THEODORE DE NEUHOFF

ORACE WALPOtLE’S charities were on a H much larger. scale than a perusal of Lord Macaulay’s bitter and waspish character-sketch of him might lead one to expect. Walpole had an especial fondness for relieving the necessities of those poor souls who lay languishing in the many debtors’ prisons of the age. Again and again we find him writing to his man of business to expend for him in this way two, five, or six guineas, as the case might be, for the pri- soners in the Compter, the Clink, the Fleet, or the King’s Bench prisons. H e would take pains to raise similar subscriptions- for them among his friends, would write to the press on their behalf, and in one instance at least he was at the expense of raising a striking memorial over the grave of a heart-broken bankrupt.

Right in the centre of the metropolis, amid the pur- lieus of Soho, surrounded by play-houses and taverns, there lies a sad little graveyard. Those who read this may often have passed by it. The gates stand ever open in the day-time, there are seats amid the tombs, the poor and the homeless can rest there awhile, and the children make the place their familiar playground. On a wall opposite the entrance is an old and crumbling monument surmounted by a royal crown. The inscrip- tion tells us that near that place is buried Theodore, King of Corsica, ‘who died on Dec. I I , 1756, imme- diately on leaving the King’s Bench Prison’; and it concludes with these lines :

‘ The grave-great teacher-to a level brings Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings ; But Theodore this moral learn’d ere dead ; Fate pour’d its lesson on his living head- Bestow’d a kingdom, and denied him bread.’

The verse is from the pen, as the cost of the tomb- stone was defrayed from the purse, of Horace Walpole.

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The story of Corsica’s glorious struggle for liberty under her great national hero, Paoli, has often been told, and furnishes a splendid chapter to eighteenth century history. But little or nothing is ever written or said of that strange Adventurer who, in the earlier days of the difficult contest and before ever Paoli ap- peared on the scene, for a short space (and not un- gallantly) headed her troops and presided over her for- tunes. For the ignoble close of his career has made Corsica a little ashamed of King ;Theodore, and few biographers are found for those whose lives end in abject failure.

The English public’s acquaintance with Theodore de Neuhoff may be said to have begun in 1743, when a very curious book was printed in London ‘by J. Roberts, near the Oxford Arms in Warwick Lane, at the price of Two Shillings.’ One of the few copies of this production that can now be in existence lies before us as we write. It bears the title of ‘The History of Theodore I, King of Corsica, containing True and Im- partial Memoirs of his Private Life and Adventures, and of the Rise and Consequence of the Troubles in Corsica.’ Walpole mentions in one of his letters that he has purchased the book, and that it is but a ‘ Grub Street piece.’ However, it led to his taking a great in- terest in King Theodore’s fortunes, and to many sub- sequent acts of kindness to the fallen monarch. The Memoirs are probably based on French and Dutch Lives of \Theodore then just published at The Hague, Utrecht, and Deventer, avowedly in the interests of his cause and obviously inspired by himself.’

’ There is a good notice of De Neuhoff, drawn up from his own State Papers in the French Foreign Office, in Nouvelle Bio- graplu’e G t ? d d e Paris, I=), Vol. 45. See also Boswell’s

Edition), Vol I ; and Doran’s Momrchs Retired (Landon, 1857), Vol. I.

Comical (Edition o I 17%); Horace Walpole’s Letters (Toynbee

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!Theodore de Neuhoff was born at Metz about the year 1690, the only son of a Westphalian Baron, for- merly Captain of the Guard to the Prince-Bishop of Munster but then in the French service, whose finances, we are told, were usually rather ‘ out of order.’ How- ever, when he died his young widow managed to in- terest ‘Madame,’ the Duchess of Orleans, in her child’s fortunes ; and that remarkable German lady (the ‘ Princess Palatine,’ whose well-known Letters are almost as numerous and as racy as Lord Orford’s) made him a page to her son the Regent, and paid for his education. A gay, irresponsible lieutenant in the Regiment of Alsace and an habitual gambler for high stakes, Theodore soon made Paris too hot to hold him, and exchanged into the Swedish army under Charles XII. He there showed some genius for diplomacy, and was despatched into Spain to persuade Cardinal Alberoni into a scheme for restoring the Stuarts to the English throne. While in the Spanish Court he mar- ried one of the Queen’s ladies, an Irish girl of the Sarsfield family, whom he soon deserted, carrying with him (the meanest action of his life) her jewels and all else of value she possessed. Back again in France for a while, and mixed up with Law in his Mississippi schemes, then wandering up and down Italy, the Low Countries, and Portugal, we presently find him in Eng- land posing as ‘ a Virtuoso, a Chymist, and a Connois- seur in Pictures,’ and mastering the language so com- pletely and so quickly that ‘no foreigner except M. Voltaire ever did the like.’ At last he drifts to Leg- horn, there to meet the great adventure of his life, and to raise himself from the obscurity of a private station to the position (for eight brief but brilliant months) of a sovereign prince.

Falling in with various Corsican refugees and agents, he became familiar with the details of the desperate efforts then being made by the islanders to free them-

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selves from the yoke of the Doge and Republic of Genoa. And he soon realized that Corsica’s supreme need was that of a leader. He offered himself for the post, at once manifested the genius and resource of a great general, mesmerized all with whom he came In contact, led captive every heart, and finally, to his own great astonishment and the stupefaction of all Europe, was adopted as their Sovereign by the General As- sembly of the Corsican people. Corsica was declared a Free State under the protection of Our Lady Imma- culate, and Theodore de Neuhoff proclaimed its first King. By incredible efforts and mainly by Turkish and Tunisian help, de Neuhoff got together arms, money, and some shiploads of war material, landed in his Island on March Is th , 1736, and just a month later was crowned with a wreath of laurel, and received the homage of the nobles and army of Corsica as Theo- dore I, amid immense enthusiasm and in the presence of vast crowds. He put on the monarch quite natur- ally, equipped a bodyguard of three hundred men, coined money, instituted an order of knighthood, that of the Deliverance, with a green riband and a fourteen- point star of gold and black ; and did a good many other things that were rather more practical, putting down faction with stem severity, uniting the whole people in the common cause, promoting commerce and agri- culture, developing the mines, and struggling hard to import arms and ammunition. For a while he carried on the war against Genoa with marked ability, but eventually his chance of foreign help, and supplies and artillery from abroad, failed him, and his power began to crumble. The Senate of Genoa set a price on his head, redoubled their efforts against the Corsi- cans, concluded a treaty of alliance with France, and poured French troops into the island. In November, Theodore was compelled to withdraw, in the forlorn hope of interesting other countries in his schemes, and

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of thus restoring Corsica’s credit and replenishing her magazines. On his embarkation, nobles and people took leave of him with genuine regret and respectful affection.

Twice did he return to Corsica and endeavour to re- gain power, in 1738 and again in 1743, but in vain. His resources were notequal to his needs. Genoa and France together were too strong for him, and a party bitterly opposed to him had sprung up in Corsica itself. :There was nothing for it but to relinquish the struggle ; the dream of greatness was over, and six years of wan- dering from country to country, everywhere repulsed and disappointed, began for de Neuhoff.

H e came again to England in 1749, and it was in London that the last years of his sad and embittered life were dragged out. Horace Walpole, who drank coffee with him one night soon after his arrival, des- cribed him as ‘a comely middle-aged man, very re- served and affecting much dignity.’ But he was too proud or too dejected to be drawn into reminiscence or conversation. He is said to have had more than one interview with a Cabinet Minister, Lord Granville, and some slight general interest was shown in him at first. Others besides Walpole desired Hogarth ‘to go and steal his picture for me.’ But very soon he dropped utterly out of notice, and was forgotten; he fell lower and lower in the social scale, clamorous creditars crowded about him in his modest lodging in Mount Street; and at last he passed through the sad portals of the debtors’ prison, his arrest taking place, it is said, at the suit or through the intrigues of the resident Genoese Minister. Curiously enough, one of de Neu- hoff‘s fellow-prisoners in the King’s Bench was Tobias Smollett, and that great writer has drawn a pen-portrait of him in his Sir Lancelot Greaves. Horace Walpole and other friends saw to it that he did not lack some measure of comfort; and, like Mr. Dorrit, the ex-King

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willingly received ‘testimonials ’ from his visitors. Walpole wrote in the World, with the motto Date obolum Belisaiio, a brilliant appeal for the fallen prince, but it did not bring in much by way of result- ‘His Majesty’s character is so bad,’ Walpole com- plained, though he seems later on to have reversed that verdict. A subscription-list was also opened at the Tully’s Head, Pall Mall, with Dodsley the book- seller as treasurer, ‘for a subsidy for the use of his Corsican Majesty.’

After nearly seven years in jail, an Act of Insol- vency being passed by Parliament, De Neuhoff by its means was set at liberty. ‘ In order,’ says Horace Wal- pole, ‘ to benefit by this Act, the person applying gives up all his effects to his creditors.’ Theodore registered as his only possession his shadow-kingdom of Corsica. The Deed then executed and the royal Great Seal were long preserved at Strawberry Hill among Lord Orford’s curiosities. Free at last, the ex-King took a sedan-chair (for which he had to borrow the necessary sixpence) to the house of a tailor in Little Chapel Street, Soho. There the poor man fell sick, and died three days afterwards. A well-to-do oilman in Comp- ton Street, bent on having the honour of burying a King, was at the expense of his funeral, the charges for which at the establishment of Mr. Hubbard, of the ‘ Four Coffins,’ Carnaby Market, came to Lro I IS. 2d.

Sceptre and Crown have tumbled down, And in the dust are equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Horace Walpole, in his quaint mocking way, bids us not make sport with the poor fallen King’s misfor- tunes. ‘ His Majesty had nothing to blush for in his distress. The debts on his Civil List were owing to no misapplication or improvidence of his own, no cor- ruption of his ministers, no indulgence to favourites or

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mistresses. His life was philosophic, his diet humble, his robes decent; yet his butcher and his landlady could not continue to supply an establishment which had no demesnes to support it, no taxes to maintain it, no excise to provide funds for its emergencies.’

James Boswell, when in Corsica in 1766, gathered together some few anecdotes regarding King Theo- dore. H e heard how the King, when besieging the Genoese fortresses, would stand telescope in hand looking out to sea as if expecting immediate (but wholly imaginary) reinforcements. And men remem- bered how he would make up large packets with big official seals upon them, and get them sent to him through the post, creating an impression that foreign Powers were befriending him. His copper coins were still to be met with, and his silver pieces were bought up at a high price for the cabinets of the virtuosi. Boswell said some of the Corsicans even yet extolled Theodore to the skies; others called him an impostor, a Wat Tyler, a king of the rabble. But all owned that he did good service in his time, in reviving the droop- ing spirit of the nation, and in rekindling the sacred fire of liberty.

ROBERT BRACEY, O.P.

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