Winds of Folly (46 page)

I've based the characters of King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina on various accounts given by travellers, including
The Grand Tours of Katherine Wilmot
and J.B.S. Morritt's
A Grand Tour: Letters and Journeys 1794–96
. Their Chief Minister, Sir John Acton, is another real-life character and was widely believed, even by the King himself, to have been the Queen's lover, though of course there is no real evidence of this. Nor is there any evidence that the Queen and Emma conspired to form an alliance with the anti-French party in Venice, though they were active in many other conspiracies against the French and their supporters.

Both Sir William Hamilton and the Viceroy of Corsica worked at uniting the Italian states against the French. They were unsuccessful. Bonaparte overran most of northern Italy and bullied the rest of the country into submission. Venice tried
to stay neutral but was plunged into chaos as the patriots fought against the pro-French factions. After the massacre of a French garrison in Verona, Bonaparte delivered his ultimatum and Venice capitulated. A few months later,
La Serenissima
was handed over to the Austrians as part of the peace process, ending 1,000 years of history as an independent republic. Some of the political intrigues in the novel are based on contemporary accounts of the events leading to this, but the characters of Sister Caterina and Admiral Dandolo are fictitious. Sir Richard Worsley
was
the British Minister in Venice and the character I've given him is based on what I've read. His role in one of the most notorious sex scandals of the eighteenth century is brilliantly documented in
Lady Worsley's Whim
by Hallie Rubenhold (2008). As for the sexual scandals in Venice at the time, particularly in the convents, these are based on a host of literature on the subject. Cristolfi is a real-life character – and he was the chief agent of the Ten – but the character and role I've given him in the novel are entirely invented.

Similarly with Spiridion Foresti. A real person, and a fascinating character – but I've no idea if his personality was anything like the one I've created for him in the novel. He was a native of Zante and was British Consul and then Resident Minister in the Ionian Islands for the entire length of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He ran an extensive network of agents and informants throughout the region and across the Levant, and he reported regularly to the British Foreign Secretary, to Sir Gilbert Elliot in Corsica and Sir William Hamilton in Naples, and to the various British naval commanders in the Mediterranean including Nelson and Sir Sydney Smith. Nathan's mission in the novel is based on Spiridion's reports to the Admiralty on the state of the Venetian fleet in Corfu and the dangers of its falling into French hands. Nelson thought very highly of Spiridion Foresti and came to
rely greatly on the intelligence he provided of French activities and ambitions in the region. The records of their correspondence and Foresti's despatches to the British Foreign Secretary provide a fascinating insight into intelligence-gathering during this period.

For details of Bonaparte's Italian campaign I have relied on the memoirs of another spymaster – Adjutant-Général Jean Landrieux who was in charge of the Bureau des Affaires Secrètes – the central office for controlling spies and French agitators throughout northern Italy. My description of Landrieux is entirely fictitious, however, and is based on the notoriety he earned as a leader of irregular cavalry during the early days of the French Revolution. The character of Junot, too, though he was also a real person, is largely imagined.

As for Bonaparte's character, I've taken that from various sources, including some excellent descriptions of him by the Venetian envoys sent to treat with him in the autumn of 1796. The problem with Napoleon, of course, as with Nelson, is that so much is written from the perspective of history, when we know what they
became
rather than what they were at the time. I've tried to imagine what they were like as relatively young men before they were gilded in glory, but I'm well aware that I might have done a Prince Rupert on them and reduced them to caricatures, with or without poodles.

The
Tramontana
, from the Latin, trans montanus, meaning ‘from across the mountains' – in this case the Alps of Northern Italy. A cold, northerly wind, the continuous howling noise of the Tramontana is said to have a disturbing effect upon the psyche. In his poem ‘Gastibelza', Victor Hugo wrote:

Le vent qui vient à travers la montagne

Me rendra fou

(The wind that comes from across the mountains

Will drive me mad)

Tramontana has other meanings not related to the wind. It can refer to anything seen as foreign, strange or barbarous.

The
Sirocco
, or
Scirocco
is the Italian word for the Ghibli, a desert wind that rises in the Sahara and sweeps across North Africa and the Mediterranean, often reaching hurricane speeds. Hot and dry in Africa, hot and moist in Europe, it causes sand storms in the desert and wet weather in Italy and the Adriatic. ‘C'e Scirocco', they say in Venice, usually with a resigned shrug, when everyone is irritable and petulant and more prone than usual to madness. In southern Spain it is known as the
Leveche – or Xaloc in Catalan – where it brings rains laced with red dust from the Sahara, sometimes mistaken for blood.

The
Levanter
, an easterly wind with fog and rain, rises in the central Mediterranean and reaches its greatest intensity through the Strait of Gibraltar where it is funnelled between the heights on either side before burning itself out in the Atlantic.