gendarmes
, conveyed towards the Italian frontier, to be confined, as La Garde told a Sicilian nobleman, the Marquis de Salvo, at Valenciennes. Mrs. Smith's beauty and impending fate deeply impressed the marquis, who determined to rescue her. The prisoner and her guard had reached Brescia, and were lodged at the
Albergo delle due Torre
, The opportunity seemed favourable. Once across the Guarda Lake, and in the passes of Tyrol, it would be easy to reach Styria. The marquis made his arrangements — hired two boats, one for the fugitives, the other for their post-chaise and horses; procured for Mrs. Smith a boy's dress, as a disguise; made a ladder long enough to reach her window in the inn, and succeeded in making known his plan to the prisoner. The escape was effected; but all along the road the danger continued, for their way lay through a country which was practically French territory. It was not till they reached Gratz, and Mrs. Smith was under the roof of her sister, the Countess Strassoldo, that she was safe. The story is told in detail by the Marquis de Salvo, in his
Travels in the Year 1806 from Italy to England
(1807), and by the Duchesse d'Abrantes (
Mémoires
, vol. xv. pp. 1-74).
To Mrs. Spencer Smith are addressed the "Lines to Florence," the "Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm" (near Zitza, in October, 1809), and stanzas xxx.-xxxii. of the second canto of
Childe Harold