MARIA LOUISA. 



643 



making so much noise abroad, her people were 

 quietly starving at home. Yet she continued 

 honoured and heloved hy them. Her conduct was 

 considered as the consequence of the vile policy of 

 Austria. They believed her unacquainted with 

 their miseries. Among the common sufferings, a 

 word of sympathy was always reserved for her. 

 They called her the poor betrayed, la povera 

 tradita ; and, at her return, the warmest reception 

 always awaited her. 



It was not rare, however, that some friend took 

 pains to inform her of the true state of things. More 

 than one appeal was made to her sensibility. There 

 is no free press in that country, but truth knows 

 how to find its way to the throne. One year she 

 was preparing to set out on a voyage to Naples. 

 She had hired a frigate of the king of Sardinia, and 

 furnished it like the barge of Cleopatra. The har- 

 vest had been very scanty, the winter very severe. 

 Her people murmured and groaned. On the eve 

 of her departure, at supper, under her napkin a 

 little note was discovered ; it was in a few lines 

 the voice of her people. Maria Louisa read and 

 turned pale; she bit her lips, and shed tears of 

 rage ; her courtiers were confounded ; but on the 

 morrow, the poor betrayed was riding to Genoa, 

 and three days after, sailing for Naples. 



To these causes of public discontent, other 

 grievances of a more serious character were added, 

 helping to undermine her popularity. As early as 

 the days of her triumphal entry into her states, the 

 general enthusiasm excited in her favour had 

 awakened the jealousy of the cabinet of Vienna. 

 They felt as if the rock of St Helena and the 

 walls of Schonbrunn could not assure them against 

 the charm attached to the name of Napoleon. The 

 family of Bonaparte, scattered, exiled, or closely 

 watched by the police at Rome, appeared to be 

 disarmed for all ambitious attempts. All hopes 

 and svishes were thus turned towards her; and si- 

 tuated, as she was, in the centre of the boldest 

 population of the peninsula, it seemed, that, at 

 the first shout of emancipation, she would be 

 placed at the head of the nation, and proclaimed 

 regent of Italy. Austria saw this, and, with that 

 same indifference with which she had been sacri- 

 ficed to the interests of her family and given up 

 to her enemy, it was now decided, that she should 

 be prostituted to her courtiers, and undone in the 

 opinion of the nations. Her ruin and infamy, we 

 say, were resolved upon as a coup d'etat ; by which 

 we shall be understood to affirm, that such was the 

 confident belief of her subjects. History shrinks 

 from the responsibility of asserting a political pro- 

 fligacy so atrocious. 



To undo a weak and unsuspicious woman, amidst 

 the intoxication of a loose and dissipated life, alone 

 and unadvised, surrounded by snares and intrigues, 

 with a warm and passionate temper, in want of 

 some object of affection, hopelessly separated from 

 all its legitimate objects, was but too easy. A few 

 years had scarcely elapsed, when the report of her 

 misconduct had already degraded her in the eyes of 

 Europe. 



Adam Halbert, count of Neipperg, lieutenant- 

 general of Hungarian light-horse, was appointed by 

 the Aulic council private secretary to the duchess 

 of Parma. According to the scandalous chronicles 

 of the times, the secretary and the lady had been 

 long before familiarly acquainted. General Neip- 

 perg, it was said, made part of the brilliant train 

 which escorted Maria Louisa, bride of Napoleon, 



to the fair destinies which awaited her in France. 

 Be this true or not, their mutual situation in Parma 

 could not fail to bring them soon into the closest 

 intimacy. In affairs of state and parties of plea- 

 sure, riding, dancing, hunting, and travelling, they 

 were constant companions. The general had or- 

 ders never to depart from his mistress's side ; she 

 had orders never to move a step without him 

 Neipperg was a tall, fine-looking personage. His 

 age at his arrival was not much beyond thirty. He 

 had a bright, warlike countenance, and when seen 

 on his left side, he was a striking type of manly 

 beauty. In his early campaigns, in a close engage- 

 ment, the lance of a French hussar had deprived 

 him of his right eye. That honourable wound was 

 carefully covered with a black band, and there re- 

 mained charm enough in the eye he had left to win 

 a weak woman's heart. It was but too soon, and 

 alas! before the 5th of May, 1821,* that Maria 

 Louisa began to prefer her groves of Sala and her 

 parks of Colorno, to the watchful curiosity of the 

 city. It was too soon, that her pale brow had 

 sunk from its habitual expression of Austrian pride; 

 that she was confined to her apartments for long 

 intervals ; that, in short, the King of Rome 

 ceased to be without a rival in her maternal ten- 

 derness. 



The report of her weakness spread. In Milan 

 and Turin the Italians, always bold and indepen- 

 dent in the theatre, received her with loud 

 cheers; "Long live the countess of Neipperg." 

 But a countess of Neipperg was living in Austria, 

 and, by the arrangement of the congress of Vienna, 

 Maria Louisa, in case of marriage, was to be bereft 

 of her states. At length, however, the lovers, 

 having found themselves both in a state of widow- 

 hood, and the cabinet of Austria having yielded 

 its consent, with great secrecy and haste, in a smuli 

 chapel at Naples, they re'ceived the nuptial bene- 

 diction ; and this 



" Connubium vocat ; hoe prcetexit nomine culpam." 



The epoch of her long connection with general 

 Neipperg was one of the happiest for her subjects. 

 Neipperg was a man of generous and liberal senti- 

 ments. Endowed with a mild, though rather an 

 obstinate temper, he abhorred violent measures ; 

 and, whenever he did not labour under unfavour- 

 able prepossessions, he always stood firmly for the 

 cause of justice and truth. He was very popular. 

 He spoke not only Italian, but even the vulgar 

 dialects of the country; his style of living was 

 simple ; his manners affable and easy. In public 

 calamities he was zealous and active for the cause 

 of humanity ; in public seditions he appeared alone 

 and unarmed, disarming popular fury by the calm- 

 ness of his countenance. 



The days of Neipperg's administration were over 

 too soon. In 1827, his regiment, his family, his 

 courtiers, and the whole population attended his 

 funeral; his helmet and sword were laid by his 

 side ; his war-horse was slain on his tomb. Maria 

 Louisa departed for Vienna. The public voice 

 pronounced that the count Neipperg did not carry all 

 her affections to his grave ; that he was not during 

 hi? lifetime the sole msister of her thoughts. We re- 

 ject such accusations. But the melancholy fact is, 

 that there was in her conduct more than enough to 

 authorize all kinds of idle conjectures. Her good 

 people were highly scandalized. " Daughter of 

 the North," they were ready to say, "is it thus, 



* The day of Napoleon's death. 

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