Authors: Dorothy Hoobler
On March 11, the same day that
Frankenstein
had its official publication, Mary, Percy, and Claire, along with William, Clara, Allegra, and two nursemaids, set out on
the road to Dover. Here they lodged for the night because no boats were leaving the port. The remnant of a tremendous storm
that had passed over England spreading ruin in its wake was still producing high winds and rain. As in Mary’s novel, the bad
weather was an ominous sign. They left England on March 12. Four of the travelers, including the three youngest, would never
return.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide-winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?
—“On Death,” Percy Shelley, 1815
T
HE STORM BLEW
the Shelley entourage across the Dover Strait to Calais in less than three hours. Though speedy, the trip was rough; one
of the frightened passengers recited the Lord’s Prayer constantly. Shelley, as always, was happiest when he traveled. He wrote
to Leigh Hunt, “We are all very well & in excellent spirits, Motion has always this effect upon the blood, even when the mind
knows that there are causes for dejection.” Before the summer was out, Shelley’s love of motion, abrupt and nearly incessant,
would turn deadly.
For their third trip through France, for novelty’s sake, they chose a different route, skipping Paris this time. They were
disappointed; on the first day Mary wrote in her journal that “The country is uninteresting but the weather is delightful.”
After a week they arrived at Lyons and hired another carriage to get them to Italy. Mary wrote with excited anticipation,
“we can see from here Jura and Mont Blanc & the whole scene reminds me of Geneva.”
By the twenty-eighth of March they were approaching the Alps. Mary was thrilled to see the sun rise on their snowy peaks,
so reminiscent of her 1816 summer. Their carriage followed a winding river, where the scenery was gorgeous. Then they began
to ascend the heights that they would have to cross. “The snows encroach upon the road,” Mary wrote, and she found it “dreadful”
as they made their way along the edge of a precipice, where a thousand-foot fall was only inches away from the carriage wheels.
Taking the new road that Napoleon had built though the Cenis Pass, they entered Italy.
They stayed in Milan for three weeks, possibly to please Claire, who wanted to keep as long as possible her beloved Allegra,
now fifteen months old and developing a personality. Claire, whose singing voice had been celebrated by both Byron and Shelley,
also loved attending the operas and ballets at La Scala. Late in the evenings, after the nurses had put the children to bed,
Claire played chess with Percy. The growing closeness between the two of them disturbed Mary but she could do nothing about
it. There is little reason to think that Shelley would hesitate to have sex with Claire, for he always opposed “exclusive”
sexual possession—by husbands or wives. Claire was, in this, even more an ardent disciple than Mary. Events later made the
precise relationship between Shelley and Claire at this time important.
On April 13, Shelley wrote to Byron, “. . . to inform you that your little girl has arrived here in excellent health and spirits,
with eyes as blue as the sky over our heads.” They thought they could lure Byron to join them and re-create the atmosphere
of the 1816 summer, but their hopes were dashed when Byron refused to pick up his daughter. He made it abundantly clear that
he did not want to see Claire “for fear that the consequence might be an addition to the family.” Claire’s letters made it
clear that she still hoped Byron might again become attracted to her.
Apparently Byron also suggested that Claire should not visit her child after she gave it up. Percy, ever solicitous of Claire,
replied to Byron on April 22, “You write as if from the instant of its departure all future intercourse were to cease between
Claire and her child. This I cannot think you ought to have expected, or even to have desired. . . . What should we think
of a woman who should resign her infant child with no prospect of ever seeing it again, even to a father in whose tenderness
she entirely confided? . . . Surely it is better if we err, to err on the side of kindness than of rigour.” But there was
little kindness in Byron’s letter to his friend John Cam Hobhouse in England. “Shelley has got to Milan with the bastard &
it’s mother—but won’t send the shild [
sic
]—unless I will go & see the mother—I have sent a messenger for the Shild [
sic
]—but I can’t leave my quarters.”
Shelley, sensing Byron’s new attitude, warned Claire that it might be better if she raised the child herself. Claire disagreed,
arguing that Allegra would have greater opportunities in life if she were brought up by Byron. Claire still hoped that Allegra
could be her entry back into Byron’s life—that the little girl would melt the heart of the heartless lord. She wrote Byron
a letter agreeing to give up Allegra, but asking him to send a lock of his hair so that she might put it with Allegra’s in
a locket. “Remember that I am wretched how wretched,” she wrote, “and for the smallest word of kindness from you I will bless
& honour you.” Having made up her mind, Claire kept Allegra until her own twentieth birthday, on the twenty-seventh of April.
The next day, the child’s nursemaid Elise Duvilliard took Allegra to Venice.
On May 1, the Shelleys, with their two children and Claire, went on to Pisa. There they received a letter from Elise, telling
them that Byron was delighted with the pretty child with her blond hair and blue eyes. At Byron’s villa, she wrote, “they
dress her in little trousers trimmed with lace and treat her like a little princess.”
The Shelleys were still looking for a place to settle down, but though they visited Pisa’s famous Leaning Tower and the university,
they decided the city was not for them. Mary was disturbed by the sight of chained criminals working in the streets. “I could
never walk in the streets except in misery,” she wrote, for “you could get into no street but you heard the clanking of their
chains.”
They went south to Leghorn (Livorno) where a small colony of English emigrés lived. The Shelleys had a letter of introduction
to Maria Gisborne, the grande dame of English society there—and onetime babysitter for Mary. Gisborne had led an adventurous
life. As a child, she had lived with her father, who was an English merchant in Constantinople; they later moved to Rome,
where Maria met and married her first husband, William Reveley. With him she returned to England, becoming friends with William
Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Maria Reveley had taken the infant Mary Godwin and her sister Fanny Imlay into her home and
cared for them in the days following the death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Widowed soon after, Maria had received several proposals
of marriage from Godwin—by letter—but turned him down, instead marrying John Gisborne, a businessman. They moved to Rome in
1801 and had lived in Italy ever since. Shelley described the Gisbornes to Peacock, “Mrs. Gisborne is a sufficiently amiable
& very accomplished woman . . . Her husband a man with little thin lips receding forehead & a prodigious nose is an excessive
bore.”
Mary found Maria Gisborne to be a sympathetic listener, perhaps the first she had encountered since eloping with Shelley.
In time, Maria would almost resume her role as surrogate mother, and would be one of the few people Mary reached out to when
tragedy struck.
Despite the hospitality shown them by the Gisbornes, the Shelleys were not happy with Livorno. Maria suggested that they might
like Bagni di Lucca, a spa town sixty miles north, where they went early in June. They settled in a little house called Casa
Bertini, surrounded by mountains and woods. Mary was pleased for “we have a small garden and at the end of it is an arbour
of laurel trees so thick that the sun does not penetrate it.” They also acquired a new Italian servant, Paolo Foggi, who would
cause them considerable trouble in the future.
While at Casa Bertini, the Shelleys received the March issue of
Blackwood’s Magazine
that contained Sir Walter Scott’s review of
Frankenstein
. Mary was thrilled to read his praise, but a bit taken aback that Scott thought Shelley had written the book. She sent a
letter of appreciation to Scott, revealing herself as the author.
Byron refused to respond to Claire’s letters, so she kept in touch with her child through Elise, who had stayed on as Allegra’s
nursemaid. Two letters from Elise in August set in motion a tragedy that would begin the destruction of Mary’s happiness.
When Claire heard that her daughter was in ill health, she wanted to rush to her. Shelley learned upon inquiry that Byron
had, for the time being, turned Allegra over to the British consul at Venice, Richard Hoppner. Claire, more worried than events
would prove justified, persuaded Percy to take her to Venice to see Allegra. They departed on August 17, leaving Mary at Bagni
di Lucca with her two children.
Shelley and Claire arrived at the Hoppners’ house on August 23, finding Allegra was well and in good spirits. Claire rejoiced
at the sight of her daughter, whom she had not seen for two and a half months. Shelley wrote Mary that the girl was “as beautiful
as ever,” but taller and paler. Hoppner took him aside and advised him not to tell Byron that Claire was in the city, for
Byron often expressed his “extreme horror” of meeting her again.
Shelley went to see Byron at his palazzo on the Grand Canal at three in the afternoon, when he was sure he would be out of
bed. It was clear why Byron refused to go anywhere to meet friends or former lovers; he had gained weight and looked much
older. Another visitor that year reported that Byron’s “face had become pale, bloated, and sallow. He had grown very fat,
his shoulders broad and round, and the knuckles were lost in fat.” Byron was living a dissolute life about which tongues were
wagging even outside of Venice. Shelley wrote of him, “He associates with wretches who . . . do not scruple to avow practices
which are not only not named, but I believe seldom even conceived in England.” Byron’s sexual escapades were the talk of Venice
and he immortalized them in these verses:
So we’ll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returned too soon,
Yet we’ll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
Despite the way Byron looked, he was happy to see Shelley again. They discussed the Claire and Allegra situation. Shelley
led Byron to believe that Claire and Mary and the other children were all in nearby Padua and then brought up his plan for
Allegra to visit them. Byron turned down the idea, instead offering to let Claire as well as the Shelleys stay with Allegra
at Byron’s summer house in Este. To Shelley this was a welcome surprise, one that would be sure to please Claire.
The two poets found once again that they enjoyed each other’s company. Byron, who was all image, was fascinated by Shelley,
who never cared what people thought of him. Shelley, for his part, found Byron’s facility with words irresistible. The two
took a gondola to the Lido, Venice’s seaside resort. It was one of Byron’s favorite spots, and he kept horses there. He and
Shelley rode along the beach and talked about literature, life, and the meaning of their lives.
The ride became the basis for Shelley’s poem
Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation,
written in 1819. In its prose preface, Shelley described the Venetian nobleman Count Maddalo (Byron): “He is a person of
the most consummate genius. . . . But it is his weakness to be proud: he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary
mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. . . . His
ambition preys upon itself, for want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion.”
About Julian, the figure who represents himself, Shelley wrote he was “passionately attached to those philosophical notions
which assert the power of man over his own mind, and the immense improvements of which, by the extinction of certain moral
superstitions, human society may yet be susceptible . . . Maddalo takes a wicked pleasure in drawing out his taunts against
religion. What Maddalo thinks on these matters is not exactly known.” As night fell, the two poets returned to Byron’s palazzo
and talked until five in the morning before Shelley returned to Claire.
Shelley was now in a dilemma; he felt he had to produce Mary at Byron’s villa at Este as quickly as possible so Byron would
not suspect his deception. He sent a letter explaining the situation to Mary and asked her to leave Bagni di Lucca at once.
He gave her specific instructions for the journey so that she could make the trip in five days, and told her to bring Paolo
Foggi. “I have done for the best—and my own beloved Mary, you must soon come & scold me if I have done wrong, & kiss me if
I have done right.”
Shelley’s request came at the worst possible time, for it was now the height of the Italian summer, and the heat was affecting
Clara’s health. On the twenty-first of August Mary noted in her journal that Clara was “not well.” The notation was repeated
the next two days. On the twenty-eighth of August, just as Mary was enjoying a visit from the Gisbornes, Shelley’s letter
arrived, summoning her to Este. Two days later, while still packing for the journey, she celebrated her twenty-first birthday.
She set out the next day with her two children, three-year-old William and Clara, just shy of her first birthday. Clara was
continually crying, for she was cutting her teeth. In the suffocating heat of the journey, she contracted dysentery, a very
common ailment of the time for infants.