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Chapter II

The Making of a Queen of Hearts

OW came it that the events just chronicled could have thrown the court and city of

Naples into such a paroxysm of joy? How

came it that my presentation of a seemingly commonplace English officer could have thrown the Queen's favorite into such an one of terror? At that time I myself could not have answered the latter question. And, so quickly does the world forget the most historic deeds, there may be even now those that cannot answer the former. As briefly as possible—for the one involves, perhaps, the dull, the other certainly the pitiful-let me reply to both.

The French had guillotined those that by divine right ruled over them-the ill-starred Louis XVI. and his beautiful, misguided Queen, Marie Antoinette. All Europe had given an outcry of grief and horror. France was now arrayed against the world. Toulon, almost alone among her cities, remained royalist. To its assistance, therefore, England had sent a fleet under Admiral Hood, while

Nelson, at that time merely a captain, had been hastened to Naples with despatches for Sir William Hamilton, our envoy at that court. For the garrisoning of Toulon that official had then secured Neapolitan troops from Ferdinand IV., the weak and pleasure-loving King of the Two Sicilies, and from the real ruler, his Queen, Maria Caroline, daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria and sister of Marie Antoinette of France. Thus had come about the brief first meeting between Nelson and Lady Hamilton, the woman that was to sway all his after life. But not then commenced his infatuation. that first meeting I was not a witness; but from the moment he hoisted his broad pennant on the Minerve and some luck of mine in the capture of the Sabine won his praise, I saw almost every development in the unhappy story.

Of

Five years later, during which interval these two never met, Buonaparte entered upon his Egyptian campaign, an expedition believed, however, to be directed against the Two Sicilies. The Corsican's victory at the Battle of the Pyramids was quickly followed by defeat at the hands of Nelson, who, at the Nile, annihilated the French fleet and isolated Buonaparte from all communication with Europe. Now you must bear in mind that, while Maria

Caroline had twice been forced into a hypocritical treaty of neutrality with the government that had murdered her sister, she had, in reality, a secret alliance with England against the French. The republic hated Naples because it was ruled by a sister of the detested Antoinette. The French had already entered the sacred city in their progress through Italy. Would not Naples be next? Such a catastrophe it was believed the Battle of the Nile had prevented.

In these events Lady Hamilton was looked upon as having played no unimportant part. From Maria Caroline she had obtained the King of Spain's letter announcing his purpose to unite with France in war on England. This information she made known to the English ministry. Also through her influence with the Queen had been secured the supplies enabling us to return a second time to Egypt-aid rendered in direct violation of the treaty of neutrality. I am not certain but that in some way we would have managed to return even had there been no Lady Hamilton; but Nelson never thought so, believing that she alone had made it possible.

Why, then, should this woman, whose exalted station and influence permitted her to perform such services for England, fear one that wore that coun

try's uniform?—and assuredly I saw fear in her face the night I presented Stuart to her. Here is the explanation:

Some twenty years before that night, there came to London a fifteen-year-old girl of extraordinary beauty. Daughter of a village blacksmith, a poor and thus humbly born country girl, uneducated, but with a certain refinement and an innate sense of goodness, she was unfitted, save for her good looks, for anything but domestic service. Nurse, servant, shop-girl, companion-these were the gradations of her career up to the time that the whole-hearted generosity of her nature caused her to ask the influence of a certain naval officer in aid of a stricken Flintshire family, friends of her childhood. The favour was granted, but in return the man demanded the greatest price a woman can pay. She, in her gratitude and innocence, paid the price, and at seventeen became a mother. This done, the father left them destitute and by her was seen no more until the night on which, happy, an honoured wife, the favourite of a Queen, acknowledged by her hero and England's as the Patroness of the Navy, this Shylock in woman's virtue stood smilingly before her. And, God forgive me, it was I, all unknowing, that brought him there. For it was Stuart.

When a woman sins, what is left for her? What she would do is one thing; what the world permits her to do is quite another. Immovable as the laws

of Medes and Persians comes the social mandate: Continue to sin or starve-you have no other alternative. And to Emma was offered no relaxing of this cruelty. The inevitable, therefore, came. Successively she had the protection of Sir Henry Fetherstonehaugh, too dissolute to be deep in his affection, and of his friend, the Hon. Charles Greville, son of Francis, Earl of Warwick, too ambitious to be ruled by passion. And when Greville, seeking an advantageous marriage, induced her by trickery to travel alone to Italy, she believed he sent her only to give her glorious voice the training of that country's teachers. Not until long afterward did she learn that the cold-blooded cur, who looked upon her just as he did upon one of his beautiful paintings or an exquisite piece of bric-à-brac, had entered into a conspiracy with his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, himself a noted connaisseur, by which the latter was to come into possession of this unrivalled example of human loveliness.

Now, there have been many versions told of this affair and of all that followed. I doubt if any woman has ever been so lied about as this one.

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