MEDITERRANEAN YACHTING
ON a beautiful spring morning a frigate cast anchor in the Bay of
Gibraltar. Lady Hester disembarked with a young lady companion, Miss
Williams, who had been a long time in the service of the family, an
English lady's-maid, Anne Fry, a German cook and innumerable trunks.
Everyone was lodged, including the brother, at the Convent, the
residence of the Governor, Lieutenant-General Campbell. Mr. Sutton and
the doctor were obliged to find lodgings elsewhere.
Spain was then almost entirely in the hands of the French, and it was by
no means prudent to go far from the fort. Rides on horseback could not
be indulged in except on the narrow isthmus which connected the fort
with the shore, sandy ground, which was, besides, excellent for a
gallop. The travellers also visited the fortifications. The most content
in the matter was Dr. Meryon. Consider, then, the weather was fine, the
weather was warm, the trees were green and the flowers in bud, and one
was able to bathe every day in the tepid sea, which, for an Englishman,
is important. And it was only by the merest chance that he had not
remained in England! In truth--if the weather had not been icy-cold; if
he had not missed the coach; if he had not run along the Oxford road to
overtake it; if he had not mounted the coach heated from his exertions;
if he had not caught cold; if he had not returned to London; if Cline,
the surgeon's son, had not come to see him; if he had not spoken to him
of the proposal of Lady Hester Stanhope, who was in search of a doctor,
he would be at that moment in the damp meadows of Oxford, coughing and
growing musty! You see how destiny is sometimes affected by a few
glasses of ale! And the doctor, who was a philosopher, took bathe upon
bathe with delight. There were some slight inconveniences in living on
this isolated rock: the meat was tough and bony, and vegetables were
lacking. On the other hand, there was plenty of wine, but it was bad,
which did not prevent the servants from being always drunk.
Lady Hester did she regard this halt as a pilgrimage? In Spanish soil
slept her brother, Major Charles Stanhope, and her friend, General Sir
John Moore, killed scarcely a year earlier, in that terrible battle of
Coruña. General Moore was one of those fine types of officer which
fascinate energetic and enterprising women, combining in some fashion
their dream of heroism and virility. Very handsome in his person, tall
and admirably made, the features of the face attaining a perfection
which had nothing of insipidity about them, he had fulfilled the
promises which he gave at the age of thirteen, when his father wrote:
"He is truly a handsome boy; he dances, rides on horseback, fences with
extraordinary skill. He draws capably, speaks and writes French very
well and has serious notions of geography, arithmetic and geometry....
He is continually showing me how Geneva can be taken."
The Moores were then at Geneva, which the young man was soon to leave to
travel in France, Germany and Italy. He continued to perfect his
education; the first part permitted him to render himself agreeable to
women, the second aided him in his career as an officer, at any rate it
is to be hoped that it did. The knowledge of French was useful to both.
The profession of arms was at that time a very attractive one, for
England was in the midst of the American War, while the more serious
wars of the Revolution and Empire were to follow. There was promotion to
be won and no time to stagnate in garrison towns. Young Ensign Moore
took part in all the fêtes and journeyed across the world. For an
intelligent lad to see the country is never a disagreeable thing. We
find him at Minorca in 1776, then in America in 1779. He takes part in
the famous Corsican expedition by the side of Paoli. He is sent to San
Lucia, commands a brigade at the Helder under the orders of Abercromby,
returns to Minorca, goes to Malta, takes part in the Egyptian campaign,
is very nearly going to the Indies and in 1808 is finally appointed
commander-in-chief of the troops in Spain. Accidents by the way were not
lacking. He was wounded so often that his friends surnamed him the
"unlucky one."
In his last campaign it seems that ill-luck, indeed, pursued him. Moore
relied confidently on the resistance of the Spaniards in Madrid and was
in entire ignorance of the negotiations of Prince Castelfranco and Don
Thomas Morla to surrender the town. The admirable English army, 29,000
strong, was concentrated at Toro and the infantry was within two hours'
march of the French, when a letter, intercepted by chance, suddenly
informed him that Napoleon had made his entry into Madrid no less than
three weeks earlier. Then began that magnificent retreat, in the depth
of winter, over 250 miles of difficult and hilly country. Hard pressed
by the enemy, the exhausted English army reached Coruña on January 16.
The embarkation was hurried on, but the enemy was already descending
from the heights in serried columns. Lord Bentinck's brigade sustained
the shock. Moore was justly applauding an heroic charge of the 50th,
under the orders of Majors Napier and Stanhope, when a bullet struck him
and shattered his shoulder. He lived until the evening. His soldiers
buried him as dawn was breaking, on a gloomy January day, and while they
were digging the grave with their bayonets the enemy's cannon began to
growl again, as if to render funeral honours to the dead.
Moore was certainly not an ordinary officer. "His abilities and his
coolness," said Napoleon of him, "alone saved the English army of Spain
from destruction. He was a brave soldier, an excellent officer and a man
of valour. He committed some faults which were no doubt inseparable from
the difficulties in the midst of which he was struggling and occasioned
perhaps by the mistakes of his intelligence service." In the mouth of
Napoleon, rather sparing of praise, is not this the finest military
eulogium?
What Lady Hester did not perhaps know is that her hero, during a mission
in Sicily, had nearly married Miss Caroline Fox, the daughter of General
Henry Edward Fox. He had been prevented by a chivalrous sentiment in
thinking of the difference of age which existed between the young girl
and himself. And also, to be candid, by the fear of being indebted to
his high position for a heart which he aspired to owe only to himself.
Singular scruple when we reflect that the general was then forty-five
years old!
Would Lady Hester have continued to wear the miniature of the brilliant
officer and to drag it with her in her peregrinations across the Orient,
if she had been acquainted with this trifling detail? It is probable
that she did not lack kind lady friends too happy to furnish her with
abundant information on this subject. But General Moore was dead, and
survivors have a tendency to idealise those who are no longer there to
contradict them....
Soon Captain Stanhope received orders to rejoin his regiment. Mr. Sutton
left for Minorca, whither his affairs called him. Lady Hester, tired of
garrison life, took advantage of the offer which was made her by Captain
Whitby, commander of the _Cerberus_, to convey her to Malta. Her
departure took place on April 7.
A fortnight later Lady Hester disembarked at Valetta. She was expected
at Malta, and several notabilities solicited the honour of entertaining
her. She chose the house of Mr. Fernandez, the commissary-general. The
town presented an agreeable prospect with its wide streets intersecting
one another at right angles and the low houses with their flat roofs.
The doctor found life good; well lodged, well fed, he appreciated the
daily fare. Meals allowed three complete services and five to ten
different wines, and were followed by coffee and liqueurs, as in France.
He wandered, amused, across Valetta, followed by a troupe of naked and
dusty children, jostled by the Maltese, whose woolly hair, olive skin
and flat noses caused him to dream already of barbarian countries,
passing the women with their shawls of black silk placed on the head,
descending in graceful folds, which enveloped the body and half-veiled
the face. Little, at least they appeared so to him, for daily life with
Lady Hester was obliged to distort a little the accurate computation of
figures, their feet and hands admirable, he compared them _in petto_, in
taking away their necklaces, bracelets and chains with which they were
overloaded, to little English serving-maids, without any offensive
intention on his part, but because he could not find, in his national
pride, a better comparison to express the admiration with which their
plump arms and their full figures inspired him.
He walked also in the magnificent Cathedral of San Giovanni, whose
pavement in mosaics of glistening colours gave him the illusion of
walking on the pictures from the gallery of the Louvre taken from their
frames and sewn together. And then what fêtes! So long as Lord Bute was
Governor of the island the doctor had to stand aside. Constantly Lady
Hester said to him: "Doctor, I am dining this evening with Lord Bute;
you are not invited, but do not regret that, for he is a haughty man who
does not like doctors and tutors to open their mouths before he
addresses them. Also take advantage of my absence to invite whomever you
like to dine with you; I have given orders to Franz (the German cook)."
At the end of May, this Governor who had such bad taste was recalled,
and General Oakes, who succeeded him, was a very worthy gentleman. Never
will the doctor see again such brilliant receptions.... Malta was then
the fashion; the Neapolitan nobility, which had refused to recognise the
usurper Murat, had flowed back there _en masse_, and the English, always
travelling, and to whom the Continental blockade, in closing Europe to
them, had given a revival of restlessness, had no choice and preferred
still the mild climate of Valetta to the London fog so much vaunted.
There were every day dinners of sixty covers at the Governor's palace.
The thousands of candles which the silver cressets and the chased
candelabra supported did not succeed in lighting the monumental
staircase; they illuminated the line of salons, plunged into the depths
of the hall, lingered over the faded brocades and the old tapestries,
glided over the waves of the mural frescoes representing a naval combat
between the Christian Knights and the Moors, caressed the dark tresses
of the beautiful Neapolitan ladies, flashed on the laced uniforms of the
English officers of the garrison, played on the gala costumes,
magnificent and strange, of the Greek and Levantine Navy, to glitter
finally on the blonde hair of Lady Hester Stanhope, whose haughty head
dominated this picturesque medley of races. At the supper which followed
the ball, a table was arranged on a dais, which reminded the doctor of
Oxford University.... But what a difference! One evening did he not
accompany a lady of high and authentic rank, and, sitting by her, did he
not find himself separated from the Governor, who was flanked on the
right by the Duchesse of Pienna and on the left by Lady Hester, by the
width of the table, not by the length--the width you must clearly
understand? And with a score of lords, dukes, marquises and counts all
around!
The summer came. Lady Hester accepted the kind offer of General Oakes,
who placed at her disposal the Palazzo San Antonio, a few miles from
Valetta. The palace was a large building, flanked by a tower simulating
a belfry. The interior was spacious and well ventilated, but the total
absence of rugs and carpets, in order to keep it cool, gave the doctor
the impression of being always on the floor of the kitchen.
What was wonderful there were the gardens. The place recalled that of
the Orangery at Versailles, but never will the most assiduous care be
able, in the French climate, to obtain orange-trees, lemon-trees and
pomegranate-trees so vigorous and so beautiful. What magnificent
shooting of the sap towards the sun, expanding in domes of glistening
leaves, in flowers of purple, in fruits of gold! Double oleanders, of
the shape of hazel-trees, diffused their bitter and sharp odour. Hedges
of myrtle ten feet high separated thickets of giant roses and bound a
terrace, forming a colonnade where the vine suspended itself in arches
and mingled its ripe grapes with the green branches.
Many foreigners and English people touched at Malta; amongst them Mr.
Michael Bruce, the bold Colonel Bruce who, with the assistance of Sir
Robert Wilson and Mr. Hutchinson, had succeeded in contriving the escape
of Lavalette, on the eve of his execution, and in enabling him to cross
the frontier. Learning that Lady Stanhope's brother had been recalled by
his military duties, he resolved to take his place near her and to
accompany her throughout the perilous journey which she had resolved to
undertake across European and Asiatic Turkey. Sweet solicitude!
Soon the heat became infernal. They were in the month of August, and the
thermometer registered 85 degrees Fahrenheit at midday. Lady Hester, who
had lost appetite and suffered from acute indigestion, decided to go to
Constantinople, the only corner of Europe accessible to the English.
Sicily, which had for a moment attracted her, was threatened by an
invasion of Murat.
Not being able to obtain a King's ship, an American brig, the
_Belle-Poule_, was hired to cross the Ionian Sea. Miss Williams remained
at Malta with her sister, who was married to a commissariat officer.
The travellers touched at the Isle of Zante, the flower of the Levant,
the golden isle, which the English had conquered the previous year at
the same time as Ithaca, Cerigo and Cephalonia. What an enchanting
vision greeted them on entering the harbour! On the right, at the foot
of a wooded mountain, lay the white houses of a delicious little town
hidden in the olive woods of a light and vaporish grey; and tall and
sombre cypress-trees climbed across the fields of wild vine to the
assault of the citadel which dominated and completed this dream
landscape. It was the time of the raisin harvest, and women with faces
much painted, a layer of white about their lips, were drying the grapes
in the warm sun of the Orient which blackens the skins, swollen with
juice, in a few days.
One ought not to remain too long in too beautiful countries. Their
complete perfection produces insensibly an ennui which paralyses and a
depression of the mind which leads too quickly to yawning admiration,
then to torpor. It is perhaps for that reason that the great artists,
the great workers, those who produce and struggle, avoid the enchanted
lands of the South, where beauty is an easy conquest within the reach of
all. Lady Hester, who cared only for action, stayed a fortnight at
Zante; and on August 23 a felucca brought her to Patras. There she was
rejoined by the Marquis of Sligo, whose yacht was wandering across the
Mediterranean. The marquis joined himself as well to the expedition. Yet
a new bodyguard!
At Corinth, Lady Stanhope received a visit from the Bey's harem. The
interpreter begged the men to retire, but Lord Sligo, Bruce and the
doctor thought that now or never was their opportunity to admire the
Turkish beauties to the life. A bey, whose will was law throughout the
province, ought not to choose ugly women to beguile his hours of
leisure. They concealed themselves, therefore, behind a wainscot whose
kind crevices permitted them to see without being seen.
The women, placed at their ease by Lady Hester's kind reception, began
soon to unveil and to throw off their ferigees. Some were pretty and
stretched themselves on the sofa in studied attitudes. They communicated
with Lady Hester by signs and gestures. Intrigued by her strange
garments, they began to discuss in detail the different parts of her
costume and to compare them with their own, curious to understand
European lingerie. Unaware that they were spied upon by the men's eyes,
they uncovered their feet bare to the heel, reddened by henna, and their
white bosoms which the Turkish robes, loose at the neck and shoulder,
allowed one to see. They quickly became familiar, their gestures, in
default of words, were more expressive. Lady Stanhope was very
embarrassed at the disagreeable situation in which the curiosity of her
friends had placed her. To extricate her in time from this difficulty
and judging that they had seen enough, they gave vent to stifled
laughter. Instantly, as though struck by an electric shock, the young
women resumed their veils over their ferigees, their gaiety fled away
and they imperiously demanded, by signs, the explanation of these
mysterious sounds. This time it was the position of Sligo, Bruce and
Meryon which was critical; if the bey came to learn of the adventure,
his vengeance would not tarry. Lady Hester, with great sang-froid,
reassured the women and succeeded in pacifying them; but, soon
afterwards, they rose to depart, thinking, without any doubt, that it
was better to be silent and not to draw upon themselves the suspicion of
their lord and master, jealous like every self-respecting Turk.
Having passed the Isthmus of Corinth on horseback, Lady Hester and her
suite, which amounted to twenty-five persons--Lord Sligo having for his
share: a Tartar, two Albanians, with their yataghans by their sides, a
dragoman, a Turkish cook, an artist to sketch picturesque scenery and
costumes (the photographer of the time), and three English servants in
livery and one without livery!--embarked at Kenkri for Athens.
The French consul at Janina, François Pouqueville, was looking forward
to Lady Hester's visit.
"Greece is therefore now the country whither the English flock to cure
the spleen," he writes on October 8, 1810. "One sees only mylords,
princes, but what one would never have expected there is the
'_mi-carême_,' yes, the '_mi-carême_.' She is a great lady of forty
years and more, relative or aunt of Mr. Pitt, attacked by the twofold
malady of antiquity and celebrity, who has appeared on the horizon. The
said lady, guarded by a doctor and two lackeys, has debouched in the
Morea. We are assured that she intends to make the pilgrimage to
Thyrinth, where was that fountain into which Juno, the '_mi-carême_' of
Olympus, used to descend every year to bathe and from which she used to
emerge a maiden. From the lustral waters, our traveller will visit
Thermopylæ, will make a survey of Pharsalia, where her
great-grandfather beat Pompey, and will come like 'my aunt Aurore' to
sentimentalise under the arbours of Tempea. I await her on the shores of
Acherusia.[1] We shall see this Fate."
The gallant consul lost his time and money the "_mi-carême_" did not
come to Janina.
On their arrival at the Piræus, the travellers saw a man who was
flinging himself from the great mole into the sea. The exploits of Byron
repeating Leander's achievement and crossing the Hellespont by swimming,
had already come to their ears. Lord Sligo felt sure that he recognised
him in this bold diver and hailed him. Byron, for it was indeed he,
dressed in haste and soon came to join them. He even lent his horses to
go to Athens to find means of transport in order to fetch Lady Hester
and his numerous trunks.
Having nothing to do, Bruce and the doctor tried to enter into relations
with a band of young veiled Turkish girls seated on the beach. The
latter, scared, took to flight, and Bruce, who had not learned enough
from his recent experience, made many signs to them to induce them to
remain. Some Turks who were lounging about the jetty muttered threats
against this enterprising Frank. He narrowly escaped getting into
mischief.
At Athens, Lady Hester, who was an excellent organiser of comfort,
transformed in a few hours her temporary house into a pleasant home,
where every evening an agreeable little company assembled.
Byron, who had been at college with Sligo and Bruce, was amongst the
number; but finding the manners of the hostess too despotic, he soon
grew tired. He pleaded urgent business in the Morea and did not reappear
until a few days before his departure. It is always disagreeable for
those who have fled from their country to meet their compatriots again.
It diminishes the consideration of the inhabitants, above all when these
new-comers possess illustrious rank, originality and eccentricity. Lady
Hester and Byron could compete on these three points, and this
accidental occurrence of what an Englishman hates the most in the world,
to be acquainted with another travelling Englishman, was not calculated
to establish a sympathetic intercourse.
On Byron's side, the affair was complicated by wounded masculine vanity.
Anxious to excess concerning its beauty and its harmony, he suffered
enormously from his constant lameness. And now chance was giving him as
a rival a woman redoubtable, astonishingly attractive, notwithstanding
that she had a figure like a grenadier, and possessing two feet superbly
arched and of equal size, which did not allow themselves to be easily
forgotten! Men have never cared to meet superior women, even in the size
of their shoes.
Lady Hester, who prided herself upon being a physiognomist, considered
his eyes defective; the only thing that pleased her was the ringlet on
his forehead. For Byron, accustomed to other conquests, this was indeed
little. As for the poet, "it is easy enough to write verses," confided
he to the doctor, "and as to the matter of ideas, God knows where you
find them! You pick up some old books which no one knows and borrow what
is inside." The man of the world and the man of letters having been
united in a general reprobation, Byron made the best of the situation:
that is to say, by separating without delay from this Britannic Juno.
The doctor less stern, saw Byron more often. He remarked his singular
manner of entering a drawing-room, making skilful détours from chair to
chair, so far as that which he had chosen, anxious to conceal his
lameness, which this manœuvre, after all, made the more apparent. Byron
exploited this admiration in persuading the doctor to attend a young
Greek girl in whom he was greatly interested.
[Footnote 1: Ancient name of the Lake of Janina.]