A Scandalous Life: The Biography of Jane Digby (Text only)

by Mary S. Lovell

  Poor Charles must have been exceptionally short-sighted if he believed that his dear ‘Jeane’, as he called her, could be forced into the mould of Hausfrau. She was a creature of youth and gaiety, loving the banter, wit and intelligent discussion of salons, loving art, loving travel, loving people. It was these very qualities that had first drawn him to her. She found little fulfilment as chatelaine of Charles’s great house, and exuberant rides around the surrounding countryside were the only outlet she found for the smothering boredom and restlessness she felt at Weinheim. Out of the gloomy mansion she created a charming home filled with laughter, but once she had finished decorating the house in her favourite French style of gilded pastels, replaced the old heavy German furniture with Chippendale and given instructions for English borders in the gardens, there was not enough to keep her occupied. She provided Charles with a happiness he had never known,27 but Jane’s raison d’être, the wish to live for a man with whom she was a twin soul, was frustrated. She wrote to the King of her wistful longing for Munich and himself, describing her affection for him as ‘a feeling between exalted devotion and something more tender’.28

  In the spring of 1835, after a long and quiet winter, Jane wrote to tell Ludwig of a visitor to Weinheim: ‘During the absence of the Baron I made an interesting acquaintance in the person of M. de Balzac, the French author.’29 Honoré de Balzac, already famous, was touring Germany and Austria with Prince Alfred de Schönberg-Hartenstein, an old friend and admirer of Jane’s. The prince was a junior diplomat when Jane first met him in Paris during 1830, and he had now risen to the rank of Envoy-Extraordinary to the Court of Württemberg. His younger brother married Felix Schwarzenberg’s sister Aloyse, and it was through Prince Alfred (also a distant family connection of the Venningens) that Jane received much of her information about Felix. Balzac knew of Jane, or more accurately of her notoriety, for the family of Balzac’s mistress, Evaline Hanska, lived in Vienna and were acquainted with the Schwarzenbergs. When offered the opportunity to meet Jane, Balzac accepted with alacrity.

  For Jane the meeting relieved a tedious interlude while Charles was away. Her visitors stayed for a short time only, an afternoon spent mainly in the gardens – where the prince flirted outrageously with Jane, as he always did – followed by dinner; early next morning she rode with them as far as Heidelberg, and they continued on their journey. But Balzac, who once claimed that ‘all fiction is symbolic biography’, later admitted that ‘Lady Ellenborough’ provided the inspiration for one of his most colourful leading characters, lady Arabella Dudley, in Le Lys dans la vallée:

  this beautiful English lady, so slim, so fragile; this peaches and cream woman, so delicate, so gentle, with such a tender face crowned with shining, fawn coloured hair. This creature whose brilliancy seems phosphorescent and transient, has a constitution of iron.

  No horse, however fiery, can resist … her hand that appears so weak, and that nothing can tire. She has the foot of a roe, a small, hard, muscular foot of indescribable grace … no man can keep up with her on horseback … she shoots deer and stags without checking her horse.

  … her passion, too, is quite African; her desire speeds like a whirlwind in the desert, a desert whose burning space is portrayed in her eyes, a desert full of azure and love, with its unchanging sky, its cool starlit nights.30

  Jane and Balzac met only on that one occasion. She subsequently wrote to him thanking him for the package he sent her, undoubtedly containing the manuscript (or part of it) of Le Lys dans la vallée, upon which he worked furiously after leaving Weinheim. The two never met again, and there is no foundation for the well-established belief that she was Balzac’s mistress for a short period in Paris in 1831. The stories linking Jane romantically with Balzac and other colourful Parisian literary figures of the time have no substance – even though these accounts were previously accepted by most of Jane’s biographers, and also by Balzac scholars who had not realised the existence of relevant material in the Wittelsbach archives. Jane’s letters to the King and to Balzac, and Balzac’s letters to his mistress, Madame Hanska, confirm that the limit of their acquaintance was confined to that one day in Weinheim.31

  Balzac was a man over whom women frequently squabbled, though he was gross, unkempt, very often drunk and generally unfaithful. Perhaps his personality was as charismatic as his work, for he wrote like an angel. Clearly he spent his short time as Jane’s guest in sharp observation. The result, his literary portrayal of Jane as Arabella, Lady Dudley, has been described as the most erotic female character in the whole of his Comédie humaine. Lady Arabella is introduced to the reader by Balzac’s main character (coincidentally named Felix), who tells how he met her in a salon in the Elysée-Bourbon. She had an impeccable family background and was married to an English lord, far older than herself, ‘one of the most eminent statesmen of England … stiff, cold, with the sneering air he wore in Parliament’.32 The independently rich Arabella had borne two children but they had been left in England with their father. ‘All these advantages were but accessories which enhanced the beauty of her person, her charms, her manners, her intelligence, an indescribable brilliancy which dazzled before fascinating. She was the idol of the day and reigned … over Parisian society.’

  Balzac described her ‘fatal notoriety’, and ‘she also possessed superiority of intellect; her satirical conversation embraced every subject.’ She had a great rapport with all animals; her horses were thoroughbred Arabs and she never travelled in her barouche without her little dog. ‘With horrible hypocrisy she kept up all the proprieties even while parading in the Bois’ with her lover, Felix. Yet, ‘when she loved, she loved with frenzy; no other woman of any country could compare with her, she was as good as an entire seraglio.’33

  Lady Arabella resembled Jane in all but one respect. While Jane loved men as companions and friends, Arabella was – for all her physical charms – a hard and avaricious woman who used men ruthlessly and discarded them heartlessly. Balzac immortalised her as the vivid anti-heroine of his novel, the perfect foil for the gentle, virtuous heroine the ‘lily of the valley’ to whom Felix eventually returned.

  Almost coinciding with the date of Balzac’s visit to Weinheim another book was published in England by a former acquaintance of Jane’s, Marguerite, Countess of Blessington, under the title The Two Friends, It was transparently based on Jane’s story, but the hero, Lord Arlington, closely resembled George Anson. Jane’s family, who hoped when she married Charles that her past sins would be forgotten, were once again embarrassed by the publicity given the book’s launch in the press.

  In her letter to Balzac after his visit,34 Jane revealed that her frequently expressed desire to return to Munich was about to be realised. However, the reason for it was ‘most melancholy’ as she later confided to the King. Her brother-in-law Philip Venningen was critically ill. Unfortunately, the court had already left Munich’s summer heat for the Alps by the time Jane arrived there on 23 July, but she wrote to Ludwig immediately, saying that it would give her ‘unspeakable pleasure’ to see him again and asking when he planned to return. Meanwhile, though Munich was empty of virtually anybody of rank in the ‘violent heat’, she had toured the city, and told Ludwig: ‘Since my last stay here Munich has greatly gained. The new buildings are quite magnificent.’35

  It was early October 1835, before Ludwig returned officially to his capital, but before then, in late August, Basily had returned secretly on a brief visit to Ianthe. She had been afraid that her ‘too long absence’ might have chilled his regard for her, but he was as warmly affectionate as ever and the meeting made her ‘unspeakably happy’. She referred to his visit several weeks later when she wrote to advise that they intended to stay for the Oktoberfest at least, and possibly remain for the winter, using the word ‘love’ in connection with her regard for the King. Conscious of his stern warnings about the security of their correspondence she wrote, ‘A word has escaped my pen which ought to be retracted. I leave it because with you I hav
e no need to disguise a feeling hardly to be defined. You know my well-founded reasons.’36

  Years later long after their friendship had grown cold, Jane wrote in her diary of the King’s sterling qualities, and in particular of his compassionate kindness. Whatever else he was, if Jane is to be believed, he was a good man. Meanwhile, in the autumn of 1835 they were still corresponding by long letter when they were apart, and by daily hand-delivered notes even when they were to see each other later in the day. ‘Tomorrow I hope to have the happiness of seeing you in the tent, and probably tonight at a distance in the masked ball … thanks for the violets,’ Jane wrote during the Oktoberfest.37 On one occasion she wrote to beg his assistance for the artist Heiss, who had completed a portrait of her during the summer months; it was sited badly at the Festival exhibition and ‘I thought you could make it have a better place.’38

  Within a month of such inconsequential chatter Jane had been whisked away from the diversions of Munich to the tedious isolation of their country estate. It was, as Jane used to say as a child, ‘all most provocative and bothersome’. The reason was Jane’s relationship with a dashing Greek count named Spiridon Theotoky, whom she had met at a masked ball in one of the Oktoberfest tents. He is first mentioned archly by her in a note to Ludwig regarding a ball to be held that night: ‘I find the dangerous Ct. Theotoky is not invited, but that will not prevent me amusing myself as I did at the first carnival … Many, many thanks for the violets.’39 Charles found his wife’s style of amusing herself singularly unfunny. Ludwig departed on a state visit to Greece and the Venningens left a few days afterwards. They were in Weinheim before the end of November.

  Jane’s immediate feeling was one of irritation at having been removed from all that was bright and charming, and not least from the proximity of the dangerous Count Theotoky. But as the days wore on she realised more and more that it was the latter she missed most of all.

  9

  A Duel for the Baroness

  1836–1840

  Count Spiridon Theotoky was all that Charles Venningen was not. He was tall, dashing, confident and talented – in fact, another Felix Schwarzenberg. Like Felix he had finely chiselled handsome features, liquid dark eyes and a charismatic charm. At twenty-four, Theotoky was four years younger than Jane and had not a care in the world, his entire life being given over to enjoying himself. He was the son of a noble Corfiote family, but he had no resources to speak of beyond some family property in Corfu. He appeared at Ludwig’s court wearing his national costume at a carnival ball. Jane was a moth to his flame.

  From all surviving evidence it appears that the attraction was not one-sided. Spiros (as Jane quickly came to call him) was used to women falling in love with him and was experienced, for all his youth. But he had never met anyone like Jane. He found the radiant young baroness, apparently a close friend of the King, the most desirable creature in a court of beautiful women. Around her gathered the brightest society, the most personable men, drawn by the same fascination as Theotoky experienced. What was more, she spoke Italian, French and even a little Greek, and was an intelligent conversationalist, especially on the subject of classical art and Greek mythology.

  When Ludwig’s second son Otto was proclaimed King of Greece in 1832, all the important positions of state and government in Greece were immediately filled by Bavarians. Subsequently there was an exchange of talented men between the two countries. Bavarians, particularly artists and builders who had found full occupation under Ludwig, as well as civil servants and military experts, were shipped to Greece to help Otto to achieve his (and probably his father’s) hopelessly romantic dream of creating a city that would mirror the greatness of ancient Athens. Ludwig’s court played host, meanwhile, to ambitious young Greeks with an eye to the future. They travelled to Bavaria to make contacts and to learn about the culture, military matters and German language, that were clearly going to be overprinted upon their own. Spiridon Theotoky was one such.

  Although he was part of a mission, he appears to have had no formal brief that required his constant attendance at court, so that when the Venningens suddenly left Munich for Weinheim he too was able to depart. He took the same road and found himself lodgings in Heidelberg.

  From the moment Jane and Spiros met, it seems, there was an intense attraction between them. Since her marriage Jane had lived a life of decorous pretence, but in his company she felt her own personality re-establish itself. The happy disorientation she describes would these days probably be termed a sexual frisson, but Jane believed she had rediscovered the passionate ideal of love that she had known with Felix and thought never to experience again.

  She had promised herself that she would make Charles ‘a good wife’, and according to him she had more than fulfilled that vow, whether or not she had been Ludwig’s lover. But, being the sort of woman she was, Jane could not help herself when she met Theotoky. She hungered for him. ‘Being loved’, she would tell the King, ‘is to me as the air I breathe.’ With hindsight, it is easy to see that Charles played his hand badly. He ought to have allowed Jane to indulge in a flirtation or even an affair with Theotoky at court, where Ludwig’s influence (if not his immediate presence) might have ensured a degree of circumspection. Separating the two merely introduced an element which almost always fuels, rather than dampens, illicit romance.

  Within days of the Venningens’ return to Weinheim, Spiros Theotoky had also arrived in the neighbourhood. Jane flew to him or, rather, rode to him on her horse Mazeppa. She was no longer the raw adolescent setting out in a romantic haze to meet her princely lover in Harley Street. She was a mature woman, fully awakened to the joys of sexual communion.

  For a few weeks they were able to conceal their affair from Charles. Jane habitually rode out each day, and under cover of this routine exercise she was able to meet Spiros. Local legends grew up about the baroness’s ‘reckless rides’ through the forest to meet her Greek lover. Their meetings during the day were insufficient; tales spread of how she slipped out of her house after her husband and children were asleep, saddled her horse and rode through the night to Spiros, returning home as dawn broke.

  Less than a month after his return to Weinheim, however, Charles found out about Jane’s affair. Until then, he wrote to Jane, he had been the happiest man alive, but ‘after December 5th, 1835, all my happiness was destroyed’.1 In a letter to Evaline Hanska, a month later in January 1836, Balzac wrote to say that he had seen the Princess Schönberg (Felix Schwarzenberg’s sister) in Paris:

  I met her in the garden yesterday, and we talked about Vienna … She told me that Lady E[llenborough] has just run off with a Greek, and that Prince Alfred had prevented her going further than Stuttgart. Her husband came, fought the Greek and took his wife home again. What an extraordinary woman!2

  Stuttgart is over a hundred miles south-east of Weinheim, at a major junction on the high road; one fork leads to the south and Zurich, the other to the east and Munich. It seems inconceivable that Jane would have bolted with Spiros, leaving Charles and her children, after an affair that can have lasted a few weeks at the outside; and that in eloping she had the bad luck to run into Prince Alfred Schönberg in Stuttgart. Yet the incident quickly became the talk of court in Vienna, where Jane’s old admirer, Count Apponyi, heard it from his Schwarz-enberg and Schönberg contacts and wrote a more detailed report in his diary.

  Prince Alfred, it seems, having met the lovers, delayed them while sending a warning message to his kinsman the baron. Apponyi writes that Charles overtook the lovers on the road, stopped them and pulled Theotoky from the coach, demanding satisfaction by duel to the death. For Charles it was the only honourable solution, according to the strict aristocratic code he had learned as a student at Heidelberg. He had been educated to believe that a wronged man could seek redress in such a manner, and he had undeniably been wronged.

  Spiros Theotoky was disadvantaged here; no swordsman, and having no formal training in the art of duelling, he was understandably relucta
nt to oblige the baron. Nevertheless, a short time later, with the coachmen standing in as bewildered seconds, husband and lover faced each other along the barrels of Charles’s duelling pistols. Apponyi adds a nice touch to the picture of Jane standing by in anguish, loving both men in different ways and knowing that if one were killed it would be all her fault.

  Spiros nervously fired early and missed. How gallant he would have appeared to history had he deliberately fired wide. Unfortunately it seems he missed because he was a poor shot; Jane would have done far better. Charles fired immediately after and found his mark. Spiros fell to the ground, bleeding profusely from a wound just above his left breast, apparently mortally wounded. Jane was distraught, says Apponyi, and flung herself weeping upon the bloody victim. Charles, though filled with grim satisfaction, was pale with shock. It was not the first time he had offered to fight a duel on Jane’s behalf, but it was the first time anyone had taken up his challenge. It was certainly the first time he had mortally wounded his man.

  To his credit, Spiros, with what he and his companions believed to be his dying breaths, attempted to assuage the wrath that would almost certainly be Jane’s lot after his demise.

  He then declared to the husband that he was innocent, and the victim of the most infamous calumny. He insisted that between him and the Baroness there had never been anything beyond a deep and sincere friendship. Then he clasped the hand of his friend, and with a deep sigh, shut his eyes.3