The World's Greatest Books - Volume 10 Part 22

As soon as his shattered frame had sufficiently recovered, Nelson was called to services of greater importance than any one in which he had been hitherto employed.

The kindest attentions and warmest affection were awaiting him at Naples; the king, the queen, and Lady Hamilton, who was the queen's constant favourite, welcomed their hero and deliverer with the most splendid festivities. General Mack, with whom Nelson was to co-operate, was at the head of the Neapolitan troops; and while he marched with 32,000 men into the Roman state, 5,000 Neapolitans were embarked on the British and Portuguese squadron to take possession of Leghorn.

Nelson's fears of the result were soon verified. "The Neapolitan officers," he said, "did not lose much honour, for G.o.d knows they had not much to lose--but they lost all they had." The French in the Roman State routed the cowardly Neapolitans. There was a strong revolutionary party in Naples itself; and it was agreed that the royal family must seek safety in flight. Their secret escape, with much treasure, on board the Vanguard, was conducted with the greatest address by Lady Hamilton, and Nelson conveyed them through a wild storm to Palermo.

He had by this time formed an infatuated attachment for Lady Hamilton, which totally weaned his affections from his wife. He was dissatisfied with himself and weary of the world. But, in accordance with his principle of duty "to a.s.sist in driving the French to the devil and in restoring peace and happiness to mankind," he at length expelled the French from Naples and restored Ferdinand to his throne. Weak in health, dispirited, and smarting under a censure from the Admiralty for a disobedience to orders, Nelson resigned his command, and reached England in November 1800, having travelled with Sir William and Lady Hamilton.

The great admiral was welcomed to England with every mark of popular honour; but he had forfeited domestic happiness for ever. Before he had been three months at home, he separated from Lady Nelson, vowing that there was nothing in her or in her conduct that he could have wished otherwise.

In January 1801 he was sent to the Baltic as second in command under Sir Hyde Parker. Russia, Denmark, and Sweden had founded a confederacy for making England resign her naval rights, and the British Cabinet decided instantly to crush it. The fleet sailed on March 12; Nelson represented to Sir Hyde Parker the necessity of attacking Copenhagen; and on April 2 the British vessels opened fire on the Danish fleet and land batteries.

The Danes, in return, fought their guns manfully, and at one o'clock, after three hours' endurance, Sir Hyde Parker gave the signal for discontinuing action. Nelson ordered that signal to be acknowledged, but continued to fly the signal for close action. "You know, Foley," he said, turning to the captain of the s.h.i.+p, "I have only one eye; I have a right to be blind sometimes!" Then, putting the gla.s.s to his blind eye, in the mood that sports with bitterness, he exclaimed, "I really do not see the signal. Keep mine for closer battle flying! That's the way I answer such signals. Nail mine to that mast!" Admiral Graves disobeyed in like manner, and the other s.h.i.+ps of the line also continued the action. The victory was soon complete, and Sir Hyde Parker heartily expressed his satisfaction and grat.i.tude.

For the battle of Copenhagen, Nelson was raised to the rank of viscount.

Had he lived long enough, he would have fought his way up to a dukedom.

After holding a command in the English Channel, to watch the preparations which were being made at Boulogne for an invasion of England, Nelson retired on the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens to his estate at Merton, in Surrey, meaning to pa.s.s his days there in the society of Sir William and Lady Hamilton. Sir William died early in 1803, and, as the government would do nothing for her, Nelson settled on Lady Hamilton a sum equal to the pension of 1,200 a year which her husband had enjoyed. A few weeks after this event the war was renewed, and the day after his majesty's message to parliament, Nelson departed to take command of the Mediterranean fleet.

He took his station immediately off Toulon, and there, with incessant vigilance, waited for the coming out of the enemy. From May 1803 to August 1805 he left the Victory only three times, each time upon the king's service, and on no occasion for more than an hour.

War having been declared between England and Spain, the Toulon fleet, having the Spaniards to co-operate with them, put to sea on January 18, 1804. Nelson, who was off Sardinia when he heard the news the next day, sought them in vain through the Mediterranean, until he heard that they had been dispersed by a gale, and had returned to Toulon. On March 31 they emerged again, and pa.s.sed out of the Straits of Gibraltar, but the British fleet was kept by adverse winds from reaching the Atlantic till April 5.

The enemy had thirty-five days start on their run to the West Indies, and Nelson, misled by false information, sought them among the islands, until he learned at Antigua on June 9 that they had sailed again for Europe. He made all speed across the Atlantic, and again sought the enemy vainly, until he joined Admiral Cornwallis off Ushant on August 15. The same evening he was ordered to proceed with the Victory and Superb to Portsmouth.

_V.--Trafalgar_

Here, at last, he heard news of the combined fleets; Sir Robert Calder had fallen in with them near Finisterre and had fought an indecisive engagement.

On September 14, 1805, he pa.s.sed through the crowds at Portsmouth, many of whom were in tears, many kneeling and blessing him as he pa.s.sed. He arrived off Cadiz on September 29 with twenty-three s.h.i.+ps, and on October 9 he sent Collingwood his plan of attack--what he called "the Nelson-touch." These tactics consisted in cutting through the line of the enemy in three places.

On the morning of the 19th the enemy came out of the port of Cadiz, and all that day and night, and the next day, the British pursued them. At daybreak of the 21st, the combined fleets were distinctly seen from the Victory, about twelve miles to leeward. Signal was made to bear down on the enemy in two lines, and all sail was set, the Victory leading.

Nelson now retired to his cabin and wrote in his diary a prayer committing himself and the British cause to Heaven, and then wrote a memorial setting forth Lady Hamilton's services to Britain, and leaving her and her daughter Horatia as a legacy to his country.

Villeneuve, commanding the enemy, was a skilful seaman, and his plan of defence was as original as the plan of attack. He formed the fleet in a double line, every alternate s.h.i.+p being a cable's length to windward of her second ahead and astern. Nelson, certain of triumph, issued his last signal: "England expects every man to do his duty," which was received throughout the fleet with acclamations.

The English lines, led by Nelson and by Collingwood, swept down upon the hostile fleet, the Victory steering for the bow of the Santissima Trinidad. At four minutes after twelve she opened fire, and almost immediately ran against the Redoubtable. Four s.h.i.+ps, two British and two French, formed as compact a tier as if they had been moored together, their heads all lying the same way.

At a quarter past one, a ball fired from the mizzen-top of the Redoubtable struck Nelson on the left shoulder, and he fell on his face.

"They have done for me at last, Hardy," he said; "my backbone is shot through." He was carried below, laid on a pallet in the mids.h.i.+pmen's berth, and insisted that the surgeon should leave him--"for you can do nothing for me." He was in great pain, and expressed much anxiety for the event of the action, until Captain Hardy was able to tell him that fifteen of the enemy had been taken. Repeating that he left Lady Hamilton and Horatia as a legacy to his country, and exclaiming, "Thank G.o.d, I have done my duty!" Nelson expired.

He cannot be said to have fallen prematurely whose work was done.

MADAME DE STAAL

Memoirs

Marguerite Jeanne de Launay, Baronne de Staal, was born in Paris on May 30, 1684. Her father was a painter of the name of Cordier who was in England when his daughter was born; and the name by which she was known, de Launay, was that of her mother's family. Her story is told by herself, with admirable sincerity, in these Memoirs, which follow her life until the year 1735, when, at the age of fifty-one, she married Baron de Staal, a widower and an officer in the Guard. Her death took place in Paris on June 16, 1750. Her Memoirs, first published in 1755, are among the most interesting records of that period, and though their historical accuracy has been doubted, her portraits of persons are vivid and convincing. Her style has been highly commended by Sainte-Beuve and other French literary critics.

_A Convent Child_

If I write the record of my life, it is not because it deserves attention, but in order to amuse myself by my recollections. My story is just the opposite of the ordinary romance, wherein a girl brought up as a peasant becomes an ill.u.s.trious princess; for I was treated in childhood as a person of distinction, and had to find out later that I was a n.o.body and owned nothing in the world. And so, not having been trained from the first to ill fortune, my spirit has always rebelled against the servitude in which I have had to live.

My father, for some reason that I never knew, had to leave France and live in England; and my mother, alone in Paris and without resources, took me with her as an infant to find a refuge in the abbey of Saint-Sauveur d'Evreux in Normandy, where Madame de La Rochefoucauld, the abbess, received us free of charge.

There was at that time a lengthy disagreement between King Louis XIV.

and the Pope with regard to the nomination of abbesses, in consequence of which two ladies Mesdames de Grieu, having been disappointed of an expected establishment, retired to Saint-Sauveur, where they formed a great friends.h.i.+p with my mother, and became devoted to her two-year-old child. I was naturally very popular in the convent, and having a bright disposition I was educated with the utmost care.

Chiefly with a view to giving me greater advantage, the elder Madame de Grieu sought and at length obtained the Priory of Saint-Louis at Rouen, and took me thither with the consent of my mother. Saint-Louis was like a little kingdom, where I reigned as a sovereign; the abbess and her sister had no thought but to satisfy my every fancy, and the whole convent was forced to pay court to me. All that was done for me cost me so little that it seemed a matter of course that I should be flattered and served, and at an early age I had contracted all the defects which I have since had to allow for in the great.

This extreme indulgence would have turned my defects into vices, if devotion had not ruled my pa.s.sions from the first. Religion was the one great object before my eyes; I had been well instructed in it; I read continually the devotional books in the convent library, and pa.s.sed much of my time in prayer and meditation. Yet my early desire to become a nun pa.s.sed gradually away, until I thought of it no more.

Mademoiselle de Silly, an amiable and cultivated young lady whose actions were ruled by principles rather than by feelings, came to live at Saint-Louis, and I was soon attached to her with all the ardour of a girl's affection; her tastes became mine, and I used to read all day beside her. She was then studying the philosophy of Descartes, and I became absorbed in questions of that kind to the neglect of everything else, until, fearing lest they might disturb my faith, I resolutely banished them from my mind.

I was about fourteen years old when the convent of Saint-Louis fell into great poverty owing to a famine which was desolating France, and the disaffection of the nuns was centred on me as a chief cause of unnecessary expense. Their complaints came to the archbishop of Rouen, and abbess had difficulty in keeping me with her. My helpless condition began to force itself on my attention; and I realised that if the abbess were to die I was alone and without support in the world.

An unexpected event now drew me closer to Mademoiselle de Silly. Her mother, having come to Rouen, took her home to Silly, and invited me to accompany her. I accepted joyfully, and spent several months in the solitary and melancholy old castle. The Marquis was extremely economical, the Marquise very devout, and we saw few people. One visitor from the neighborhood, however, attracted me strongly; and as he came often and stayed long, my friend and I agreed that one of us had pleased him. When he had declared his affection, and it was not for me, I learned what jealousy is--a kind of horror like that of falling down through a fathomless abyss.

During the next visit to Silly in the following year the son of the house arrived, and at first kept very much to himself and to his books.

But having heard his sister and myself complaining of these unsociable ways, he frankly confessed his fault and amended it, and from that day we spent every hour together. His mind and his manner was infinitely agreeable; and in my successive visits to Silly we formed a delightful friends.h.i.+p which was never interrupted by more ardent feelings.

_Thrown on the World_

At length my dear abbess fell so dangerously ill that I saw I was about to lose her; and I became desolately aware that I owed her all, and that her death would not only leave me absolutely helpless, but would also deprive me of my best friend. I never knew anyone else so abundant in goodness, with so much sweetness, attention for others and forgetfulness of self, nor with such exact regard for every duty. Her death came soon, and it was evident that neither her sister nor I could remain at the convent. Several generous helpers came forward with offers of support, but in my uncertain position I judged it better to refuse them all. I was resolved to suffer any misery and servitude rather than sacrifice my independence, and only accepted a small loan sufficient to take me to Paris.

I was soon in the great city, looking out for a situation as children's governess; fortunately, I had a taste for that occupation, and imagined that taste for it meant talent. I had a sister, in the household of the d.u.c.h.ess de La Ferte, and found her very amiable and helpful. With her a.s.sistance I went to board at a cheap rate in the convent of the Presentation, and she succeeded in inspiring her mistress with so elevated an idea of my attainments that the d.u.c.h.ess soon afterwards sent for me. After showing me off as a prodigy of learning to all her friends, the d.u.c.h.ess de La Ferte, a voluble and enthusiastic woman, conceived a violent affection for me, and projected innumerable schemes for my advancement, which ended in my being received into her own household as her secretary.

I should have been delighted with this position if I had not remembered how my sister, who had gone there as her favourite, had fallen to the situation of chambermaid, and if I had not realised that my mistress's affection would probably be as short-lived as it was intemperate. It proved to be so indeed; it was succeeded by a hatred as violent as her attachment had been; and after subjecting me to every indignity she finally disposed of me by placing me in the household of the d.u.c.h.ess of Maine, at Sceaux.

Here I inhabited a tiny room, without windows or fireplace, and so low that it was impossible to stand upright. I was given sewing to do, but my first piece of work proved my incapacity, and my extremely short-sight made me equally helpless in waiting on the d.u.c.h.ess. I was astonished at the patience with which she bore my awkwardness, but my fellow-servants, with whom I was most unpopular, were less merciful. The hard and thankless existence, so different from anything which I had been accustomed, threw me into a profound depression, until I began to cherish the idea of taking leave of life.

But gradually my situation altered for the better. Her Serene Highness the d.u.c.h.ess began to take notice of me, and became accustomed to speak to me and to take interest and pleasure in my replies. She had now succeeded in raising her family to rank equal to her own, and by a famous edict her children and their descendants had been brought within the succession to the crown. Her delight in amus.e.m.e.nts and in pageants was now at its highest, and it happened that the Abbe de Vaubrun, designing a spectacular piece in honor of Night, confided to me the task of writing and delivering an epilogue in that character. My stage-fright spoiled my elocution, but from that day I was entrusted with the organisation of these magnificent entertainments, and the last of them was entirely designed and written by myself. By this means I came to take a quite different place in the household.

_Political Intrigues_