splendid home for a future
Queen of England. But even to the lonely isolation of the Italian lakes
the eyes of her husband's secret agents pursued her, spying on her every
movement--"uncertain shadows gliding in the twilight along the paths and
between the hedges, and even in the cellars and attics of the
villa"--until the shadowy presences filled her with such terror and
unrest that she sought to escape them by a long tour in the East.

Thus it was that in November, 1815, the Princess and her Pergami
household set forth on their journey to Sicily, Tunis, Athens, the
cities of the East and Jerusalem, the strange story of which was to be
unfolded to the world five years later. How intimate the Princess and
her handsome, stalwart courier had by this time become was illustrated
by the Attorney-General in his opening speech at her memorable trial.
"One day, after dinner, when the Princess's servants had withdrawn, a
waiter at the hotel, Gran Brettagna, saw the Princess put a golden
necklace round Pergami's neck. Pergami took it off again and put it
jestingly on the neck of the Princess, who in her turn once more removed
it and put it again round Pergami's neck."

As early as August in this year Pergami had his appointed place at the
Princess's table, and his room communicating with hers, and on the
various voyages of the Eastern tour there was abundant evidence to prove
"the habit which the Princess had of sleeping under one and the same
awning with Pergami."

But it is as impossible in the limits of space to follow Caroline and
her handsome cavalier through every stage of these Eastern wanderings,
as it is unnecessary to describe in detail the evidence of intimacy so
lavishly provided by the witnesses for the prosecution at the
trial--evidence much of which was doubtless as false as it was venal.
That the Princess, however, was infatuated by her cavalier, and that she
was in the highest degree indiscreet in her relations with him, seems
abundantly clear, whatever the precise degree of actual guilt may have
been.

Pergami had now been promoted from equerry to Grand Chamberlain to Her
Royal Highness, and as further evidence of her favour, she bought for
him in Sicily an estate which conferred on its owner the title of Baron
della Francina. At Malta she procured for him a knighthood of that
island's famous order; at Jerusalem she secured his nomination as Knight
of the Holy Sepulchre; and, to crown her favours, she herse