her in her family. In 1770 the birth of her eldest son George, long
beloved in Scotland whilst the Marquis of Huntley, took place. Doctor
Beattie describes him as "the best and most beautiful boy that ever was
born." He proved to be one of the most popular of the young nobility of
that period. Doctor Beattie strongly advised the duchess to engage an
English tutor, a clergyman, for him, recommended either by the
Archbishop of York, or by the Provost of Eton. When it afterward became
a question whether the young heir should go to Oxford or to Cambridge,
the doctor, who seems to have been a universal authority, allowed that
Cambridge was the best for a man of study, whilst Oxford had more dash
and spirit in it: so little are matters altered since that time.
Fifteen years appear to have elapsed before the birth of a second son,
Alexander. Both these scions of this ducal house became military men:
the young marquis was colonel of the Scots Fusileer Guards, and served
in the Peninsular war, and was eventually Governor of Edinburgh Castle.
Long was he remembered by many a brother officer, many an old soldier,
as a gallant, courteous, gay-hearted man; with some of the faults and
all the virtues of the military character. He married late in life
Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Brodie, Esq., of Arnhall, N. B., who
survived him. Lord Alexander Cordon died unmarried; but five daughters
added to the family lustre by noble and wealthy alliances.
Wraxall remarks "that the conjugal duties of the Duchess of Gordon
pressed on her heart with less force than did her maternal solicitudes."
For their elevation she thought, indeed, no sacrifice too great, and no
efforts too laborious. In the success of her matrimonial speculations
she has been compared to Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who numbered
among her sons-in-law two dukes and three earls. But the daughters of
the proud Sarah were, it has been observed, the children of John
Churchill, and on them were settled, successively, Blenheim and the
dukedom. The Ladies Gordon were portionless, and far less beautiful than
their mother. To her skilful diplomacy alone were these brilliant
fortunes owing.
Lady Charlotte, the eldest, was eighteen years of age when her mother
first entertained matrimonial projects for her, and chose for their
object no less a personage than Pitt, then prime minister. Her schemes
might have proved successful had not Pitt had that sure impediment to
maternal management,--a friend. This friend was the subtle Henry Dundas,
afterward Lord Melville; one of those men who, under the semblance of
unguarded manners and a free, open bearing, conceal the deepest designs
of personal aggrandisement. Governing India, governing Scotland, the
vicegerent in Edinburgh for places and pensions, Dundas was looking
forward to a peerage, and kept his eye steadily on Pitt, whom he guided
in many matters, adapting his conduct and his conversation to the
peculiar tone of the minister's mind. Flattery he never used--dictation
he carefully avoided; both would have been detrimental to his influence
with the reserved statesman.
Pitt was by no means calculated to win the affection of a blooming girl
of eighteen, who, whatever Wraxall may have thought, lived to be one of
the most beautiful and graceful women of her time. Many years ago,
during the life of Sir Thomas Lawrence, his portrait of the Duchess of
Richmond, formerly Lady Charlotte Cordon, was exhibited at Somerset
House. So exquisite were the feminine charms of that lovely face, so
elegant the form he had portrayed, that all crowded to look upon that
delineation of a woman no longer young; whilst beauties in the bloom of
youth were passed by as they hung on the walls in all the glowing
colours of girlhood.
On most intimate terms with the duchess, Pitt seems to have been touched
with the attractions of Lady Charlotte, and to have paid her some
attentions. He was one of the stiffest and shyest of men, finely formed
in figure, but plain in face; the last man to be fascinated, the last to
fascinate. Drives to Dundas's house at Wimbledon when Pitt was there;
evenings at home, in easy converse with these two politicians; suppers,
at which the premier always finished his bottle, as well as the hardier
Scotchman, failed to bring forward the reserved William Pitt. The fact
was, that Dundas could not permit any one, far less the Duchess of
Gordon, to have the ascendency over the prime minister that so near a
relationship would occasion. He trembled for his own influence. A
widower at that time,--his wife, a Miss Rennie of Melville, who had been
divorced from him, being dead,--he affected to lay his own person and
fortune at Lady Charlotte's feet. Pitt instantly retired, and the
sacrifice cost him little; and Dundas's object being answered, his
pretensions also dropped through. Two years afterward, Lady Charlotte
became the wife of Colonel Lennox, afterward Duke of Richmond, and in
the course of years the mother of fourteen children; one of whom, Henry
Adam, a midshipman, fell overboard from the _Blake_ in 1812, and was
drowned. According to Wraxall, the Duke of Richmond had to pay the
penalty of what he calls "this imprudent, if not unfortunate marriage,"
being banished to the snowy banks of St. Lawrence under the name
of governor.
In modern times, our young nobility of promise have learned the
important truth, ably enforced by Thomas Carlyle, that work is not only
man's appointed lot, but his highest blessing and safeguard. The rising
members of various noble families have laid this axiom to heart; and,
when not engaged in public business, have come grandly forward to
protect the unhappy, to provide for the young, to solace the old. The
name of Shaftesbury carries with it gratitude and comfort in its sound;
whilst that of him who figured of old in the cabal, the Shaftesbury of
Charles II's time, is, indeed, not forgotten, but remembered with
detestation. Ragged schools; provident schools; asylums for the aged
governess; homes in which the consumptive may lay their heads in peace
and die; asylums for the penitent; asylums for the idiot; homes where
the houseless may repose,--these are the monuments to our Shaftesbury,
to our younger sons. The mere political ascendency--the garter or the
coronet--are distinctions which pale before these, as does the moon when
dawn has touched the mountains' tops with floods of light. As lecturers
amid their own people, as the best friends and counsellors of the
indigent, as man bound to man by community of interests, our noblemen in
many instances stand before us--Catholic and Protestant zealous alike.
"Jock of Norfolk" is represented by a descendant of noble impulses.
Elgin, Carlisle, Stanley--the Bruce, the Howard, the Stanley of former
days--are our true heroes of society, men of great aims and
great powers.
The Duchess of Gordon was indefatigable in her ambition, but she could
not always entangle dukes. Her second daughter, Madelina, was married
first to Sir Robert Sinclair; and secondly, to Charles Fyshe Palmer,
Esq., of Luckley Hall, Berkshire. Lady Madelina was not handsome, but
extremely agreeable, animated, and intellectual. Among her other
conquests was the famous Samuel Parr, of Hatton, who used to delight in
sounding her praises, and recording her perfections with much of that
eloquence which is now fast dying out of remembrance, but which was a
thing _à part_ in that celebrated Grecian. Susan, the third daughter of
the duke and duchess, married William, Duke of Manchester, thus becoming
connected with a descendant of John, Duke of Marlborough.
Louisa, the fourth daughter, married Charles, second Marquis Cornwallis,
and son of the justly celebrated Governor of India; and Georgiana, the
fifth and youngest, became the wife of John, the late Duke of Bedford.
Such alliances might have satisfied the ambition of most mothers; but
for her youngest and most beautiful daughter, the Duchess of Bedford,
the Duchess of Cordon had even entertained what she thought higher
views. In 1802, whilst Buonaparte was first consul, and anticipating an
imperial crown, the Duchess of Gordon visited Paris, and received there
such distinctions from Napoleon Bonaparte, then first consul, as excited
hopes in her mind of an alliance with that man whom, but a few years
previously, she would probably have termed an adventurer!
Paris was then, during the short peace, engrossed with fêtes, reviews,
and dramatic amusements, the account of which makes one almost fancy
oneself in the year 1852, that of the _coup d'état_, instead of the
period of 1802. The whirlwinds of revolution seemed then, as now, to
have left all unchanged; the character of the people, who were still
devoted to pleasure, and sanguine, was, on the surface, gay and buoyant
as ever. Buonaparte holding his levées at the Tuileries, with all the
splendour of majesty, reminds one of his nephew performing similar
ceremonies at the Élysée, previously to his assuming the purple. All
republican simplicity was abandoned, and the richest taste displayed on
public occasions in both eras.
Let us picture to ourselves the old, quaint palace of the Tuileries on a
reception day then; and the impression made on the senses will serve for
the modern drama; be it comedy, or be it tragedy, which is to be played
out in those stately rooms wherein so many actors have passed and
repassed to their doom.
It is noon, and the first consul is receiving a host of ambassadors
within the consular apartment, answering probably to the "_Salle des
Maréchaux_" of Napoleon III. Therein the envoys from every European
state are attempting to comprehend, what none could ever fathom, the
consul's mind. Let us not intermeddle with their conference, but look
around us, and view the gallery in which we are waiting until he, who
was yesterday so small, and who is to-day so great, should come forth
amongst us.
How gorgeous is the old gallery, with its many windows, its rich roof,
and gilded panels! The footmen of the first consul, in splendid
liveries, are bringing chairs for the ladies who are awaiting the
approach of that schoolmaster's son; they are waiting until the weighty
conference within is terminated. Peace-officers, superbly bedizened, are
walking up and down to keep ladies to their seats and gentlemen to the
ranks, so as to form a passage for the first consul to pass down. Pages
of the back stairs, dressed in black, and with gold chains hanging
around their necks, are standing by the door to guard it, or to open it
when he on whom all thoughts are fixed should come forth.
But what is beyond everything striking is the array of Buonaparte's
aids-de-camp,--fine fellows, war-worn,--men such as he, and he alone,
would choose; and so gorgeous, so radiant are their uniforms, that all
else seem as if in shadow in comparison.
The gardens of the Tuileries meantime are filling with troops whom the
first consul is going to review. There are now Zouaves there; but these
are men whom the suns of the tropics hate embrowned; little fellows,
many of them, of all heights, such as we might make drummers of in our
stalwart ranks; but see how muscular, active, full of fire they are;
fierce as hawks, relentless as tigers. See the horse-soldiers on their
scraggy steeds; watch their evolutions, and you will own, with a young
guardsman who stood gazing, fifty years afterward, on the troops which
followed Napoleon III into Paris, that "they are worth looking at."
The long hour is past; the pages in black are evidently on the watch;
the double door which leads into the _Salle des Maréchaux_ is opened
from within; a stricter line is instantly kept by the officers in the
gallery. Fair faces, many an English one among them, are flushed. Anon
he appears, whilst an officer at the door, with one hand raised above
his head and the other extended, exclaims, "_Le Premier Consul_."
Forth he walks, a firm, short, stolid form, with falling shoulders
beneath his tight, deep-blue frock. His tread is heavy rather than
majestic,--that of a man who has a purpose in walking, not merely to
show himself as a parade. His head is large, and formed with a
perfection which we call classic; his features are noble, modelled by
that hand of Nature which framed this man "fearfully," indeed, and
"wonderfully." Nothing was ever finer than his mouth--nothing more
disappointing than his eye; it is heavy, almost mournful. His face is
pale, almost sallow, while--let one speak who beheld him--"not only in
the eye, but in every feature, care, thought, melancholy, and meditation
are strongly marked, with so much of character, nay, genius, and so
penetrating a seriousness, or rather sadness, as powerfully to sink into
an observer's mind."
It is the countenance of a student, not of a warrior; of one deep in
unpractical meditation, not of one whose every act and plan had then
been but a tissue of successes. It is the face of a man wedded to deep
thought, not of the hero of the battle-field, the ruler of assemblies;
and, as if to perfect the contrast, whilst all around is gorgeous and
blazing, he passes along without a single decoration on his plain dress,
not even a star to mark out the first consul. It is well; there can but
be one Napoleon in the world, and he wants no distinction.
He is followed by diplomatists of every European power, vassals, all,
more or less, save England; and to England, and to her sons and
daughters, are the most cherished courtesies directed. Does not that
recall the present policy?
By his side walks a handsome youth whom he has just been presenting to
the Bavarian minister,--that envoy from a strange, wild country, little
known save by the dogged valour of its mountaineers. The ruler of that
land, until now an elector, has been saluted king by Napoleon
the powerful.
On the youth, who addresses him as _mon pèr_, a slight glance is allowed
even from those downcast eyes which none may ever look into too full.
Eugène Beauharnais, his stepson, the son of his ever-loved Josephine,
has a place in that remorseless heart. "All are not evil." Is it some
inkling of the parental love, is it ambition, that causes the first
consul to be always accompanied by that handsome youth, fascinating as
his mother, libertine as his stepfather, but destitute at once of the
sensibilities of the former and of the powerful intelligence of
the latter?
It is on him--on Eugène Beauharnais--that the hopes of the proud Duchess
of Gordon rest. Happily for her whom she would willingly have given to
him as a bride, her scheme was frustrated. Such a sacrifice was
incomplete.
Look now from the windows of that gallery; let your gaze rest on the
parade below, in the Rue de Rivoli, through which Buonaparte is riding
at the head of his staff to the review. He has mounted a beautiful white
horse; his aids-de-camp are by his side, followed by his generals. He
rides on so carelessly that an ordinary judge would call him an
indifferent equestrian. He holds his bridle first in one hand, then in
another, yet he has the animal in perfect control; he can master it by a
single movement. As he presents some swords of honour, the whole bearing
and aspect of the man change. He is no longer the melancholy student;
stretching out his arm, the severe, scholastic mien assumes instantly a
military and commanding air.
Then the consular band strike up a march, and the troops follow in grand
succession toward the Champs Élysées. The crowds within the gallery
disappear; I look around me: the hedges of human beings who had been
standing back to let the hero pass, are broken, and all are hurrying
away. The pages are lounging; the aids-de-camp are gone; already is
silence creeping over that vast gallery of old historic remembrances. Do
not our hearts sink? Here, in this centre window, Marie Antoinette
showed her little son to the infuriated mob below. She stood before
unpitying eyes. Happier had it been for him, for her, had they died
then. Will those scenes, we thought, ever recur? They have--they have!
mercifully mitigated, it is true; yet ruthless hands have torn from
those walls their rich hangings. By yon door did the son of Égalité
escape. Twice has that venerable pile been desecrated. Even in 152, when
crowds hastened to the first ball given by Napoleon III., he traces of
the last revolution were pointed out to the dancers. They have darkened
the floors; all is, it is true, not only renovated, but embellished, so
as to constitute the most gorgeous of modern palaces; yet for how long?
It is, indeed, in mercy that many of our wishes are denied us. Eugène
Beauharnais was even then, destined to a bride whom he had never seen,
the eldest daughter of that Elector of Bavaria to whom Buonaparte had
given royalty; and the sister of Ludwig, the ex-King of Bavaria, was the
destined fair one. They were married; and she, at all events, was fond,
faithful, nay, even devoted. He was created Duke of Leuchtenberg, and
Marie of Leuchtenberg was beautiful, majestic, pious, graceful; but she
could not keep his heart. So fair was she, with those sweet blue eyes,
that pearl-like skin, that fine form, made to show off the _parures_ of
jewels which poor Josephine bequeathed to her--so fair was she, that
when Buonaparte saw her before her bridal, he uttered these few words,
"Had I known, I would have married her myself." Still she was but
second, perhaps third, perhaps fourth ('tis a way they have in France)
in his affections; nevertheless, when he died,--and it was in his youth,
and Thorwaldsen has executed a noble monument of him in the Dom Kirche
at Munich,--when that last separation came, preceded by many a one that
had been voluntary on his part, his widow mourned, and no second bridal
ever tempted her to cancel the remembrance of Eugène Beauharnais.
For Lady Georgiana Gordon, a happier fate was reserved. She married, in
1803, John, the sixth Duke of Bedford, a nobleman whose character would
have appeared in a more resplendent light had he not succeeded a brother
singularly endowed, and whose death was considered to be a public
calamity. Of Francis, Duke of Bedford, who was summoned away in his
thirty-seventh year, Fox said: "In his friendships, not only was he
disinterested and sincere, but in him were to be found united all the
characteristic excellencies that have ever distinguished the men most
renowned for that virtue. Some are warm, but volatile and inconstant; he
was warm too, but steady and unchangeable. Where his attachment was
placed, there it remained, or rather there it grew.... If he loved you
at the beginning of the year, and you did nothing to lose his esteem, he
would love you more at the end of it; such was the uniformly progressive
state of his affections, no less than of his virtue and friendship."
John, Duke of Bedford, was a widower of thirty-seven when he married
Georgiana, remembered as the most graceful, accomplished, and charming
of women. The duke had then five sons, the youngest of whom was Lord
John Russell, and the eldest Francis, the present duke. By his second
duchess, Georgiana, the duke had also a numerous family. She survived
until 1853. The designs formed by the duchess to marry Lady Georgiana to
Pitt first, and then to Eugène Beauharnais, rest on the authority of
Wraxall, who knew the family of the Duke of Gordon personally; but he
does not state them as coming from his own knowledge. "I have good
reason," he says, "for believing them to be founded in truth. They come
from very high authority."
Notwithstanding the preference evinced by the Prince of Wales for the
Duchess of Devonshire, he was at this time on very intimate terms with
her rival in the sphere of fashion, and passed a part of almost every
evening in the society of the Duchess of Gordon. She treated him with
the utmost familiarity, and even on points of great delicacy expressed
herself very freely. The attention of the public had been for some time
directed toward the complicated difficulties of the Prince of Wales's
situation. His debts had now become an intolerable burden; and all
applications to his royal father being unavailing, it was determined by
his friends to throw his Royal Highness on the generosity of the House
of Commons. At the head of those who hoped to relieve the prince of his
embarrassments were Lord Loughborough, Fox, and Sheridan. The
ministerial party were under the guidance of Pitt, who avowed his
determination to let the subject come to a strict investigation.
This investigation referred chiefly to the prince's marriage with Mrs.
Fitzherbert, who, being a Roman Catholic, was peculiarly obnoxious both
to the court and to the country, notwithstanding her virtues, her
salutary influence over the prince, and her injuries.
During this conjuncture the Duchess of Gordon acted as mediator between
the two conflicting parties, alternately advising, consoling, and even
reproving the prince, who threw himself on her kindness. Nothing could
be more hopeless than the prince's affairs if an investigation into the
source of his difficulties took place; nothing could be less desired by
his royal parents than a public exposure of his life and habits. The
world already knew enough and too much, and were satisfied that he was
actually married to Mrs. Fitzherbert. At this crisis, the base falsehood
which denied that union was authorised by the prince, connived at by
Sheridan, who partly gave it out in the House, and consummated by Fox. A
memorable, a melancholy scene was enacted in the House of Commons on the
8th of April, 1787,--a day that the admirers of the Whig leaders would
gladly blot out from the annals of the country. Rolle, afterward Lord
Rolle, having referred to the marriage, Fox adverted to his allusion,
stating it to be a low, malicious calumny. Rolle, in reply, admitted the
legal impossibility of the marriage, but maintained "that there were
modes in which it might have taken place." Fox replied that he denied it
in point of fact, as well as of law, the thing never having been done in
any way. Rolle then asked if he spoke from authority. Fox answered in
the affirmative, and here the dialogue ended, a profound silence
reigning throughout the House and the galleries, which were crowded to
excess. This body of English gentlemen expressed their contempt more
fully by that ominous stillness, so unusual in that assembly, than any
eloquence could have done. Pitt stood aloof; dignified, contemptuous,
and silent. Sheridan challenged from Rolle some token of satisfaction at
the information; but Rolle merely returned that he had indeed received
an answer, but that the House must form their own opinion on it. In the
discussions which ensued, a channel was nevertheless opened for mutual
concessions--which ended eventually in the relief of the prince from
pecuniary embarrassments, part of which were ascribed to the king's
having appropriated to his own use the revenues of the duchy of
Cornwall, and refusing to render any account of them on the prince's
coming of age. It was the mediation of the Duchess of Gordon that
brought the matter promptly to a conclusion, and through her
representations, Dundas was sent to Canton House, to ascertain from the
prince the extent of his liabilities; an assurance was given that
immediate steps would be taken to relieve his Royal Highness. The
interview was enlivened by a considerable quantity of wine; and after a
pretty long flow of the generous bowl, Dundas's promises were
energetically ratified. Never was there a man more "malleable," to use
Wraxall's expression, than Harry Dundas. Pitt soon afterward had an
audience equally amicable with the prince.