Читать книгу The Turbulent Duchess - Baroness Orczy - Страница 8

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It was on the day of the marriage by procuration that Caroline Ferdinande wrote her first letter to her royal fiancé. It was a difficult task. She had never been very studious in the days when the worthy Abbé Olivieri tried to inculcate the first principles of arithmetic and grammar into her obstinate little head, and study of the French language had never appealed to her. But a letter to her husband—he was that now if only by procuration—was an important duty that could not possibly be shirked, and what’s more, the letter must be written in French. How was it going to be done with the writer’s very limited acquaintance with that elegant language? With outside help of course. But whose?

Caroline did not want to ask Madame de La Tour, who knew too much about the unruly Cinderella of old to take her expressions of love for an unknown husband seriously: and Caroline Ferdinande did not care to let any of her ladies into the secrets of her heart. There was of course the ever kind and ever loyal Hector de Lucchesi-Palli. He had been very well educated, far better than most scions of the Italian aristocracy, and spoke French, if not like a native, at any rate quite fluently. For a long time Caroline hesitated. For some reason or another she didn’t want to ask Hector either, but in the end, as there really was no one else, she confided her wishes to him, and it was the Count de Lucchesi-Palli who indited the first love epistle which the Duchesse de Berri wrote to her royal lord. Allowance must be made, on becoming acquainted with the contents of this first letter, for the exuberant Latin temperament, and for the impetuosity of a young girl on the threshold of a new and brilliant life, so different from anything she had experienced before. Some of the phrases are perhaps fulsome, but there is no doubt that what Caroline Ferdinande wrote —or rather what Hector de Lucchesi-Palli helped her to write—was the genuine expression of her feelings.

Monseigneur [she said in her letter], it is before the altar that I have made a solemn vow to be your faithful and loving wife. This title, so dear to me, carries with it certain duties which I take a pride in fulfilling from this very hour, by giving you an assurance of my sentiments towards you, which will endure throughout my life . . .

And so on, in four closely-written pages. Caroline’s first epistolary effort had its reward a fortnight later in a reply from the Duke, her husband, a reply in which he expressed sentiments every bit as ardent and as lofty as her own. His letter covers six closely written pages. By the time it arrived in Naples, the bride was ready to start for France, there to commence her new life. The French Ambassador sent a special despatch on the 14th of May to Paris to the Duc de Richelieu, Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Her Royal Highness the Duchesse de Berri [he said] was in excellent health and spirits when she embarked this morning on board the Neapolitan frigate La Sirena. The weather in the morning was perfect. La Sirena set sail for Marseilles accompanied by Le Ferdinand, a ship of the line, and by the brig La Fama. Her Royal Highness should have started on the 11th, but a fierce gale, which raged for three days all down the coast, compelled her to delay her departure until to-day. The French schooner Momus is escorting the squadron and will probably precede its arrival in Marseilles by a few hours.

Caroline Ferdinande did not altogether look forward to the sea journey which would last at least five days. She was a very poor sailor and suffered considerably from seasickness. But she was far too plucky to show signs of any disquiet before the large concourse of people of every station of life who came to see her off. The King, her father, accompanied her as well as her uncle the Prince of Salerno, the representatives of the King of France, the foreign ambassadors and a number of ladies and gentlemen of the Court, some of whom were going with her as far as Marseilles, and some as far as Paris, whilst half the population of Naples seemed to have congregated on the quay. As soon as the royal party stepped on board La Sirena, the crew set up rousing cheers of “Vive le roi!” and “Vive Madame la Duchesse de Berri!” whereupon Le Ferdinand discharged a volley of eighteen guns and the Momus followed suit with twenty-one. All this pleased Caroline Ferdinande immensely. There was nothing in the world she liked better than salvos of artillery and plenty of cheering, with herself the centre of popular enthusiasm.

Towards midday the King and the Prince of Salerno bade her good-bye, as did the representatives of France and the foreign ambassadors, and there remained in her entourage the Prince of San Nicandro, the Count de Lucchesi-Palli, and the Count and Countess de La Tour with their daughter. These gentlemen and ladies would remain with Her Royal Highness in any case until after her marriage.

La Sirena then set sail, and Caroline Ferdinande, waving a diminutive handkerchief and trying in vain to swallow the tears that came to her eyes, bade farewell to her native land.

The journey to Marseilles took seven days, for La Sirena encountered heavy seas in the neighbourhood of the island of Elba. Caroline Ferdinande, despite her determination and her courage, was very seasick most of the time. However, on the fifth day the wind dropped, the sun came out and the end of the voyage was everything that anyone could wish. On the sixth day Marseilles was in sight. And then a serious contretemps occurred: the French health authorities went out to meet La Sirena and informed her commander that owing to the recent serious outbreak of cholera in Naples, the ship must remain in quarantine for ten days.

And it was to the accompaniment of a salvo of a hundred guns from the fort that the frigate cast anchor outside the line prescribed by the law. Although the port was by then a dense mass of vessels of every shape and size, no one was allowed to approach La Sirena. A few enthusiasts caught sight of Her Royal Highness as she stepped down into the boat and was rowed ashore to the lazaret, where she and her suite were to spend the next ten days. Everything there had of course been done for the comfort of Madame la Duchesse and her suite, and Caroline Ferdinande, with her usual good humour, tried to make the best of the trying situation, more especially as the port authorities did what they could to keep her entertained. From the distance and with a pair of strong binoculars she could see the city and the curve of the quay where crowds of people moved about from morning to evening, hoping to get a glimpse of the young bride-elect. She could see the town all festooned with flowers and brilliantly illuminated at night with coloured lights.

The commandant of the port, Admiral Missiessy, placed a handsome boat at her disposal, and in her Caroline Ferdinande was rowed as near to the port as the authorities would allow. The Officers of Public Health always accompanied the boat in one of their own, so as to make sure that no other embarkation came nearer than was permitted by official regulations. But Caroline Ferdinande would stand up in the stern of the boat, and wave her little hands to all those who were lucky enough to catch sight of her. Once they came quite close to the quay of the Cannebière and a crowd of people saw her and cheered her to the echoes. She certainly looked ravishing in a dress of rose-coloured taffeta with sleeves and trimmings of tulle; she had a dainty shawl of striped cashmere round her shoulders and a big hat of white leghorn with a garland of lilies round the crown. She blew kisses to the crowd that cheered her. Tears of emotion were running down her cheeks: “I am not usually a cry-baby,” she said to one of her entourage, “but I feel that to-night I must let myself go.”

It was during her stay in the lazaret of Marseilles that Caroline Ferdinande wrote some of those letters full of naïve expressions of ardour which have done more to reveal her true character than all the dry comments to be found in the Moniteur and the Journal des Débats. True, those letters appear fulsome to the modern mind, but all the same they have the ring of truth in them, and one sees this young warm-blooded Southerner simply bursting with joy at her sudden change of fortune and with longing to express her gratitude to the unknown husband who had brought about this wonderful change.

“I am very grateful, I assure you,” she wrote to him, “and I long to give expression to my gratitude: but it is difficult for me to get over my timidity.”

She also begged him to be her teacher, and to instruct her in the ways she must follow in order to please the King of France, his uncle.

And certainly the Duc de Berri was only too ready to respond to his young bride’s ardour, by expressions of tenderness and admiration. Frequently in his letters he called her his dearly loved friend, his sweet and adorable wife. “Whilst waiting for that blessed day in June,” he concluded, “which still appears so sadly distant, I can but reiterate that I love you and will do all that I possibly can to make you happy.”

And so the ten days flew by in an atmosphere of happy expectancy. The 30th of May came at last and Caroline Ferdinande, Princess of Naples, Duchesse de Berri, made her triumphant entry into Marseilles.