Allegra sent to the Convent of Bagna Cavallo--Trouble with Claire--The Hoppner affair: scandal about Shelley in 1821--Mary's letter--
Byron's baseness--Shelley at Ravenna--The move to Pisa--Allegra left
behind--Meetings with Lord Clare and Rogers--Pisa: the Lanfranchi
Palace--Anxiety of Claire: letters and interviews--Death of Allegra--
Burial at Harrow--Lady Noel's will--Ada--Cain published: the
outcry--Other works--Ennui and dejection--Quarrels with Murray--
Leigh Hunt, and The Liberal--Banishment of the Gambas and Teresa
Guiccioli--Death of Shelley--Byron's tributes

CLAIRE CLAIRMONT, now living at Florence as governess
in the family of Professor Bojti, and just beginning to
recover hope and spirits, received on March 15, 1821--a
rainy day, as she wrote in her journal--letters from Shelley and
Mary, "with enclosures from Ravenna. The child in the Convent
of Bagna Cavallo".

Byron had sent Allegra there (though it was only twelve
miles outside Ravenna), by a Ravennese named Ghigi. ¹ He
told Hoppner that as she was now "four years old complete"
and quite beyond the control of the servants, he had no resource
but to place her there for a time, "at a high pension too".
He added that he had never intended to give her an English
education, for, being a natural child, it would make "her after-
settlement doubly difficult. Abroad, with a fair foreign education
and a portion of 5 or £6000, she might and may marry very
respectably". Moreover, he wished her to be a Roman Catholic,
"which I look upon as the best religion".

Claire, on March 24, wrote him a long and angry letter--a
letter to infuriate him or any one. Deeply as one feels with
her in a bitter grief, there is no doubt that she made her miseries
worse than they need have been by the unbridled sarcasm poured
upon him who had her and her child in his power. She had
the folly to refer to Lady Byron, and by implication to Teresa

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