[38]. “Because you catch the breath of all who come in.”
[39]. The original scene of a popular anecdote is laid by Miss Knight in Florence. One of the miscellaneous entries in her journal for the year 1783 records how a Moorish ambassador was greatly fêted in that city, but was chiefly pleased with a grand ball at which all the Florentine nobility were present. It must have cost a great deal of money, he said, to pay so many women for dancing.
[40]. The Princess Louisa Maximiliana of Stolberg-Gœdern married Charles Edward Stuart, commonly called the Young Pretender. At his death, in 1788, she removed to Paris, accompanied by Count Alfieri, the famous poet, to whom she is said to have been subsequently united by marriage. Miss Knight takes a more favourable view of the countess’s conduct and character than was altogether justified by the real facts of the case.
[41]. Henry Benedict Maria Clement Stuart, brother of Prince Charles Edward, born in 1725, was made a cardinal in 1747 by Pope Benedict XIV. His valuable collection of paintings and antiques was plundered by the French in 1788, and his property confiscated. He then removed to Venice, where he endured considerable privations, until George III., hearing of his distress, generously bestowed upon him a pension of 4000l. a year. The cardinal returned to Rome in 1801, and continued to reside there until his death in 1807. His learning, piety, and virtues commanded the esteem of his contemporaries, with the exception, apparently, of his sister-in-law and her immediate circle of friends.
[42]. The Pretender himself told the Commander D’Olomieu that he was in England in the year 1752, at the invitation of the minister, and that he saw many people and was well received, though the person at whose house he lodged knew not who he was. At Dover he went to the house of a gentleman who belonged to the opposite party, but who treated him with great respect and civility.—Miss Knight’s Journal.
[43]. The Commander D’Olomieu told me, that when the Bailli de Suffren brought over in his xebecque M. de Choiseul and his lady, the duke being then appointed ambassador at the Court of Rome, the latter presented him with a handsome snuff-box with the portrait of the duchess. The bailli took a key out of his pocket, wrenched off the portrait, which he kept, and returned the box to the ambassador.—Miss Knight’s Journal.
[44]. The King of Sweden appears to have been partial to this kind of entertainment, if we may judge from an interesting letter, descriptive of an ascent in his presence, dated from Naples February 19, which appeared in the European Magazine for April, 1784. Gustavus III. was mortally wounded, March 16, 1792, at a masked ball, by Ankerstroem, an officer dismissed from the Guards.
[45]. General Elliott was himself the most abstemious man in the garrison, his diet being exclusively confined to vegetables, milk, puddings, and farinaceous food.
[46]. This was not the only poetical effusion of the gallant general. He also composed the following lines on a young lady who died in consequence of dancing too much, and drinking too much lemonade, at a ball:
“Do you know who’s gone away?