The conversation naturally began by inquiries respecting Lady Hester Stanhope’s health, with expressions of deep interest for her recovery. He next spoke of our young queen. “Quel beau rôle!” he exclaimed, “to be a queen, and to be so lovely, so young, so clever! and where will she find a husband worthy of her?” A latent thought seemed to lurk in the prince’s breast, and who knows what he felt at the moment? Notwithstanding, of himself he said, “I have almost made up my mind to settle in this fine country: I will build myself a house, get what I want from Europe, make arrangements for newspapers, books, &c., and choose some delightful situation; but I think it will be on Mount Lebanon. However, after I have seen more of the country, I shall be better able to judge: for, after all, I find no country so charming as this, and Europe is no longer the land of liberty; for there liberty and passports cannot exist together.” He then told me a story of his having been stopped somewhere in France from an informality in his passport.
I agreed with him most heartily on this head, and reminded him of that liberticide, M. Guizot, who, in a national senate, could dare to affirm that the locomotion of individuals was subject to the will of governments.[5] “Yes,” I added, “of governments such as he would frame, it might be: but, thank God! there are countries where sophists are not yet called to rule over mankind. Thank God! too, that, in his infinite wisdom, he has sent gout and palsy into the world to hamper the legs and movements of those who seek to trammel the industrious citizen or the enterprising traveller, and all those honest and necessary callings, the success of which often depends on unrestrained freedom in change of place.” Here I stopped: but, had I been more intimate with the prince, I would have added—“Use your pen, good prince: it has exposed with success some follies and prejudices in the world; let it shame tyranny and oppression: for never can Frenchmen boast of freedom whilst individuals are booked and labelled from place to place, like parcels in a diligence office.”[6]
The journal which lay before the prince caught my eye, clearly written, and no doubt long meditated. He spoke French with great purity.
Count Tattenbach was present during the interview, and his mild and somewhat melancholy manner led me to suppose that her ladyship had judged rightly of one who had devoted himself to the prince’s service. He was a gentleman, as I had occasion afterwards to know, who, to a thorough acquaintance with the modern Greek language, to high talents for music and painting, as also to a general love of the fine arts and belles lettres, added a finished education and much instruction acquired by travel.
As the prince’s dragoman had now announced two more persons of consideration, who were waiting to be introduced, I drew my interview to a conclusion, although the prince was courteous enough to desire to prolong it by ordering pipes and coffee for his visitors in an ante-room. In the evening I returned to Jôon, and gave Lady Hester an account of my mission.
Friday, March 23.—One of Lady Hester Stanhope’s peculiarities was, that no business, however common, could be done without a reference to lucky and unlucky days. The season was now come for her mares to go to grass, and strict orders were issued that they should be taken this afternoon, just before sunset. The field of green barley in which they were to be placed was between Jôon and Sayda, close above the gardens. The grooms were furnished with a tent, a night lamp, tethering cords, and all that was necessary for a gipsy camp, which was to last six weeks: they were also put on board-wages. But a scene of violent excitement was acted by Lady Hester, in consequence of finding that the field was rented this year for two hundred and sixty piasters, which field four years before was let for one hundred and thirty. “See,” she said, “how these bailiffs waste my money, and no one keeps watch over them, to check their rascality: they take bribes to let others cheat me, and nobody knows the real value of even an acre of grass.”
We were now again without money in the house, the last ten thousand piasters having been spent. No letter came from Sir Francis Burdett. Her pension was suspended. Seven thousand piasters were due to the people for a quarter’s wages: and, in consequence of the reports current even in the bazàars, the baths, and the barbers’ shops at Beyrout, that her income had been stopped by the Queen, there was little likelihood of her bills being negociable on London, even for the quarter’s money arising from the legacy of £1,500 a year, left her by her brother, Colonel James Stanhope, which still held good. Notwithstanding these difficulties, no disposition was manifested by her to curtail a single expense. There were still thirty-three or thirty-four servants, all of them doing what three good European men and two maids would have performed a great deal better. “For,” she would say, “how can I turn them away now, to fall victims to the conscription, and have to reproach myself for their misfortunes?” But it is much to be feared that of all those to whom she afforded protection not one would have remained an hour in her service, had not that very apprehension been before their eyes: for, as mussulmans, they could not, according to the tenets of their religion, serve infidels. Confirmed in idleness as they were, they hated those who set them to do anything; and, knowing the weak points of Lady Hester’s character—her love of the semblance of sovereignty and of high-sounding titles, her avidity for supposed secret news, her dislike to women in general, and her disposition to mortify others—they flattered her foibles, provoked her jealousies, added fuel to her anger, and made the house a scene of trouble from morning to night, which answered their own purposes, by keeping their mistress constantly employed. Ill as she was, all this rendered her worse, and my days were literally passed in endeavouring to soothe her irritation.
Never was there so restless a spirit—never lived a human being so utterly indifferent to the inconvenience to which she subjected those, who she thought had been remiss in their duty. Nobody could pursue their avocations in quiet: she must give instructions to every one. And although the unexampled versatility of her talents and genius seemed to inspire her with an intuitive knowledge on all matters, yet it was irksome to remain three or four hours together to be taught how to govern one’s wife or how to rear one’s children, how statesmen were made and how ministers were unmade, how to know a good horse or a bad man, how to plant lettuces or plough a field, &c. These lectures nobody could render more agreeable and instructive than Lady Hester Stanhope, if they had occurred less frequently, or if they had always arisen naturally out of the course of conversation. But I was the only English person with her: she made me the vehicle of all her wishes and instructions—her griefs and her abuse; she dictated all her letters to me; I comptrolled her accounts and was her treasurer; I directed her household; I read long files of newspapers, to cull the interesting articles for her; I had to discuss medicine with her, and was expected to cure an incurable disease; I had to scold her maids, and to become, if she could have persuaded me, a slave-driver: lastly, I generally sat up with her until two or three o’clock in the morning. All this was more than enough to do, even with all the appliances of a well furnished house and a well regulated English establishment; but, exposed to the many inconveniences that a house half furnished, a people half taught, and materials of comfort half wanting, caused, it is hardly to be wondered if I found my humble abilities unequal to the task.
Lady Hester Stanhope’s health in the mean time improved, whilst mine gave way. She was however over-anxious about the prince’s expected visit, and returned to her favourite idea that a large body like hers required a great deal of substantial nourishment. She accordingly tried to eat forced-meat balls, meat-pies, lamb, chicken, &c., and hoped to calm her dyspnœa by spoonfuls of wine and lukewarm drinks. During these days I was busy in perusing a file of newspapers extending from November 23 to February 4. It was in them that we read the details of Mr. D. W. Harvey’s motion for a committee on the Pension List.
Saturday, March 25.—Lady Hester received a letter from the Viscount Ebrington, giving her notice also of the committee, saying he was on it, and that she could write to him whatever she had to suggest for securing a continuance of her pension: but the die was already cast—she had resigned it, and she was not a woman to retract her words.