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By Root 1492 0

been more classical or imposing than this prostrate position." Another guest was so convinced by Emma's faint that he dashed to douse her with water. The Scotsman judged their "introduction to the fascinating Lady Hamilton" was "got up with considerable stage effect." When he saw Sir William again later in the evening, "on his shoulder was leaning the interesting Melopomene, her raven tresses floating round her expansive form and full bosom." Emma declared to her startled guests that she was "dying" of sorrow for her "beloved Naples." On another occasion, the Turkish envoy of Emperor Paul of Russia, who was seated by Emma at a dinner held in his honor, held up his sword and claimed he had used it to execute twenty French prisoners in one day. Emma took the sword, kissed it, and handed it to Nelson.3 Her guests cringed at her dramatic displays of devotion to him, but Nelson adored her for them. He soon added a codicil to his will leaving Emma a rare gold box covered with diamonds as a "token of respect for her every eminent virtue."

It seemed to everyone that Emma had the power. “Sir William, Lady Hamilton, and myself, are the mainsprings of the machine which manages what is going on in this country,” boasted Nelson. Since the queen took care of the details of government while the king hunted, the only way to gain some influence was to address her, and Emma was besieged by those begging favors. Her old admirer Lord Hervey described to her the French maneuvers around Venice in the hope that his information would be passed on to the Neapolitan royal family, and he begged her to inveigle an introduction to Prince Charles, commander of Austrian forces in the area.4 Everybody was equally intimidated by her influence over Nelson, believing, in the words of one visitor, “never was a man so mystified and deluded.”5

In Sicily and England, the trend for “à la Emma” fashions hit a new high. Fanny, alone in her chill Suffolk home, pined for a letter from her husband. The Admiralty bigwigs despaired of their errant genius, groaning how “the world says he is making himself ridiculous with Lady Hamilton and idling his time in Palermo when he should have been elsewhere.”6 In April, Nelson received the letter from Alexander Davison in which his agent passed on Fanny's wish to come to Naples. Her attempt to win back her husband finally got her the letter from him she'd long desired. But it wasn't at all what she had hoped. Nelson furiously scribbled to her that he would find her visit “unpleasant” and that the minute she arrived, he would have immediately sent her home, “for it would have been impossible to have set up an establishment at either Naples or Palermo.” By then it was too late: Nelson was Emma's lover. As he wrote later, “I want not to conquer any heart, if that which I have conquered is happy in its lot: I am confident for the Conqueror is become the Conquered.”

CHAPTER 34

Neapolitan Rebellion

Within two weeks of the royal family abandoning the palace, French troops invaded Naples, and Ferdinand's viceroy surrendered. The remaining citizens mostly welcomed the invaders. When the theaters staged a play that mocked the flight of the court and the English to Sicily, they prolonged the curtain calls with, as Sir William noted unhappily, "the greatest applause."1 Matters were not much better in Palermo. Ferdinand had found his Palazzo Ciñese far too near to the city for his liking, and he took the court on an indefinite vacation to another hunting lodge at the tiny town of Ficuzza, in the deep Corleone forest, thirty miles south of Palermo. Angered by the king's trademark governing style of absenteeism and high-handed aggression, many Sicilians were already whispering about revolution—and were ready to welcome the French when they came. Ferdinand battered the island's wildlife while his wife lay panicking in darkened rooms. "The dangers we run here are immense and real," she agonized. "Before forty days revolution will have broken here. It will be appalling and terribly violent." "The priests are completely corrupted,"