Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, was more of a man than her husband,
though he was of great stature and much addicted to the chase. The
daughter of Maria Theresa, the sister of Marie Antoinette, it was not
surprising that she should have beauty and capacity in no common
degree. History has it that she was of coarser fibre than her mother
and sister; it was perhaps necessary for the part she had to play.
Marie Antoinette could be reckless, Maria Carolina is said to have
stopped at nothing which stood in the way of her desires, except that
she was loyal in her friendships and her hatreds.
After a lengthy period of a kind of social purgatory, Lady Hamilton
had been admitted into the truly Oriental paradise of the Neapolitan
Court. The Queen did not do things by halves. When once her Ladyship
had been admitted to the court, she was rapidly admitted to the
Queen's intimacy. My Lady's beauty and high spirits, her usefulness in
the _al fresco_ entertainments in which the King and Queen delighted,
and for which she had a perfect genius, and her extreme popularity,
made her desirable to a dissolute court which lived in the frankest
way for pleasure. And every one knows now that she served the Queen in
another capacity, unsuspected by any except those in her confidence
and that of the British leaders at Naples.
The kingdom of Naples, or the Two Sicilies, was on the point of being
swallowed up by France. The British fleet apart, it was practically at
the mercy of the French, for though it had a certain number of men
capable of offering a bloody resistance in guerilla warfare or street
fighting, we now know that it had no army or navy capable of
contending with the veteran and splendidly-led forces of France. The
nobles and the wealthier portion of the population, to a large extent,
believed in the honesty of the French intentions, and, as I have said,
had a good deal of sympathy with the new ideas spread on the air by
the French Revolution. The King did not see the danger in which his
kingdom lay from the French. But the Queen's wits were sharpened by
her hatred: she never forgot for an instant the murder of her sister
or the sympathies of her family--the Imperial House of Austria. Being
on the _qui vive_, she saw the sword which was hanging over the
kingdom, and with characteristic energy determined to dash it away.
But there were difficulties, and she saw that she must lean upon the
English and their brilliant naval commander. The island part of her
kingdom could hardly be seriously invaded until the British sea power
in the Mediterranean was broken; but the Continental part was in a
very different position. There were French forces no farther off than
Rome, and until our sweeping victory at the Nile had shut the great
French expeditionary force under General Buonaparte up in Egypt it was
more than half likely that it would have been employed for a descent
on Naples. The English, on the other hand, had no land forces in
Italy, and we had not indeed shown that we had either commanders or
regiments of a character to maintain the prestige won under the great
Duke of Marlborough. Any formal defiance of the French, therefore,
involved a grave risk of losing the Continental part of the Neapolitan
kingdom, until an Austrian army marched down the Peninsula. And to
bring about a French invasion it was only necessary for the Queen to
show herself in open alliance with the English. No one doubted her
wishes in this direction. She was simply overborne by the sympathy or
fear for the French entertained by those who had the power to override
her.
Maria Carolina had more than ordinary courage; but she had cunning
also, and quietly developed her plans in connection with the English,
and contrived to do so, as history has proved, and certain of us knew
all along, through her intimacy with Lady Hamilton.
Lady Hamilton, it is true, was the wife of the British Ambassador;
but, partly from her antecedents, no doubt, people did not regard her
as capable of having any political weight, and she was much identified
with the frivolities which took up the time of the Royal Family to
such an extent as to be a scandal.
Maria Carolina was supposed to be concealing her chagrin and drowning
her cares in a turmoil of pleasure, with a questionable entourage made
more questionable by the prominence of My Lady. But all this elaborate
frivolity, besides serving the immediate purpose of passing the time
agreeably, left My Lady in constant attendance on the Queen. They
might be for hours together on a water picnic to eat the fine oysters
fattened in the Lucrine Lake of the ancients, and the making up of the
party might involve My Lady driving up to the Palace twice or thrice
in the course of a few hours to consult with the Queen for a few
minutes.
Never for an instant did the French party suspect that My Lady was the
go-between from the Queen to the British Ambassador or British naval
officers; but we know now that this was in progress for many months.
And the assumed intimacy led to a real and deep friendship, for the
Queen was astonished with My Lady's masculine capacity and still more
masculine courage in this difficult business, and touched by her
devotion to the Royal House of Naples. Accordingly she lost no
opportunity of showing her attachment to her friend by lending her
presence to My Lady's entertainments, especially when the Admiral's
victory allowed her to throw off the mask and display openly her
sympathies for the English against the French.
At this birthday ball given in honour of the Admiral, she was present
for the greater part of the evening, surrounded by a glittering bevy
of courtiers; and her presence gave My Lady the opportunity of showing
her brilliant courage and resourcefulness. I learn from the Journals,
in a passage full of admiration for the well-bred serenity with which
she met such a terrible ordeal, that no sooner had she left the
Admiral after she had recovered from her emotion at the outrageous
accusations of Lieutenant Nisbet, than he received a summons from the
Queen graciously commanding his attendance.
Not having any sufficient excuse to decline, he went, and found My
Lady tattling with Her Majesty as if nothing had happened.
"Shall I interpret for your Majesty and his Excellency?" she inquired
in the most ordinary way; and when the Queen replied in the
affirmative, informed the Admiral that this was Her Majesty's wish,
and added that she had prompted Her Majesty to send for him, and that
it would not be usual for him to take his leave until Her Majesty gave
the signal, thus securing him from doing anything hastily in
connection with the incident. At the door the Admiral found Will
waiting for orders, and, with characteristic command, showing a face
devoid of any expression but the smiling respect with which he
invariably greeted his chief when he met him or was sent for. Telling
him to attend, the Admiral waited on Her Majesty, when, finding that
they were to converse privately, My Lady interpreting, Will fell back
among the less important members of the royal party, and seeing at a
glance that there were no English among them to whom courtesy demanded
that he should pass a few remarks, he retired within his shell, as it
were, and stood with unseeing eyes. He was glad to keep silence, for
the events which had just happened had shocked him even more than the
Admiral himself. Impressionable and emotional as the Admiral was, an
attack was in itself calculated to make his spirits rise, though the
nature of this attack, from the fact that it was levelled chiefly
against a lady for whom he felt such an attachment and respect, stood
in the way of his natural tendency on this occasion. Neither had Will
the Admiral's philosophy, deeply tinged with a religiousness on the
one hand and lightened with an intermittent gaiety on the other. Will,
except in action, had a slow-moving mind, which many things failed to
reach, but when they did reach it, or were of a serious nature, he
could not easily shake them off. As he stood giving the rein to his
thoughts, he took little note of those among whom he was standing
until he heard himself addressed, and found that he was next the
Prince of Favara and his sister. There was a genuine ring in the
Prince's voice, as if bygones were really bygones, and the salutations
were not merely a piece of duellists' etiquette when the combatants
happened to meet again. Donna Rusidda, too, greeted him as if she were
glad to see him.
Under ordinary circumstances Will would, as likely as not, have found
some well-bred way of escaping from a position which threatened to be
awkward for both of them; but he was so agitated about the affair with
Lieutenant Nisbet that he had not his usual collectedness, nor was it
easy for him, being in attendance upon the Admiral, to place a
distance between himself and the Favaras who were in attendance upon
the Queen.
The topic of conversation started by the Prince was, naturally, the
battle, in which it was already bruited about Naples how Will had
distinguished himself. After repeated congratulations, in which Donna
Rusidda joined very prettily, they talked to him for a long time about
the battle, Donna Rusidda asking most particularly about the Admiral,
and how he was now, and about his wound, and how he looked in the
action, and so on, in infinite detail. The topic was a fortunate one;
for Will so warmed up on the subject of his beloved Admiral that they
left off quite kindled into friendship.
It was against Will's notions of good breeding to question them very
particularly about themselves; but in reply to his query whether they
would be in Naples long, the Prince volunteered the information that a
certain number of the Queen's ladies had always to be from the island,
and that his sister had lately been chosen to fill a vacancy. He
himself had long been attached to Ferdinand I.'s household. He further
showed his disposition to be friendly by making a jest of his poverty.
"If one cannot afford to live in one's own palace, the next best thing
is to live in the King's."
A FURTHER EXTRACT FROM THE JOURNAL.
[_Note._--The letter herein referred to as having been written by the
Admiral to her Ladyship on October 3rd, 1798, was duly sent, and is
preserved in autograph among the Nelson papers.]
"Our time here is actively employed, and between business and what is
called pleasure I am not my own master for five minutes.
"Fortunately a good deal of the business of the last few days has been
transacted with her charming Ladyship, who came to me from the Queen
to put me in possession of a mass of information, which Her Majesty
did not consider it safe to entrust to paper. The spies of the French
party are so many and so active, even in the Queen's own apartments.
"I am easier in my mind now about Emma. I am convinced that when a man
and a woman of an age to be mutually attractive to one another are
fast friends and frequently in each other's company, as those French
would say, _tête-à-tête_, that it is opposed to the laws of human
nature--I would almost go further, and say that it is opposed to the
laws of gravitation--that they should not drift into close proximity
with each other. And being in close proximity, it is as much a law of
nature that they should from time to time lay sympathetic hands the
one upon the other. Whether they also kiss is upon a different
footing; for kissing has so long been employed as the formula to
express a certain state of things, though I believe its
particularisation to this to be purely arbitrary. But the formula
having been accepted will deter many, especially women, from what
would naturally seem a harmless and proper mode of expressing the
completeness of their companionship and understanding of each other,
though now it seems a dreadful fault and sort of crime. I am thankful
that Lady Hamilton and I are not hidebound by any such superstitions.
This is not to say that I have not had grave misgivings with my
conscience, for it does not seem right that any man should enjoy such
perfect happiness as I feel in the companionship of dear Lady H. It is
the happiness that I mistrust, not the holding of friendly hands and
meeting of friendly lips. And yet why should one mistrust happiness?
The patriarch Jacob, at the end of his long life and reign as chief of
his household, exclaimed, 'Few and evil have been the days of my
pilgrimage,' and he had lived then a hundred and forty years. I have
lived but forty, crowned at the end by the goodness of God with a
victory than which no mortal man could pray for greater. But if the
patriarch could describe his hundred and forty years in which he had
founded a prosperous family and, as God promised him, a great nation,
may I not rather apply these words to my forty years, spent, three
parts of them, on the sea, which I cannot, in spite of so long a time,
face without constant sickness? I have fought in a hundred pitched
battles, been wounded--I know not how often--and lost an eye and an
arm in the service of my country. I have spent months together out at
sea, in a battered ship, badly provisioned. Have I not earned whatever
happiness Providence suffers to be put in my way?
"But there is Lady Nelson. She is a good wife: would she not be glad
that I should have the kindness--I put the plain truth to myself--the
caressingness of a good woman, to coax back for me that coy and
uncertain goddess of health? Of course she would. Why do I not write
to her, then? Because, not being in the full possession of the facts,
she might misunderstand, and I might raise the very suspicions which I
should be writing to allay.
"Beautiful Emma! how diffident and girlish she was when she came to me
to-day, dreading lest she should be disturbing me, dreading lest she
should be intruding, dreading lest she was trespassing on my
friendship! And the woman, who came to me with a frank kiss, brought
with her the secrets of a nation, which she set forth better than
Acton would have done, or her husband the Ambassador.
"I have now, I think, before me the whole history leading up to the
present situation in the Neapolitan kingdom. I have the attitude and
treacherous designs of the French, the policy of the Emperor, the
state of the kingdom. I think the presence of these French at
Castellana in the Roman state--thirteen thousand of them, better
troops, I should judge, than any the Queen can put in the field--a
most serious menace, not only for their power in the field, which she
ought to be able to balance if she gets a good general: there is one,
I hear, to come from Austria--Neapolitan commanders cannot be relied
on. But the principal danger lies not so much in their power in the
field as in the danger of their pernicious ideas, spreading among the
disaffected in the Neapolitan kingdom with a knowledge of there being
such a strong basis to rally on.
"It seems that their Majesties can put into the field an army of
thirty or forty thousand fine troops, who will follow their leaders
anywhere, and not only out of the battle-field, as they would
certainly have to, if led by their own commanders. With these one
might dispose of the French thirteen thousand in the Roman state,
especially if one could land a few thousand men at Leghorn to cut them
off from their base, and get the Emperor to march his armies. But this
is exactly what the Emperor is determined not to do unless we force
him, because he says that we must wait for the French attack. Now this
is what I never have done in any of my principal actions. It has ever
been my custom to seek the enemy and deliver my attack at the earliest
possible moment, and I have found this answer above expectation with
the French, who always credit the attacker with having the superior
force.
"I should like to write to the Queen or the Ambassador, but am
restrained by the fact that they have not asked me formally to give
any opinion, and it would be like pushing myself into the command of
their forces. But there is no corresponding reason why I should not
place a summary of my views in the hands of Lady H., to be by her
communicated to the Ambassador and Her Majesty. I shall write to her
as follows:--
"'Naples, Oct. 3rd, 1798.
"'My dear Madam,--
"'The anxiety which you and Sir William Hamilton have always had
for the happiness of their Sicilian Majesties, was also planted
in me five years past, and I can truly say, that on every
occasion which has offered (which have been numerous) I have
never failed to manifest my sincere regard for the felicity of
these kingdoms. Under this attachment, I cannot be an
indifferent spectator to what has (been) and is passing in the
Two Sicilies, nor to the misery (without being a politician),
which I cannot but see plainly is ready to fall on those
kingdoms, now so loyal, by the worst of all policy--that of
procrastination. Since my arrival in these seas in June last, I
have seen in the Sicilians the most loyal people to their
Sovereign, with the utmost detestation of the French and their
principles. Since my arrival at Naples I have found all ranks,
from the very highest to the lowest, eager for war with the
French, who, all know, are preparing an army of robbers to
plunder these kingdoms and destroy the Monarchy. I have seen the
Minister of the insolent French pass over in silence the
manifest breach of the third article of the treaty between his
Sicilian Majesty and the French Republic. Ought not this
extraordinary conduct to be seriously noticed? Has not the
uniform conduct of the French been to lull governments into a
false security, and then to destroy them? As I have before
stated, is it not known to every person that Naples is the next
marked object for plunder? With this knowledge, and that his
Sicilian Majesty has an army ready (I am told) to march into a
country anxious to receive them, with the advantage of carrying
the war from, instead of waiting for it at home, I am all
astonished that the army has not marched a month ago.
"'I trust that the arrival of General Mack will induce the
Government not to lose any more of the favourable time which
Providence has put in their hands; for if they do, and wait for
an attack in this country, instead of carrying the war out of
it, it requires no gift of prophecy to pronounce that these
kingdoms will be ruined and the monarchy destroyed. But should,
unfortunately, this miserable ruinous system of procrastination
be persisted in, I would recommend that all your property and
persons are ready to embark at a very short notice. It will be
my duty to look and provide for your safety, and with it (I am
sorry to think it will be necessary) that of the amiable Queen
of these kingdoms and her family. I have read with admiration
her dignified and incomparable letters of September 1796. May
the councils of these kingdoms ever be guided by such sentiments
of dignity, honour, and justice; and may the words of the great
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, be instilled into the ministry of
this country--"_The boldest measures are the safest_"--is the
sincere wish of your Ladyship's, etc.,
"'Horatio Nelson.
"'P.S.--Your Ladyship will, I beg, receive this letter as a
preparative for Sir William Hamilton, to whom I am writing, with
all respect, the firm and unalterable opinion of a British
Admiral, anxious to approve himself a faithful servant to his
Sovereign by doing everything in his power for the happiness and
security of their Sicilian Majesties and their kingdoms.'
"I have just made a copy of the letter to Lady H., sealed it, and sent
it to her by Will's hands."
* * * * *
[This is really most extraordinary if the journals be not genuine, for
Will well remembers taking a letter to her Ladyship on the date
mentioned, which was afterwards made public, and from the nature of
its contents fits in exactly with the extract from the Journal. And if
one says that the Journal may have been written up from the published
letter, how is one to account for Will's being mentioned with the
circumstances correct? For Will was of no consequence then, being one
of the younger lieutenants only. This certainly is a most
extraordinary coincidence.--T. T.]
* * * * *
"I am not sure that I have made matters clear to a woman, though of
masculine intelligence. I trust that she will come to me before she
acts upon it; indeed, I shall send for her. But shall I? I must ask
myself, is it for this that I desire her presence, or is it for the
overpowering joy of having her with me again? To be honest to myself,
I fear it is but an excuse, and yet the salvation of Naples lies in
the communications she carries between the Palace and my fleet. I wish
I knew....
"I only know that in this last week the whole tenor of my life seems
to have changed. I am tasting for the first time of the larger, fuller
life in which men and women enjoy perfect companionship of each other.
I hope there is nothing wicked in it! I hope there is nothing wicked
in it! God knows I do it with a pure heart. He has said that 'to the
pure all things are pure.'"