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"As for that," said the Duke, with a chuckle, ‘'I am not afraid. I defy

him to do his worst; and I am willing to wager that I shall be a match

for him. However," he added, "you're an entertaining fellow; so come and
see me again whenever you please."

And thus, by the wish of the Duchess's husband himself, the ducal
"hawker" became a daily visitor at the palace, entertaining His Highness
with his chatter, and, when his back was turned, making love to his
wife, and joining her in shrieks of laughter at his easy gullibility.

Thus many happy weeks passed, Gasparini, the pedlar, selling few
volumes, but reaping a rich harvest of stolen pleasure, and revelling in

an adventure which added such a new zest to a life sated with more
humdrum love—making. But even the Duchess's charms began to pall; the
ladies he had left so disconsolate in Paris were inundating him with
letters, begging him to return to them——|etters, all forwarded to him

from his chateau at Richelieu, where he was supposed to be in retreat.
The lure was too strong for him; and, taking leave of the Duchess in
floods of tears, he returned to his beloved Paris to fresh conquests.

And thus it was with the gay Duc until the century that followed that of
his birth was drawing to its close; until its sun was beginning to set

in the blood ofthat Revolution, which, if he had lived but one year
longer, would surely have claimed him as one of its first victims.
Three wives he led to the a|tar——the last when he had passed into the
eighties——but no marital duty was allowed to interfere with the amours
which filled his life; and to the last no pity ever gave a pang to the
"conscience" which allowed him to pick and fling away his flowers at
will, and to trample, one after another, on the hearts that yielded to
his love and trusted to his honour.

CHAPTER XV||l

THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS

It was an ill fate that brought Caroline, Princess of
Brunswick-Wolfenbuettel to England to be the bride of George, Prince of
Wales, one April day in the year 1795; although probably no woman has
ever set forth on her bridal journey with a lighter or prouder heart,

for, as she said, "Am l not going to be the wife of the handsomest

Prince in the world?" If she had any momentary doubt of this, a glance
at the miniature she carried in her bosom reassured her; for the

pictured face that smiled at her was handsome as that of an Apollo.

No wonder the Princess's heart beat high with pride and pleasure during
that last triumphal stage of her journey to her husband's arms; for he

was not only the handsomest man, with "the best shaped leg in Europe,"

he was by common consent the "greatest gentleman" any Court could show.
Picture him as he made his first appearance at a Court ball. "His coat,"

we are told, "was of pink silk, with white cuffs; his waistcoat of white

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silk, embroidered with various—coloured foil and adorned with a

profusion of French paste. And his hat was ornamented with two rows of
steel beads, five thousand in number, with a button and a loop of the
same metal, and cocked in a new military style." See young "Florizel" as
he makes his smiling and gracious progress through the avenues of
courtiers; note the winsomeness of his smiles, the inimitable grace of

his bows, his pleasant, courtly words of recognition, and say if ever
Royalty assumed a form more agreeable to the eye and captivating to the
senses.

"Florizel" was indeed the most splendid Prince in the world, and the

most "perfect gentleman." He was also, though his bride-to—be little

knew it, the most dissolute man in Europe, the greatest gambler and
voluptuary—-a man who was as false to his friends as he was traitor to
every woman who crossed his path, a man whom no appeal of honour or
mercy could check in his selfish pursuit of pleasure.

"l look through all his life,'' Thackeray says, "and recognise but a bow
and a grin. I try and take him to pieces, and find silk stockings,
padding, stays, a coat with frogs and a fur collar, a star and blue
ribbon, a pocket handkerchief prodigiously scented, one of Truefitt's
best nutty brown wigs reeking with oil, a set of teeth and a huge black
stock, under-waistcoats, more under-waistcoats, and then--nothing.
French ballet-dancers, French cooks, horse—jockeys, buffoons,
procuresses, tailors, boxers, fencing—masters, china, jewel and
gimcrack—merchants-—these were his real companions."

Such was the husband Princess Caroline came so light-heartedly, with
laughter on her lips, from Brunswick to wed, little dreaming of the
disillusion and tears that were to await her on the very threshold of
the life to which she had looked fon/vard with such high hopes.

We get the first glimpse of Caroline some twelve years earlier, when Sir
John Stanley, who was making the grand tour, spent a few weeks at her
father's Court. He speaks of her as a "beautiful girl of fourteen," and
adds, ''I did think and dream of her day and night at Brunswick, and for

a year afterwards I saw her for hours three or fours times a week, but

as a star out of my reach." Years later he met her again under sadly
changed conditions. "One day only," he writes, "when dining with her and
her mother at Blackheath, she smiled at something which had pleased her,
and for an instant only I could have fancied she had been the Caroline

of fourteen years old——the lovely, pretty Caroline, the girl my eyes had

so often rested on, with light and powdered hair hanging in curls on her
neck, the lips from which only sweet words seemed as if they would flow,
with looks animated, and always simply and modestly dressed."

Lady Charlotte Campbell, too, gives us a glimpse of her in these early
and happier years, before sorrow had laid its defacing hand on her. "The
Princess was in her early youth a pretty girl," Lady Charlotte says,

"with fine light hair——very delicately formed features, and a fine
complexion--quick, glancing, penetrating eyes, long cut and rather small
in the head, which gave them much expression; and a remarkably
delicately formed mouth."

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It was in no happy home that the Princess had been cradled one May day
in 1768. Her father, Charles William, Duke of Brunswick, was an austere
soldier, too much absorbed in his military life and his mistress, to

give much thought to his daughters. Her mother, the Duchess Augusta,
sister of our own George lll., was weak and small—minded, too much
occupied in self-indulgence and scandal—talking to trouble about the
training of her children.

Princess Caroline herself draws an unattractive picture of her

home—|ife, in answer to Lady Charlotte Campbell's question, "Were you
sorry to leave Brunswick?" "Not at all," was the answer; ''I was sick

tired of it, though I was sorry to leave my fader. I loved my fader

dearly, better than any oder person. But dere were some unlucky tings in
our Court which made my position difficult. My fader was most entirely
attached to a lady for thirty years, who was in fact his mistress. She

was the beautifullest creature and the cleverest, but, though my fader
continued to pay my moder all possible respect, my poor moder could not
suffer this attachment. And de consequence was, I did not know what to
do between them; when l was civil to one, I was scolded by the other,
and was very tired of being shuttlecock between them."

But in spite of these unfortunate home conditions Caroline appears to
have spent a fairly happy girlhood, thanks to her exuberant spirits; and
such faults as she developed were largely due to the lack of parental
care, which left her training to servants. Thus she grew up with quite a
shocking disregard of conventions, running wild like a young filly, and
finding her pleasure and her companions in undesirable directions.
Strange stories are told of her girlish love affairs, which seem to have
been indiscreet if nothing worse, while her beauty drew to her many a
high—placed wooer, including the Prince of Orange and Prince George of
Darmstadt, to all of whom she seems to have turned a cold shoulder.

But the wilful Princess was not to be left mistress of her own destiny.
One November day, in 1794, Lord Malmesbury arrived at the Brunswick
Court to demand her hand for the Prince of Wales, whom his burden of
debts and the necessity of providing an heir to the throne of England
were at last driving reluctantly to the altar. And thus a new and

dazzling future opened for her. To her parents nothing could have been
more welcome than this prospect of a crown for their daughter; while to
her it offered a release from a life that had become odious.

"The Princess Caroline much embarrassed on my first being presented to
her," Malmesbury enters in his diary--"pretty face, not expressive of
softness——her figure not graceful, fine eyes, good hands, tolerable

teeth, fair hair and light eyebrows, good bust, short, with what the

French call 'des epaules impertinentes,' vastly happy with her future
expectations.“

Such were Malmesbury's first impressions of the future Queen of England,
whom it was his duty to prepare for her exalted station——a duty which he
seems to have taken very seriously, even to the regulating of her

toilette and her manners. Thus, a few days after setting eyes on her,

his diary records: "She _will_ call ladies whom she meets for the first

time ‘Mon coeur, ma chere, ma petite,‘ and I am obliged to rebuke and

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correct her.“ He lectures her on her undignified habit of whispering and
giggling, and impresses on her the necessity of greater care in her

attire, on more constant and thorough ablution, more frequent changes of
linen, the care of her teeth, and so on—-all of which admonitions she
seems to have taken in excellent part, with demure promises of
amendment, until he is impelled to write, "Princess Caroline improves
very much on a closer acquaintance--cheerful and loves laughing. If she
can get rid of her gossiping habit she will do very well."

Thus a few months passed at the Brunswick Court. The ceremonial of
betrothal took place in December——"Princess Caroline much affected, but
replies distinctly and well"; the marriage—contract was signed, and

finally on 28th March the Princess embarked for England on herjourney
to the unseen husband whose good-looks and splendour have filled her
with such high expectations. That she had not yet learnt discretion, in
spite of all Ma|mesbury's homilies, is proved by the fact that she spent
the night on board in walking up and down the deck in the company of a
handsome young naval officer, conduct which naturally gave cause for
observation and suspicion in the affianced bride of the future King of
England.

It was well, perhaps, that she had snatched these few hours of innocent
pleasure: for her first meeting with her future husband was well
calculated to scatter all her rosy dreams. Arrived at last at St James's
Palace, ''I immediately notified the arrival to the King and Prince of
Wales," says Malmesbury; "the last came immediately. I accordingly
introduced the Princess Caroline to him. She very properly attempted to
kneel to him. He raised her gracefully enough, and embraced her, said
barely one word, turned round and retired to a distant part of the
apartment, and calling to me said: 'Harris, I am not well; pray get me a
glass of brandy.‘ I said, ‘Sir, had you not better have a glass of

water?‘ Upon which he, much out of humour, said with an oath: 'No; I
will go directly to the Queen,’ and away he went. The Princess, left
during this short moment alone, was in a state of astonishment; and, on
myjoining her, said, '_Mon Dieu_, is the Prince always like that? I

find him very fat, and not at all as handsome as his portrait."'

Such was the Princess‘s welcome to the arms of her handsome husband and
to the Court over which she hoped to reign as Queen; nor did she receive
much warmer hospitality from the Prince's family. The Queen, who had
designed a very different bride for her eldest son, received her with

scarcely disguised enmity, while the King, although, as he aftenNards

proved, kindly disposed towards her, treated her at first with an

amiable indifference. And certainly her attitude seems to have been
calculated to create an unfavourable impression on her new relatives and

on the Court generally.

At the banquet which followed her reception, Malmesbury says, ''I was far
from satisfied with the Princess's behaviour. It was flippant, rattling,
affecting raillery and wit, and throwing out coarse, vulgar hints about
Lady————, who was present. The Prince was evidently disgusted, and this
unfortunate dinner fixed his dislike, which, when left to herself, the
Princess had not the talent to remove; but by still observing the same
giddy manners and attempts at cleverness and coarse sarcasm, increased

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it till it became positive hatred."

"What," as Thackeray asks, "could be expected from a wedding which had
such a beginning——from such a bridegroom and such a bride? Malmesbury
tells us how the Prince reeled into the Chapel Royal to be married on

the evening of Wednesday, the 8th of April; and how he hiccuped out his
vows of fidelity." "My brother," John, Duke of Bedford, records, "was

one of the two unmarried dukes who supported the Prince at the ceremony,
and he had need of his support; for my brother told me the Prince was so
drunk that he could scarcely support himself from falling. He told my
brother that he had drunk several glasses of brandy to enable him to go
through the ceremony. There is no doubt that it was a _compulsory_
marriage."

With such an overture, we are not surprised to learn that the Royal
bridegroom spent his wedding—night in a state of stupor on the floor of
his bedroom; or that at dawn, when he had slept off the effects of his
debauch, "pages heard cries proceeding from the nuptial chamber, and
shortly aftenNards saw the bridegroom rush out vio|ently."

Nor, we may be sure, was the Prince's undisguised hatred of his bride in
any way mitigated by the stories which Lady Jersey and others of hex
rivals poured into his willing ears——stories of her attachment to a

young German Prince whom she was not allowed to marry; of a mysterious
illness, followed by a few weeks’ retreat; of that midnight promenade

with the young naval officer; of assignations with Major Toebingen, the
handsomest soldier in Europe, who so proudly wore the amethyst tie-pin
she had presented to him——these and many another story which reflected
none too well on her reputation before he had set eyes on her. But it
needed no such whispered scandal to strengthen his hatred of a bride who
personally repelled him, and who had been forced on him at a time when
his heart was fully engaged with his lawful wedded wife, Mrs

Fitzherbert, when it was not straying to Lady Jersey, to "Perdita" or

others of his legion of lights—o'—|ove.

From the first day the ill—fated union was doomed. One violent scene
succeeded another, until, before she had been two months a wife, the
Prince declared that he would no longer live with her. He would only
wait until her child was born; then he would formally and finally leave

her. Thus, three months after the birth of the Princess Charlotte, the Ay-«id; l7 9 

deed of separation was signed, and Caroline was at last free to escape
from a Court which she had grown to detest, with good reason, and from a
husband whose brutalities and infidelities filled her with loathing.

She carried with her, however, this consolation, that the "great, hearty
people of England loved and pitied her." "God bless you! we will bring
your husband back to you," was among the many cries that greeted her as
she left the palace on her way to exile. But, to quote Thackeray again,
"they could not bring that husband back; they could not cleanse that
selfish heart. Was hers the only one he had wounded? Steeped in
selfishness, impotent for faithful attachment and manly enduring

love——had it not survived remorse, was it not accustomed to desertion?"

For a time the outcast Princess, with her infant daughter, led a retired

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life amid the peace and beauty of Blackheath, where she lived as simply
as any bourgeoise, playing the "lady bountiful" to the poor among her
neighbours. Her chief pleasure seems to have been to surround herself
with cottage babies, converting Montague House into a "positive nursery,
littered up with cradles, swaddling—bands, feeding bottles, and other
things of the kind."

But even to this rustic retirement watchful eyes and slanderous tongues
followed her; and it was not long before stories were passing from mouth

to mouth in the Court of strange doings at Blackheath. The Princess, it

was said, had become very intimate with Sir John Douglas and his lady,

her near neighbours, and more especially with Sydney Smith, a
good—looking naval captain, who shared the Douglas home, a man,
moreover, with whom she had had suspicious relations at her father's

Court many years earlier. It was rumoured that Captain Smith was a
frequent and too welcome guest at Montague House, at hours when discreet
ladies are not in the habit of receiving their male friends. Nor was the
handsome captain the only friend thus unconventionally entertained.

There was another good—looking naval officer, a Captain Manby, and also
Sir Thomas Lawrence, the famous painter, both of whom were admitted to a
suspicious intimacy with the Princess of Wales.

These rumours, sufficiently disquieting in themselves, were followed by
stories of the concealed birth of a child, who had come mysteriously to
swell the numbers of the Princess's proteges of the creche. Even King
George, whose sympathy with his heir's ill—used wife was a matter of
common knowledge, could not overlook a charge so grave as this. It must
be investigated in the interests of the State, as well as of his

family's honour; and, by his orders, a Commission of Peers was appointed
to examine into the matter and ascertain the truth.

The inquiry-—the "Delicate lnvestigation" as it was appropriately
called-—opened in June, 1806, and witness after witness, from the
Douglases to Robert Bidgood, a groom, gave evidence which more or less
supported the charges of infidelity and concealment. The result of the
investigation, however, was a verdict of acquittal, the Commissioners
reporting that the Princess, although innocent, had been guilty of very
indiscreet conduct—-and this verdict the Privy Council confirmed.

For the Princess it was a triumphant vindication, which was hailed with
acclamation throughout the country. Even the Royal family showed their
satisfaction by formal visits of congratulation to the Princess, from

the King himself to the Duke of Cumberland who conducted his
sister-in—law on a visit to the Court.

But the days of Blackheath and the amateur nursery were at an end. The
Princess returned to London, and found a more suitable home in
Kensington Palace for some years, where she held her Court in rivalry of
that of her husband at Carlton House. Here she was subjected to every
affront and slight by the Prince and his set that the ingenuity of

hatred could devise, and to crown her humiliation and isolation, her
daughter Charlotte was taken from her and forbidden even to recognise
her when their carriages passed in the street or park.

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Can we wonder that, under such remorseless persecutions, the Princess
became more and more defiant; that she gave herself up to a life of
recklessness and extravagance; that, more and more isolated from her own
world, she sought her pleasure and her companions in undesirable
quarters, finding her chief intimates in a family of Italian musicians;

or that finally, heart—broken and despairing, she determined once for

all to shake off the dust of a land that had treated her so cruelly?

In August, 1814, with the approval of King and Parliament, the Princess
left England to begin a career of amazing adventures and indiscretions,
the story of which is one of the most remarkable in history.

CHAPTER XIX

THE INDISCRETIONS OF A PRINCESS--_c0ntinued_

When Caroline, Princess of Wales, shook the dust of England off her feet
one August day in the year 1814, it was only natural that her steps
should first turn towards the Brunswick home which held for her at least
a few happy memories, and where she hoped to find in sympathy and old
associations some salve for her wounded heart.

But the fever of restlessness was in her blood-—the restlessness which
was to make her a wanderer over the face of the earth for half a dozen
years. The peace and solace she had looked for in Brunswick eluded her;
and before many days had passed she was on her way through Switzerland
to the sunny skies of Italy, where she could perhaps find in distraction
and pleasure the anodyne which a life of retirement denied her. She was
full of rebellion against fate, of hatred against her husband and his
country which had treated her with such unmerited cruelty. She would
defy fate; she would put a whole continent between herself and the
nightmare life she had left behind, she hoped for ever. She would pursue
and find pleasure at whatever cost.

In September, within five weeks of leaving England, we find her at

Geneva, installed in a suite of rooms next to those occupied by Marie
Louise, late Empress of France, a fugitive and exile like herself, and
animated by the same spirit of reckless revolt against destiny-—Marie
Louise, we read, "making excursions like a lunatic on foot and on
horseback, never even seeming to dream of making people remember that,
before she became mixed up with a Corsican adventurer, she was an
Archduchess"; the Princess of Wales, equally careless of her dignity and
position, finding her pleasure in questionable company.

"From the inn where she was stopping she heard music, and, quite
unaccompanied, immediately entered a neighbouring house and disappeared
in the medley of dancers." A few days later, at Lausanne, "she learned

that a little ball was in progress at a house opposite the ‘Golden

Lion,’ and she asked for an invitation. After dancing with everybody and
anybody, she finished up by dancing a Savoyard dance, called a

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_fricassee_, with a nobody. Madame de Corsal, who blushed and wept for
the rest of the company, declares that it has made her ill, and that she
feels that the honour of England has been compromised." Thus early did
Caroline begin that career of indiscretion, to call it by no worse name,
which made of her six years‘ exile "a long suicide of her reputation."

in October we find the Princess entering Milan, with her retinue of
Iadies—in—waiting, chamberlains, equerry, page, courier, and coachman,
and with William Austin for companion—-a boy, how about thirteen, whom
she treated as her son, and who was believed by many to be the child of
her imprudence at Blackheath, although the Commission of the "Delicate
|nvestigation" had pronounced that he was son of a poor woman at
Deptford. At Milan, as indeed wherever she wandered in Italy, the
“Vagabond Princess" was received as a Queen. Count di Bellegarde, the
Austrian Governor, was the first to pay homage to her; at the Scala
Theatre, the same evening, her entry was greeted with thunders of
applause, and whenever she appeared in the Milan streets it was to an
accompaniment of doffed hats and cheers.

One of her first visits was to the studio of Giuseppe Bossi, the famous
and handsome artist, whom she requested to paint her portrait. "On
Thursday," Bossi records, ''I sketched her successfully in the character
of a Muse; then on Friday she came to show me her arms, of which she
was, not without reason, decidedly vain——she is a gay and whimsical
woman, she seems to have a good heart; at times she is ennuyee through
lack of occupation." On one occasion when she met in the studio some
French ladies, two of whom had been mistresses of the King of
Westphalia, the poor artist was driven to distraction by the chatter,

the singing, and dancing, in which the Princess especially displayed her
agility, until, as he pathetically says, "the house seemed possessed of
the devil, and you can imagine with what kind of ease it was possible
for me to work."

Before leaving Milan the Princess gave a grand banquet to Bellegarde
and a number of the principal men of the city—-a feast which was to have
very important and serious consequences, for it was at this banquet that
General Pino, one of her guests, introduced to Caroline a new courier, a
man who, though she little dreamt it at the time, was destined to play a
very baleful part in her life.

This new courier was a tall and strikingly handsome man, who had seen
service in the Italian army, until a duel, in which he killed a superior
officer, compelled him to leave it in disgrace. At the time he entered

the Princess's service he was a needy adventurer, whose scheming brain
and utter lack of principle were in the market for the highest bidder.

"He is," said Baron Ompteda, "a sort of Apollo, of a superb and
commanding appearance, more than six feet high; his physical beauty
attracts all eyes. This man is called Pergami; he belongs to Milan, and
has entered the Princess's service. The Princess," he significantly

adds, "is shunned by all the English people of rank; her behaviour has
created the most marked scandal."

Such was the man with whose life that ofthe Princess of Wales was to be
so intimately and disastrously linked, and whose relations with her were

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to be displayed to a shocked world but a few years later. It was indeed
an evil fate that brought this "superb Apollo" of the crafty brain and
conscienceless ambition into the life of the Princess at the high tide

of her revolt against the world and its conventions.

When Caroline and her retinue set out from Milan for Tuscany it was in
the wake of Pergami, who had ridden ahead to discharge his duties as
_avant courier_; but before Rome was reached his intimacy and
familiarity with his mistress were already the subject of whispered
comments and shrugged shoulders. At a ball given in her honour at Rome
by the banker Tortonia, the Princess shocked even the least prudish by
the abandon of her dancing and the tenuity of her costume, which, we are
told, consisted of "a single embroidered garment, fastened beneath the
bosom, without the shadow of a corset and without sleeves." And at
Naples, where King Joachim Murat gave her a regal reception, with a
sequel of fetes and ga|a—performances in honour of the wife of the

Regent of England, she attended a rout, at the Teatro San Carlo, so
lightly attired "that many who saw her at her first entrance looked her

up and down, and, not recognising her, or pretending not to recognise
her, began to mutter disapprobation to such an extent that she was
compelled to withdraw... The English residents soon let her understand,
by ceasing to frequent her palace, that even at Naples there were

certain laws of dress which could not be trampled underfoot in this
hoydenish manner."

While Caroline was thus defying convention and even decency, watchful
eyes were following her everywhere. A body of secret police, whose
headquarters were at Milan, was noting every indiscretion; and every
week brought fresh and damaging reports to England, where they were
eagerly welcomed by the Regent and his satellites. And while the
Princess was thus playing unconsciously, or recklessly, into the hands
of the enemy, Pergami was daily making his footing in her favour more
secure. Before Caroline left Naples he had been promoted from courier to
equerry, and in this more exalted and privileged role was always at her
side. So marked, in fact, was the intimacy even at this early stage,

that the Princess's retinue, one after another, and on one flimsy

pretext or another, deserted her in disgust, each vacancy, as it
occurred, being filled by one of Pergami's relatives--his brother, his
daughter, his sister—in—law (the Countess Oidi), and others, until

Caroline was soon surrounded by members of the ex-courier's family.

From Naples she wandered to Genoa, and from Genoa to Milan and Venice,
received regally everywhere by the Italians and shunned by the English
residents. From Venice she drifted to Lake Como, with whose beauties she
was so charmed that she decided to make her home there, purchasing the
Villa del Garrovo for one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and setting

the builders to work to make it a still more splendid home for a future
Queen of England. But even to the lonely isolation of the Italian lakes

the eyes of her husband's secret agents pursued her, spying on her every
movement——"uncertain shadows gliding in the twilight along the paths and
between the hedges, and even in the cellars and attics of the

villa"—-until the shadowy presences filled her with such terror and

unrest that she sought to escape them by a long tour in the East.

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Thus it was that in November, 1815, the Princess and her Pergami
household set forth on theirjourney to Sicily, Tunis, Athens, the

cities of the East and Jerusalem, the strange story of which was to be
unfolded to the world five years later. How intimate the Princess and
her handsome, stalwart courier had by this time become was illustrated
by the Attorney—General in his opening speech at her memorable trial.
"One day, after dinner, when the Princess's servants had withdrawn, a
waiter at the hotel, Gran Brettagna, saw the Princess put a golden
necklace round Pergaml's neck. Pergami took it off again and put it
jestingly on the neck of the Princess, who in her turn once more removed
it and put it again round Pergami's neck."

As early as August in this year Pergami had his appointed place at the
Princess's table, and his room communicating with hers, and on the
various voyages of the Eastern tour there was abundant evidence to prove
"the habit which the Princess had of sleeping under one and the same
awning with Pergami."

But it is as impossible in the limits of space to follow Caroline and

her handsome cavalier through every stage ofthese Eastern wanderings,
as it is unnecessary to describe in detail the evidence of intimacy so
lavishly provided by the witnesses for the prosecution at the
trial——evidence much of which was doubtless as false as it was venal.
That the Princess, however, was infatuated by her cavalier, and that she
was in the highest degree indiscreet in her relations with him, seems
abundantly clear, whatever the precise degree of actual guilt may have
been.

Pergami had now been promoted from equerry to Grand Chamberlain to Her
Royal Highness, and as further evidence of her favour, she bought for
him in Sicily an estate which conferred on its owner the title of Baron

della Francina. At Malta she procured for him a knighthood of that

island's famous order; at Jerusalem she secured his nomination as Knight
of the Holy Sepulchre; and, to crown her favours, she herself instituted
the Order of St Caroline, with Pergami for Grand Master. Behold now our
ex—courier and adventurer in all his new glory as Grand Chamberlain and
lover of a future Queen of England, as Baron della Francina, Knight of
two Orders and Grand Master of a third, while every post of profit in

that vagrant Court was held by some member of his family!

The Eastern tour ended, which had ranged from Algiers and Egypt to
Constantinople and Jerusalem, and throughout which she had progressed
and been received as a Queen, Caroline settled down for a time in her
now restored villa on Lake Como, celebrating her return by lavish
charities to her poor neighbours, and by popular fetes and balls, in one

of which "she danced as Columbine, wearing her lover's ear-rings, whilst
Pergami, dressed as harlequin and wearing her ear-rings, supported her."

But even here she was to find no peace from her husband's spies, whose
evidence, confirmed on oath by a score of witnesses, was being
accumulated in London against the longed-for day of reckoning. And it
was not long before Caroline and her Grand Chamberlain were on their
wanderings again——this time to the Tyrol, to Austria, and through

Northern Italy, always inseparable and everywhere setting the tongue of

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scandal wagging by their indiscreet intimacy. Even the tragic death in
childbirth of her only daughter, the Princess Charlotte, which put all
England in mourning, seemed powerless to check her career of folly. It
is true that, on hearing of it, she fell into a faint and aftenNards

into a kind of protracted lethargy, but within a few weeks she had flung
herself again into her life of pleasure—chasing and reckless disregard
of convention.

But matters were now hurrying fast to their tragic climax. For some time
the life of George III. had been flickering to its close. Any day might

bring news that the end had come, and that the Princess was a Queen. And
for some time Caroline had been bracing herself to face this crisis in

her life and to pit herself against her enemies in a grim struggle for a
crown, the title to which her years of folly (for such at the best they

had been) had so gravely endangered. Over the remainder of her vagrant
life, with its restless flittings, and its indiscretions, marked by

spying eyes, we must pass to that February morning in 1820 when, to
quote a historian, "the Princess had scarcely reached her hotel (at
Florence) when her faithful major—domo, John Jacob Sicard, appeared
before her, accompanied by two noblemen, and in a voice full of emotion
announced, ‘You are Queen."'

The fateful hour had at last arrived when Caroline must either renounce
her new Queendom or present a bold front to her enemies and claim the
crown that was hers. After a few indecisive days, spent in Rome, where
news reached her that the King had given orders that her name should be
excluded from the Prayer Book, her wavering resolution took a definite
and determined shape. She would go to London and face the storm which
she knew her coming would bring on her head.

At Paris she was met by Lord Hutchinson with a promise of an increase of
her yearly allowance to fifty thousand pounds, on condition that she
renounced her claim to the title of Queen, and consented never to put
foot again in England——an offer to which she gave a prompt and scornful
refusal; and on the afternoon of 5th June she reached Dover, greeted by
enthusiastic cheers and shouts of "God save Queen Caroline!" by the
fluttering of flags, and the jubilant clanging of church-bells. The

wanderer had come back to the land of her sorrow, to find herself
welcomed with open arms by the subjects of the King whose brutality had
driven her to exile and to shame.

The story of the trial which so soon followed her arrival has too

enduring a place in our history to call for a detailed description——the

trial in which all the weight of the Crown and the testimony of a small

army of suborned witnesses--"a troupe of comedians in the pay of
malevolence," to quote Brougham-—were arrayed against her; and in which
she had so doughty a champion in Brougham, and such solace and support
in the sympathy of all England. We know the fate of that Bill of Pains

and Penalties, which charged her with having permitted a shameful
intimacy with one Bartolomeo Pergami, and provided as penalty that she
should be deprived of the title and privilege of Queen, and that her
marriage to King George lV. should be for ever dissolved and
annulled——how it was forced through the House of Lords with a

diminishing majority, and finally withdrawn. And we know, too, the

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outburst of almost delirious delight that swept from end to end of

England at the virtual acquittal of the persecuted Caroline. "The

generous exultation of the people was," to quote a contemporary, "beyond
all description. It was a conflagration of hearts."

We also recall that pathetic scene when Caroline presented herself at
the door of Westminster Abbey to demand admission, on the day of her
husband's coronation, to be received by the frigid words, "We have no
instructions to allow you to pass"; and we can see her as, "humiliated,
confounded, and with tears in her eyes," she returned sadly to her
carriage, the heart crushed within her. Less than three weeks later,
seized by a grave and mysterious illness, she laid down for ever the
burden of her sorrows, leaving instructions that her tomb should bear
the words:

CAROLINE
THE INJURED QUEEN OF ENGLAND.

As for Pergami, the idol with the feet of clay, who had clouded her last
years in tragedy, he survived for twenty years more to enjoy his honours
and his ill—gotten gold; while William Austin, who had masqueraded as a
Prince and called Caroline "mother," ended his days, while still a young
man, in a madhouse.

CHAPTER XX

THE LOVE-AFFAIRS OF A REGENT

When Louis XIV. laid down, one September day in the year 1715, the crown
which he had worn with such splendour for more than seventy years, his
sceptre fell into the hands of his nephew Philippe, Duc d'Or|eans, who

for eight years ruled France as Regent, and as guardian of the

child—King, the fifteenth Louis.

Seldom in the world's history has a reign, so splendid as that of the
Sun-King, closed in such darkness and tragedy. The disastrous war of the
Spanish Succession had drained France of her strength and her gold. She
lay crushed under a mountain of debt—-ten thousand million francs; she
was reduced to the lowest depths of wretchedness, ruin, and disorder,
and it was at this crisis in her life as a nation that fate placed a

child of four on her throne, and gave the reins of power into the hands

of the most dissolute man in Europe.

Not that Philippe of Orleans lacked many of the qualities that go to the
making of a ruler and a man. He had proved himself, in Italy and in

Spain, one of the bravest of his country's soldiers, and an able,

far-seeing leader of armies; and he had, as his Regency proved, no mean
gifts of statesmanship. But his kingly qualities were marred by the

taint of birth and early environment.

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