him it
is a result of Christian charity, and because we are desired to pardon.
He drags out a miserable life, abandoned by all the world, without
relatives or friends, given over to his servants; but he has willed
it thus, since he has never been able to live with anyone. Forgive
me, Madame, for having entered into such details with you; but the
friendship which you have shown towards me obliges me to speak
sincerely." Mme. d'Albany, writing some time before to condole about the
death of Alfieri's half-brother, had tried to insinuate to the old
Countess what her son was for her, and what position she herself might
one day assume in the Alfieri family: "I hope that if circumstances
change, you will not see a family die out to which you are so attached,
and that you will receive the greatest consolation from M. le Comte
Alfieri." Words which could only mean that when the Pretender died Mme.
Alfieri might hope for a daughter-in-law in the writer, and for
grand-children through her. But Madame Alfieri did not understand;
imagining, perhaps, that Mme. d'Albany was alluding to some project of
marriage of her friend M. le Comte Alfieri; and the letter in which the
ill-treated wife's aversion to her husband was first openly revealed
appears to have acted as a thunder-clap, and to have, at least
momentarily, put an end to all correspondence.

The Countess of Albany was mistaken in supposing that Charles Edward
would die in the arms of mere servants. The very year after her own
separation from Alfieri, the Pretender had called to Florence the
natural daughter born to him by Miss Walkenshaw, and whom he had left,
apparently forgotten for twenty-five years, in the convent at Meaux,
where her mother had taken refuge from his brutalities, even as Louise
d'Albany had taken refuge from them in the convent of the Bianchette.
Partly from a paternal feeling born of the unexpected solitude in which
his wife's flight had left him; partly, doubtless, from a desire to
spite the Countess; he had solemnly, as King of England, legitimated
this daughter, and created her Duchess of Albany: he had made incredible
efforts, abandoning drink, going into the world and keeping open house,
to attach this young woman to him, and to treat her as well as he had
treated his wife ill.

Charlotte of Albany, a strong, lively, good-humoured, big creature,
devoted to gaiety, effectually reformed her father in his last years,
and turned him, from the brute he ha