I informed the prince Lady Hester was ready to receive him, and he went to her. He remained from two o’clock until half-past six, writing, as she told me afterwards, from her dictation, several things that she wished to be known, in order that he might not forget them. In her usual manner, when he had left her, and had nearly reached his own room, she sent a servant to recall him, as having forgotten something. No one ever got clear off from her at the first congé.
The correspondence about her pension occupied much of Lady Hester’s thoughts. She had requested me to make a copy of the whole, and to give it to the prince; this employed me almost all night. When showing her the copies, she said, “Is there any stability in anything, if king’s deeds are to be reversed in this way? In Turkey, a Sultan’s firmans are respected, even down to a grant of five piasters, though they may kill him afterwards on his throne; but nothing in England is safe. If they take away my pension, they’ll take Blenheim next, ay, and Strathfieldsaye too: I should like to write to the Duke of Wellington and tell him so.”
The prince pronounced himself rather indisposed, and thus had a sufficient pretext for remaining over Wednesday. He little knew the consequence of being unwell when under her ladyship’s roof; her sovereign remedy, a black dose, was immediately prepared for him, which he was to take next morning. But, it having been decided that he should remain, the ποδάρκης Ali was despatched over-night to the Emir Beshýr, with a verbal message to put off the prince’s going until Friday. Here, as upon all occasions, Lady Hester must give her instructions. It was six in the evening, and Ali had five hours’ quick walking to perform by moonlight over mountains that would frighten a European to look at; but he was to set off instantly, and to endeavour to arrive before the prince was gone to bed. He was to see the Emir, and to say, “Such are mylady’s words.” Ali started, and was back by ten next morning.
Wednesday, April 18.—“The Emir,” said Ali, in giving an account of his commission, “had retired to his harým when I got there, so that he could not be disturbed; but this morning, with the morning star, he was up, and I was called in. I had not seen him for three or four years: his beard is as white as snow. Approaching, I raised both my hands to my mouth and forehead, went close to him, and kissed the hem of his garment. ‘What are you come for, my son?’ said he; ‘I hope her Felicity, my lady, is well.’—‘She salutes your Felicity,’ said I, ‘and has sent me, her slave and yours, to say that the German prince, her guest, being unwell, is obliged to defer the honour of paying his respects until Friday.’—‘The prince’s pleasure is mine,’ replied the Emir; ‘and, whenever he comes, this palace is his, and I shall be proud of his visit:’ and then,” said Ali, “I came back.” But Ali had likewise another commission, which he executed equally well. Wherever he found the prince’s suite, either on the road or at the Emir Beshýr’s, he was to order the two Abyssinians to be conducted back to their master, as he was unwilling they should remain alone for two or three days among strangers: this was done.
At half-past one, the slaves arrived. One was a black girl about twelve years old, and she was dressed in boy’s clothes; the other, the Abyssinian, a young woman, was veiled from head to foot in the Egyptian manner. The Turkish servants seemed to consider female slaves as a necessary part of a great man’s retinue: they spoke of it as a matter of course. “His wife is come,” cried one: “a chair is wanted for the prince’s shariáh” (concubine), said another: for the term shariáh is not used in a disrespectful sense in the East. There was as much bustle about her as if she had been a European princess, because thus is it done to those whom their masters choose to honour. “Will my lady take it ill, that I have brought her here?” the prince asked me. I told him no; for so, anticipating the question, she had desired me to say; adding, “there is not a great man in these countries who does not travel with his harým in his train, when his means will allow of it; and in the eyes of the Mussulmans he is not compromised by having his slaves here, nor am I in receiving them.”
The prince confined himself to his chamber somewhat late. I seized the opportunity of enjoying the pleasing society of Count Tattenbach, whose amiable manners increased the pleasure which the presence of the prince had spread over the solitude of Jôon: when the latter joined us in the saloon, I paid my respects to him. At Lady Hester’s desire, I requested from him some information respecting the polytheistic school, which, from a biographical notice of Heyne, inserted in the Révue de Paris, she had learned existed in Germany. The prince told me Heyne was the chief of that sect, and that its tenets were of a rather general and vague nature, implying the probability of the existence of many intermediate links in the chain of beings between God and man, and of many subordinate deities. “I myself,” he added, “if I am not one of them, am disposed to think that around us invisible spirits may be hovering higher in degree of creation than ourselves. When I reflect on man’s capacities and reasoning powers—just enough, as they are, to make him sensible how little he is—I sometimes am inclined to think that perhaps this is hell we live in.”
It appeared that M. Lamartine and his work on the East had been a subject of conversation between him and Lady Hester, and he told me the comments she had made on some passages: “I shall certainly,” said he, “put them into my journal. However,” he added, “I ought to observe, and I hope you will tell my lady so, that, as it will be impossible to have visited her without writing something about her, I shall say nothing that I have not first submitted to her inspection.”
He spoke in very ill humour about his dose of salts, which, as he thought, had done him no good; but he was much mistaken if he supposed that any objections he could have raised to being dosed, short of making his escape, would have saved him.
The correspondence with Lord Palmerston became a subject of conversation. “Why should my lady throw up her pension?” said he; “it is perfectly ridiculous to suppose that M. Guys or any other consul cares about Colonel Campbell’s silly threats: as if he were to dictate to them, and prevent them from setting their signature to a life certificate, or any other document. He might say—‘That certificate will not be held good in England, when presented;’ but beyond that, it was a piece of presumption, which M. G. very justly called the act of a malotru. A pension is no bad thing. I once neglected an opportunity of having a good sinecure: for we have them in Prussia as well as in England. Prince Hardenberg, who was my father-in-law, and whose favourite I was, offered me a place, with nothing to do, and great pay. I refused it out of delicacy, but I have since repented of it; for, so long as they are to be given away, it is as well for one to take them as another.” I do not know whether the prince’s casuistry is conclusive, but I know it is entertained by many persons, although it did not accord with Lady Hester’s notions. After dinner, the prince went to her Ladyship, and remained till a late hour.
Thursday, April 19.—There came to-day a Mograbyn, or Barbary shaykh, a resident of Zyb, near Acre, a place where many shaykhs live, men versed in the Mahometan tenets and traditions, and reputed of great piety. He introduced himself to me as a person in the habit of receiving gifts in money from her ladyship, and of having conversations with her. I gave him to understand that the moment was not a propitious one, and thought I had got rid of him, as he mounted his mare and rode away.