What with the impediments thrown in their way by the war then raging in front of them, between the French on one side and the Dutch and English on the other—and the alternating features of which now enabled them to hurry on, now checked their course—what with the incidents of these stirring times, and the hard frost during which they occurred, cavaliers and ladies made but tardy way, were half-frozen, and not inconsiderably dispirited. For a time they tarried at Osnaburg, where Lord Malmesbury narrates an anecdote for the purpose of showing the character of the Princess, and which is to this effect.
Many distressed French émigrés were to be found at Osnaburg, some of them ‘dying of hunger, and through want.’ The rest, the gallant leader of our escort shall tell in his own words: ‘I persuaded the Princess Caroline to be munificent towards them—she disposed to be, but not knowing how to set about it, I tell her liberality and generosity is an enjoyment, not a sworn virtue. She gives a louis for some lottery tickets. I give ten, and say the Princess ordered me—she surprised. I said I was sure she did not mean to give for the ticket its prime value, and that I forestalled her intention. Next day a French émigré with a pretty child draws near the table. The Princess Caroline immediately, of her own accord, puts the louis in a paper and gives them to the child. The Duchess of Brunswick observes it, and inquires of me (I was dining between them) what it was. I tell her a demand on her purse. She embarrassed: “Je n’ai que mes beaux doubles louis de Brunswick.” I answer: “Qu’ils deviendront plus beaux dans les mains de cet enfant que dans sa poche.” She ashamed, and gives three of them. In the evening the Princess Caroline, to whom this sort of virtue was never preached, on my praising the coin of the money at Brunswick, offers me very seriously eight or ten double louis, saying: “Cela ne me fait rien—je ne m’en soucie pas—je vous prie de les prendre.” I mention these facts to show her character: it could not distinguish between giving as a benevolence and flinging away the money like a child. She thought that the art of getting rid of the money, and not seeming to care about it, constituted the merit. I took an opportunity at supper of defining to her what real benevolence was, and I recommended it to her as a quality that would, if rightly employed, make her more admirers and give her more true satisfaction than any that human nature could possess. The idea was, I am sorry to see, new to her, but she felt the truth of it; and she certainly is not fond of money, which both her parents are.’
This indifference to money was amply manifested throughout the course of her after life. At a period of that life when she was most distressed she might have earned a right royal revenue, had she cared to sacrifice to it—her reputation. With all her faults, she had none of the avarice of her mother especially. She had more of the ignorance of the latter, but even she would not have been led into betraying it as her mother did when looking at the Dusseldorff collection of pictures, which at this time had been removed to Osnaburg, to save it from the calamities of war. Her Serene Highness was shown a Gerard Dow. ‘And who is Gerard Dow?’ said she; ‘was he of Dusseldorff?’ The severity of this lady’s education must have been something like that given to the Princess. The mother had never heard of Dow! The daughter wrote ill and spelt worse. She, some years subsequent to the journey upon which we are now accompanying her, described the Princess Charlotte in a letter as her ‘deer angle.’ She was indeed ever profuse with epithets of endearment. The ladies whom she saw for the first time during this her bridal progress to her husband’s house were addressed by her as ‘Mon cœur, ma chère, ma petite.’ Lord Malmesbury again played the monitor when these freedoms were indulged in, and his pupil began to care less for both advice and adviser. The bride’s mother, too, got weary of her journey—afraid of being taken prisoner by the enemy, and was anxious to leave her daughter and return home. The envoy resisted this as improper, until the moment she had placed the Princess in the hands of her proper attendants. Lord Malmesbury not only made ‘her lady mother’ continue at her post, but, on leaving Osnaburg, he induced her to give fifty louis to the servants—very much indeed against her will. She neither loved to give money away herself, nor to have the virtue of liberality impressed upon her daughter as one worth observing. In most respects, however, the daughter was superior to the mother. Thus, when at Benthem, they were waited on and complimented by President Fonk and Count Benthem de Steinfort—two odd figures, and still more oddly dressed—the Duchess burst into a fit of laughter at beholding them. The Princess had the inclination to do as much, but she contrived to enjoy her hilarity without hurting the feelings of the two accomplished and oddly-dressed gentlemen who had come to do her honour.
The Princess was less delicate with regard to odd women. Thus, she met Madame la Présidente Walmoden at Osnaburg, whom she asked to play at cards at her table, and made giggling remarks about her, in half-whispers, to the younger ladies of the party. The Princess disliked the Présidente; the Duchess, on the other hand, had pleasure in her society. Présidente and Duchess vied with each other in telling stories, and the latter was comically indelicate to her heart’s content.
Great difficulties had still to be encountered in the way of their progress towards the sea-coast, and more than one wide wave from far-off battles drove them back, again and again, to cities of which they had before taken, as they believed, a final farewell. In the midst of it all there was much ‘fun,’ some frowning, a little bickering, advice without end, and amendment always beginning. Still, as the party proceeded, half-frozen to death on their way by the rigour of a winter such as Lord Malmesbury had not felt since he was in Russia, the Princess especially loved to talk of her future prospects and intentions. Perhaps the most singular dream in which she indulged was that of undertaking and accomplishing—for she had no doubt as to the result—the reformation of the Prince. She felt, she said, that she was to fill the vide in the situation in which he stood, caused by his isolation from the King and Queen. She would domesticate him, she said, and give him a taste for all the private and home virtues. His happiness would then be of a higher quality than it ever had been before, and he would owe it all to her. This was the pleasant dream of a young bride full of good intentions, and who was strangely called upon to project the reformation of her husband, even before she had seen him, or could have taken that interest in him which could only arise from esteem founded on personal intercourse. This result, she declared, the nation expected at her hands; and she would realise it, for she felt herself capable of effecting it.
To all this agreeable devising Lord Malmesbury replied in encouraging speeches, mingled with gravest counsel and solemn admonition as to her bearing. This the Princess generally took in excellent part, while the Duchess, her mother, was grumbling at the intense cold or slumbering uneasily under it; and the servants outside the carriages were as nearly frozen as people could be, but were kept from that absolute catastrophe by generous liquor and the warmth of their indignation.
The bride ought to have been perfect in her character, for her mentor lost no opportunity in endeavouring to so prepare her that she might make a favourable impression upon the King and Queen. It must, too, be said for her, that her amiability under this reiterated didactic process was really very great. She felt nothing but respect for her teacher, and that says much for the instruction given, as also for the way in which it was conveyed. On one occasion, we are told, she ended, on retiring for the night, by saying that she hoped the Prince would let her see Lord Malmesbury, since she never could expect that any one would ‘give her such good and such free advice as myself;’ and she added, ‘I confess I could not bear it from any one but you.’
On Saturday, the 24th of January 1795, the travellers entered Hanover blue with cold, of which the benumbed Duchess complained in no very elegant terms. Lord Malmesbury was exceedingly anxious that the Princess should be popular here, as according to the impression of her reported hence to England would probably be that of the King and Queen on her arrival. Lord Malmesbury told her that she was Zémire and Hanover Azor; and that, if she behaved rightly, the monster would be metamorphosed into a beauty; that Beulwitz (at the head of the regency, the most ugly and most disagreeable man possible) would change into the Prince of Wales; that the habit of proper princely behaviour was natural to her—an assertion which was not true, as even the diplomatist showed, by adding ‘that it would come of itself; that acquired by this (in that respect) fortunate delay in our journey, it would belong to her, and become familiar to her on her coming to England, where it would be of infinite advantage.’
And yet Hanover was not a very particular place; that is, it was not inhabited—the court end of it, at least—by very particular, strict, or strait-laced people. The Princess was particularly careful of her conduct before persons, some of whom appear to have generally got intoxicated before dinner was over. Nevertheless, Lord Malmesbury did effect a very notable change for the better in the Princess’s habits. He had been before addressing himself to the improvement of principle; he now came to a personal matter, and, if one might be pardoned for laughing at any incident in the life of a poor woman whose life was anything rather than a matter to be laughed at, this is the time when one might do so with least reproach.
The party had been three weeks at Hanover, and, during that time, Lord Malmesbury had held frequent discussions with the Princess upon the very delicate matter of the toilette. She prided, or to use the noble lord’s own term, ‘she piqued herself on dressing quick.’ He disapproved of this; for a quick dresser is a slovenly and unclean dresser. On this point, however, she would not be convinced: probably she was the less inclined to be so as the weather continued intensely cold, and the next luxury to lying in bed was being quickly dressed when she got out of it. He could not come to details with a young bride who despised perfect ablutions; but he found a court lady, Madame Busche, through whom he poured the necessary amount of information that should induce the Princess to be more liberal towards her skin in the dispensation of water. He desired Madame Busche to explain to her that the Prince was very delicate, and that he expected a long and very careful toilette de propreté, of which she had no idea. ‘On the contrary,’ he says, ‘she neglects it sadly, and is offensive from this neglect. Madame Busche executes her commission well, and the Princess came out, the next day, well washed all over!’