Pius VI. was removed to Valence, notwithstanding his ill health and advanced age, on the 14th July, 1798, and died there on the 29th August, 1799, in his eighty-second year.
Miss Knight is somewhat unjust to the French general, Lespinasse, whose portrait Angelica painted gratuitously. It was done by her own desire, as an acknowledgment of the kind and courteous treatment she had experienced at his hands, her house being specially exempted from having soldiers billeted on it.
Sir Harris Nicolas says that this verse is attributed to a Mr. Davenport. It was, in reality, written by Miss Knight herself.
Admiral Blanquet, whose flag was on the _Franklin_ (80), was taken with his ship in the battle of the Nile. He was a brave and an honest man, distinguished for his candour and ingenuousness.
The _Vanguard_, Nelson, had left Naples for Malta in October, but had returned to the former place early in November. Miss Knight thus records his arrival in her Journal:—“_November 5, 1798._—Appeared in sight Admiral Nelson, in the _Vanguard_, with the _Minotaur_, Captain Lewis, from Malta, and they were all day coming in; but the admiral came on shore at four o’clock, and went immediately to Caserta, where he was scarce arrived when the hereditary princess was brought to bed of a daughter, and the bells were ringing, guns firing, &c. Next morning the admiral presented to the king the French colours taken at Gozo, telling his Majesty that he had sixteen thousand more subjects than before.”
Killed very shortly afterwards at the defence of St. Jean d’Acre, under Sir Sidney Smith.
“As there is but one inn in Palermo, we were obliged to agree to their own terms (five ducats a day). We are but indifferently lodged; however, it is the only inn we have yet seen in Sicily, and may be said to be the only one in the island. It is kept by a noisy, troublesome Frenchwoman, who, I find, will plague us.... She is as fat as a pig, and as ugly as the devil, and lays on a quantity of paint that looks like a great plaister of red morocco. Her picture is hanging in the room where I am now writing, as well as that of her husband, who, by-the-by, is a ninny: they are no less vile curiosities than the originals. He is drawn with his snuff-box open in one hand, and a dish of coffee in the other, and at the same time ‘fait l’aimable à madame.’ I took notice of this triple occupation, which seemed to imply something particular. She told me that the thought was hers; that her husband was exceedingly fond of snuff and of coffee, and wanted by this to show that he was still more occupied with her than with either of them. I could not help applauding the ingenuity of the conceit. Madame is painted with an immense bouquet in her breast, and an orange in her right hand, emblematic of her sweetness and purity, and has the prettiest little smirk on her face you can imagine. She told me that she insisted on the painter drawing her ‘avec le souris sur le visage,’ but as he had not esprit enough to make her smile ‘naturally’ she was obliged to force one ‘qui n’étoit pas si joli que le naturel, mais qui vaudroit mieux que de paroître sombre.’”—_Brydone’s Tour through Sicily and Malta._ Letter xxi.
