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Joun, Seat of Lady Hester Stanhope (From See Lebanon, Bruce Condé, second edition, Harb Bijjani Press, Beirut, 1960) Seven and a half miles northeast of Sidon and north of the Awali River lies the earthquake-ruined village of Joun, on a fertile, olive-tree-covered hilltop amid sterile white chalk hills. About 20 or 25 minutes' walk down a ravine and up onto another hilltop to the northwest of Joun brings the traveller to the lonely, pathetic remains of Lady Hester Stanhope's once-great baronial establishment, where William Pitt's niece he]d court as the 'Sitt', or Lady of Joun, during the early decades of the 19th Century. Several of the biographies of Lady Hester give the floor plan of this manor and a distant view of it as seen from the southwest, and these show us the extent of the buildings, whose upkeep eventually ruined the Sitt financially and left her hopelessly in debt to the Syrian money-lenders. Dahr as-Sitt, as the place is still called, had, until the March, 1956, earthquake, about a dozen habitable rooms, the dungeon, and its vast underground cisterns, plus considerable stretches of the fortress-like wall which once surrounded the whole complex or compound. West Facade Remains Today the whole remaining structure around the so]e surviving courtyard is bady cracked, with several rooms in ruin, their outer wall having fallen. Fortunately, however, the west wall's facade, containing the oldest stonework of the house, probably antedating Lady Hester's time, still stands intact, as does the north wall of that wing. The vaulted dungeon, beneath the north wing of the remaining courtyard, is also still intact as are a few of the storerooms on the opposite side of the court, and, of course, the cistern. Beirut residents who wish to see and photograph the site before eventual replacement of these last remaining buildings of Lady Hester's time, are urged to visit Joun while this little survives. The estate now belongs to the famous Greek Catholic monastery, Deir El-Mokhales, some nine miles to the east, which has let it to the Telj family as tenant farmers. The tenants were, in 1956, living in tents to the southeast of the ruined buildings and were expecting the Deir to clear the ruins and to assist them in building a new farmhouse on the site. If the new work can incorporate the best-preserved of the remaining walls of Lady Hester's establishment and follow the same lines, at least the shape of the principal part of Dahr as-Sitt will remain for future generations of pilgrims to the lonely hilltop. If not, we are seeing today the last of the famous noblewoman's home as she knew it in the early 1800's. Niece of Pitt Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope's biography is too well known to need repeating here except for a few pertinent dates as a background to her Ladyship's sojourn at Joun. Born in 1776, the year of American independence, Lady Hester was a daughter of the liberal Earl of Stanhope, from whom she inherted both her rare intelligence and her famous eccentricities, and grand-daughter to the Earl of Chatham. As hostess to her uncle William Pitt the Younger, until his death in 1806, Lady Hester had a taste of power, intrigue, and Principal remaining building of Lady Hester Stanhope's once extensive estab- lishment, near Joun. The damage to the south wall was caused by the March 1956 earthquake. Seen from the former garden near Lady Hester's tomb. influence which she could not easily forget, and it was due to her inability to settle down to a quiet and uneventful life, once this preeminent position was lost to her, that she was driven to seek high adventure in the East. From 1810 until her death in 1839, for almost three decades, Lady Hester was Europe's 'Mystery Lady of the Orient'. As the first European woman to enter then-inaccessible Palmyra, the Sitt staged a regal progress through Queen Zenobia's ruined capital, being feted by its Bedouin possessors as a second Zenobia. By 1818 she had settled permanently in Lebanon, at first as an honored friend and guest of the Emir Bashir II and later as his hated but respected enemy, busily intriguing with the Sublime Porte, with her special friend Mustafa Barbar Agha, Wali of Tripoli, and with various Druze factions. First at Abra Her first seat was at the former monastery of Mar Elias, at Abra, on the opposite side of the River Awali, but the oppressive heat of the summertime drove her from this site to the pine-covered slopes around Deir Mashmoushe, southwest of Jezzine, each year, until the all-year-round residence of Joun was secured. When work had been completed in enlarging the new establishment to Her Ladyship's somewhat grandiose and extravagant tastes, she moved her cumbersome household to Dahr as-Sitt, where the rest of her life was spent. Here, amid the old olive trees, which still survive, and in her luxurious garden of tropical trees and imported flowers, ferns and shrubs, the recluse withdrew from the world except to grant a rare audience now and then to globetrotting European celebrities, including Lamartine, assorted German princelings and eccentric Napoleonic generals, one of whom stayed on to become her favorite and to be temporarily buried in the tomb she had prepared for herself. A couple of asacred mares enjoyed privileged status in special stables, as Her Ladyship became more and more steeped in debt. Her extravagant household was what eventually ruined the Sitt and brought the British government to withhold her pension in order to pay the claims of the various Damascene money-lenders until Pitt's niece died in squalor and poverty in the midst of a fast-decaying menage. Water to fill the enormous cisterns for the purpose of watering the gardens and trees had to be brought up from Ain Hey- roun, 100 yards down the hillside, by hand. But Ain Heyroun water is slightly brakish, so drinking water must need be fetched from Her Ladyship's favorite spring at Ain al-Hajar away back at Abra, a three- hour journey for the camel caravan which Lady Hester maintained for this exclusive purpose . Sole Remaining Furniture Little by little, during her last years and months, Lady Hester saw her household stripped of its valuables by unpaid servants. Only a pitiful handful of belongings remained to be inventoried at the time of her death. The only remaining piece of furniture known to have been at Joun in Lady Hester's time is a battered armoire, or cabinet, with a curious old-fashioned lock, owned by Yusef Rafael Yunis of Joun, who inherted it from a great-grandfather who had served the Sitt, and who had purchased it at the time of her death. About 150 feet southwest of the remaining buildings, not far from a few gnarled remaining orange trees, is the simple tomb, in native limestone, topped with a white marble plaque, which houses the remains of Dahr as-Sitt's famous mistress. While the tenant's children respectfully bring sprigs of laurel for visitors to place on the monument, the latter have no difficulty in reading the well-preserved bi-lingual (English and Arabic) inscription, whose six lines commemorate LADY HESTER LUCY STANHOPE, BORN 12th MARCH 1776, DIED 23rd JUNE 1839. |
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