The Love Affairs of Lord Byron

by Francis Henry Gribble

It had been agreed that Mrs. Smith should plead ill health, and ask to be allowed to journey by short stages. No objections were raised—probably because of the pleasure which the brigadier took in the society of the maid—and the party halted, first at Verona, and then at Brescia. At Verona nothing could be done. An Italian friend, whom Salvo implored to meet and help him, failed to keep the appointment, guessing why he was wanted, and fearing Napoleon’s long arm. He must, therefore, act alone; and the question was whether he could find a means of getting Mrs. Smith on board a boat and across the Lake of Garda. Probably he could if he could first see her alone and concert a scheme with her. So he galloped off to the lake side, hired two boats, and bought a post chaise, in which he proposed to drive Mrs. Smith up into the mountains, and over the frontier into Austria. Then he galloped back, told the brigadier that he was obliged to return to Venice, and begged to be allowed to say good-bye to Mrs. Smith without witnesses.

The brigadier, who liked to be alone with the maid, could quite understand that the marquis liked to be alone with the mistress. He winked a wicked eye, called the marquis “a sad dog,” and gave permission. Salvo winked back at him, as if admitting the impeachment of sad doggedness, and, in the brief interview which the brigadier supposed to be consecrated to sentiment, told Mrs. Smith what he had plotted, and how she herself must act.

He would return, after night-fall, with a rope ladder. In order to avoid the suspicions of the inquisitive, he would make that rope ladder with his own hands. He would pack it up into a parcel, and Mrs. Smith must lower a piece of string with which to draw it up. The parcel would also contain a boy’s costume, as a disguise for her, and a dose of laudanum with which to drug the maid’s evening drink in case she were not a party to the conspiracy. He would come again at eleven, wearing a cocked hat, and enveloped in a military cloak. Mrs. Smith, understanding who was there, must then make the ladder fast and climb down to him.

He came; and things happened more or less as he had planned them. The maid, in particular, was magnificently loyal. She offered to attend her mistress in her flight; and, when told that that could not be, she handed out her mistress’ jewels, helped in securing the ladder to the verandah, promised to remove it after it had served its purpose, and then tossed off the soporific of her own accord, so that it might be physically impossible for her to answer questions for some hours to come—incidentally also, no doubt, in order to give the brigadier the excuse which he would naturally desire for acquitting her of all complicity in the escape.

Mrs. Smith descended the ladder half way, and then fell off it; but Salvo had expected that. He caught her in his arms, and they got into their carriage and were off. The gates of the town were closed; but Salvo bluffed his way through them in an instant, with the help of his military cloak and head-gear.

“What in thunder do you mean by keeping me waiting? I’m the colonel of the twenty-fifth. You were warned to look out for me. You’ll hear of this again, my man. Open the gate at once, and let me through.”

Thus the boy swore in the full-blooded military style of the period. The gate was thrown open for him with profound apologies. He whipped up the horses, and galloped to Salona, where the boats were ready. They embarked, taking their carriage with them, and crossed to Riva. There they got into the carriage again, and galloped on to Trent, where a sleepy official, much in wrath at this disturbance of his slumbers, proceeded to make trouble about their passports, which were only approximately in order. The only course, since time pressed, and pursuers were on their track, was to leave the chaise behind and slip away surreptitiously in a country cart which an inn-keeper offered to sell them.

The pursuers, indeed, were hard upon their heels; but happily the morning sun was in their eyes. The fugitives saw them before they were seen, and drove their cart down from the mountain road through the forest to the torrent, so that the horsemen missed them and rode past them. After that, they abandoned their cart, and travelled by cross country roads and mountain paths, continually in peril of arrest, but always escaping as if by a miracle. A peasant, to whom they appealed for food and shelter, proposed to conduct them to the nearest police station, but was melted to tenderness by Mrs. Smith’s tears and pitiful entreaties. They read the offer of a reward for their capture posted on the walls. They hid themselves for two days in a mountain chapel. They were stopped, and questioned, and mistaken for other more romantic fugitives—an Italian Princess who was said to have eloped with an Italian bookseller’s assistant. They disguised themselves as peasants, and travelled in the midst of the real peasants’ flocks of sheep. Not until after many days’ wanderings did they reach Austrian territory, declare their true identity, and claim the protection of the law; and even so their troubles were not over.

Austria, at that date, had not yet recovered either morally or materially from the shock of Austerlitz, and dared not stand openly between Napoleon and his prey. The fugitives had to be arrested before they could be saved. Salvo was, for a while, locked up, like a criminal, in the deepest dungeon of a Styrian Castle; and Mrs. Smith was smuggled out of the country, under the name of Frau Müller—first to Riga, and thence to England, where Salvo ultimately joined her. Queen Charlotte thanked him publicly for the service so gallantly rendered to a British subject; and he made his best bow and withdrew, remembering his promise to expect no other recompense.

Such is the story of Mrs. Smith’s adventure as told, first by Salvo himself, who wrote a book about it, and then by the Duchesse d’Abrantès, who devoted a long section of her Memoirs to it. One repeats it, partly for its own sake and partly because the romance of it explains how the heroine of it appealed to Byron’s imagination.