THE STORY OF THE PRINCESS CÉCILE.
Of all the wandering claimants to royalty, scions of kings "retired from business," soi-disant regal pretenders, false or real—whether like Perkin Warbeck, or the six Demetriuses of Russia, some more recent pseudo-heirs of the house of Stuart who figured in Austria after the "Quarterly" drove them out of Scotland, "the Duke of Normandy" in London, and so forth, who have appeared from time to time, none have had so marvellous a story to tell as the Princess Cécile, "La Belle Turque," as she was named, who, announcing herself, in two volumes octavo, to be a daughter of the deposed sultan Achmet III., took the heedless world of Paris by surprise, about a hundred years ago, and whose narrative has frequently been classed with romances, though it came forth as a veritable history, and with a title more clearly avowed than that of "Ascanius, or the Adventurer in Scotland."
The editor, who guaranteed its truth, was a man of veracity and credit in his day; and he urged upon the public, that however extraordinary and romantic her adventures might appear, they were, nevertheless, strictly fact; and in a letter addressed to the editor of the "Journal de Paris," in 1787, he added, that in that year the lady was still alive in the French capital, "and, notwithstanding her advanced age, in the enjoyment of good health."
It is singular that her narrative, whether false or true, as given by herself and "M. Buisson, Littéraire, Hôtel de Mesgrigny, Rue des Poitevins,"—as it would furnish ample materials for the largest three-volume novel—escaped the eyes of Alexandre Dumas, or Viscount d'Arlincourt, as it is full of adventures of the most stirring kind, and, told briefly, runs thus:—
The introductory part of her story, in which the names of persons of rank are concealed, contains, necessarily the adventures of her governess, or nurse, by whom she was first abducted from her home, and brought to France. It would appear that about the year 1700, a Mademoiselle Emilia (sic), daughter of a surgeon in the French seaport town of Génes, was, with her lover, a young Genoese, named Salmoni, in a pleasure-boat upon the Mediterranean, a little way from the coast, when, notwithstanding "la terreur du nom de Louis XIV.," they were pounced upon by some Turkish corsairs—a common enough event in those days, and one not unfrequent, even after Lord Exmouth demolished Algiers.
This occurred in the dusk; and the voice of Salmoni, who had been singing, is supposed to have first attracted them. Being armed, the Italian defended his love and his life with courage, but fell severely wounded, and was left for dead in the bottom of his boat, which floated away, the sport of the waves, while Emilia was carried off, and, in consequence of her great beauty, was ultimately sold, at Constantinople, under the name of Fatima, for the service and amusement of Achmet III., who, in consequence of her accomplishments, made her a species of governess to his children, instead of retaining her among the odalisques in the seraglio. This must have been subsequent to 1703, when Achmet began his troublesome reign.
She was in this situation of trust, when Salmoni, who had never forgotten her, after a long and unsuccessful search through many seaport towns in the Levant—a veritable pilgrim of love—accidentally discovered, by a casual conversation with a Turkish seaman, where she was, and how occupied; for this man had been one of the corsair's crew.
Disguised as a Turk, and giving out that "he was the father of Fatima, the trusted slave," Salmoni found means to communicate with her through an itchcoglan, one of the slaves or pages attached to the seraglio, and they were thus enabled to see each other and converse, their hasty meetings being but stolen moments of tenderness and joy.
Emilia was now in attendance upon a little daughter of Achmet III., born in 1710, and then six months old. Her mother was the Sultana Aski, formerly a Georgian slave, and then one of the kadines or wives of the Sultan, ladies whose number rarely exceeds seven. Emilia was high in favour with both Achmet and this sultana, as she had been particularly serviceable to the latter at the birth of the child, through some little skill she had acquired from her father, the surgeon; thus the confidence they reposed in her, and the authority she possessed over all the people in and about the seraglio, facilitated the execution of those plans for an escape, suggested and urged by Salmoni.
With a view to this end, she desired the bastonghi, or head-gardener, to make a see-saw, which was in the gardens, so high that she—and her pupils, probably—might see the whole city from the lofty wall that girds this place, where still the trees planted are always green, that the inhabitants of Galata and other places may not see the ladies at their lonely promenades. Aided by this see-saw, she dropped over the wall a billet to Salmoni, desiring him to procure a ladder, "a steel-yard" to fix it to the masonry, to make arrangements with a ship captain, and, when all was prepared, to wait her beneath the wall of that terrible Serai Bournous, which no slave-woman had ever yet left alive.