The deception, the cheating, the plunder, practised upon this unhappy woman by the courier Bergamo, his sister, and other relatives, were astounding. Their systematic cheating brought great discredit on Her Royal Highness. In return for the loan of a house, and for other services rendered, the Princess presented the Duchess of Gallo, at parting, with a pearl necklace. The pearls were large, and thought to be of great value. But when the Duchess had worn them a few times at balls and parties, she thought she perceived some discoloration. She sent for her jeweller, who at once assured her that the pearls were all false, and not worth a dollar. This generous-minded lady understood how and by whom the deception had been practised; she never suspected for a moment that the Princess had given her sham pearls. *In other cases, with persons of inferior rank, when the Princess had promised to leave some tokens behind her, the presents were never received; Bergamo and his gang had, no doubt, intercepted them.
The way in which, on her first coming, she betrayed her insanity, was in making downright love to that beau sabreur, King Joachim Murat! At the Court balls she would waltz with him, must waltz with him, over and over again. He was tall, she rather dumpy and already very corpulent. “Venez à mon aide, chère Duchesse,” said Murat one night to the
* In MacFarlane’s handwriting to the end. |
| CHAP. XXII] | AT COMO | 215 |
Murat’s wife, Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s favourite sister, and the member of the family most like him, was far, far indeed, from being jealous of such a rival; in private, with her dames d’honneur, and with others, she amused herself at Caroline’s expense, and at times laughed immoderately at her follies and at her personal vanity.
Far be it from me to turn up les ordures that were deposited and accumulated on the trial of this reckless, hapless woman; who, at the least, was quite as much sinned against as sinning; but I must say that never was Princess less fitted to be a Queen of England; that she had such manners and such moral defects as ought to have closed against her the door of the house of every respectable Englishman who had a family. God knows, the morals of Naples were not exemplary at this period—there has been improvement since—but married ladies observed les bienséances, and were quite scandalisées at many of Caroline’s proceedings.
It was the same story at Como, where she lived so long with Bergamo and Co. I passed through that district in 1819,
about a year before she came back to England to brave her husband and claim the crown
matrimonial; I saw her delightful villa on the margin of the lake, and I saw her boating on
the lake, with Bergamo close at her side, and his sister seated at
some distance. Her Royal Highness had a very red face; but it was very hot weather.
Everybody in the antique city of Como and in the romantic townships and villages round
about, were talking about her, and her liaison with the low-bred man, and the way in which
he and his relatives were feathering their nests, with her feathers. Most of these people
had known the Bergami, a very few
| 216 | PRINCESS CAROLINE | [CHAP. XXII |
By the favour of Caroline, Princess of Wales, Bergamo, the chief, was now a Count, Knight of her Highness’s Order of Jerusalem, and his vulgar sister was a Countess—Contessa d’Oldi.
“The Princess,” said the host at “mine inn,” “is kind, compassionate, generous; but those who are about her stop supplies, pocket the money, and the poor and sick seldom get anything from that quarter!”
They all regretted that so high and great a lady should have formed such a mean and degrading connection. On her first arrival at Naples, and for some time after, Bergamo was a courier when she travelled, and a waiting-man when she was sedentary. In the latter capacity, he often waited at table on the Duchess of Gallo, her sisters, the fascinating Duchess of Atri, and the Princess of Francavilla, the Dukes of Gallo, Atri, and Campomele, Sir William Gell, the Hon. Keppel Craven, and others, English and Italian, with whom I became acquainted three years afterwards, or in 1817. “What first annoyed us,” said the Duchess of Atri, by birth a Colonna Stigliano, “was to see this man suddenly set up as a gentleman and nobleman, and to see your Princess trying to make us treat him as such. A fellow who, not many weeks before, had stood behind our chairs and changed our plates! Era un po’ troppo forte!”
Lord Brougham, one of her counsel on the trial, with
Denman, Dr.
Lushington, etc., has continued stoutly to maintain, and to believe, or
pretend to believe, not only that Caroline was
innocent as regarded Bergamo, but that she was
altogether pure, chaste, of exemplary life, conversation, and conduct. Surely he must have
known better! Surely this must be a bit of his lordship’s acting. Of late I have not
heard him allude to the subject; but, a few years ago, he would have thundered and
lightened
| CHAP. XXII] | BARONNE DE FEUCHERES | 217 |
At no time of his life did Henry Brougham show any passion for amassing riches, as his predecessor, Lord Eldon, had done. Long before he reached the Woolsack, a solicitor in great practice was giving him advice, and telling him that if he would only do this and that, he might double, nay treble, his professional income. “My friend,” said Brougham, “I don’t want to make myself a funnel for the passage of a great deal of money!”
There are some omissions, and two or three incorrect statements, in
Thomas Raikes’s account of this notorious
woman. Her original name was Nancy Dawes, not
Dawe. Her father was a boatman and fisherman in the Isle of Wight.
I have known persons who remembered her brothers and others of her relations as labourers
and fishermen. As a girl, she was not only very handsome, but also very clever. Her first
lover was a young English officer belonging to one of the regiments or one of the depots in
the Isle of Wight. He took some pains in instructing her himself; and, on being ordered on
foreign service, he sent her to a ladies’ school at Old Brompton, where she certainly
remained some time. According to one account, the officer was killed in battle; according
to another, he died of a West Indian fever; and according to a third account—as likely to
be as true as either of the others—he grew tired of the expense, and ashamed of the
connection. It may be, that when she first attracted the notice of the Duc de Bourbon, she was living with the fruiterer in
Oxford Street, just opposite
| 218 | BARONNE DE FEUCHÈRES | [CHAP. XXII |
She had previously taken care of this precious relative, for he had been
brought up in good English
| CHAP. XXII] | HER NEPHEW, DAWES | 219 |
My friend got domiciled with him, and stayed with him at the Château for some months.
How he survived the visit I could hardly make out, for
Dawes was constantly putting his life in jeopardy, either by sea
or on dry land. I have rarely heard, or read of, such a dare-devil, godless ruffian. But,
though a tremendous bully, the fellow was no coward. It may be fancied how he, a rich
Englishman, and rich by French spoils, and the nephew and heir of such a woman as Madame la Baronne, was treated by the Frenchmen who lived
in his neighbourhood. Before he had been two years in France, in possession of the estate,
he had fought about a dozen duels, and had each time come off triumphantly. Rapier or
sabre, pistol or rifle, all was the same to Dawes. At the time of my
quondam friend’s visit, he had so established a reputation for courage, daring, and
address, that the French had made up their minds to leave him alone. This was about the
year 1843. A year or two later, he purchased a beautiful place in the Isle of Wight, his
native place as well as that of his notorious aunt, and here he established his
headquarters; and here, I believe, he is now living (1856). N. went
several times to the Isle of Wight to visit him. He had collected a set of ferocious dogs,
a wolf or two, some foxes, an enormous eagle, and other beasts and birds of prey, and these
were so disposed round the house and in the grounds that it was very dangerous for a
stranger to walk there.
| 220 | BARONNE DE FEUCHÈRES | [CHAP. XXII |
Such was the nephew and part-heir of Madame la Baronne de Feucheres. Louis Philippe’s son, His Royal Highness the Duc d’Aumale, was a co-heir.
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