Having converted what property he could into money, he obtained bills on France, and set out for his native country. The revolution had broken out; and, on his arrival, his bills were all paid, but in assignats; so that in a few weeks he found himself almost penniless. Of this calamitous part of his history I could gather but few details. I have heard him say that some branch of the Orleans family assisted him. Certain it is that he had either money or friends yet left; for, with the wreck of his property, or by some other means, he established an iron-foundry near the place of his nativity. He was so close, however, to the frontiers of Spain, that, during the war with that country and France, in an incursion of the enemy, all his property was destroyed.

How he got to Mahon, or for what purpose, I am equally ignorant: but, embarking from that port, he found his way to Syria, probably intending to make his way overland to India, there to reclaim his property. But his intellects must have been already somewhat disordered: for, when we heard him first spoken of in Palestine, in 1812 or 1813, he was described as a man living almost on the alms of the Europeans, and generally to be seen with a bible under his arm, negligent of his person, housed in a hovel, and going, even then, by the sobriquet of the Prophet.

At the time I am now speaking of, the bare mention of politics or catastrophes was sure to set him wandering on the prophetic writings, and then common sense was at an end. But I had known him for twenty years, when his lucid intervals were only occasionally interrupted by these hallucinations; and I had seldom met with a man who had such an independent character, such naturally noble sentiments couched in such appropriate language, and such an intuitive discernment of what was suitable in unlooked-for emergencies. He was bold as a lion; and, when in anger, had the physiognomy and expression of that noble animal. He had never served in diplomatic situations before his elevation, had never studied political economy, moral philosophy, literature, or anything else, that I could find; and yet, in all these, the innate dictates of his mind responded at once to the call, and he could see the right and wrong, the utile et decorum, the expediency and the evil, the loveliness and the ugliness of every subject presented to him. He had a strong memory, and retained many of the passages of the best French authors by heart. He was handsome in his person, rather tall, and his demeanour was suitable to his station in life. In a word, he was born to “achieve greatness.”

General L. had now lived five and twenty years on Lady Hester’s bounty. His family, consisting of two or three sons and some daughters, were left with not very bright prospects in France. Lady Hester Stanhope had at different times employed persons to assist them, and, to my knowledge, had sent 1000 francs through a merchant’s hands at Marseilles, besides other sums, of which I have heard her speak. She also paid for the education of one daughter some years. In 1825, one of the sons, who had by his military services obtained the rank of captain in Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, being left, by the fall of that Emperor, in inactivity, resolved to visit Syria, to see his father.

General L.’s intellects were so far weakened, that nothing which happened to him personally seemed to affect him, only as it verified some of his favourite predictions, drawn from texts in the Bible. He therefore beheld his son’s arrival with indifference, as far as paternal affection went, but discovered in it other bearings, of immense importance in the political changes that were at hand. Not so Lady Hester Stanhope: she knew that the general had a right to the revenue of a whole village in the Mahratta country, which had been given to him by Scindeah; and she resolved to furnish Captain L. with money to enable him to go and recover his father’s possessions.

The captain remained at Dar Jôon for some months: he had his horse, was lodged in a pavilion in the garden, and treated with every mark of respect. Restless, hasty in his temper, overbearing, and accustomed to the blustering manners of a camp, he occasionally got into difficulties with the natives, both Mahometans and Christians. Not aware of the necessity of much precaution in shunning checks of perspiration in hot climates, he one day caught a fever, which almost brought him to his grave. He recovered, however, and was convalescent, when his imprudence caused a relapse, and he died. He was buried in Lady Hester’s garden, where his tomb, ornamented with flowering shrubs, and entirely shaded by a beautiful arbour, still remains.[18] The poor father never would believe in his death. “He is not interred,” he used to say, “but is still alive and on the earth: do not be grieved about him; in the year 1847 he will join me here. I and my lady shall then be made young again, and your little daughter is destined to be my future wife.” The poor old general, it was observed by us, seemed to have no greater pleasure than watching our daughter whilst she watered her flowers or fed her bulbuls.

The way in which Lady Hester herself sometimes sought to lighten the weight of the obligations she conferred on the general will serve to show the delicacy of her feelings. At different periods, several places had been chosen for his residence, according as he grew tired of one or the other: for he was a testy old man in some respects, and seemed to forget how much it was his duty not to put her ladyship to more trouble and expense than he could help. Once, when she had had a comfortable cottage fitted up for him in a village called Aynâaty (from taking in dudgeon something that happened to him), he suddenly quitted it, and went off to Beyrout. “He went off,” said Lady Hester, “with no less than five trunks full of clothes and other things, with two watches bought with the money I had given him, and with a good bag full of piasters: for he had little occasion to spend, as I sent him every two days fresh meat of my own killing, flour for his bread when it was wanting, sugar, tea, coffee—and everything, I may say, except milk and vegetables. He went to Beyrout, and there lived and talked away largely and foolishly, and gave out that he would sooner live with the devil than with such a woman as I was. After a time, his resources failed him, his friends grew cool, and he returned to Sayda, where he fastened himself on Monsieur Reynaud, who soon grew tired of keeping him, and little by little I heard he was reduced to great straits.” The fact is, he found no friend, except for an occasional invitation to dinner, and Lady Hester knew he must be in want; but she knew also, in the state of mind he was in, he would refuse assistance from her: she therefore made use of an expedient to furnish him with money.

Sending for one of the Pasha’s Tartars, and putting a bag of gold into his hand, she told him he was to ride into Sayda, and proceed strait to the gate of the French khan (where Mr. Loustaunau was), dusty and sweating, as if from a long journey. There he was to inquire if they knew anything of a Frenchman, once a general in India; and, after apparently well ascertaining it was the man he was in search of, the Tartar was to desire to speak with him, and to say—“Sir, when on my road from Damascus, a Hindu mussulman on his pilgrimage to Mecca, who once served under you in India, but is now rich and advanced in years, learning that you were in these countries, and anxious to testify the respect which the natives of Scindeah’s territories still retain for you, has commissioned me to put this into your hands.”—“Having done so,” added Lady Hester Stanhope, “you are not to give him time to see what it is, but to ride away.” The vile fellow promised faithfully to execute his commission, received in advance a recompense for his trouble, and then rode off with the money, and kept it. But Lady Hester, who was careful to ascertain, by indirect means, whether a Tartar had made his appearance at the khan, on learning his perfidy, caused it to be spread among the Pasha’s and the government Tartars; and they were so indignant at his little trustworthiness, a quality on which, from the nature of their employ, they are obliged to value themselves, that they turned him out of their corps, and he never dared to show his face again.

To finish what remains to be said of this once shining character, but now the pensioner of an English woman, he had resided for the last ten years at a distance from Lady Hester Stanhope’s residence, and they had not even seen each other for five or six years. “I have been obliged to keep him at a distance,” said her ladyship, “for the last ten years, in order that people might not think I had taken care of him to make him trumpet my greatness: for you don’t know what harm that man has done me. He used to go about preaching that all the queens in Christendom were a pack of women of the town, and that I was the only real queen. He told everybody he would not change situations with the first prince in Europe; for the day would come when, through me, he should be greater than any of them.”

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