Stealing Athena
ELGIN’S HEALTH BEGAN to deteriorate in the damp Parisian climate. He thought it might be a good idea to go to Barèges in the southwest corner of France and take the mineral waters, famous for their curative powers. Mary appealed to her friend Sébastiani, who appealed to Napoleon. In a few weeks, permission was granted. Elgin was delighted, and proposed that Robert Ferguson join them.
At Barèges, Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, a former French ambassador to the Ottomans, visited them. Elgin was amazed to receive a visit from this man who had been his enemy for years. Choiseul-Gouffier was one of the biggest collectors of antiquities in the world, and he had spent all of his years in the East attempting to lay his hands on the Parthenon’s treasures. Here was the man who had sent his spies and agents to sabotage Elgin’s efforts; who had made no secret of his envy; and who had vowed to capture the antiquities for Napoleon—who would purchase them for an enormous sum—and for France.
From the moment he entered the room, the man was practically in tears. “Lord Elgin, I have come to beg your assistance. Though we are enemies, we are both men of the same driving passion.”
Choiseul-Gouffier explained that since the Revolution, when all noblemen’s properties in France were confiscated, he had kept his own collection of marbles hidden in Greece. “I have spent my fortune—all the money of my family and my estates—to collect and maintain the antiquities. I am entirely bankrupt. Napoleon had agreed to purchase everything from me for the Louvre and to transport the objects here. But Lord Nelson attacked the warship that was carrying them and he has confiscated everything for England!”
Elgin explained that while he sympathized, he was a prisoner in France and could do little. But he did agree to send a letter to Lord Nelson asking for the return of at least some of the pieces, which were still the personal property of the count.
“Merci, my lord,” said Choiseul-Gouffier. The poor old gentleman was so moved by Elgin’s offer that Mary thought he was going to kiss her husband’s hand. “I am ruined! Utterly ruined. I spent my entire life collecting these magnificent treasures and now they are gone and I have nothing!”
“I will do what I can to help,” Elgin assured him.
“I must warn you,” the count said in parting. “Napoleon is furious at the loss. He will try to retaliate.”
After the count left, Mary was silent. All she could think was that she and Elgin were destined to share the count’s fate. Elgin had at last received word that some of the marbles had been recovered from the sea. Despite the superstitions of the divers, the men had overcome their fears, thanks to the huge sums they were being paid, and had developed a system for retrieval. Sixteen cases had been brought up, and the foreman at the site was optimistic about recovering all of the pieces of stone. But that did not solve the problem of the time and expense it would take to ship them to England, and to hide them from the French in the meanwhile. The drain on the Elgins’ bank account was enormous. Their time in France too was costing them a fortune—in addition to the fortunes they had already spent keeping up the embassy in Turkey, gathering the marbles in Athens, and now salvaging those very same things.
Trouble had started to set in. Lusieri wrote from Athens to say that Elgin’s banker in Constantinople was refusing to forward any more funds. In France they were able to operate entirely on credit, as men of rank normally were. But Mary knew that eventually the piper would have to be paid. Elgin continued to purchase enormous amounts of things all over the French countryside. His mood had improved from taking the waters for two hours every day, but Mary’s had not. She missed her children more than ever.
Elgin too was agitated after the count left their company. “Did you hear him, Mary? If I am not vigilant, I will end up just like that. We must do what we can to hurry the rescue efforts.”
“How might we do that?” she asked. She knew what he was going to say: Hire yet more workers. Buy another vessel to transport the stones. Spend more money that we do not have. But she had another plan. She would take control of their finances from her seat of power back home.
“I’ve been in touch with Sébastiani,” she said. “He thinks I might get my passport if I were to go back to Paris. He has convinced Napoleon that I must be allowed to return home to have the baby.”
“But without me?”
“They will not release you, my darling. Our little ones have no mother,” she said. “I want to have the baby at home, with Dr. Scott and my mother attending me. Oh please, Elgin! After the babe is born, we shall all return to Paris and be a family of detainees!”
“That is true, Mary. If you are in London, you can receive the shipments as they arrive. It will be easier for you to correspond with our agents from there too.” Elgin was eagerly adapting to the idea, and Mary was delighted that it was not going to be a struggle to convince him.
“I will be happy to escort Lady Elgin back to Paris,” Ferguson said that evening at dinner when they told him of the pending plans.
“That would be quite gallant, Mr. Ferguson,” Mary said. He had seen all the art and furniture dealers in the area, taken the waters, and was bored, she knew.
“Will you not come back to Paris?” he asked Elgin.
“My health is as much improved here as it was in decline in the city,” Elgin said. “Besides, if Napoleon does not see me, perhaps he will forget about me, and my papers for release will slip through.”
WHEN MARY AND FERGUSON arrived in Paris, there was no passport awaiting her. Ferguson saw that she had started to tremble and offered to investigate. He left the hotel for hours, and when he returned, his face was ashen and his countenance severe.
“What is it, Mr. Ferguson? Must we write yet more letters begging for my papers?”
“You cannot leave, Lady Elgin. I have been to Napoleon’s office, so what I am about to tell you is not rumor, but truth. Please do not panic. I am here to help you, and we shall find a way through this, I promise on my name and my honor.
“The English have arrested General Boyer, the commander of Napoleon’s infantry,” Ferguson said. “Napoleon has decided to seek the worst possible vengeance.”
The world stopped at the sound of the word “vengeance.” Vengeance. Mary closed her eyes, remembering the horrible sounds of her nightmare—the great wings of the mythic creatures flapping as they flew over her, and Elgin’s cries for help as they engulfed him in their monstrous bodies.
“Lady Elgin!” Ferguson patted her hand sharply. “Stay with me, please. Lady Elgin? Mary!”
It was his use of her Christian name that jolted her out of her vision. She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Tell me,” she said.
“He has arrested Lord Elgin and locked him in the fortress prison at Lourdes.”
In the city of Paris, Winter 1803–1804
ARE YOU SURE THEY won’t hurt him?” Mary asked Ferguson. They had both moved to the Hotel Prince de Galles on the rue Saint-Honoré after the Hotel Richelieu had gone bankrupt, owing to the huge numbers of detainees forced to live on credit.
This evening, Robert had escorted Mary to an opera, and now she sank heavily into the big stuffed chair in the parlor while Robert helped himself to the last of Elgin’s cognac. In the evenings, though the difficulties of the latter months of pregnancy were now taking root in her exhausted body, the two of them often attended opera and theater performances where they knew that either Napoleon or Talleyrand would appear. Through the connections of Ferguson and Sébastiani, Mary had now had conversations with the wife of the most powerful man in France and the wife of his feared second in command. The two women sympathized with Mary and promised to take up Elgin’s cause with their husbands.
“I have discussed Lord Elgin’s treatment with the highest officials and the most respected men in France,” Ferguson said, dropping into the chair beside hers. She could see that he too was fatigued. Ferguson had been working round the clock to get information on Elgin’s status as a prisoner. “I have used my connections in the scientific community to
gain entrée to Napoleon’s morning meetings. The most forward-thinking scientists and intellectuals in France gather there, and I made a personal appeal for fair and humane treatment for Lord Elgin.”
“I cannot thank you enough,” Mary said. “I know that my husband will be greatly moved when he finds out how much effort you have invested in his cause.”
With Mary, Ferguson had written dozens of letters to every influential person within their spheres, which meant that they spent the larger part of each day writing letters pleading to anyone who may be able to help. Mary met regularly with Sébastiani, whom she begged to remind Napoleon that Elgin had petitioned for merciful treatment for the French prisoners in Constantinople, which they undoubtedly would not have received at the hands of the Turks without his influence.
“You needn’t thank me,” Ferguson said. “What would I not do for a fellow Scot and his beautiful wife?”
“Still, you have given me two months of unrelenting effort. We remain in your debt,” Mary replied, embarrassed at the compliment. “I cannot bear it, Mr. Ferguson, when I think of the rumors of violence and torture occurring at the prison at Lourdes. It is said to be a foreboding, dank medieval fortress.”
“I have spoken to men in French intelligence to find out what methods would be used to interrogate Elgin in prison. I have been assured that even at Lourdes, they would not use torture on a high-ranking man like Elgin. But they will interrogate. He will be kept awake all night long in an effort to get him to confess to one thing or another.”
“But his health is weak as it is,” Mary said. “You don’t know Elgin. He is sicker than anyone realizes. He requires medication.”
“These are the tactics of men at war,” Ferguson said, pouring her a cognac. “Drink up, Lady Elgin. It won’t hurt Lord Elgin if you minimize your own suffering at times. You must remember that your husband is Napoleon’s most prominent prisoner. Mercy, in these times, is rare.”
Weeks later, Ferguson found out that the French had tried to set up Elgin by passing him letters allegedly written by a fellow English inmate with whom he was supposed to be conspiring.
“But they say that Lord Elgin destroyed the papers unread, and told the messenger that he would do the same with any further ‘secretive’ correspondence,” he reported to Mary. “Thus far, he’s outsmarted them.”
She put her hands over her big belly, hugging Elgin’s unborn baby, and cried. Ferguson offered his handkerchief—did the man have any left? Mary wondered. She had cried so often in recent months in his presence.
“What with all his ailments, Elgin must be feeling near death, and yet he still had the presence of mind to outwit those conspiring against him,” she said. She had entered the sleepless portion of the pregnancy, which she did not even mind, since she was sharing the sleep deprivation that her husband was being subjected to. What must he be going through? She was so tired these days that if accused of conspiracy, she would probably confess to anything. “I shall write to Lord Elgin’s mother immediately and tell her how proud we must all be of her son.”
AFTER MONTHS OF tireless efforts, Mary received two signals that their luck was about to change. She had managed to engage Napoleon in a round of personal correspondence, and today his answer to her latest plea had arrived at the hotel with a miniature painting of himself. Days later—no accident, she was sure—she also obtained a personal audience with Talleyrand. She and Ferguson had worked out a plan to ask the prime minister to exchange Elgin for General Boyer. To her immense surprise, Talleyrand agreed to the terms.
“Bonaparte sends his regrets to you, Madame Elgin,” Tal-ley-rand said. He was severe and polite, and something about him encouraged Mary not to be as afraid of him as his reputation warranted. He was said to be the single greatest cold-blooded conniver in French history, but here he was trying to help. “He cannot meet with you personally, though he would like to do so. He would like to help you, but his first allegiance is to the people of France. We are at war, and Lord Elgin knows that he is simply being made to play his part.”
Mary left the meeting elated. She wrote to her mother, to Elgin’s mother, and to Lord Hawkesbury, all of whom she begged to petition the king. She was certain that in a matter of weeks, Elgin would be free—just in time for him to witness the birth of his fourth child.
Downing Street, December 23, 1803
Dear Lady Elgin,
I have received the honor of Your Ladyship’s letter, which I lost no time in laying before His Majesty. It would have given His Majesty the most sincere satisfaction to have contributed to the release of Lord Elgin by allowing his exchange for General Boyer, but a sense of duty renders it impossible for him in any way to admit or sanction the principle of exchanging persons made prisoners according to the laws of war, against any of his own subjects, who have been detained in France in violation of the Laws of Nations.
I assure Your Ladyship that it is with very deep regret that I find myself unable to render you the assistance you desire. I should have felt the greatest pleasure in contributing by any practicable means to Lord Elgin’s release and to the deliverance of Your Ladyship from the very unpleasant situation in which you have been placed by arbitrary proceedings of the French government.
I have the honor to be, & etc. Lord
Hawkesbury
WAS THE PLAIN TRUTH that Lord Hawkesbury did not consider Elgin as important a prisoner as General Boyer? Once again, Mary had to watch the British government demonstrate that it did not value Elgin, and she now regretted that she had written to him about the agreement.
Mary also received letters from both her mother and Elgin’s mother, but the contents were not what Mary had expected—some modicum of praise and support for her relentless efforts on her husband’s behalf, even while she was suffering the last stages of pregnancy. Mary’s mother accused her of abandoning her children by remaining in Paris. Did the woman not understand that she was not free to leave? And the Dowager Lady Elgin had written a particularly accusatory letter asking Mary to stop attempting to be “the belle of the ball in Paris, unseemly for a pregnant mother of three.” Did she not understand that Mary socialized in the evenings to try to make contact with important French people who could get Elgin released? Apparently, nasty-minded English detainees had written to Lady Elgin that they had seen Mary out “a bit too much in the company of a certain Scottish bachelor to maintain the propriety of a married woman.” Worse, Elgin’s mother passed the vicious rumors on to her sleep-deprived son, asking him to restrain his wife in the “city of excess.” If the woman only knew that Mary had to force herself to bundle up and face the bitter Paris dampness every night when she would prefer to be resting at the hotel with a cup of hot tea. Yes, she enjoyed being in the company of people. But if she was seen out too much in the company of a certain bachelor, who had in recent months devoted himself to aiding the wife of his childhood acquaintance, it was only because she was diligent in trying to procure her husband’s freedom.
Elgin did not see it that way. His letters took the tone of harsh recrimination:
I know Paris, Mary. I know its charms. I know that the city and its inhabitants, especially the roués who prey upon innocent women, can seduce one into unthinkable behavior. I have been informed that you are seen constantly at the opera. I don’t begrudge your being amused, but God knows it is not natural. Your behavior hurts me more than my imprisonment. I am frankly appalled that you receive men alone and that you are seen in public with them. I am appalled that you make shopping expeditions with a man who is not your husband. I am shocked that you have allowed this man inside our intimate marital sphere. According to all reports, you are constantly in the company of men, and never in the company of other ladies. I cannot specify all that has come to my knowledge, but you would not believe the facts about your behavior that I have learned since we parted.
Mary was stung by his accusations and wrote back in kind. The only men whose company she kept were men who could see to Elgin’s release.
If he knew of the company of any ladies who could help his cause as much as Napoleon and Talleyrand, she encouraged him to send their names to her forthwith and she would cultivate their companionship.
As far as Mr. Ferguson, whom you suggest is engaging in improper behavior, never have you or I had such a devoted friend. He has become rather like a brother to this brotherless girl.
After months of her indefatigable effort, Napoleon agreed to release Elgin from the prison at Lourdes, with the caveat that he remain nearby in the town of Pau, where he would be under constant surveillance. Napoleon sent a note to Mary apologizing for keeping Elgin so far away, but he could not afford for him to be seen free and running about Paris.
Immediately, Elgin ordered Mary to come to him:
As Bonaparte has seen fit to keep me detained in the provinces, you must come to me immediately. It is the only seemly thing to do. I am now out of prison and able to live with my wife, albeit not in the capital. You must cease and desist your gallivanting about town, using the excuse that you are working on my behalf. I am no longer incarcerated. You have no more excuses to be seen with men not your husband enjoying the nocturnal pleasures of Paris.
“But I am about to give birth,” she protested to Ferguson when he delivered Elgin’s letter.
“He’s not himself, Mary,” Robert said. He had taken to addressing her informally when they were alone. “Once he recovers from the harsh conditions at the prison, he will come to his senses.”
Still, she was hurt over her husband’s mistrust. With Robert still in her rooms, she wrote back: