The husband of Caroline was at this time suffering from a double anguish. He was snubbed by his political friends, and he was what is called deeply in love with Lady Hertford. The ‘passion’ for this lady was contracted during some negotiations with her family, entered upon for the purpose of placing Miss Seymour (a niece of Lady Hertford’s) under the care of Mrs. Fitzherbert. When this passion was in progress the Prince aimed at bringing it to a successful issue by the strangest of love-processes. He was accustomed, if not actually ill, to make himself so, in order that he might appear interesting, and have a claim upon the compassion of the ‘fair,’ who might otherwise have proved obdurate. With this end in view he would submit to be bled several times in the night, and by several operators, when in fact ‘there was so little necessity for it that different surgeons were introduced for the purpose unknown to each other, lest they should object to so unusual a loss of blood.’[9] It was reported that, after the rupture with his second wife, the Prince sought to renew his intimacy with his first, but that Mrs. Fitzherbert would not consent till a brief arrived from Rome assuring her, in answer to a statement of her case expressly laid before the Court, that the wishes of the Prince were quite legitimate. This is intended to imply that the Papal Court actually looked upon a marriage ceremony performed by a Protestant minister, and uniting a Roman Catholic with a Protestant, as a valid ceremony! The assurance was enough for the lady. The old intimacy was renewed, and inaugurated by a public breakfast, at her own house, to all the fashionable world, with the Prince at the head of it! The ‘next eight years’ of her connections with the Prince she described as supremely happy years. They were extremely poor, she said, but ‘as merry as crickets,’ and ‘joyously proud, on once returning to Brighton from London, that they could not raise 5_l._ between them.’ So runs this Idyll.