"Colonel Boutin was splendidly received by Pitt's niece, Lady Hester Stanhope. Proud of her protection, he was on the point of succeeding in his mission when he was assassinated by the Arabs.... France knows how the murder of this illustrious traveller was avenged by her ladyship, who, by her influence alone and her personal efforts, demanded and obtained the heads of the assassins and the restoration of the luggage of the unfortunate officer." Shortly after the Ansaries Mountains Expedition, the Princess of Wales arrived in Syria. Lady Hester had no kind of sympathy for her. Faugh! a woman so common, so vulgar, who exhibited herself like an Opera girl and fastened her garter below her knee, how detestable! In the famous quarrels which moved all England she had taken the side neither of the Prince of Wales, a dishonourable rake, nor of Princess Caroline, an impudent and slovenly German! Moreover, she judged it prudent, besides, to stay in the country for some time; the more so that the princess would undoubtedly have paid her a visit out of curiosity, and the expense of receiving her would have been very heavy. She embarked, therefore, on July 18, 1816. For where? No one in the world, save herself, would have had this idea. She went to take refuge in the midst of that very people whom she had just caused to be punished so cruelly. On the way, she bestowed her congratulations upon Mustapha Barbar at Tripoli. She disembarked at the little port of Bussyl, mounted a donkey and arrived at Antioch. Mr. Barker, who came to talk of her affairs, only remained with her a short time. She lived altogether alone, with some cowardly servants, in an abandoned house in the neighbourhood of Antioch. Absolute solitude. Superior people have regarded this attitude as comedy. It was a comedy which lasted seventy days, and might, at any moment, have had death as its epilogue! Who is the actor so stout of heart as to play it up to the end before empty benches? Can the life of Lady Hester be imagined? The people of the country, by way of encouragement, made to dance around her all the victims of the Assassins. Round of honour in which hundreds who had been poisoned, stabbed, hanged, flayed, strangled, gave each other fraternally the hand. Well-intentioned friends warned her every morning that her life was in danger. As for her, she continued her long rides across the mountain. Sometimes, she halted in a hamlet, assembled the peasants, and informed them, if they did not yet know, that she was the Syt who had caused their relatives to be massacred and their villages to be burned. Then she made them a very impressive speech, telling them that she had avenged the death of a Frenchman, of an enemy of her country, because the cowardly murder of a traveller is an abominable deed which all noble hearts ought to condemn.