There Had Been
Something Of Grandeur In Her Career.
After the death of Lady
Chatham, which happened in 1803, she lived under the roof of her
uncle, the second Pitt, and when he resumed the Government in 1804,
she became the dispenser of much patronage, and sole secretary of
state for the department of Treasury banquets.
Not having seen the
lady until late in her life, when she was fired with spiritual
ambition, I can hardly fancy that she could have performed her
political duties in the saloons of the Minister with much of
feminine sweetness and patience. I am told, however, that she
managed matters very well indeed: perhaps it was better for the
lofty-minded leader of the House to have his reception-rooms
guarded by this stately creature, than by a merely clever and
managing woman; it was fitting that the wholesome awe with which he
filled the minds of the country gentlemen should be aggravated by
the presence of his majestic niece. But the end was approaching.
The sun of Austerlitz showed the Czar madly sliding his splendid
army like a weaver's shuttle from his right hand to his left, under
the very eyes - the deep, grey, watchful eyes of Napoleon; before
night came, the coalition was a vain thing - meet for history, and
the heart of its great author was crushed with grief when the
terrible tidings came to his ears. In the bitterness of his
despair he cried out to his niece, and bid her, "ROLL UP THE MAP OF
EUROPE"; there was a little more of suffering, and at last, with
his swollen tongue (so they say) still muttering something for
England, he died by the noblest of all sorrows.
Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her own fierce way, seems to
have scorned the poor island that had not enough of God's grace to
keep the "heaven-sent" Minister alive. I can hardly tell why it
should be, but there is a longing for the East very commonly felt
by proud-hearted people when goaded by sorrow. Lady Hester
Stanhope obeyed this impulse. For some time, I believe, she was at
Constantinople, where her magnificence and near alliance to the
late Minister gained her great influence. Afterwards she passed
into Syria. The people of that country, excited by the
achievements of Sir Sidney Smith, had begun to imagine the
possibility of their land being occupied by the English, and many
of them looked upon Lady Hester as a princess who came to prepare
the way for the expected conquest. I don't know it from her own
lips, or indeed from any certain authority, but I have been told
that she began her connection with the Bedouins by making a large
present of money (500 pounds it was said - immense in piastres) to
the Sheik whose authority was recognised in that part of the desert
which lies between Damascus and Palmyra. The prestige created by
the rumours of her high and undefined rank, as well as of her
wealth and corresponding magnificence, was well sustained by her
imperious character and her dauntless bravery.
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