Nelson's Lady Hamilton
Page 8
But before following the development of Emma's intercourse with the Queen, before taking the plunge into the political affairs in which she was soon involved, it is necessary to devote a
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little further space to the domestic side of the unfolding drama, as revealed in the letters of the period. The guillotine was already casting its ghastly shadow athwart the fair fields of France, Napoleon's great wars and England's greater resistance were already rising slowly above the horizon of the future. But still there was sunshine at Naples, fetes and dinners and the social round in which Emma always delighted —particularly now in her new and assured position as wife of the British Ambassador. " We dined yesterday with Sir William and Lady Hamilton/' writes Lady Malmesbury. " She really behaves as well as possible, and quite wonderfully, considering her origin and education."
This is not, perhaps, very high praise; but Nelson's friend, Sir Gilbert Elliot, writing in 1796, hardly says as much for her :—
" She is all Nature and yet all Art, that is to say, her manners are perfectly unpolished, of course very easy, though not with the ease of good breeding, but of a barmaid; excessively good humoured, and wishing to please and be admired by all ages and sorts of persons that come in her way ; but besides considerable natural understanding, she has acquired, since her marriage, some knowledge of history and of the arts, and one wonders at the application and pains she has taken to make herself what she is. With men her language and conversation
are exaggerations of anything I ever heard anywhere ; and I was wonderfully struck with these inveterate remains of her origin, though the impression was very much weakened by seeing the other ladies of Naples."
But when Sir Gilbert Elliot saw the "Attitudes " he was charmed, like all beholders. " We had the * Attitudes' a night or two ago by candli light," he wrote in the same year. " They com< up to my expectations fully, which is saying everything. They set Lady Hamilton in a ven different light from any I had seen her in before nothing about her, neither her conversation, hei manners, nor figure, announce the very refinec taste which she discovers in this performance, besides the extraordinary talent which is neede< for the execution."
Five years earlier than this, the year oi Emma's marriage, Lady Malmesbury wrote witl enthusiasm : " You never saw anything so charming as Lady Hamilton's ' Attitudes/ The mo; graceful statues or pictures do not give you ai idea of them."
Sir William Hamilton's attachment to his wife was evidently sincere and warm, and when h< left her for a short time in January, 1792, to g( on one of his sporting expeditions with the Kin] at Persano, he wrote her some charming letters telling her of all that he did and saw, and giving her much affectionate advice.
LADY HAMILTON AS "A BACCHANTE
GEORGE ROMNEY
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It is somewhat amusing to learn that the obstinacy of the King of Naples sometimes went to the length of spoiling his sport—the most disastrous thing possible, in his own eyes. There were wolves and wild boars in plenty, " but the king would direct how we should beat the wood, and began at the wrong end," says Sir William, "by which the wolves and boars escaped, and we remained without shooting power." He adds with a touch of malice, " The King's face is very long at this moment."
In nearly every letter he declares his attachment to Emma: " I would not be married to any woman, but yourself, on earth, for all the world." And next day, " I am glad all goes on so well. I never doubted your gaining every soul you approach. I am far from being angry at your feeling the loss of me so much! Nay, I am flattered." In the same letter he says, " The cold and fatigue makes my hand something like yours—which, by the bye, you neglect rather too much; but, as what you write is good sense, every body will forgive the scrawl." He tells her a day or two later, " I am glad you have been at the Academy, and in the great world. It is time enough for you to find out, that the only real comfort is to be met with at home; I have been in that secret some time. You are, certainly, the most domestic young woman I know : but you are young, and most beautiful; and it would
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not be natural, if you did not like to shew yourself a little in public. The effusion of tenderness, with regard to me, in your letter, is very flattering; I know the value of it, and will do all I can to keep it alive/' Again he says, " I assure you, that I shall rejoice when I can embrace you once more. A picture would not content me; your image is more strongly represented on my heart, than any that could be reproduced by human art." In the next day's letter there is an interesting reference, showing how strong and unabated by social success was Lady Hamilton's attachment to her mother : " As to your mother's going with you to the English parties, very well," says Sir William, "but, believe me, it will be best for her, and more to her happiness, to stay at home, than go with you to the Neapolitan parties."
The following day the King killed nineteen boars, two stags, two does, and a porcupine, and "he is happy beyond expression"—a noble pastime, truly, and a most worthy happiness!
Though so much occupied with sport, Sir William had time to say a word about his wife's handwriting, and in one of his letters he turns to her marked deficiencies in spelling: " By the bye, I must tell you, that accept and except are totally different. You always write, ' I did not except of the invitation ;' when, you know, it should be ' accept' It is, only, for want of giving
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yourself time to think; but, as this error has been repeated, I thought best to tell you of it." Next day he pays her a pretty compliment: " It was not your white and silver, alone, that made you look like an angel, at the Academy. Suppose you had put it on nine parts out of ten of the ladies in company, would any one have appeared angelic ? I will allow, however, that a beautiful woman, feeling herself well dressed, will have a sort of confidence, which will add greatly to the lustre of her eye: but take my word, that, for some years to come, the more simply you dress, the more conspicuous will be your beauty ; which, according to my idea, is the most perfect I have yet met with, take it all in all, ... I always rejoice when I find you do not neglect your singing. I am, I own, ambitious of producing something extraordinary in you, and it is nearly done."
But Emma had more solid virtues than her "Attitudes" and her singing. She was a good nurse, as her husband found, when, at the close of 1792, he had the first of those attacks of illness which were to age him so considerably. Emma was distracted with grief and anxiety. She tells Greville that she has been " almost as ill as him with anxiety, aprehension and fatige, the last endead, the least of what I have felt, and I am now doubly repaid by the dayly progress he makes for the better. ... I need not say to you,
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my dear Mr. Greville, what I have suffered. Endead, I was almost distracted from such extreme happiness at once to such misery. . . . What cou'd console me for the loss of such a husband, friend, and protector ? For surely no happiness is like ours. We live but for one another. But I was too happy. . . . Every moment I feel what I felt, when I thought I was loseing him for ever."
She tells Greville of the kindness of the English ladies of rank during Sir William's illness, how they sent twice a day to inquire, and offered to come and help in her nursing, while " the King and Queen sent constantly morning and evening the most flattering messages, but all was nothing to me."
Even when barely recovered from the strain of nursing—and she had gone eight days without undressing or sleeping properly—she remembered her old grandmother at home. The oft-quoted appeal to Greville is so characteristic that it must find a place.
" I will trouble you with my own affairs, as you are so good as to interest yourself about me. You must know I send my grandmother every Cristmas twenty pounds, and so I ought. I have 200 a year for nonsense, and it wou'd be hard if I cou'd not give her twenty pounds when she has so often given me her last shilling. As Sir William is ill, I cannot ask him for the
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But her thoughts were quickly turned to larger events, for at the beginning of the new year, 1793, came the thunderclap of Louis the Sixteenth's execution. The storm-cloud had burst in a flood that was to whelm not only the King and Queen of France, but ^many of the fairest and bravest of their subjects ; and when the guillotine ceased its work, up rose a new curse to France in the person of Napoleon, whose marvellous military genius and overreaching ambition plunged Europe into one 01 the titanic struggles of history—a struggle in which nation battled against nation, madly,
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blindly, scarce seeing the cause of their strife and fury through the sword-blows and the deafening roar of the cannon, scarce realizing why to one side fell the dust of defeat, to the other the fumes of unjustifiable conquest. Dumb armies were driven across Europe by one man's will, and left like stubble upon the fields of battle, while their idolized " little Corporal"—he who had inspired them with that love of " la Gloire," which to him meant the purple of power, and to them the crimson of wounds and death's pale ermine—mounted the steps of the throne which he had built upon the ruins of Republican sentiment.
Even before the beginning of the Great War which had its root in the Revolution, the Queen of Naples had turned her eyes to England. She saw that from the Mistress of the Seas must come her help against the Terror that was spreading through France. When Lady Hamilton, on hearing that Louis the Sixteenth had fallen, expressed her horror at "the execrable deed the infamous French have committed," Maria Carolina replied in terms significant of her hopes. "I send you," she wrote, enclosing with her letter a little picture of the Dauphine, " the portrait of that innocent child who implores assistance, vengeance, or, if he is also sacrificed, his ashes united to those of his parents cry to the Eternal for speedy retribution; I
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rely the most on your generous nation to accomplish it."
From this time onward the Queen of Naples made much of Lady Hamilton, and Emma's impulsive nature responded with the most generous enthusiasm. She had the gift of hero-worship in an almost extravagant degree, and for many years Maria Carolina occupied the pedestal of her admiration. The Queen's hatreds were her hatreds, and there is no doubt that Emma loved her own country more because the Queen of Naples looked towards it with anxious hope. With her usual extravagance and lack of balance, Lady Hamilton would have placed all the resources of England at the disposal of the Queen of Naples, had it been in her power to do so, and she certainly did much in later years to inspire Nelson with something of the same feeling—in spite of his insight, his experience, his passionate patriotism, and his fervent hatred of the foreigner.
The growth of the Queen's intimacy with Emma is shown in a letter she wrote to Greville on the second of June, 1793, from Caserta, where, " for political reasons," she and Sir William had been living for eight months—the " political reasons" being that they might be in constant communication with the Queen. She tells Greville that they dine frequently with the royal family, as they have " done Sir William and me
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the honner to invite us very, very often . . . the reason why we stay now here is, I have promised the Queen to remain as long as she does, which will be tell the tenth of July. In the evening I go to her, and we are tete-a-tete 2 or 3 hours. Sometimes we sing. Yesterday the King and me sang duetts 3 hours. It was but bad, as he sings like a King" She is very proud of her tactful behaviour towards Maria Carolina: " Nor do I abuse of Her Majesty's goodness." She describes her conduct when an official drawing-room was held:—
" I had been with the Queen the night before alone en famille laughing and singing, etc., etc., but at the drawing-room I kept my distance, and payd the Queen as much respect as tho' I had never seen her before, which pleased her very much. But she shewd me great distinction that night, and told me several times how she admired my good conduct. . . . The English garden is going on very fast. The King and Queen go there every day. Sir William and me are there every morning at seven a clock, sometimes dine there and all ways drink tea there. In short it is Sir William's favourite child, and booth him and me are now studying botany, but not to make ourselves pedantical prigs and shew our learning like some of our travelling neighbours, but for our own pleasure."
Over a year later, Lady Hamilton's enthu-
AS "EUPHROSYNE"
GEORGE ROMNKY
siasm for the Queen of Naples was still growing. She wrote to the same correspondent in December, 1794—
" No person can be so charming as the Queen. She is everything one can wish,—the best mother, wife, and friend in the world. I live constantly with her, and have done intimately so for 2 years, and I never have in all that time seen anything but goodness and sincerity in her, and, if ever you hear any lyes about her, contradict them, and if you should see a cursed book written by a vile french dog with her character in it, don't believe one word. She lent it me last night, and I have by reading the infamous calumny put myself quite out of humour, that so good and virtus a princess shou'd be so infamously described/*
In a still later letter, when Sir William had been down again with another of his now frequent attacks of bilious fever, Emma wrote to Greville—
" My ever dear Queen as been like a mother to me, since Sir William as been ill. She writes to me four or five times a day, and offerd to come and assist me. This is friendship. . . . Send me some news, political and private; for, against my will, owing to my situation here, I am got into politicks, and I wish to have news for our dear much-loved Queen, whom I adore. Nor can I live without her, for she is to me . . . friend and
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everything. If you cou'd know her as I do, how you wou'd adore her! For she is the first woman in the world ; her talents are superior to every woman's in the world; and her heart is most excellent and strictly good and upright. But you'l say it is because we are such friends, that I am partial ; but ask anybody that knows her. She loves England and is attached to our Ministry, and wishes the continuation of the war as the only means to ruin that abominable French council."
But Lady Hamilton's "much-loved Queen" did not make herself thus friendly and gracious to the British Ambassador's wife simply for the sake of winning her affection. There can be little doubt that she found Emma's natural ardour and hearty simplicity refreshing in the strained and artificial atmosphere of her Court. There can be little doubt, also, that as time went on she came to lean considerably on Emma's devotion and capacity for dealing with men and events. But in the year 1793, when the intimacy between the two began, it was not so much an inclination for Lady Hamilton's society made the Queen so kind, but the state of her own kingdom and of Europe in general. She had, it will be remembered, expressed her hope in the efforts of the " generous nation" for avenging the death of Louis XVI. It was the hope of William Pitt, on the other hand, to save England from being drawn into
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the Continental cataclysm. He did all that was humanly possible, lonely and unsupported though ^he was, to save his country from the war to ! which he saw her plunging headlong. As J. R. ; Green says : " No hour of Pitt's life is so great as the hour when he stood alone in England, and refused to bow to the growing cry of the nation for war." But between the intense feeling of the
English people, especially after the execution of ; Marie Antoinette, on the one hand, and the outrageous acts of the French on the other, the : position was not tenable. France was deter-: mined on war; in Danton's violent words : " The ; coalized Kings threaten us; we hurl at their feet, as gage of battle, the Head of a King."
Liberty—the new liberty which was to light the dark old world—as proclaimed by the fresh risen despots of France, was a liberty to commit crime without punishment, to impose arbitrary "systems" upon independent countries. "The general interest of restoring peace to Europe," said these new apostles of freedom and the brotherhood of mankind, "can be obtained only by the annihilation of the despots and their satellites. All conspires in inducing us to treat such a people according to the rigour of war and conquest."
In the name of Liberty, and Equality, and Fraternity, it was
" Cry—Havoc, and let slip the dogs of war."
On the shores of the Mediterranean the sister of the murdered queen, the high-hearted daughter of Maria Theresa, watched these events with an anguish and rage that may be imagined. Fear and revenge both drove her the same road. In a kind of paroxysm she herself became a tyrant in her fierce suppression of the disaffected and of those who had any traffickings with the French agents and spies who honeycombed her kingdom. By a secret tribunal and " Junta " she dealt out deportation and proscription. She dismissed the Jacobin representative of France, Citizen Mackau; but when a French squadron under La Touche Tr6ville dropped anchor in Naples Bay, and insisted that the minister should be taken back, she had perforce to submit under the threat of his guns, though her fury against France was naturally not lessened by this episode. The Kingdom of Naples was forced to retire from the first Coalition against the French, for, till England took part in the war, the French fleet was unchecked in the Mediterranean. But when Lord Hood and his ships came upon the scene, when Toulon was occupied by the British, " Naples," says Mr. David Hannay, " plucked up heart of grace to take part against France. Her ships cruised with the English, and her soldiers ran away at Toulon." But Maria Carolina was not responsible for the poor stuff her soldiers were made of, and her own passion against the French