Betsy and the Emperor

by Anne Whitehead

  On 9 December there was a large headline in the Australian: ‘REPORTED LOSS OF THE NANCY’. A French ship had found the vessel stricken off the West African coast, ‘waterlogged and deserted’. The Gazette also had the report.9

  This must have been the most terrifying time in the lives of Jane Balcombe, Betsy and her daughter. They would have been far from shore, for ships to England never hugged the African coast, and in grave danger of drowning. The passengers had abandoned the ship in lifeboats and, after what must have been days in the baking sun, perhaps with little food and water, had all come to shore somewhere on the barren south-western coast of Africa (today’s Namibia). It seems they waited for up to two weeks for the Nancy to be towed and repaired, while accepting the hospitality of the local people.

  When the ship’s captain was confident of taking the Nancy to sea again they set sail, only to make an unexpected call at St Helena, presumably for resupplies of food and water and to ascertain that the repairs were holding. The emotions of Betsy and her mother must have been in turmoil to see their beloved home The Briars. The upper floor now extended right across the building with at least six bedrooms. The house was surrounded by mulberry trees, ripe with red berries. They learned that the East India Company had purchased the property for £6000 from the merchant Solomon in August 1827, to establish a mulberry plantation for feeding silkworms.10 The production of silk was to be St Helena’s new industry, and like most other ventures it was doomed to failure.

  They must have visited Napoleon’s tomb, the willows shading it almost denuded by tourists breaking off souvenirs. But what would have come as the greatest shock was to ascend the mountain (perhaps even taken by the governor in his carriage) to see Longwood. It was a wreck, having reverted to being a barn and granary. There was a threshing machine in the drawing room where Napoleon had died, his billiard room was filled with potatoes and straw and his bathroom was a stable.11

  Bessie, aged eight, had heard stories about St Helena and Napoleon as long as she could remember and now vivid images were engraved on her mind. Later, as a young woman, she would complete a few sketches for her mother’s Recollections. In the appendix to the third edition, published after her mother’s death, she wrote: ‘I will only remember that my family ever loved the Buonaparte dynasty, that the first Napoleon loved us, and that we loved and love his nephew.’12

  Jane, Betsy and her daughter arrived in London towards the end of August 1831, two or three weeks later than the Nancy had been due. The women had to find influential support for Jane’s petition for a pension. Their main hope was Balcombe’s old patron and the family’s loyal friend, Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt. But they were devastated to discover that he had resigned on 7 August as Black Rod in the House of Lords, because of his poor health and huge debts: the failed Plymouth and Dartmoor Railroad had bankrupted him. They learned that he had already left the country; he had retired to a small town in northern France—to Saint-Omer, no less. The women had no family to accommodate them in London, so they booked into a hotel in St James to keep up appearances. A petition was sent to the Colonial Office in Jane Balcombe’s name. Because of her mother’s ill health after the appalling voyage, it is likely that Betsy assisted with the poignant document: ‘The humble Petition of Jane Balcombe, Widow of the late William Balcombe, Colonial Treasurer of New South Wales’, which concluded that she and her family were ‘in a state of absolute destitution and your said Petitioner being far advanced in life and in infirm health, she therefore must humbly pray . . . that your Lordship will take her case into your consideration’.13

  Betsy made a personal visit to the Colonial Office and was politely rebuffed by Under-Secretary Hay. She then wrote to an MP, Lord Marcus Hill (whom she had perhaps met through Tyrwhitt), ‘imploring Your Lordship’s favourable consideration to my poor Mother’s petition. Indeed did your Lordship only know how utterly destitute my Father’s death has left my Mother you would I am sure take her case into your benevolent interest . . . Earnestly my Lord I entreat and supplicate you not to decide unfavourably upon her petition for her case is one of utter destitution.’14

  The women waited for a reply; they had no option other than to wait, lacking funds to return to Sydney. They probably barely had funds to survive, for it took almost a year for the wheels of the great bureaucracy to turn and issue a result.

  Meanwhile, Betsy was saddened to read in the newspapers of the sudden death, on 22 July 1832, of Napoleon’s only child, the handsome young Duke of Reichstadt, at the age of 26. He had ‘caught a chill’, which became pneumonia.

  By coincidence, two days before his death, a certain ‘Comte de Survilliers’ sailed from Philadelphia in the United States, bound for London. He was Joseph Bonaparte, elder brother of the former emperor. Joseph had lived for many years in America as the rich Comte de Survilliers. But his cover was not very successful: the authorities there and in Britain, and the newspapers too, knew perfectly well who he was—the former puppet king of Spain during his brother’s empire, who had stolen the Spanish crown jewels as he fled. In London he learned of the death of his nephew, whose rights he had come to defend.

  Joseph was still banished from France by order of King Louis Philippe and so he decided to stay in London for a time. His new plan, now that Napoleon’s son was dead, was to summon his three remaining brothers and his nephew Louis Napoleon to London, ‘for a conference to determine the future course of the Bonaparte dynasty’.15 Joseph’s presence in London was mentioned in the newspapers and Betsy managed to contact him, probably expressing her condolences for the death of his nephew. Once Joseph saw the name ‘Betsy Balcombe’ he knew exactly who she was.

  Bessie (writing later as Mrs Jane Elizabeth Johnstone) recalled: ‘How well I remember going with her to see Joseph Buonaparte, then in England after a sojourn in America.’ She enjoyed hearing him praise her mother’s ‘really exquisite and remarkable beauty’. He sat Bessie on his knee and she was overwhelmed to be in the lap of royalty, as the former king of Spain continued to question Betsy about his late brother’s life on St Helena. As they bade Joseph farewell, he took a cameo ring from his finger and gave it to Betsy; it was of a robed woman leaning against an urn. It looked classical Grecian, but he said it had been found by a soldier in a pyramid during the Egyptian campaign and had once been worn by Napoleon. He was happy to give it to her, ‘whose family possessed so strong a claim upon the Buonaparte family’.16

  A decision had been made at the Colonial Office. On 1 May 1833, Viscount Goderich sent a despatch to the new governor of New South Wales, Richard Bourke: ‘Having lately had under my consideration the peculiar circumstances connected with the late Mr. Balcombe, whose appointment to the situation of Colonial Treasurer at New South Wales resulted from claims which he had upon this Department in consequence of certain transactions which occurred at St Helena during the period of Napoleon Buonaparte’s detention there.’

  The mysterious and perhaps deliberately obfuscating wording could refer to confidential information that Balcombe may have offered Lord Bathurst, via Tyrwhitt, at least during the early period of Napoleon’s captivity. Goderich advised that a gratuity of £250 should be granted by Treasury, ‘to enable her to return with her family to New South Wales, where two of her sons appear to be at present residing, and with whom she is desirous of passing the remainder of her days’. An attached Memorandum from Under-Secretary Hay suggested a clerk position might be found for her son Alexander: ‘If the above can be done for Mrs Balcombe, she will quit England with her Daughter Mrs Abel for ever, not only perfectly satisfied but full of gratitude to Lord Goderich and the Government.’17

  That was unlikely to be the case. There was no mention of a land grant or a pension for the widow. So that was that. The women had come halfway around the world and endured a near-drowning to gain little more than the ‘privilege’ of having their passages reimbursed.

  Betsy, her mother and ten-year-old Bessie boarded the small 352-ton Ellen, which sailed on 13 October 1832.18 />
  Edward John Eyre, a young gentleman aged seventeen, was on board, coming to Sydney as an unassisted immigrant. He would later become famous for his explorations across vast tracts of the Australian continent. He was soon enchanted with the 30-year-old Mrs Abell. Eyre’s Autobiographical Narrative was edited and annotated by Jill Waterhouse, who noted: ‘On the voyage he seems to have cherished a youthful ardour for Mrs Lucia Elizabeth Abell, if the space he devotes to her in comparison with that given to any other lady is to be taken as proof.’19

  Eyre described Betsy as being ‘in the prime of life, regular and pretty in features, commanding in person, a good figure, stylish in her dress and having a strange mixture of high polish and dash in her manner which was very captivating. She had beautiful hair—a rich nut-brown, shot with gold, in unusual profusion and of an extraordinary length. She had travelled a good deal, seen much of the world, was a linguist and sang ballad music with great sweetness and pathos. In her teens I can well imagine she must have been a lovely girl, for she was still most attractive and had a singular power of fascinating all those who came within her influence. Altogether she was likely to prove a lively, cheerful and pleasant compagnon du voyage—if she did not set us all by the ears in our rivalry to obtain her notice and patronage, for she was full of fun and very fond of mischief.’20

  Eyre encouraged Betsy to tell him her memories of Napoleon, and offered to write them down as her ‘amanuensis’. He was astonished by the lines of poetry she could quote, and very rarely misquoted, ‘from Byron, Milton, Cowper and Shakespeare, chosen by Mrs Abell to embellish her chapters’. It would seem that she started composing her Recollections during that five-month voyage, although it took her ten more years to complete them. The Ellen put into port at Hobart on 20 March 1833. Eyre noted that ‘Mrs Abell, who seemed to know everybody . . . was made much of during her stay’—so much so, indeed, that she was dancing at a ball on the evening the ship was ready to depart and ‘was very nearly losing her passage, having only returned on board just before we got under weigh’.21 The Ellen arrived in Sydney Cove on 28 March, and it would seem young Edward Eyre was sorry to be losing Betsy Abell’s company.

  For a time after their return, Jane, Betsy and Bessie lived with William at his property on the Molonglo Plains. Alexander was still staying with William; he had taken to country life and become adept at farming, supervising some twenty men working on the property.22 But the remote Molonglo Plains district, with its harsh winters, was not Alexander’s kind of country and he suspected that he would do better one day, perhaps when he was married. On his trips into Sydney he always called by Bungonia to visit Inverary Park. He was forming a special friendship with Dr Reid’s daughter Emma.

  At the end of May, Betsy drove their two-horse gig in to Sydney with her mother. They missed the society of their friends. It was a mad, almost impossible journey of at least seven days, stopping at friendly farms or inns. Near Liverpool, their way was blocked by two men who had ‘a brace of pistols’ pointed straight at them. They wore black masks entirely covering their faces except for holes for their eyes. One man held their horses while the other took their purses, containing seven pounds in cash, and the rings on their fingers.23 While according to newspaper reports Mrs Balcombe and Mrs Abell were uninjured, the terror of this encounter was just about the end for them in New South Wales.

  In late July, the mail brought distressing news from England. Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt had died earlier that year, on 24 February. Jane grieved for the man who had been so very good to them. William grieved too. He had grown up in an English boarding school at Plymouth, under the care of Sir Thomas, virtually his grandfather. William had had a different experience of the world to the rest of the family. He had been born on St Helena and remembered with vague affection his early childhood at The Briars, but that was in the past. The rest of the family talked endlessly about Napoleon Bonaparte, but he had never met him.

  William was a loner who never married. He emerges from the relatively few records as a classic bushman, possessing all the toughness and endurance that characterised early Australian settlers. He was a genuine pioneer, not only on the frontier world of the Molonglo Plains, but also later in the even more remote and wild country of Krawarree, south of the town of Braidwood.

  A hard basic life seemed to suit William, but it did not remotely appeal to his mother and sister. It has been observed of the colonial period in Australia: ‘The English women came and stayed because they had to. Their children were here and stayed because they wanted to.’24

  With no means of survival, except as dependants, life was humiliating for Mrs Balcombe and Betsy. In the patriarchal society that was colonial New South Wales, there was no place for gentlewomen without a protector. To stay in the colony was to drop out of the society of the people they knew, for they had lost their status with Balcombe’s bankruptcy and death. Young Bessie would grow up unschooled and would never meet a presentable suitor. It was an unthinkable future for them.

  CHAPTER 37

  RECOLLECTIONS OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON

  Mrs Balcombe, Betsy and Bessie occupied one of the better cabins on the East India Company barque Sir Joseph Banks, determined to maintain standards. No doubt the only anguish, as they departed Sydney on 20 March 1834, was farewelling the three boys. Unlike their nightmare voyage to England on the Nancy, this one went smoothly. On 1 September, news came from Portsmouth that the Sir Joseph Banks from Sydney ‘passed by this morning for the river’. The passengers first listed were ‘Mrs Balcombe, Mrs Abell and Miss Abell’.1

  It is not known where the women stayed in the few months after landing. It is possible they went to stay with relatives; in 1835, Jane was definitely at the fashionable spa town of Tunbridge Wells, where she had friends and may have had family (having been born in Kent). Betsy, soon after arrival, almost certainly settled in London, where she hoped to make a life for herself and her daughter. Since her childhood there had always been a piano in their home and she had a modicum of talent and a good singing voice, so she set herself up as a music teacher. Perhaps at first she hired a piano and put up notices in the local area. In twos and threes the students came. Word spread that Mrs Abell had talent and a sympathetic manner, and she would sometimes be invited to instruct a girl in the drawing room of a grand London home. Soon she and Bessie could move to a better class of accommodation and she purchased a piano.

  But at Tunbridge Wells, Jane Balcombe had become very ill, probably collapsing with a heart attack. She died suddenly at the age of 63 in early February 1835, perhaps so unexpectedly that Betsy and Bessie were not able to be with her at the end. Betsy arranged for her funeral and her burial at Kensal Green cemetery in London.2

  Betsy probably never knew it, but in the same month, Edward Abell’s mother Mary died at the age of 86. She left an estate of some size, bequeathing her ‘Dear son Edward’ over £300 in stock and annuities. Edward’s spinster aunt, Martha Stock, had died two years earlier and her will had been probated. The majority of her considerable estate, with investments worth £4550, was to go to Edward. A shipping record shows the departure of a Mr Abell in June 1835 from Calcutta for Liverpool on the Prefect. Edward had come to collect the money. Thanks to his aunt Martha, he was now rich.3

  In London, Betsy continued to prosper as a music teacher. She was surprised and delighted that her own daughter had developed a beautiful singing voice, a pure soprano. Bessie intended to aim high, a career in opera if she could achieve it; she dreamed of Milan, Paris, Rome.

  At some stage in 1836, Betsy would have heard with sadness of the death of her old friend Fanny Bertrand at Châteauroux in France. Her connections with Napoleon’s world, so important to her, were slipping away.

  Two years went by, during which Betsy and her daughter continued to make a tenuous living from their music, their survival made more challenging by Betsy’s steely determination to maintain their position in society by employing a minimum of two household staff. Her land grant in New South W
ales had disappeared with the man who had held it in trust for her—the disgraced former attorney-general Alexander Baxter; he had died in England in 1836 after his release from the Marshalsea debtors’ prison.

  At the age of 71, King William IV died in June 1837 and, to the great excitement of Britons, was succeeded by the eighteen-year-old Princess Victoria. Much later, Queen Victoria would form an unlikely friendship with Emperor Napoleon III.4

  The erratic Louis Napoleon Bonaparte arrived in London in October 1838, just evading arrest after the fiasco of his attempt to provoke a rebellion against the French monarchy at Strasbourg in eastern France. Left a fortune by his late mother Queen Hortense, he rented a grand London house with a staff of 27 and was joined by a group of friends and partisans. He was now planning another coup that should surely succeed.5 He told his supporters, who included Count de Montholon: ‘I believe that from time to time men are created whom I call volunteers of providence, in whose hands are placed the destinies of their countries. I believe I am one of those men.’ He saw himself as ‘the principal embodiment of the Napoleonic heritage’.6

  His uncle Joseph had told him about Betsy Balcombe and he wanted to acquaint himself with this Englishwoman who had known his illustrious uncle in exile, an uncle whose aims and ideals he was determined to perpetuate. He was also told that Mrs Abell was an attractive woman, and he was always willing to add to his conquests. Somehow through his contacts, perhaps through Montholon, he located her.