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!”
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