been described again and again with every detail by de
Reumont, by Saint Rene-Taillandier, by Vernon Lee, and
by other writers past and present; yet it is necessary
here to re-tell its early circumstances (though in the
briefest manner possible) in order that the reader may
understand and estimate the part played later by the
Cardinal Duke during the Countess' residence in Rome
under his protection.
On reaching the Tuscan capital in the autumn of 1774
the Count and Countess of Albany experienced from
the Grand-Duke Leopold I and his Spanish consort a
reception even more chilling than that accorded them by
Clement XIV on their arrival in Rome some four and a
half years before as bride and bridegroom. Yet they
found at least one powerful friend in Florentine society,
Prince Corsini, the head of a great Papal family that had
always shown itself sympathetic and hospitable towards
the exiled Stuarts, and this good-natured nobleman at
once placed at their disposal the Casino Corsini, a large
house with a garden close to the Prato Gate, which his
guests occupied for three years. At the end of this time
the Count decided to purchase from the Guadagni family
a fine old palace (now the property of the Dukes of San
Clemente) that is still standing at the angle formed by
the two modern streets, the Via Gino Capponi and the
Via Micheli, not far from the Church of the Annun-
ziata. It is a large irregular pile, distinguished by broad
picturesque Tuscan eaves and by heavily grated windows,
giving it an air of gloom ; but little changed to-day, it
still retains an interesting memorial of its former unhappy
140 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
occupant in the wrought-iron vane pierced with the royal
cipher " C. R. 1777," that is visible from the street below.
Here Charles, embittered by disappointment at the
absence of an heir and by the contemptuous neglect of
the Papal and Florentine Courts, gave himself over
entirely to the solace of " the nasty bottle," becoming, in
Sir Horace Mann's vigorous expression, " drunk half the
day and mad the other half." Owing to her husband's
continual drinking-bouts and outbursts of frantic jealousy
at home and his buffoonish behaviour in public, the
unhappy Louise now led a life of extreme wretchedness
and anxiety. Treated more like a slave than a wife, she
was not allowed one moment of complete freedom, but
was forced to attend her lord everywhere abroad and
to endure his ill-treatment in private. In spite of her
unimpeachable conduct she was not even permitted to sit
in a room that did not adjoin her husband's ; and in fact,
such were Charles' brutality and suspicion that even her
sweet placid nature gave way to melancholy. But
whether Louise, poor and almost friendless, would ever
on her own initiative have had the courage, or even the
inclination, to escape from this thraldom, is extremely
doubtful, had not there arisen a circumstance which was
destined to change the whole tenor of her life and ideas.
This was, of course, her meeting with Count Vittorio
Alfieri, " il principe della tragedia Italiana," who in the
Autumn of 1779 became a frequent visitor at the evening
receptions held at Palazzo Guadagni. Born at Asti in
Piedmont in 1749, the great Italian poet, whose person-
ality has not a few points in common with that of Lord
Byron, was now thirty years old ; highly gifted and
fitfully industrious, but taciturn and egotistic, he always
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY 141
declared himself dissatisfied with the age and the society
in which his lot was cast. His undoubted talents, his
scorn of all conventional codes, and his attractive eccen-
tricity (which was partly due to carefully studied pose),
all combined to appeal strongly to the young Princess,
who had spent her long leisure hours in cultivating her
mind ; whilst the Countess' engaging manners, her
youthful prettiness, and above all her ready sympathy
with his great literary dreams, at once captivated the
sensitive mind of the brilliant but conceited poet. Thus
he analysed his feelings towards " the lively, intelligent
and agreeable " mistress of the Palazzo Guadagni : ā
" I perceived I had at last met with the woman I had
been seeking, one who (unlike the others I had known),
instead of being a hindrance to literary glory, a stumbling-
block to useful work, and a deterrent to all high thinking,
was an incentive and a noble addition to every great idea,
so that I, noting and valuing so choice a treasure, sur-
rendered myself completely to her." x
Charles, it seems, at first approved of the visits of
the Piedmontese Count, who was then engaged upon his
Maria Stuarda, ā an appropriate work to be connected
with his intimacy at the Stuart Court, ā and was in the
habit of reciting passages from it to the Count and
Countess. But the pity aroused in Alfieri's bosom, and
the admiration felt by Louise for her guest's genius,
very quickly ripened into a strong mutual attachment,
which, though carefully concealed by both lovers, the
jealous mind of Charles was only too quick to apprehend.
How long this state of affairs ā Alfieri's burning passion
1 Vita di Vittorio Alfieri da lui stesso.
142 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
for the Countess, the blind fury of the husband, and
Louise's hesitation between the claims of first love and
a hard sense of duty ā would have continued, it is im-
possible to guess, had not an event occurred which
brought matters to a climax. The perception of his
wife's silent yet deep devotion to Alfieri had the natural
effect of increasing her husband's ill-behaviour towards
herself, so that on St. Andrew's Day, 1780, after an
unusually prolonged debauch in honour of the Scottish
national saint, the Count, losing all self-control, suddenly
burst into his wife's room and would have strangled
her but for timely assistance. Dreading a second and
more determined attack, and terrified for her life, the
Countess at last applied to Alfieri for a means of escape
from such tyranny, and the poet, in conjunction with
Madame Orlandini and Mr. Gehegan, two Irish members
of the Count's suite, now arranged a regular plan for
the purpose, which, as Charles practically never allowed
his wife "out of his sight for an instant, required no little
cunning and caution. In less than a week from the
outbreak on St. Andrew's Day, Madame Orlandini, who
had previously obtained the Grand Duchess' consent to
the scheme, whilst dining at the Count's table suggested
that the Countess should visit the neighbouring convent
of the White Nuns in the Via del Mandorlo, 1 in order to
inspect some new embroidery ; an innocent proposal in
which even the abnormally suspicious Charles failed to
detect any plot. Accordingly, after dinner, the Count's
coach, with himself, his wife, and Madame Orlandini,
drove up to the convent door, where they found Gehegan
in readiness to attend them. The two ladies alighted,
1 Now Via Giuseppe Giusti.
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY 143
and were at once admitted by the portress, whilst Charles
remained below in the coach. Some time having elapsed,
the Count ordered Gehegan to enquire the cause of delay,
but the latter after a while returned to the carriage,
saying that the nuns refused to open to him. Angry and
impatient, Charles himself now tottered up the steps as
best he could, and loudly demanded admittance. After
long waiting a sliding panel of the heavy door was
shot aside, and the Superior of the convent curtly told
the Count that his wife had no intention of returning,
having placed herself under the protection of the Grand-
Duchess, who fully approved of her action. The panel
was then shut to, and the Count, in a towering rage,
was left standing on the steps, cursing and threatening
in vain. On his return home he at once wrote both to
the Grand-Duke and to the Pope, complaining of his
wife's behaviour and demanding her immediate return,
but from neither did he receive the smallest sympathy.
The Grand-Duke coldly replied that the Count of
Albany's matrimonial troubles were no concern of his ;
whilst the Pope, in the eyes of Charles, added insult to
injury by ordering the bereft husband to surrender up
his absent wife's linen and personal effects to the Papal
agent in Florence. Charles talked wildly of carrying off
his wife by force from her convent-refuge, and of hiring
bravos to assassinate Alfieri, but his threats and appeals
alike were ignored. From the moment that the portals
of the convent of the Bianchette closed upon her, Charles
never again saw the charming young wife who might
have cheered his old age, had he treated her from the
first with kindness and consideration.
Of course, the whole story of Louise's escape and
i 4 4 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
her husband's impotent fury had soon spread all over
tattling, scandal-loving Florence. Sir Horace Mann, the
British Minister at the Tuscan Court, who had ever since
the Count's arrival in Florence noted on behalf of the
British Government every trivial incident of his daily
life, and had continually kept the closest watch to pre-
vent the possible imposition of a spurious heir to the
Pretender, now writes to Horace Walpole in mingled
glee and triumph : ā
" The mould for any more casts of Royal Stuarts has
been broken, or what is equivalent to it, is now shut up
in a convent of Nuns, under the double lock and key of
the Pope and Cardinal York, out of the reach of any
Dabbler who might foister in any spurious copy. . . .
Historians may now close the lives of that family, un-
less the Cardinal should become Pope, and that would
only produce a short scene of ridicule." 1
With regard to the previous relations that had existed
between Alfieri and the Countess of Albany, Louise's
decision at once to inform her brother-in-law, and to
beg his interest on her behalf, points unmistakably to
her complete innocence of any former guilty intrigue:
a view that was upheld at the time by Sir Horace Mann,
a critic by no means favourably inclined towards a Stuart
Pretender's wife. In any case, seeing how closely and
jealously guarded she had been by a tyrannical husband,
it is difficult to understand how any secret meetings
ā had she desired them ā could ever have been arranged
between Louise and her lover without being immedi-
ately detected. It was, therefore, almost certainly with
1 Letters of Sir Horace Matin.
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY 145
a clear conscience that the Countess on the first oppor-
tunity after her escape from Palazzo Guadagni wrote
to the Cardinal Duke at Frascati the appeal for help
which she considered herself entitled to receive. All
through the years of trial and misery in Florence, the
Countess had kept up a correspondence with her brother-
in-law, evidently regarding him as her natural protector ;
whilst he, on his part, felt a sincere and deep affection for
the sister-in-law who showed such tact and sympathy
towards himself, and also strove so nobly at the almost
hopeless task of reforming her husband. Henry Stuart
had, therefore, long been aware of her domestic troubles
in Florence, and though, from his peaceful, easy-going
nature he would never himself have recommended so
drastic a step as desertion, yet it is manifest, from the
letter we are about to quote, that he was half-expecting,
even if he were dreading, the startling piece of news that
the Countess now sent. After hastily consulting with the
Pope, the Cardinal Duke dispatched a long letter to his
sister-in-law : ā
"P'rascati, Dec. i$tk, 1780.
"My very dear Sister, ā I cannot express to you
the sorrow I have felt on reading your letter of the 9th
of this month. Long ago I foresaw what has now
happened, and your escape being made with the
approval of the [Florentine] Court has fully justified
your conduct. You may rely, my very dear Sister, on
my kindly feelings towards you, for up till now I have
always sympathized with your position ; on the other
hand I beg you to recall that I had no share whatever
in bringing about your indissoluble union with my
brother beyond giving my formal consent to the marriage,
10
146 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
of which I had received no previous notice. As to what
happened afterwards, no one better than yourself can
bear witness to the impossibility of my assisting you in
the least degree during your subsequent troubles and
difficulties. Under the circumstances, nothing can be
wiser or more convenient than for you to come to Rome
and live in a convent ; so I have not lost a moment's
time in going into Rome expressly to serve you by
arranging this matter with our very Holy Father, whose
kindness towards yourself and me I cannot sufficiently
describe. I have thought of everything that could suit
your case, and I am glad to say that the Holy Father
has approved of all my suggestions. You will reside in
the convent where the Queen, my mother, remained some
time ; the King, my father, had a special regard for it. It
is the least restricted convent in Rome. French is spoken
there, and some of the nuns are highly distinguished.
" Finally, my very dear Sister, remain calm and allow
yourself to be guided by those who are attached to
you ; and above all never tell anyone that you do not
intend to return to your husband. Do not fear that I
should ever have the courage to advise such a step,
unless a miracle were to take place. But in all prob-
ability God has permitted the past in order to induce
you to lead a holy life, so that all the world may thereby
perceive the purity of your aims and the reasonableness
of your conduct ; so also we may hope that by the
same means He intended to convert my brother. . . . ā
Your very affectionate Brother,
"Henry Cardinal." 1
1 Saint Rene-Taillandier, ā¢" La Comtesse d' Albany." {Revue des Deux
Mondes, January 15th, 1861.)
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY 147
This cordial and sympathetic letter is of special
importance, since it is easy to perceive from its terms
that the Cardinal Duke felt sure his sister-in-law had
left her husband solely on account of his cruelty,
and without any other object in view than escape from
further ill-treatment at his hands ; and also that " under
the circumstances " she would naturally decide herself
to enter a convent until Charles' death, or until a
reconciliation had been effected : a vague possibility
that is piously hinted at towards the close of the letter.
For with his utter ignorance of women, the kindly
but inexperienced Cardinal Duke could not conceive
of a runaway wife, no matter what might be her age
or temperament, expecting or desiring any other
settlement ; yet in consideration of Louise's youth and
liveliness of disposition he named a convent where
least restriction was enforced. A most friendly letter
from Pius VI, acting under Henry Stuart's suggestions,
shortly followed, in which the Pope gave Madame
d'Albany the necessary permission to enter the Ursu-
line Convent in the Via Vittoria, and at the same
time promised her the use of a carriage, an additional
mark of favour and confidence. With as little delay
as possible the Countess secretly quitted Florence on
December 30th in a coach over which Alfieri and Gehegan
mounted guard with loaded pistols until the Tuscan
frontier was passed, for fear of a possible attack by
bravos in the pay of Charles, and safely arrived at the
Roman convent at the beginning of the New Year, 1781.
No time more favourable to the Countess' action
and its prospects of success could possibly have been
chosen. Charles was considered a political nuisance
148 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
in Florence owing to his royal pretensions that had
somewhat embarrassed the relations of the Tuscan
Government with Great Britain, to whose merchants
the port of Leghorn owed no small share of its pros-
perity; and in Rome the Count of Albany, although
a pensioner of the Papal Treasury, was held in still
worse odour. For some years past the Papacy had
been trying to cultivate a better understanding with
England, and this object the presence of the Young
Pretender in Rome had done much to thwart. His
arrogant claims to be treated as a reigning king, his
drunken and scandalous life, his marrying contrary
to the desire of the Roman Court, and, above all, his
suspected intention of renouncing the Faith of which
his father and grandfather had been such shining orna-
ments, had not only alienated all sympathy from him,
but had even made the Papal Government fully in-
clined to teach the offender a sharp lesson, should an
opportunity to do so occur. Even the long-suffering
Cardinal Duke, as we know, had practically ceased to
champion his brother's cause at the Papal councils,
particularly in face of the many rumours of Charles'
apostasy. A separation between husband and wife,
destructive of all hopes and fears of a Jacobite heir,
might therefore at this moment appeal as a friendly
act to the British Government ; and thus the Roman
and Florentine Courts, both anxious to conciliate public
opinion in England, were equally in accord as to the
necessity of keeping the Count and Countess apart for
the present. Every facility, therefore, was given Madame
d' Albany to settle in Rome. From the Papal Treasury
was now diverted to her use half of the subsidy of
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY 149
12,000 crowns paid yearly to the Count; and later no
demur was made to her leaving the Ursuline convent,
and taking up her abode in her brother-in-law's palace
of the Cancelleria ; whilst, last and bitterest blow of all
to Charles, Vittorio Alfieri, despite his youthful diatribes
against popes and priests, was received in audience
by Pius VI, who to the Count's indignant protest, made
through his staunch old friend, Prince Corsini, coldly
replied that the great poet honoured the Eternal City
by his presence.
In face of subsequent events in the domestic drama
of the royal Stuarts, it is well to bear in mind that
Louise of Albany in throwing herself thus on the pro-
tection of the Cardinal Duke was fully aware of the
unwritten rules of conduct to which he would expect
her to conform strictly. In an age of prudery at the
Papal Court the Cardinal Duke appeared conspicuous
for severe and narrow-minded views which he often
carried to a ridiculous extreme. In the picked phrases
of his clerical biographer, Mastrofini, he is called
" spotless as the morning snow, virgin as the lily-of-the-
valley " ; ā in plain words, he had such an exaggerated
horror of all impropriety that, had he held the smallest
inkling of his sister-in-law's intention to carry on an
amorous intrigue with Alfieri, he would never have
consented to allow her, under the shelter of his great
name and at his own expense, to lead two whole years
of a pleasant and luxurious life in Rome, perhaps the
happiest in all Louise's chequered career. But though
the Countess understood perfectly the Cardinal Duke's
strict moral standard, she also knew him to be good-
natured to a fault, open to judicious flattery, wrapped
150 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
up in good works at Frascati, and hating to be disturbed
by outside questions ; she learned too, both by hearsay
and by experience, that though a most bitter foe to
immorality, he was at the same time singularly slow to
perceive its presence, even when patent to all around
him. Realising this, Louise did not scruple to make
use of the invaluable protection of her brother-in-law,
who " gave her 4000 crowns, and maintained her
sumptuously in a fine apartment with Servants and
Equipage"; 1 so that if, during the troubles that arose
two years later over the banishment of Alfieri, the
Cardinal Duke's behaviour has been condemned by all
writers as hasty and foolish, not enough stress has been
laid upon the deceitful, not to say dishonourable, conduct
of Louise towards the indulgent Churchman of whose
hospitality she had availed herself.
It was not long before the Countess had contrived to
obtain ā of course through the kind offices of her powerful
and unsuspecting brother-in-law ā the Pope's consent to
leave her convent in the Via Vittoria, which, however
agreeable it might have appeared to the austere Queen
Clementina, possessed no attractions to detain her
elder son's wife, now all eager to taste as much of love
and pleasure as the world had to bestow. Yet before
she quitted her convent-walls, Alfieri, purposely loitering
in Rome on his way to Naples, managed to secure an
interview with his " Donna Amata " ā his " Psipsia," as he
sometimes theatrically styled her ā behind her grille :
a privilege that clearly shows the friendly attitude of the
Cardinal Duke towards the man whom he regarded as
the gallant but disinterested rescuer of his sister-in-law : ā
1 Letters of Sir Horace Mann.
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY 151
" I saw her, but (O God ! my heart seems to break
at the mere recollection) I saw her a prisoner behind a
grating; less tormented than in Florence, but no less
unhappy. We were separated, and who could tell how
long our separation might not last?" 1
From her nunnery the Countess removed to the vast
official palace of the Cancelleria, where the generous
Cardinal Duke allotted her his own magnificent suite of
rooms, for Frascati now claimed almost all his time and
attention. Here Alfieri, on his return from Naples,
discovered her securely installed, for after vainly en-
deavouring (so the restless inconsequent poet tells us)
to hold aloof from his Lady's presence, he finally found
himself, " he scarcely knew how," back in Rome on May
1 2th. Nevertheless, probably to the Count's surprise, no
difficulties were placed in the way of his residing in
Rome. Madame d'Albany, not without some misgivings,
at once dispatched him, as we have already mentioned,
armed with a valuable copy of Virgil, out to Frascati,
where the Cardinal Duke received him graciously ; Pius VI,
presumably at Henry Stuart's request, granted him
an audience, during which he patted the republican
Count's cheek in the friendliest manner ; and in a short
time after his arrival the Piedmontese poet was settled
with his books and his horses in the Villa Strozzi on the
Esquiline; in those distant days a charming spot sur-
rounded by gardens, vineyards and creeper-clad ruins,
on whose site now stand the chief railway station and
the long, stuccoed streets of an ugly modern quarter of
the city. Hardly a mile of road intervened between
1 Vila di Alfieri.
152 HENRY STUART CARDINAL YORK
Bramante's palace in the town and the sequestered villa
near the Baths of Diocletian, so that, enjoying thus the
quiet of his own lodging and the sense of the near
presence of his inspiring Muse, his " Donna Amata,"
the erratic poet was enabled to throw himself with all
his characteristic ardour into the pursuits of love and
literature, which, together with his intense fondness for
horses, made up the three ruling passions of his life : ā
" During these two years in Rome I led a truly
happy life. The Villa Strozzi, near the Baths of
Diocletian, afforded me a delightful retreat. The whole
long mornings I passed in study, never moving from the
house, except for an hour or two spent in riding over
those immense solitudes of the uninhabited neighbour-
hood of Rome that invited me to reflect, to mourn, and
to compose verses. In the evening I descended into the
city, and restored from my fatigues of study by the
lovely sight of Her for whom alone I existed and laboured,
I returned from it more contented to my hermitage,
whither I retired never later than eleven at night. An
existence more gay, more free, more rural in the confines
of a great city one could never find, nor one more
agreeable to my nature, character and occupations." 1
Meanwhile, the Countess in her town palace was
revelling in love and liberty, and also in the enjoyment
of a wide degree of popularity. Courted by the Roman
nobility, protected by the leading member of the Sacred
College, and attended by an illustrious lover, who for
the nonce had gained the Pope's favour, her lot appeared
1 Vita di Alfieri.
THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY 153
truly enviable, though it is easy to estimate on how
treacherous a foundation all this fabric of happiness
and esteem rested. Her cultivated mind, her youthful
appearance, her great charm of manner, above every-
thing her romantic career both past and present, all
served to invest the British Pretender's wife with a
special interest in the eyes of that frivolous and extrav-
agant throng which filled Rome on the eve of the
great European upheaval ; indeed, Louise of Albany
was now held in far higher consideration than in the days