Eternally Yours: Roxton Letters Volume 1 (2 page)

All translations from the French, as well as the Italian, were meticulously carried out by M’sieur Auguste Martin, for which the editors are most grateful.

Sir Elliot Fortescue Bt., C.B.E.

Professor Sir Marcus West-Hamilton, G.C.M.G., O.B.E.

April, 1896

N
OBLE
S
ATYR
L
ETTERS

N
OBLE
S
ATYR
L
ETTERS

1.  
Mlle Moran to M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton

2.  
James, Earl of Strathsay, to Augusta, Countess of Strathsay

3.  
Mlle Moran to M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton

4.  
Estée Montbrail to Mme de Chavigny

5.  
Mlle Moran to M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton

6.  
Mlle Moran to Signora Maria Casparti

7.  
Renard, Duke of Roxton, to Antonia, Duchess of Roxton

8.  
Appendix: Chevalier Frederick Moran to The Right Honorable Countess of Strathsay

Noble Satyr
Family Tree

O
NE

Mlle Moran, L’appartement du Prince au Château de Versailles, to M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton, Hotel Roxton, Rue St. Honoré, Paris

[
delivered at Versailles via a servant
]

August, 1745

M’sieur le Duc de Roxton!

I am Antonia Moran, daughter of your cousin Lady Jane Fitzstuart, and the Chevalier Frederick Moran. We have yet to be formally introduced but I am also your kinswoman through a mutual ancestor, your grandfather Henry, 4
^th
Duke of Roxton. He is my great-great grandfather. I am soon to lose the protection of my grandfather, General Lord Strathsay, because he is dying. Both my parents are dead. I am an orphan, and being underage I require the protection of a family member.

All this you already know, either because you do have an interest in the members and genealogy of your illustrious family, or because I made this known to you. This is the fourth such letter I have written and had delivered to your hand. Also, I think my father he wrote to you some time before his death, outlining his plans for me, and asking that you, as head of the family, watch over me.

M’sieur le Duc you have yet to give me the courtesy of a reply.

I am not purposely rude, but my situation grows dire with the passing of each day. Nor is it my place to tell you your duty to your relatives, particularly one who to you must seem to have sprung up like a mushroom, as if from nowhere. But as head of my family it falls to you to offer me sanctuary. If I had anywhere and anyone else to turn to, I would do so. I have many times observed you at Court, and it is by common report you do not suffer fools, nor do you seem particularly concerned about the immorality of some of your actions. None of that is of concern to me. What you do is your own affair, as you would rightly tell me to my face, were I given the opportunity to speak with you.

What I am trying to say is that I am not in the least worried that others may think you an unfit and improper person to be my guardian, as my grandfather has counseled, and some at Court believe. They tell me they know you better and warn me against you. But I do not believe you to be inherently malevolent, nor did my father think so. Though you are, pardon me for stating the obvious but I would ever be truthful with you, sadly indifferent to the familial responsibilities that come with your rank and wealth.

All I require of you is sanctuary until it can be arranged for me to travel to London and the grandmother I have yet to meet. I have an uncle there, too, my mother’s brother, who may also wish to own me. So your duty and responsibilities would start and finish with transporting me safely to England. Is that so much to ask of one to whom I am connected by blood? I think not.

So you see, M’sieur le Duc, I would only be a small inconvenience and take up very little of your time and effort.

Please do me the courtesy of replying by hand, or seeking me out at Court, at your earliest convenience.

Your humble and obedient servant,

Antonia Moran

T
WO

The Right Honorable Earl of Strathsay, L’appartement du Prince au Château de Versailles, France, to the Right Honorable Countess of Strathsay, Hanover Square, Westminster, London, England.

L’appartement du Prince au Château de Versailles

September, 1745

Madam,

Soon your greatest desire will be granted. I am dying, and my passing will not be long in coming. You will be made a widow, and be free of me at long last. I have the [
censored
]. I wish to God you were the [
censored
] who had given it to me so I could hate you all the more. But to hate you more than I already do is an impossibility. My priest tells me I must forgive you. That for me to enter the gates of Heaven I must forgive all those who have sinned against me. In that way, not only will my conscience be clear, but so too will my soul.

Ah, but you and I know I can never forgive you, in this life or the next, to the eternal damnation of my everlasting soul. I have prayed to God and sought forgiveness for this, and that He in His wisdom will show compassion and understand why I cannot.

You tricked me in to believing you would join me in France when there was no hope the rebellion would be a success, and yet you did not flee. Instead, you betrayed me to the English. And you have been an unfaithful wife almost from the very beginning of our infamous union. And how I loved you! I can forgive your infidelity because I had never been faithful to any woman, except you. And then, when you left my bed for another’s—for the bed of your sister’s husband no less—I saw no reason to continue my devotion. I asked at the time, and I have continued to ask that question: How could you lie with your brother-in-law and betray your sister’s love? And from the reports of you I have received over the years, you continue to have carnal relations with your brother-in-law, in defiance of the Commandments and God’s law.

But who am I to judge? I, the great sinner General, who has his royal sire’s weakness for women. Did I not cavort with you upon your visit to Paris, and yet I hated you at the same time? I wished I could have resisted you, and yet, glad that I did not because that coupling has provided me with a son and heir, and, God willing, a future for my earldom.

I have never openly acknowledged our son (with the hellish name, all to spite me and irritate me, witch!) but privately he was always in my will, and in my heart. He is, when all is said and done, my flesh and blood, and my son. I just wish to God he was not yours!

Your behavior is abhorrent and unnatural and because you continue to share your brother-in-law’s bed (and is he not your brother, according to Scripture?) I will never allow our granddaughter within your corruptive orbit. Not that I believe Antonia to be capable of being corrupted. She knows her own mind and has already formed strong opinions. To listen to her without looking at her one would think it is a youth who argues with you, and not a rare beauty, who is in your image, though more beautiful than you’ll ever be because she has an untainted heart. If only she had been born male!

Oh how I wish I could be a flea in your butler’s wig when you do finally clap eyes on our granddaughter! You will be mortified to see reflected in her unblemished face what was once your face, though the prettier. But if I have my way, she will only ever meet you cold and eaten up by maggots, to lay flowers on her grandmother’s grave, though she never knew you, because that is the sort of girl she is.

She is a joy, and I am fortunate to have known her before my death. She does her father’s intelligence and her mother’s blood credit, which I claim as all mine (not a drop is yours, as far as I am concerned).

I am to sign a marriage contract for her to become one day the Comtesse de Salvan, and with that ancient name and my wealth, she will be a shining light at the French Court, and God willing, revert to the true faith, if my will is carried out to the letter.

I tell you this in the hopes you will have a shred of maternal decency and keep your distance from her. I hope and pray you never meet.

While I have dominion over my granddaughter’s future, I can have little over my own. In good conscience, and because my confessor judges that I do right by my legitimate offspring, I cannot deny our son Theophilus (God’s breath, but that is a frightful name!) who will inherit the title once I am gone, and be Earl of Strathsay. All I can hope for is that he has many sons to wipe away the stigma of having you for an ancestress and me for a sire. For who will want to commemorate the memory of a disease-ridden papist General, who failed to restore his monarch to his throne, and his heartless adulteress wife, the [
censored
] of Ely?

I am tired, and my dear sweet Maria, my good-natured common-law wife who will inherit all that I do not leave to Antonia, waits to hold my hand, to mop my brow, and whisper lies to me about getting well. All these tasks you should have performed for me, Madam, had you been a true and devoted wife, and a half-decent human being, all of which you are not.

I leave you, and pray that we never meet again in any life, this one or the next.

James Strathsay

T
HREE

Mlle Moran, Hanover Square, Westminster, England, to M’sieur le Duc d’Roxton, Hotel Roxton, Rue St. Honoré, Paris, France.

Hanover Square, Westminster, England

October, 1745

Je espère que cette lettre vous trouve bien, Monseigneur
!

I wanted to let you know as soon as possible that Ellicott and I have arrived safely in London, and without incident. Oh, that is not strictly true! There was an incident, but not while we were traveling.

Indeed, the entire journey from Paris was very well planned and executed, and not one mishap did we have. Ellicott was most solicitous in ensuring that every stage, every mile, every convenience of travel was pleasant and uneventful. Of course, I know I have you to thank for this ease of travel. Your large traveling carriage, pulled by six swift horses and escorted by a contingent of outriders, was stared at all along the way. Peasants in the fields looked up and watched as we trundled by in this black and gold painted magnificent conveyance; as did the people going about their daily lives in the villages we passed through. And wherever we stopped for refreshment, we attracted quite a crowd. Ellicott was quick to supervise the unpacking of the
nécessaire de voyage
so that our inn fare was served up on porcelain plates, crystal tumblers, and silver cutlery. I do not think I have ever eaten such plain food using such exquisite utensils. Then again, I do not remember eating at all. Though Gabrielle she tells me I did eat and drink, but food was of no consequence to me.

The crossing from Calais to Portsmouth was smooth, again thanks to your sloop, which took us across the Channel without any trouble, and there, waiting for us at the docks, was your English carriage with your English driver and footmen, ready to take us on to London.

I will not bore you with my feelings, or how much I miss you, or ask you again why you were so cold to me in the library that you were an entirely different being to the one you were in your private apartments. I wish you had had the good manners to at least wave me off, instead of departing immediately for
l’Majesty’s
hunt. I have thought about your hateful words and your abrupt departure for many hours and my confusion still remains. Now I find I have made myself ill with thinking, and I do not want to think about it at all, and so I won’t.

As to the incident that happened upon our arrival in London…

Oh! But first let me tell you my initial impression of London. This place it is so very noisy. Much more so than Paris. I think that is because adding to the cacophony of carriages, criers, beasts of burden being taken to market, and the usual hurly-burly, here there are a great deal of building works happening throughout the city, or as Ellicott corrected me, Westminster, which is apparently another city entirely. Oh, and before I forget, I was most surprised to hear Ellicott speak in English. Like you when you speak the English tongue, he sounds a very different person. But whereas your English voice it is cold and uncompromising, when Ellicott speaks it he sounds friendly. So much so that I have decided to call him Martin. He tells me in a most pleasant way that I cannot do so without your permission. But as it is his name it is for him to decide to allow me or not, and so I told him.

Martin is too loyal a creature to go against you, and I do not wish to distress him, so I will continue to call him Ellicott in public, but in private I will call him Martin. The name suits him.

But again I digress from the incident I wished to tell you about. You may have guessed it concerns my grandmother.
Parbleu
, but I was very nervous about meeting her! I did not know what to expect, but what I did not expect was to meet a woman who looks much younger than her years, who has the most astonishing head of red hair and, most surprising of all, to find she and I are very alike in countenance and form.
Incroyable
! Yes! Even I see that we resemble one another. I was very pleased by this discovery, but she was not. She looked me up and down with a frown and said to her friend Lady Paget in English that she was not at all sure she liked what she saw—which was I! Can you believe a grandmother would say that to her only grandchild upon first meeting? I do not think she realized then that I understand the English tongue almost as well as my own French, and thus her criticism of me. Lady Paget she told my grandmother in no uncertain terms that such a comment was ill-mannered, and that to criticize my appearance was to criticize her own. My grandmother was offended by this and not happy to be rebuked, and like a spoiled child she pouted and flounced to the window to hide her embarrassment. She then tried to make amends by giving me a light kiss to each cheek and patting my hand in a perfunctory manner I did not like in the least.