scribe. That and the chief reason that prompted Alfieri to leave, as he himself writes, "una vita giovanite oriosissima" (his life of indolent youth) to dedicate himself to the muses.

Towards the middle of 1773 at Turin he fell in love with a lady of noble family, seven years older than he, about whom there were many stories afloat. This lady fell ill, and Alfieri who nursed her, to pass the long and vearisome hours of watching, began to write and in this way wrote his first tragedy, Cleopatra. But this lady was not the twin-soul that was to inspire the poet. He found this ideal in the person of Louise of Stolberg, Countess of Albany, and wife of the last Stuart, who by force of arms, tried to regain the English throne.

The meeting took place in 1777 in the month of October. It was this lady, famous for the name that she bore, and famous later for the part she played, that was the real muse of Alfieri.

Her husband, when Alfieri knew him, was no longer the young, handsome, and dashing cavalier, the "Bonnie Prince

Choiseul wanted to try to regain for him the throne, but was forced to admit that it was impossible to reestablish on the throne a man "who had lost all dignity," for he had at this time written "de vivre et pas vivre est beaucoup pis que mourir" (to live and yet not really to live is worse than death), and so had given himself up to drinking.

The next year, in 1771, in his fiftyfirst year, Charles Edward Stuart was bethrothed with Louise of Stolberg, who

Charlie," adored by Scotland. None any longer saw in him, the victor of Preston Pans and Falkirk, the vanquished of Culloden. Abandoned by France, excluded from the throne by the Treaty of Aix-laChapelle, first he found a refuge in the arms of Miss Clementine Walkinshaw, whom he had known at the siege of Sterling Castle and then in the strong waters that made him hunch-backed, florid, stuttering, and melancholy.

The unfortunate Prince was in this condition in 1770 when the Duke de

was but nineteen years old, and he married her on the advice of the Duke d'Aiguillon, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs. She was descended from Bruce, the national hero of Scotland, France al

and

lowed Stuart on his marriage with her an annual grant of two hundred and forty thousand francs.

After the legal arrangements the marriage was celebrated at Macerala on Good Friday, 1772, in the monumental palace of Count Compagnoni Marefoschi, one of the most devoted adherents of the Stuart cause. A medal was struck to commemorate the occasion.

From Macerala the couple travelled to Rome, where they lived in Palazzo Muti on which the royal arms of the Stuarts did not now appear. Louise, nevertheless, always signed with an R, and also "regina apostolorum." The Romans called her "Queen of Hearts."

Carl Bonstellen, who saw her at this time, has written of her: "Luisa was of medium stature, she had light hair, dark blue eyes, a nose slightly retroussé, a clear pink complexion, regular features, and beautiful teeth. She was slightly

malicious, bright and sharp; full of fun, more French than German, and quite capable of turning a man's brain." It is easy to understand therefore that Louise, Canoness of Saint Vadru de Mons, should fall in love in her twenty-fourth year and at the height of her beauty and charm with the handsome and fiery poet of Asti, who himself was hardly five years older.

Their first meeting was at Florence in the autumn, and immediately the poet became enchained by "those new voluntary golden fetters." Two months afterwards Alfieri said to himself that "la sur vera donna era quella" (she was the true lady of his heart), and when confessing told his learned friend Tomaso Valperega di Caluso, who has been called "Montaigne redivivus" of his passion,

and the abbot who understood, absolved him from all fault.

In 1779 on the night of St. Andrew's Day, Louse had a violent altercation with her husband; and Alfieri, with the consent of the Grand Duke Leopold of Tuscany, helped her to fly for refuge to the convent of the white nuns (Delle Bianchelle) to protect her from the ill treatment of her jealous and drunken husband.

From the convent Louise fled to Rome with Alfieri and an Irish gentleman, to be there under the protection of her brother-in-law, the Cardinal of York, who welcomed her and received her into his own palace. In Rome Louise applied for a divorce from Pius VI., her application being supported by the Tuscan Government and by the Papal Nonce in Flor

ence. The Pope encouraged her to hope. Meanwhile, Alfieri who had written for her his play, Mary Stuart, went backwards and forwards from Naples to Rome to see her, and these frequent visits gave rise to much talk in the gossipy world of Papal Rome. Alfieri himself wrote that "all that pious horror of the priests was neither due to their holiness, nor was it wanting of envious jealousy."

This period was, as it were, the honeymoon of Louise and Alfieri; at this time were written the sonnets of Psipio to Psipia which Louise copied during a long forced stay at Genzano, where she was jealously guarded.

Finally, in 1784, under pressure from Gustavus III. of Sweden, who was then in Rome under the incognito of Count of The Hague, Charles Stuart decided upon divorce, and Louise regained her liberty. Immediately she went to Baden and thence to Colmar where soon Alfieri came to her from Modena, and there together for the first time they spent a life of calm happiness-she adoring her poet, he hard at work and full of love for her. And at Colmar Alfieri composed his tragedies, Agide, Saphonisba, and Mirra.

It would take us too long to follow the lovers in their constant travels from place to place. Their stay in Paris, whither

MEDALLION OF THE COUNTESS OF ALBANY

they went to look after the publication of Alfieri's works, is noteworthy because there Louise received news of the death of her husband in February, 1788. Alfieri then wrote to the Abbot of Caluso: "I am certain that this husband of hers, in spite of the difference in years between them, would have found in Louise an ex

cellent friend and companion, nay, even a loving woman, had he not exasperated by his continuous coarse, drunken behaviour."

Undoubtedly the love of Louise was for Alfieri the purifying fire which impelled him courageously to work and to win glory. In his sonnets where we see his soul reflected, Alfieri says that it was love that made him devote himself to his work, and he repeats the same thought in his dedication to Louise of his play Mirra

.although thou wer't the fount of all, and I began to live only from that day when my life was united with thine."

In Paris Alfieri and Louise entertained largely, and to their salon there flocked the cleverest men, the Baron de StaelHolstein, Beaumarchais, Mirabeau, the dramatist Talma, Cherubini, Joséphine de Beauharnais, Madame de Genlis, the two brothers Chênier, and the Italian poet Ippolili Pindemonte whom Alfieri nicknamed "my washerwoman," because he polished what Alfieri had written in a more fluent style.

Alfieri was in Paris at the year of the great Revolution, and with Pindemonte helped at the storming of the Bastile; he was full of enthusiasm for the Revolution which soon enough he had cause to hate for its terrible excesses. A little incident at table shows how this detestation arose, on the day that the Revolutionists brought back as prisoners the royal family that had fled to Varennes; there was dining with Alfieri and Louise David d'Angers then a Jacobine and later Baron and Court-painter to Napoleon. Louise on hearing the news, expressed her sympathy for Marie Antoinette, whereupon David with scant courtesy exclaimed: "You call her an unfortunate woman? She is a harpy, and I think it is a pity that the crowd did not strangle her."

From that day Alfieri, republican and free-thinker, the author of the Tiramide, and of so many other plays where love of liberty is worshiped as a sacred thing hated the French Revolution. Next year, in 1790, began the Reign of Terror, and Alfieri and Louise went to England and visited Oxford, Blenheim, Bath, Hampton Court, and finally, going to London stayed with General Conway in Park Place. And it was in this year, on the 19th of May, to be exact, that Louise Stuart was presented by Lady Anna Ben

don, Countess of Alsburg, to George III. and Queen Caroline, the usurper of her throne. Walpole, with much reason styled this visit of the widow of Charles Stuart "to be in bad taste." Louise, Countess of Albany, in fact was wanting in tact to be in her own royal box with the usurpers, and showed a want of com

mon sense.

Then they returned to the Continent by way of Brussels and Mons, the birthplace of Louise, and so on to Paris where they were present at the destruction of the Tuileries on the 10th of August, 1792; and Alfieri grew more bitter still against the Revolution and conceived the plan of his Misogallo, a terrific satire against the French.

When he returned to Florence the emotions undergone in Paris prompted him to write, as follows, of his own country: "In my youth I have not been sparing in harsh words against thee; and now that I return again to thee tamed and softened by long experience, if in other nations I see faults, the faults in thee I regard with a son's love."

For Alfieri Florence was peace after storm, and in this birthplace of Dante and Michelangelo Alfieri and Louise lived those other years that they were yet to spend together; those years were spent in love, in printing poetry, and in recitations, for Alfieri, like Voltaire, used to recite his writings. They lived in that old palace on the Lungarno Corsini which lay between the Ponte della Trinita and the Ponte della Carraia, two monuments of the thirteenth century.

On the 7th of October, 1803, sounded the hour for the eternal parting, and the soul of Alfieri left his body. He had suffered for long years from gout, and in the end it killed him. Alfieri was then in his fifty-fourth year. The remains of the free-thinking Italian poet were visited and held in honour by Chateaubriand, the poet of Christianity.

During the many years that the poet dwelt with Louise Stolberg, not one serious trouble arose between them and their love was constant. In the last years of his life Alfieri wrote about Louise: “After so many years . . . and after so many disappointments ever more and more I am attracted to my friend and all the more that her beauty has been slowly ravaged by time; she inspired my mind;