of absolute fear of the scrapes he was constantly
getting into. He was greatly perplexed about him when he shot the
lieutenant: but Lord Camelford did it from a quick perception of what
was right to be done, which was a sort of instinct with him. He saw
that the ship’s crew was ready to mutiny, and he stopped it at once by
his resolute conduct. Everybody at home was open-mouthed against him,
until the news came of Captain Pigot, of the Hermione, being thrown
overboard, and then all the lords and the ladies began to tremble for
their sons and nephews. Then nothing was too good for Lord Camelford,
and the next mutiny which took place in our ships showed how well he
had foreseen what would happen.
“I recollect once he was driving me out in his curricle, when, at a
turnpike-gate, I saw him pay the man himself, and take some halfpence
in exchange. He turned them over two or three times in his hand without
his glove. Well, thought I, if you like to handle dirty copper, it is
a strange taste. ‘Take the reins a moment,’ said he, giving them to
me, and out he jumped; and, before I could form the least suspicion of
what he was going to do, he rushed upon the turnpike-man, and seized
him by the throat. Of course, there was a mob collected in a moment,
and the high-spirited horses grew so restive that I expected nothing
less than that they would start off with me. In the midst of it all
a coach and four came to the gate. ‘Ask what’s the matter,’ said a
simpering sort of gentleman, putting his head with an air out of the
coach-window, to the footman behind.――‘It’s my Lord Camelford,’ replied
the footman.――‘You may drive on,’ was the instant ejaculation of the
master, frightened out of his senses at the bare apprehension lest his
lordship should turn to him.
“The row was soon over, and Lord C. resumed his seat. ‘I dare say
you thought,’ he said, very quietly, ‘that I was going to put myself
in a passion. But, the fact is, these rascals have barrels of bad
halfpence, and they pass them in change to the people who go through
the gate. Some poor carter perhaps has nothing but this change to pay
for his supper; and, when he gets to his journey’s end, finds he can’t
get his bread and cheese. The law, ’tis true, will fine them; but how
is a poor devil to go to law?――where can he find time? To you and me
it would not signify, but to the poor it does; and I merely wanted to
teach these blackguards a lesson, by way of showing them that they
cannot always play such tricks with impunity.’
“Doctor, you should have seen, when we came back again, how humble and
cringing the turnpike-man was. Lord C. was a true Pitt, and, like me,
his blood fired at a fraud or a bad action.”
A messenger had arrived in the course of the day from Monsieur Guys,
French consul at Beyrout, to announce the landing of an Italian lady
we expected from Leghorn, whom I had engaged to join us in Syria.
Mustafa, a Turkish servant, was immediately despatched to see to her
wants; and the secretary, who spoke Italian, sailed in a shaktôor from
Sayda to convey her by water, the heat rendering the land journey very
oppressive.
August 12.――I rode over to Mar Elias to see my family, and make
arrangements for the reception of the new comer; and, as Lady Hester
Stanhope had some business at Beyrout, which required my presence,
respecting an importunate creditor, it was decided that I should go
thither, under the plea of thanking Monsieur and Madame Guys for the
hospitality they had shown to the Italian lady.
Monday, August 14, 1837.――I departed an hour before sunrise, and
reached Beyrout in the evening, meeting on the road the half-broiled
secretary, who, in consequence of a calm, had not reached his
destination until twelve hours after Signora L. had sailed, the little
wind there was being fair for her and foul for him.
Our ultimate intention in forming an engagement with Signora L., whom
we had known for some years struggling in adversity, was to place her
with Lady Hester Stanhope as housekeeper, a situation for which she was
extremely well qualified.
August 18.――I remained in Beyrout the 16th and 17th, and returned to
Dar Jôon on the 18th. I had hardly dismounted from my horse, when Lady
Hester put a letter into my hands, by which I was summoned in the
greatest haste to Mar Elias, to attend on Signora L., who, as soon as
she had reached that place, had been taken ill with a brain-fever,
arising from the fatigue of the voyage, exposure to the burning sun,
and the circumstances incidental to Eastern travelling, which are so
strange and foreign to European habits.
A messenger had been despatched, on the first intimation that Lady
Hester Stanhope had received of Signora L.’s indisposition, to one
Mustafa, a barber at Sayda, to betake himself to Mar Elias, and bleed
her, and, when I arrived some hours afterwards, Lady Hester strongly
recommended me to leave her case in Mustafa’s hands, as he was a
surgeon as well as a barber, and highly esteemed in Sayda for his
skill. She hinted, also, that European physicians, who applied the same
course of treatment in the East which they were accustomed to prescribe
in the north, must inevitably do more harm than good. I acquiesced in
these observations with the best grace I could.
Saturday, August 19.――On reaching Mar Elias, I was informed that, on
the morning of the 14th, when Signora L. arrived, she showed a marked
oddity in her actions, to which, at first, little attention was paid;
but that, in the succeeding night, she walked about in an unseemly
manner, almost undressed, first in her own room and then in the
quadrangle, to the great scandal and consternation of the inmates. The
following morning, she cut off her hair, close to the roots, with her
own hand; and her conduct at last excited so much alarm, that it was
considered necessary to send for me without loss of time. The next
day, which was the 16th, left no doubt of her brain being disordered,
as she sung, and danced, and laughed, without intermission, saying and
doing the most extravagant things. She had already been bled when I saw
her, and her bed had been removed into the chapel, the most airy part
of the dwelling. The bleeding, although continued until she fainted,
had produced no effect; and in the night she tore off the bandages,
with the loss of a still greater quantity of blood. A blister was put
on her head, and medicine was administered; but certain things which
I observed on the 20th and 21st, such as putting ice, not only on her
head, but on her abdomen, administering pepper in powder, and a written
paper macerated in water, as a charm, to drink, together with sundry
superstitious and empirical remedies, induced me to ride over to Lady
Hester, and to tell her I could have nothing to do with the treatment,
unless Mustafa was instantly sent about his business. But Lady Hester
Stanhope had lived so long in the East that charms, popular remedies,
and quackery, were more in unison with her notions than rational and
scholastic rules of nosology. She therefore replied that, as Signora
L. had come to be in her service, she presumed she might direct what
she chose to have done, and that she should confide her wholly to Hadj
Mustafa’s care. I told her I disclaimed all responsibility as to the
consequences. Lady Hester then despatched two men-servants to fetch
from Jôon or Sayda whatever Mustafa might require, retaining him, at
the same time, to remain in constant attendance on the poor invalid,
with strict injunctions to spare no trouble nor money which the case
might require.
August 23.――I went back to Mar Elias to make these arrangements
known, and to tell the governess, Miss Longchamp, and the maids to
let the Signora L. want for nothing. Miss L. was, night and day, at
her bedside, and the maids assisted in turn. Everything was done that
could be thought of to make her situation comfortable: but her case was
now become one of maniacal delirium. She raved without intermission:
she knew nobody; she closed her teeth, and refused the admission of
food. If her arms were free for a moment, she tore her bandages, her
garments, and the bedclothes; sometimes laughing and sometimes singing
(but with much taste and execution) an Italian song, _Nel cor più non
mi sento_, or else _Malbrook_. When she could, she rose from her bed,
and danced on the floor, being apparently pleased to get on the cold
stones. Sometimes she appeared to be dandling a child in her arms. Her
arms moved perpetually. Now and then, her actions indicated satyriasis.
Generally, she showed by her manner that the light was disagreeable
to her, but nothing could make her pay attention to what was said to
her. There was a copious and frothy expectoration; but the grinding of
her teeth and straining of her eyes almost out of their sockets was
fearful: and, in such moments of excitement, she repeatedly execrated
certain _frati_, or friars, by name. It was necessary to have the room
completely stripped of everything; for, such was her violence, that,
one night, being left but a moment to herself, she loosened her arms,
leaped out of bed, and tore a Leghorn hat, a parasol, and half a dozen
frills, bandbox and all, to fritters.
August 24.――It was found necessary to make a strait-waistcoat for her.
The governess, who saw everything that was administered, told me that
Hadj Mohammed received secret instructions from Lady Hester Stanhope,
with sundry packets.
August 29, Tuesday.――I rode over to Dar Jôon, and again protested
against these proceedings; but, finding my views did not accord with
Lady Hester’s, and that she could not see me again the next day, which
was Wednesday, I returned to Mar Elias.
September 1.――A priest was sent for, and administered extreme unction
to Signora L., who was now evidently sinking. For the first time,
and only for a moment, she recovered her reason so far as to ask for
water, “_aqua, aqua!_”――and to utter, “_oime, oime!_” “I am dying;”
but, immediately afterwards, her intellects became disordered again.
I was informed by the governess that about noon she appeared at the
last gasp, on seeing which Hadj Mustafa jerked her pillow from under
her head, threw it to a distance, and pulled her legs straight, which
pulling he repeated each time she drew them up. This I learned was in
accordance with the usages of the Mahometans.
September 2.――At nine o’clock in the morning, Signora L. died, and
at five the same afternoon was buried in the Catholic burying-ground
at Sayda, Lady Hester Stanhope’s secretary and myself following as
chief mourners, with the French vice-consul and some French merchants
from Sayda, who paid the last tribute to her memory. Before the body
was removed, a monk, of the order of Terra Santa, and eight Maronite
priests, collected from the town and villages adjoining, performed a
funeral service over her corpse in the chapel where it lay. Thus ended
this sad tragedy, with every mark of respect that grief at her loss
on our part, and sympathy from the European residents at Sayda, could
testify.
The tenor of Lady Hester Stanhope’s mind, and the peculiarity of her
actions and habits may be gathered from a note or two that were sent me
from Dar Jôon to Mar Elias during this poor lady’s illness.
_Lady Hester Stanhope to Dr. ――――._
Djoun, August 20.
I send you a pair of sheets, a coverlet, and two
cotton-stuffed pillows for Madame L., and a bed; also
some arrow-root, some lemons, old newspapers, should they
be wanted, basins, &c.; a bottle of _bnefsage_ (syrup of
violets), and one of _werd_ (syrup of roses), which to some
people is of use medicinally.
I hope you will find Madame L. not so ill as she was made
out to be. There must not be the least noise; nothing is
so bad for persons in her state. I shall expect to see you
to-morrow morning, and then you can return again on Monday:
I mean, I expect to see you, if Madame L. gets better. My
compliments to Mrs. ―――― and Mademoiselle Longchamp: I feel
much for them.
I am afraid that the chapel is damp, and that a stone roof
is not good for Madame L.’s head; but that depends upon her
star. Many people can bear to sleep under a stone roof; but
I, for one, would rather sleep out of doors in the rain.
However, let Hadj Mustafa decide, he knows best.
Yours, sincerely, H. L. S.
I had forgotten a tarboosh and an arkeyah, in case Madame
L. should have her head shaved; also some common towels of
the country.
* * * * *
_The same to the same._
Djôun, Sept. 2. Two in the morning.
I think you should consult with Mr. Conti about the
funeral, as Madame L. is a French subject. I can give no
other advice, only I must add, that my love for the French
will make me little consider expense, in order that all may
be respectable.
H. L. S.
Hadj Mustafa may go away when he pleases.
* * * * *
The consular seals were put on Madame L.’s effects, an inventory having
been taken of them in the presence of General Loustaunau and Miss
Longchamp. They were then carried to Sayda, and afterwards to Beyrout,
to await the directions of her relatives as to their disposal. Other
formalities were fulfilled, and on.
Sept. 7――I betook myself again to Jôon. It was about this time, but
I forgot to note when, that General Cass, who was on a tour in the
Mediterranean, paid a visit to Lady Hester, bringing with him his
family. General Cass, it will be recollected, was, and is now (1839),
ambassador from the United States to the Court of France. His visit,
I believe, had not been previously announced. At all events, I knew
nothing of it, and was absent at Abra, when it took place; so that I
had not the honour of seeing him or his amiable daughters.
FOOTNOTES:
[65] Lord Malmesbury, speaking of an imprudent step which
the Prince of W―――― was almost committing, says――“Lord
Pelham heard of it, and, meeting the Prince at a
house where he was going to dine, strongly urged him
to reflect on what he was going to do. The Prince
listened to his advice.” Lord Malmesbury then adds:
“Luckily this passed _before_ dinner.”
[66] “His Majesty spoke slightingly of Lord Hawkesbury. ‘He
has no head for business, no method, no punctuality,’
said the king.”――_Diaries and Correspondence of the
Earl of Malmesbury._
[67] Speaking of Canning’s speech whilst Addington was
minister in 1802, when, on the 25th of November, he
defended Mr. Pitt’s administration, Mr. Pitt said:
“Private regard gave Canning no right to assert
opinions and doctrines in his name.”――_Diaries and
Correspondence of the Earl of Malmesbury_.
[68] Mr. Canning says: “It was devised by Lord Grenville
to _tie up Pitt’s tongue alone_, who is suspected of
communicating with other persons. I am not sure that
he did not suspect him farther of sounding the public
sentiment through the newspapers.”――_Letter from Mr.
Canning to Lord Malmesbury_, dated 20th July, 1797.
In this accusation of Mr. Pitt’s infidelity to the
secrecy of Cabinet Councils, Mr. C. retorts the very
charge that Lady Hester makes against him――which was
the culprit?
At page 428, Lord Malmesbury seems to reject the
inference Mr. Canning had come to: for he says, “I
am a little influenced by the circumstances of the
paragraphs which have lately appeared in our papers:
and, although it would be most unfair to say I could
fix a shadow of suspicion on the fidelity of any
of the king’s messengers,” &c., whereby it would
seem that he did not suspect Mr. Pitt, but did the
messengers.――_Diaries and Correspondence of the Earl
of Malmesbury_, v. iii. p. 416.
[69] I afterwards sent them to her from Marseilles.