The Turbulent Duchess E-Book

Baroness Orczy

• Herausgeber: Alien Ebooks
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Seitenzahl: 588

Beschreibung

The Turbulent Duchess is the biography of Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Sicile, Duchesse de Berri (1798-1870).

Das E-Book The Turbulent Duchess wird angeboten von Alien Ebooks und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
biography;royalty;French;duchess;france;french

Leseprobe

THE

TURBULENT DUCHESS

(H.R.H. Madame la Duchesse de Berri)

by

BARONESS ORCZY

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I make no apology for referring to Her Royal Highness the Duchesse de Berri as “Caroline Ferdinande” rather than “Marie-Caroline,” the double name by which she is perhaps better known. As a matter of fact, on her birth certificate there are no fewer than eleven Christian names, of which the first two are Caroline Ferdinande. On her marriage certificate, her names are given as Caroline Ferdinanda Luisa, with no mention of Marie at all, nor does the name Marie occur on the birth certificate of her son the Duc de Bordeaux.

FOREWORD

When our mothers were still in their teens, when women wore crinolines, and chignons and prunella boots, when Queen Victoria sat, a sorrowing widow, on the throne of England, and her son could look forward with assurance to succeeding her one day, when one drove four days in a calèche from York to London, and it took six months to get to Australia, when there was no talk of S.A. and waists were eighteen inches round, there still lingered in the grim old fortress of Brünnsee in Bohemia a decrepit, obese, old lady who had once been Regent of France and had half Europe at her feet. She was Madame Marie Caroline Ferdinande Louise, Princess of Naples, daughter of Kings, niece of one Queen, great-niece of another, great-granddaughter of an Empress; she was the widow of the Duc de Berri, who would have been King of France but for the dagger of the assassin Louvel.

Crippled with rheumatism, so blind that she could no longer read, even with the aid of spectacles, she sat most of the day by the window in a high-backed chair, in a large ill-furnished room, a room full of memories, all of them sad, not one of them glorious; an empty bird-cage, a dog-basket, a spinet with broken cords, a mechanical toy which had once belonged to her son the Duc de Bordeaux, its mechanism now broken, the toy as useless as Madame’s longings and dreams; a model of the ship Carlo Alberto, on which she had set sail one day, in order to reconquer the heart of France. All day she would sit and gaze out of the window with her dimmed eyes fixed on the dreary pine-clad mountains of Bohemia, as Napoleon did once, from the fastnesses of Saint Helena, on the turbulent Atlantic that framed in his place of exile. And as Napoleon used to murmur with sighs of longing: “France! France!” so did Madame murmur: “Sicily! my Sicily!” the land of palms and orange groves, of blue skies and sunbaked earth. Sicily, her home! If only she could have gone back to Sicily.

From the upstairs room over her head there would come at times the merry sound of the pattering of small feet; her grandchildren were up there. Their parents would bring them over from Italy sometimes to cheer granny’s solitude. The children of her children, of Clementine and Isabella and Francesca, and of Adinolphe her Benjamin. They would come now and again, the whole brood of them, raising the echo of the grim château with their laughter, their chatter and their infantile screams: smashing a few more things, leaving after their departure the place just a little more dilapidated, a little more ramshackle than it was before, and their granny a little more sad, a little more solitary, by contrast with their gaiety. They were her Italian family, the children and grandchildren of the only man who had ever loved her truly and faithfully. She hardly ever saw her French children, her son the Comte de Chambord, Duc de Bordeaux, was at Frohsdorf or at Goritz studying the difficult craft of kingship—a craft which he was never destined to exercise. Her daughter was in exile with her family.

And sitting alone in her high-backed chair, watching the twilight slowly creeping over mountain and lake, and the various landmarks fading into the gloom, Madame Caroline would close her weary eyes and, neither sleeping nor waking, see pictures of her past life rise out of the shadows. Memories, some of them glorious, some of them sad, most of them bitter, would crowd ghostlike around her; and she would see her sorrows, her few joys, her many disappointments and final humiliation pass like an ever-changing picture before her mental vision, causing a smile to break at times around her flaccid lips, but more often a tear to roll down her wrinkled cheek.

CONTENTS

BOOK I

THE FAIRY TALE

CHAP.

PAGE

I.

Storms in Naples

15

II.

Cinderella

25

III.

When the Fairy Tale Began

29

IV.

When Joy was Unconfined

37

V.

An Ecstasy of Happiness

43

VI.

Paris is Waiting

51

VII.

The Coming of the Bride

57

VIII.

The Fairy Prince

65

IX.

Those Happy Days in Paris

67

BOOK II

THE DRAMA

X.

Great Expectations

77

XI.

The Tragedy

82

XII.

The Young Widow

102

XIII.

The Idol of the People

108

XIV.

A True Friend

112

XV.

Thunder Afar

119

XVI.

The Miracle Child

126

XVII.

A Woman in a Million

140

XVIII.

The Son of France

146

XIX.

The Royal Little Madcap

152

XX.

Storm Clouds

166

XXI.

Blindman’s-Buff

175

XXII.

Is Everything Lost?

185

XXIII.

Dead Monarchy

191

XXIV.

The Same Thing all over Again

198

XXV.

The Last King of France

206

XXVI.

Abdication

212

BOOK III

TRAGEDY AND COMEDY

XXVII.

The Road to Exile

221

XXVIII.

Louis Philippe, King of the French

228

XXIX.

Plans and Projects

235

XXX.

Visions and Dreams

243

XXXI.

Check

257

XXXII.

To La Vendée

262

XXXIII.

The Call to Arms

268

XXXIV.

Petit-Pierre

277

XXXV.

Inveterate Optimism

284

XXXVI.

A Second Judas

292

XXXVII.

Captivity

305

XXXVIII.

The Fortress of Blaye

315

XXXIX.

A Dangerous Prisoner

324

XL.

An Infamous Conspiracy

332

XLI.

The Tragic Farce

338

XLII.

The Secret Marriage

348

BOOK IV

THE END OF IT ALL

XLIII.

A Poor Little Atom

359

XLIV.

Back to the Land of Sunshine

362

XLV.

The Marriage Certificate

374

XLVI.

Countess de Lucchesi-Palli

384

XLVII.

The Head of the Family

392

XLVIII.

The Downfall of Louis Philippe

404

XLIX.

Carolina Vecchia

411

BOOK I

THE FAIRY TALE

CHAPTER I

STORMS IN NAPLES

On the 5th of November 1798 there raged in the Bay of Naples and all along its coast a devastating cyclone, as well as the most terrifying thunderstorm within the memory of a living generation. And when the cyclone and the thunderstorm were at their height and the old castle walls trembled to their foundations under the lashings of the gale, there was born in the Château of Caserta a baby girl. She was born to the accompaniment of a deafening thunder-clap and a blinding flash of lightning, and as soon as she opened her eyes to the world she set up an unholy yelling, and continued to yell and to scream, so that the official personages commanded by law to be present at every royal birth (so that no kind of substitution or other trickery could occur) very nearly lost their countenance and sense of decorum by whispering as audibly as they dared that the royal infant ought to be well slapped.

The baby girl, however, was not slapped on this occasion. Etiquette forbade such a drastic proceeding, but destiny did the slapping later, much later, and did it very cruelly. As it was, her attitude when she had been less than ten minutes in this turbulent world was both pertinent and prophetic. The whole world in that year 1798 was in as great an upheaval as the Bay of Naples, political cyclones continued to rage all over Europe for many years afterwards whilst Caroline Ferdinande Louise raised her determined if feeble voice to assert her rights and to drown the thunder-claps of revolution and of war.

For the moment she was only a small bundle of humanity whom Monseigneur the Bishop held up in his hands and presented to the official personages, declaring solemnly that this puny little body was a child of the female sex, truly born on this 5th day of November to His Gracious Highness Janvier Joseph François, Prince of Naples and the Two Sicilies, and to his gracious Consort. After which solemn declaration the official personages, the Ministers of State, Municipal Councillors and other big-wigs were relieved of their unpleasant task, and made haste to return to their homes. They had been hauled out of their beds at five o’clock in the morning and had tumbled into their breeches with all possible haste. Some had come from Caserta Vecchia, a matter of three or four kilometres, and had scrambled into their chaises in the midst of drenching rain, clinging to their hats and squelching in the mud. The wildest of nights, and a wild, yelling infant: they all shook their heads, and vowed that it was all of the worst possible augury.

No one had thought of letting His Most Gracious Majesty the King know that a granddaughter had been born to him. He wouldn’t have cared one way or another about that, but he would have greatly cared if anyone had come to disturb him when he had just succeeded in shutting out the noise of the thunder from his ears, by stuffing cotton-wool into them, and burying his head under the blankets so that he should see nothing of those terrifying flashes of lightning. Anyway, the birth of a royal princess was Madame the Queen’s affair. She was the virtual ruler of this turbulent kingdom of Naples, she wore the breeches: he was nothing but a nonentity, and as she bore the brunt of rebellions which were constantly breaking out among the crowd of rogues and of thieves over whom an unkind destiny had set him to rule, so let her bear the brunt of providing for the future of her granddaughter—if she could. As for their gracious Highnesses the father and mother of this very unwelcome princess, they didn’t count at all, anyway. Nor did parents and grandparents worry further over the subsequent fate of the baby girl, born at Caserta on that tempestuous night. She was tossed hither and thither like a useless bale of goods, while they all looked after their personal safety. A few months after her birth the population of the Kingdom of Naples, long since tired of their supine, shiftless King and his domineering wife, broke into open rebellion. It was not the first time by any means, but on this occasion rebellion turned into red revolution and the people succeeded in sending their inglorious monarchs about their business; and there they remained until such time as it suited European politicians to re-establish them on their throne. But the transition period was as unsafe for their family as it was for them. His Gracious Highness Janvier Joseph François sought refuge on board a British warship, whilst his gracious consort, after presenting her lord with another daughter and a son, sought permanent refuge in death.

But in the meanwhile Caroline Ferdinande when only three months old was sent comfortably out of the way to Bocca di Falco in Sicily, where she acquired a love for its palms and orange trees, for its blue skies and sunbaked earth, a love which she never dissembled and which endured throughout her life. Sicily! Her Sicily!

Almost as soon as she could toddle she was the terror and despair of the unfortunate governesses who were set to look after her physical and mental development. She had made her presence in the world felt when she was less than an hour old, by yelling and screaming and upsetting the equanimity of grave and reverend seigniors, and she continued to make her presence felt just as insistently in the orange groves of Bocca di Falco if her dominant will was in any way thwarted. She had inherited her father’s fair skin, his blue eyes and curly hair; she had her mother’s delicate hands and feet and diminutive stature, but neither her meekness nor her indolence. Her courage and domineering disposition came from her grandmother together with the obstinate Hapsburg lip. The ladies of the Court whom she had maltreated, and the Ministers of State whom she had ridiculed, declared that Caroline Ferdinande was an ugly little thing with a decided squint; but the young Count de Lucchesi-Palli at eight years old fought a duel with a boy four years older than himself in order to establish the fact that all she had was a fascinating cast. He received a rather serious flesh wound on that occasion, but soon forgot all pain because from that hour Caroline Ferdinande, who admired physical courage more than any other quality in the world, enrolled him as her playmate, the only companion she ever permitted to join in those wild escapades of hers, when the Comtesse de La Tour trembled for the life and limbs of her royal charge. He was as reckless, as fearless as she was, punishments held no terror for him, he gloried in them if they came as a result of his participation in one of Caroline Ferdinande’s mad pranks. And she gloried in his allegiance. Being already inordinately vain, she loved to see him fight any and every boy who had in any way offended her self-love. With screams of delight and clapping of her tiny hands she would egg him on to prowess, while he pummelled an offender who might be twice his size. But when with bleeding nose and a bunged eye he came to her to claim his reward in the shape of a kiss, she would either grant it with a glance that turned his young head, or, more often than not, she would slap his face and run away laughing at his discomfiture. It all depended on her mood.

Once only did the worm turn, but it was with disastrous consequences.

The two children were playing in the garden close to the pond which was known to be quite deep in places. Ducks and swans swam on it and there were a lot of big fish in the water. The children had been forbidden to climb on the low balustrade that framed the pond. Forbidden? No one had the power of forbidding Caroline Ferdinande to do anything on which she had set her mind. And at the moment she was perched rather precariously on the forbidden territory of the balustrade, and from this point of vantage she was taunting young Hector de Lucchesi-Palli and making snooks at him.

“I dare you to jump in,” she cried in her piping voice; “I dare you! I dare you!” And then went on: “You dare not! you dare not! Coward! You are afraid! You know they will whip you if you do!”

Now young Hector was an expert swimmer, nor was he the least bit afraid of a whipping, but he was accustomed to obedience, and so put up with the wilful little lady’s taunts, and kept his temper under control, until the moment when, in her excitement, she seemed in danger herself of falling in the pond. The poor boy never knew afterwards how it all happened: he supposed that he got exasperated in the end, and didn’t quite realize what he was doing. What he did do was to try and seize those tiny hands that were making rude gestures at him: he only wanted to steady her on her feet, instead of which he caused Her Royal Highness to lose her balance and to topple backwards into the water. Poor Madame de La Tour, who had snatched a few moments of quietude with her embroidery in an arbour close by, heard a scream and a splash. Before she could arrive on the scene of the disaster, however, there was a second splash. Young Hector had taken a header, and, very skilfully, was already bringing the gasping little lady back to dry land. Madame de La Tour called loudly for help. Lacqueys and ladies-in-waiting came running along. The two children, dripping and disconcerted, stood for the space of half a minute, side by side, wide-eyed and motionless, and then, suddenly and without any warning, Caroline Ferdinande, Princess of Naples, administered to her rescuer such a vigorous kick in that region of his body which is designed by nature for the purpose, that he lost his balance and the young Comte de Lucchesi-Palli, son and heir of the Duke della Grazzia, measured his length upon the ground. After which act of unparalleled injustice Caroline Ferdinande allowed herself to be led away.

For days and weeks after that, she would not speak to Hector; she would not tolerate him inside the palace or the gardens: she set up a scream if his name was mentioned. The servants had strict orders that M. le Comte de Lucchesi-Palli was never to be admitted if he called.

“If he comes near me,” she declared, “I will set Léon on him”—Léon being a mongrel with decidedly savage instincts. She was quite convinced that the boy had deliberately pushed her into the pond, his jumping in after her being merely caused by the fear of punishment.

She tried other playmates, the young Marquis Malavieri, Duke de Giulio di San Martino, even her sister and little brother whom she hated; but not one of them would stand Caroline’s tantrums for long, and after feeling the weight of her small hand on their faces, and the lash of her sharp tongue, refused to play with her any more. Feeling a little depressed in this new isolation, the little Princess took up music with her usual erratic ardour. Music masters were provided for her. Scales, arpeggios, piano, violin, guitar, she practised them all feverishly for a time, then abandoned them with equal unreasoning caprice. She then demanded a drawing master. Palette, brushes, canvases were purchased and used with frantic energy, only to be soon cast aside. Learn anything useful she would not. To her dying day she never knew how to spell, and her speech was just a mixture of bad French and Neapolitan patois. She was the despair of the learned tutors who were set to teach her calligraphy and the elements of arithmetic. In the matter of religion she was little better than a pagan. Indeed, since her quarrel with Hector de Lucchesi-Palli she had been more difficult than ever before. The worthy Abbé Olivieri, her religious instructor, did his best to effect a reconciliation between the young people: “Her Royal Highness has long since repented of her injustice,” he would say to young Hector; “she bears you no ill will. Go and ask her forgiveness for the offence you may unwittingly have given her.”

But Hector too knew how to be proud when occasion arose.

“I have given no offence,” he said firmly, “I cannot ask pardon for what I did not do. She may hate me now, but if I humbled myself having done no wrong, she would despise me, and that would be worse.”

With a sigh of perplexity the good Abbé tried other tactics:

“Don Hector never did cause your Highness to fall into the water,” he explained to Caroline.

“How do you know?” she retorted; “you weren’t there. You were busy chasing the kitchen wench down the corridor.”

In the end it was chance that brought the playmates together again. It was during the unfortunate period when Joseph Bonaparte, and after him Murat, reigned in Naples, and King Ferdinand with his domineering Queen had been relegated to their kingdom of Sicily. The Court was at Palermo, and there too just as in Naples mild insurrections broke out from time to time among the populace. When the turmoil grew high, Their Majesties remained closely guarded inside their palace; but somehow or other on one occasion Caroline Ferdinande managed to give the guard the slip. Unnoticed she made her way out into the street. She was used to insurrections from early childhood, but she had never seen one at close quarters. While her governesses and ladies-in-waiting were huddled up together like so many frightened hens in that part of the palace which seemed most safe, the child—she was only twelve—slipped out of her room, down the grand staircase and out in the open before those responsible for her safety were aware of her escapade.

The great Piazza in front of the Palazzo Reale was full of animation: people running for the shelter of their homes, cavalry thundering past in the direction whence came the sound of the clash of arms, one or two pistol-shots and any amount of shouting. Caroline Ferdinande, in her little dark frock, a small atom in the midst of all this turmoil, was not recognized. She turned away very quickly from the approach of the palace and found shelter in an open doorway lower down the Piazza. Immediately opposite was the house which served as the quarters of the officers of the guard, and Caroline, gazing curiously about her, and delighted at having given all those tiresome attendants of hers the slip, saw two things that immediately engrossed her attention. She saw the captain of the guard leaning out of a window of the house opposite, shouting orders to a sergeant and men down below. He was in a flowered dressing-gown and his hair was unkempt: apparently he had no intention of risking his valuable life or wasting precious time in heading the charge against a riotous mob. Caroline immediately put him down as a coward, and, regardless of her own precarious position, started at once to run across the Piazza with the express purpose of telling that fainthearted captain of the guard just what she thought of him. And in her haste she collided with someone who was running in the opposite direction.

It was young Hector de Lucchesi-Palli. How he came to be there she never thought to ask. As a matter of fact, he had been out walking with his tutor when first the shouting and firing in the street had begun, and together they were hurrying home to the Della Grazzia Palace situated at the other end of the town. But Caroline asked no questions. Here was just the one person in the world who would know how to back her up in any prank she might devise for the punishment of that cowardly captain. Forgotten was her quarrel with Hector, his supposed offence and her unjust retaliation. She seized him by the hand, and dragging him after her, she shouted excitedly:

“Come and help me throw that poltroon over there out of the window! He makes me sick.”

Fortunately for everyone concerned, for Caroline, for Hector and for the captain of the guard, lacqueys, maids and ladies-in-waiting came running out of the palace headed by the Court Chamberlain and the Master of her household: they arrived on the scene just in time to prevent one of the worst scandals that had ever set Palermo talking. Incidentally that particular scandal would have turned the people’s contempt for the King into admiration for his plucky granddaughter: the army was anything but popular, and the discomfiture of one of the officers at the hands of a child would have turned rebellion against the monarchy into loyalty for its youngest scion.

As it was, that royal scion was carried, screaming, protesting and kicking, back to her palace, whilst the young Count de Lucchesi-Palli followed in her train with glowing eyes and head erect, confident that the quarrel which had nearly broken his heart was now happily at an end.

CHAPTER II

CINDERELLA

Caroline Ferdinande sat at her piano and sang:

Il était une fois une petite Cendrillon

Toute digne de pitié!

And she sang to the end of its fourteen verses that doleful song which relates all the human miseries which a legendary little Cinderella was made very unjustly to endure.

She was now nearly seventeen and it became more and more manifest every day that she was not wanted, and that she would remain to the end of her days on the matrimonial shelf. Her education had been shamefully mismanaged: she was wilful, ambitious and was for ever chafing against her fate, which she believed could never be anything but dreary and inglorious. What prospects had she of being anything else but an old maid, at best the Mother Superior of an impoverished convent? She had no money, no estates, no influence. King Ferdinand, her grandfather, had sold or bartered every bit of land he could lay his hands on; the name which he had transmitted to his family was a byword in Europe, despised, derided and now even execrated. Oh, she, Caroline Ferdinande, Princess of Naples, was indeed a poor little Cinderella worthy only of pity! She was extremely sorry for herself: nothing consoled her, neither music nor painting, nor the orange groves which she loved. Hector de Lucchesi-Palli tried to comfort her whenever she gave him the chance, but these chances came at very rare intervals now, and the conviction of her dreary future became stronger and more insistent in her girlish mind.

Hector did his best to amuse her by provoking fights often with young men much older than himself and he brought as much zest into these fights as if his life depended on victory. An English sailor taught him boxing; and he threw himself with ardour into training for the noble art. As soon as he felt that he was fairly proficient in it, he arranged bouts with some of the young officers on board the English men-of-war that were at anchor in the Bay of Naples. At first, Caroline Ferdinande was interested; she even screamed and clapped her hands at tense moments during the fight, as she had done in the past. But the novelty soon wore off. She was a doleful little Cinderella whom nobody wanted.

“I can’t even marry Hector,” she said to herself: “they wouldn’t let me.”

“They” being her grandparents. Her mother was dead, her father had married again, a Spanish princess, who presented him with a new family, a round dozen of them in the end. Caroline Ferdinande disliked her stepmother intensely, and she simply wouldn’t look at her baby stepbrothers and sisters as these were presented to her in rotation when they made their appearance into the world. Her pride, her wilfulness and decidedly sharp temper cut her off from companionship with children of her own age. Nor did she court that companionship. She felt that she was unloved and unwanted and was too proud to bestow affection where none was asked for.

For Hector de Lucchesi-Palli alone she harboured a kind of cool friendship, not unmixed with gentle contempt because of what she put down as meekness of spirit. He alone put up with all her tantrums, and though his own temper could be sharp enough on occasions, he never lost it even when she was most provoking. But what was the good of letting oneself care about him in any way but comradeship. “They” would never allow her to marry him, even if his father and elder brother happened to die and he came into the fine old title of Duke della Grazzia. Nor did he ever make love to her. She didn’t think that he really cared for her in that way. So when she sang, “Il était une fois une petite Cendrillon . . .” and Hector stood behind her and tried to say something pleasant and comforting, she just swung round on the piano-stool and slapped his face—not hard enough to hurt him, but just to show him that she was not taken in by his sentimental talk.

“And,” she went on tartly, “I don’t know why you waste your time listening to my bad singing when Donna Anna has a voice like a nightingale and will sing to you most melodiously and entirely out of tune.”

Donna Anna was the only child of the Marquis di Mauro-Ganari, the richest nobleman in Sicily, and it was common talk in Palermo that she was in love with the young Count de Lucchesi-Palli, and that both families would look with favour on an alliance between them.

Wasn’t it enough to provoke a saint—and Caroline Ferdinande was no saint—to see the meek way in which Hector made no reply to her taunt and did not even take the trouble to declare that her singing was in every way superior to Donna Anna’s birdlike strains? Donna Anna was one of those women whom Caroline Ferdinande disliked even more than she did her own family; not because she sang out of tune, but because she put on such superior airs, the airs of a rich young girl, round whom the masculine flower of Sicilian aristocracy gathered, as flies do around a honey-pot. When she was present at any ball or Court function, no other girl had a chance of filling her dance programme until Donna Anna’s was full, and all the attentions that Princess Caroline herself got from those young jackanapes were those which she commanded by virtue of her royal rank.

The only satisfaction that Caroline Ferdinande got out of Donna Anna’s presence at such functions was that even the beautiful heiress of the Mauro-Ganari millions was obliged to kiss her hand.

CHAPTER III

WHEN THE FAIRY TALE BEGAN

The fairy tale began with the greatest political upheaval Europe had ever known. It began with the victory of the Allies at Waterloo over Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, and his perpetual exile in Saint Helena. He had established the members of his own family on various thrones in Europe, among them his sister Caroline Bonaparte, married to one of his marshals, Joachim Murat, whom he set upon the throne of Naples.

But after Waterloo everything was changed. Louis XVIII was restored to the Throne of France and the various Bonapartes were swept off their mushroom thrones. Murat tried to keep his but was defeated by the allied French and Neapolitan armies, taken prisoner and shot: after which King Ferdinand, now a widower, retook possession of his throne. He entered Naples amidst popular acclamations: his domineering Austrian wife being dead the people hoped that he would inaugurate an era of liberalism and political liberty, as well as the constitution which he had long since promised that he would give them.

It was only the poor little Cinderella, Caroline Ferdinande, Princess of Naples, who did not join issue with the general rejoicings. She did not feel that in this new state of things her value in the matrimonial market had been in any way enhanced. Indeed her personal outlook for the future had never been quite so dreary. She had now a step-grandmother as well as a stepmother neither of whom cared much what she did or where she did it: and while her sister Christine was growing up a regular beauty she, the eldest-born, was voted to be ugly, ill mannered and disfigured by a decided squint. Hector de Lucchesi-Palli was in Palermo with his family and—Caroline had no doubt of that—was courting the accomplished and beautiful daughter of the millionaire Marquis di Mauro-Ganari. All of which tended to keep the poor little Cinderella down in the doldrums.

Indeed she became so doleful about this time that even her supine father felt that something ought to be done about it. At worst there were convents who would gladly welcome a royal princess as their Mother Superior. But frankly Caroline Ferdinande had not in her temperament the makings of a nun: and if thrust against her will into a religious community, she might provoke a scandal. One never knew with her. In the end, the King himself was persuaded to take a mild interest in the future of his granddaughter and, in the intervals of misgoverning his kingdom, to look about him and see if there was not a bit of land left somewhere that could be offered as a bribe to some impecunious princeling to induce him to take Caroline Ferdinande, Princess of Naples, for wife. But unfortunately King Ferdinand had got rid of every estate he ever possessed, and had plundered his subjects to such an extent that there was little if anything left on which he could lay his hands. And there was the younger sister getting on to marriageable age. She was pretty and quite likely to attract one of the members of the Spanish royal family, boys who were anyway too young for Caroline Ferdinande, and it would be against all etiquette and Court usage for a younger sister to marry while the elder one was still on the shelf.

The matter did really seem absolutely hopeless until, suddenly, fairy godmother took the matter in hand and waved her magic wand. Over in Paris the obese and gouty King Louis XVIII was in as great a state of perplexity as Cousin Ferdinand was in Naples. In his case, however, the thorn in his flesh was not a granddaughter, but a nephew. This was Charles Ferdinand, Duc de Berri, younger son of His Majesty’s brother the Comte d’Artois, and presumably, as his elder brother had no children, future King of France: a very naughty and dissipated young man, whose amorous adventures, especially those in connection with an English lady named Aimée Brown, were causing an unpleasant amount of scandal round the newly restored throne, and, what in a way was more galling, Charles Ferdinand’s shocking reputation was spreading far beyond the borders of France. Both his uncle and his father were very much afraid that not one of the European monarchs who happened to have a daughter of marriageable age would ever consent to ally her with so notorious a scapegrace, and it was imperative that the Duc de Berri should wed a royal princess who would in due time provide France with an heir to her crown.

And that is where the fairy tale had its beginning, for suddenly the King of France bethought himself of his cousin Ferdinand over in Naples and of the latter’s granddaughter Caroline, who was close on seventeen years of age. True, she was said to be ugly, but no girl is ever really ugly at seventeen. True, she had not much of a dowry and had been, so rumour had it, very badly brought up; but Charles Ferdinand Duc de Berri could not afford to be particular, and the present situation, in which Madam Brown loomed largely, had to be ended at any cost.

Towards the end of October there arrived in Naples a pompous middle-aged gentleman, the Duc de Blacas, special envoy to His Most Christian Majesty the King of France. The Neapolitan ladies made great fun of him and declared that if that figure of fun represented French aristocracy and French culture, then give them handsome Italians all the time. Caroline Ferdinande was openly rude to him, when first he kissed her hand. It was a gala evening at the palace with orchestral music from the opera and the cream of the Italian prime donne and tenors to enliven the occasion. In spite of this, everyone was frankly bored, and young and old wondered why the King and Queen were so extraordinarily gracious to the pompous middle-aged gentleman from France. He was shaped like a huge pear, with small head, narrow shoulders and thick bowed thighs.

“He must look funny in his bath,” Caroline declared, and at the back of her programme she sketched a caricature of the French envoy taking his morning ablutions, a spirited drawing which sent all the frivolous young people into a guffaw.

But a very few days later the Court sang a different tune. It transpired that the mission of the Duc de Blacas was none other than to ask on behalf of His Royal Highness the Duc de Berri, nephew of the King of France, the hand of Donna Caroline Ferdinande Louise of Naples in marriage. At this astounding news there was a regular flutter in the Neapolitan dovecotes: the chatter, the gossip, the backbiting that went on were the loudest on record. The backbiting chiefly, because Caroline was not really popular: her tongue was too sharp and her likes and dislikes too pronounced to attract many friends. But, as her virtue had never been assailed by the least breath of scandal, gossip-mongers turned their attention to the future bridegroom. The Duc de Berri, so they declared, was the worst profligate in Europe; he was fat and bloated and ugly. Some of the ladies went even so far as to say that not even the prospect of being Queen of France one day would induce them to wed such a repulsive personage. But that of course was sheer envy and nonsense, for one and all of these high-born Neapolitans would have given their eyes for the chance of sharing the greatest throne in Europe, even with a monkey.

The only one in Naples who kept calm and dignified through this social turmoil was Caroline herself.

“I knew I was going to be a Queen one day,” she said with astonishing coolness: “I hadn’t thought of France actually, but the crown of Marie-Antoinette will be quite becoming.”

She said this in the intimacy of the family circle who had gathered round her at the first rumour of the astounding news. Her grandfather the King presided at this gathering, her step-grandmother was there, and so were her father and stepmother who had come up post-haste from Sicily, and her sister and brother and some three or four half-brothers and sisters who had recently made their appearance in the world. They all clapped their hands, ejaculated “Dio mio!” in various degrees of emotion and kissed the reluctant Caroline on both cheeks to testify their joy at her great good fortune.

“I don’t know why you are all so excited,” Caroline went on with astounding aplomb: “haven’t I often told you that I would be Queen one day. I remember,” she concluded dryly, “that most of you laughed rather rudely when I said it.”

Of course, not one of them remembered ever having been told anything of the sort, but no matter. For one thing the future Queen of France could no longer be contradicted. She might say anything she chose. In the turn of a hand Caroline Ferdinande, the little Cinderella, had become the most popular personality in the Kingdom. The ladies and gentlemen of the Court crowded round her now, almost sycophantic in their attentions. She was surrounded, adulated, flattered: how exquisitely Madame la Princesse sang, no prima donna could equal her! How perfectly she danced! Even Donna Anna would have seen her dance programme empty, while the handsomest cavaliers, forgetful of heiresses and their millions, hung round the adorable princess. Pity Donna Anna happened to be in Sicily just now! It was the one fly in the ointment.

The King, beside himself with joy at this alliance which would consolidate his position in Europe, made over to his granddaughter her mother’s estates, which he had carefully withheld from her all these years for her own good. He also assigned to her the sum of a hundred and twenty thousand gold ducats, payable to her out of the public funds within the next eighteen months. And finally he placed a further sum of five hundred thousand ducats at her disposal for the purchase of jewels and a trousseau suited to the exigencies of the future Queen of France, and step-mama journeyed in person to Rome to purchase the laces and furs. The people of Naples clubbed together to present her with a tiara worth her grandfather’s ransom; the Sicilians offered her an ermine cloak made up of a thousand skins whiter than snow. Gifts of jewellery poured in upon her, some of the most valuable coming from her prospective in-laws over in Paris. King Louis XVIII, not to be outdone in lavishness, assured her an income of a hundred thousand gold francs, to be continued in full in case of widowhood.

And Caroline accepted every gift with such charm and graciousness that presently all Naples came to the conclusion that she was pretty. Not beautiful, but pretty and extremely fascinating. That cast in her eye, for instance—who had ever dared to call it a squint?—was the most alluring trait ever seen in a woman’s face. And the charm of her smile sent every man off his head. She was always smiling now. Her whole nature expanded under their adulation as a flower opens out under the sun’s kiss. She spent most of her time poring over fashion books, choosing dresses, bonnets, coiffures.

“They shall and will think me the most beautiful Queen France has ever seen,” she declared.

She held long consultations with Virginie, the renowned French milliner recently settled in Naples, who worked for all the aristocracy, but whose prices hitherto had been too high for royal purses.

“Whatever Madame la Princesse chooses to wear,” the obsequious Virginie said with an unctuous smile, “will become her. With Madame’s colouring, her blue eyes and lovely curly hair, she can wear any style and any colour.”

And Caroline lapped up all this incense as a cat laps up cream. She had longed for it all her life and always been deprived of it. She had been so near despair that she had even ceased to dream. But she was no longer the doleful Cinderella now: she was the fiancée of the most eligible prince in Europe.

She was married by procuration in the Cathedral of Naples on a lovely day in April. The Cardinal Archbishop performed the ceremony. The Count of Syracuse represented the bridegroom. Caroline, in a dress of silver brocade, with the tiara which had cost a fortune crowning her fair curly head, walked up the great aisle of the majestic building as if she were treading on air. She was conscious of the murmurs of admiration that accompanied her progress up to the chancel steps, where the elderly representative of her young fiancé awaited her. Close beside him, foremost among the young aristocrats privileged to sit inside the chancel, was Hector de Lucchesi-Palli. She was looking for him and caught his eye just before she knelt down on the velvet-covered prie-Dieu. Her face was irradiated with happiness: her eyes shone with joy, her mouth looked as if it could never cease to smile: and she cast a look of true affection on the playmate of her childhood’s days, the sharer of her girlish pranks and of her joyless days: here he was, she thought, a witness of her triumph and her happiness. But at that very moment the cathedral bells burst into a terrific peal, the organ filled the air with its thundering chord, there was a general hubbub, a frou-frou of silk dresses, the acolytes swung their censers, sending clouds of incense into the air. Caroline lost sight of everything and of everybody. She closed her eyes, feeling faint with the intensity of her emotion.

When she opened them again, Hector was down on his knees, his forehead resting on his hands, wrapped in earnest prayer; nor did Caroline catch his eye again throughout the religious service. That disappointed her a little. But the real fly in the ointment of this happy day was the fact that Anna di Mauro-Ganari was not there to witness it all.

CHAPTER IV

WHEN JOY WAS UNCONFINED

It was on the day of the marriage by procuration that Caroline Ferdinande wrote her first letter to her royal fiancé. It was a difficult task. She had never been very studious in the days when the worthy Abbé Olivieri tried to inculcate the first principles of arithmetic and grammar into her obstinate little head, and study of the French language had never appealed to her. But a letter to her husband—he was that now if only by procuration—was an important duty that could not possibly be shirked, and what’s more, the letter must be written in French. How was it going to be done with the writer’s very limited acquaintance with that elegant language? With outside help of course. But whose?

Caroline did not want to ask Madame de La Tour, who knew too much about the unruly Cinderella of old to take her expressions of love for an unknown husband seriously: and Caroline Ferdinande did not care to let any of her ladies into the secrets of her heart. There was of course the ever kind and ever loyal Hector de Lucchesi-Palli. He had been very well educated, far better than most scions of the Italian aristocracy, and spoke French, if not like a native, at any rate quite fluently. For a long time Caroline hesitated. For some reason or another she didn’t want to ask Hector either, but in the end, as there really was no one else, she confided her wishes to him, and it was the Count de Lucchesi-Palli who indited the first love epistle which the Duchesse de Berri wrote to her royal lord. Allowance must be made, on becoming acquainted with the contents of this first letter, for the exuberant Latin temperament, and for the impetuosity of a young girl on the threshold of a new and brilliant life, so different from anything she had experienced before. Some of the phrases are perhaps fulsome, but there is no doubt that what Caroline Ferdinande wrote—or rather what Hector de Lucchesi-Palli helped her to write—was the genuine expression of her feelings.

Monseigneur [she said in her letter], it is before the altar that I have made a solemn vow to be your faithful and loving wife. This title, so dear to me, carries with it certain duties which I take a pride in fulfilling from this very hour, by giving you an assurance of my sentiments towards you, which will endure throughout my life . . .

And so on, in four closely-written pages. Caroline’s first epistolary effort had its reward a fortnight later in a reply from the Duke, her husband, a reply in which he expressed sentiments every bit as ardent and as lofty as her own. His letter covers six closely-written pages. By the time it arrived in Naples, the bride was ready to start for France, there to commence her new life. The French Ambassador sent a special despatch on the 14th of May to Paris to the Duc de Richelieu, Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Her Royal Highness the Duchesse de Berri [he said] was in excellent health and spirits when she embarked this morning on board the Neapolitan frigate La Sirena. The weather in the morning was perfect. La Sirena set sail for Marseilles accompanied by Le Ferdinand, a ship of the line, and by the brig La Fama. Her Royal Highness should have started on the 11th, but a fierce gale, which raged for three days all down the coast, compelled her to delay her departure until to-day. The French schooner Momus is escorting the squadron and will probably precede its arrival in Marseilles by a few hours.

Caroline Ferdinande did not altogether look forward to the sea journey which would last at least five days. She was a very poor sailor and suffered considerably from seasickness. But she was far too plucky to show signs of any disquiet before the large concourse of people of every station of life who came to see her off. The King, her father, accompanied her as well as her uncle the Prince of Salerno, the representatives of the King of France, the foreign ambassadors and a number of ladies and gentlemen of the Court, some of whom were going with her as far as Marseilles, and some as far as Paris, whilst half the population of Naples seemed to have congregated on the quay. As soon as the royal party stepped on board La Sirena, the crew set up rousing cheers of “Vive le roi!” and “Vive Madame la Duchesse de Berri!” whereupon Le Ferdinand discharged a volley of eighteen guns and the Momus followed suit with twenty-one. All this pleased Caroline Ferdinande immensely. There was nothing in the world she liked better than salvos of artillery and plenty of cheering, with herself the centre of popular enthusiasm.

Towards midday the King and the Prince of Salerno bade her good-bye, as did the representatives of France and the foreign ambassadors, and there remained in her entourage the Prince of San Nicandro, the Count de Lucchesi-Palli, and the Count and Countess de La Tour with their daughter. These gentlemen and ladies would remain with Her Royal Highness in any case until after her marriage.

La Sirena then set sail, and Caroline Ferdinande, waving a diminutive handkerchief and trying in vain to swallow the tears that came to her eyes, bade farewell to her native land.

The journey to Marseilles took seven days, for La Sirena encountered heavy seas in the neighbourhood of the island of Elba. Caroline Ferdinande, despite her determination and her courage, was very seasick most of the time. However, on the fifth day the wind dropped, the sun came out and the end of the voyage was everything that anyone could wish. On the sixth day Marseilles was in sight. And then a serious contretemps occurred: the French health authorities went out to meet La Sirena and informed her commander that owing to the recent serious outbreak of cholera in Naples, the ship must remain in quarantine for ten days.

And it was to the accompaniment of a salvo of a hundred guns from the fort that the frigate cast anchor outside the line prescribed by the law. Although the port was by then a dense mass of vessels of every shape and size, no one was allowed to approach La Sirena. A few enthusiasts caught sight of Her Royal Highness as she stepped down into the boat and was rowed ashore to the lazaret, where she and her suite were to spend the next ten days. Everything there had of course been done for the comfort of Madame la Duchesse and her suite, and Caroline Ferdinande, with her usual good humour, tried to make the best of the trying situation, more especially as the port authorities did what they could to keep her entertained. From the distance and with a pair of strong binoculars she could see the city and the curve of the quay where crowds of people moved about from morning to evening, hoping to get a glimpse of the young bride-elect. She could see the town all festooned with flowers and brilliantly illuminated at night with coloured lights.

The commandant of the port, Admiral Missiessy, placed a handsome boat at her disposal, and in her Caroline Ferdinande was rowed as near to the port as the authorities would allow. The Officers of Public Health always accompanied the boat in one of their own, so as to make sure that no other embarkation came nearer than was permitted by official regulations. But Caroline Ferdinande would stand up in the stern of the boat, and wave her little hands to all those who were lucky enough to catch sight of her. Once they came quite close to the quay of the Cannebière and a crowd of people saw her and cheered her to the echoes. She certainly looked ravishing in a dress of rose-coloured taffeta with sleeves and trimmings of tulle; she had a dainty shawl of striped cashmere round her shoulders and a big hat of white leghorn with a garland of lilies round the crown. She blew kisses to the crowd that cheered her. Tears of emotion were running down her cheeks: “I am not usually a cry-baby,” she said to one of her entourage, “but I feel that to-night I must let myself go.”

It was during her stay in the lazaret of Marseilles that Caroline Ferdinande wrote some of those letters full of naïve expressions of ardour which have done more to reveal her true character than all the dry comments to be found in the Moniteur and the Journal des Débats. True, those letters appear fulsome to the modern mind, but all the same they have the ring of truth in them, and one sees this young warm-blooded Southerner simply bursting with joy at her sudden change of fortune and with longing to express her gratitude to the unknown husband who had brought about this wonderful change.

“I am very grateful, I assure you,” she wrote to him, “and I long to give expression to my gratitude: but it is difficult for me to get over my timidity.”

She also begged him to be her teacher, and to instruct her in the ways she must follow in order to please the King of France, his uncle.

And certainly the Duc de Berri was only too ready to respond to his young bride’s ardour, by expressions of tenderness and admiration. Frequently in his letters he called her his dearly loved friend, his sweet and adorable wife. “Whilst waiting for that blessed day in June,” he concluded, “which still appears so sadly distant, I can but reiterate that I love you and will do all that I possibly can to make you happy.”

And so the ten days flew by in an atmosphere of happy expectancy. The 30th of May came at last and Caroline Ferdinande, Princess of Naples, Duchesse de Berri, made her triumphant entry into Marseilles.

CHAPTER V

AN ECSTASY OF HAPPINESS

Long before dawn a stream of people converged towards the port. Women carrying flowers, bunches of roses, branches of lilac and syringa, girls carrying baskets with provisions for the day, men carrying their youngest-born on their shoulders, leading older ones by the hand, the whole crowd moving in the direction of the port where as soon as the tiniest streak of sunlight appeared above the horizon line a salvo of artillery ushered in the wonderful day. May 30th, 1816. The glorious day on which the future Queen of France would set her foot on French soil. That was why Marseilles was in a holiday mood. That was why the streets were beflagged and the port was a forest of masts fluttering their multicoloured pennants in the summer breeze. Now the bells of all the churches began to ring their peals, drowning the very thunder of the artillery with their united clangour, with the boom-boom of Notre Dame de la Garde and the ting-ting of the many convent chapels. Then the cathedral carillon started its merry tune, sending gamuts of sound soaring into the morning: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do; she is coming! she is coming! Coming from the land of sunshine and of song: the young princess is coming to wed our future King: do, re, mi, fa: do, re, mi, fa. She is seventeen: young as the dawn, fresh as a rosebud: she will put new life into this effete monarchy: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do.

By seven o’clock the quays are alive with a restless seething crowd of excited humanity. Already the sun is grilling: red faces, brown faces, old and young are streaming with perspiration: white teeth gleam through moist red lips: the medley of colour is so dazzling that it almost hurts: shawls, kerchiefs, shirts, red, blue, orange, green, every conceivable hue, all trenchant against the azure sky: men, women and children are perched in their hundreds on the roofs, hundreds more are crowding in the windows that overlook the quay: boys have swarmed up the drain-pipes or hung in precarious positions on cornices and balconies: a perch on a garden seat is paid for in silver coin. Vendors of souvenirs push their way through the crowd and do a roaring trade with beads from Sicily or coral necklets from Naples. Street singers in Neapolitan array, twanging guitars, sing sentimental songs about beautiful fairy princesses and lovesick swains. Everything is alive, palpitates with excitement, thrills with the joy of expectancy. Everything hums with life, like a swarm of bees: the soft patois of Provence mingles with the buzzing tones of Marseilles, and together merge in laughter, real, jolly, lighthearted laughter; laughter all the time.

Marseilles this day is in a holiday mood.

In the harbour the French warships rocked and swayed with gentle, rhythmic motion on the placid waters. There was the Renommée, the Saint-François, the Marie-Christine and several others all built by order of the great Emperor for the express purpose of wresting the kingdom of the seas from the English enemy. The white flag embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis has replaced the tricolour: it flutters gently, peaceably in the breeze, with no hint of conquest, save the conquest of the heart of a fairy princess, who is about to set foot on the soil of France. Their crews are at attention: the officers tightly buttoned in brand-new uniforms: they are waiting for the first boom of the guns that will announce the arrival of their future Queen.

And that first boom when it came sent the huge crowd on the quay into the wildest excitement: it moved and swayed like a gigantic wave rolling towards the port. Children screamed and women fainted. Everybody wanted to see: necks were craned, elbows got to work to forge a passage through the throng. “Here she comes!” A gaily-decorated gig had just come in sight: manned by twelve oarsmen dressed in white satin, she made quick way through the lines of the French battleships. Guns were booming to right and left, bells pealing, carillon ringing. “Here she comes!” rose as an immense uproar from thousands of eager throats.

And here she really was, the fairy princess come out of the land of love and laughter. All in bridal white with feathers and a diadem over her curly hair, weighted with diamonds, smiling, waving her small hands, blowing kisses to the multitude who cheered her to the echoes, Caroline Ferdinande stepped lightly on shore. Already she felt a Queen. Not more than five foot high, she looked both a fairy and a queen. At once the crowd adored her. “Isn’t she lovely?” the women murmured, and threw bunches of flowers down under her pretty feet. She tripped along, still blowing kisses, followed, surrounded, embraced by shouts of welcome and a bombilation of “Hurrahs.” Immediately behind her came her suite, the Prince of San Nicandro, the Count and Countess de La Tour with their pretty daughter, the Count de Lucchesi-Palli. Half a dozen steps and they were met by the Duc de Lévis ready with his speech of welcome. He had it written out in Italian, but Caroline Ferdinande would have none of that. In her execrable French she declared with a disarming smile that in future she will speak no other language but French. “Zé né connais plous d’autre langue,” she says with a Neapolitan accent you could cut with a knife. But what matter the accent? She is just adorable. It is only the old Duc de Lévis who remembers when he was a young man hearing Marie-Antoinette say the very same thing—only with a German accent, when she arrived as a bride in Strasbourg forty years ago.