by Susan Nagel
Without her friend and still in Paris in June, Mary wrote to Elgin that “every Body loves the Child he is so good.” She exhibited her usual sense of fun when she played a joke on the Livingstons. Mrs. Livingston kept asking Mary to see the baby. One day, Mary brought him to them but “they were out, so I wrote upon a bit of paper Mr. William Bruce—First Visit—Mrs. Livingston has enquired of every person who calls upon her if they know who Mr. W. Bruce is!” William was ill for much of June with bowel problems and fever. Mary knew that Elgin was always nervous about health and to soothe his “anxiety,” she apprised him of the baby’s health daily. Finally, when William made a complete recovery at the end of June, Mary was finally able to travel with him to Orleans.
William was nearly four months old when Elgin laid eyes on him. The Elgins had no wish to remain in Orléans, but Napoleon had made it clear that Elgin would not be permitted to enter Paris. Elgin wished to return to the Pyrenees for the waters, and although Mary faced boredom, she returned to Paris to ask for the papers that would permit them to do so. While they were briefly in Orléans, their good friend General Sébastiani came to visit, and in early July, they set out for the Pyrenees, arriving in Bordeaux on July 16, 1804. Although the Elgins had reunited and had resumed their customary roles, Mary had not fully recovered from the sting of Elgin’s nastiness. She tried her best to remain merry, assuring her mother that this time she would have a better time because “there will be an amazing number of people at Barèges this year, it is even reported the Empress is going.” William was christened on August 27 with his proud father in attendance for this momentous event. Elgin had no official capacity and spent his time shopping for antiques and riding.
As usual, Mary waited for the mail every day and eagerly hoped for a letter from her own parents, who were a bit more sensitive to her situation than her chastising mother-in-law. Mrs. Nisbet concentrated on news of the children and the progress being made on the Nisbets’ new manor house, Biel, in Stenton Parish, a few miles from Archerfield. Mr. Nisbet had succeeded in securing additional parcels of adjoining land, enhancing the estate, and he began supervising the design of Tivoli-like terraced gardens to adorn the house. Like many British men who had traveled abroad, his son-in-law included, William Hamilton Nisbet borrowed and brought home the best of what he had seen in Europe. The gardens were spectacular, the house was a masterpiece, and he was now the proprietor of most of East Lothian. He took his grandson Lord Bruce and the two tiny girls to visit Broomhall, pointing out to Bruce that he would one day inherit his father’s title, the Dunfermline property, and Mr. Nisbet’s own fiefdom which, through his mother would include, in addition to Biel, the properties of Barncleugh, Belhaven, Wynton, and Pencaitland, all in the vicinity of Dirleton and Stenton Parish. These properties, lush and ripe for golf, were some of the most valuable in Scotland. Mary wrote back that Elgin was thrilled to hear of this journey but not quite so thrilled to hear the unpleasant financial news about Broomhall that kept coming his way from Mr. Nisbet, Mr. Oswald, and Mr. Dundas.
Part of Elgin’s emotional distress was caused by the continual arrival of dismal accounts of his financial state of affairs. He had asked Parliament for his salary to continue, but the government denied his request, claiming that he had traveled to France on his own, independent of official service. Despite the government’s rebuff, Elgin acted as ambassador on behalf of other British citizens in France who sought his intervention for some cause or other, and he provided small sums of money to indigent compatriots. As for his own concerns, he felt that his father-in-law and trustees should have been able to manage well enough without disaster striking.
The Nisbets were under the impression that Mary could leave France at any time, and they repeatedly advised her to return to her children at once. Mary was very relieved to hear that Ferguson had visited the Nisbets at Archerfield, pleading her case, explaining that she really had to remain by her husband’s side. Far removed from the pomp and circumstance of Napoleon’s coronation in Paris in November of 1804, Mary and Elgin had now been the emperor’s prisoners for one and a half years. They remained in Pau, waiting anxiously for Napoleon to release them; but the emperor had other things on his mind. He was embroiled in battles across Europe.
Their protracted detention left the Elgins with only one source of happiness, baby William. In December, Mary reported:
[William] has cut his first tooth without the least fever…. He is really the finest child I ever saw, such long eye lashes, so firm, so good a skin—and then he has such a merry little intelligent face of his own, as would quite captivate you I am sure. I don’t know what we should do without him he is the life of the whole house, and I assure that is saying a good deal. For we are sadly inclined to the blue devils, or perhaps a more elegant expression and an equally true one would be, we are as low as cats.
In February 1805, the usually buoyant Mary wrote to her mother that in truth she had been feeling “low and dismal” and had begun a letter days earlier but “had not courage to continue.” She then reassured her mother that her little boy had restored her mood.
[He] can toddle all round the room, can clap his hands, can smell them when Mama puts a little lavender water on them, can say “Hark” with one finger up like a Statue of Silence when Dragon barks, can hold up his little mouth when one says “Embrassez moi, Monsieur.” [“Kiss me, sir.”] In short, imagine to yourself Perfection, and then you will know what William is.
With her other three children, Mary had retained Greek nannies to look after them a good part of each day. With no nanny for William, she herself spent every moment with him and grew closer to this child than to any of her others. Local townspeople would inquire of her who was tending to the baby and were quite stunned to learn that this world-famous countess was acting as nanny and wet nurse to her own child. She became, as always, an object of great curiosity. Preferring to ignore those who gawked at her and whispered about her “odd behavior,” she doted on her baby, and he became the true love of her life.
Elgin’s relationship with his own mother was in a very bad state. She felt it was her duty, in each and every letter, to keep him abreast of the charges brought against him by his enemies in London, most notably Sir Sidney Smith, and he wrote her back stating that all he expected of her was to stand by him, and “for God’s sake, don’t embitter my life.” Some of his collection of marbles had arrived at the East India docks in London. He had been corresponding with his mother for months about the fees, the transportation, and other issues involved in what to do with the pieces now that they had arrived. He had instructed her to engage John Flaxman, called the English Phidias, to restore the pieces. The cost would be enormous, £20,000. As he had already invested a fortune in recovering the sunken marbles, he decided to shelve the idea of altering them, and he advised her of his decision.
His trusted assistant, William Hamilton, who had returned to London, was working on a public exhibition of the extraordinary pieces, which the Dowager Countess argued would only place her son in the path of increased criticism. Further, she felt that it was a vulgar undertaking. Elgin contradicted his mother. “An exhibition of things so peculiarly of public interest as mine are, far from being improper, is requisite.” No matter what requests or assignments he proposed, his mother simply could not or would not assume her usual helpful, proactive role. In the past, the Dowager Countess had, like her daughter-in-law, always been ready to take charge, but at this point her inexplicable inaction frustrated her son to distraction. The Dowager Countess was actually hiding the fact that she was ill. Not wanting to upset her son any more than he already was, she did not explain to him the full extent of her bad health. She had resigned her post at Court owing to a severe case of the gout and was in much discomfort, curtailing her activities. Elgin believed that Martha was being stubborn, and so he asked her, as he had advised his wife, to seek Robert Ferguson’s help. Elgin told his mother that Ferguson had turned out to be the most loyal and wonderful man and co
uld be of invaluable assistance.
When Robert Ferguson had said good-bye to Mary in 1804, he was without a doubt on an altruistic mission, but he also left knowing that he had fallen in love with his best friend’s wife. Whether she pretended ignorance of his feelings or was uncharacteristically unaware, Mary only admitted and acknowledged that she would miss him as a dear friend. There had been many men who had been infatuated with her. It flattered her, and she expected it. This time, it troubled her a bit, as the two had developed an emotional intimacy. Whereas Elgin had become plaintive and needy, Robert was capable and calm. One man dependent, one dependable, one man steeped in the rigid customs of the past, one man hungry for change and the future. Mary knew, in all fairness to Elgin, that he had been placed in an untenable situation, and she believed that the man whom she had seen lead men would fully recover when he was allowed his freedom. For now, he had no direction and felt powerless; he had, however, alleviated some of the tension between them by softening his rebukes over the ten months they had spent together.
In late March 1805, they traveled listlessly to Toulouse, Narbonne, Montpélier, Nîmes, and arrived in Paris on Monday, April 1, where Robert Ferguson was there to greet them. He had returned to Europe to settle some personal business. Ferguson, who had moved away from Britain to partake of the growing political shift toward democracy on the Continent, had one more reason for remaining abroad for so many years. He had been keeping a secret. He wished now to include Mary in his conspiracy, and he revealed his story to her and Dr. Scott, who came to his aid.
In 1793, Robert Ferguson had fallen deeply in love with a married German countess thirteen years his senior. Henriette, the Countess von Riaucour, was the daughter and heiress of Andreas, Count von Riaucour—she was also the wife of Count Carl Theodor Schall, whom she had married in 1777. For thirteen years, the count and his wife had a comfortable if not exciting marriage, Henriette often traveling to fashionable places without him. When she met Robert, she and he both believed that they had found in each a soul mate, “our hearts are so attached,” he wrote in his diary. Henriette even wore a locket containing a piece of Robert’s hair. Robert effused, “I would rather be placed in a dreary desert than be obliged to remain here without her.”
Robert and Henriette enjoyed a passionate affair for years, known as a couple by many important people in Europe but, as far as they knew, kept secret from Count Carl, Ferguson deciding that “her husband [was] literally a beast.” On April 13, 1795, Henriette informed Robert that he was going to be a father. Since she had recently been with her husband, she was able to convince the count that the baby was his. Robert was ecstatic and longed to claim his son as his very own, but he accepted Henriette’s duplicitous charade.
Robert was a romantic idealist and believed that his passion for Henriette was perfection. Together they visited the museums in Italy, quoted Rousseau to each other—Robert particularly focusing on Emile, now that he was going to be a father. They went to concerts and sought beauty in the Swiss Alps. He proved all too human, however, when he contracted a sexually transmitted disease from a prostitute who, he angrily wrote in his diary, had “clapped” him. He was furious, blaming his weakness on the whore. The doctor gave him a “tisane,” a hot herbal tea, a painful injection, and recommended that Robert avoid sexual relations for ten days. Robert was terrified that Henriette would find out and swore that he would never again be unfaithful to his “beloved friend.”
On Tuesday, October 27, 1795, their son Charles, who would become the Count von Schall-Riaucour, was born. Robert was overjoyed. “Good God what comfort what joy … my joy is extreme,” he effused. “We are completely happy,” he noted in his journal, and he referred to the baby he could never raise as “the dear souvenir.” Over the next hundred years, the descendants of Charles, Count von Schall-Riaucour, would include Hohenzollerns, von Furstenbergs, and Lobkoviczs. All of these princely families contain the blood of Robert Ferguson.
In 1796, the lovers traveled to Italy. In September, Henriette suspected that she was pregnant again. “Heavens how I love her how all my existence is in her,” he felt. This time, not having been near her husband in a very long time, Henriette was in trouble. She could not pass this second baby off as her husband’s, so she remained in Italy where she delivered their second son on May 2, 1797. Henriette returned to her husband, who was growing suspicious about her extended absence. Robert kept their son, “a fine healthy boy,” named Henry Robert, and gave the baby to the Abbé La Roche in Sienna. The abbé was to keep the boy sequestered from the world until Robert and Henriette could devise a solution.
Robert returned home to tell his father and brother his news. He had been away four years, had two sons, and had become a respected scientist in Europe. He enjoyed his reconciliation with his father, who was extremely kind and understanding. The following summer he returned to Europe and immediately reunited with Henriette. They lived blissfully together in Warsaw, throughout the winter, but they had to face the fact that their happiness could not go on indefinitely. Henriette had to return to her husband. Like so many men of his day, Henriette’s father, Andreas, had left his money to his son-in-law, foolishly ensuring that his own daughter’s only legacy would be at her husband’s mercy.
Six years later, when Mary, Countess of Elgin, gave birth to her fourth child, William, and her husband was unable to be with her in Paris, Robert Ferguson assumed the role of “father by proxy” for his good friend. He visited Mary, took care of her every wish, and took mother and baby for walks in the fresh air of the parks of Paris. Although he experienced a secondhand paternal joy for the Elgins, Robert, without his beloved Henriette, who was living in Prague, was not able to be a father to his own sons. He therefore felt a special tie to the baby he had known since birth and was filled with almost a paternal pride on seeing William a year later, a robust healthy toddler. He was not, however, William’s father, and he yearned for his own sons.
One week after their arrival in Paris, William suddenly developed a high fever and suffered pulmonary failure. On Saturday, April 13, ten years to the day when Robert learned that he was to be a father for the first time, William succumbed to his illness and died. All of the détenus in Paris mourned the tiny boy who had brought them all so much pleasure during their time of tribulation. Both men—”uncle” and father—were devastated, and Mary was inconsolable. “I lost my Dear William at 12 o’clock at night,” she wrote shakily in her diary, and five days later, on her twenty-seventh birthday, she wrote to her mother:
Pray for me, my dearest Mother, take me in your arms; Your prayers will be heard tho’ mine were not listened to. I have lost my William, my angel William—my soul doated on him, I was wrapt up in my child. From the moment of his birth, to the fatal night it pleased God to call him, I have devoted myself to him.
I am resigned to the Will of the Almighty, but my happiness is destroyed for ever … My William, my adored William is gone … gone … and left me here.
Chapter 19
AT SEA
Behind her stoic appearance as she made the rounds in the spring and summer of 1805, Mary was a bewildered, empty shell, a lethargic shadow of herself. All of her duties were performed perfunctorily without her usual effervescence, so profound was her sadness. The Elgins dined with General Sébastiani, visited Napoleon at Saint-Cloud, dined at the palace of Versailles, saw Malmaison, and toured the Sevres porcelain factory. In all the years of keeping her diary, even though no one else was ever meant to see it, Mary always referred to even her closest family members with formality. Her parents were “Mr. and Mrs. Nisbet,” her grandmother, “Lady Robert,” her uncle, “The General,” and her husband, who began as “Lord Elgin,” became “Elgin.” Distracted with grief, she made a revealing entry that subconsciously demonstrated her growing closeness to Robert Ferguson, who had become her salvation. On one Monday in May, she wrote simply and out of character, “we dined at Robert’s.”
She relied on Robert, and she and Elgin
asked him to undertake the somber task of bringing little William in his tiny casket home to Scotland. Robert, in turn, decided to ask Dr. Scott to escort and enroll his own son, Henry, in Dr. Glennie’s School in Dulwich, in the Southwark section of London. Lord Byron had been a student there five years past. Robert Ferguson was going to be a father regardless of world opinion. He had lost one boy whom he loved, and he was not going to miss a moment more of Henry’s life. Ferguson was going back to Scotland, this time for good, where he would stake his claim in politics and raise his son. He was no longer running away.
Lord Elgin poured his grief into fashioning an elaborate tomb for his son. The extravagant burial scheme required the repositioning of ancestors and would have resulted in a rather large expenditure, which Mr. Oswald and Mr. Nisbet opposed. Elgin’s lawyer, James Dundas, his estate manager, Mr. Wotherspoon, and the local magistrate, Mr. Black, all worked with the cemetery representatives at Dunfermline Abbey to accommodate the earl’s wishes, but it was simply too big a job. On September 3, 1805, at four o’clock in the afternoon, the tiny boy was laid to rest. Only Robert Ferguson, family surgeon Dr. Gibb, and Wotherspoon were in attendance. William was placed above his father’s eldest brother, also named William, who had been the 6th Earl of Elgin and 10th Earl of Kincardine for six months before his own death in childhood. In a letter to James Dundas, Wotherspoon reported that when he went into the vault, he discovered that the 6th Earl, who had died in 1771, was lying without his casket—it had been removed. Strangely enough, the body was well intact, and Wotherspoon immediately ordered a new coffin.
Although she felt like an empty vessel during the summer of 1805, Mary was once again containing life within her. She expected the baby in January, and despite the fact that she wanted no more children, Elgin, who had lost three brothers, was intent on increasing the family, ensuring the dynasty. She was too numb to dissuade him and proceeded through the early stages of her pregnancy as if in a trance, almost unaware that it was happening once again.