England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton (29 page)

CHAPTER 25
A Difficult Part to Act

A
m I Emma Hamilton? It seems impossible,” Emma marveled as she journeyed to Naples. “Surely no person was ever so happy as I am.” The new Lady Hamilton arrived in Paris in September 1791. Like all visitors to the city, she and Sir William hoped to see the revolution at first hand. Emma also had a plan: she wanted to meet Queen Marie-Antoinette.

Only a year before, Romney and his friends had reveled in Paris, deciding it the most splendid place in Europe, but since then much blood had been shed. Sir William and Emma took rooms in the expensive and very central Hotel de l'Université, where Lord Palmerston, William's old friend, was also staying. He secured them seats at the Assembly on September 14, when the king was forced to accept the constitution, which classed him as a constitutional monarch and his family as commoners. The king was humiliated because he had to sit on an ordinary chair and everyone retained their hats. Few sympathized: public support for the royal family was at an all-time low after they had attempted to escape in June.

After the constitution was passed, the city was thrilled. Elite Parisians planned to seize positions in the new republic, and everybody else hoped that the settlement would bring the bloodshed to an end. A large hot-air balloon was raised above the city center in celebration, buildings blazed with illumination, and relieved citizens flung themselves into music, feasting, dancing, and cooing at a grand display of fireworks. Palmerston, the Hamiltons, and the Marquis de Noailles, an ex-courtier, wandered around until ten o'clock, surprised by the widespread “Enthusiastical attachment
to the new Constitution," as Sir William put it.
¹
Over the next few days, Emma visited the many English nobles in town and sang or performed her Attitudes. Palmerston was appreciative: "I have seen her perform the various characters and attitudes which she assumes in imitation of statues and pictures, and was pleased beyond my expectation, though I had heard so much. She really presents the very thing which the artists had aimed at representing." He commissioned Thomas Lawrence to alter a painting by Reynolds in order to put Emma in the center, and he kept the painting until he died. He decided Emma "very handsome," "very good humoured, very happy, and very attentive" to her new husband.
²

All the while, Emma was pressing for an introduction to Marie-Antoinette. If Emma could meet the queen, she would score an amazing coup and increase her chances of being received at the Neapolitan court. Like every woman in Europe, she was fascinated by the glamorous French queen, who was doubly appealing now that she was imprisoned at the rambling palace of the Tuileries. Marie-Antoinette had once animated pampered Versailles with her gaiety, and her extravagant dresses and coiffures had led European fashion. The novelist and antiquarian Horace Wal-pole had described both Emma and Marie-Antoinette as statues of beauty, but Emma was very different from the queen: she knew how to satisfy her husband but had no idea how to please a court. Meeting Marie-Antoinette would prove a crucial stage in her training.

Under her mien of graceful resignation, the queen was begging her brother, Leopold, the Emperor of Austria, to threaten the French into reinstating Louis XVI as monarch. Throughout September, she wrote letters in code and sometimes in invisible ink to Leopold and various European royals, collaring passing aristocrats to pass them on. She was intent on winning the support of her favorite sister, Maria Carolina of Naples, only three years her junior. Emma's visit came at an opportune moment. Marie-Antoinette neither knew nor cared that Queen Charlotte had not received Emma: she wanted a favor from the woman she believed to be an ambassadress.

Few women (and no man other than her husband) could resist Marie-Antoinette. Trauma had wrecked her beauty: she had grown gaunt, and her luxuriant hair had thinned and turned white at only thirty-six. But her limpid blue-gray eyes were still enticing, her sweet, hesitant voice was still tempting, and her soft smile—once able to charm the most embittered courtier—had won the hearts of her guards. Deeply emotional, she kissed and embraced frequently. Ardent revolutionaries faltered when they
thought of Marie-Antoinette, and Emma fell in love with her on sight. Ambitious to be at the center of politics, she dreamed of a queen restored to the throne, thanks partly to her efforts. Despite her impoverished childhood, Emma believed in opulent courts and thought, like many others, that the king was vital to maintain the correct order of society. She saw the French political conflict in personal terms as the bloodthirsty Jacobins against her beautiful, victimized new friend. When she heard that peasants had thrown stones at the royal family when they were caught trying to escape from Paris, she was utterly incensed. She left her meeting bursting with indignation, desperate to be of service to the queen.
³

Marie-Antoinette's letter safely stowed, the Hamiltons departed for Geneva, Rome, and then Venice. In every city Emma performed her Attitudes, and in Rome she made her final sitting for Angelica Kauffman's
Lady Hamilton as the Comic Muse,
which became her wedding portrait. Then they rolled on to Naples.

The English were still eager to hear about the fascinating Lady Hamilton, and on October 8 the
Times
reported that the newlyweds had arrived in Naples, although Sir William claimed to his managers in the Foreign Office that he did not arrive until the beginning of November.
⁴
The newspapers argued over whether Emma had been received by Maria Carolina and whether she was introducing ladies at court, the role of an ambassador's wife. One traveler, Lord James Wright, tried to inform the Foreign Office that the gossip in the newspapers was "wanton and false": Lady Hamilton had not forced herself on the queen or the English travelers, and Sir William continued to present women as well as men.
⁵

Emma confided in Mary Dickenson, who, in a traditional courtesy to a bride from a member of the groom's family, had solicited her as a correspondent, that "before the 6th September I was always unhappy and discontented with myself," but now "I feel every moment my obligations to him and am always afraid I can never do enough for him since that moment. I say to myself Am I his Wife, and I can never separate more?"

The codes of high society that Emma had to negotiate as Lady Hamilton were labyrinthine. The slightest mistake in dress or manner could mean disfavor, and she needed to train herself in the correct behavior and self-presentation for the Neapolitan court. Fresh-faced innocence was not enough. Ladies at court had precise standards of elegant movement and performance that required time and practice to perfect. A woman was expected
to carry her head artfully, her arms curving gently away from her torso, and walk gracefully with small steps, without jostling her skirts or appearing stiff or inelegant. Even simple activities such as entering a room or exiting it, sitting, drinking tea, or waiting in line at a reception were highly embellished and ritualized.

Sir William was blind to the minutiae of female fashion and behavior, and Emma had to discover the secrets of courtly speech and manners for herself She learned how to greet acquaintances with the right degree of formality and familiarity, speak subtly and softly, and when to listen attentively and when interruptions were permitted. More important still were the nonverbal skills, the touch of the hand, the curtsy and the subtle deployment of the fan. Ushering together all her energies, Emma worked hard to transform herself into a lady of distinction.

A month after Sir William's arrival, the queen communicated to him that, as she had heard much of Lady Hamilton's "exemplary good Conduct and Humility," she would receive her privately. At the meeting, when the queen invited her to sit beside her to discuss Marie-Antoinette, Emma was so overcome that she burst into tears and the queen was deeply touched.
⁶
"I have been presented to the Queen of Naples by her own desire she [h]as shewn me all sorts of kind & affectionate attentions," Emma wrote. She advanced her position in the queen's favor by declining Maria Carolina's first invitation: a dinner in honor of Prince Augustus, the youngest son of King George of England, to which only the most eminent English travelers were invited. Sir William went alone and introduced the aristocrats to Maria Carolina.

When the Hamiltons were invited to spend the hunting season and Christmas at the palace at Caserta, Emma had her chance to become accepted as Lady Hamilton, rather than as the private wife of Sir William. Most courtiers had been steeped in courtly behavior since childhood, but Emma had been picking up every piece of gossip about the court over the last five years. She knew the power structures she faced and was ready for a treacherous environment where every conversation contained hidden dangers. By January, Sir William declared, the queen had "become quite fond of her & has taken her under her protection."

By March, Sir William was gratified by her success at negotiating the complex social codes. Aristocrats queued to visit her, and Emma was careful always to dress well, seem humble and obliging, and flatter her guests with attention. She described Lord and Lady Malmesbury, Lord and Lady Plymouth, Lord Dalkeith, and Lord Bruce as "very kind and attentive"
and "remarkably civil to me." Sir William enthused to Joseph Banks that the king and queen

are so good as to receive & treat her as any other travelling Lady of distinction— She has gained the hearts of all even of the Ladies by her humility & proper behaviour, & we shall I dare say go on well— I will allow with that 99 times in a hundred such a step as I took would be very imprudent but I know my way here…. I am sure you will hear from every quarter of the comforts of my house.
⁷

Sir William had made a similar comment about imprudent steps and "99 times in a hundred" to his friend Georgiana, Countess Spencer—he took a defensive stand so often that he even repeated the same lines.

As Sir William suggested, Emma had "a difficult part to act." She had to preside over the dinners for her illustrious guests and ensure everyone was looked after. Emma sat at one end of the table, Sir William at the other, with the principal guests seated along the sides. Dinners usually began at three o'clock in the afternoon and could last for more than four hours. Food did not come in successive courses but in two servings of around twenty or more dishes, both sweet and savory. The savory plates included fish, carved meat, a ham, a turtle, and plentiful game. Sweet dishes were cakes, and on a gala occasion sorbets or fruit in ice sculptures. Meals were at best lukewarm, for the kitchens were situated some way from the dining room, but no guest expected the food to be sizzling. Very hot food was thought to damage the constitution, and it also signified poverty. Only the lowest classes ate food straight from the fire. Throughout the dinner, Emma had to keep an eye on the servants to ensure they served everyone correctly, monitor the guests for boredom or difficulty with the food, and keep up a sparkling and informed but tactful conversation. The guests expected the dishes to be artfully arranged in patterns and decorated with flowers. Hostesses were expected to lead the entertainment after dinner, and so Emma sang and performed her Attitudes or the tarantella. Emma excelled in her role, and reports soon reached England that she was "much respected & beloved on account of the proofs she gave of a benevolent heart."
⁸

"I am the happiest woman in the world," Emma told Romney in a long letter soon after she had arrived back at the palazzo. She wondered if the Prince of Wales had said anything about her, promised she was "interested in all that concerns you," and asked him to send the portrait of her in a
black hat to Louis Dutens, a witness at her wedding, for "he took a great deal of pains and trouble for me." She then implored his help.

I hope I will have no corse to repent of what he [Sir William] [h]as done, for I feel so grateful to him that I think I shall never be able to make him amends for his goodness to me. But why do I tell you this? you know me enough; you was the first dear friend I open'd my heart to, you ought to know me, for you have seen and discoursed with me in my poorer days, you have known me in my poverty and prosperity, and I had no occasion to have lived for years in poverty and distress if I had not felt something of virtue in my mind. Oh, my dear friend, for a time I own through distress my virtue was vanquished, but my sense of virtue was not overcome. How gratefull now, then, do I feel to my dear, dear husband that has restored peace to my mind, that has given me honors, rank, and, what is more, innocence and happiness. Rejoice with me, my dear sir, my friend, my more than father, believe me I am still that same Emma you knew me. If I could forget for a moment what I was, I ought to suffer.