NEAPOLITAN DAYS
NAPLES -- A SLEEPY AMBASSADRESS -- THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF LADY
HAMILTON -- BEING THE STORY OF A FRIVOLOUS FLIRT FOND OF BEER --
MORE ROYAL MODELS -- EXCURSIONS TO POSILIPPO -- MLLE. LEBRUN
WRITES A NOVEL AT THE AGE OF NINE -- THE QUEEN OF NAPLES SITS TO
THE AUTHORESS -- THE WEDDING OF THE DOGE OF VENICE WITH THE SEA.
I had been in Rome eight months or thereabouts, when, observing that
all foreigners were leaving for Naples, I was seized with a great
desire to go there likewise. I confided my plan to the Cardinal de
Bernis, who, while approving, advised me not to go alone. He spoke to
me of a M. Duvivier, the husband of Voltaire's niece, Mme. Denis, who
proposed to make the journey, and who would be charmed with my
company. M. Duvivier came to me, repeating everything that the
Cardinal had said, and promising to take care of my daughter and
myself. He added, thus tempting me the more, that he had in his
carriage a sort of stove, for cooking fowl, which would be very useful
to us, seeing how bad the fare was in the best inns of Terracina. All
his offers suited me to a marvel, and so I started with this
gentleman. His coach was very large; my daughter and her governess sat
in front, and there was another seat in the middle. A huge man-servant
sat on it in front of me in such a way that his large back touched me
and I had to hold my nose. I am not in the habit of talking while
travelling, so that conversation between us was restricted to the
exchange of a few phrases. But as we were crossing the Pontine
marshes, I noticed on the edge of a canal a shepherd whose flock was
passing into a meadow all studded with flowers, and beyond which the
sea and Cape Circe were visible. "What a charming picture!" said I to
my travelling companion. "This shepherd, these sheep, the meadow, the
sea!" "Those sheep are all filthy," he answered; "you ought to see
them in England." Farther along on the Terracina road, at the place
where you cross a small river in a boat, I saw at my left the line of
the Apennines crowned with magnificent clouds, which the setting sun
illumined. I was unable to refrain from expressing my admiration
aloud. "Those clouds mean that we shall have rain to-morrow," said my
optimistic friend.
We reached Naples at about three or four o'clock. I cannot describe
the impression I received upon entering the town. That burning sun,
that stretch of sea, those islands seen in the distance, that Vesuvius
with a great column of smoke ascending from it, and the very
population so animated and so noisy, who differ so much from the Roman
that one might suppose they were a thousand miles apart.
I had engaged a house at Chiaja on the edge of the sea. Opposite me I
had the island of Capri, and this situation delighted me. Hardly had I
arrived when Count Skavronska, the Russian Ambassador at Naples, whose
house was next to mine, sent one of his runners to find out how I was,
and at the same time had a very choice dinner brought me. I was the
more grateful for this kind attention, as I must have died of hunger
before there would have been time to get my kitchen ready. The same
evening I went to thank the Count, and thus became acquainted with his
charming wife.
[Illustration: MARIE CAROLINE, WIFE OF FERDINAND IV. OF NAPLES.]
Count Skavronska had features that were noble and regular; he was very
pale. This pallor came from the extreme delicacy of his health, which,
however, did not prevent him from being highly sociable nor from
chatting both gracefully and cleverly. The Countess was as sweet and
pretty as an angel. The famous Potemkin, her uncle, had loaded her
with wealth, for which she had no use. Her great delight was to live
stretched out on a lounge wrapped in a large black cloak, and wearing
no stays. Her mother-in-law sent her, from Paris, cases full of the
most beautiful dresses then made by Mlle. Bertin, Queen Marie
Antoinette's dressmaker. I do not believe that the Countess ever
opened one of them, and when her mother-in-law expressed a wish to see
her in the beautiful gowns and head-dresses contained in the cases,
she answered indifferently: "What for? Why?" She gave me the same
answer when showing me her jewel-case, one of the most splendid I have
ever seen. It contained enormous diamonds given her by Potemkin, but I
never saw them on her. I remember her telling me that in order to go
to sleep she had a slave under her bed who told her the same story
every night. She was utterly idle all day, she had no education, and
her conversation was quite empty. But in spite of all that, thanks to
her lovely face and her angelic sweetness, she had an incomparable
charm.
Count Skavronska had made me promise to do his wife's portrait before
any one else's, and, having agreed, I began this portrait two days
after my arrival. After the first session, Sir William Hamilton, the
British Ambassador at Naples, came to me and begged that my first
portrait in this town should be that of the splendid woman he
presented to me. This was Mme. Harte, who soon after became Lady
Hamilton, and who was famous for her beauty. After the promise to my
amiable neighbours, I could not begin the other portrait until
Countess Skavronska's was well advanced. I then painted Mme. Harte as
a bacchante reclining by the edge of the sea, holding a goblet in her
hand. Her beautiful face had much animation, and was a complete
contrast to the Countess's. She had a great quantity of fine chestnut
hair, sufficient to cover her entirely, and thus, as a bacchante with
flying hair, she was admirable to behold.
The life of Lady Hamilton is a romance. Her maiden name was Emma Lyon.
Her mother, it is said, was a poor servant, and there is some
disagreement as to her birthplace. At the age of thirteen she entered
the service of an honest townsman of Hawarden as a nurse, but, tired
of the dull life she led, and believing that she could obtain a more
agreeable situation in London, she betook herself thither. The Prince
of Wales told me that he had seen her at that time in wooden shoes at
the stall of a fruit vender, and that, although she was very meanly
clad, her pretty face attracted attention. A shopkeeper took her into
his service, but she soon left him to become housemaid under a lady of
decent family--a very respectable person. In her house she acquired a
taste for novels, and then for the play. She studied the gestures and
vocal inflections of the actors, and rendered them with remarkable
facility. These talents, neither of which pleased her mistress in the
very least, were the cause of her dismissal. It was then that, having
heard of a tavern where painters were in the habit of meeting, she
conceived the idea of going there to look for employment. Her beauty
was then at its height.
She was rescued from this pitfall by a strange chance. Doctor Graham
took her to exhibit her at his house, covered with a light veil, as
the goddess Hygeia (the goddess of health). A number of curious people
and amateurs went to see her, and the painters were especially
delighted. Some time after this exhibition, a painter secured her as
a model; he made her pose in a thousand graceful attitudes, which he
reproduced on canvas. She now perfected herself in this new sort of
talent which made her famous. Nothing, indeed, was more remarkable
than the ease Lady Hamilton acquired in spontaneously giving her
features an expression of sorrow or of joy, and of posing marvellously
to represent different people. Her eyes a-kindle, her hair flying, she
showed you a bewitching bacchante; then, all of a sudden, her face
expressed grief, and you saw a magnificent repentant Magdalen. The day
her husband presented her to me, she insisted on my seeing her in a
pose. I was delighted, but she was dressed in every-day clothes, which
gave me a shock. I had gowns made for her such as I wore in order to
paint in comfort, and which consisted of a kind of loose tunic. She
also took some shawls to drape herself with, which she understood very
well, and then was ready to render enough different positions and
expressions to fill a whole picture gallery. There is, in fact, a
collection drawn by Frederic Reimberg, which has been engraved.
To return to the romance of Emma Lyon. It was while she was with the
painter I have mentioned that Lord Greville fell so desperately in
love with her that he intended to marry her, when he suddenly lost his
official place and was ruined. He at once left for Naples in the hope
of obtaining help from his Uncle Hamilton, and took Emma with him so
that she might plead his cause. The uncle, indeed, consented to pay
all his nephew's debts, but also decided to marry Emma Lyon in spite
of his family's remonstrances. Lady Hamilton became as great a lady as
can be imagined. It is asserted that the Queen of Naples was on an
intimate footing with her. Certain it is that the Queen saw her
often--politically, might perhaps be said. Lady Hamilton, being a
most indiscreet woman, betrayed a number of little diplomatic secrets
to the Queen, of which she made use to the advantage of her country.
Lady Hamilton was not at all clever, though she was extremely
supercilious and disdainful, so much so that these two defects were
conspicuous in all her conversation. But she also possessed
considerable craftiness, of which she made use in order to bring about
her marriage. She wanted in style, and dressed very badly when it was
a question of every-day dress. I remember that when I did my first
picture of her, as a sibyl, she was living at Caserta, whither I went
every day, desiring to progress quickly with the picture. The Duchess
de Fleury and the Princess de Joseph Monaco were present at the third
sitting, which was the last. I had wound a scarf round her head in the
shape of a turban, one end hanging down in graceful folds. This
head-dress so beautified her that the ladies declared she looked
ravishing. Her husband having invited us all to dinner, she went to
her apartment to change, and when she came back to meet us in the
drawing-room, her new costume, which was a very ordinary one indeed,
had so altered her to her disadvantage that the two ladies had all the
difficulty in the world in recognising her.
When I went to London in 1802 Lady Hamilton had just lost her husband.
I left a card for her, and she soon came to see me, wearing deep
mourning, with a dense black veil surrounding her, and she had had her
splendid hair cut off to follow the new "Titus" fashion. I found this
Andromache enormous, for she had become terribly fat. She said that
she was very much to be pitied, that in her husband she had lost a
friend and a father, and that she would never be consoled. I confess
that her grief made little impression upon me, since it seemed to me
that she was playing a part. I was evidently not mistaken, because a
few minutes later, having noticed some music lying on my piano, she
took up a lively tune and began to sing it.
As is well known, Lord Nelson had been in love with her at Naples; she
had maintained a very tender correspondence with him. When I went to
return her visit one morning, I found her radiant with joy, and
besides she had put a rose in her hair, like Nina. I could not help
asking her what the rose signified. "It is because I have just
received a letter from Lord Nelson," she answered.
The Duke de Berri and the Duke de Bourbon, having heard of her poses,
very much desired to witness a spectacle which she had never been
willing to offer in London. I requested her to give me an evening for
the two Princes, and she consented. I also invited some other French
people, who I was aware would be anxious to see this sight. On the day
appointed I placed in the middle of my drawing-room a very large
frame, with a screen on either side of it. I had had a strong
limelight prepared and disposed so that it could not be seen, but
which would light up Lady Hamilton as though she were a picture. All
the invited guests having arrived, Lady Hamilton assumed various
attitudes in this frame in a truly admirable way. She had brought a
little girl with her, who might have been seven or eight years old,
and who resembled her strikingly. One group they made together
reminded me of Poussin's "Rape of the Sabines." She changed from grief
to joy and from joy to terror so rapidly and effectively that we were
all enchanted. As I kept her for supper, the Duke de Bourbon, who sat
next to me at table, called my attention to the quantity of porter she
drank. I am sure she must have been used to it, for she was not tipsy
after two or three bottles. Long after leaving London, in 1815, I
heard that Lady Hamilton had ended her days at Calais, dying there
neglected and forsaken in the most awful poverty.
The excursions I made at Naples did not prevent me from accomplishing
a great deal of work. I even undertook so many portraits that my first
stay in that town extended to six months. I had arrived with the
intention of spending only six weeks. The French Ambassador, the Baron
de Talleyrand, came to inform me one morning that the Queen of Naples
wished me to do the portraits of her two eldest daughters, and I began
upon them at once. Her Majesty was preparing to leave for Vienna,
where she was to busy herself about the marriage of these Princesses.
I remember her saying to me after her return: "I have had a successful
journey; I have just made two fortunate matches for my daughters." The
eldest, in fact, soon after was married to the Emperor of Austria,
Francis II., and the other, who was called Louise, to the Grand Duke
of Tuscany. This second girl was very ugly, and made such grimaces
that I did not want to finish her picture. She died a few years after
her marriage.
During the Queen's absence I also painted the Prince Royal. The hour
of noon was appointed for the sittings, and in order to attend I was
obliged to follow the Chiaja road in the heat of the day. The houses
on the left, which faced the sea, being painted a lustrous white, the
sun was reflected from them so vividly that I was almost struck blind.
To save my eyes, I put on a green veil, which I had never seen any one
else do, and which must have looked rather peculiar, since only black
or white veils were worn. But a few days after I saw several English
women imitating me, and green veils came into fashion. I also found
great comfort in my green veil at St. Petersburg, where the snow was
so dazzling that it might have killed my eyesight.
One of my greatest pleasures was to go for walks on the lovely slope
of Posilippo. Under it is the grotto of the same name, which is a
splendid piece of work a mile long, and which is recognised as having
been done by the Romans. This slope of Posilippo is covered with
country houses, casinos, meadows, and very fine trees with vines
winding about them in festoons. It is here that Virgil's tomb is to be
found, and it is said that laurels grow upon it, but I must confess
that I saw none. In the evenings I walked on the seashore; I
frequently took my daughter, and we often remained sitting there
together until moonrise, enjoying the salubrious air and the gorgeous
view. This was a rest for my daughter after her daily studies, for I
had resolved to give her the best education possible, and to this
effect I had engaged at Naples masters of writing, geography, Italian,
English, and German. She showed a preference for German above the
others, and evinced a remarkable aptitude in her various studies.
There were some signs in her of a talent for painting, but her
favourite pastime was to compose novels. Returning from evening
parties to which I had gone, I would find her with a pen in her hand
and another in her cap; I would then oblige her to go to bed, but not
infrequently did she secretly get up in the middle of the night to
finish one of her chapters, and I remember very well how, at the age
of nine, at Vienna, she wrote a little romance as remarkable for its
situations as for its style.
[Illustration: PRINCESS CHRISTINE, DAUGHTER OF FERDINAND IV. OF
NAPLES.]
All the portraits I had engaged to do at Naples being finished, I went
back to Rome, but hardly had I arrived when the Queen of Naples
arrived also, she making a stop there on her return journey from
Vienna. As I happened to be in the crowd through which she made her
way, she noticed me and spoke to me, and begged me with extreme
graciousness to visit Naples once more for the purpose of painting her
portrait. It was impossible to refuse, and I complied with her wish at
once.
Upon arriving at Naples I began the portrait of the Queen forthwith.
It was then so terribly hot that one day when Her Majesty gave me a
sitting we both fell asleep. I took great pleasure in doing this
picture. The Queen of Naples, without being as pretty as her younger
sister, the Queen of France, reminded me strongly of her. Her face was
worn, but one readily judged that she had been handsome; her hands and
arms especially were perfect in form and colour. This Princess, of
whom so much evil has been written and spoken, had an affectionate
nature and simple ways at home. Her magnanimity was truly royal. The
Marquis de Bombelles, the Ambassador at Vienna in 1790, was the only
French envoy who refused to swear to the constitution; the Queen,
being apprised that by this brave and noble conduct M. de Bombelles,
the father of a large family, had been reduced to the most unfortunate
position, wrote him a letter of commendation with her own hand. She
added that all sovereigns should be at one in acknowledging faithful
subjects, and asked him to accept a pension of twelve thousand francs.
She had a fine character and a good deal of wit. She bore the burden
of government alone. The King would have nothing to do with it; he
spent most of his time at Caserta. Before I left Naples for good the
Queen presented me with a box of old lacquer, with her initials
surrounded by beautiful diamonds. The initials are worth ten thousand
francs; I shall keep them all my life.
I had a burning desire to see Venice; I arrived there the day before
Ascension. M. Denon, whom I had known in Paris, having heard of this,
came to see me without delay. His cleverness and his great knowledge
of the arts made him the most charming mentor, and I congratulated
myself upon such a happy encounter. The very next day he took me out
on the canal, where the marriage of the Doge with the sea was enacted.
The Doge and all the members of the senate were on a vessel gilded
inside and out and called the _Bucentaur_; it was surrounded by a
swarm of boats, of which several were occupied by musicians. The Doge
and the senators had on black gowns and white wigs with three bows.
When the _Bucentaur_ had reached the place fixed for the celebration
of the marriage, the Doge pulled a ring from his finger and threw it
into the sea. At the same instant a thousand cannon shots announced to
the city and its surroundings the consummation of this great wedding,
which concluded with mass.
A number of strangers were present at the ceremony. I observed among
them Prince Augustus of England, and the charming Princess Joseph de
Monaco, then preparing to go back to France for her children. I saw
her at Venice for the last time.