Early in February the prince paid a visit to Brighton, where he made the acquaintance of Count D'Orsay, and was entertained by Mrs. Fitzherbert. He gives a jaundiced account of two entertainments, a public ball and a musical soirée, which he attended while at Brighton, declaring--probably with some truth--that the latter is one of the greatest trials to which a foreigner can be exposed in England. 'Every mother,' he explains, 'who has grown-up daughters, for whom she has had to pay large sums to the music-master, chooses to enjoy the satisfaction of having the youthful talent admired. There is nothing, therefore, but quavering and strumming right and left, so that one is really overpowered and unhappy; and even if an Englishwoman has a natural capacity for singing, she seldom acquires either style or science. The men are much more agreeable dilettanti, for they at least give one the diversion of a comical farce. That a man should advance to the piano with far greater confidence than a David, strike with his forefinger the note which he thinks his song should begin with, and then entonner like a thunder-clap (generally a tone or two lower than the pitch), and sing through a long aria without an accompaniment of any kind, except the most wonderful distortions of face, is a thing one must have seen to believe it possible, especially in the presence of at least fifty people.'
By the middle of April the season had begun in town, and the prince soon found himself up to the eyes in invitations for balls, dinners, breakfasts, and soirées. We hear of him dining with the Duke of Clarence, to meet the Duchess of Kent and her daughter; assisting at the Lord Mayor's banquet, which lasted six hours, and at which the chief magistrate made six-and-twenty speeches, long and short; breakfasting with the Duke of Devonshire at Chiswick, being nearly suffocated at the routs of Lady Cowper and Lady Jersey, and attending his first ball at Almack's, in which famous assemblage his expectations were woefully disappointed. 'A large, bare room,' so runs his description, 'with a bad floor, and ropes round it, like the space in an Arab camp parted off for horses; two or three badly-furnished rooms at the side, in which the most wretched refreshments are served, and a company into which, in spite of all the immense difficulty of getting tickets, a great many nobodies had wriggled; in which the dress was as tasteless as the tournure was bad--this was all. In a word, a sort of inn-entertainment--the music and lighting the only good things. And yet Almack's is the culminating point of the English world of fashion.'
Unfortunately for his readers, the prince was rather an observer than an auditor; for he describes what he sees vividly enough, but seldom takes the trouble to set down the conversation that he hears. Perhaps he thought it hardly worth recording, for he complains that in England politics had become the main ingredient in social intercourse, that the lighter and more frivolous pleasures suffered by the change, and that the art of conversation would soon be entirely lost. 'In this country,' he unkindly adds, 'I should think it [the art of conversation] never existed, unless, perhaps, in Charles II.'s time. And, indeed, people here are too slavishly subject to established usages, too systematic in all their enjoyments, too incredibly kneaded up with prejudices; in a word, too little vivacious to attain to that unfettered spring and freedom of spirit, which must ever be the sole basis of agreeable society. I must confess that I know none more monotonous, nor more persuaded of its own pre-eminence than the highest society of this country. A stony, marble-cold spirit of caste and fashion rules all classes, and makes the highest tedious, the lowest ridiculous.'
In spite of his dislike to politics as a subject of conversation, his Highness attended debates at the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and was so keenly interested in what he heard that he declared the hours passed like minutes. Canning had just been intrusted by George IV. with the task of forming a government, but had promptly been deserted by six members of the former Ministry, including Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Peel, who were now accused of having resigned in consequence of a cabal or conspiracy against the constitutional prerogative of the king to change his ministers at his own pleasure. In the House of Commons the prince heard Peel's attack on Canning and the new government, which was parried by Brougham. 'In a magnificent speech, which flowed on like a clear stream, Brougham,' we are told, 'tried to disarm his opponent; now tortured him with sarcasms; now wrought upon the sensibility, or convinced the reason, of his hearers. The orator closed with the solemn declaration that he was perfectly impartial; that he could be impartial, because it was his fixed determination never, and on no terms, to accept a place in the administration of the kingdom.... [Footnote: In 1831 Brougham accepted office as Lord Chancellor.] Canning, the hero of the day, now rose. If his predecessor might be compared to a dexterous and elegant boxer, Canning presented the image of a finished antique gladiator. All was noble, simple, refined; then suddenly his eloquence burst forth like lightning-grand and all-subduing. His speech was, from every point of view, the most complete, as well as the most irresistibly persuasive--the crown and glory of the debate.'
On the following day the prince heard some of the late ministers on their defence in the House of Lords. 'Here,' he observes, 'I saw the great Wellington in terrible straits. He is no orator, and was obliged to enter upon his defence like an accused person. He was considerably agitated; and this senate of his country, though composed of men whom individually, perhaps, he did not care for, appeared more imposing to him en masse than Napoleon and his hundred thousands. He stammered much, interrupted and involved himself, but at length he brought the matter tolerably to this conclusion, that there was no "conspiracy." He occasionally said strong things--probably stronger than he meant, for he was evidently not master of his material. Among other things, the following words pleased me extremely: "I am a soldier and no orator. I am utterly deficient in the talents requisite to play a part in this great assembly. I must be more than insane if I ever entertained the thought, of which I am accused, of becoming Prime Minister."... [Footnote: In January 1828 the duke became Prime Minister.] When I question myself as to the total impression of this day, I must confess that it was at once elevating and melancholy--the former when I fancied myself an Englishman, the latter when I felt myself a German. This twofold senate of the people of England, in spite of all the defects and blemishes common to human institutions, is yet grand in the highest degree; and in contemplating its power and operation thus near at hand, one begins to understand why it is that the English nation is, as yet, the first on the face of the earth.'
The traveller was by no means exclusively occupied in hearing and seeing new things. With that strain of practicality which contrasted so oddly with his sentimental and romantic temperament, he kept firmly before his eyes the main object of his visit to England. He had determined at the outset not to sell himself and his title for less than £50,000, but he confesses that, as time passed on, his demands became much more modest. His matrimonial ventures were all faithfully detailed to the presumably sympathising Lucie, for whose sake, the prince persuaded himself, he was far more anxious for success than for his own. But he had not counted on the many obstacles with which he found himself confronted, chief among them being his relations with his former wife. It was known that the ex-princess was still living at Muskau with all the rights and privileges of a chátelaine, while the prince never disguised his attachment to her, and openly kept her portrait on his table. English mothers who would have welcomed him as a son-in-law were led to believe that the divorce was only a blind, and that the prince's marriage would be actually, if not legally, a bigamous union. The satirical papers represented him as a fortune-hunter, a Bluebeard who had ill-treated his first wife, and declared that he had proposed for the hand of the dusky Empress of Hayti, then on a visit to Europe.
Still our hero obstinately pursued his quest, laying siege to the heart of every presentable-looking heiress to whom he was introduced, and if attention to the art of the toilet could have gained him a rich bride, he would not long have been unsuccessful. In dress he took the genuine interest and delight of the dandy of the period, and marvellous are the descriptions of his costume that he sends to Lucie. For morning visits, of which he sometimes paid fifty in one day, he wore his hair dyed a beautiful black, a new hat, a green neckerchief with gaily coloured stripes, a yellow cashmere waistcoat with metal buttons, an olive-green frock-coat and iron-grey pantaloons. On other occasions he is attired in a dark-brown coat, with a velvet collar, a white neckerchief, in which a thin gold watch-chain is entwined, a waistcoat with a collar of cramoisie and gold stars, an under-waistcoat of white satin, embroidered with gold flowers, full black pantaloons, spun silk stockings, and short square shoes. Style such as this could only be maintained at a vast outlay, from the German point of view, the week's washing-bill alone amounting to an important sum. According to the prince's calculation, a London exquisite, during the season of 1827, required every week twenty shirts, twenty-four pocket-handkerchiefs, nine or ten pairs of summer trousers, thirty neckerchiefs, a dozen waistcoats and stockings à discértion. 'I see your housewifely ears aghast, my good Lucie,' he writes, 'but as a dandy cannot get on without dressing three or four times a day, the affair is quite simple.'
However much the prince may have enjoyed the ceremony of the toilet, he strongly objected to the process of hair-dyeing, and his letters are full of complaints of his sufferings and humiliation while undergoing the operation, which, he declares, is a form of slow poison, and also an unpleasant reminder that he is really old, but obliged to play the part of youth in order to attain an object that may bring him more misery than happiness. As soon as he is safely married to his heiress, he expresses his determination of looking his full age, so that people might say 'What a well-preserved old man!' instead of 'Voilà, le ci-devant jeune homme!' Still, with all this care and thought, heiresses remained coy, or more probably their parents were 'difficult.' The prince's highly-developed personal vanity was wounded by many a refusal, and so weary did he become of this woman-hunt, that in one letter to Lucie, dated March 5, 1827, he exclaims, 'Ah, my dearest, if you only had 150,000 thalers, I would marry you again to-morrow!'
PART II