roportioned, rather childish
creature, with still half-formed childish features, a trifle snub, a
trifle soulless, very pretty, tender, light-hearted; a charming little
creature, very well made to steal folk's hearts unconscious to
themselves and to herself.

The bridegroom met her. A faded, but extremely characteristic crayon
portrait, the companion of the one of which I have already spoken, now
in the possession of Cavaliere Emilio Santarelli (the only man still
living who can remember that same Louise d'Albany), a portrait evidently
taken at this time, has shown me what that bridegroom must have been.
The man who met Louise of Stolberg at Macerata as her husband and
master, the man who had once been Bonnie Prince Charlie, was tall,
big-boned, gaunt, and prematurely bowed for his age of fifty-two;
dressed usually, and doubtless on this occasion, with the blue ribbon
and star, in a suit of crimson watered silk, which threw up a red
reflection into his red and bloated face. A red face, but of a livid,
purplish red suffused all over the heavy furrowed forehead to where it
met the white wig, all over the flabby cheeks, hanging in big loose
folds upon the short, loose-folded red neck; massive features, but
coarsened and drawn; and dull, thick, silent-looking lips, of purplish
red scarce redder than the red skin; pale blue eyes tending to a watery
greyness, leaden, vague, sad, but with angry streakings of red;
something inexpressibly sad, gloomy, helpless, vacant and debased in the
whole face: such was the man who awaited Louise of Stolberg in the
Compagnoni-Marefoschi palace at Macerata, and who, on Good Friday the
17th of April 1772, wedded her in the palace chapel and signed his name
in the register as Charles III., King of Great Britain, France, and
Ireland.

CHAPTER II.

THE BRIDEGROOM.

On the Wednesday after Easter the bride and bridegroom made their solemn
entry into Rome; the two travelling carriages of the Prince and of the
Princess were drawn by six horses; four gala coaches, carrying the
attendants of Charles Edward and of his brother the Cardinal Duke of
York, followed behind, and the streets were cleared by four outriders
dressed in scarlet with the white Stuart cockade. The house to which
Louise of Stolberg, now Louise d'Albany, or rather, as she signed
herself at this time, Louise R., was conducted after her five days'
wedding journey, has passed through several hands since belonging to the
Sac