After the Fall of Gaeta
The news of the fall of Gaeta was hailed with joy by the fickle
Neapolitans, who seized the occasion as a welcome excuse for more
parades and festivities, with dancing and singing from morning till
night. The day after the departure of Francis and Maria Sophia, the
garrison evacuated the town. Officers and soldiers laid down their arms
before the walls of the citadel, and the fortifications were occupied by
the Piedmontese. Soon after, the citadel Del Tronto opened its gates to
Victor Emanuel’s troops, and with the surrender of Messina on the first
of March, the Bourbon lilies disappeared from southern Italy.
On the fifteenth of February, the exiles landed at Terracina, heavy at
heart, and were escorted by a company of French dragoons to Rome, where
they took up their residence in the Palazzo Farnese as guests of Pope
Pius the Ninth. Maria Sophia was not a devout Catholic like her husband.
She had not wished to go to Rome, and found no comfort in the Holy
Father’s friendship. The dowager Queen was also living in Rome with her
children, and the close companionship into which the exiles were thus
forced by circumstances did not tend to improve the relations between
the ex-Queen and her mother-in-law.
In times of trouble we naturally turn to our kin for sympathy, and Maria
Sophia was seized with desperate longing for her mother and her Bavarian
home. Early in April, therefore, she set out for Possenhofen,
accompanied by General Bosco. The two years she had spent in Naples had
been far from happy. She returned a queen without a crown, deprived of
all save honor. But the familiar scenes and faces, and above all the
comfort of pouring out her heart to the strong, noble mother, who had
suffered so much herself, restored her courage, and she soon became her
cheerful, lively self once more, her eyes sparkling with animation, full
of spirit and energy.
The young Queen’s heroic behavior during the defence of Gaeta had taken
Europe by storm. Her praises were on every tongue, and the beauty, the
courage, the warm-heartedness of the “Heroine of Gaeta” were lauded in
prose and verse. She was deluged with tokens of admiration and sympathy,
among which were a gold laurel wreath from the princesses of Germany and
a sword of honor from the women of Paris. The dowager Queen, Maria
Theresa, had not yet given up hope that she and her children might
return to Naples. Since Francis the Second had proved himself incapable
of maintaining his place on Ferdinand’s throne, she was more determined
than ever that her own eldest son should occupy it; and in order to
prevent any opposition on the part of the Wittelsbach and Hapsburg
families, she succeeded in arranging a marriage between the Count of
Trani and Maria Sophia’s sister Mathilde soon after the arrival of the
exiles in Rome, neither of the young people’s wishes in the matter
having been consulted in the least. Maria Sophia returned to Rome after
a month’s stay with her parents, and in May the bridegroom went to
Munich to meet his unknown bride. This prince was far more attractive
than his stepbrother in outward appearance, having a frank, winning
manner and the utmost propriety of behavior. The wedding was put off for
a month, that the young people might become better acquainted, the Count
accompanying the ducal family to Possenhofen, where he occupied a
neighboring villa on Starnberg Lake.
On the sixth of June, 1861, the ceremony took place in the ducal palace
at Munich, and the next morning the newly married pair set out on their
wedding journey, escorted as far as Zürich by the bride’s parents and
sisters. At Marseilles a Spanish warship was waiting to convey them to
Civita Vecchia, where they were warmly welcomed by the ex-King and Queen
of Naples, who accompanied them back to Rome.
Immediately after the fall of Gaeta, Francis had despatched a letter to
the Emperor Napoleon, thanking him for the friendly interest he had
shown and expressing his appreciation of the courteous treatment he and
his wife had received from the officers of _La Movette_. As yet the
exiled sovereign scarcely knew how his position was regarded by the
European powers; Victor Emanuel had already assumed the title of King of
Italy, and this moved Francis to issue a circular urging them to
discountenance any pretensions on the part of the King of Sardinia.
It is doubtful whether he had at first any idea of continuing the
struggle, but he had no sooner arrived in Rome than he became the centre
of a counter revolution planned by the Legitimist and Papist party, the
object of which was to make Naples again an absolute monarchy, this
being regarded as the surest safeguard of the Pope’s temporal power in
Rome. The dowager Queen contributed a large share of her property to aid
this undertaking, and Francis himself gave all he could spare of the
little he had been able to retain of his private fortune. But all in
vain. The attempt was unsuccessful and the Bourbon cause in Italy
hopelessly lost.
Maria Sophia took no part in these efforts to recover the lost crown.
She had no confidence in her husband’s ability and strongly disapproved
of her mother-in-law’s intrigues. As Queen of the Two Sicilies she had
boldly put aside everything that interfered with her personal liberty;
but under these changed conditions and the protection of the papal power
she had no longer the right to assert her independence or resent the
elder woman’s jealous opposition. The monotony and inactivity to which
she was doomed in Rome were torture to her energetic spirit, and she
became nervous and irritable. By way of retaliation and diversion she
resorted to all sorts of tricks and foolish pranks, which enraged her
mother-in-law and were little becoming a queen on whom the eyes of
Europe had been so recently fixed with admiration and respect.
But this unnatural life had much more serious results also. Meeting, as
she constantly did, men far more clever and attractive than the ex-King
of Naples, it was not strange that the latter should have suffered in
comparison, although, had he shown his love for her in the early days of
their married life, she might still have preferred him to others. Her
husband’s apparent coldness, however, had chilled the warmth of her
impulsive nature and turned her affections back upon herself. With such
a temperament and capacity for love, these pent-up emotions could not
fail to find an outlet sooner or later. A Belgian officer won her heart;
and Maria Sophia, full of life and ardor, forgot her dignity as Queen,
remembering only that she was young, a woman desperately craving
affection, alone in a dull, joyless court, where the life was
intolerable to her.
Less than a year after the heroic defence of Gaeta it was said that the
ex-Queen of Naples was suffering from a disease of the lungs, and much
alarm was felt for her health. Early in the Summer she left Rome,
accompanied by the Count and Countess of Trani, and went to Possenhofen,
where the family was once more reunited. Fate had not dealt kindly with
the Wittelsbach sisters. It was no secret that the Empress of Austria’s
happiness was wrecked and her health deranged, and Hélène of Thurn and
Taxis had fared little better. Elizabeth’s marriage to Francis Joseph
had crushed her ambitious hopes, and the disappointment had embittered
her whole life, although it had made no difference in the affectionate
relations between the sisters, Hélène having left her own home to
accompany the invalid Empress to Madeira. Mathilde of Trani had been
married only a year; but the temperaments of the Count and Countess were
totally unsuited to each other. The young couple had no permanent place
of residence, no prospects for the future, and the present was full of
difficulties.
It was generally known that the climate and life in Rome had seriously
affected the health of the ex-Queen of Naples; but a mother’s sharp eyes
soon discovered that there was a deeper source of trouble. This
daughter, who had inherited all her father’s brilliancy and charm, was
especially dear to the Duchess Ludovica, and as she had always shared
her child’s joys, she now comforted her in her hour of despair. Early in
August Maria Sophia left Possenhofen for a sojourn at the baths of
Soden, which it was hoped would benefit her health, and after a visit to
her eldest sister at Taxis, returned to Bavaria with her mother and the
Empress Elizabeth. Francis still loved his wife deeply, in spite of the
blow his faith in her had received, and both he and her own family tried
to persuade her to return to him; but her health was still so poor she
had little wish to expose herself again to the climate of Rome. In
October she retired to an Ursuline convent at Augsburg, much against the
wishes of her family, who feared it would appear to the world like a
permanent separation from her husband. They begged her at least to come
to Munich and live; but the quiet convent life suited Maria and she
refused to leave her peaceful retreat.
Next to the Duchess Ludovica, her most frequent visitor at Augsburg was
Queen Marie of Bavaria, who had always been her closest friend, and it
was she who finally persuaded her cousin to exchange the convent for a
residence in Munich. In January, 1863, Maria Sophia moved to the Schloss
Biederstein, situated close to the English gardens and one of the most
beautiful spots in the Bavarian capital. Again and again the ex-King of
Naples made offers of reconciliation, and at length his patience and
devotion touched his wife’s heart. Possibly, also, her eyes were
gradually opened to the silent martyrdom he, on his own part, had
endured so long and which she at the time had little understood or
appreciated. It was not until two or three months later, however, that
she finally decided to return to Italy. On the thirteenth of April she
arrived once more in Rome, where she was warmly welcomed by her husband
and all the friends of the exiled family, after an absence of nearly a
year.