1830-1831] Mrs Patterson and Countess Guiccioli 241 



Guiccioli for fear of being made to sing with her, which, 

 altho' she has a superb voice, he cannot bear to do. If you 

 will be a good girl and come to Paris, you shall hear him 

 too. The preceding Wednesday I had the hard little Mrs 

 Patterson too. 1 Guiccioli, who had been very intimate with 

 her at Florence, seeing one person in a room full of strangers, 

 crossed it eagerly to speak to her; the hard little woman 

 turned her back on her eager accost, with a rudeness re- 

 marked by everybody in such a little room, and the Guiccioli 

 was so overcome, not being well before, that I thought she 

 would have fainted. Her hand was bathed in a cold sweat. 

 I gave her some wine and water, pretending that it was the 

 terror of singing. I sent a young Frenchman to scold her 

 [Mrs Patterson], and ask her why she did such a thing. 

 She said " Oh it is not for her conduct with Lord Byron, 

 that I have nothing to do with but she is such a hard 

 little cold dry-hearted woman, I could give you a thousand 

 little odious traits of her " ! ! Who ever knows them- 

 selves ? . . . 



1 Elizabeth Patterson, daughter of a merchant in Baltimore, ex- 

 wife of Jerome Bonaparte. The marriage was declared null by 

 Napoleon, and Jerome was forced to marry Catherine, daughter of 

 the King of Wiirtemberg. 



