On the advance of winter, Alfieri transferred himself to Florence; and here an event happened that altered the colour of his future life, through the influence of a constant attachment, which, accompanied by esteem for the good qualities and talents of its object, remained fixed in his heart to the end of his life.
Louisa de Stolberg, countess of Albany, was at that time twenty-five years of age, beautiful and full of talent. Her rank and wealth gave her a distinguished place in society. She was the wife of the last of the Stuarts who made pretensions to the throne of England, who unfortunately disgraced his illustrious house, and even the private station to which he was reduced, by habits the most deplorable. Alfieri now regarded his future prospects as fixed: he had long determined never to marry, considering that, under the despotic government to which he was a subject, the ties of husband and father would add weight to the chains imposed upon him: attached for life to a woman whom he esteemed worthy of him, and beyond all things ambitious of distinguishing himself as an author and a defender of the cause of liberty, he began to put into execution the schemes which had long presented themselves to his imagination, for acquiring entire personal freedom. The nobles of Piedmont were in a peculiarly enslaved state: they could not quit the territories of their sovereign except by especial leave, granted for a limited time; nor could they publish any writings in a foreign country, without the licence of their native prince, under penalty of a fine, and even imprisonment, "if" (so the law was expressed) "it was necessary to make a public example." These shackles were intolerable to a man of independent mind, bent upon giving testimony of his abhorrence of despotic rule: but few men would have freed themselves at the cost that Alfieri paid. He came to a resolve to make a donation of the whole of his property to his sister Julia, reserving to himself only the annual income of 1400 sequins, or about 600_l_. a year, the half of his actual receipt. To execute this design, the king's permission was necessary, who readily gave it, "being," says Alfieri, "as willing to get rid of me as I was to emancipate myself from his authority."