The Princess appears to have corresponded with Murat. The soldier-king is said to have addressed to her a very flattering note, beginning ‘Madame, ma chere, chere sœur,’ as if she had already been a queen, and that he were treating with her on a footing of equality. Her reply is described as clever but flippant, beneath her dignity, and so wild and strange as to be entitled to be considered one of the most extraordinary specimens of royal letter-writing that had ever been seen.
There was yet no inconsiderable number of English guests who gathered round the table of the Princess, and some of the former ladies of her suite here rejoined her. Among the guests is noticed a ‘Lord B——,’ who had been a great favourite with the Prince of Wales, and was equally esteemed by the Princess. He had been a witness of the marriage of Mrs. Fitzherbert with the Prince, and was now the most welcome visitor of the Princess. The illustrious pair, it has been often observed, had ‘a strange sympathy in their loves and habits.’ Alluding to the style of the Princess’s conversation with her guests, the ‘Diary’ affords us another illustration. ‘Sometimes Monsieur —— opened his eyes wide at the Princess’s declarations, and her Royal Highness enjoys making people stare, so she gave free vent to her tongue, and said a number of odd things, some of which she thinks, and some she does not; but it amuses her to astonish an innocent-minded being, and really such did this old man appear to be. He won her heart, upon the whole, however, by paying a compliment to her fine arm and asking for her glove. Obtaining it, he placed it next his heart; and, declaring it should be found in his tomb, he swore he was of the old school in all things.’ The little vanity of being proud of a fine arm was one as strong in Queen Charlotte as in her daughter-in-law. The former had as fine an arm as, and perhaps not a better temper than, the latter, but she could better control that temper, and had the additional advantage of being possessed of a more refined taste. This was not, perhaps, always shown when she sat and listened to rather loose talk from the Regent, with no more of reproof than her gently-uttered ‘George, George!’ by way of remonstrance. She, however, never erred so grossly as the Princess of Wales, who not only would listen unabashed to conversation coarse in character, but was not at all nice herself in either story or epithet. In Italy such things were then accounted of but as being small foibles; and when the Pope visited her at Genoa he probably thought none the worse of her, nor bated no jot in his courtesy towards her, because of her reputation in this respect. She certainly loved to mystify people, and took an almost insane pleasure in exciting converse against herself. Her adoption of Victorine, a daughter of Bergami, was a proof that she had acquired no profitable experience from the consequences which followed her adoption of young Austin.
During 1815 the Princess was ever restless and on the move. She was now entirely surrounded by Italians. Mr. St. Leger refused to be of her household, nor would he allow his daughter to be of it. Many others were applied to, but with similar success. Sir Humphrey and Lady Davy also declined the honour offered them. Mr. William Rose, Mr. Davenport, and Mr. Hartup pleaded other engagements. Dr. Holland, Mr. North, and Mrs. Falconet were no longer with her. Lord Malpas begged to be excused, and Lady Charlotte Campbell withdrew, after her Royal Highness’s second arrival at Milan. The Princess, however, had no difficulty in forming an Italian Court. Some of her appointments were unexceptionable. Such were those of Dr. Machetti, her physician, and of the Chevalier Chiavini, her first equerry. Many of the Italian nobility now took the place of former English visitors at her ‘court,’ and two of the brothers of Bergami held respectable offices in her household, while the Countess of Oldi, sister of the chamberlain, was appointed sole lady of honour to the lady, her mistress. On several of the excursions made by her Royal Highness from her villa on the Lake of Como to Milan, Venice, and other parts of Italy, she was accompanied by Mr. Burrell, a son of Lord Gwydyr. This gentleman ultimately took his leave of her in August, to return to England. He was sojourning at Brussels, on his way, when his servant, White, narrated to his fellows some accounts of what he described as the very loose way of life of the Princess at Milan. These stories, all infamous, but few, perhaps, which could not be traced back to some indiscretion of this most unhappy lady, and marvellously amplified and exaggerated, came to the ears of the Duke and Duchess of Cumberland, then sojourning at the same hotel; and it is declared that on the report made by the former to his brother, the Regent, was founded the famous ‘Milan Commission,’ which was one of investigation, appointed to sit at Milan, to inquire into the conduct of the Princess, and to report accordingly. The commissioners sat and took evidence without making the Princess aware of the fact; and to an indignant remonstrance addressed to the Regent, wherein she demanded to know the object of the commission, no answer was returned. It was soon known, however, that the report was of a most condemnatory character, but no proceedings were immediately instituted. Meanwhile, the Princess continued her roving life, now on sea, now on land; now on board the ‘Leviathan,’ and sometimes on the backs of horses or mules. Her familiarity on all these occasions with her chamberlain was offensive to persons of strict ideas and good principles, and those were precisely the persons whose prejudices she loved, perhaps out of mere mischief, to startle. He dined with her at her table, and she leant upon his arm in their walks.
Early in January 1816, she again embarked on board the ‘Clorinde,’ Captain Pechell, with the intention of proceeding to Syracuse. The captain, having previously seen Bergami occupying a menial state about her Royal Highness, declined to admit him to his table, at which he entertained the Princess—who refused such entertainment, however, on the captain persisting on the ejection of the chamberlain. The desired port was reached only with difficulty, and for some months the Princess resided in Sicily, with no one near her but this Italian household. To her chamberlain she certainly was some such a mistress as Queen Guinever to Sir Lancelot. In liberality of sunny smiles and largesses there can be no doubt of this; and perhaps the quality of her favour is best illustrated by the fact of her having bestowed her picture upon him, for which she had sat in the character of a ‘Magdalen.’ She professed to have procured for him also his elevation to be a Knight of Malta, and she did obtain for him the dignity of Baron de la Francino, to heighten the imaginary grandeur.
The next seven months were spent in continual travelling and change of scene. The limit of her wandering was Jericho, whither she went actually, and also in the popular sense of the word, which describes a person as having gone thither when ruin has overtaken him on his journey through life.
She embarked, with her Italian followers, on the 26th of March, and nine days subsequently, after being beaten about by equinoctial storms till the little ‘Royal Charlotte’ had scarcely a sound plank about her, she reached Tunis, and struck up a very warm acquaintance with the Bey. He lodged and partially fed her, introduced her to his seraglio, perfumed her with incense till she was nearly suffocated, and then as nearly choked her with laughter by causing to play before her his famous female band, consisting of six women who knew nothing of music, every one of whom laboured under some unsightly defect, and of whom the youngest confessed to an honest threescore years. For this entertainment she made a really noble return, by purchasing the freedom of several European slaves. A greater liberator than she, however, was at hand, in Exmouth and his fleet. It was in obedience to the advice of the Admiral, who expected to have to demolish Tunis, as the Bey seemed disinclined to ransom the Christian slaves he held in durance, that the Princess, after a hasty glance at the sites of Utica and Carthage, re-embarked, after a month’s sojourn with the most splendidly hospitable of barbarians, and, passing through the saluting English fleet, directed the prow of her vessel to be turned towards Greece. She went on her way accompanied by storms, which prevented her from landing until, with infinite difficulty, she reached the Piræus, early in May, and proceeded to Athens, where she took up her residence in the house of the gallant French consul. Since the days of Aspasia, Athens had seen no such lively times as marked the period of the residence there of the Princess. Her balls were brilliant festivities. In return for them she was permitted to witness the piously ecstatic dancing of the Dervises (for the city of Minerva was under the Crescent then), who have plagiarised a maxim of St. Augustine, only altering it to suit their purpose, as ecstatic persons will do with sacred texts, and proclaiming orat qui saltat. The Princess had some nerve, and was by no means a fastidious woman, but she saw here more than she had reckoned upon, and was glad to escape from the exhibition of uncleanness and ferocity. Athens, however, afforded more interesting spectacles than this; she exhausted them all, according to the guide-books and the cicerones; and she gratefully expressed her pleasure by liberating three hundred captives, whom she found languishing in the debtors’ prison. The fame of the deed travelled as swiftly as if it had been a deed disgraceful to the actor, and at Corinth she was subsequently entertained, during two whole days, with a profusion and a gaiety that would have gladdened the heart of Laïs, who was herself so often and so splendidly ‘at home’ in this ancient city.
From Hellas to the Troad was a natural sequence She went thither, as before, storm-tost—stood on the plain where infidels assert that Troy had never stood, and, leaning on the arm of the noble and bearded Bergami, twice crossed the Scamander. With the first day of June she was in Constantinople, making her entry with Mdlle. Dumont and another lady, in the springless cart or carriage of the country, drawn by a pair of lusty bulls. She resided in the house belonging to the British embassy. It was the last time in the course of her travels that she found rest and protection beneath our flag. The plague, however, being then in the city, she quitted it for a residence some fifteen miles distant, from which she made excursions into the Black Sea, till, growing weary of the amusement, she once more embarked and spent a week at sea, on a frail boat, tossed by storms and watched by corsairs; and at length reaching Scio, sought repose, and indulged in contemplation, or may be supposed to have done so, in the school of Homer. By the end of the month she was amid the ruins of Ephesus. Beneath the ruined vestibule of an ancient church she pitched her tent. The heat was great even at night, the errant lady was sleepless, and the Baron di Francino, ever assiduous, watched near his mistress till dawn, and performed all faithful service required of him.
From the locality once jealously guarded by chaste Diana she passed to the spot where her old Blackheath friend, Sir Sidney Smith, had gained imperishable fame by gallantly vanquishing a foe ever bravely reluctant to confess that he had met his conqueror. Even this place might have interested the Princess by the association of ideas which it may have furnished her as matter for meditation. She did not, however, lose much time in contrasting the gossiping Sir Sidney, who made Montague House ring with his laughter, with the stern warrior who here turned back Napoleon from his way toward India. She was longing to find rest within the Holy City, and this she accomplished at last, but not till many an obstacle which lay in her way had been surmounted.
Her progress was suddenly checked at Jaffa. The party, which consisted of more than two dozen persons, had no written permission to pass on to Jerusalem, and the Pacha could give his consent only to five of the number to visit the city. After some negotiations with the governor of St. Jean d’Acre, the difficulty was removed, a large armed escort was provided, with tents, guides, and other necessary appendages. Surrounded by these, the Princess and her attendants had very much the air of a strolling party of equestrians on a summer tour. They had a worn, yet ‘rollicking’ look. There was a loose air about the men and a rompish aspect about the ladies, while the sorry steeds, mules and donkeys, on which they were mounted, seemed denizens of the circus and saw-dust, with the sun-bronzed Princess as manageress of the concern. The similitude was not lessened by the circumstance that, more than once on the road, the Princess, from sheer fatigue and want of sleep, rolled off her donkey to the ground.
The journey was performed beneath one of the very fiercest of suns, and the travellers, light of heart as they were, groaned beneath the hot infliction and the blisters raised by it. They passed many an interesting spot on the way, but were too listless or weary to heed the objects as they passed. Her Royal Highness bore the perils and minor troubles of the way better than any of her followers, but she too became almost vanquished by fatigue; and when she entered Jerusalem, on the 12th of July, seated on an ass, Mdlle. Dumont impiously contrasted her virtues, sufferings, equipage, and person with those of the Saviour. This lady was subsequently the very first who, with eager alacrity, swore away the reputation of her mistress, and heaping her indiscretions together, gave them the bearing of crimes, and did her unblushing utmost to destroy what she had professed to reverence.