etched her successfully in the character
of a Muse; then on Friday she came to show me her arms, of which she
was, not without reason, decidedly vain--she is a gay and whimsical
woman, she seems to have a good heart; at times she is ennuyee through
lack of occupation." On one occasion when she met in the studio some
French ladies, two of whom had been mistresses of the King of
Westphalia, the poor artist was driven to distraction by the chatter,
the singing, and dancing, in which the Princess especially displayed her
agility, until, as he pathetically says, "the house seemed possessed of
the devil, and you can imagine with what kind of ease it was possible
for me to work."

Before leaving Milan the Princess gave a grand banquet to Bellegarde
and a number of the principal men of the city--a feast which was to have
very important and serious consequences, for it was at this banquet that
General Pino, one of her guests, introduced to Caroline a new courier, a
man who, though she little dreamt it at the time, was destined to play a
very baleful part in her life.

This new courier was a tall and strikingly handsome man, who had seen
service in the Italian army, until a duel, in which he killed a superior
officer, compelled him to leave it in disgrace. At the time he entered
the Princess's service he was a needy adventurer, whose scheming brain
and utter lack of principle were in the market for the highest bidder.
"He is," said Baron Ompteda, "a sort of Apollo, of a superb and
commanding appearance, more than six feet high; his physical beauty
attracts all eyes. This man is called Pergami; he belongs to Milan, and
has entered the Princess's service. The Princess," he significantly
adds, "is shunned by all the English people of rank; her behaviour has
created the most marked scandal."

Such was the man with whose life that of the Princess of Wales was to be
so intimately and disastrously linked, and whose relations with her were
to be displayed to a shocked world but a few years later. It was indeed
an evil fate that brought this "superb Apollo" of the crafty brain and
conscienceless ambition into the life of the Princess at the high tide
of her revolt against the world and its conventions.

When Caroline and her retinue set out from Milan for Tuscany it was in
the wake of Pergami, who had ridden ahead to discharge his duties as
_avant courier_; but before Rome was reached his intimacy and
familiarity with his mistress wer