ecome
unnecessary. If Mme. d'Albany merely smiled over bygone follies, Alfieri
had been put into great agitation by the sight of Lady Ligonier. From
Calais he sent her a letter, of which no copy has been preserved, but
which, according to his account, "was full, not indeed of love, but of
a deep and sincere emotion at seeing her still leading a wandering life
very unsuited to her birth and position; and of pain in thinking that I,
although innocently (that "although innocently", on the part of a man
who had been the cause of her scandalous downfall, is perfectly charming
in its simple revelation of Continental morals), might have been the
cause or the pretext thereof."

Lady Ligonier's answer came to hand in Brussels. Written in bad French,
it answered Alfieri's tragic grandiloquence with a cold civility, which
shows how deeply his magnanimous compassion had wounded a woman who felt
herself to be no more really corrupt than he.

"Monsieur," so runs the letter, "you could not doubt that the expression
of your remembrance of me, and of the interest which you kindly take in
my lot, would be duly appreciated and received gratefully by me; the
more especially as I cannot consider you as the cause of my unhappiness,
since I am not unhappy, although the uprightness of your soul makes you
fear that I am. You were, on the contrary, the agent of my liberation
from a world for which I was in no way suited, and which I have not
for a moment regretted.... I am in the enjoyment of perfect health,
increased by liberty and peace of mind. I seek the society only of
simple and virtuous persons without pretensions either to particular
genius or to particular learning; and besides such society I entertain
myself with books, drawing, music, &c. But what constitutes the basis of
real happiness and satisfaction is the friendship and unalterable love
of a brother whom I have always loved more than the whole world, and who
possesses the best of hearts." "I hear," goes on Lady Ligonier, after a
few compliments on Alfieri's literary fame, "that you are attached to
the Princess with whom you are travelling, whose amiable and clever
physiognomy seems indeed formed for the happiness of a soul as sensitive
and delicate as yours. I am also told that she is afraid of you: I
recognise you there. Without wishing, or perhaps even knowing it, you
have an irresistible ascendancy over all who are attached to you."

Was it this disrespectful hint concerning