| CHAP. XIX] | 185 |
I well remember the rainy, gloomy December day, in 1825, on
which Count Stackelberg, the Russian Minister Plenipotentiary at
Naples, invited a very numerous party to celebrate the anniversary of the Emperor’s
birthday. Prince Ischitella was one of the guests,
and I was dining with his family, who occupied a part of the same immense palazzo in which the Count had his residence. At the appropriate time the
Minister and all his guests stood up, glass in hand, to drink, with all the honours, the
health of the Emperor Alexander. The Cavalier
Don Luigi Medici, turning to the Duc —— said,
quite sotto voce, “Noi beviamo alla sua salute, ed egli è morte!”
(“We drink to his health, and he is dead!”) The Duc was electrified,
but said nothing. The toast was repeated, and the feast went on merrily to its conclusion.
Just before going to it, Medici had received despatches by a quick
courier; but he did not consider it consistent with Court and diplomatic etiquette either
to interrupt the banquet, or to be the first to announce the fatal news to the
Emperor’s own Minister. Count Stackelberg’s courier did
not reach Naples till late on the following day. When the dinner-party broke up,
Medici and the Duc imparted the tidings to two or three friends as
they were leaving the Count. Prince Ischitella, who came up to us from
the banquet at no very late hour, was deeply affected by the news, by
Medici’s whispered remark, and by the contrast between the
jollity of
| 186 | ALEXANDER I. | [CHAP. XIX |
When Stratford Canning showed his poem on the “Downfall of Bonaparte” to his gifted cousin, Mr. Canning said: “The verses are very well, but I wish, before writing them, that you had recollected our good Eton rule, never to strike your adversary when he is down. I, in my time, struck Bony pretty often, in prose and verse, and some of my blows were thought to be hard and telling, but that was debout, when he was up and full of fight. You hit him when he is prostrate.” Sir Stratford told me this in London, in 1835, as he was giving me a MS. copy of his verses, which have been praised a great deal more than they deserve, for they do not ascend higher than respectable mediocrity.
In the uneasy interval between the two terrible battles of Leipzig, while
he was making a last trial to win back his father-in-law Francis, he said to
| CHAP. XIX] | QUEEN HORTENSE | 187 |
Quite recently M. Villemain has given these words, and given them correctly, in his “Souvenirs Contemporains”; I heard them thirty-five years ago from an Austrian officer, who had served on Merveldt’s staff.
In 1846, old Mr. B. being at Constance, made acquaintance with Hortense, ex-Queen of Holland, wife of Louis Bonaparte, and daughter of Josephine Beauharnais, first wife of Napoleon I. The lady talked a great deal about her son, Louis Napoleon, now Emperor of the French. “The world,” said she, “does not know my son. He is silent and retiring, more like an Englishman than a Frenchman; but he thinks—he is always thinking. I know him to possess extraordinary abilities, and a perseverance à toute épreuve. His past failures go for nothing. If he live, he will yet be Emperor of the French. I am sure of it.” At that time no prediction could seem wilder than this. Old Mr. B. did not live quite long enough to witness its fulfilment; but he lived to see Louis Napoleon President of the French Republic, and that that Republic must very soon end in an Imperial despotism.
For a very long time, and down to the Revolution of 1848, and his recall to
France, a very mean opinion was certainly entertained in London society of Louis Napoleon; but even then there were some who spoke very
highly of his abilities. Among these were Lord Brougham
and Count D’Orsay. I do not know that either
predicted, years before the
| 188 | QUEEN HORTENSE | [CHAP. XIX |
About the year 1817-18, this popular and eminent composer, who was a man of
great natural wit, and one who would have succeeded in nearly any other science or pursuit
if he could have seriously taken it up, when writing to his old mother, always addressed
the letters thus: Alla Signora G. Rossini,
Madre del celeberrimo Maestro Gioacchino Rossini,
Pesaro. I think he did this in joke, I cannot think it was done in pride
or vanity. He had no such bias. Rossini’s
passion was a love of money—he cared nothing for fame, except in so far as it might bring
him in dollars, scudi, Napoleons, or English sovereigns. He is one of the very few men of
genius I have ever known to be so mean, and in some respects sordid, and to have such a
passion for mere gold. If a fiacre had to be discharged, or if there
were anything else to pay, the Maestro never had any money about
him, he had always forgotten his purse on his dressing-table. His friends, no matter how
much younger or poorer than himself, must disburse for him, and he would pay them next
time, which he never did, for there never was a time when he had his purse about him. Even
in Italy, and long before he came to Paris and London, he made large sums by his
compositions, hoarded what he made, and lived at large upon the Impresarios and others among his innumerable friends; and yet, to make his lucre
more, he contracted a disgraceful marriage, and in a very disgraceful manner, with
the Colbran, the mistress of Domenico
Barbaja, the Impresario of San Carlo, in whose house and
at whose table he had been chiefly living for four or five years. Yet would I
| CHAP. XIX] | ROSSINI | 189 |
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