Shelley: The Pursuit

by Richard Holmes

  This brief paragraph, despite references which may at first appear obscure, gives the essence of Shelley’s problem. It indicates that he was in some kind of personal entanglement during the winter at Naples — ‘my situation’; that the result of this was a child whom he regarded as his responsibility — ‘my Neapolitan charge’ and that there had been an element of impropriety which was grave enough for his servant Paolo Foggi to threaten to use his knowledge as the basis for blackmail. The blackmail element is important, for it affected a good deal of Shelley’s subsequent life in Italy. Paolo was sufficiently sure of his knowledge and advantage to require Shelley to employ against him an Italian lawyer, Signor del Rosso of Livorno, from June 1820 until at least February 1821.27

  Of the child, we now know certain definite facts. It was a little girl, and Shelley twice registered himself as her father in official documents at Naples. The first document was a state registration paper, signed on 27 February 1819. It states that Elena Adelaide Shelley, daughter of Percy B. Shelley, was born at 250 Riviera di Chiaia on 27 December 1818 at 7 p.m. The second document was a certificate of baptism, which states that the child of Percy B. Shelley was baptized Elena Adelaide Shelley on 27 February 1819. There is also a third document in the Neapolitan State archive. This is a death certificate that states that Elena Schelly [sic] died at No. 45 Via Vico Canale, Naples on 9 June 1820, giving her age as 15 months 12 days.28[3]

  To the bare dates in these documents, it is also possible to add a number of circumstantial facts of equal certainty. On 27 December, the day given as Elena’s birth, Shelley, Mary, Claire, Milly Shields, Elise and Paolo were all resident at 250 Riviera di Chiaia.29 On 28 February 1819, the day after Elena was registered by Shelley and baptized, the Shelley household left Naples, never to return.30 That is to say, Shelley, Mary, Claire and Milly left; for Paolo and Elise had married and were no longer with them. On 9 June 1820, the day of Elena’s death in Naples, the Shelleys were at the Bagni di Pisa; and three days later, on the 12th, Paolo Foggi first began his blackmail attempts by letter.31 Elise’s whereabouts is not known at this time; she may have been in Naples, Rome or Florence; but later in the summer of 1820 she was back in Venice working at her old job as a servant and companion to an English lady, probably a Miss Fairhill. Paolo no longer seems to have been with her.32 So much then, is clear about the general outline of Shelley’s ‘situation at Naples in December 1818’.

  But from this point, the evidence is highly confusing. Shelley had registered as Elena’s father. But then who was her mother? Why did the circumstances of her birth make him so desperately unhappy, and leave him open to blackmail? Why did he not register her birth until two months after the event? And why did he leave her behind in Naples with, presumably, the Italian foster parents who lived at 45 Vico Canale?

  The documents in the state archive do not help to answer the question of Elena’s maternity. For they state that Elena’s mother was Mary Godwin Shelley. This was patently a falsification on Shelley’s part, for otherwise the child would never have been left in Naples, and there would be no mystery and no blackmail. Moreover there is no mention of Elena in any of Mary’s letters or journal at this or any other time, and one cannot be certain that she knew about the baby’s existence until the beginning of the Foggi blackmail in June 1820. Even then there is no absolute evidence that Shelley gave her all the details of Foggi’s threatened revelations; though it seems likely that she knew of Elena, who was by then dead. On the whole, though, it would appear that Mary probably knew about this baby and Shelley’s ‘situation’ from the time that they were in Naples in December.

  If Elena Adelaide Shelley’s mother was not Mary, who was she? One answer to this question appears in a notorious exchange of letters written in September 1820 on the other side of Italy, between Shelley’s old friend the British Consul at Venice, and Lord Byron. During the intervening period, the Hoppners had for a time looked after Allegra, while Claire had struggled with Byron (by post) to reassert her right to visit her child. On 10 September 1820, Byron wrote from Ravenna to Richard Belgrave Hoppner at Venice: ‘. . . I regret that you have such a bad opinion of Shiloh [Shelley]; you used to have a good one. Surely he has talent and honour, but is crazy against religion and morality . . . . His Islam had much poetry. You seem lately to have got some notion against him. Clare writes me the most insolent letters about Allegra; see what a man gets by taking care of natural children! Were it not for the poor little child’s sake, I am almost tempted to send her back to her atheistical mother . . . .’33

  Hoppner, who had originally been so helpful and sympathetic to the Shelleys had indeed contracted ‘a notion’ against them, as he proceeded to elaborate in a return letter to Byron, of 16 September 1820. It will be observed that the date on which he says he first heard his revelation falls somewhere in the period of June or July of 1820, and thus corresponds to the commencement of Paolo’s blackmail threats to Shelley at this period. The letter is given at length, for despite its obvious antagonism towards Shelley, it vividly substantiates what is already known about the stresses and strains within his household, and confirms and clarifies what have up to now remained at best hints and clues in the narrative. Belgrave Hoppner wrote to Byron:

  My dear Lord . . . . You are surprised, and with reason, at the change of my opinion respecting Shiloe; it is certainly not that which I once entertained of him; but if I disclose to you my fearful secret, I trust, for his unfortunate wife’s sake, if not out of regard to Mrs Hoppner and me, that you will not let the Shelleys know that we are acquainted with it . . . .

  You must know then that at the time the Shelleys were here Clare was with child by Shelley: you may remember to have heard that she was constantly unwell, and under the care of a Physician, and I am uncharitable enough to believe that the quantity of medicine she then took was not for the mere purpose of restoring her health. I perceive too why she preferred remaining alone at Este, notwithstanding her fear of ghosts and robbers, to being here with the Shelleys. Be this as it may, they proceeded from here to Naples, where one night Shelley was called up to see Clara who was very ill. His wife, naturally, thought it very strange that he should be sent for; but although she was not aware of the nature of the connection between them, she had had sufficient proof of Shelley’s indifference, and of Clara’s hatred for her: besides as Shelley desired her to remain quiet she did not dare to interfere.

  A Mid-wife was sent for, and the worthy pair, who had made no preparation for the reception of the unfortunate being she was bringing into the world, bribed the woman to carry it to the Pietà, where the child was taken half an hour after its birth, being obliged likewise to purchase the physician’s silence with a considerable sum. During all the time of her confinement Mrs Shelley, who expressed great anxiety on her account, was not allowed to approach her, and these beasts, instead of requiting her uneasiness on Clara’s account by at least a few expressions of kindness, have since increased in their hatred to her, behaving in the most brutal manner, and Clara doing everything she can to engage her husband to abandon her. Poor Mrs Shelley, whatever suspicions she may entertain of the nature of their connection, knows nothing of their adventure at Naples . . . . This account we had from Elise, who passed here this summer with an English lady who spoke very highly of her. She likewise told us that Clara does not scruple to tell Mrs Shelley she wishes her dead, and to say to Shelley in her presence that she wonders how he can live with such a creature.

  Thus you see that your expression with regard to her is even too delicate; and I think with you, not only that she is a ���— ——,[4] but anything worse even that you can say of her. I hope this account will encourage you to persevere in your kind intentions to poor little Allegra, who has no one else to look up to . . . .34

  The last paragraph of this letter explains much of its high-minded and malicious relish, by showing how Hoppner considered himself to be carrying out a Christian duty towards Allegra. It also indicates that he was anxious to
interpret matters in the light that he imagined would most please Byron. One can be certain that nothing that Elise said about Claire was softened in the retelling, and one may reasonably suspect, as in the admitted case of his own ‘uncharitable’ supposition about the abortion attempt, that some details were added or coloured up.

  Byron allowed three weeks to elapse and then replied shortly and evenly, that the ‘Shiloh story is true no doubt, though Elise is but a sort of Queen’s evidence. You remember how eager she was to return to them, and then she goes away and abuses them. Of the facts, however, there can be little doubt; it is just like them. You may be sure that I keep your counsel . . . .’35

  At first sight, despite the obvious attempt to make as unpleasant and damaging as possible a story that could, after all, have been narrated with sympathy and understanding, Hoppner’s version of Paolo and Elise’s ‘fearful secret’ appears to fit convincingly the known facts about the Shelley household. That there was an increase in intimacy between Claire and Shelley from the time Allegra was dispatched from Milan to the time they spent three weeks by themselves together at I Capuccini in August and September, is certain. Moreover Elise alone was with them on this occasion.

  Equally certain is the evidence for the increasing rift between Shelley and Mary, marked especially by the death of little Clara. That these things ever amounted to ‘indifference’ on Shelley’s part, and ‘hatred’ on Claire’s seems unlikely: they had all three, after all, been coping with this situation for four years, though Elise had been with them for more than two of those years. But no doubt there were scenes, and Claire certainly had a sharp tongue when she wanted.

  That Claire attended a medico at Padua frequently, and was seriously ‘ill’ at Naples, is also certain. On 17 December, during their expedition to Vesuvius, Shelley noted that while he and Mary rode on donkeys, Claire ‘was carried in a chair on the shoulders of four men, much like a member of parliament after he has gained his election, & looking with less reason quite as frightened’.36 To Peacock, Shelley tried to make a joke of it, but it could only have been because Claire was unwell, and incapable of violent exertion on a mule like the others. A few days later, she was indeed ill in bed, as Mary herself later admitted to Mrs Hoppner: ‘I now remember that Clare did keep her bed for two days — but I attended on her — I saw the physician — her illness was one that she had been accustomed to for years.’37 Hoppner said that Elise said specifically that Shelley and not Mary attended Claire on this occasion. Mary realized that Claire’s illness was an awkward point, for when she wrote privately to Shelley about the scandal, she remarked: ‘Do not think me imprudent in mentioning Clare’s illness at Naples — It is well to meet facts — they are as cunning as wicked . . . .’38

  But even more suggestive than this is the date which Mary’s own journal at the time gives for Claire’s illness. Her entry for the day of Sunday 27 December 1818, at Naples: ‘Finish 2nd book of the Georgics. Clare is not well. Shelley reads Winckelmann. Walk in Gardens.’39 27 December is of course the date given on the birth registration of Elena Shelley. From this evidence it seems very difficult not to conclude that little Elena was indeed the illegitimate child of Shelley and Claire Clairmont.

  Yet despite these highly circumstantial facts, there are overwhelming reasons against it. In the first place, everything we know of Claire’s character, and her feelings and actions with regard to her first child Allegra, totally contradict the idea that she would ever abandon a child of hers, least of all by Shelley, to be brought up by Neapolitan step-parents. Unless all the rest of the evidence of her life, her friendship with Shelley, and her known letters and diaries is to be regarded as completely misleading, there are no conceivable circumstances under which she would be party to such an abandonment. The evidence of her diaries, which are extant for 1820, fully underwrites this view. There is no sign that she was unduly upset when Shelley received news of Elena’s death in June or early July — Shelley was deeply upset — and there is no evidence that she tried to go back to Naples at any time between February 1819 and June 1820. On the other hand the diary clearly suggests that Claire was taken into Shelley’s confidence more fully than Mary on this matter, that she was concerned for his own sake, and that Claire later had exchanges with Elise about her revelations to the Hoppners. It also shows by contrast that Claire was occasionally bitter towards Shelley about Allegra’s fate. This of course is not to say that Claire could never have fallen in love with Shelley, or slept with him; simply that Elena could not have been her child.

  In the second place, Elise’s story — as told by Hoppner — does not bear close examination as far as the actual details of Claire’s alleged secret baby are concerned. We are asked to believe that Claire was seven months pregnant when she and Mary were together at Este; eight months pregnant when they were together at Rome sightseeing without Shelley; and nine months pregnant when they were touring Vesuvius, Pompeii and the sights of Naples — all without Mary realizing Claire was carrying a child. It is not very convincing. In her strenuous denials to Mrs Hoppner that Claire ever had a baby, Mary herself made exactly this point: ‘at the time specified in Elise’s letter, the winter after we quitted Este, I suppose while she was with us, and that was at Naples, we lived in lodgings where I had momentary entrance to every room, and such a thing could not have passed unknown to me’.40

  Moreover there are the inherently unlikely parts of the story: that Shelley had made no preparations to receive the child; that Claire allowed it to be taken from her breast on the very day it was born; that it was sent to a common Foundling Hospital rather than — as Elena — to decent foster parents. None of this adds up.

  Apart from the authentic, but unkind and exaggerated account of the relations between Claire and Mary and Shelley, only two parts of the whole story remain sound. First, the fact that Mary could not know what, if anything, happened between Shelley and Claire at I Capuccini, while Elise might have known, for she was there. But this of course was in August and September 1818, and could have no relevance to Elena who was born only four months later, in December. Second, there is the curious coincidence of Claire’s day of ‘illness’ — as recorded by Mary herself — with Elena’s date of birth as entered by Shelley in the documents of registration and baptism. But perhaps this was exactly that — a curious coincidence.

  The question now arises why Elise, the Shelleys’ faithful servant and companion through all their vicissitudes since the Byron summer of 1816, should have attempted to damage Claire and Shelley through this wild story. The answer is that in all probability it was Elise herself who was the mother of Shelley’s ‘Neapolitan charge’, Elena.

  The evidence for this is by no means absolutely certain or complete. Neither Shelley, nor Mary, nor Elise herself ever explicitly said so. But it looks very probable; its fits all the known facts, and contradicts none. Above all it is, humanly speaking, convincing at every point.

  Elise was definitely pregnant at Naples in December 1818. It is Mary herself who gives the evidence for this. When she discovered it she immediately changed her previous attitude to Paolo; she firmly encouraged him, if she did not command him, to marry Elise; then afterwards dismissed them both. She wrote later, in the same letter to Mrs Hoppner: ‘An accident led me to the knowledge that without marrying they had formed a connection; she was ill, we sent for a doctor who said there was danger of a miscarriage. I would not turn the girl on the world without in some degree binding her to this man. We had them married at Sir W. A’Court’s — she left us; turned Catholic at Rome, married him, and then went to Florence.’41

  Elise was therefore pregnant and had to be married off urgently. But it is impossible that the child was Foggi’s. Paolo, although very capable, had only first set eyes on Elise on 5 September at Este. Mary herself says elsewhere in the letter that ‘Elise formed an attachment to Paolo when we proceeded to Rome’. They had left Venice on 31 October, and arrived in Rome on 20 November. If Elise had conceived by Paolo during t
his time, she could barely even have known she was pregnant by Christmas, for she would only have missed one, or at the most two periods. In these circumstances, for Mary to imply a threatened miscarriage of Foggi’s child was absurd.[5] Moreover, no single mention of a Foggi child has been found in subsequent registration records, diaries or letters. The only child known to have been born at 250 Rivera di Chiaia at this time was the child which Shelley registered as his own, Elena Adelaide.

  Yet one may continue to suppose that Elise was Elena’s mother. It is surprising how many details then explain themselves and fit into place. If Elena was born at the end of December, she was presumably conceived sometime in April 1818, when the Shelleys first came to Italy. This would perhaps throw light on Mary’s sudden decision to send Elise rather than Milly with Allegra to Venice; and perhaps also on the curious ‘suicide’ incident with the pistol at Lake Como. She probably had some suspicion of an intimacy and she wished to curtail it. Four months later, in August 1818, it was Elise’s letters to the Bagni di Lucca that brought Claire and Shelley so precipitously to Venice. Besides information about Allegra they could also have contained the first definite news of Elise’s pregnancy. Shelley, now alarmed, seized the opportunity to attempt to arrange things on the spot. But Elise’s attachment to Paolo Foggi, which developed in October and November, added enormous complications, and the death of little Clara would have made the news terribly difficult to break to Mary.