'^^" >^ 'i-'%'
^l;^'^:r'V*'' V"
tr-'^v' ^:
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
THE ROSE GODDESS
AND OTHER SKETCHES OF MYSTERY AND ROMANCE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THREE GENERATIONS OF FASCINATING WOMEN
AND OTHER SKETCHES FROM FAMILY HISTORY
With I Photogravure Plate and 66 Collotype Portraits and other Illustrations.
Crown 4to, 31s. 6d. net.
SWALLOWFIELD AND ITS OWNERS
With 15 Photogravure Portraits and 37 other Illustrations.
Crown 4to, 42s. net.
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
Grorgiana Lrnnox afterwards Countbss Bathurst. (From nil engraving at Swallowfield by Baitoloz/i, after Sir Thomas Lawrence, R.A.)
the ROSE GODDESS and OTHER SKETCHES OF MYSTERY ^ ROMANCE
BY
LADY RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF "three GENERATIONS OF FASCINATING WOMEN ' "SWALLOWFIELD AND US OWNERS"
WITH 28 collotype: plates and
22 OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA
I9IO
All rii'hts reserved
The writer has been guided in the selection of the
subjects for these sketches not always by the intrinsic
interest of the stories themselves, but by the fact that in
each of them, one or more of the characters are either
nearly or remotely connected with her family, so that
although several of them are old stories re-told, she has
been enabled from private sources to add some intimate
particulars.
Many of the illustrations are not generally known to
the public, and are produced in this form for the first
time.
CONSTANCE RUSSELL.
SWALLOWFIELD PaRK,
Reading.
CONTENTS
The Rose Goddess, or The Philosopher's Love
The Real Louise de Keroualle ....
" Che Sara, Sara," or Four Tragedies in One Family
Robin Adair, or The Fortunate Irishman
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat : An
Unsolved Mystery ......
The Captive Princesses ......
" The Peasant Peeress " .
Two Brave Grizels : Grizel Hume and Grizel
Cochrane ........
A Huguenot Family ......
A Strange Miscarriage of Justice ....
Our Polish Cousins .......
A Left-handed Marriage and Something about our
Palatine Relations ......
The Faithful Wyndhams .....
A Loyal Heart .......
The Brazier and the Earl .....
The Merchant of the Ruby and the White Rose "The Queen of Man" ......
Pedigree To face page
Appendix ..........
Index ...........
I
72 87
92 116 141
U7 165 181 186
202 215 225 231 238 251
268 269 279
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Georgiana Lennox, afterwards Countess Bathurst .......
From an Engraving at Szvallorvfield by Bartolozzi, after Sir Thomas Lawrence, R.A.
Frontispiece
The Residency at Hyderabad
From a Water-colour Drawing at Swallowfield.
To face page 2
Mrs. Phillipps (" Kitty " Kirkpatrick)
From a Miniature by Chalons.
16
GuiLLAUME de Penancoet, Comte de Keroualle
From a Picture in the possession of the DUKE OF Richmond
at Goodwood.
24
Henriette, Duchesse d'Orleans (" Madame ")
From a Picture by Henri Gascar, belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
32
Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth
From a Painting by HENRI Gascar, in the possession of Lord Talbot de Malahide.
36
Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, WITH her Son, the First Duke of Richmond
From a Picture by Henri Gascar, belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
40
List of Illustrations
Charles Lennox, First Duke of Richmond,
AS A Child To face page 42
From a Mettotint at Swallowfield by R. Williams, afUr
WiSSING.
Duchess of Portsmouth ..... >» 44
From an Engraving by S. FREEMAN, afterSxv Peter Lely.
Louise de Kj^roualle, Duchess of Portsmouth „ 46
From a Portrait by Sir Peter Lely. in the possession of the Duke of Richmond at Goodwood.
Charles IL ...... . ,,48
From a Painting by Sir Peter Lely, R.A. , belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
Duchess of Portsmouth ..... » 50
From the Painting by Pierre Mignard, in the A'ational Portrait Gallery.
Charles Lennox, First Duke of Richmond . „ 58
From a Mezzotint at Swalloufield by I. Faber, after the Painting hy Sir GODFREY Kneller (1731).
Louise, Countess of Berkeley .... „ 60
From a Picture by Sir GODFREY Kneller, belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
Anne, First Duchess of Richmond . . ,,62
From a Painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
Margaretta Cecilia, First Countess Cadogan „ 62
From a Painting by Sir Godfrey Knellkr, belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
Charles Lennox, Second Duke of Richmond „ 64
From a Picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller, belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
X
List of Illustrations
Sarah, Second Duchess of Richmond . . To face page 66
From a Painting by Sir GODFREY K.NELLER, belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
Lady Elizabeih Keppel, afterwards Mar- chioness OF Tavistock .....
From a Mezzotint at Swallowfield by Fisher, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, R.A.
Lady Caroline Adair
From a Picture by Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS, P. R.A.
72
Francis Russell, Fifth Duke of Bedford, Lord John Russell (afterwards Sixth Duke of Bedford), Lord William Russell, AND Miss Henrietta Vernon (afterwards Countess of Warwick) .... ,,76
From a Mezzotint at Swallowfield by V. Green, 1778, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, P. R.A.
Georgina, Duchess of Bedford, Daughter of
Alexander, Fourth Duke of Gordon . „ 78
From a Miniature by R. COSWAY, R.A.
Hon. Richard Edgcumbe, Lord William
Russell, Lady Caroline Spencer . . „ 86
From an Engraving after a Painting by } . ROBERTS, 1778.
90
Miss Rose Bathurst ..... ,,114
From a Miniature belonging to Colonel JOSCELIN BaGOT.
Sarah, Marchioness of Exeter ("The Peasant
Peeress") ,,144
From a Miniature by R. CoswAY, R.A.
Robert Baillie of Jerviswood ... „ 148
From " The Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen " (Blackie &= Son).
xi
List of Illustrations
Jean Orace de Pechels To face page i68
From a Drawing after the Picture by Pierre Mignard.
Captain Mark Kerr Pechell ... „ i8o
Front a Photograph by Mayall.
Captain Charles Kerr Pechell ... „ i8o
From a Photograph by'WWKXA..
Capt. Sir John Johnston, Third Bart., of Caskieben .......
From an old Woodcut.
Heidelberg Castle .
From an old Print at Swallozvfield.
182
George Gordon, Second Marquis of Huntly „ 188
From a Picture by George Jameson belonging to the Duke OF Richmond.
Anne, Marchioness of Huntly, daughter of
the Seventh Earl of Argyll ... ,,190
From a Picture by GEORGE JAMESON belonging to the Duke OF Richmond.
Elizabeth, Princess Palatine .... „ 204
From a Painting by Gerard Honthorst in the National Portrait Gallery.
King Charles II. and Elizabeth, Princess
Palatine, his Cousin, dancing at The Hague „ 206
From an Engraving by G. F. Harding, F.S.A., after the Painting by G. Janssens in the Collection at Windsor Castle.
Karl Ludwig, Elector Palatine of the Rhine „ 210
From an Engraving by HoLI.AR, after Vandyck.
21 I
XU
List of Illustrations
Marie Luise Susanne, Baroness von Degenfeldt To face page 212
From a Portrait at Heide'lbtrg.
Madam Anne Wyndham, as a Child . . „ 218
From a Mezzotint at Swallo-wfield^ [rare) by Cooper, after
WiSSING.
Sir Nicholas Crispe, Bart. .... ,j 226
From an old Print at Swallowfield.
Bath : Old Roman Bath before Restoration „ 230
Reproduced from the " Bath Pictorial."
Bath : The King's Bath and Mineral Spring,
SHOWING John Rivett's Ring ... „ 230
Reproduced from the " Bath Pictorial."
Jerome Weston, Second Earl of Portland, K.G. „ 232
From an Engraving at Swallowfield by Hollar, after Vandyck.
Frances Stuart, Second Countess of Portland,
DAUGHTER OF EsME StUART, DuKE OF LeNNOX „ 234
From an Engraving at Swalluiifield by W. HOLLAK, after Vandyck.
Equestrian Statue of Charles 1. at Charing
Cross, by Hubert le Sueur .... „ 236
From an old Print at Swallowfield.
Jerome Weston, Second Earl OF Portland, K.G. ,, 236
From a Portrait at Swallowfield by Mirevett.
Perkin Warbeck ...... „ 244
From an old Print.
xiii
List of Illustrations
Charlotte Brabantine de Nassau, daughter
OF William the Silent .... To face page 250
James Stanley, Seventh Earl of Derby, K.G.,
AND Charlotte, Countess of Derby . . ,,254
From an Engraving at Swallowjield after the Painting by Vandyck.
Liverpool in 1680 ...... „ 260
From an Engraving by JOHN Eyes.
James Stanley, Seventh Earl of Derby, K.G. „ 262
From the Portrait in the National Portrait Gallery.
XIV
THE ROSE GODDESS, OR THE PHILOSOPHER'S LOVE
Made tjnmortal by a kiss. — Carlyle.
For many years there hung on the walls of Swallowfield a beautiful large oil painting by Chinnery, R.A., of two Eastern children, a boy and girl, life size, in Indian dress, descending a broad marble staircase. The colouring was rich, the whole picture very pleasing and highly decorative, and Sir Henry Russell and his family valued it extremely. In an evil day for them, a lady from Devonshire, Mrs. Phillipps by name, who was paying a visit in the neighbourhood,^ came over to Swallow- field, and asked to see this picture. Being shown it she was much affected and shed floods of tears, for she was the little girl portrayed by Chinnery. The boy was her brother, who was dead, and the staircase was the entrance to her beautiful home in India, which she had never seen since she was a child. Sir Henry was so touched that he said the picture should be hers, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of his family he left it to her in his will, and at his death, in 1852, it was sent to Mrs. Phillipps in Devonshire, where it still is in the house of one of her descendants. There remains at Swallowfield only an autotype taken from the picture, which gives no idea of the
1 Mrs. Phillipps was staying with Mrs. Clive at Barkham Manor in the summer of 1846.
A
The Rose Goddess
charm of the original, so much of which was dependent on its colouring. The little boy, one can see, was handsome, but it is difficult to realise that the somewhat puffy-faced little girl, as reproduced in the autotype, should have developed into the beauty immortalised by Carlyle as his " Rose Goddess " and the " Blumine " of Sartor Resartus — yet such was the case.
The history of the picture is associated with an Eastern romance. In 176 1 Colonel James Kirkpa trick, a cadet of the ancient family of Kirkpatrick of Closeburn, who was a cavalry leader of experience in the Madras army, married at Fort St. George, Katharine, daughter of Andrew Monro, Esq. They returned to England in 1779 and settled at Holydale,^ Keston, near Bromley, in Kent, bringing with them their three little sons, all of whom were destined to make their mark in Indian history. But it is in the eldest, James Achilles Kirkpatrick, that we are specially interested. Born in 1764, he became a most brilliant soldier, and was known in India by the name of " Husherrat Jung," or the " Glory of Battle." He was equally eminent as an able administrator, and in 1797 he replaced his brother William (who was invalided home) as Resident at the court of Hyderabad, with an income of ;^20,ooo a year. During the nine years that he held this post, he successfully conducted many important negotiations and rendered valuable services to the Government under Lord Wellesley. He brought Akbar Ally Khan, the Nizam '^ of Hyderabad, into alliance with the British power ; and this potentate built for him the beautiful palace which has ever since been called the Residency. It was erected by an English engineer, and is a magnificent building,
* Holydale was sold by Colonel Kirkpatrick to Lord Derby.
2 "The Nizam" was a title introduced and only used by Europeans. His own subjects called him "The Nabob," and his official designation was " Soubadar of the Deckan."
2
!; ^.
> Q;
5 $
X
The Rose Goddess
with a staircase which was then the finest in India. The Residency stands in the midst of ornamental gardens, and communicates with the Nizam's palace by a bridge of eight arches of granite. The Prime Minister, Meer Allum, who had represented the Nizam with the British Government, was of Persian blood ; born at Aurangabad, he was a Barmecide, or Saiad — that is to say, a descendant of Mahomet — and possessed extraordinary talent.^ He had a great-niece, the granddaughter of his brother, Akil ood Dov/lah, and the daughter of the Begum Shurf oon Nissa,^ who was called Khyr oon Nissa,^ and was very beautiful. Although barely fourteen years of age, she fell desperately in love with the handsome Colonel, and told him so. Her first medium of communication was an old woman, who called on the Resident no less than three times to tell him of the young Begum's favourable feelings towards himself, and three times did Colonel Kirkpatrick send her away without any words that were gratifying to her young mistress. Then one evening, when he was sitting alone, the door opened behind him, and a thickly-veiled figure glided in, and coming before him rapidly unveiled and disclosed the beauteous form and face of Khyr oon Nissa.
In a letter to his brother, to whom he confided everything,
^ Mr. Russell, the Resident at Hyderabad, says : "Of all the natives I ever knew, Meer Allum had an understanding the most nearly approaching to the vigour and comprehension of European minds. He was unquestionably a man of great talents for public business. His income amounted on an average to Rs. 1,718,344 per annum, paid by a commission on the revenues.''
* Shurf oon Nissa means "the noblest of women."
^ Khyr oon Nissa (also written Khair oon Nissa) means "the best of women." Sir Henry Russell said that, unlike as the two may look in writing, there is very little difiference in pronunciation between Khyr oon Nissa and the Greek Charonice. Mrs. Mohun Harris, her granddaughter, has a miniature of her in an Indian dress of folded white muslin and figured red trousers. Her hair, which was auburn, was dyed black.
The Rose Goddess
Colonel Kirkpatrick thus describes the event : " I did once safely pass the fiery ordeal of a long nocturnal interview with the charming object of the present letter. It was this interview I alluded to as the one when I had a full and close survey of her lovely person : it lasted during the greater part of the night, and was evidently contrived by the grandmother and mother, whose very existence hung on hers, to indulge her uncontrollable wishes. ... I, who was but ill qualified for the task, attempted to argue the romantic young creature out of a passion which I could not, I confess, help feeling myself some- thing more than pity for. She declared to me again and again that her affections had been irrevocably fixed on me for a series of time, that her fate was linked to mine, and that she should be content to pass her days with me as the humblest of handmaids. These effusions you may possibly be inclined to treat as the ravings of a distempered mind, but when I have time to impart to you the whole affecting tale, you will then at least allow her actions to have accorded fully with her declarations."
A few days after this interview. Colonel Kirkpatrick received a letter asking him to go to the house where the ladies lived ; which he did, and the young princess, " in melting accents," renewed her protestations, and said that if he did not take her she would be forced to marry her cousin, whom she hated. All this was in the presence of her grandmother, who added her entreaties to those of her granddaughter, and as Colonel Kirk- patrick said to his brother, he would "have been something more or less than man to have held out any longer. . . ." They were married by civil contract, according to the Mahometan law, and the Begum lived in a zenana adjoining the Residency, which the Colonel had fitted up with every luxury and embellished
4
The Rose Goddess
with many paintings. A portion of the grounds attached to the Residency still goes by the name of " The Begum's Garden." *' This alliance," we read, " caused no little stir and scandal, and Lord Wellesley contemplated superseding the Resident in con- sequence ; but Colonel Kirkpatrick's great public services and the importance of his personal influence at a critical period condoned his fault."
Two children were born to Colonel Kirkpatrick and his Begum wife. They were not christened at Hyderabad, but when they were about four or five years old the ceremony was per- formed in England, where they were sent to Colonel Kirk- patrick's father to be brought up. The boy was given the name of William George,^ and the little girl was called " Katharine Aurora." It was shortly before their departure that Chinnery, R.A., who was then in India, painted the picture before alluded to. Colonel Kirkpatrick and the Begum went to Madras to see the last of their children, who had an English nurse, and who were also put under the charge of a Mrs. Ure (the wife of the English surgeon at Hyderabad) during the voyage, which in those days lasted six months. The poor mother had not got over the shock of parting with her children when she was called upon to meet a still greater one. Her husband went on to Calcutta, to confer with Lord Cornwallis, the Governor-General, and died there on the 15th October 1805, at the age of forty- one. He was given a public funeral, and there is a monument raised to his memory in St. John's Church, Calcutta, " erected by his afflicted father and brothers." The much-stricken Begum, who was still in her teens, thus deprived almost simultaneously of her husband and children, went back to her mother at Hyderabad. Mr. Russell (afterwards Sir Henry), who was then * William George Kirkpatrick died in August 1828.
5
The Rose Goddess
assistant-secretary under Colonel Kirkpatrick/ and who shortly after became Resident himself, took much interest in the future fortunes of the beautiful young Begum. After a time, by his advice, she moved to Masulipatam, where Mr. Russell forwarded the picture of her children when Chinnery had given it the finishing touches.
The children never saw their mother again, nor did they ever return to India, though the Begum and her mother wrote pathetic appeals in the hope of inducing their guardians to send them out. Probably it was feared that, if once they went there, the call of the blood might make complications, for we know that at first the children pined for their native surroundings. They were brought up by their grandfather at Holydale, near Bromley, and after his death the girl lived with her married cousins, first with Lady Louis, and then either with Julia, Mrs. Strachey, or with Barbara (the godchild of Sir Henry Russell's wife), who married Charles BuUer, their guardian.
Katharine Aurora Kirkpatrick, commonly called " Kitty," who was born in 1802, grew up into a most attractive girl, and we shall see how close a parallel there was between her story and that of " Blumine." She was of a very unusual type. " A singular dear Kitty," as Carlyle calls her, and " peculiar among all dames and damosels." It was in June 1824, at the house of his friend, the celebrated Edward Irving, that Carlyle first set eyes on her, and there can be no doubt that he was greatly struck with her appearance and attracted by her unusual personality, her lovely voice, and fascinating manners, as well as by her many amiable qualities, this attraction not being precluded by his pre-
' Mr. Russell was sent to Hyderabad in 1800 as assistant-secretary with a salary of ^1200 a year, when he was only sixteen years of age, by Lord Mornington, who said he was the most promising young man he knew.
6
The Rose Goddess
occupation with Miss Jane Welsh. This is how he alludes to his first meeting with Miss Kirkpatrick. : " Entry of a strangely complexioned young lady, with soft brown eyes and floods of bronze-red hair,^ a pretty-looking, smiling, and amiable, though most proper, bit of magnificence and kindly splendour whom they welcomed by the name of ' dear Kitty ' — a very singular dear Kitty who seemed bashful withal." In the chapter of Sartor entitled " Romance," Carlyle obviously describes the same incident : " He finds himself presented to the party and especi- ally by name to — Blumine. Peculiar among all dames and damosels glanced Blumine there in her modesty like a star among earthly lights." ^ For nearly two years before this meet- ing Carlyle had constantly heard her mentioned, and her praises sung, not only by the Edward Irvings, on whom she lavished kindnesses, but by her cousins in whose family he lived. " Blumine was a name well-known to him ; far and wide was the fair one heard of."
In the spring of 1822, when the struggling and unknown young philosopher was twenty-five years of age, he had obtained, through the recommendation of Edward Irving, the post of tutor to Miss Kirkpatrick's cousins, the three young sons of Charles Buller, her guardian, with a salary of £100 a year, which was a god-send to him in those days ; but in June 1824 he gave up tutoring and went as a guest to the Irvings' house at Pentonville.
* Her hair was a very uncommon colour and unlike that of any European. She herself said it was supposed to be peculiar to the Persian royal family from which her mother sprung : the latter had the same coloured hair but stained it black. Miss Kirkpatrick's hair, which was naturally curly and wavy, was of a deep auburn colour, and when she was young it gleamed in the sun with a bright metallic lustre.
^ Carlyle several times applies the term of modestj', in the sense of bashfulncss, to "Blumine" and to Kitty. This quality was always a leading characteristic of Miss Kirkpatrick's, and certainly Miss Welsh's greatest admirers could not say it was one of hers !
The Rose Goddess
On his arrival there he was greeted with praises of Miss Kirkpatrick, for she had just overwhelmed them with gratitude and delight. When Irving took No, 7 Myddelton Terrace, he was too poor to furnish his drawing-room, and on the first occasion of a temporary absence of himself and his wife, Kitty spent ^500 on fitting it up and adding some extra comforts to the somewhat barren house. No wonder that there was much talk about her ! Soon Carlyle saw her again in the flesh ; this was at Goodenough House, the Stracheys' country-house at Shooter's Hill, a pretty little place, famed for its roses — their variety and their abundance. A fit setting for the Rose Goddess, and where Carlyle saw " the effulgent vision of dear Kitty among the roses and almost buried under them." Writing long after of her appearance at this date, he says : —
" Kitty was charming in her beautiful Begum sort, had wealth abundant and might perhaps have been charmed none knows. She had one of the prettiest smiles — a visible sense of humour — the slight merry curl of the upper lip (left side only), the carriage of her head and eyes on such occasions, the quaint little things she said in that kind, and her low-toned, hearty laugh were noticeable. This was perhaps her most spiritual quality ; of developed intellect she had not much though not wanting in discernment : amiable, affectionate, grace- ful, not slim enough for the title pretty, not tall enough for beautiful, and something low-voiced languidly harmonious, loved perfumes, &c., a half Begum, in short an interesting specimen of the semi-oriental Englishwoman."
To his father Carlyle wrote about Kitty in a more prosaic strain : —
" The young Miss Kirkpatrick, with whom I was already acquainted, is a very pleasant, meritorious person — one of the
8
The Rose Goddess
kindest and most modest I have ever seen. Though hand- some and young, and sole mistress of ^^ 50,000/ she is meek and unassuming as a Httle child ; she laughs in secret at the awkward extravagance of the Orator (Ed. Irving), yet she loves him as a good man, and busies herself with nothing so much as discharging the duties of hospitality to us all."
One cannot help thinking that Carlyle may then have had airy visions of a time when possibly Kitty might be something more to him than an unattainable star, and that he purposely painted her to his homely parents in the light that would most appeal to them — dilating upon her kindness, her modesty, her housekeeping qualities, and — her ^^50,000!
During the autumn of 1824 Miss Kirkpatrick and Carlyle were much thrown together. She and the Stracheys rented a house at Dover,^ and thither came the Edward Irvings and the Philosopher, and then we hear of wanderings on the beach ** in threes or twos," and Carlyle tells us they had readings in the evening of Phineas Fletcher's^ "Purple Island," "over which Irving strove to be solemn and Kitty and I rather not, throwing in now and then a little spice of laughter and quiz." To Miss Welsh Carlyle wrote about this visit, and in his letter says : " This Kitty is a singular and very pleasing creature, a little black-eyed, auburn-haired brunette, full of kindliness and humour, and who never, I believe, was angry at any creature for a moment in her life ; " and " she is meek and modest as a quakeress."
Miss Welsh evidently did not like Carlyle's encomiums
* Her guardians had the whole control of her money till she was twenty-one.
- The house was in Liverpool Terrace.
'â– ' Phineas Fletcher, a disciple of Spenser, born in 1584. His brother Giles, equally a poet, wrote a poem on " Paradise Regained," which suggested the subject to Milton, who borrowed many hints from it.
The Rose Goddess
on the Rose Goddess, and in her answer to him writes in a sneering tone : —
" I congratulate yoi-i on your present situation. With such a picture of domestic felicity before your eyes, and this * singular and very pleasing creature ' to charm away the blue-devils, you can hardly fail to be as happy as the day is long. Miss Kitty Kirkpatrick — Lord, what an ugly name ! Good Kitty ! oh, pretty, dear, delightful Kitty ! I am not a bit jealous of her, not I indeed ! — Hindoo Princess tho' she be ! Only you may as well never let me hear you mention her name again."
That she was jealous of Kitty is self-evident, and Carlyle's praises long rankled in her mind. Tv/o years later, in February 1826, she quotes them again thus: —
"There is Catharine Aurora Kirkpatrick, for instance, who has ;^ 50,000 and a princely lineage, and ' never was out of humour in her life ' ; with such ' a singularly pleasing creature ' and so much fine gold you could hardly fail to find yourself admirably well off."
During this visit of Carlyle's to Dover, a trip to Paris was
proposed and instantly decided on. The party consisted of
Mr. Strachey, Miss Kirkpatrick, and Carlyle, and Miss
Kirkpatrick took her maid. Froude tells us a travelling
carriage (which was Miss Kirkpatrick's) was sent across the
Channel, post-horses were always ready on the Dover road, and
Carlyle was now to be among the scenes so long familiar to him
as names. They went by Montreuil, Abbeville, Nampont, with
Sterne's " Sentimental Journey " as a guide-book. Carlyle sat
usually outside, " fair Kitty sometimes sitting," he says, " by me
on the hindward seat," Carlyle coming on Paris fresh with
a mind like wax to receive impressions, yet tenacious as steel in
preserving them, carried off recollections from his twelve days'
10
The Rose Goddess
sojourn in the French capital which never left him, and served him well in after years when he came to write about the Revolution. Froude goes on to say that his expedition had created no small excitement at his Scottish home. The old people had grown up under the traditions of the war. For a son of theirs to go abroad at all was almost miraculous. When they heard that he had gone to Paris, " all the stoutness of their hearts was required to bear it." When they returned to England, Mr. Strachey and Miss Kirkpatrick stopped at Shooter's Hill, and Carlyle went to Isling- ton, where he took lodgings near Irving. Whilst here he con- tinued constantly to meet Kitty, both at Shooter's Hill and in Fitzroy Square, where the Stracheys had their town house. And " now that the Rose Goddess sits in the same circle with him, the light of her eyes has smiled on him, if he speaks she will hear it. Nay, who knows, since the heavenly sun looks into the lowest valleys, but Blumine herself might have noted the so unnotable. . . . Was the attraction, the agitation mutual then.? . . . He ventured to address her, she answered with attention ; nay what if there were a slight tremor in that silver voice. ^ What if the red glow of evening were hiding a transient blush ! . . . the hours seemed moments ; holy was he and happy, the v/ords from those sweetest lips came over him like dew on thirsty grass. ... At parting the Blumine's hand was in his: in the balmy twilight, with the kind stars above them, he spoke something of meeting again, which was not contradicted ; he pressed gently those small soft fingers, and it seemed as if they were not angrily withdrawn. Day after day, in town, they met again : like his heart's sun, the blooming Blumine shone on him. Ah ! a little while ago and he was yet in all darkness. . . . And now, O
^ Miss Kirkpatrick's voice was remarkable for its sweet melodious tone, which certainly could not be said of Miss Welsh's.
I I
The Rose Goddess
now ! she looks on thee ... in free speech, earnest or gay, amid lambent glances, laughter, tears, and often with the inarticulate mystic speech of music. ^ Such was the element they now lived in : in such a many-tinted radiant aurora, and by this fairest of Orient Light-bringers '" must our friend be blandished. Fairest Blumine ! And even as a star, all fire and humid softness, a very Light-ray incarnate. Was she not to him in very deed a Morning Star. As from ^olian harps in the breath of dawn, as from the Memnon's statue struck by the rosy finger of Aurora, unearthly music was around him, and lapped him into untried balmy rest. Pale doubt fled away to the distance ; Life bloomed up with happiness and hope. ... If he loved his disenchantress — Ach Gott ! His whole heart and soul were hers. . . , Our readers have witnessed the origin of this Love-mania, and with what royal splendour it waxes and rises. Let no one ask us to unfold the glories of its dominant state ; much less the horrors of its almost instantaneous dissolution. . . . We glance merely at the final scene. One morning he found his Morning Star all dimmed and dusky-red ; the fair creature was silent, absent, she seemed to have been weeping. Alas, no longer a Morning Star, but a troublous skyey Portent, announcing that the Doomsday had dawned ! She said in a tremulous voice they were to meet no more. We omit the passionate expostulations, entreaties, indignations, since all was vain, and not even an explanation was conceded him ; and hasten to the catastrophe. ' Farewell, then, Madam ! ' said he, not without sternness, for his stung pride helped him. She put her hand in his, she looked in his face, tears started to her eyes ; in wild audacity he clasped her
' The Stracheys constantly had musical parties.
- It is surely a little far-fetched to say that the fairest of Orient Light-bringers is "'a poetical expression" describing Jane Welsh, because Haddington was east of Edinburgh I
12
The Rose Goddess
to his bosom, their lips were joined, their two souls, like two dew-drops, rushed into one — for the first time, and for the last ! Thus was he made immortal by a kiss. And then ? Why, then — thick curtains of Night rushed over his soul as rose the immeasurable crash of Doom."
Carlyle thought that Mrs. Strachey, whom he calls " the dearest friend I anywhere had in the world," encouraged his flirtation, and he wrote in his journal : " Mrs. Strachey took to me from the first, nor ever swerved. It strikes me now more than it then did she silently would have liked to see ' Dear Kitty ' and myself together and to continue near her both of us through life — the good kind soul." Carlyle was alluding to another of the family when he talks of " the Duenna Cousin, in whose meagre, hunger-bitten philosophy the religion of young hearts was from the first faintly approved of." Probably Mrs. Buller, Kitty's cousin, and the wife of her guardian.^ It was not to be wondered at that those to whose guardianship their rich and beautiful young cousin had been confided, should wish to dis- courage any possibility of her allying herself with the ci-devant tutor, a man of lowly birth and very precarious means, however much they liked him personally and appreciated his genius. Even Carlyle himself says : " What figure at that period was a ' Mrs.' Teufelsdrockh [the name by which he called himself] likely to make in polished society ? Could she have driven so much as a brass-bound gig, or even a simple iron spring one ? ' Pshaw !
^ Describing Mrs. Strachey, Carlyle says : " She is as unlike Mrs. Buller as pure gold is to gilt copper ; she is an earnest, determined, warm-hearted religious matron, while the other is but a fluttering patroness of routs and balls." In Sartor he talks of Mrs. Strachey as the Gnadige Frau who, as an ornamental artist, might sometimes like to promote flirtations.
" The famous answer in Thurtell's trial, when a witness was asked why he called a man respectable, " He kept a gig," so tickled Carlyle's fancy, that ever after he talked of " a gigman " and " gigmanity " to denote the world's estimate of respectability.
13
The Rose Goddess
the divine Blumine, when she resigned herself to wed some olher^ shows more philosophy than thou, a pretended man,"
Thus ended this romantic episode of Carlyle's early life. To quote his own words, *' he loved once not wisely but too well, and once only."
Mrs. Mercer, ne'e Elizabeth Ord, a connection of Kitty's, who was one of her most intimate friends, was staying with her at Warberry many years after, and gives us the following inter- esting recollection : " Kitty was arranging books in the library, when she turned to me and said, ' Lizzie, have you ever read Sartor Resartus?' No, I had not. 'Well, get it and read the " Romance." I am the heroine, and every word of it is true. He was then tutor to my cousin, Charles Buller, and had made no name for himself, so of course I was told that any such an idea could not be thought of for a moment. What could I do with every one against it } Now any one might be proud to be his wife.' " Mrs. Mercer goes on to say : " How Mr. Froude and other writers could ever have imagined that ' Blumine ' represented any woman but herself puzzles me. Froude says it referred to Margaret Gordon, and others have insisted to Carlyle's own wife ; but the description in the * Romance ' was so strictly true that by no possibility could it apply to any one else. ... A blooming, warm, earth angel, more enchanting than your mere white angels of women.' " Her cousin. Sir George Strachey, says: "That 'Blumine' personified Miss Kirkpatrick has always passed in the family for a certainty, requiring no more discussion than the belief that Nelson stands on the column in Trafalgar Square."
Carlyle left London in March 1825, but, as he says, " if his sudden bereavement in this matter of the Flower Goddess is
^ How could this apply to Jane Welsh ! 14
The Rose Goddess
talked of as a real Doomsday and Dissolution of Nature, his own nature is nowise dissolved thereby ; but rather is compressed closer ! For once, as we might say, a Blumine by magic appliances has unlocked that shut heart of his, and its hidden things rush out tumultuous, boundless, like genii enfranchised from their glass phial ; but no sooner are your magic appliances withdrawn, than the strange casket of a heart springs to again ; and perhaps there is now no key extant that will open it, for a Teufelsdrockh will not love a second time/ Singular Diogenes ! no sooner has that heartrending occurrence fairly taken place, than he affects to regard it as a thing natural of which there is nothing more to be said. . . . What things soever passed in him — what ravings and despairings soever Teufelsdrockh's soul was the scene of, he has the goodness to conceal under a quite opaque cover of silence. . . . The first mad paroxysm past our brave Gneschen collected his dismembered philosophies and buttoned himself together ; he was meek, silent, or spoke of the weather and the journals, only by a transient knitting of those shaggy brows, by some deep flash of those eyes glancing one knew not with tear-dew or with fierce fire, might you have guessed what a Gehenna was within," The climax came when in the course of his wanderings, " the silence was broken by a sound of carriage wheels, and emerging from the northward came a gay Barouche and four ; it was open ; servants, postilion wore wedding-favours ; that happy pair, then, had found each other ; it was their marriage evening ! Few moments brought
' Froude says : " Carlyle admired Miss Welsh, his future wife, loved her in a certain sense; but like her he was not in love. Her mind and temper suited him, he had allowed her image to intertwine itself with all his thoughts and emotions, but with love his feeling for her had nothing in common but the name." In 1827 Carlyle wrote : " Surely / shall learn at Icni^th to prize the pearl of great price which God has given to me unworthy."
15
The Rose Goddess
them near, Du Himmel ! It was Herr Towgood and Blumine. With slight unrecognising salutation they passed me, plunged down amid the neighbouring thickets, onwards to Heaven and to England, and I, in my friend Richter's words, ' I remained alone behind them with the night.' "
Kitty Kirkpatrick married Captain James Winsloe-Phillipps, an officer of the yth Hussars, Lord Anglesey's crack regiment. He was extremely handsome, and Carlyle describes him as " a man of fine presence and unusual charm of personality." The dyspeptic philosopher applied the term of " Towgood " (Tough- gut) to him and others of his set as a generic name for men of sound digestion, often as he thought with more health and good looks than brains.
Kitty's mother was now dead, but her maternal grandmother,
Shurf oon Nissa, was still alive ; and Kitty wrote to her after she
was married to acquaint her with the fact, and sent a picture
of herself. She received in return, through Sir Henry Russell,
a most affectionate letter in the high-flown and poetic language
of her country. It was written in fine Persian writing, on paper
sprinkled with gold-leaf, and enclosed in a bag of cloth of gold.
In it she says : " My child, the light of mine eyes, the solace of
my heart, may God grant her long life ; after offering up my
prayers that her days may be lengthened, her dignity increased,
let it be known to my child that by the mercy and goodness
of God her representation arrived after a long time, and having
brought happiness with its presence, imparted happiness to my
heart and light to my eyes and occasioned such joy and delight
that an account of it cannot be brought within the compass
of the tongue or pen. The letter written by my child is
pressed by me sometimes to my head and sometimes to my
eyes. It is written in it that my child has married the nephew
i6
Mrs. Phillipps, ("Kitty" Kirkpatrick). " The Rose Goddess. " (Prom a Miniature by Chalons)
The Rose Goddess
of Sir John Kennaway, ' Delawar Jung.' ^ The receipt of this news replete with gladness has added joy upon joy to me." Then comes a quotation : " If my life had been the sacrifice for this goodness, it would be of no consequence." Shurf oon Nissa goes on to say : " God is my witness that 1 keep my child in my remembrance even to a greater degree than she has done me. No minute or second passes by in which I do not think of her. May the pure and exalted God speedily lift up the veil of separation from between us and gladden us with a meeting. ... In compliance with my child's request, I am sending a lock of her mother's hair, I formerly received accounts of the welfare of my children from Sir William Rumbold, but since Colonel Doveton left this, I have received no further accounts." Shurf oon Nissa Begum died in 1846.
Major and Mrs. Phillipps lived very happily if uneventfully in Devonshire. They had eight children, but only four lived to grow up." He died in 1864, but she survived, "beautiful to the last," till 1888.^ Sir Edward Strachey, in an article which he wrote about her, says: "I remember her from girl- hood to old age as the most fascinating of women ; " and another writer says : " In person she was far more foreign than English, and it was this rare combination of Eastern grace and beauty with the highest culture which made her so very charming.
^ Sir John Kennaway had been sent by Lord Cornwallis in 1788 as Envoy to the court of Hyderabad.
* One son and three daughters : John James Winsloe-Philhpps, who married Miss Charlotte Strachey; Mary Augusta married Captain Uniacke of the 60th Rifles ; Emily, the Rev. Walpole Mohun-Harris of Hayne; Bertha, Colonel Lucius Carey of Torr Abbey.
' Twenty-five years before this, Mrs. Phillipps had gone to visit Carlyle, but found only Mrs. Carlyle, who wrote to her husband, "Oh, my dear, she is anything but good-looking ! "
17 B
The Rose Godde
ss
She had a keen sense of humour and the kindest heart, and could not bear to give another pain."
In October 1868, Mrs. Phillipps went to see Carlyle in Cheyne Row, and ^ propos of her visit he quotes from Virgil, " Agnosco veteris vestigia flammas" (I feel the traces of my ancient flame ) ; and shortly after he wrote to her : " Your little visit did me a great deal of good ; so interesting, so strange, to see her we used to call 'Kitty' emerging on me from the dusk of evening like a dream become real. It set me thinking for many hours upon times long gone, and persons and events that can never cease to be important and affecting to me. ... I grudged to be specially unwell that day (below par, in regard to sleep, &c., for three weeks past), and never fairly to see you, except in chiaroscuro, vv^hile you talked. You must mend that by making me another visit when the lights are better disposed towards us. With a great deal of readiness, I send you the photograph, which you are pleased to care for, being sorry only it is such a grim affair (thanks to time and what he brings and takes), though, indeed, this was never much a bright image, not even forty-eight years ago, when your bright eyes first took it in." His letter finishes with these words: "All round me is the sound as of evening bells, which are not sad only, or ought not to be, but beautiful also and blessed and quiet. No more to-day, dear lady : my best wishes and affectionate regards will abide with you to the end." — J. C,
If Kitty Kirkpatrick had married Carlyle, the world would probably have been the loser, as his Jane, the love of his in- tellect, spurred him on, and without her he would not have risen to so high an eminence; but, on the other hand, perhaps the grim philosopher would have been happier with the " undeveloped intellect " of the sweet " Rose Goddess."
18
THE REAL LOUISE DE KEROUALLE
" Your smiles have more of conquering charms, Than all your native country's arms ; Their troop we can expel with ease, Who vanquish only when we please.
But in your eyes, O ! there's the spell !
Who can see them and not rebel ? You make us captives by your stay ; Yet kill us if you go away."
— The Fair Stra7iger, Song addressed to -Mdlle. de Keroualle by Dryden.
It is said that Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, boasted that she was related to all the great families of France, and that she never omitted to put on mourning at the death of any member of the French aristocracy. Once a French prince and the Cham of Tartary died about the same time. Mademoiselle de Keroualle as usual donned her mourning, and Nell Gwyn also appeared in sable garb. The latter was'asked for whom she wore black. " For the Cham of Tartary," she answered. " What relation was he to you ? " was the laughing question. *' The same that the Prince was to Mademoiselle de Keroualle ! " retorted the saucy beauty. Another story told with the same import is to be found in one of Madame de Sevigne's letters to her daughter, and reads as follows: " Madame de Kcrouel avait pris un grand deuil pour le roi de Suede ; a quelque temps de la, le roi de Portugal vint a mourir; Nelgouine {sic) parut avec un carrosse drape et disait :
19
The Real Louise de Keroualle
' La Kerouel et moi avons partage le monde ; elle a les rois du Nord, et moi ceux da Midi,' "
Nell Gwyn, however, was in this case more witty than wise, for Louise de Keroualle could boast with perfect truth of a very ancient lineage both on her father's and her mother's side, and moreover, the great number of kings and queens, not to mention other illustrious personages, that are to be found in her pedigree, is very remarkable. It is not astonishing that Nell Gwyn knew nought of these royal ancestors and noble relations, but it does seem curious that modern writers, who pretend to write true biographies, should print such statements as the following, which appeared in a recent publication entitled "Court Beauties of Whitehall." The author says of Louise de Keroualle, " Although Madam Carwell, as the English people called her, has escaped oblivion, the mere spelling of her name has become a matter of indifference to history. ... A similar uncertainty attaches to her origin. The Duchess of Ports- mouth, however, had no doubt about it, and was herself ex- tremely proud of her ancestry, and boasted — when in England, be it understood — an ancient and distinguished lineage. It (sir) is characteristic of parvenus."
Now there is absolutely no uncertainty attached to the
origin of Louise de Keroualle ; no pedigree is better attested
than hers, and the veriest tyro in French history can easily
ascertain for himself her "ancient and distinguished lineage."
She was no " parvenuc " but patrician "jusqu'au bout des
ongles." Her pedigree is to be found ifj extenso in the very
well-known work of the greatest authority on noble French
families, namely, the Hisloire gcnealogique et chronologique de la
Maison Royale de France^ written by Le Pere Ansel me, vol. v.
p. 928, and we are giving a resume of it in our appendix, all
20
The Real Louise de Keroualle
the names surmounted by a cross being of the Royal House of France.
Louise-Renee de Penancoet de Keroualle was the eldest daughter of Guillaume de Penancoet, Comte de Keroualle, Seigneur de Kerboronne de la Villeneuve et du Chef-du-bois, by his wife Marie-Anne de Ploeuc, daughter of Sebastien, Marquis du Timeur et de Kergorlay.
The house of Penancoet de Keroualle was a very ancient though impoverished family of Brittany, seated near Brest, and descended from Rene de Penhoct, living in 1280. The Penhoct family was one of the four great families of the eveche de Leon, of whom it was said : —
" Antiquite de Penhoct, Vaillance du Chaste!, Richesse de Kerman, Chevalerie de Kergournadeck."
A Penhoet married the daughter and heiress of a Penancoet,
Seigneur de Keroualle, and acquired with her the lands of
Keroualle in Basse Bretagne, an express stipulation being made
that he and his descendants should drop their patronymic and
take that of Penancoet as well as adopt their shield (" Fasce
d'argent et d'azur de six pieces "), which accordingly they did, as
also the motto "A bep pen leaddit" (" Loyaute partout "), and
" En diayez " (" A decouvert ").
But it was on the distaff side that Louise de Keroualle's
pedigree was so remarkable. Her grandmother was a de Rieux,
a daughter of Rene de Rieux, Marquis de Sourdeac, whose father,
Jean de Rieux, was second cousin to King Francois I. Through
the de Rieux's, Louise de Keroualle was allied to the houses
of de Bretagne, de Penthievre, de Leon, de Machecoul,
d'Amboise, de Clisson, de Rochefort, de Montauban, d'Harcourt,
21
The Real Louise de Keroualle
de Rohan, d'llliers, d'Aiguillon, de Loraine, de Derval, de Rouge, de Boyseon, de Montmorency et de Bourbon.
Louise was descended from Jeanne de France, daughter of Charles VI., and also, through the de Rohans, from Jean de Montfort, fifth Duke of Brittany, and his wife Jeanne, daughter of the King of Navarre, who afterwards became the Queen of Henry IV. of England ; and consequently Mademoiselle de Keroualle was related to the Kings Fran9ois I., Henri II., Francois II., Charles IX., Henri III., and Henri IV., and thus was a distant cousin of King Charles II. of England as well as of Louis XIV. There is a letter extant written by the French King, Henri III., to the great-great-grandfather of Louise de Keroualle, in which his Majesty says : " Ayant mis en considera- tion la grandeur, illustre maison, et noblesse de notre cousin Messire Jean de Rieux," &c. &c., and in 1710, when Rene- Louis de Rieux wrote a letter to Louis XIV. claiming his protection against certain abuses of power committed in the island of Ouessant (Ushant), he reminds the King of the following facts concerning his pedigree : namely, that Rene de Rieux de Sourdeac, son of the above and great-great-grand- father of Louise de Keroualle, " had the honour of being fourth cousin to Henri IV. ; that since first the de Rieux had made alliances in France, they had always been related to all the Kings of France either in the third, fourth, or fifth degree ; that the family of the de Rieux descends through the women, and is allied to all the most considerable crowned heads of Europe ; and lastly, that the family take their origin from the ancient (royal) Dukes of Bretagne in a direct line and without any break or change of name."
The descendant of such a line can scarcely be called a
parvenue " !
22
The Real Louise de Keroualle
In " Court Beauties of Whitehall " we also find the follow- ing curious statement : " Her father (Louise's) went to Paris as a boy to seek his fortunes. Of this (sic) he appears to have amassed in the wool trade sufficient to enable him to retire in middle life to his native Brittany." Now! it is the author who must be wool-gathering : as a matter of fact, Guillaume de Penancoet was a soldier ; he took part in the sieges of Hesdin (1639) and of Arras (1640), where he was wounded; and he was also at the sieges of Aire and Bapaume in 1641. On his return from Perpignan he was made " Guidon de la Compagnie des Gens d'Armes " of the Cardinal Richelieu, and later on he commanded " I'arriere ban de I'eveche de Leon."
" Revenons a nos moutons," it is quite possible that on the farms of the Comte de Keroualle the little Breton sheep throve and were duly shorn and their wool sold, but this would no more have constituted him a wool-trader than it does his descendant, the Duke of Richmond, because he is the owner of the celebrated South Down wethers !
With regard to the several ways of spelling the family name of the Duchess of Portsmouth, which the author of " Court Beauties " brings forward as another proof of the uncertainty of her origin, surely this rather tends to show its antiquity ! We have found it in old family documents and historical archives spelt in the following ways : Keroel, Kerouazle, Kerhouet, Kerhoual, Kerhouent. In England it was generally written Querouaille, and the common people called it " Carwel." In the old family papers it is usually " Keroualle," which rendering we therefore adopt.
Louise's father married, as we have said, Marie-Anne de Pldeuc, daughter of the Marquis du Timeur. She was dis-
23
The Real Louise de Keroualle
tinguished for her piety and her ardent love of the Catholic rehgion, and after she married (in 1645), we find her con- stantly standing as " marraine " at the " conversion " of Huguenot soldiers at Brest.
John Evelyn in his Diary writes on the 15th June, 1675, as follows : " Mr. Querouaille and his lady came to see Sir Richard Browne (Evelyn's father-in-law), with whom they were intimately acquainted in Bretagne at the time Sir Richard was sent to Brest to supervise his Majesty's sea affairs.^ This gentleman's house was not a mile from Brest. He seemed a soldierly person and a good fellow. His lady had been very handsome, and seemed a shrewd understanding woman. His daughter was Duchess of Portsmouth, and in the height of favour, but he never made any use of it." According to Monsieur Walckenaer, Louis XIV., in consequence of the line that the Comte de Keroualle took with regard to his daughter, wrote the following letter '^ to him : —
" Les services importants que la duchesse de Portsmouth a rendues a la France m'ont decide a la creer pairesse, sous le titre de duchesse d'Aubigny, pour elle et toute sa descendance. J'espere que vous ne serez pas plus severe que votre roi, et que vous retirerez la malediction que vous avez cru devoir faire peser sur votre malheureuse fille. Je vous en prie en ami et vous le demande en roi. — Louis."
The Comte de Keroualle died in 1690, his wife survived till 1709, There are portraits of them and their only son at Goodwood. The son, whose name was Sebastien, was in the
' Sir Richard Browne was Ambassador in Paris during the reij^ns of Charles I. and Charles II.
2 Published in Monsieur Walckenaer's Mi'iiioircs sur Madame de Scvigm\ vol. iii.
24
GUILLAUMH DE PeN'AXCOET, Co.MTK DR Kf'roUALLE.
(From a picture in the possession of the Duke of Richmond at Goodwood)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
French navy under the Due de Beaufort, and assisted in the taking of Candia in 1669 : he died unmarried on his return from this expedition at the age of twenty-two.
Of the two daughters of the Comte de Keroualle, the youngest, Henriette-Mauricette, married firstly, Philip Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, K.G., and secondly, Timoleon Gouffier, Marquis de Thois, by whom she left issue. The eldest daughter, Louise-Renee, the subject of this sketch, was born at Keroualle, near Brest, in September 1649, and was baptized at Guiler (or Guylar), for the poor of which place she left money in her will. Louise was sent for her education to the " Couvent des Ursulines " at Lesneven, a small town near Brest. Owing to the poverty of the Keroualle family, it would have been quite impossible for her parents to give Louise any " dot," and she was destined to a religious life ; but when she was nineteen, though then somewhat too thin, she had so much promise of beauty, as well as such great intelligence and rare charm of manner, that some relations in power intervened and brought her to Paris, and in the year 1668, chiefly through the influence of Monsieur de Chaulnes, Governor of Brittany, a friend of her father's, she was nominated one of the Maids-of-honour (" aux appointemens de 150 livres ") to Henriette, Duchesse d'Orleans, sister of Charles II., and sister-in-law of Louis XIV., celebrated in French history as " Madame d'Angleterre." The Maids-of-honour were under the surveillance of Mademoiselle Anne de Bourgogne, with Mademoiselle Catherine d'Orville as " sous-gouvernante," and the other Maids-of-honour were Mademoiselle Marie-Simone du Bellay, Mademoiselle Helene Fourre de Dampierre, and " Madame " du Lude, afterwards Chanoinesse de Poussay. We are distinctly told that at this time the conduct and demeanour of Mademoiselle de Keroualle
25
The Real Louise de Keroualle
was most decorous, and that nothing was ever heard against her.
*'Ouoi qu'il en soit par froideur ou par vertu, par ambition ou
par scrupule religieux, Mademoiselle de Keroualle ne fit point
parler d'elle " (Le Moine). Her name only appears in one
document of the time. This was in January 1669, // propos
of a grand reception given to the Venetian Ambassador by the
Duke and Duchess of Orleans, when a ballet took place, and
Charles Robinet addressed some verses to Madame, in which
he alludes to —
" Votre fille d'Honneur nouvelle, Egalement mignone et belle, Et gai, par dessus ses appas, Salt figurer de galans pas, Ce qui veut dire qu'elle danse, Et sait a ravir la cadence."
The following year Mademoiselle de Keroualle accompanied
the Duchess of Orleans when she went with Louis XIV. to
visit his new acquisitions in Flanders. The royal progress,
which started in April 1670, was most ostentatious, the King
being attended by an army of 20,000 men, Lauzun riding
at the head of the Royal Guards ; and " le roi Soleil " was
accompanied by the Queen, the Princesses, the Dauphin, La
Grande Mademoiselle, and Madame de Montespan, each with
their respective suites making a colossal retinue. Madame's
alone consisted of 237 persons, amongst whom were the
Comte and Comtesse de Grammont, Anthony Hamilton,
the Marechal de Plesis, and the Duke of Monmouth.
They stayed at Dcuai, Courtrai, Tournay, and Lille. Before
they reached Douai they went through many vicissitudes, and
Mademoiselle de Montpensier, " La Grande Mademoiselle," in
her Memoirs gives a most amusing account of the hardships
26
The Real Louise de Keroualle
they encountered. The weather was very bad and the roads were atrocious ; the horses stuck in the mud and sank in the bogs, and carriages were overturned. The first night the cavalcade had to cross a river to get to Landrecies, but it was so swollen as to be practically impassable. Some of the party attempted it, and had to leave their coaches in the river, and unharnessing their horses ride back to terra firma. The Queen refused to go further, and the King's party had to take refuge at one o'clock in the morning in a miserable house in a meadow, where there were only two rooms, one bed, and one candle ! Some mattresses were brought by the King's servants and laid on the floor side by side, there being no room for any space between them. The Queen was horrified at the idea, and said, " Cela serait horrible, quoi coucher tous ensemble!" but the King replied, "Quoi! etre sur des matelas tout habilles, il y a du mal .^ " La Grande Demoiselle was asked her opinion, and said that she saw none ; so the Queen consented, and the King and Monsieur and len or tv/elve ladies prepared to rest. The Queen laid on the one bed, which she had placed so that she could see all round the room, and the King said to her, " Vous n'avez qu'a tenir votre rideau ouvert : vous nous verrez tous " ! Amongst the sleeping party Mademoiselle mentions Madame de Monte- span and Mademoiselle Louise de la Valliere, and the Queen and Madame had their respective Maids-of-honour in waiting, so we may presume that Louise de Keroualle had her share of the mattresses. In the second room were Monsieur de Lauzun and " les grands officiers du Roi." Monsieur de Lauzun was constantly being called away, and each time had to pass through the room containing the sleeping beauties.
Once in doing so his spur caught in the coiffe of Mademoiselle
27
The Real Louise de Keroualle
de la Valliere, which made every one laugh excepting the Queen ; but even the latter could not help smiling at a remark of Madame de Thianges, who said that hearing the cows and the asses in the adjoining stable made her feel devout. After this we are told they all slept, and the next morning at four o'clock Monsieur de Louvois came in to tell the King a bridge had been made and the journey could be continued.
When the royal party arrived at Lille, Madame said, as if on the spur of the moment, that she could not be so near England without going to see her beloved brother, and accord- ingly, accompanied by her suite, which included Mademoiselle de Keroualle, she went to Dunkirk, where King Charles sent the English fleet, commanded by Lord Sandwich, to meet her and convey her to England. Madame reached Dover on the 25th May, and the King, who was an expert oarsman, rowed himself out several miles to meet her at five o'clock in the morning : he was accompanied by the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, and the Duke of Monmouth. On the 29th the Queen, for whom Charles had sent, arrived at Dover, and great rejoicings took place, that being the tenth anniversary of the Restoration. There were gay doings also on other days. The King took his sister to Canterbury, where a ballet and a comedy were acted before her, and a banquet was given in their honour at St. Augustine's Abbey. On the 8th June the royal party went for an expedi- tion in one of the King's yachts.
Happy as she always was to see her brother, and much as she
enjoyed her sight-seeing, Madame's chief object in this visit was
to influence him in the matter of the secret treaty with France
which had been privately discussed between him and Louis XIV.
for nearly two years. Charles had made several attempts to
28
The Real Louise de Keroualle
arrange a league with France before the Triple Alliance which that able diplomatist, Sir William Temple, had brought about in 1668, and on the day that it was signed Charles wrote to his sister and said, " Finding my proposition to France receave so cold an answer, which in effect was as good as a refusal, I thought I had no other way but this to secure my selfe." Very soon after the Duke of Buckingham commenced to enter into projects with the Duchess of Orleans for defeating the ends of the Triple Alliance, and the Duke of York, who had just joined the Church of Rome, fell in with their plans, out of zeal for his new religion. Early the next year King Charles, impatient at the delays of France, took the affair into his own hands, and continued the correspondence with the Duchess of Orleans, sending her a cypher " very easy and secure," He wished she could come to England and " then things might have been adjusted." Louis wrote to Charles that " he was happy in the Duchess of Orleans being the mediatrix," and thus it came about that the meeting at Dover was pre-arranged. Charles suggested that Turenne should be of the party to fix the plan of war, but Colbert dissuaded him from this project, as a thing likely to produce comment. Sir Richard Bellings, the Queen's secretary, was employed by King Charles to draw up the treaty.
The English King, who loved the PVench and hated the Dutch, agreed to support Louis XIV. in his plans against the United Provinces (the acquisition of Holland having always been one of the favourite projects of Le Grand Monarque), and dt the same time to back the French interests in Spain ; Louis on his side engaging to give Charles such pecuniary aid as would make him independent of his Parliament, and promising that, should an insurrection break out in England, he would
29
The Real Louise de Keroualle
send an army to assist him at his own cost. At this time there was no standing army in England, and there were not sufficient troops to protect Whitehall against the rising of the mob, and Pepys writes soon after the Restoration, "The King is not able to set out five ships at this time without great difficulty, we neither having money, credit, nor stores."
On his accession Charles found himself in a state of great embarrassment, and all his adherents, and those who had helped him in his long wanderings, as well as many who had done nothing for him, were expecting to be recouped for moneys they had either lost or paid. His first Parliament did little to remove his difficulties, notwithstanding their fervent ex- pressions of loyalty. It was to relieve himself from these worries that he became the husband of Catherine of Braganza, but the funds which this alliance placed in his hands were in great part swallowed up by the expense of the armament despatched to assist the Portuguese fleet, and by the preparations for taking possession of Bombay, ceded to the King on his marriage. The financial embarrassment was as bad as ever in a few months. Carte declared he " proved to demonstration that Charles's revenue, even though it had been managed with economy, was inadequate to the expenses of his government." The Commons alone could legally make him grants, and this they would not do without interfering with all his prerogatives, and he was bent on emancipating himself from their control. Dalrymple says : " In an evil hour for Charles, Clarendon had taught him in the very first years of his reign to receive money from France unknov/n to his people." These were the inducements which led to the ignominious treaty which has been called the " Traite de Madame." It was signed at Dover on the 1st of June, 1670, by Colbert and the four English
30
The Real Louise de Keroualie
Commissioners, Clifford, Arlington, Arundel, and Bellings, and was soon after ratified by the private seals of the two kings. A stipulation was made in the treaty that Charles should avow himself a Catholic ; he suggested that he should do so before he declared war against the Dutch, but the French King wished the declaration of war to come first. It was left to the Duchess of Orleans to negotiate concerning this matter, with the result that Charles gave way.
Ten days later Madame left Dover, but not before she had her portrait painted by Henri Gascar, a French portrait-painter then visiting England. This picture, which represents her as Diana, and is seven feet three by five feet, was painted for her brother the King : it now belongs to the Duke of Richmond, his descendant, and is at Goodwood House.
Madame had a profusion of fair hair, bright blue eyes, a beautiful nose, perfect teeth, and a complexion " petri de lis et de roses," which Lord Chesterfield said was unparalleled. Benserade the poet writes : " Madame brillait comme une rose panachee dans un parterre de fleurs " ; but it Vv'as not so much for beauty that she was celebrated as for her indescribable charm and that "je ne sais quoi " which is more than beauty. Her infinite grace and the winning sv\'eetness of her manners, combined with much wit and great intelligence, gained all hearts. The best description of her is given by Cosnac, Bishop of Valence, who summed up by saying she was the most perfect of women and had divine qualities.^ She was undoubtedly a great flirt, and many lovers were attributed to her ; she had had none of the usual pleasures of youth when at sixteen years of age she was married to a man whom no right-minded woman could
^ Cosnac went to Holland to buy up the whole edition of a libel which was published there called llistoire galante de M. et du Comte de G.
31
The Real Louise de Keroualle
do anything but loathe and despise, so that she threw herself, sometimes rather recklessly, into the manners and customs of the day. But Lord Chesterfield said that, though her discourses would charm an anchorite, something of majesty about her would stifle the breath of any unruly thought, and on her deathbed she solemnly averred to her worthless husband that she had never been unfaithful to him.
When she left Dover she wept bitterly at parting from her brother, who loaded her with presents and three times bid his dear " Minette," as he called her, a fond farewell, as if he could not let her go. The poet Waller wrote an ode on her departure from Dover, and presented it to her as she was about to sail. It ended with these words : —
" Eut we must see our glory snatched away, And with wann tears increase the guilty sea ; No wind can favour us, howe'er it blows, We must be wretched, and our dear treasure lose ; Sighs will not let us half our sorrows tell. Fair, lovely, great and best of nymphs, farewell."
Little did any of her friends at Dover think how soon these prophetic words would be realised : in three weeks' time this enchanting creature was snatched away for ever, to the infinite grief not only of France but of all Europe. Her end was very sudden. She was only seriously ill for nine hours, but during that time had the most agonising pain,^ which gave rise to the belief that she had been poisoned. This, however, was certainly not the case. A post-mortem examination took place before the English Ambassador, at which, besides the French doctors, Dr.
' The Conite de Trcville, who was a witness of her death, was in such a terrible state of mind that he had to be taken away from St. Cloud, and iie ultimately became a monk.
32
HMNRI CASCAK, pinx.
Henriette, DucHiissi-: d'Oklhaxs (â– .Madami:.") From a pictuic in possession of the Duke of Riclimond)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
Hugh Chamberlain, and Boscher a surgeon, both sent by King Charles, assisted. Boscher, though he found no traces of poison, thought that Madame had been very unskilfully treated. She was always delicate, the circumstances of her birth being enough to account for this. She came into the world in the midst of terrors, being born at Exeter soon after the Queen her mother, more dead than alive, had taken refuge there for fear of falling into the hands of the Parliamentarians, and it was then that King Charles I. wrote the pathetic little note to Sir Theodore iMayerne, his chief physician, which still exists : " Mayerne, for the love of me go to my wife.— C.R." Sir Theodore, though very ill himself, went at once to Exeter, and took with him Sir Martin Lister. They found Henrietta Maria with fever and a sort of paralysis, and it was then that Madame first saw the light. She never was strong, and had a slight though imper- ceptible curvature of the spine. The fatigue of the royal progress through Flanders had greatly tried her, and it was noticed at the time how ill she looked, but her wonderful vivacity and high spirits deceived many of those around her. On her return to St. Cloud she had, greatly against the advice of her doctor, taken to bathing in the river, which had very bad results, and her death was due to what would now be called "acute peritonitis."
St. Simon, in his AUmoires, maintains that she was poisoned, but his testimony cannot weigh against those of magistrates,' bishops, and all the doctors who were present at the time and at the post-mortem examination, whereas St. Simon was not then born, and wrote his account seventy years after the event.
Madame bore her sufferings with the greatest patience and fortitude. Almost her last words were, that the only regret she had in quitting this world was leaving her brother Charles.
Z2 c
The Real Louise de Keroualle
"Je Tai toujours aime plus que ma vie, et je n'ai nulle autre regret en la perdant que celui de le quitter." When all hope was over Mademoiselle de Montpensier went to Madame's husband, and asked that she might have another confessor, as the Cure of St. Cloud, who had been in to see her, only remained with the dying woman such a short time. " Vous avez raison," said the heartless man. "Son confesseur est un Capucin, qui n'etait bon qu'a faire figure dans un carosse aux voyages pour dire qu'il y en avait un ; mais il faut autre chose a la mort ; qui enverrons-nous chercher qui eut un bon air a mettre dans la Gazette qui eut assiste Madame a la mort ^ Ah ! j'ai trouve le fait : I'Abbe Bossuet, qui est nomme a I'Eveche de Condom, est habile homme, homme de bien. Madame lui parlait quelque- fois, cela sera tout a fait bien." When Bossuet was suggested, Madame expressed great eagerness to see him. She had been deeply impressed, the year before, by the sermon he had preached at her mother Queen Henrietta Maria's funeral at Chaillot, and ever since then had gone to him regularly three times a week for religious instruction. Meanwhile her friend Madame de la Fayette had sent for Monsieur Feuillet, a stern Jansenist priest, who was with Madame for a long time, and spoke to her of her mode of life in very severe terms. After she had received Extreme Unction, Bossuet arrived. He was far more tender and sympathetic. His first words were " L'esperance, I'esperance," and he brought great comfort to the poor troubled soul and remained with her for an hour till the end came. In writing to his brother he gave a touching account of her last moments, in which she showed such courage and fervent piety that he was greatly overcome. She gave him on her deathbed a large emerald ring, which he ever after wore. It remained for him to immortalise her by the magnificent " Oraison P'unebre,"
34
The Real Louise de Keroualle
which he so eloquently delivered at her funeral — his masterpiece, many passages of which have often been quoted. "Madame, cependant, a passe du matin au soir ainsi que I'herbe des champs. Le matin elle fleurissait ; avec quelle grace, vous le savez, le soir nous la vimes sechee " ; and again, " Madame fut douce envers la mort, comme elle I'etait envers tout le monde " ; and again, " O nuit desastreuse ! O nuit efFroyable ou retentit tout a coup comme un eclat de tonnerre cette etonnante nouvelle, ' Madame se meurt, Madame est morte.' "
The Duchess of Orleans was buried with greater state, it is said, than any previous royal personage, and Madame de Sevigne wrote that " Heaven could not have more exquisite music than Lulli and his violins provided for the ceremony."
The news of Madame's death was in the first instance con- veyed to King Charles by Sir Thomas Armstrong, a young Englishman who happened to be in Paris at the time,^ and who relates with what a violent outburst of grief the King received the intelligence. Charles loved his sister better than any one else, and had always from his earliest childhood kept up a most loving correspondence with her, and at the news of her death he took to his bed for many days. At first he believed the rumour that she had been poisoned, but after he had seen the Marechal de Bellefonds, who was with Madame till her death and her special friend, he was quite disabused of his erroneous idea.
And now to go back to Mademoiselle de Keroualle. In her capacity of Maid-of-honour she was a witness of the agonising scenes of her beloved mistress's end, and was present at the
^ Sir Thomas Armstrong afterwards attached himself to the Duke of Monmouth, and is often alluded to in the Diary of Henry Sidney. He was executed in 1684 for his participation in the Rye-House Plot. He had escaped into Holland, but was apprehended at Leyden and brought back to London.
3S
The Real Louise de Keroualle
funeral. Soon after she had to think of her own future, and again life in a convent seemed to be the only thing in store for her, but before long another alternative was suggested, which she accepted, no doubt with deep gratitude. This was to go to England, and be one of the Maids-of-honour to Queen Catherine of Braganza.
It was said that, when Madame was leaving Dover, King Charles asked her for a jewel in memory of her visit. She sent Mademoiselle de Keroualle to fetch her jewel-case, and when the Maid-of-honour returned with it, the King, bowing over the hand of the pretty girl, said, "This is the jewel I wish you would leave me." It is probable, therefore, that Charles had expressed admiration of the young French girl, which suggested the idea to Colbert that she might become a valuable auxiliary at the English Court, and so it was arranged to the satisfaction of both parties.
The Duke of Buckingham, who had been sent to France as Envoy at the time of the Duchess of Orleans' death, was to join Mademoiselle de Keroualle at Dieppe and take her over to England, but it is said that, with his usual carelessness, he forgot his engagement ! anyhow he crossed by Calais, and the young lady was left at Dieppe for several weeks. When he heard of it, Montagu, the English Ambassador at Paris, immedi- ately sent over for a yacht, and ordered some of his own people to convey her to London, where she arrived in August 1670, and was received at Whitehall by Lord Arlington.
This same month Colbert, the French Ambassador, writes to Leonne as follows : " The King is always finding opportunities to talk with this beauty in the Queen's room, but he has not yet gone up to chat with her in her own room." Reresby gives us a delightful picture of Mademoiselle de Keroualle, and says
36
Louise de Keroualle, Dlchess ok Poris.mouth. (From a painting by Henri Gascar belonging to Lord Talbot de Malahide)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
that " the sweet languor of her childish face and her refined charm of manner was a new experience for Charles." Her gentle manners, low voice, and sad eyes, combined with great freshness and a delicate, high-bred look, formed a pleasant change from the bad temper and boldness of the imperious though beautiful Lady Castlemaine, or the vulgar hilarity of saucy Nell Gwyn, delightful though she was in her way.
The King's intercourse with the Maid-of-honour continued on this footing for more than a year. Colbert, writing to Louvois on October 8, 1671, deplores the platonic nature of Mademoiselle's friendship with the King. St. Evremont, to whom Louise had been told to look for advice, urged her to give way. In his Probleme a rimilation des Espagnols, which he dedicated to her, he says : '* II y a bien de la peine a passer la vie sans amour. Laissez-vous aller a la douceur des tentations, au lieu d'ecouter votre fierte. Ce n'est pas la vertu rigide qu'il faut poursuivre, mais I'art d'accomoder deux choses qui paraissent incompatible, I'amour et la retenue. La retenue consiste a n'aimer qu'une personne a la fois, cela est se donner ; on s'abandonne en ayant plusieurs amans : de cette sorte de bien comme des autres, I'usage est honnete et la dissipation est honteuse." This specious philosophy was only one of the many influences brought to bear upon the scruples of Louise, who was only now twenty-one years of age, and there does not appear to have been a single person who advised her to keep the path of virtue. It devolved finally upon a woman to effect her moral ruin, no doubt with a view to her own and her husband's aggrandisement. The Countess of Arlington, who was Dutch, arranged with Colbert that he should bring Mademoiselle de Keroualle to stay with her and Lord Arlington at Euston in October (i 671), during the
37
The Real Louise de Keroualle
time that the King was at Newmarket for the race meeting, which arrangement was accordingly carried into effect, John Evelyn was at Euston, and describes the party. The Queen and a large number of ladies of high rank, nobles, and courtiers, altogether more than two hundred persons, were entertained in a princely way for fifteen days. The Queen did not go to the races, but spent a good deal of her time hunting and hawking. Sometimes she was accompanied by Mademoiselle de Keroualle, to whose physical attractions she made an unfortunate foil. Louise is described as of medium height, and at this time very slender. She had masses of very dark hair, with lighter shades in it which shone like bronze, lovely eyes with an interesting expression, an oval face, small features, pearly teeth, and a particularly white skin. The Queen was excessively short in stature and broad, her complexion olive, and her teeth, which protruded, were very bad. In some MS. notes before us, written in the eighteenth century, we are told that the old Vicomtesse Longueville {nee Barbara Taylor of Laycock), who died in 1763 nearly a hundred years old, used to tell many anecdotes of Charles II. 's Queen, whom she described as " a little ungraceful woman, so short-legged that when she stood upon her feet you would have thought that she was on her knees, and yet so long-waisted that when she sat down she appeared a well-sized woman."
The King came over every other day, and sometimes supped and slept at Euston, and made no secret of his attentions to the youthful Maid-of-honour.
November 21, 1671, found Mademoiselle de Keroualle back at Whitehall and giving an audience to Colbert de Croissy, the French Ambassador, who came to offer her the formal congratulations of Louis XIV. " J'ai donne bien de la joie
38
The Real Louise de Keroualle
a Mademoiselle de Keroualle," he writes to Louvois, "en I'assurant que sa Majeste serait tres aise qu'elle se maintint dans les bonnes graces du Roi." At the same time the French King sent Lady Arlington a necklace of pearls in grateful recognition of her delicate services ! No wonder that any scruples which Louise had became blunted.
Her fortune had been foretold according to Madame de Sevigne, who wrote to her daughter in March 1672, " Ne trou- verez-vous point bon de savoir que Keroual dont I'etoile avait ete devinee avant qu'elle partit, I'a suivie tres fidelement. Le roi d'Angleterre I'a aimee, elle s'est trouvee avec une legere disposition a ne le pas hair." A propos oi this, Monsieur Jean Le Moine says in writing of Louise de Keroualle in the Revue des Deux Mondes, " Ne nous en laissons point trop imposer par son autorite : des Rabutin elle (Madame de Sevigne) avait I'esprit caustique et une jalousie particuliere pour cette Bretonne (Louise) qui fit une carriere plus brillant que Madame de Grignan." Startling as it sounds, Madame de Sevigne was undoubtedly jealous for her daughter of Mademoi- selle de Keroualle's position. We have the authority of Bussy Rabutin, Madame de Sevigne's cousin and dear friend, tor stating that the friends of Mademoiselle de Sevigne, a girl whom Bussy calls " La plus jolie fille de France," wished for no better fate than that she should occupy the same position in France as Louise de Keroualle did in England. Some of Bussy's letters " s'agit des bruits que Ton faisait courir sur I'inclination du roi (Louis XIV.) pour Mademoiselle de Sevigne," and Madame de Montmorency writes to him on the 15th July, 1668, as follows: "Pour des nouvelles . . . d'un autre cote La Feuillade fait ce qu'il peut (aupres du Roi) pour Mademoiselle de Sevigne." To which letter Bussy
39
The Real Louise de Keroualle
answers on the 17th July, "Je serais fort aise que le roi s'attachat a Mademoiselle de Sevigne car la demoiselle est forts de mes amies et il ne pourrait etre mieux en maitresse."
On the 29th July, 1672, Louise de Keroualle had her only child, a son. The King was present at his baptism, and gave him his own Christian name, " Charles," and the surname of " Lenox " or " Lennox."
Soon after her son's birth Louise petitioned the King for
leave to become an English subject, and the following year
(1673) in August was created by King Charles, Baroness of
Petersfield, Countess of Farnham, and Duchess of Pendennis,
the latter title being immediately changed to that of Duchess of
Portsmouth. Four months later Louis XIV, made her Duchesse
d'Aubigny, with remainder to her descendants. Aubigny-sur-
Nievre in Berri had been given in 1422 by Charles VII., King
of France, to John Stuart (an ancestor of the first Dukes of
Richmond, in consideration of his military services for France,
and at the death of Charles, the last of the Stuart Dukes
of Richmond, Aubigny went back to the crown of France, and
at the same time the title of Duke of Richmond expired, as
Charles Stuart, Duke of Richmond, left no son ; Charles II.
revived the title in the person of his son by Louise de
Keroualle, and created him, by letters patent dated 9th August,
1675, Baron Settrington, Earl of March, and Duke of Richmond
in the county of Yorks, so that the place and the title still kept
together. In 1830 it was legally proved and certified that the act
of 1422 giving Aubigny to John Stuart contained, " aucune
condition de retour," so that King Charles IL had the right of
disposing of it himself as much as he had of the other lands
and titles that the last Duke of Richmond left him, and there
was no necessity for asking Louis XIV. to bestow it on Louise.
40
WITH HER SON
LoLISH DK KhKoUALLH, DuCHESS OF PoRTSMOl TH,
THE 1st Dukr of Richmond. (From a paintinc^ in the possession of the Duke of Richmond at Goodwood)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
The Duchess of Cleveland, who had been promised that her son should be made Duke of Grafton, insisted, with her usual imperiousness, that he should have precedence over " the Frenchwoman's son." Charles tried to please both ladies by suggesting that the two patents should be made simultaneously, but the Duchess of Portsmouth scored one ! She persuaded Lord Treasurer Danby to receive her attorney at midnight, just as he was stepping into his coach to go to Bath, and to affix the seal to the patent of the Duke of Richmond there and then ! Next morning the Duchess of Cleveland's lawyer went to the Lord Treasurer's house to find him gone ! and in con- sequence the Duke of Richmond has a month and two days precedence of the Duke of Grafton.
The little Duke of Richmond was furthermore enrolled a month later amongst the peers of Scotland by the titles of Baron Methuen of Torbolton, Earl of Darnley, and Duke of Lennox, all of which titles the present Duke of Richmond continues to hold.
The Countess Marischal, a Scotchwoman, was appointed his "governess" with a salary of 2000 livres, and afterwards Richard Duke, the poet, became his tutor. A grant was made to the young Duke of twelvepence for every chaldron of coal shipped from the port of Newcastle. This continued to his de- scendants till 1799, when the right was purchased by the Lords of the Treasury for an annuity of ^T 19,000, henceforth payable out of the Consolidated Fund to the Duke and his heirs.
When he was nine years of age the young Duke was elected and installed a Knight of the Garter. Up till this date (1681) the K.G.'s wore the blue ribbon round the neck with the George appendant on the breast, but the Duchess of Ports- mouth introduced her son to the King with his ribbon over the left shoulder and the George appendant on the right,
41
The Real Louise de Keroualle
and his Majesty was so pleased with the alteration that he ordered it in future to be adopted. Wissing painted the Duke at this time with the robes of the Garter, and the picture was engraved in mezzotint by R. Williams.
The Duchess of Portsmouth soon gained immense influence with the King, and kept the first place in his affections till his death.
Dr. Airy says : " The Duchess held her own with a certain dignity against the anger of the Commons, the hatred of the people, the attacks of politicians, and the waywardness of Charles, and for many years she was virtually Queen of England," and he goes on to say that " when the King wanted refinement, charm of conversation, and delicacy — and it is a mistake to forget this side of his nature — he retired to the apartments of the Duchess." She had excellent manners, never lost her temper, and never wrangled, but if she failed to carry her point she had recourse to tears. This is alluded to in the " Essay on Satire," said to be the joint production of Dryden and Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham. It was, as a matter of fact, written by the latter, but Dryden got the credit of it, and a castigation in consequence ! Lord Rochester, thinking that the poet was the author, had him waylaid and beaten, and the Duke of Buckingham, in his " Art of Poetry," speaking of Dryden, says —
"Though prais'd and beaten for another's rhymes, His own deserve as great applause sometimes."
Louvois, who calls the Duchess of Portsmouth " La Signora
Addolorata," says on one occasion, " Elle versait un torrent de
larmes ; les soupirs et les sanglots coupaient ses paroles. Enfin,
jamais spectacle ne m'a paru plus triste ni plus touchant." This
42
Charlks Lennox, 1st Dlkf. of Rickmono. (From a Mezzotint at Swallow Held, hy K- Williams, after Wissiny)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
was when she thought that King Charles's affection for her was lessening, but other things affected her to tears. At the time when she was so interested in the passing of the Exclusion Bill, Sydney in his Diary writes : " The Duchess of Portsmouth is crying all day for fear the Parliament should be dissolved." If the melting mood was inefficacious, it was said that fits of sudden illness were brought into requisition, and Lady Cov/per in her Diary tells the following story: "Once one of his lords came and told the King that the doctors declared the Duchess of Portsmouth could not live half-an-hour, and that she had sent to him to take his leave of her. He replied, " Gads fish ! I don't believe a word of it : she's better than you or I are, and she wants something, that makes her play her pranks over this ; she has served me so often so, that I am as sure of what I say as part of her." No doubt this story did not lose in the telling ; anyhow, when the Duchess was really ill the King was most tender and attentive. We hear of him during one of her illnesses never leaving her room during the whole day, and we have before us some original autograph letters of his to her very tenderly inquiring after her health when she had not been well. In one written from Newmarket, he says : —
*' I shall not be out of pain till I know how my dearest gott to London, and for that purpose I send this expresse to come away to-morrow morning to bring me word how you have rested after your journey. I will not trouble you with a long letter now, knowing how troublesome that is to one indisposed, and pray do not answer this yourself, except you are out of paine : all I will add is that I should do myself wrong if I tould you that I love you better than all the world besides, for that were making a comparison where 'tis impossible to express the true passion and kindnesse I have for my dearest, dearest Fubs ! — C.R."
43
The Real Louise de Keroualle
"Fubs" was no doubt a nickname given to the Duchess by Kinff Charles, probably in consequence of her increasing em- bonpoint. One of the King's yachts was called The Fubs or Fubbs^ and one of the last recorded sailings of his was made in the Fubbs round the North Foreland about 1680.^
The Duchess had several severe illnesses, but her good constitution always pulled her through. In May 1676 she went to Bath for her health, though her journey was postponed because of the report that small-pox and purple fever were there. On her return a sort of congratulatory dinner was given in her honour by the Comte and Comtesse de Ruvigny, who had a concert afterwards, for which Louis XIV.'s singers had been sent over from France — Giles La Forest and Godesneche being accompanied by Lambert, the father-in-law of Lulli.
The following year the Duchess was very ill for many weeks, and was supposed to be at the last extremity. Madame de Scudery writes to Bussy Rabutin that, crucifix in hand, the Duchess of Portsmouth preached to the King and urged him to change his way of living. The Duchess, however, recovered, and we do not hear any more of her insistence on this change of life.
In March 1682 she went to her beloved country, where she stayed nearly five months, feeling no doubt perfect confidence that on her return her power would be as great as ever, and as a matter of fact it was redoubled. The Duchess of Portsmouth was accompanied on her journey to France by her sister, Henriette, Countess of Pembroke, and by her son, the youthful
^ An account of this voyage was written by John Gosthng, Minor Canon of Canterbury, who was the King's guest on board. The weather was very stormy, and both the King and the Duke of York handled the ropes.
GostHng confided his adventures to Purcell, who in honour of the event wrote his anthem, " They that go down to the sea in ships."
44
SIR PETKH I.KI.V, pin
LoL'isH DH Khkoualle, Duchess of Pokis.molth. (From an etii>raving by S. Freeman)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
Duke of Richmond, whom the French found " charmant et plein d'esprit." They went over in a yacht from Greenwich to Dieppe, and then on to Paris, where they had a splendid reception at Court, which St. Simon describes. " The Duchess and her son," he says, "were royally received at St. Cloud. Louis XIV. sent an Envoy to welcome her, and Monsieur went in person to call upon her. She was at all the royal fetes, and the King presented her with some very fine earrings which cost 32,000 livres." " Rien n'est pareil," writes St. Simon, "a I'acceuil qu'elle recut." Even the Capucines came out from their convent to meet her with cross, holy water, and incense ! and Madame du Lude, Abbesse de Bellechasse, who had been Maid-of-honour to the Duchess of Orleans, went to receive her, embraced her tenderly, and remained with her an hour.
From Paris the Duchess went to Aubigny, then to see her father and mother, and on to Bourbon with her sister, where she took the waters and spent the months of May and June. Bourbon was the fashionable resort of the French aristocracy, and at this time it was crowded with the " beau monde," but we are told that the Duchess of Portsmouth eclipsed every one by the sumptuous manner of her living. She then went to Brittany, where she bought back the old family estates of Keroualle and Mesnouales, situated in the Eveche de Leon in Basse-Bretagne, which her father had been obliged to sell, and two years later she purchased the Terre du Chastel from the creditors of Henri Albert de Cosse, Due de Brissac, which had formerly belonged to the de Rieux, her ancestors on the female side. Before leaving France she paid another visit to the French Court, and the Gazette of the 5th July tells us she was driving with the Queen. The last honour paid to her at this time was a magnificent banquet given by Croissy-Colbert. It was the end of July 1682
45
The Real Louise de Keroualle
when the Duchess of Portsmouth returned to London, a greater personage than ever — after receiving such a reception from Le Grande Monarque, and being the recipient of that most coveted of honours, " le tabouret," which every one knows is the right to sit on a stool in the presence of royalty. Louis XIV. continued to keep up a correspondence with the Duchess of Portsmouth, and we have before us a packet of his letters to her, written quite irrespectively of any political intrigue. The French King always addresses her as " Ma Cousine," and the letters are of a most friendly nature. We have also many of her letters to him ; the matter of these is good, they are well expressed, and she wrote a fine hand of the large type, but the spelling is atrocious — quite phonetic. The Ursuline nuns had much to answer for in this respect ! Good spelling was, however, the exception in those days, and Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans, Louis XIV. 's sister-in-law, celebrated for her enormous correspondence, writes : " Bien peu de dames la savent," alluding to what she calls " ortografFe." " Les frangaises meme font presque toutes des fautes." This Duchess of Orleans liked the Duchess of Ports- mouth, and writes : " C'est la meilleure femme de ce genre que j'ai vue de ma vie ; elle est fort polie et d'un commerce tres agreable. Du temps de Monsieur nous I'avions souvent a St. Cloud. Aussi je la connais tres bien." A propos of one of the Duchess of Portsmouth's visits to St. Cloud, the Duchess of Orleans in August 1690 tells the following funny story: " Madame de Portsmouth, que nous avions ici il y a quelques jours, m'a raconte que le feu roi (Charles II.) avait coutume de dire : ' Vous voyez bien mon frere quand il sera roi, il perdra son royaume par zele pour sa religion, et son ame pour de villaines genipes, car il n'a pas le goust assez bon pour en aimer
de belles,' et la prophetie s'accomplit deja : les royaumes sont a
46
LouisK i)E Keroualle, Dl'chess ok Pokts.molth. .(From a portrait in the possession of the Diiko of Richmond at Goodwood)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
vau I'eau et Ton pretend qu'a Dublin il avait deux afFreux laiderons avec lesquels il etait toujours fourre."
Whilst giving the Duchess of Portsmouth credit for the ability and solid judgment which enabled her, notwithstanding the tremendous disadvantages of her nationality and her religion, to hold her own for so many years, yet we must not believe, as Mr. Forneron would have us to do, that in matters of foreign policy King Charles was a puppet in her hands. In the very able review of Mr. Forneron's History of the Duchess, which appeared in the Si. James's Gazette some years ago, the writer says : " The Duchess of Portsmouth is here made the pivot of European history. At particular junctures, no doubt, her cool judgment and unfailing tact enabled her to set up an initiative of her own. In the schemes for the marriage of the Duke of York she dissented from the policy of Colbert de Croissy and Louvois, who were pressing the claims of the Duchess of Guise. Again, she dissuaded King Charles from a premature avowal of the Roman Catholic faith, but it is idle to accuse her of respon- sibility for the infamous subservience of the English to the French Court. ... It is not so much unjust as unhistorical to accuse 'Madame Carwell' of selling Charles to the French. That very wide-awake monarch was never sold by anybody except himself. . . . You may read Mr. Forneron and come away with the impression that Charles was a puppet who could be worked at the pleasure of the male and female schemers about him. His character and conduct we are not concerned to defend, any more than to write an apology for ' Madame Carwell.' But his prodigious talents, his practical shrewdness, and, when he pleased to exercise it, his supple persistence, are as undisputed as was the victory over all opponents which he secured before the end of his reign."
47
The Real Louise de Keroualle
Apropos of the suggestion that King Charles should openly avow the Roman Catholic religion, the following is very charac- teristic of him : Colbert writes that the King desired a theologian to be sent to him from Paris to instruct him in the mysteries of the Catholic faith, but his Majesty desires that this theologian may be a good chemist ! As with his uncle Prince Rupert, chemistry was one of King Charles's favourite pursuits ; he had his own private laboratory fitted up at Whitehall, and was far more active there than at his Councils. Sorbieres, who visited England in 1663, says, even at that early date, "He (the King) has acquired a knowledge (of science), at which I was surprised when I was received by his Majesty ; no one did so much for physical science, and so powerfully incited people to make experiments." The King showed Sorbieres his " cabinet of natural and mechanical curiosities," and the telescopes which he had had erected in St. James's Park.
At the close of 1684, the King was much taken up with experiments on the property of mercury, and only a few weeks before his death he was occupied with a process for trying to fix it. Buckingham, we know, joined him in this hobby —
" Chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."
Besides chemistry, surgery and medicine greatly interested King Charles, These tastes he apparently transmitted to his grandson, Charles Lennox, second Duke of Richmond, who, in 1749, was a Doctor of Physic and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the same love of science has come out in more than one of his descendants in later times.
To go back to Louise, the writer whom we have already
quoted says : " The Duchess of Portsmouth was more clever,
48
SM< PHTKR LKLY, f-ilix.
ChaisM.es II. (From a paintino in possession of the Duke of Rirlimoml)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
more successful, and (be it added) more virtuous than her rivals, and at the same time less popular than any of them. There is something which extorts an unwilling admiration in the perti- nacity with which she pursued and finally gained the highest rank and the fullest recognition in her own country^ as well as in England." Most of the great families in England recog- nised her. The Arlingtons, the Sunderlands, the Arundels, the Cliffords, the Lauderdales, and the young Duchess of York were her great friends. The Russells, the Cavendishes, and the Butlers stood aloof. The Duchess of Portsmouth once sent word to the old Duchess of Ormond that she would dine with her on such a day ; the honour was not declined, but the Duchess of Ormond made her granddaughters leave the house, and received the Duchess of Portsmouth alone with no one but her chaplain ! But it was very seldom that she received any rebuffs. We even hear of Queen Catherine being her partner at loo, and when the Act was passed in 1678 obliging all persons to take a test against Popery, and a proviso was inserted in favour of the Queen and nine ladies about her person, she required all her attendants to cast lots, but named the Duchess of Portsmouth as excepted ; and once when Phyllis Temple, the Maid-of- honour, was rude to the Duchess, the Queen deprived the young lady of a quarter's salary. This shows to a certain extent that the Queen had no special personal animosity against the Duchess of Portsmouth,^ though the King must have required all his well-known tact to keep the balance. The following original letters of his addressed to the Duchess, which we have before us, show this : —
" My dear Life, — I will come to-morrow either to dinner
* See the statement quoted on page 20.
- The Duchess of Portsmouth always behaved towards the Queen with the deepest respect.
49 D
The Real Louise de Keroualle
or immediately after, and then wil settel all, but certainly I shal not mind the Queen when you are in the case. Adieu : I am yours."
And then the following : —
"My dear Life, — There was a mesage from the Queen to-day to desire the ladys to dine att their table and to invite strangers, and there being a good deal of company, I can't come till after dinner. Adieu, my Life."
It is no wonder, therefore, that the Duchess of Portsmouth had a certain pride in her position. She considered herself " maitresse en titre " and quite on a different footing from Nell Gwyn and such like. Both the Duchess and Nell Gwyn were at Oxford during the memorable Parliament of 1681, and it was probably on this occasion that, when some one in the crowd looked into the Duchess's carriage and called her a
bad name, coupling her with the actress, she said, " Me no ,
if me thought me ware, me would cut mine own throat."
The extravagance of the Duchess seems to have been un- bounded, and King Charles denied her nothing. Carte tells a story showing her love of acquisition and his subservience to her wishes. When the daughter of his sister Henrietta was engaged to the King of Spain, King Charles ordered the famous jeweller Laguse to make a fine ornament of gems, which was to cost _;/^ 1 5,000, and which Lord Ossory was to take her as a present from his Majesty ; but when the jewel was shown to the Duchess of Portsmouth, she admired it so much that the King gave it to her. Evelyn says that " the Duchess of Ports- mouth's splendid apartments at Whitehall were luxuriously furnished, and with ten times the richness and glory of the Queen's, such massy pieces of plate — whole tables, stands, &c.,
50
I'll-.UKK MU.NARll, pinx.
Louise dh Kekol.allb, Duchess of Portsmouth.
1647—1734. (From the paintin,i» in the National Portrait Gallery)
I'ltOtO. KMERV WAr.KHR.
The Real Louise de Keroualle
of incredible value ! " and at a later period, in describing her rooms, he says : " Here I saw the new fabric of French tapestry ; for design, tenderness of work, and incomparable imitation of the best paintings, beyond anything I had ever beheld. Some pieces had Versailles, St. Germain, and other palaces of the French King, with hunting figures and landscapes, exotic fowls, and all to the life rarely done. Then for Japan cabinets, screens, pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, tables, stands, chimney furniture, sconces, branches, braseras,^ &c., all of a massy silver, and out of number, besides some of his Majesty's best paintings."
In 1682 these apartments were pulled down and rebuilt three times to please the Duchess. Their ultimate fate was destruction by a fire in 1691, which burnt "all the buildings over the stone gallery at Whitehall to the waterside." Besides her apartments at Whitehall, the Duchess had a house out of London — at Kensington — from 1775 till 1788, nearly opposite Kensington Palace gates, and here she used to retire for change of air. Afterwards Elphinstone kept a school there, and Dr. Johnson used to visit him. Then it became a Roman Catholic boarding-house, in which Mrs. Inchbald died in 1821 ; and in quite modern times it was a " maison de sante." Now it no longer exists.
Out of evil good may come, and there is no doubt that Louise de Keroualle did much to encourage " les beaux-arts " in England, and greatly advanced the taste of our country by the introduction of many French artists in various departments. During the Civil War and the Protectorate, those branches of trade allied to ornamental art, which bring employment to the
' i.e. brasiere, a movable hearth of silver for coals, transportable into any room, much used in Spain. (Evelyn's " Fop Dictionary," 1690.)
51
The Real Louise de Keroualle
higher classes of artisans and mechanics, were wholly extin- guished, John Addington Symonds talks of " the Puritan hostility of Culture," and civilisation had gone back many degrees between the years 1640 and 1660.
The Duchess of Portsmouth had many French workmen brought over to England, and Colbert helped her to establish royal workshops. The epoch of Le Grand Monarque was remarkable in the history of art. Those were the days of Andre Charles Boule, and the Duchess had his pupils in London ; and Charles Le Brun, too, of the famous Gobelin factory, a painter by pro- fession, but who designed for her ormolu mounts. The magnifi- cent patronage she gave to artists drew them to our shores in multitudes. Lely was succeeded by Kneller ; the two Vande- veldes, Varelst, Verrio, Wissing, Gascar, and Laguerre were amongst those who worked for her. The Duchess also had over from Paris Le Notre, the French landscape gardener, to lay out and improve St. James's Park, which King Charles had begun immediately after the Restoration. It was Le Notre who planted the avenue of trees at the Mall on the north side of the Park. The walk on the south side was lined with aviaries containing birds. Edward Storey was the keeper of the birds and had a house at the entrance, hence the name Storey's Gate. Wet or fine. King Charles was in the habit of going out every morning to feed the ducks in the canal and his other birds, many of those there now being said to be their descendants. The King's friends were always lamenting the little care he took of his health, especially the way he exposed himself to wet and cold.
It was after a hawking expedition, early in the autumn of 1679, that he had what the doctors called "an intermittent tertian," and in the following spring his condition caused the
52
The Real Louise de Keroualle
greatest alarm. The Dowager-Countess of Sunderland, in writing to Mr. Sidney, on the loth May, says: "I was then, like most others, out of my wits with the King being ill, and greater distraction never was anywhere for the time. Thanks be to God it did not last long; yesterday he was very well, but I take the less comfort in it, because he had taken the ' Jesuits powder ; ^ the fits he had did not last above two or three hours." Young Lady Sunderland (Sacharissa) writes the same day : " We have all been sadly alarmed with the King being sick, but he is now very well again, and I hope will continue so, if he can be kept from fishing when a dog would not be abroad." Fishing was one of the favourite amusements of Kmg Charles, and no amount of bad weather stopped him from pursuing his sport, the Thames at Datchet being one of his favoured spots. Apparently these fits to which the King was subject were of the nature of ague, and "Jesuits' powder" was nothing but quinquinna or Peruvian bark, called also chin- chona, from its valuable properties having been just estab- lished in 1640 by the cure of the Comitissa del Cinchon, wife of the Spanish Viceroy at Peru. It was called "Jesuits' powder" from the interest the Cardinal de Lugo and the Jesuits took in its distribution. On its first introduction into Europe it was reprobated by many eminent physicians; hence when it was given to King Charles it caused great distrust in the minds of many bigoted persons. Sir William Temple in his " Essay on Health " alludes to these suspicions. Sir Leoline Jenkins, writing a few days after the attack, says : " I had the honour to see his Majesty perfectly recovered of his aguish distemper," and he goes on to say " he was abroad at prayers in the public oratory. He dined with the Queen and had a very good appetite, and the physicians are in no
53
The Real Louise de Keroualle
apprehension, blessed be God for it ! of the returning of his ague."
About four months later King Charles was seized with " an intermittent fever of so malignant a character that his life was in danger. Great excitement prevailed, and, of course, according to the monomania of the period, the illness was attributed to poison. Lady Sunderland writes : " I believe yet that there is scarce anybody beyond Temple Bar that believes his distemper proceeded from anything but poison, though as little like it as if he had fallen from a horse ... if the Privy Councillors had not used their authority to keep the crowds out of the King's chamber he had been smothered : the bed- chamber men could do nothing to prevent it." The King, however, speedily recovered under the care of Dr. Micklethwaite, who was in consequence knighted.
Notwithstanding these warnings King Charles took no care of himself, and on the 2nd of February 1685 he had a fit of apoplexy, which was followed by several others ; and on the 5th it was obvious that he was dying. At first the Duchess of Portsmouth sat by his bed and supported his head, but when the Queen came she retired to her own apartments, and desired Ken, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, to take the Duke of Richmond, now thirteen years old, to receive his father's last blessing. The King, we are told, frequently re- commended the Duchess of Portsmouth and her son to his successor, " in terms," says Burnet, " as melting as he could fetch out."
On the second day of the King's seizure, Barillon found the Duchess in her apartments overwhelmed with affliction, but instead of speaking of her own grief or her own affairs, she was keenly anxious for the state of the King's soul. " Nobody,"
54
The Real Louise de Keroualle
said she, " tells him of his condition or speaks to him of God ; the Duke of York thinks only of his affairs. Go to him, I conjure you, and warn him to think of what can be done to save the King's soul — lose no time, for if it is deferred it will be too late; the King is really a Catholic, but he will die with- out being reconciled to the Church, his bedroom is full of Protestant clergymen."
Whatever religious tendency King Charles had, there can be little doubt that it was in the direction of Roman Catholicism. He imbibed its first principles from his mother Henrietta Maria, who was a devoted mother and a bigoted Catholic, and it was the religion of the only two other women whom he had really loved, his sister and the Duchess of Portsmouth, It was said that Father John Huddleston^ had brought him some religious works to read during his concealment at Moseley Hall after he left Boscobel, and certainly King Charles had given thought to it at times. Two papers written on the subject in his own hand, and found after his death in his strong box, showed signs of study and reasoning. The story is well known of how, in consequence of the Duchess of Portsmouth's entreaties, the Duke of York managed to introduce privately into the royal bedchamber a priest, on ascertaining from his brother that it was his earnest desire ; that the only available priest happened to be the same Father Huddleston to whom we have alluded ; and that King Charles died in the profession of the Catholic faith.
Lord Chesterfield, who was with him during the last forty-
* Father Huddleston, whose name is for ever associated with King Charles II., was the second son of Joseph Huddleston of Faringdon Hall, near Preston. When the King arrived at Moseley Hall, the house of Mr. Thomas Whitgreave, he was there acting as tutor to two of Mr. Whitgreave's nephews, Francis Reynolds and Thomas Paylin, and also to Sir John Preston.
ss
The Real Louise de Keroualle
eight hours of his life, says " he died as a good Christian, praying often for God's and Christ's mercy ; as a man of great and undaunted courage and as a good-natured man in a thousand ways," and " hoped," he said, " that he should climb up to heaven's gates."
On the morning of Friday, the 6th of February 1685, all the churches were full, and when the prayer for the King was read, loud groans and sobs showed how deeply he was loved. The end came quietly at noon. The Duke of York and Mary Beatrice were with him to the last, and an eye-witness writes that the new Queen " was a most passionate mourner, and thought a crown dearly bought with the loss of such a brother," her own words being, '* I was so greatly afflicted for the death of King Charles that I dared not give free vent to my grief, lest I should be suspected of hypocrisy. I had loved him very dearly, and with reason, for he was very amiable, and had shown me much kindness."
Almost the last words that King Charles said to his brother were to implore him to look after the Duchess of Portsmouth and her son ; " I have always loved her," he said, " and I die loving her." The first visit of condolence which the new King paid was to her, and he gave her many assurances of his friendship and protection. The Duchess gave herself up to an agony of grief, which even Macaulay allows " was not wholly selfish." She continued to hold her apartments at Whitehall, but six months after King Charles's death she went to Versailles, where Louis XIV. received her with great kindness. It is said that she took over with her a large sum of money besides her jewels, and she lived at first with considerable splendour. When not in Paris she occasionally occupied the old family house in Brest, opposite the ancient church in the rue des Sept Saints,
56
The Real Louise de Keroualle
then the aristocratic quarter of the town, and the Duchess also went periodically to her chateau of Keroualle, which she had had decorated with mythological paintings, some of which still remain on the ceilings, including a representation of the story of Andromeda and Perseus — the daughter of Cepheus, chained to a rock, being the likeness, it is said, of herself !
The Duchess was accompanied when she left England by her young son, the Duke of Richmond, who was then fourteen years of age. He had been given by King Charles the appoint- ment of Master of the Horse, which during his minority was placed in the hands of three commissioners, Henry Guy, Theo- philus Oglethorpe, and Charles Adderley. But soon after King James's accession to the throne, the office was removed from him, at which the young Duke felt so aggrieved that he left England in great dudgeon, and soon after he arrived in France became a naturalised French subject. The French Court was much pleased with him, and the following lines appeared at
the time : —
" Ce n'est pas ta mine charmante, Aimable My lord, qui m'enchante, Mais ton esprit, vif et brillant, Puise dans le sein de ta mere, Et qui fait que dans cinquante ans, Comma aujourd'hui tu sauras plaire."
The Duchess was now most earnestly desirous that her son should embrace the Roman Catholic religion. For this purpose she wrote to Louis XIV. as to " les moyens de convertir le due de Richmond," and the King suggested placing him in the hands of Bossuet, to whom a letter was sent saying, " Sa majeste est bien persuade que la conversion de M. le due de Richmond ne peut estre en meilleurs mains que les vostres, mais elle croit que ce n'est pas assez de lui donner un
57
The Real Louise de Keroualle
precepteur catholique et de bonnes moeurs si en mesmes temps on ne congedie son gouverneur huguenot." All this was accomplished with the desired result. The ceremony of the young Duke's reception into the Catholic Church was very impressive. It took place at Fontainebleau on the 2ist October 1685, and was conducted by M. de Meaux (Bossuet), whose splendid oratory on this occasion enthralled all his hearers. He preached on the gospel of the day, taking for his text Matthew xxii. 20 and Luke xiv. 25, and melted, it is said, the Court to tears. Madame la Dauphine was in trans- ports and spoke of nothing else. " Jamais je n'ai ou'f parler comme il fait," said she ; " il me fait un plaisir que je ne puis exprimer, et plus je I'entends plus je I'admire." Twelve years later, to the great grief of his mother, the Duke of Rich- mond declared himself a Protestant, his re-conversion to the Anglican Church taking place in Lambeth Palace on Whit- sunday, May 15, 1692. The Duke had returned to England on the accession of William III., and the following year took his seat in the House of Lords. King William is said to have taken a great fancy to him. He made him one of his aides-de-camp, and as such the young Duke saw active service in Flanders, and was at the battles of Steinkerque and Ner- winde, where he gave great proofs of valour.
Konigsm.arck writes from the camp at Halle to a friend as follows : " In a previous letter I told you that there were very few distinguished-looking men in the train of the King or the Elector ; but if I had seen the Duke of Richmond (now in his twenty-first year), son of the Duchess of Portsmouth, sooner, I should not have said so, for he is the most charming youth. He unites to perfect manners an air of great distinction; he is well-made, and has a handsome face and fine eyes."
58
Chakm:s LiiNNox, First Dlkb of Richmond.
From a Mezzotint at S-walhm'jicld fiy I. Fatcr, after the Fainting by Sir Godfrey h'neller, Fart. (1731).
The Real Louise de Keroualle
Spring Macky describes the Duke ^ some years later as " a gentleman good-natured to a fault, very well-bred, with many good things in him, an enemy to business, very credulous, well-shaped, black complexion, much like King Charles." Swift calls him " a shallow coxcomb." The Duke's manners, learnt at the Court of Versailles, were not likely to appeal to the Dean. Hearne lamented that the Duke of Richmond was " a man that struck in v/ith everything that was Whiggish and opposite to true monarchical principles." He certainly did not approve of his uncle King James's measures, and was one of those who joined the celebrated association called the Kit-Cat Club, which pre-eminently laboured for the Pro- testant succession. His portrait, painted by Kneller, hung over the chimneypiece at Barn Elms in Surrey, the house of Jacob Jonson, the secretary, where the club often met.
The Duke married, on the loth January 1693, when he was only twenty-one, Anne, Lady Belasyse, a widow of twenty. She was nee Bruce, the daughter of Francis, Lord Brudenell, son and heir of the Earl of Cardigan (whom he predeceased), and her first husband was Henry, second Baron Belasyse of Worlaby. There are several portraits of her at Goodwood by Kneller and Lely, one of which we give here.
The Duchess of Portsmouth was very friendly with her daughter-in-law, and we have before us most affectionate letters that passed between them. The Duchess was sponsor to the eldest daughter of her son, born in 1694, and called Louise after her, the christening taking place at St. James's, Piccadilly, and she lived to see her married to James, Earl of Berkeley, and become the mother of two children ; but she must have been rather shocked at her bad manners, for Lady Louise ' " Characters of the Court of Great Britain.'
59
The Real Louise de Keroualle
appears to have been a wild tomboy ! Swift in his " Journal
to Stella" writes, on the 6th June 171 1, about a practical
joke played on him by her which does not sound dignified
for a married woman, though it is fair to say she was only
sixteen. The Dean writes: "It put me in as perfect a passion
as ever I was in my life at the greatest affront or provocation.
I dined with Lady Betty Germain and there was the young
Earl of Berkeley and his fine lady. I never saw her before
nor think her near so handsome as she passes for. Lady
Berkeley after dinner clapped my hat on another lady's head,
and she in roguery put it upon the rails. I minded them not,
but in two minutes they called me to the window, and Lady
Carteret showed me my hat out of her window five doors
off, where I was forced to walk to it and pay her and old
Lady Weymouth a visit Vv'ith some more bell-dames." This
little hoyden, we conclude, must have sobered down, as in two
years she was appointed Lady-of-the-Bedchamber to Caroline,
Princess of Wales. If her life was a merry one it was of
short duration, for three years later it came to an end,
small-pox carrying her off at the age of twenty-three.
The first Duke of Richmond must have rented Goodwood
from the Compton family before he bought it in 1720, as when
the Grand Duke of Tuscany came on a visit to William III., that
King took him there to stay with the young Duke, and they
hunted together with the Charlton pack of hounds, the first ever
established in this country. Charlton, which is near Goodwood,
was the Melton-Mowbray of the day, and was brought into fashion
by the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, who hunted there
when staying with Ford, Lord Grey, and these two kept a couple
of packs of foxhounds at Charlton. The writer's grandfather
had a gamekeeper who died in 1 807 aged ninety-four, who had
60
The Real Louise de Keroualle
heard his grandfather speak of Monmouth and his particular love for Charlton, the Duke saying to him jestingly that when he was King he would come and hold his court there ! — so early were his hopes of the Crown alluded to. A letter still extant, dated February 17, 1670, from Bishop Carlton to the Metropolitan, makes apologies for the apparent want of loyalty shown by the inhabitants of Chichester, who made so much of the Duke of Monmouth and received him with bonfires and ringing of bells and finally conveyed him in state to the Cathedral 1
Lord Burlington built a banqueting-hall at Charlton for the votaries of the chase, which was called Foxhall, from the gilt fox surmounting a tall flagstaff erected in front of it — a gift from Henrietta, Duchess of Bolton, Monmouth's daughter, who was a constant visitor there. The first Duchess of Richmond with her daughter. Lady Anne Lennox, held evening assemblies at Foxhall, and at one of them the Duchess of Portsmouth was present. Soon after the Duchess of Richmond died, and the Duke only outlived her a few months, dying in 1723 at the age of fifty-one. The Duke was buried in Henry VII. 's chapel in Westminster Abbey, but in 1750 his body was moved to the vault under Our Lady's Chapel in the Cathedral at Chichester. On a tablet at the end of this vault is this inscription : —
" Sibi et suis posterisque eorum hoc Carolus Richmond dive ; Sivi nias et Albiniaci dix anno erve christianae mdccl. Hoce est domus ultima."
The concluding words gave rise to the following epigram : —
" Did he, who thus inscribed this wall. Not read, or not believe, St. Paul r Who says there is — where'er it stands — Another house not built with hands ; Or may we gather from these words. That house is not a house — for Lords ! " 61
The Real Louise de Keroualle
Although the Duchess of Portsmouth lost her son and his wife, she survived to see many of her grandchildren and great- grandchildren, and she always took the keenest interest in their matrimonial alliances. In 1722 we find her writing about the marriage of her son's second daughter, Lady Anne Lennox, who married the following year William Anne Keppel, second Earl of Albemarle, by whom she became the mother of fifteen chil- dren ; and the Duchess of Portsmouth, on her last visit to England, saw her three great-grandsons, the young Keppels, who were destined to distinguish themselves a few years later at the capture of the Havana.
But most of all was she interested in her grandson, Charles, second Duke of Richmond. She had been greatly pleased that his birth should have occurred on the 29th May (1703), and she was much taken up about his marriage — arranged so prosaically and ending so poetically. Like his mother, the first Duke of Richmond was an inveterate gambler ; he won an immense sum from Lord Cadogan, that distinguished cavalry officer who fought with Marlborough. Lord Cadogan could not pay, but he had two daughters, co-heiresses of the fortune of their mother, who was a Dutch heiress, daughter of John MOnter of Amsterdam,^ and it was agreed that the gambling debts should be cancelled if Lord Cadogan gave his eldest daughter. Lady Sarah Cadogan, as a wife to the Duke's eldest son. Accordingly, as the story goes, the young Lord March, who was eighteen years of age, was brought from college, and Lady Sarah, aged thirteen, from her nursery, for the ceremony. The bride was silent and astonished, but the bridegroom exclaimed, "Surely you are not going to marry me to that dowdy ! " Married, however, he was, and directly
^ Margaretta Cecilia Miinter was married to Lord Cadogan at the French Church at The Hague in 1704.
62
^lU clODi [(EV KNEr.LER, pi,nx.
Anne, 1st Duchess of Richmoxd. (From the painting in possession of the Duke of Richmond)
~1K <;(inM<i:v knki.i.i- k, />;
Margahetta Cecilia. 1st Countess Cadogan. 'From a paintino in the possession of the Duke of Riclimond)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
afterwards his tutor took him off to the Continent to make *' the Grand Tour," and Lady Sarah went back to her mother. Three years elapsed ; Lord March returned from his travels, but, having such an uninteresting recollection of his bride, was in no hurry to claim her, and went the first evening of his return to London to the Opera, There he noticed that all eyes — and lorgnettes — were directed to one box where, surrounded by several persons, sat a most beautiful young creature. Turning to a man beside him he asked who she was. " You must be a stranger in London," was the answer, " not to know the reigning toast of the town, the beautiful Lady March ! " Lord March lost no time in going to the box and introducing himself to his bride, with whom he ever after lived so affectionately that their devotion to each other became proverbial. Thirty-eight years afterwards Horace Walpole says, a propos of the unusually large number of children that she gave birth to, " but even this is not so extraordinary as the Duke's fondness for her, or as the vigour of her beauty ; her complexion is as fair and blooming as when she was a bride." When the Duke of Richmond died in 1750 she never rallied from the shock, and followed him to the grave a few months afterwards. Eight of their children were born during the life of the Duchess of Portsmouth, and the eldest. Lady Caroline (born 1723), went with her parents to stay with her at Aubigny, and as she was eleven years old when her great- grandmother died, she could remember her perfectly. There was romance, too, about her marriage : she was one of the four bridesmaids who supported the train of Princess Augusta on the occasion of her marriage with Frederick, Prince of Wales, when we are told she was dressed the same as the bride excepting the mantle, and wore diamonds of from /!| 20,000 to ^30,000." At this time Mr. Fox, familiarly known as "Harry Fox," the
63
The Real Louise de Keroualle
second son of Sir Stephen Fox, fell in love with her and she with him. His addresses were rejected by the ducal parents with indignation, for although Mr. Fox had been educated at Eton and held several more or less important Government offices, his father was a self-made man, said to have been a chorister boy in Salisbury Cathedral. Such a mesalliance could not be thought of, and Lady Caroline was forbidden to see him. Furthermore the Duke of Richmond, having a desirable suitor on hand, bid her one day prepare to receive him. Lady Caroline determined to make herself as unattractive as possible, and for this purpose shaved off her eyebrows, which appears to have had the desired effect, and she looked such a figure that her parents told her she had better keep her room till they had grown again. ^ Left thus to herself she had some further communication with her lover, and ultimately eloped and was secretly married to him in the beginning of May 1744. The marriage took place at the house of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, the famous wit, and the Duke of Marlborough gave her away.
Horace Walpole thus describes the consternation this run- away match occasioned : " Mr. Fox fell in love with Lady Caroline Lennox, asked her, was refused, and stole her. His father was a footman, her great-grandfather a king : ' hinc illas lachrymae ! ' All the blood-royal have been up in arms. ... If his Majesty's Princess Caroline had been stolen there could not have been more noise made."
Lady Caroline was not forgiven by her parents for four years, till after the birth of her eldest son, when they wrote her a delightful letter, ending with these words: —
"So, my dear child, you and Mr. Fox may come here at the
^ They certainly did grow again and probably much stronger, for we have a portrait of her in middle-Hfe in which she appears with far too marked eyebrows.
64
Charles Lennox, Second Duke of Richmond.
From a Picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller, Bart., belonging to the Duke of Richmond.
The Real Louise de Keroualle
time that shall be settled by yourselves, with my Lord Ilchester, and be both received in the arms of an affectionate father and mother. "Richmond, &c.
"Sa : Richmond."
This also turned out a thoroughly satisfactory marriage, and a more devoted couple never existed. They lived together most happily for thirty years. Mr. Trevelyan says : " Neither of them ever knew content except in the possession or the immediate expectation of the other's company, and their correspondence continued to be that of lovers until their long honeymoon was finally over. Perfect trust and passionate affection breathe through every page of the letters, so close upon each other in date and so ungrudging in length, in which Harry Fox's easy, kindly, and humorous words lie disordered in the paper, just as hearty nature speaks them."
Lady Caroline Fox was created Baroness Holland in 1762, and in the following year Mr. Fox was raised to the peerage as Baron Holland. At Holland House, which was their home, there is a door surmounted by an heraldic shield bearing Lady Holland's arms, with this motto under it : " Re e Marito," in allusion to the double source whence she got her honours.
Lord Holland died in 1774, and Lady Holland survived him only twenty-three days. Their third son was Charles James Fox. Another daughter of the second Duke of Richmond, Lady Louisa Lennox, was the Duchess of Portsmouth's god-child, and was staying with her in Paris when she died. His sixth daughter, Lady Emilia Lennox, who married the Duke of Leinster (then Ireland's only Duke), and had twenty-one children (including the celebrated Lord Edward Fitzgerald), was also born during the lifetime of the Duchess of Portsmouth, as also
The Real Louise de Keroualle
their brother Charles, third Duke of Richmond.^ She did not, however, survive to see the birth of the most celebrated of her great-granddaughters, Lady Sarah Lennox, who was so nearly Queen of England, and who was the mother of the Napiers.
We have already alluded to the extravagant tastes of the Duchess of Portsmouth, and added to this she was an in- veterate gambler. In 28 Car. II. a patent was issued granting her a yearly pension of ;^86oo, to be paid out of the revenue of excise dues upon beer, ale, and other liquors in England, Wales, and Berwick, and to her executors for one year after her death. In 1715 a confirmation of this grant by James II. set forth the reasons why the Duchess had never received it. Then follows a direction that letters patent under the Great Seal should issue granting £^600 per annum to the Duchess for her life and after her death to the Duke of Richmond and Lennox for thirty and one years after, such sums to be charged on the revenues of Ireland and to be in bar of the former grant of ;^86oo. The document (now before us) is directed to the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Galloway, and is dated from Dublin, 19th November 171 5, and signed by Sam. Carleton. On the accession of William III. her pension was stopped, and this, combined with great losses incurred through Law —
" Cette Ecossais celcbre, Ce calculateur sans egale, Qui par les regies de I'algcbre A mis France a I'hopital " —
brought the Duchess of Portsmouth into serious monetary diffi- culties. As a romantic writer puts it : "Elle, dont les ancetres setaient reposes sur les bords du Jourdain, assouvis de gloire
' Charles, third Duke of Richmond, died without male issue, and was succeeded by his nephew, grandfather of the writer.
66
SIR GODKHKY KNKII.KR, fln.X.
Sarah, 2xd Duchess of Richmond. (From the painting in possession of the Dulie of Richmond)
The Real Louise de Keroualle
et de conquetes, et dont I'histoire domestique faisait la moitie de I'histoire de la Bretagne, elle, enfin, la favorite toute puissante d'un puissant monarque, elle s'aper9ut que sa fortune se trou- vait emiettee, pour ainsi dire."
The Duchess was obliged to sell her lands in Brittany, in- cluding the baronage of Du Chastel and the lands of Keroualle and Mesnoualles. They were purchased by a rich financier from Auvergne, Antoine Crozat, who became Marquis de Moiiy in 1 716. Some of the Du Chastel property had previously been taken by Louis XIV. for his fortifications at Brest, and the Duchess had received compensation for them. The Duchess also appears to have sold some land in 17 15 to Louis Chabot, due de Rohan, and we have before us an original autograph document concerning the sale, signed " Louise Renee de Penancoyt, D^^" de Portsmouth et d'Aubignie," and " Charles Lenos, due de Richmond, le 14 aout 17 15." It alludes to land at Lesnuen, Sesteurieur (?), Landernean, and Coetmeal, and speaks of" 10 mille livres de rente viagere."
In 17 1 8 the Regent added 8000 livres to her French pension, equal to ;^8oo a year, St. Simon says : " Elle etait fort vieille, tres convertie et penitente, tres mal dans ses affaires," &c.
At the death of her son the Duchess of Portsmouth went to Aubigny, where she lived for the next ten years a very retired life, giving herself up to religion and good works. She founded a convent of " Religieuses Hospitalieres," which still exists, and she gave land near Vannes for the Carmelites of Nazareth. She saw few visitors, but the Duke of Richmond, her grandson, and his wife, and other members of her family often visited her.
In 1730 the Duchess was very ill, and the following letter
67
The Real Louise de Keroualle
was written to the Duke of Richmond by the cure of Aubigny : —
" MonsL'igneur, je suis charme de donner a votre grandeur de meilleures nouvelles de la sante de Madame la Duchesse. II y avait tout bien de craindre des suites facheuses d'une maladie aussi lente ; elle a souffert dix jours de suites des douleurs les plus vives : pendant ce temps elle a ete saignee au bras et au pied, ou iuy a donne pres de trente remedes, et elle a ete mise dans le bain sept ou huit fois: il faut etre d'un tempera- ment des plus forts pour avoir soutenu tous ses remedes comme elle a fait. Je ne fais point de doute que si la fievre fut survenue qu'elle aurait fallu ceder. A present elle est sans douleur."
The Duchess seems to have quite recovered from this illness, as in March of the following year (1732) she entertained for a week at Aubigny two English travellers, Mr. G. Shirley ^ and a young Mr. Cross," and the former writes to the Duke of Richmond : " We found her Grace ye good old lady you described her to be ; " and he goes on to say, " she was very good and obliging and made us very happy for a week."
The Duchess's last visit to England was in 1732-3. After that she again fell ill, and came to Paris to consult doctors, but they were not able to cure her, and she died there on the 14th November 1734, in her house in the rue des Saints Peres at the corner of the rue de Verneuil in the parish of Saint Sulpice. At the time of her death the Duchess of Portsmouth was eighty- five years old and two months; she retained all her faculties to the last as well as great remains of beauty. Voltaire, who saw
* Probably the Hon. George Shirley of Lower Eatington, Captain of the ist Foot Guards. He married Mary, daughter of Humphrey Sturt.
* Probably Crosse of Shaw Hill, Lancaster, who was related to Mr. Shirley through the Leghs of Adlington.
68
The Real Louise de Keroualle
her when she was seventy, describes her as still surprisingly beautiful, " avec une figure encore noble et agreable que les annees n'avaient point fletrie ;" and George Selwyn, who met her at Richmond in 1733 when she was eighty-four, says she was then possessed of many charms.
The Duchess wrote her own will — a very long one — on the 13th February 173 i. It begins as follows : —
" Pleinement convain^u de la certitude de la mort, dans la crainte d'en etre surprise sans avoir fait connaitre mes dernieres intentions sur le peu de bien que j'ai a dispenser, je, Louise Renee de Penancoyt de Queroualle, Duchesse de Portsmouth et d'Aubigne, fait et ecrit volontairement sans inducsion ni sug- gestion de personne mais dans la seule vue de plaire a Dieu, le suppliant de m'accorder le pardon de tous mes peches et la grace de mourir la mort des justes qui est precieux dans ces yeux."
She desires not to be buried until she has been bled after her death, a mass to be said every day for a year for the repose of her soul, the chanoines to say a hundred masses, the Rev. Father Augustin ditto, and the same at Oysson and at Guylar. She leaves money to the poor at Aubigny and an ornament for its church.
Her grandson, the Duke of Richmond, was her universal legatee.
" Mon lesgastaire (sic) universel, monsieur le due de Richemond, mon petit-fils, en consequence de ce que M. le due de Richmond, son pere, avait ete legitime par le feu roy Louis XIV., lui, ses enfans et ses successeurs, pour pouvoir succede a mes biens et je le fait avec d'autant plus de raison que je puis rendre temoignage comme je le fait et le rend a ma conscience que tous les efFets dont je despense en sa faveur
69
The Real Louise de Keroualle
viennent de la liberalite de feu Charles Seigneur, roy d'Angle- terre, qui me les avait donnes a la charge d'en conserver la propri^te a feu M. le due de Richmond."
The Duchess left legacies to all her servants alive past and present, mentioning every one by their full name and occupation, also to all her French nephews and nieces, amongst them the Marquis de Thois, I'Abbe de Gouffier, Marianne, widow of Louis de Bourbon, the Comte de Bussy, Mme. Marie de Poulpry, &c. Apparently, when very near her end, she thought she had forgotten some, and two days before she died she sent her secretary at two o'clock in the morning to fetch the notary in order to make some fresh codicils.
Louise de Keroualle was buried in the Eglise des Carmes Dechauss6s, in the chapel of the Maison de Rieux, amongst her illustrious ancestors.
We cannot finish this sketch better than by quoting from an eminent French author, who, talking of Louise de Keroualle, says : " Si Ton essaie de juger la duchesse de Portsmouth dans cet esprit d'impartialite, en tenant comte des passions de son temps et du milieu ou elle vivait, il y a certainement a retoucher de nombreux traits de son portrait. Demeurant entendu qu'il est blamable d'etre maitresse royale et qu'il vaut mieux se marier honnetement dans son village, on reconnaitra que pour le devenir elle eut toutes les circonstances attenuantes : la pauvrete, I'opinion de ses contemporains sur les amours royales, une longue resistance, I'interet de son roi et de sa religion, et I'insistance de tout son entourage," and surely to these induce- ments may be added the fascination of the man as apart from the glamour of the monarch, a fascination acknowledged by all, and which even Macauhiy says " was not easy for the
most austere Republican to resist."
70
The Real Louise de Keroualle
It is remarkable, as Monsieur Le Moine says, " avec quel soin vindicatif et impitoyable ont ete relevees ses moindres faiblesses." This is indeed the case, her vindictive detractors have even taken the trouble to bring the charge of " gour- mandise " against her. But the culminating point remains with her latest biographer who, not content with collecting together all the charges ever made against her — many of them absolutely untrue, and taken from a source so puerile in its palpably false assertions as to be beneath refutation ^ — now descends to impugn her ancestry and disparage her father !
Even those who wish to hang the proverbial dog by giving him a bad name, do not think it necessary to deny his good- breeding when he is a thoroughbred !
Poor Louise de Keroualle may be allowed her pedigree if nothing else. R, I. P.
* Histoire Secrete de la Duchesse de Portsmottth.
71
"CHE SARA, SARA," OR FOUR TRAGEDIES IN ONE FAMILY
"The bridesmaids, especially Lady Caroline Russell, Lady Sarah Lennox, and Lady Elizabeth Keppel, were beautiful figures," Thus writes Horace Walpole to General Conway h propos of George IIL's marriage in 1761. The last-mentioned of these maidens, Lady Elizabeth Keppel, was the youngest daughter of William Anne, second Earl of Albemarle, and his wife. Lady Anne Lennox, daughter of the first Duke of Rich- mond. She had inherited much of the good looks of her mother and also of her great-grandmother {du cbte gauche)^ Louise de Keroualle, and besides her looks had many fine qualities which made her generally beloved. One of Sir Joshua Reynolds' most beautiful portraits is a full-length of her in the dress she wore as Queen Charlotte's bridesmaid. The picture, which is at Woburn Abbey, is thus described in the Life of Sir Joshua by Leslie and Taylor : " Lady Elizabeth Keppel in her state costume is decorating the statue of Hymen with flowers, while a negress, whose dark face serves as a foil to the delicate carnations of her mistress, holds up the massive wreaths. The picture is of the pearliest colour, warmed by wreaths of cluster- ing flowers, the sheen of satin and silver ribbons, the sparkle of diamonds against the white neck and in the soft hair and rose- tipped ears of the beautiful bridesmaid, the dusky upturned face of the negress, the crimson awning pendant from the tree that
overhangs the statue, the reflected light in the bronze tripod
72
]..\[)\ I^l.l/.AHHTH I\K1>PI-:L, AI--rKK\VAKI)S iM ARCH ION HSS OF TaX-ISTOCK.
<rrom a mez/otint at SwallowHekl, by Fisher, after Sir Joshua Reynolds, P.R.A.)
'' Che Sara, Sara "
crowned with its flickering flame." Sir Joshua's whole heart was in this work, and he was keenly anxious to do justice to the sister of his life-long friend, Admiral Keppel, in which he certainly succeeded. Sir Thomas Lawrence said he thought if it were not Sir Joshua's chef-cT ceuvre^ it could only be equalled by his portrait of Mrs. Siddons.^ Sir Joshua had previously painted Lady Elizabeth when she was only fifteen years of age ; this, which is also a charming picture, is now at Quidenham, Lord Albemarle's seat in Norfolk. Three years later Lady Elizabeth Keppel married Francis Russell, Marquess of Tavis- tock, eldest son of the Duke of Bedford. Horace Walpole gives the following account of the engagement in a letter to
Lord Hertford : —
" Strawberry Hill,/««^ 8, 1764.
" To be sure you have heard the event of this last week ? Lord Tavistock has flung his handkerchief, and except a few jealous sultanas, and some sultanas valides, who had marketable daughters, everybody is pleased that the lot is fallen on Lady Elizabeth Keppel. The house of Bedford came to town last Friday. . . . The next morning Lady Elizabeth received a note from the Duchess of Marlborough, Lord Tavistock's sister, insisting on seeing her that evening. When she arrived at Marlborough House, she found nobody but the Duchess and Lord Tavistock. The Duchess cried, ' Lord 1 they have left the window open in the next room ! ' went to shut it, and shut the lovers in too, where they remained for three hours. The same night all the town was at the Duchess of Richmond's. Lady Albemarle was at Tredille ; the Duke of Bedford came up to the table, and told her he must speak to her as soon as
' It is fair to the reputation of an unknown artist to say that the draperies in this picture which are so beautifully painted were the work of one " Toms," for which he only received twelve guineas. This clever "Drapery man "took to drink and committed suicide in 1776. The picture has been beautifully engraved by Fisher.
73
" Che Sara, Sara "
the pool was over. You may guess whether she knew a card more that she played. When she had finished the Duke told her he would wait on her the next morning to make the demand in form. . . . The Duke asked no questions about fortune, but has since slipped a bit of paper into Lady Elizabeth's hand, telling her he hoped his son would live, but if he did not there was something for her; it was a jointure of three thou- sand a year, and six hundred pounds pin-money. She has behaved in the prettiest manner in the world, and would not appear at a vast assembly at Northumberland House on Tues- day, nor at a great Hay-making at Mrs. Pitt's on Wednesday. Yesterday they all went to Woburn, and to-morrow the cere- mony is to be performed."
The wedding took place on the 9th June, and the honeymoon was spent at Oakley, near Bedford, from whence Lord Tavistock wrote the next day to his father as follows : —
" Oak LEV, Sunday, loth June.
"My dearest Father, — This line is only to tell you that we got here very safe and in very good time last night. I dare not say how happy I am. I beg you would make my best respects to Lady Albemarle, and assure her her daughter is perfectly well. Ever yours, my best of fathers, F. T."
Eighteen days later Lord Tavistock writes from Woburn to a great friend the following letter : —
" In any other situation than my present one, I should have reproached myself with a neglect of friendship in not having wrote to you sooner, but that I am now in is so new a one — has so many interesting concerns that a single life has not, that I really can think of nothing else ; besides my present happiness may perhaps be but a dream, and if it is no better, I should be sorry to lose a single moment of it. I shall never find time to write you word of all the details of my courtship, my wedding,
74
"Che Sara, Sara"
and my present way of life. More I must reserve till we meet. Let it suffice that I have every reason in the world to be satisfied with my wife— her sense, her virtue, her love, and her attention to everything that can give me pleasure, demand all my affection and my gratitude. I feel for her an attachment equally bmding with the most violent love— tho' it wants its enchanting fire and delirium. I allow I have a tenderness for her of which I did not think my heart was capable; but which was very
diff'erent to what I felt for Lady •
" You talk in your letter of wishing to see my menage before Parliament meets ... We shall be here or at Blenheim till Bedford races, which begin August 6th, and after that time shall stay in this country till after Christmas. About September I believe I shall inhabit my house, and consequently shall like much better to see you there. Indeed, I am so well satisfied with the country, and so is my wife too, that I think 1 shall not see much of London this year . . . Adieu, my dearest R guess how much I dislike writing, since it is disagreeable to me to make any longer this letter which is to the man to whom I can most freely speak of all I think and do. Ever yours,
"F. T." ^ " My present happiness may perhaps be but a dream." Alas ! this was a prophetic surmise which the decrees of fate had settled should be fulfilled.
In less than three years the happiness of this young couple was brought to a tragic end by the unexpected death of Lord Tavistock. When out hunting he had a fall, and his horse kicked him, fracturing his skull. This terrible news came to the Duke and Duchess of Bedford whilst they were at the Opera. Lady Tavistock and the Duchess of Marlborough being with them, and both ladies being in delicate health, the Duke and Duchess, fearing for them a sudden shock, concealed the news, and actually sat through the remainder of the opera hiding
75
"Che Sara, Sara"
their ghastly secret. The suppressed agony of the father had a curious effect upon him : his head the day after broke out in boils, which probably, it was said, saved his life. Lord Tavistock was twice trepanned, but died on the 22nd March 1767. Horace Walpole writes : " No man was ever more regretted ; the honesty, generosity, humility and moderation of his character endeared him to all the world. The desolation of his family is extreme." Besides being high-minded and right- principled. Lord Tavistock was very accomplished and in every way a young man of great promise.
Lady Tavistock, who loved him passionately, never recovered from the shock, though she lingered for many months. Four months after her husband's death she gave birth to a posthu- mous son, who was given the name of William. After this event was over there was a consultation of the three physicians, Ward, Damian, and Ford, and they recommended her being taken to Lisbon, more with an idea of affording her some relief through change of scene and a warm climate than with the hope of any real cure, her mental anguish being terrible to witness. A touching story was told by one of the doctors. During a visit to her, he wished to feel her pulse in both wrists, and finding a reluctance to open one of her hands, he used a gentle violence, and saw that she had concealed in it a miniature of her husband. "Ah, Madam," he said, "all our prescriptions must be useless, while you so fatally cherish the sorrow that destroys you." " I have kept this," she replied, " either in my bosom or my hand, ever since my dear lord's death, and thus I must indeed continue to retain it, until I drop off after him into the welcome grave."
Lady Tavistock was accompanied to Portugal by her brother, Admiral Keppel, and by her sister, Lady Caroline
76
SIK JOSHUA KEYNOLDS, ptllX.
Francis Russell, 5th Dukk of Bedford; Lord John Rlsskll (akthkwahds
6th Duke of Bedford) : Lord William Russell, and Miss Hknkiktta \'i:k\on
(afterwards Countess of Warwick).
(From a Mezzotint at SwallowfielJ, by Y. Green, 1778)
*' Che Sara, Sara "
Adair, with her husband, but neither change of scene nor climate produced any good effect upon this broken heart, and she died at Lisbon on the 9th of November of the same year (1768) aged twenty-eight.
The tragedies of these two deaths did not complete the chain of disasters that befel this ill-fated family.
One of Sir Joshua's well-known allegorical pictures — and a very poor one — is composed of four figures, three of whom — youths in armour — were the sons of the aforesaid unfortunate Lord and Lady Tavistock.^ The eldest youth, who is supposed to be St. George attacking the Dragon, in the foreground of the picture, was Francis, Lord Tavistock, who succeeded his grandfather as fifth Duke of Bedford in 1771- He seemed to have everything that this world could give, position, great talents, and immense wealth to enable him to utilise it for the good of his country, which he showed every desire to do, and a lovely bride, Lady Georgiana Gordon, daughter of the Duke of Gordon, to whom he was shortly to be united, when suddenly this promising life was brought to an early close, like his father before him, as the result of an untoward accident. He injured himself playing at racquets, and died in a few days, after suffering intense agony, borne with the greatest fortitude and thinking only of others to the last. Seldom has any one been more lamented by the public, as well as by his friends and relations. Charles James Fox, his cousin, made an eloquent and touching eulogium on him in the House of Commons, seconded by Sheridan. He was succeeded by his second brother. Lord John, who became sixth Duke of Bedford, and married, as his second wife, his late brother's fiancee. Lady Georgiana
1 The fourth figure was their cousin, Miss Henrietta Vernon, who married the Earl of Warwick.
77
"Che Sara, Sara"
Gordon. He had a prosperous life and left innumerable descendants; Lord John Russell, K.C., the Prime Minister, was one of his sons,^ and the late Duchess of Abercorn one of his daughters. His youngest son. General Lord Alexander Russell, a man of charming personality, died only quite lately.
The culminating tragedy of this family fell upon the third and youngest of the brothers. In the picture Lord William is represented crouching in the background, supposed to be terror-stricken at sight of the Dragon which his brother is attacking with his spear ; but there is no look of horror in his face, and one story is, that when Sir Joshua told him to look more frightened, he laughingly said he could not manage to do so at such a ridiculous creature !
Sixty-three years later he must have had the expression on his face that Sir Joshua had desired to depict, when as an old man of seventy-three years of age he saw the midnight assassin's cruel knife descending over his defenceless head.
In May 1840, Lord William Russell, then a slight, frail man, very deaf, lived alone ; his wife, Lady Charlotte Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey, had been dead thirty-three years, and his two daughters were married, one to her cousin. Lord Wriothesley Russell, and the other to the Hon. Grey Bennet, son of Lord Tankerville ; but he had a son, Mr. William Russell, a barrister, who always lived in London, and either he or his wife, who had been one of the beautiful Miss Campbells of Islay, and was a great favourite of Lord William, visited the old gentleman every day without fail.
Lord William occupied No. 13 Norfolk Street, Park Lane,
^ Lord John Russell, K.C, created Earl Russell, was third son of the sixth Duke of Bedford, by his first wife, the Hon. Gcorgiana Byng, daughter of the fourth Viscount Torrington.
^J:
'I
sW© â– 'â– â–
^^^'â– K
%'^:'
â– >;
'\-^-.
:f
r'
^:'»^<^4'
^•f -^ V
V r.f 2:
Georgixa, Dlchhss 01- Bi;i)i-()Ku, DAucwiTiiiR OF Ai.i:xAM)i:u, 1-\)L'KTH Dlkh of Gokuon.
J'roin a Miniature bv K. Coswav, A'../.
" Che Sara, Sara "
a fourteen-roomed house, keeping a very small establishment — namely, a cook and a housemaid and valet indoors, and a coach- man and groom, who both lived over the stables close by. On Tuesday morning, May 5th, Mrs. William Russell, after her husband had left for Lincoln's Inn, started off as usual from her house in Chesham Place to visit her father-in-law, going across the Park on foot. Before she reached Norfolk ■Street she got into an immense crowd, and as she was trying to make her way through she was stopped by a cordon of police, who told her she could not pass. On asking why, she was horror-stricken at the answer she received, namely, that Lord William Russell had been found murdered in his bed. Greatly overcome, Mrs. Russell resolved, however, to go on to the house, and the police, hearing who she was, conducted her there. She at once interviewed Sarah Mancer the house- maid, Mary Hennell the cook, and Francois the valet. She ascertained that Lord William had spent the previous afternoon and evening much as usual. In the morning he had been to see Lord Albemarle at the Stud-House, and early in the afternoon he walked to Brookes's Club in St. James's Street. Before going there he gave his valet several messages to deliver, one being to the coachman who was to bring his phaeton for him to the club at four o'clock. Francois made a mistake in the hour, and Lord William had to take a cab to bring him home, for which he reprimanded his servant on his return. Lord William, who was very methodical, always returned at the same hour in order to take out his large Swedish sheep- dog, of whom he was extremely fond. Lord William dined alone at seven o'clock, and afterwards went up into the back drawing-room to write. At nine o'clock the coachman came as was his wont to take the dog to the stables for the night.
79
'^ Che Sara, Sara "
Lord William retired to his bedroom about half-past ten, at
which time the maids went to bed. The valet said he had
sat up till nearly twelve when Lord William's bell rang and
he then went up to assist him to undress, saw him get into
bed, and by his lordship's desire lighted a candle and gave
him a book. Then he said he went to bed himself. The
housemaid told Mrs. Russell that she had not heard any
noise in the night, although her room was immediately over
Lord Williams', but that on going downstairs before seven
that morning she found all the papers in her master's room
scattered about, his gold opera-glass, his cloak and other articles
done up in a bundle and placed in the hall, and the plate
all lying around. She thought it was a case of burglars, and
rushed upstairs to tell her fellow-servants. The valet then
followed her down, and they both went into Lord William's
room. Francois proceeded to open the shutters, and Sarah
Mancer, on approaching the bedside, saw that Lord William
was dead, with his face covered with a towel and the pillow
saturated with blood. The horrified woman rushed screaming
into the street to give the alarm, ringing the door bells of
the two adjoining houses. Her cries soon brought to the
spot Lord William's coachman, who fetched a surgeon. He
at once went to the bedroom and found that Lord William's
throat had been cut from ear to ear, so that the head was
nearly severed from the body. Several of the neighbouring
servants now came in, including the butler from Mr. Jones
Lloyd's, who lived at 22, and did all they could to help
the affrighted maids ; but the valet did nothing, and the
housemaid found him writing in the dining-room. On her
asking him indignantly why he had not gone for the police,
he said he must write to Mr. Russell, and his only remark
80
" Che Sara, Sara "
was, *' It was here they entered," pointing to some marks of violence on the pantry door. The police, however, who had been summoned by the neighbours, were soon upon the scene, and took possession of the house, detaining all the three servants. The coroner's inquest took place in the house the same day, and corroborated all the housemaid had said. Mr. Com- missioner Mayne, who arrived very soon at the house, stated that he had had a conversation with the man-servant, who was very much agitated, and said, " This is a shocking job, I shall lose my place and lose my character." The back door near the pantry, which had been locked the night before, was a good deal bruised, but the police said that it had been opened from the inside, and the general opinion was that some one had entered the house early in the evening when the man- servant was out and had remained secreted till midnight. This idea created quite a panic in the neighbourhood. Some suspicion, however, was attached to the valet, who had only lived with Lord William for five weeks. He was a young Swiss, Fran9ois Benjamin Courvoisier by name, aged twenty- three ; but Mr. Fector, M.P., who was one of the first persons who called at the house, with whom Courvoisier had lived for two years previous to entering Lord William's service, gave him a very high character. The jury came to a verdict of " Wilful murder against some person or persons unknown," but the police remained in the house, and none of the servants were allowed to leave it. It was found that some silver forks and spoons as well as Lord William's watch, rings, and other articles were missing : £^o was offered for their recovery, and ^^400 for the conviction of the murderer. The excite- ment in London was unprecedented, and increased rather than diminished each day. The street was always blocked, not
^' Che Sara, Sara "
only with relatives and friends of the murdered man going to inquire for news and leaving messages of sympathy, but with the public, who congregated as near as they could get from early morning till late at night. The house was besieged by messengers from the Royal Family and Cabinet Ministers. Prince Albert was deeply interested and sent several times ; and amongst those who called personally were the Duke of Wellington, Lords Salisbury, Hawarden, Cowley, Ailesbury, Jersey, Elphinstone, Ashburnham, and Normanby. The latter had several conferences with Mayne, the head of the police.
Three days after the murder a discovery was made of a most important nature — namely, on removing the skirting-board adjoining the sink in the butler's pantry the police found many of the missing articles, including a ten-pound note, a gold watch, some rings, gold coins, and Lord William's Waterloo medal. In consequence of this Courvoisier was committed for trial, but odd as it seems now, it was thought at the time that he might escape conviction, and so strong a feeling was excited on his behalf that a considerable subscription was raised among the foreign servants in London to defray the expenses of counsel. He was tried by Lord Chief Justice Tindal, who had Baron Parke with him. The prisoner had for counsel Phillips, a very gifted Irishman, the prosecution being in the hands of Adolphus,^ an advocate of great ability. Each day the court was thronged, the application for seats being far greater than the accommoda- tion. Preference was given to relatives ; amongst these on the first day were Lord and Lady Arthur Lennox and the Coun- tess of Charleville, these ladies being sisters of Mrs. William Russell. Amongst others present were Lady Burghersh, Lady
' John Adolphus was a friend of Thackeray, and is alluded to in " Pendennis " as " Gustavus" — "Gustavus still toils with Solomon to aid him."
82
" Che Sara, Sara "
Sondes, Lady Granville-Somerset, Lady Julia Lockwood, Lady Bentinck, the Earls of Sheffield, Mansfield, Cavan, Clarendon, Lucan, and South, Lord Rivers, Lord Gardner, Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Sir Stratford Canning, Lord Frederick Gordon, Hon. Mr. Villiers, &c.
On the second day a new witness appeared, the mistress of a French hotel in Leicester Square. She said that, four years ago, Courvoisier was her servant for about a month, but then, through the instrumentality of his uncle, a most respectable man, who was butler to Sir George Beaumont, he had obtained several very good situations, and she had lost sight of him until a short time ago, when he suddenly called to see her, and on leaving wished her to take care of a parcel for him ; which she had done, but that, reading the advertisement for Lord William's missing plate, she had opened it, and finding the contents consisted of silver forks and spoons, now produced it. They proved to be the property of Lord William, and had on them the Bedford crest. On the third and last day of the trial, Mr. Phillips addressed the court and jury for the prisoner in a most eloquent manner, and brought forward every possible argument in his favour. His speech was made under circumstances of excep- tional difficulty, as on the second day Courvoisier had sent for his counsel in court and whispered to them, " I have sent for you, gentlemen, to tell you I committed the murder." Phillips was staggered, and said, " I presume then you are going to plead guilty.^" "No, Sir," was the reply, "I expect you to defend me to the uttermost." Phillips' first inclination was to throw up the case, but he consulted Baron Parke, who said he was bound to go on, and to use all fair evidence. Whether Phillips did so confine himself has been considered a moot point, and given rise to much discussion. The IVestminster Review
83
" Che Sara, Sara "
had some severe censures on him, especially with regard to his (reported) solemn protest that the omniscient God alone knew who committed this crime ; but Mr. Fortescue, a barrister in court, stated that this was inaccurately reported. What Phillips did say was the following : " But you will say to me, if the prisoner did it not, who did it ? I answer, ask the omniscient Being above us who did it ; ask not me, a poor finite creature like yourselves. Ask the prosecutor who did it ; it is for him to tell you who did it, it is not for me to tell you ; and until he shall have proved by the clearest evi- dence that it was the prisoner at the bar, beware how you embrue your hands in the blood of that young man," &c.
Lady Arthur Lennox heard at the time that Courvoisier had a tendresse for the housemaid, and he feared suspicion might attach itself to her, and therefore made his confession.
After an absence of an hour and twenty-five minutes the jury found Courvoisier guilty, and Chief Justice Tindal imme- diately passed sentence of death. Extraordinary to say, a petition was sent to the Home Office to spare the murderer's life, but on the 6th July 1846 he was hung outside Newgate. On the Sunday before the avenues to the prison chapel were blocked up before nine by those who had obtained admission to hear the condemned sermon and see the criminal. On the day of the execution many persons of distinction were admitted to the prison before seven o'clock, including the actor Edmund Kean, "for the advantage of his professional studies." Amidst this throng Courvoisier received the Holy Sacrament, and afterwards, as he was going to be pinioned, Mr. Sheriff Evans drew a letter from his pocket and asked for his autograph ! Nearly fifty thousand persons were spec- tators of his execution, amongst them being Lords Powers-
84
"Che Sara, Sara"
court, Glentworth, Lovat, Fitz-Harris, and Arthur Paget, and the Marquis Saldanha, the Portuguese Ambassador. Lord Orford with others hired a window to see it. They had to go very early and all fell asleep, not awakening till some time after the execution had taken place. This is said to have been the origin of " Lord Tom Noddy " in the " Ingoldsby Legends." Thackeray was present at the scene, and afterwards wrote his plea for the abolition of public executions, under the heading of " Reflections on Going to See a Man Hanged." This, however, did not take effect for twenty-seven years, notwithstanding Mr. Rich's Bill which he brought before Parliament for the better ordering of the execution of criminals, instancing the closing scenes of Courvoisier's life as " an affront to a Christian and civilised community." Courvoisier whilst in prison made two attempts at committing suicide, but both were frustrated by the warders. Courvoisier received the ministrations of the chaplain of the gaol and of a minister of the French church, and joined in their prayers with fervour. He was visited by his uncle and wrote letters to his relatives ; and two days before his execution he himself wrote a full confession, especially mentioning that the housemaid knew nothing about the murder. He said he was in the dining- room abstracting some more plate, having previously taken forks and spoons, when suddenly he was startled by seeing the figure of Lord William in his dressing-gown watching him at the door. Lord William said to him, "You will quit my service to-morrow and I shall acquaint your friends as to what you have done," and then his lordship went back to bed. Courvoisier now knew that all would be found out, and after thinking over what he should do for more than an hour, determined to kill his master. Accordingly he went
85
"Che Sara, Sara"
upstairs with a carving-knife, and finding Lord William fast asleep, cut his throat. Lord William put up his arm to shield himself from the blow, and in doing so his thumb was partially cut off. Had the dog slept near his master the crime would probably never have been perpetrated, as he was devoted to Lord William ; and when the faithful animal was taken back to the house after the tragedy it showed the greatest uneasiness, and rushed about whining from room to room and looking up imploringly in the faces of those around him.
An article appeared shortly after in the Examiner stating that it was reading Harrison Ainsworth's "Jack Sheppard " that gave Courvoisier the idea of murder, and this was made the groundwork of a most acrimonious attack on the able writer's romance. Harrison Ainsworth wrote a contradiction, in which he said that the prisoner himself denied the statement.
Lord William Russell was buried at Chenies amongst his ancestors ; to the last the interest and excitement continued, and by six o'clock on the morning of the day fixed for the funeral there were more than two hundred persons assembled in Norfolk Street. Those were the days of the dreadful paraphernalia at funerals ; and on this occasion we read of " mutes," " scarves," and " a fid of feathers."
Amongst the chief mourners was Lord William's nephew. Lord John Russell, the Prime Minister, who was so deeply affected that he could not go to the grave side, but remained in the church.
Who would have thought, when that bright and lovely girl
acted as bridesmaid to Queen Charlotte, that she and her future
husband and her eldest son should all be carried off in their
prime, and that her youngest son should meet with such a
terrible death. " Che sara, sara."
86
Hon. Richard Hdgcump.h, Lok-o William 1x\ssi:ll, Lady Carolina Spencer.
From an Engraving aflcr a Pahitiug by J. Roberts, 1778
ROBIN ADAIR, OR THE FORTUNATE
IRISHMAN
Most persons know, or at all events have heard of, the once popular song " Robin Adair," but few perhaps are aware of its romantic origin.
Rather more than a hundred and fifty years ago there was a good-looking and clever young medical student of that name studying in Dublin. As was not an unfrequent occur- rence there in those days he got implicated in some row in that city which necessitated his leaving it, and he determined to try his fortunes in London. Accordingly he managed to cross the sea, but found that he had not sufficient money to pay for any conveyance that would carry him on to the end of his journey. He therefore started off on foot, intending to walk until he could meet with some Good Samaritan who would help him on his way. But fate, and in his case a very kind one, soon overtook him, for he had not gone many leagues before he came upon the scene of a recent accident, and he was just in time to help a fair lady out of her coach which had been overturned in a ditch. Fortunately for him, her ladyship — for she was a well-known personage of the Upper Ten — had incurred a slight injury necessitating surgical aid, which he was able to give her, and furthermore her nerves were so shaken, that she entreated the young surgeon to ac- company her to the metropolis. This one can imagine he was nothing loath to do, and at the end of the journey he
87
Robin Adair, or the Fortunate Irishman
found himself with a cheque for £ioo in his pocket and a standing invitation to one of the best houses in London.
This unexpected piece of good fortune was the commence- ment of a most successful career. Robert Adair soon gained a large practice in London and made many friends. But the climax of his good fortune came when he won the heart and ultimately the hand of a charming young lady of high position.
The young surgeon met Lady Caroline Keppel at a ball given by his patroness, and it was a case of love at first sight on both sides ; but the course of true love ran anything but smooth.
Lady Caroline, who was born in 1737, was the daughter of William Anne Keppel, second Earl of Albemarle, K.G., who commanded the left wing at CuUoden, and who ended his life as Ambassador at the court of Versailles, where he lived in such splendour that Horace Walpole called him " the most magnifi- cent spendthrift of his time." He was greatly liked in Paris. Marmontel, in his Memoirs, says, in talking of his death : " Lord d'Albemarle mourut a Paris aussi regrette parmi nous que dans sa patrie. C'etait, par excellence, ce qu'on appelle un galant homme, noble, sensible, genereux, plein de loyaute, de franchise, de politesse et de bonte, et il reunissait ce que les deux caracteres de I'Anglais et du Fran9ais ^ ont de meilleure et de plus estimable." Directly after giving him this excellent char- acter Marmontel goes on to say : " II avait pour maitresse une fille accomplie, et a qui I'envie elle-m6me n'a jamais reproch6 que de s'etre donnee a lui. Je m'en fis une amie ; '' c'etait un moyen silr de me faire un ami de my lord d'Albemarle.
^ Lord Albemarle was of Dutch extraction, and was educated in Holland, and only came to England when he was fifteen years of age.
- She was the "Adelaide" in Marmontcl's La Bcrgcrc des Alpcs.
88
Robin Adair, or the Fortunate Irishman
Le nom de cette aimable personne etait Gaucher ; son nom d'enfance et de caresse etait Lolotte. C'etait a elle que son amant disait, un soir qu'elle regardait fixement une etoile, ' Ne la regardez pas tant, ma chere ; je ne puis pas vous la donner ! ' "
Mademoiselle Gaucher must have been as accomplished as she was charming, for Marmontel also tells us that, " apres la conversation de Voltaire la plus ravissante pour moi etait la sienne." After Lord Albemarle's death. Mademoiselle Gaucher married the Comte d'Herouville. By this means the fair Lolotte hoped to make herself a position in French society, but she met with so many humiliations that it was said her social ostracism caused her death. Lord Albemarle had inherited the estates of Elveden Hall, Suffolk, and Quidenham in Norfolk, and ^^90,000 in the Funds ; and with his wife. Lady Anne Lennox, daughter of the first Duke of Richmond, he got ;^2 5,000. Added to this he had the lucrative sinecure of the Governorship of Virginia, and his public employments brought him in ;^i 5,000 a year; yet such was his extravagance that at his death in 1754 he left vast debts and deeply mortgaged estates.
Lady Albemarle had fifteen children, of whom seven only survived their infancy. One of them was the celebrated Admiral Keppel, created Viscount Keppel of Elveden. He and two of his brothers greatly distinguished themselves at the taking of Havana, and when Lady Albemarle, who got the name of the Mother of the Gracchi, first appeared at the Drawing-Room after the news had arrived, she received a sort of ovation from the royalties, and the Duke of Cumber- land said to her, " By Gad, my Lady, if it wasn't in the Presence-Chamber I should kiss you ! "
Lady Albemarle's brother, the second Duke of Richmond,
89
Robin Adair, or the Fortunate Irishman
with his wife, who was Lady Sarah Cadogan, were said to be the proudest and the most exclusive couple in England. Thus it is not to be wondered at that Lady Caroline Keppel met with determined opposition when she announced that she wished to marry the young Irish surgeon. Her only sister had lately become the wife of Lord Tavistock, the Duke of Bedford's eldest son, and as Lady Caroline was very pretty there seemed no reason why she too should not make an advantageous match. But she would not hear of giving up her " Robin." She was taken abroad in the hopes that absence would make her forget him, but in this case it verified the proverb and made the heart grow dearer, and nature came to her rescue ; she fell ill and had to be brought home. Then Bath was tried with no good result, and it was whilst she was there that it is said she composed the well-known song, " Robin Adair " —
" What's this dull town to me ? Robin's not near ; He whom I wish to see, Wish for to hear !
Where"'s all the joy and mirth, Made life a heaven on earth ? Oh ! they're all fled with thee, Robin Adair."
Ultimately, seeing no hope of obtaining the consent of her relations, Lady Caroline took the law into her own hands ; and as soon as she was of age, on the 22nd February 1758, she eloped with Robert Adair and was privately married to him.
Shortly afterwards he was appointed Inspector-General of
Military Hospitals, and furthermore George III., who took a
fancy to him, gave him the post of Royal Sergeant-Surgeon as
well as that of surgeon to Chelsea Hospital. But still Lady
90
^IR josiir.v ui;vNOl.ns, /"ini.
Lady Cakolink Adair.
Robin Adair, or the Fortunate Irishman
Caroline was not forgiven by her relations, who held out for nine years. Then Lady Caroline's sister, the charming and amiable Lady Tavistock, who was fast sinking into her grave, never havitig rallied from the shock of her husband's untimely death, and who was about to leave England on what proved to be her last journey, effected a reconciliation. Lady Caroline and Mr. Adair and her brother, Admiral Keppel, accompanied Lady Tavistock to Portugal ; but the change of scene and climate was unavailing, and she died in that country. Lady Caroline herself only outlived her sister for one year, dying at the birth of her third child, after ten years of happy married life. Her husband survived her for twenty-one years. They had three children. The son, v/ho became the Right Hon. Sir Robert Adair, Vv'as the well-known diplomatist. It was of him that the following story was told. When he was sent to St. Petersburg the Empress Catherine asked Mr. Whitworth, afterwards Lord Whitworth :
" Est-ce un homme tres considerable ce Monsieur d'Adda ? " " Pas trop, Madame," answered Mr. Whitworth, " quoique son pere etait grand saigneur ! " alluding to the fact that Adair's father was a surgeon.
Their second daughter, Elizabeth Adair, married the Rev. George Barrington, who became fifth Viscount Barrington ; and through her there are innumerable descendants of "The Fortunate Irishman."
91
THE STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE OF A DIPLOMAT: AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY
In November 1 809 a great sensation was caused in diplomatic circles, as well as in London society, by the most mysterious disappearance of a very well-known young Englishman.
Benjamin Bathurst was the third son of Henry Bathurst, Bishop of Norwich (nephew of Allen, first Lord Bathurst), his mother being Grace Coote, sister of Lord Castle Coote of Lepperstown, near Dublin. He was given the family name of Benjamin after his grandfather, Benjamin Bathurst of Battesden, of whom it is worth noting that he had no fewer than thirty-six children, namely, twenty-two by his first wife, Miss Finetta Poole, an heiress, and fourteen by his second spouse, Miss Catherine Broderick, a niece of Lord Middleton.
The Bishop of Norwich was the second son of the latter lady, and besides being a very able man, was celebrated for his many virtues and unswerving integrity. It was to him that Bulwer Lytton alludes in "The Pilgrims of the Rhine," as the prelate with whom the virtues lived so long that, wearying at last of the society of a man who had not one redeeming vice, the most volatile of them set out on the famous expedition.
The son was worthy of the sire. Born in 1784, young
Benjamin Bathurst was educated at Winchester. When there
his father talks of him as "an uncommonly fine boy, with
a fair share of industry, considerable attainments for his age
92
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
(fourteen), and full of affection," He went to Oxford as Fellow of New College when he was only fifteen, and entered the Diplomatic Service at a very early age, being described at that time as " a singularly gifted youth,"
In January 1 804, when he was barely twenty, he held some post at Vienna under Sir Arthur Paget, the English ambassador. He remained there till March 1805, when he made a tour in Italy and Greece to re-establish his health, which he said had been " somewhat injured by a residence of fifteen months in the most unwholesome capital of Europe." On his return to England, when he was still only twenty-one years of age, he was appointed Secretary of Legation at the Court of Stockholm ; and it was then that Mr. Bathurst took unto himself a wife, his bride being Phillida, daughter of Sir John Call, Bart., of Whiteford, Cornwall.^ She was a charming girl, some years older than himself, and he had been engaged to her for two years. Her uncommon name was said to be a diminutive of her mother's, which was Phila- delphia ; but " Phillida " was the name of the heroine in one of CoUey Cibber's plays, a favourite part of Kitty Clive.
In writing to announce his engagement to his brother James (afterwards Sir James Bathurst and A.D,C. to Lord Wellington in the Peninsula), Benjamin Bathurst says : " I am sure you will admire her candour, simplicity of manners, and cultivated mind which gain every heart wherever she is known. No person was ever more beloved by her intimate relations or esteemed more by the generality of the world ; indeed I consider myself most fortunate in this lot, whatever
' Sir John Call was the eldest of four brothers who went to India about the middle of the eighteenth century, sons of John Call, Esq., of Launcells, co. Cornwall ; he served in India as military engineer with considerable reputa- tion, and was created a Baronet in 1791.
93
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
success may attend me in my progress through life in other respects."
Mr. Bathurst was about this time Secretary of Legation at Leghorn, and in 1807 was sent a second time to Stockholm on a special mission, and on both of these occasions he was accompanied by his wife. In the spring of 1809 he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary on an important secret mission to the Court of Vienna, his orders being to assure the Cabinet there of the intention of England to send a powerful contingent into Spain, and to use his best endeavours to induce Austria to declare war. From Pesth he wrote in the middle of June : "It would be endless to go over everything that has happened to me since my being on this station, where I have hitherto witnessed scarcely anything but distress and misfortune. I got to Vienna the very day of the terrible accounts from the Danube, and have seen little since to cheer the scene. The desperate resolution of the Austrians keeps pace with the military blunders they improve upon daily. No reverses can correct, no experience instruct them ; a cause quite sacred, pursued with a frantic zeal, an incomparable army and resources without end, all yield to the ascendant of our abominable opponent and his superior military skill. A miracle (or another battle of Aspern, which was little less) may restore us, but scarcely any other effort. I cannot say I am quite in Paradise, though a very flattering situation, and an immediate actor in events which inspire the deepest interest, atone a little for a sepa- ration from Phillida, and a variety of other inconveniences."
On October 14, 1809, Mr. Bathurst wrote to his wife as follows : —
" 1 am able to give you a few words of intelligence of me, my dearest Phillida, by Heligoland, though hardly more from
94
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
the smallness of the packet I am obliged to observe in sending through this channel. Things are in the most desperate con- dition, and if Bonaparte can be removed from Vienna without some very signal catastrophe to Austria, the utmost of our hopes will be fulfilled. My fate will, of course, be decided amongst the other articles of the Peace. If the intercourse with England is put an end to, which is next to certain, I shall endeavour to get home by Colberg and Sweden, rather than the Mediterranean, of which I had so disagreeable a specimen in the spring. This, as far as my foresight will carry me, is likely to be the result, unless some interposition of Providence happens, for I hardly think anything else however v/ill do. I shall rejoice to return once more to you, and as the affairs of the Continent are for the present so hopeless, I shall not much regret abandoning them, Krause (the King's messenger) came back from Hamburg yesterday, having sent on my despatches and letters. I see by the newspapers he brings that Lord Bathurst ^ is Premier. For myself I have now nothing but Parliament to look to. I must succeed in placing myself there somehow or another. My distress is very great owing to having no intelligence from England. I have not received a word from you since the letters you sent by Krause ; write to Heligoland to Mr. Nicholas and he will forward your letters to me ; but the advertisement comes, I am almost afraid, too late. Adieu, my dearest ! yours ever most affectionately.
"B. B. "I am quite recovered."
On October 15th, the day after the above letter was written, in consequence of Napoleon's triumphs at Eckmuhl, Assern, Elsling, and Wagram, the treaty of peace between France and Austria was signed. Austria was compelled to prohibit all
^ Mr, Bathurst's cousin, Earl Bathurst, had married in 1789 Georgiana, daughter of Lord George Lennox, and sister to the fourth Duke of Richmond,
95
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
intercourse with England, and the speedy return of Mr. Bathurst was looked for by his family and by the Foreign Office. But day after day passed and no further news was heard of or from him. At first his relations and friends allowed themselves to be buoyed up with the hope that he had been obliged to take a circuitous route to avoid falling into the hands of the French ; but as week after week elapsed and no tidings arrived, their agonies of suspense became very great. " At length," writes his sister Tryphena (afterwards Mrs. Thistlethwayte), " one evening in December, my father received an express from Lord Wellesley requesting his immediate attendance at Apsley House, his lordship having something of importance to communicate. On my father's return, we were all alarmed at his pale and dejected aspect. He informed us that Government had re- ceived intelligence of the sudden and mysterious disappearance of my brother at Perleberg, a small town in Brandenbourg, where he had stopped on the route from Vienna for rest and refreshment."
It appears that when Mr. Bathurst was told he must no longer consider himself accredited to Buda, where the Court then resided, he left that place, but instead of going direct to England proceeded at first to Berlin, where he was in communication with Baron Wissenberg, the Austrian minister, who had married an English lady, and with whom he was intimate. On his return journey he stopped at the Post-House at Perleberg on Saturday the 25th November at midday. Soon after he sat down to write in a small room, and remained there some hours, afterwards burning several of his papers. He then ordered fresh post- horses to be ready by seven o'clock to go on to Lenzen, the next station, and went to the " White Swan," an inn close by, and had
an early dinner ; after which he inquired who was in command
96
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
of the soldiers quartered in the town. He was told it was Captain Klitzing, and he went to that officer's residence and asked if he might be given a guard in the inn, as he feared his life was in danger. He appeared agitated, in con- sequence of something he had heard. Rightly or wrongly, Mr. Bathurst, it was said, rather mistrusted Krause, concerning whom he had received a warning ; and finding that Krause had a bill for ;^500 upon him at Perleberg roused his suspicions. In consequence of Mr, Bathurst's application, two soldiers were appointed to guard the inn. At seven o'clock he dismissed them, that being the time he had settled to start ; but at the last moment he changed his mind and countermanded the post- horses till nine o'clock. At that hour they were ready at the door — the postilion was adjusting the harness and the hostler holding a horn-lamp, as the oil lantern hung across the street gave but a dim light, and the night was dark. Krause, who though sometimes called King's messenger, is also called "the secretary," was paying the account, the landlord standing cap in hand preparing to wish his departing guest God-speed, and, as the story goes, Mr. Bathurst's servant had actually opened the door of the carriage for his master (who had been standing near the horses' heads watching his portmanteaux being placed on the top of the vehicle) to step in and take his seat, when at that moment Mr. Bathurst, without any warning, sound, or cry disappeared as suddenly as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up. At first nothing was thought of the delay ; but when nearly an hour had elapsed his companions began to make inquiries for him in and out of the building. All in vain; he was nowhere to be found, and every one about the place denied having seen him. Mr. Bathurst's servant then went to inform the governor. Captain Klitzing, of the
97 G
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
circumstance, and that official sent immediately to the local authorities at Perleberg and charged them to make all possible inquiries. The four magistrates of the town were roused from their sleep to join in the investigations. At the same time, Captain Klitzing sent Krause and Mr. Bathurst's valet to the hotel of the " Golden Crown," and ordered a guard of cuirassiers to keep watch over them there. On Sunday, every search having been fruitless, this officer went to Berlin to communicate with the authorities there. Time was lost by this journey, and it was not till his return that a judicial in- vestigation took place, when all the inhabitants of the Post- House were closely examined. They consisted of the hostler Schmidt, his wife, son, and daughter, and their servant, Elizabeth Nagel Schmidt, who besides being the head of the Post-House was also the letter-carrier of the place, and had formerly been a non-commissioned officer. Considerable sus- picion attached itself to the son, August Schmidt, as he was known to be a vagabond and a gambler ; and moreover Mr. Bathurst's valuable travelling coat of sable was found in his possession. This, however, was explained (and apparently the explanation satisfied the authorities) by the statement that it had been left in the Post-House ; so that August and his mother were only sentenced to eight weeks' imprisonment for not having declared it, and even that short sentence was reduced in consequence of a general amnesty.
On December loth Krause departed for Berlin, where he went to the Head of the Police to urge further investigation, and he also laid the matter before the English Ambassador. Meanwhile the search at Perleberg was continued with renewed vigour ; citizens, peasants, gamekeepers and huntsmen worked
assiduously in every direction, the latter using their dogs to
98
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
assist. All cellars, lofts, and every barn, ditch, and wood were
examined. The river Stepnitz was let off during two days by
the mill-master, and searched thoroughly, but all to no purpose.
The only trace of the missing man that came to light was a pair
of grey " pantaloons," or " overalls " (as they were variously
called), which an old woman brought to Krause and said she
had found in a copse three miles from the town. This only
added mystery to mystery. They certainly were the " overalls "
worn by Mr. Bathurst at the time of his disappearance, but they
had obviously been laid out in the copse in a position purposely
to catch the eye ; furthermore they had two bullet holes in
them, but there was no blood, and it was thought from this
that the shots had been fired into empty trousers.^ In one of
the pockets there was a half-written letter to his wife, scribbled
on a dirty scrap of paper in pencil, which had got soaked with
wet from the heavy rains. The letter contained a representation
of all the dangers to which he was exposed in consequence, as
he said, of his being surrounded by enemies, and expressed fears
that he should never reach England, and that his ruin would be
brought about by Comte d'Antraigues" and the Russians. It
also contained a request to Mrs. Bathurst not to marry again in
the event of his not returning.
The English Government offered _^iooo reward for authentic news of Mr. Bathurst, his family another thousand ; ten thalers were added to this by the local authorities at Perleberg, and one hundred friedrichs d'or by Prince Frederick of Prussia — but these large rewards produced no evidence. Nothing authentic ever came to light, though many and various were
' It seems probable that they had been placed there after the search. * Comte d'Antraigues, a political adventurer, who was in the pay of both France and Russia. See Appendix.
99
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
the stones circulated, each new one contradicting the last. Some palpably incorrect statements were printed at the time, and these have since often reappeared in print. Thus one reads in some that Mr. Bathurst was rash enough to be travelling quite alone, whilst other accounts state that he foolishly took all his suite with him. Neither of these statements are correct: he had with him Krause (or Krouse), a King's messenger, who appears to have acted as his secretary and courier on this occasion, and his own Swiss body-servant, Nikolaus Hilbert, in whom he had the greatest confidence, which apparently was not misplaced. Mr. Bathurst and Krause travelled under assumed names, the former as "Koch" and the latter as "Fischer," and were described as merchants. At Berlin it was given out that Mr. Bathurst had shown symptoms of insanity and that he had destroyed himself; but this appears to have had no foundation, and if it had been the case his body, sooner or later, would have been found.
At the end of December the traveller Roentgen (or Rontgen), a man well known in his time, who was a personal friend of the Bathursts, volunteered to go to Perleberg to see what he could discover. He went armed with money to distribute amongst those who had exerted themselves for so many weeks in the search, but he failed in getting any fresh definite information. At Berlin he was joined by Mrs. Bathurst herself. She had started for the Continent in the spring of 1810, accompanied by her brother, Mr. George Call, as well as by a German interpreter and her own Swedish maid, and travelling over Germany made the most exhaustive inquiries, having first been solemnly assured by Napoleon that he was in complete ignorance of her husband's fate. The following is the story of
Mrs. Bathurst's search told in her own words : " In the spring
100
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
of 1810 I wrote to Napoleon to ask for passports to seek for my husband, and desired they might be sent to our Foreign Office, then under the direction of Lord Bathurst ; but my brother George advised me, as I was bent on going, not to wait for passports from Paris (for if refused by the Emperor we could not risk going), but to go with Swedish passports round by the Baltic. This I consented to do, and Baron Rehausen gave us passports to land at Gothenburg as Mr. and Mrs. Call, and get into Prussia by Pomerania. On arriving after many adventures at Berlin George advised me to send for the French Minister, and, letting him into our secret, claim his protection, as he was literally the king of the country. This I did, and Count St. Priest came to see me. On discovering to him my name, he said, ' Ma chere madame, j'ai des passeports pour vous depuis hier signes par S. M. I'Empereur lui-meme.' I answered, "J'ai demandee des passeports a S. M. I'Empereur, mais j'ai aussi priee S. M. de me les envoyer a Londres a notre Bureau des Affaires Etrangeres, et comme je suis partie sans que personne ne le savait, pas meme Lord Bathurst, ni aucun membre de nos families que ma mere et mon beau-frere, cela me parait assez remarkable.' He replied, ' EfFectivement, madame, je ne comprends rien, mais j'ai vos passeports directe par un courier de Paris ' ; to which I answered, ' Oui, monsieur, cela prouve que votre systeme d'espionage vaut mieux que le notre, car on savait a Paris que j'etais partie avant qu'on le savait chez nous.' " In my idea this formed a link in the d'Antraigues' afFair, he being then supposed to be an English spy, but in reality wis a French spy in London. With these passports we went all over the Continent free of annoyance, and Rontgen, whom I had sent on discoveries some months before, joined us at Berlin. He told me a lady of Magdeburg had been heard to say that the English
lOI
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
Ambassador, whom everybody was looking for, was in Magdeburg fortress. To that lady he, ROntgen, went ; she confirmed what she had said, and added that the governor of Magdeburg had told her so in these words : ' They are looking for the English Ambassador, but I have him up there,' pointing to the fortress. Of course I settled to go myself to the governor of Magdeburg, though Rontgen had already seen him. He did not deny his words, but said it was a mistake. I thought, however, that governors do not make such mistakes, and decided on verifying it myself.
" We set off, taking Perleberg by the way. There I saw the woman who found the overalls; I went to the spot where she found them ; I saw the room my husband inhabited ; the table on which he slept some hours ; the river which was dragged for his body ; and followed up every report, going round all the Hanse towns in hopes of intelligence, and finally, on our way to Paris, went to Magdeburg, where I had an interview of two hours with the governor. I begged, I prayed on my knees, I menaced God's wrath on his head if he deceived me : ' Yes,' he said, ' I did say so to a lady at a ball, but it was a mistake of mine ; the person in question was one Louis Fritz, a spy sent out by Mr. Canning and taken up by the douaniers and brought here.' ' Well, sir,' said I, ' let me see Louis Fritz.' He replied, ' He is gone to Spain from Magdeburg.' We went to Paris, where I got permission from the Emperor to advertise for my husband in all the papers, even in the Moniteur.'^
In the autumn of i 810, Mrs. Bathurst and Mr. Call returned
to England ; but before they were allowed to leave France they
went through great difficulties. Finally they got away with
passports from the Due de Cadore, although the Due de Rovigo,
Minister of the Police, whom Mrs. Bathurst found " brutal and
102
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
overbearing," refused to countersign tliem. They went from
Morlaix in a trawler, which landed them at Saltash after having
journeyed 2054 miles by land and 700 by sea. Mrs. Bathurst
in her account goes on to say : " After embracing my angel
children and my dear mother at Bath, I took up my abode with
my brother in Bond Street, when in November, Rontgen, who
had been to the Foreign Office with a message to Mr. Canning,
asking him if he had ever sent out any one of the name of
Louis Fritz, that gentleman, after taking the trouble of looking
over all the passports of 1809, sent me word no such passport
had been granted and no such person sent by him ! While I
was considering this as a confirmation of my suspicion of the
Magdeburg story, Rontgen told me a gentleman called Comte
d'Antraigues wished to see me. The name, unknown to him,
but familiar to me from my husband's letter, made me start, and
I desired he would come to me as soon as possible. He came
the next day. He began by telling me that I might put on my
weeds, for that he could prove to a certainty the death of my
husband. He abused the Emperor and the French, but I was
on my guard on account of what my husband said. He told
me that had he known I was going to look for him, he would
have given me letters to Fouchet, who would have confirmed
what he said, and that what I heard about Magdeburg was true ;
and that my husband, on going away from Perleberg, had been
taken up by the douaniers-montes (a guard armed to the teeth),
and had been conducted to the fortress of Magdeburg, that
the governor had written to Paris to know what he should do
with him, and received for answer from Fouchet, the Minister
of Police, that the Emperor must not be troubled with all the
madmen England sent out, like Drake, Sir Sydney Smith,
Pichegru, and Rumbold, therefore, to put him out of the way ;
103
The Strange Disappearance of a Diplomat
that the governor was alarmed then, having spoken of my husband, and therefore made up the story he had told me, but that my husband had perished there. I replied that it was possible, but that I must have proof of his assertions. He answered that he desired me to remain in town long enough for him to write in cipher to Paris, and he would translate and show me the answer he should get. I did so ; he wrote, as he assured me, but about the time that the answer should arrive, he and his wife were murdered by a foreign man-servant whom they had lately hired. They were coming out of their