Alfieri tells us that with the desire for freedom of
speech and writing at the bottom of his act of self-spoliation in his
sister's favour, there had mingled a sense also that by breaking all
connections with Piedmont, and liberating himself from all temptation of
marrying for the sake of his family, he was, in a manner, securing the
continuation of his relations with Mme. d'Albany. The Countess's flight
from her husband, they both well knew, would in all probability put an
end to these relations; the Catholic Church could grant no divorce, and
Charles Edward would probably refuse a separation; so that the honour,
nay, the life of the fugitive wife would be safe only in a convent,
whence Alfieri would be excluded together with Charles Edward. The
choice was a hard one to make; the choice between a life of peace and
safety, but separated from all that made life dear to her, and a life
consoled by the presence of Alfieri, but made wretched and absolutely
endangered by the violence of a drunken maniac. But after that frightful
night of St. Andrew no choice remained; to remain under the Pretender's
roof was equivalent for his wife either to a violent death in another
such fit of madness, or to a lingering death from sheer misery and daily
terror. The Countess of Albany must leave her husband.

To effectuate this was the work of Alfieri--of Alfieri, who, of all
men, was most interested to keep Mme. d'Albany in her husband's house;
of Alfieri, who, of all men, was the least fitted for any kind of
underhand practices. The actual plot for escape was the least part of
the business; the conspiracy would have utterly miscarried, and Mme.
d'Albany have been condemned to a life of much worse agony, had not
provision been made against the Pretender's certain efforts to get his
wife back. Mme. d'Albany may have remembered how her mother-in-law
Clementina Sobieska, although protected by the Pope, had been eventually
got out of the convent whither she had escaped, and had been restored
to her husband the Pretender James; she was probably aware, also,
how Charles Edward had stormed at the French Government to have Miss
Walkenshaw sent back to him from the convent at Meaux. No Government
could give a man back his mistress, but it was different with a wife;
and both Alfieri and the Countess must have known full well that
however lax the Grand Ducal Court might be on the subject of conjugal
infidelity, when quietly carried on under the domes