Mistress of the Elgin Marbles

by Susan Nagel

  Ferguson and his younger brother, Colonel Ronald Ferguson, were the sons of William Ferguson, formerly called William Berry. Berry, the younger brother of Robert Berry, father of the well-known ladies Agnes and Mary Berry, inherited a family fortune from a rich uncle Ferguson that was intended for the girls’ father. Robert Berry and his daughters were left only £10,000 of their uncle’s vast £300,000 holdings. Although William magnanimously added another £1,000 a year to their legacy, they called him “the usurper” and disdainfully accused him of undue influence. The truth was that Uncle Ferguson preferred leaving his money to the nephew who had sons. William changed his name from Berry to Ferguson in honor of the vast £300,000 legacy.

  Young Robert and Ronald were raised on the great estate of Raith in Kirkcaldy, just a few miles northeast of Elgin’s home, Broomhall. The vast Raith House stands on a five-hundred-foot-high hilltop reputed to have been the site of one of Macduff’s castles. Its grand stables by Playfair rival the ones at Chantilly, France, and the commanding view across the Firth of Forth to the south, where the Nisbets’ properties lay, stretched all the way to the Lammermuirs. Ostensibly, Robert could look across the river and see the beaches at Archerfield where Mary romped as a young girl.

  Robert Ferguson was extremely fond of his female cousins and was very unhappy over the strained feelings between the two families. Already in frequent dispute with his father over what William Ferguson considered to be radical political ideas and declaring he had no intention of being “laird” of Raith, socializing with what he considered to be a vapid community of idle rich people, Robert Ferguson deserted them all and moved to Europe in 1793 to pursue his own professional interests.

  Ferguson was a geologist and earned the respect of many leading European men of science, including the honor of having a mineral named after him. He traveled throughout Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Bohemia, Italy, and Austria, consulting with colleagues and observing engineering advancements in each country. One of his mentors was Georges Cuvier, France’s most celebrated paleontologist and founder of “functional anatomy.” Cuvier was also renowned in scientific circles for developing a new classification system that extended the work of Linnaeus by grouping related classes into phyla. Because Cuvier was so revered in France, he had considerable influence with Napoleon. Emulating the monarchs of France, the first consul presided over levées, morning gatherings of the most interesting and accomplished men around him. Cuvier obtained entree for Ferguson to attend these assemblies, which exposed Robert to the highest circles of intellectuals in France, and he relished spirited debates on all topics, from philosophy and history to politics, with men of such great mental prowess.

  Although Ferguson and Elgin stood on completely opposite sides of the political spectrum, each man had great respect for the other. Both had achieved international acclaim in different fields, and although their reunion took place under less ideal circumstances, they were delighted to rekindle their old friendship. Mary wrote to Mrs. Nisbet that Ferguson was with them night and day. He was a bachelor with exquisite taste and, to please his frequent hostess, he bought her lovely porcelain cups. Mary, in turn, bought him gifts, taking special care in their selection because she felt he was exigent and “grand.” Shopping and parties helped ease the tensions for the English aristocrats who convened in Paris that summer because they were, in fact, in limbo. Many of them went to Robert Ferguson for information and his opinion, and he proved a solid and knowledgeable adviser.

  Among Napoleon’s prized hostages were the Dowager Duchess of Newcastle, who was married to Colonel Craufurd; Lord and Lady Yarmouth; and an entire group of Scots: the Livingstons, the Tweed-dales, Mrs. Dundas, a young Mr. John Craufurd, and a handful of others who constituted a tight-knit group of détenus. They banded together for social as well as political expediency. The Elgins took rooms at the Hotel de Richelieu, where they, as always, entertained in great style. Sensibly, however, they decided that if their stay was prolonged, they would prefer to lease a house, which would be less costly. Daily walks, dinner parties, and visits to French people of influence became routine. Mary sent Masterman home and began to scout for local servants. Other Englishmen, who did not have considerable fortunes to turn over to French shopkeepers and craftsmen, were held in less esteem and placed in situations of considerable deprivation in the depots in Verdun and elsewhere.

  Napoleon privately acknowledged that he knew of Elgin’s fairness in Turkey but that he “was now convinced that it was of importance to keep E…. he was a great hostage to have. He swore positively that there was not the least ill will to E. personally,” Mary wrote to her parents; and as she had gotten along so famously with Sébastiani, “S. said for his own part he would declare whenever he was called upon, that E.’s behavior to the French was certainly handsome.” Sébastiani, despite his closeness to Napoleon and his important role in the government of the enemy, visited Mary almost daily at the Hôtel de Richelieu. He confided that Madame Bonaparte—Josephine—was thoroughly intrigued with Mary and wanted to hear every detail that he could provide about her. Sébastiani assured Mary that Madame Bonaparte promised to use all of her considerable influence with her husband to procure fair treatment.

  Mary had another visitor who caused controversy. This visitor actually risked his own life to come to her assistance while she was in France. Sir Sidney Smith’s accomplice in his daring escape from the Temple Prison, “de Tromelin” (alias Major John Bromley), sneaked back into France and reappeared on Mary’s doorstep. The police kept his visits under surveillance, but once again, the wily Frenchman slipped away.

  The Elgins’ doctor, who had accompanied the children back to England, petitioned the French government for a passport to join their parents in Paris. Napoleon granted Dr. Scott permission to tend to the lovely young countess for the birth of her fourth child.

  Elgin’s fragile health and Mary’s pregnancy were of the utmost concern to both of them as usual. An idea began to interest Elgin, and he thought that if he were going to “be stuck” in France, why not benefit from the waters at Barèges? In 1742, the English doctor C. Meighan wrote a pamphlet on the curative powers of the waters in this particular town in the Pyrenees. Dr. Meighan claimed these waters could heal everything from gunshot wounds to ulcers and tumors. His report inspired English travelers to visit the southwest corner of France, including Tristram Shandy author Laurence Sterne and, later, Victorian poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. They used their considerable literary talents to add to the lore, describing the beauties of the area. Elgin received permission for himself, Mary, Robert Ferguson, and Reverend Hunt, who had been at Montmélian, to enjoy the waters. The French could find no fault with Napoleon for offering to show off the pleasures of France to Englishmen; besides, it seems that General Boyer was not in fact incarcerated but in Bath, enjoying English thermal waters, through the courtesy of his own enemy captors: quid pro quo.

  The Elgins left Paris on the twentieth of July after having witnessed the Bastille Day celebrations. They arrived in Bordeaux six days later and at Barèges at the beginning of August. Elgin was delighted to be there and thrived in the wonderful climate. Mary was bored, angry with her husband, and wanted to be with her babies: “Since we must be separated what signifies whether we are at Bareges or Paris?” While Elgin filled his days antique shopping and going for “the cure,” Mary wrote letters and grew more and more uncomfortable as her pregnancy progressed. She complained to Elgin that this would be her last pregnancy, and hungered even more than ever before for news from home. Her own notes revealed her constant worry about her children: “Pray do not let them touch sweet things…. Have you taught them to eat vegetables yet?” “Do you give the Bratts boiled rice before their meat…. Have you put Harriet on the anodyne necklace?” She, who had cherished every tooth her first two children had cut, was miserable that she was unable to comfort the little teething Harriet. “I never in my life was so compleatly tired of any place as this.”

  She had no
pianoforte, no whist, and no children. Elgin went to the baths two hours every day leaving her with “nobody to speak to…. I never thought I could be so tired of my own amiable company.” A surprise visit changed their humdrum routine. The Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, who had been the French ambassador to the Ottoman Empire for Louis XIV—and Elgin’s prime rival in the collection of antiquities from ancient Turkey and Greece—appeared one day, confident that although they had been enemies, he could rely on Elgin as a gentleman to come to his assistance. When the French Revolution had broken out, all of this nobleman’s properties were confiscated. His collection of marbles, however, remained hidden in Athens until Napoleon agreed to transport them back to France. Choiseul-Gouffier, completely broke, was hoping to receive remuneration for the marbles, or at the very least, recognition from the new government. The count explained to Elgin that on their way back to France, the cases containing his sculptures had been seized by the British Navy. The Frenchman, with tears in his eyes, begged Lord Elgin to write to Lord Nelson for their release. Elgin completely understood this man’s obsession, had experienced a similar loss, and complied. Unfortunately it was too late. The ship, L’Arabe, had been sold at Malta, and the marbles had already arrived in England.

  Elgin had received better news about his own drowned collection. Divers were beginning to recover them, piece by piece. The expense of the expedition would be almost incalculable, but Elgin was stubborn and assumed that his wife’s fortune would be his own and that he would be able to rely on it for his own demands for the future. Mary had already instructed her father to simply pay for whatever the children’s needs were back in Scotland. Mary’s summer and autumn in Barèges remained dreary except for the benefits of the climate for her husband. “Kiss my Bratts and tell my Father to love his poor Prisoner as much as she loves him,” she wrote, ever mindful that he was, in fact, removing a good deal of her anxiety by footing the bills for everyone. Mary wrote them mournfully on September 22, “I hope you remember the 23 rd is Harriet’s birthday”—her first, and Mary would not be there. She continued, dutifully, to try to amuse her parents in her letters with local folklore, superstitions, and peasant color. Despite the fact that Mary herself found the place unbearably dull, word spread that the glamorous Lady Elgin had visited Barèges and Pau, giving them allure. Both towns became favorite spots for Englishmen to visit for generations to come, and some one hundred years after the Elgins’ memorable visit, American authors Edith Wharton and Henry James traveled there together by motorcar.

  Mary, however, couldn’t wait to leave. She and Elgin agreed that Ferguson, whose papers allowed him less constriction than Elgin, would accompany her to Paris, where she believed a passport would be waiting for her so that she could travel home to have her baby. After the baby was born, if Elgin was still hostage in France, she would return to him with or without their children, depending on the political climate.

  Mary arrived in Paris and once again stayed at the Richelieu. When she arrived, she discovered that no passport was waiting. She contacted Napoleon and received a letter in return declaring that he had issued a passport for her to have her baby in England and that he had no idea why it was being delayed. Now experienced with the bureaucratic “red tape” of government, she patiently waited for the proper channels to come forth with the document. While she waited, a letter crossed the Channel that would have great impact on her plans. This was a letter informing Napoleon and Talleyrand that General Boyer was now taken into custody and imprisoned in Scotland. Retaliating swiftly, Napoleon ordered the arrest and incarceration of Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin.

  Elgin was taken to the fortress of Lourdes, an ancient and terrible place located on an isolated and intimidating promontory. Long before any miracles were spoken of in the valley, the towering fortress whispered of many tortured deaths within its impenetrable walls. Not only was Elgin physically confined, but the French also waged a campaign of psychological warfare on the nobleman. Presiding officers, previously cordial to the British gentleman, were instructed to wear him down emotionally. They were determined to disgrace him, to prove that he was partaking in espionage. The commandant and his lieutenant, whom Elgin had known, were his jailors. When they exhibited a complete change of character and behaved coldly toward him, he was unnerved. They staged situations to entrap him. For example, one day a sergeant of the guard delivered a letter to Elgin purportedly written by another prisoner. The sergeant explained to Elgin that this inmate was secluded in a dungeon and could not therefore visit his fellow inmate. Elgin gave the guard a tip and destroyed the letter in front of the man, explaining that if any more so-called secret notes were passed to him, he would do the same again. Shortly afterward this fellow prisoner was allowed exercise in the yard, and he walked directly toward Elgin. Lord Elgin would not engage in conversation; he knew that it was a setup. The guards continued to play mind games, but Elgin never fell for any of their tricks.

  It was a time of great psychological stress for Elgin. He had learned that there was to be an attempt on his life but that it was quashed by his captors. Emotions began to run high throughout the family. The Dowager Countess of Elgin wrote to her son that his wife was running gaily around Paris without his protection and that her daughter-in-law should come home; she also hurled deeply wounding criticism at her son, repeating what his enemies were saying about him in London. The Nisbets began accusing their daughter of abandoning her own children. Elgin, under great duress, viewed Mary’s gay and bright letters, intended to cheer him, as insensitive, and he began to question her devotion.

  Despite all the criticism, Mary tried to maintain her focus on the task of getting her husband released and returned to her in Paris. She knew at that moment that if she could not be by Elgin’s side inside the awful fortress at Lourdes, she would at the very least do all in her power to help secure his freedom. After her experience as ambassadress in Turkey, she understood her own powers and effectiveness. She would not return to London; rather, she would remain in Paris to work on Elgin’s behalf in the way she knew best. Once again, this determined young woman would not take no for an answer.

  At the beginning of December, Mary went to Talleyrand, now grand chamberlain and vice elector of the Empire, and they struck an incredible bargain. She got Napoleon and his Machiavellian minister, whom Napoleon himself had called “a pile of shit in a silk stocking,” to agree that if the English government would release and return General Boyer, Elgin could go home.1 Mary was elated and urged her mother to speak directly with the king. She herself petitioned Lord Hawkesbury and comforted her husband with daily letters. Mary was devastated when the British government would not agree to this exchange, explaining that whereas Boyer was a legitimate prisoner of war, Elgin was not. Elgin, who had been less optimistic than Mary, was nonetheless disappointed. In a grand, romantic gesture, Mary commissioned a portrait of herself by Gérard for Elgin’s cell wall. Gerard was a superb artist who would later paint Napoleon and Josephine’s official coronation portraits. She had a miniature made for her parents, who were literally growing sick with worry for their daughter.

  On Christmas Day in 1803, Mary found herself alone in Paris entering her last trimester, and she was terrified of having her child without the presence of her husband. The Count and Countess of Elgin, who defended each other and put on a brave and united front for all the world, including their families, were, unbeknownst to even those closest to them, actually experiencing a private crisis in their marriage.

  Chapter 17

  IN IRONS

  Mary wanted her husband to be by her side by the time their fourth child was born. If Napoleon had met with Lady Elgin in public, his credibility would have been damaged. She was after all the wife of his most important prisoner. The first consul nonetheless expressed a personal interest in Mary, sending her miniatures of himself as tokens of appreciation, and they not only exchanged formal communiqués but also less formal messages via Talleyrand, Sébastiani, and Senator Fargues. Fargues,
the representative to Napoleon’s government from the southwest district of France, had made her acquaintance when she had been his region’s most fashionable guest the previous summer. Fargues was quite taken with Lady Elgin and actually spent a good deal of his time working behind the scenes on her behalf.

  Napoleon wanted to accommodate Lady Elgin, but he had a problem. How could he accomplish her request and not lose face with his own people? This was a question that he privately posed to Talleyrand, Fargues, and Robert Ferguson. Since the British had turned down the offer of an exchange between Boyer and Elgin, and since he himself had made the earl persona non grata, it would be virtually impossible to free him and allow the Elgins to live in Paris, where they would have high visibility. Mary, who was truly unable to travel due to severe back pains and swelling, would have to remain in Paris; she also hoped that these men would surrender to her charms. Would they yield, however, in time for her delivery?

  In January, the Hôtel de Richelieu went bankrupt, forcing all lodgers to relocate. Mary moved to the Hôtel Prince de Galles on the rue Saint-Honoré with the assistance of Robert Ferguson, who felt pity and somewhat responsible for the plucky, elegant, and very pregnant wife of his friend. There she began, once again, to create a comfortable home, this time in anticipation of her husband’s arrival. She got half her wish. Elgin was allowed to leave the awful fortress, but Napoleon, still uncomfortable with Elgin’s appearance in Paris, only granted him permission to remain in the Pyrenees. The minute he was released, as Napoleon had predicted, it was “reported all over Paris that Elgin is at liberty,” and conversations at embassies in Paris and London buzzed with the talk of Elgin’s next role in foreign affairs. One evening at the American Embassy, a dignitary expressed his own opinion to Mary that he believed Lord Elgin would be England’s next ambassador to Vienna. When pressed, the American confided to Mary that it was actually not so much his own opinion as a rumor that had spread among the foreign diplomats. Mary secretly believed that her husband would be sent to Russia.