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rdinary beauty and fascination of her little girl attracted the attention of a Mr. Forth. Mr. Forth was accustomed to buy horses in England for his Grace of Orleans, but recently he had received another commission: to look out for a little English girl, to be educated with the Orleans children, and to speak English with them. Mary Simms was very poor, and her desire to keep her child with her was not strong enough to stand in the way of the brilliant provision thus promised her. Accordingly, Mr. Forth was soon able to announce to his royal patron that he was sending him "the handsomest mare and the prettiest little girl in all England."

Footnote 80:

It has been pointed out by Madden that in the civil marriage contract of Pamela and Lord Edward, the bride's father is stated to have been a William Berkley, while in the religious contract of the same date Pamela is entered as the daughter of William de Brixey.

All we know with certainty of Pamela's "origin" is that at a very early age she made her appearance in the Convent of Bellechasse, whither Madame de Genlis had retired to devote herself to the education of the children of the Duke and Duchess of Orleans, and that until her marriage with Lord Edward in December, 1792, she was the constant companion of the young princes and their sister, and shared that remarkable and original system of education, which Madame de Genlis--one of the most gifted educationists of France, the country of educationists--had devised for her pupils.

Footnote 81:

The name Pamela was borrowed by Madame de Genlis, who was an enthusiastic admirer of the novels of Samuel Richardson, from the heroine of the most famous of them.

Into this peaceable retreat Madame de Genlis was accompanied by her mother and her two daughters, Caroline and Pulch?rie de Genlis, the completion of whose education she thus found an opportunity of directing, before their early marriages to the Marquis de La Woestine and the Viscount de Valence respectively.

In 1782 one of the little twin princesses died of smallpox, and in the same year Madame de Genlis was appointed "Governor" to the young princes, their brothers--the first woman to hold such a post of honour and responsibility.

From this moment Bellechasse became a regular academy. In addition to the three princes, the Duke de Valois , the Duke de Montpensier, the small Duke de Beaujolais, and their sister Mlle. d'Orl?ans , the Countess had also, under her care her nephew, C?sar de Crest, her niece, Henrietta de Sercey, and the two mysterious little girls, Pamela and Hermione. Of Hermione's parentage nothing is known; but she was thought by some people to be a sister of Pamela.

In order to have a free hand to carry them out Madame de Genlis got rid of the Princes' tutor, M. de Bonnard, and substituted M. Lebrun, a former secretary of her husband. Their second master, M. l'Abb? Guyot, was allowed to remain, though he and the Countess were anything but kindred spirits.

The Countess, according to herself, had her work cut out for her to correct the defects of the little boys' previous education. They knew nothing at all, and the eldest, in particular, was wanting in application to an unheard-of degree. Their new teacher began by reading history for them. "M. le duc de Valois paid no attention, yawned, stretched himself and finally lay back on the sofa with his heels on the table." The Countess put him "in penance" immediately. But the good sense of the little boy, which even at that period of his development, was easily appealed to, made him take it in good part. He was very much addicted to slang, and had some very peculiar foibles: he was in terror of dogs, and could not endure the smell of vinegar. The Countess succeeded in ridding him of these peculiarities.

Modern languages, taught on the direct method, were a strong point in the Bellechasse system. There was a German Valet de Chambre to speak German to the children; an Italian to speak Italian; an Englishman to help them to a conversational knowledge of English. It was ostensibly to speak English with Mademoiselle that Pamela, as we have seen, was added to the establishment.

The children's father, who spared no money to carry out the "Governor's" ideas, bought for them a country place, Saint Leu, and there they passed the summer each year. In the beautiful park the Countess had assigned to each the ground for a little garden, which they dug and planted for themselves--with the help of a German gardener, who gave his gardening instruction in German. During their afternoon walks nothing was spoken but English, and this was the language of the dinner table. At supper Italian was spoken.

A clever chemist and a good botanist, M. Alyon, was also engaged for Bellechasse. He accompanied the children on their walks, and gave them practical lessons in botany while under his direction they gathered the wayside flowers and plants. He gave them a course of Chemistry every summer at which the Countess delighted to assist.

For days afterwards the Marquise's grandmother entertained her friends with a humorous account of Madame de Genlis, and the sort of education she was giving her pupils.

At a certain hour every evening the children assembled for their reading lesson. Each pupil read aloud for a quarter of an hour, Madame correcting their pronunciation when necessary, and making suitable comments on the subject matter which was always of an improving nature. At the end of the lesson the Countess read aloud for a few minutes herself, just to give the correct model.

When the children were a little older their "Governor" hired a box at the theatre for them, and thither they went about once a week to see the masterpieces of the French stage played by the greatest actors of the age.

Every Saturday the Princes and their sister held a reception at Bellechasse, so as to form them early to habits of polite conversation.

It was part of the system of Bellechasse to interest its pupils in the great currents of thought which agitated the day. As early as 1786 the Countess had shown the popular and democratic direction she gave to the education of the princes of Orleans when the young Duke of Chartres, acting under her influence, destroyed the famous iron cage of Saint Michel.

The outbreak of the Revolution found the young princes and their father on the popular side, and their choice has been traced to the influence of Madame de Genlis.

We get brief but very vivid glimpses of Pamela amid the gossip, enshrined in contemporary memoirs, which the Countess's political action inspired. When the Duke of Orleans settled an annuity on her, she is said to have chosen Bar?re, then present at one of the Bellechasse Sunday receptions, as her guardian. She was seen, a striking figure on horseback, in riding habit and large black hat laden with black plumes, followed by two grooms in the Orleans livery of blue and red riding up and down between two lines of shrieking populace who proclaimed: "there's the queen we want." And on the day of the fall of the Bastille she was said to have been seen moving among the people all dressed in red, destined to draw all eyes to her.

It seems much more probable that she assisted at this historic spectacle with the rest of Madame de Genlis's pupils from the terrace of the new gardens of Beaumarchais which the latter had put at their disposition.

The indignation of the Duchess of Orleans at the direction given to her children's political education by their "Governor" led to the latter's dismissal in 1791. But the separation from her teacher had such a disastrous effect on the health of Mademoiselle d'Orl?ans that Madame de Genlis had to be recalled.

But there was waiting in Paris another lover than Sheridan--and it was he, though they had never seen each other up to this, with whom Pamela's lot was to be bound up.

At Tournay Lord Edward made formal proposals for Pamela's hand, and his suit was accepted, on the condition of him receiving his family's consent to the marriage.

This consent the Duchess of Leinster, wise mother that she was, gave very readily, and within a fortnight, Lord Edward was back in London with his bride.

Her sisters-in-law, and specially Lady Sophia, were quick to see that it was jealousy of Pamela's beauty and charm, her exquisite dancing, her French toilettes, her husband's undisguised admiration--far more than their hatred of her and Lord Edward's politics which made Dublin society so hostile to her. Other sections of Irish society worshipped her. We have a pretty picture of Lord Edward and her driving in a very high phaeton one day through College Green and Dame Street, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the multitude, who were raised to congenial heights of enthusiasm as much by her beauty as Lord Edward's conspicuous green neck-cloth. Lord Edward's boyish delight at the reception accorded them, and the impression produced by his bride's beauty, was very delightful to witness.

Nor was it the populace alone whom Pamela won by her beauty. Lord Charlemont, whose authority in all matters of taste was regarded as second to none in Europe, was charmed by her. Jepham was with him one day in 1793 in Charlemont house, when Pamela and Lord Edward came to view its treasures, and he wrote to his uncle describing the visit. "She is elegant and engaging in the highest degree, and showed the most judicious taste in her remarks about the library and curiosities. The Dublin ladies wish to put her down. She promised Lord Charlemont with great good humour to assist him in keeping her husband in order.... She was dressed in a plain riding habit, and they came to the door in a curricle."

Footnote 82:

Moore tells us that Lord Edward first introduced this style of vehicle into Ireland.

The attitude of the women of her class whom she met in society, probably spoiled her party-going for her, and doubtless she was eager enough, before long, to share with her husband the quiet country life, which he loved so well. After a few months in the Duchess of Leinster's charming seaside residence, Frescati, Blackrock the young couple settled in a lodge belonging to Mr. Connolly , in Kildare. Lord Edward has left in a letter to his mother, dated June 23rd, 1794, a charming description of the place, which was to be the setting for their lives during the short years that were destined for them to spend together. In that little cottage a good deal of Irish history was to be made in the short space of four years. Let us then look in it as Lord Edward has painted it for us--for, alas! no trace of it now remains.

"Going upstairs you find another bay-room, the honeysuckle almost up to it, and a little room the same size as that below; this, with a kitchen or servants' hall below, is the whole house. There is, on the left, in the courtyard another building which makes a kitchen; it is covered by trees, so as to look pretty; at the back of it there is a yard, which looks into a lane. On the side of the house opposite the grass-plot, there is ground enough for a flower-garden, communicating with the front garden by a little walk.

"The whole place is situated in a kind of rampart, of a circular form surrounded by a wall; which wall, towards the village, and lane is high, but covered with trees and shrubs--the trees old and large, giving a great deal of shade. Towards the country the wall is not higher than your knee, and this covered with bushes; from these open parts you have a view of a pretty cultivated country, till your eye is stopped by the Curragh. From our place there is a back way to these fields, so as to go out and walk without having to do with the town.

"This, dearest mother, is the spot as well as I can give it to you, but it don't describe well; one must see it and feel it; it is all the little peeps and ideas that go with it that make the beauty of it to me. My dear wife dotes on it, and becomes it. She is busy in her little American jacket, planting sweet peas and mignonette. Her table and workbox, with the little one's caps, are on the table. I wish my dearest mother was here, and the scene to me would be complete."

In 1796 Lord Edward became a "United Man," and from that period the little cottage in Kildare was seldom without guests. Chief among these was Lord Edward's parliamentary colleague, Arthur O'Connor, but Lady Lucy Fitzgerald who spent a considerable time with her brother and sister-in-law after their return from Hamburg in October, 1796, mentions many others: Jackson, Oliver Bond, MacNevin, Father Connolly--and the sinister figure of Hughes, who, unknown to them all, was a government spy.

The visit to Hamburg to which we have alluded, took place in May, 1796, and its supposed object was to give Pamela an opportunity of visiting Madame de Genlis, who was then living in Hamburg, as a guest of M. Matthiessen, who had married her niece, and Pamela's schoolmate, Henrietta de Sercey. Lord Edward and Arthur O'Connor went really as agents of the United Irishmen to negotiate with the French Government for a French expedition to assist the Irish in freeing themselves from the yoke of England. The Matthiessens' house in Hamburg became a centre of Irish political activities, and we learn from Froude and Fitzpatrick that the long unsuspected spy, Samuel Turner, got much of the information, for which he was pensioned by the English Government, by his frequentation of that house.

It was at Hamburg, Pamela's second child, her little daughter, Pamela, was born. She had left her boy with his grandmother in London, and when Lord Edward's business was done, and they were in the English capital again on their way home to Ireland, little Eddie was given to the Duchess "for her very own."

Was his father clearing the decks for action? It would seem so. Two months after his return to Ireland the French were in Bantry Bay.

In February of 1797, Arthur O'Connor was arrested for his address to the Electors of Antrim, and was lodged in Newgate. From this time Lord Edward was indefatigable in his activities. He was one of those who believed--as did the greater number of the Northern leaders--that the time had come "to rise," without waiting any longer for the French aid, which had been such a rotten crutch to them. But the Dublin leaders, influenced by the more cautious counsel of men like John Keogh and MacCormick, were dead against the attempt. The moment passed--and affairs hastened to their tragic end.

In February, 1798, Arthur O'Connor who had been liberated from his captivity in Birmingham Tower, Dublin Castle, after six months stay there, was again arrested with Father Quigley at Margate, on his way to France, on a political mission. Among O'Connor's papers were found documents incriminating Lord Edward. But the Government were loth from his family and political connections to proceed against him. Even Lord Castlereagh entreated his aunt, Lady Louisa Connolly, to get him to leave the country, and much pressure was put on Pamela to influence him to seek safety in flight.

It was in vain. Lord Edward refused to desert his post; and whatever remained to be endured he would endure it even to the end.

We must leave him for a time, passing from hiding place to hiding place between the fatal March 12th when the other leaders were captured, until May the 19th, when he himself was run to earth at Murphy's, while we turn to the poor little frightened wife, who with no kind friend near at hand to console her, lonely and desolate in a foreign land, with her little helpless child, must bear her woman's burden, and go through her woman's hour of mortal anguish all alone. After Lord Edward went "on his keeping" she found it desirable to leave Leinster House for a less conspicuous lodging in Denzille Street, whither she went with no other companion than her maid and Lord Edward's black servant, the faithful Tony. Once or twice Lord Edward managed to see her. Once the maid, going into Lady Edward's room, found him sitting in the firelight with her, and both of them weeping over little two-year-old Pamela who had been roused from her cot that her father might see her.

In April, Pamela's third child, a little girl called Lucy, was born--prematurely, as Moore informs us, owing to a fright caused the poor mother by the risk run by her husband in order to see her again. It has been asserted, somewhere, that so high was the political feeling of the period that no doctor could be found to attend Lady Edward. For the honour of Ireland it is pleasing to be able to contradict this assertion, on the unassailable authority of Lady Sarah Napier. Lady Moira "mothered" the desolate creature, and saw that as far as nurse and doctor went, there was nothing to be desired.

When Pamela recovered, her kind friend took her to Moira House, and it was there the news of Lord Edward's capture on May the 18th reached her.

Three days later, Government ordered Lady Edward to leave Ireland. The order, which it was not possible for her to disobey, caused her the most heartbreaking distress. But she was spared, then at least, the grief of knowing that Lord Edward's wounds were fatal.

It was the kind-hearted Duke of Richmond, the uncle of Lord Edward, who had the sad office of breaking to Pamela the news of her husband's death in Newgate on June the 4th. "I went immediately to Harley Street," he writes to Mr. Ogilvie, "and brought Lady Edward here trying to prepare her in the coach for the bad news, which I repeatedly said I dreaded by the next post. She, however, did not take my meaning. When she got here, we had Dr. Moseley present, and by degrees we broke to her the sad event. Her agonies of grief were very great, and violent hysterics soon came on. When the Duke of Leinster came in, she took him for Edward, and you may imagine how cruel a scene it was. But by degrees, though very slow ones, she grew more calm at times; and although she has had little sleep, and still less food, and has nervous spasms, yet I hope and trust her health is not materially affected.... She is as reasonable as possible, and shows great goodness of heart in the constant enquiries she is making about my sister, Lady Lucy, and Mrs. Lock."

Footnote 83:

After some months under the Duke of Richmond's hospitable roof at Goodwood, it was decided, after a family consultation, that Pamela should join the Matthiesens at Hamburg. Leaving her son with the Duchess of Leinster, and baby Lucy with Lady Sophia at Thames Ditton, she set off with her little daughter Pamela and reached Hamburg on August 13th, 1798. The action of Government, in passing the posthumous Act of Attainder against her husband had left her penniless, and a small sum, to which each member of the Fitzgerald family was to contribute his or her mite was promised her by her people-in-law for her own and little Pamela's support. This sum was, it would appear, not very punctually paid , and, perhaps, it was owing to her financial embarrassment that Pamela took the unfortunate resolution of marrying Mr. Pitcairn, the American Consul at Hamburg. The marriage turned out unhappily, and the parties soon separated.

After that Pamela, leaving Hamburg, spent a year in Vienna. Finally she settled in France, first at Montaubon and afterwards in Paris, where she died in great poverty, but amidst the most consoling manifestations of Our Dear Lord's tenderness, for this poor little wandering lamb of His flock, who after her straying, had come back to its sheltering fold.

The niece of Madame de Genlis, Madame Ducrest, then a struggling music teacher in Paris, to whom Pamela out of her own slender resources had found means to be kind, came to nurse the poor sick woman. Her first care, when she saw the danger, was to send for a holy priest, M. L'Abb? de la Madeleine. "He came. His zeal, his persuasive eloquence, the simple unction of his exhortations did far more for her peace of soul than we had dared to hope. He inspired our dear invalid with a true joy at quitting this world, where she had suffered so much."

THE SISTER OF HENRY JOY McCRACKEN

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