I had been now two years in habits of life and a mode of expense
extremely injurious to my patrimony, when a circumstance occurred,
which promised completely to deliver me from the ruinous consequences
of my own folly. This was no other than my encounter with that
incomparable woman, who afterwards became the partner of my life, and
the mother of my children. I cannot even now recollect her without
tears: the sentiment which her very name excites in my mind is a
mingled feeling, on the one hand, of the most exquisite and unspeakable
delight, a feeling that elevates and expands and electrifies my
throbbing heart; and, on the other, of the bitterest anguish and
regret. I must develope the source of this feeling.
Marguerite Louise Isabeau de Damville was, at the period of our first
meeting, in the nineteenth year of her age. Her complexion was of
the most perfect transparency, her eyes black and sparkling, and her
eyebrows dark and long. Such were the perfect smoothness and clearness
of her skin, that at nineteen she appeared five years younger than
she was, and she long retained this extreme juvenility of form. Her
step was airy and light as that of a young fawn, yet at the same
time firm, and indicative of strength of body and vigour of mind.
Her voice, like the whole of her external appearance, was expressive
of undesigning, I had almost said childish, simplicity. Yet, with
all this playfulness of appearance, her understanding was bold and
correct. Her mind was well furnished with every thing that could add
to her accomplishments as a wife or a mother. Her indulgent parents
had procured her every advantage of education, and circumstances had
been uncommonly favourable to her improvement. She was encouraged
and assisted in the art of drawing, for which she discovered a very
early talent, by Leonardo da Vinci; and she formed her poetical taste
from the conversation and instructions of Clement Marot. But, amidst
the singular assemblage of her intellectual accomplishments, there
was nothing by which she was so much distinguished, as the uncommon
prudence of her judgments, and the unalterable amiableness of her
manners. This was the woman destined to crown my happiness, and
consummate my misery. If I had never known her, I should never have
tasted true pleasure; if I had been guided by her counsels, I should
not have drained to the very dregs the cup of anguish.
The house of her father, the Marquis de Damville, was the resort of
all the most eminent wits and scholars of that period, particularly of
Marot, Rabelais, Erasmus and Scaliger. This was my first inducement to
frequent it. My education had inspired me with an inextinguishable love
of literature; and the dissipation in which I was at this time involved
could not entirely interrupt the propensity. The most thoughtless and
extravagant period of my life had occasional intervals of study and
reflection; and the gay, animated, and ingenious conversation of the
men I have mentioned, had always peculiar charms for me.
I had continued for some time to visit at the Marquis’s hotel, before
I encountered the beautiful Marguerite. The first time I saw her, she
made a deep impression upon me. The Marquis, who was one of the most
benevolent and enlightened of mankind, had been led by my character and
manners to conceive a warm friendship for me. He saw the ruin in which
I was heedlessly involving myself, and believed that it was not yet
too late to save me. As he thought that there was no method so likely
to effect my reformation as the interposition of domestic affections,
he was not unwilling to encourage the attachment I began to feel for
his daughter. On my part I wanted but little encouragement. I no sooner
observed her manners, and became acquainted with her merits, than my
heart was unalterably fixed. I became as it were a new man. I was like
one, who, after his eyes had grown imperceptibly dim till at length
every object appeared indistinct and of a gloomy general hue, has his
sight instantaneously restored, and beholds the fabric of the universe
in its genuine clearness, brilliancy, and truth. I was astonished at my
own folly, that I could so long have found gratification in pleasures
mean and sensual. I was ashamed of my own degradation. I could not
endure the comparison between the showy, unsubstantial attractions of
the women I had hitherto frequented, and the charms of the adorable
Marguerite. The purity of her mind seemed to give a celestial
brilliancy and softness to the beauties of her person. The gross and
brutal pursuits of the debauchee are often indeed described by the same
epithets as the virtuous and refined passion with which I was now for
the first time inspired; but experience convinced me that they differed
in their most essential features.
The Marquis saw the state of my mind, and addressed me thus. “Count,”
said he, “I feel the most ardent friendship for you. I am inexpressibly
concerned for your welfare. You will be convinced of this, when I have
furnished you with a clue to my late conduct towards you. I regard you,
if not as a ruined man, at least as a man in the high road to ruin.
Your present habits are of the most dangerous sort; they appear to
you perfectly conformable to principles of the strictest honour; nay,
they come recommended to you by a certain éclat and dignity with which
they seem to be surrounded. I could say to you, Recollect yourself.
Be not misled by delusive appearances. Consider the present state of
your fortune, and the state in which your mother left it. You cannot be
ignorant how greatly it is impaired. How has this circumstance arisen?
Have your revenues been expended in the service of your country?
Have you purchased any thing by them that will confer on you lasting
renown? Put together the sum of actions, which, piece by piece, you
have been willing to regard as indifferent and innocent, if not as
graceful and becoming. You cannot but be struck with their monstrous
deformity. Is it possible that you can be ignorant of the nature of
poverty? There is such a thing as honourable poverty. The poverty of
Cincinnatus was honourable, who impoverished himself by paying the fine
which was factiously imposed on his son, and then was contented to
pass his time alternately between the highest situations and the most
rigid simplicity. The poverty of a man of genius, such as Rabelais,
if not honourable, is interesting, when we compare his merits and
worth with that of many of those persons upon whom fortune has blindly
lavished her favours. It is honourable, if he have declined the means
of enriching himself by the sacrifice of his independence and his
principles. But of all earthly things the most contemptible is the
man who, having wasted his goods in riotous living, yet hungers after
the luxuries that have proved his bane, and feasts himself upon the
steam of dainties of which he has lost the substance. Poverty, always
sufficiently disadvantageous in a degenerate age, where attention and
courtship are doled forth with scales of gold, is tremendous to him.
He is the scorn of all mankind. Wherever he is a guest, he is invited
only to be trampled upon and insulted. He is capable of nothing, and is
a burden to society and mankind. The helplessness of age advances upon
him with stealing steps, and he is destined to gather all its miseries
and none of its consolations.
“I might have talked to you thus, but I refused it. I apprehend
something of the nature of advice. I know that it can seldom be
attended with its genuine effect, and will never be received
with deference and pleasure, where its motives are capable of
misconstruction. If I had talked to you thus, I might have appeared
to be indulging the tyranny of age; I might have seemed to assume an
unbecoming air of superiority and command: it could not have been clear
that I was honestly interested in that, about which I affected so much
concern. I doubt not the ingenuousness of your nature. I doubt not that
you would have been struck with the picture. But I must be permitted to
doubt the adequate and lasting effect of my expostulation. I was not
willing by my forwardness and loquacity to wear out one of the great
springs of human improvement.
“I have determined on your reform. For that purpose I think it
necessary to combine my remonstrances and advice, with a change of your
habits and situation. You have tasted largely of what are commonly
called the pleasures of life, but there are pleasures that you have not
tasted. At this moment you anticipate them; and anticipate them with
the ardour of a lover. But you know not yet all the gratifications that
attend upon domestic affections.
“I am willing to bestow upon you my daughter. I consent to prove the
purity of my advice, and the sincerity of my regard, by committing her
happiness to the risk. She is a treasure, the equal of which perhaps
the world does not hold. I speak not of her personal attractions.
But in understanding, accomplishments, and virtue, I firmly believe
no woman living can compare with her. In possessing her, you will
be blessed beyond the lot of princes. But, at the same time that I
shall thus put happiness within your grasp, remember that I commit
to your disposal the happiness of Marguerite. You are a worthy and
an honourable man; your talents and your virtues will constitute her
felicity. Her portion will redeem the injury which your patrimony has
suffered from your excesses, and you will have enough for yourselves,
and for your mutual offspring. I cannot believe that, with such a
deposit intrusted to you, you will consent to bring her to misery and
ruin.
“I have one condition, however, to stipulate with you. I require of
you, as the pledge of her happiness, that you break off your present
modes of life; that you separate yourself from your connections, and
retire into the country upon your paternal estate. You are yet too
young to be in danger from that tyranny of custom, which often renders
men more advanced in life incapable of relishing the simple and
genuine pleasures. You will find contentment and joy in the society
of my daughter, and in the bosom of your rising family. You will be
happy in the circle of your own hearth, and have little to ask of the
rest of mankind. If, in any ill-omened and inauspicious moment, the
allurements of your present vices (forgive the plainness of my speech)
should resume their power over you, I hope at least that I shall never
live to see it; that I shall not be taught by bitter experience, that I
have sacrificed to the disinterestedness of my friendship the happiness
of my daughter and of my posterity!”
My heart weeps blood, while I record the admonitions of this noble
and generous man. A nobler France did not contain through all her
boundaries. Refined by literature, polished by the best society his
age could afford, grown grey in the field of honour, and particularly
distinguished by the personal attachment and confidence of his
sovereign. What was all this advice to me? What return did I make to
this unparalleled kindness and friendship? I ruined this admirable
woman! I involved her in poverty and shame! With the most savage
barbarity I prepared for her an immature grave! Can I forget this? Of
what avail to me are immortal life and immortal youth? Oh, Marguerite,
Marguerite! For ever thy image haunts me! For ever thy ghost upbraids
me! How little have I proved myself worthy of such a partner! Rather
what punishment, what plagues, what shame and detestation have I not
deserved! Praised be Heaven, the last prayer of the Marquis of Damville
at least was granted! He did not live to witness my relapse, my
profligacy, and insanity.
I resume the thread of my story.--I listened to the address of the
Marquis with reverence and admiration. I accepted his conditions with
joy. I married his adorable daughter, and conducted her to my paternal
estate in the Bourdelois. Now only it was that I tasted of perfect
happiness. To judge from my own experience in this situation, I should
say, that nature has atoned for all the disasters and miseries she so
copiously and incessantly pours upon her sons, by this one gift, the
transcendent enjoyment and nameless delights which, wherever the heart
is pure and the soul is refined, wait on the attachment of two persons
of opposite sexes. My beloved Marguerite guided and directed me, at the
same time that she was ever studying my gratification. I instructed
her by my experience, while she enlightened me by the rectitude and
decision of her taste. Ours was a sober and dignified happiness, and
its very sobriety served to give it additional voluptuousness. We
had each our separate pursuits, whether for the cultivation of our
minds, or the promotion of our mutual interests. Separation gave us
respectability in each other’s eyes, while it prepared us to enter
with fresh ardour into society and conversation. In company with each
other, hours passed over us, and appeared but minutes. It has been said
to be a peculiar felicity for any one to be praised by a man who is
himself eminently a subject of praise: how much happier to be prized
and loved by a person worthy of love? A man may be prized and valued by
his friend; but in how different a style of sentiment from the regard
and attachment that may reign in the bosom of his mistress or his wife?
Self-complacency and self-satisfaction may perhaps be numbered among
the principal sources of contentment. It is necessary for him who would
endure existence with patience, that he should conceive himself to
be something,--that he should be persuaded he is not a cipher in the
muster-roll of man. How bitter is the anguish we are sometimes doomed
to sustain in this respect from the marks we receive of other men’s
indifference and contempt? To feel that we are loved by one whose
love we have deserved, to be employed in the mutual interchange of
the marks of this love, habitually to study the happiness of one by
whom our happiness is studied in return, this is the most desirable,
as it is the genuine and unadulterated condition of human nature. I
must have some one to sympathise with; I cannot bear to be cut off
from all relations: I desire to experience a confidence, a concord,
an attachment, that cannot rise between common acquaintance. In every
state we long for some fond bosom on which to rest our weary head; some
speaking eye with which to exchange the glances of intelligence and
affection. Then the soul warms and expands itself; then it shuns the
observation of every other beholder; then it melts with feelings that
are inexpressible, but that the heart understands without the aid of
words; then the eyes swim with rapture; then the frame languishes with
enjoyment; then the soul burns with fire; then the two persons thus
blest are no longer two; distance vanishes, one thought animates, one
mind informs them. Thus love acts; thus it is ripened to perfection;
never does man feel himself so much alive, so truly etherial, as when,
bursting the bonds of diffidence, uncertainty and reserve, he pours
himself entire into the bosom of the woman he adores.
Marguerite de Damville was particularly distinguished from every other
woman I ever knew by the justness of her taste and the vividness of
her feelings. This circumstance was a fund of inexhaustible delight
and improvement to me. We were both of us well acquainted with the
most eminent poets and fine writers of modern times. But when we came
to read them together, they presented themselves in a point of view
in which they had never been seen by us before. It is, perhaps, more
important that poetry, and every thing that excites the imagination
or appeals to the heart, should be read in solitude, than in society.
But the true way to understand our author in these cases, is to employ
each of these modes in succession. The terrible, the majestic, the
voluptuous and the melting, are all of them, in a considerable degree,
affairs of sympathy; and we never judge of them so infallibly, or with
so much satisfaction, as when, in the presence of each other, the
emotion is kindled in either bosom at the same instant, the eye-beams,
pregnant with sentiment and meaning, involuntarily meet and mingle; the
voice of the reader becomes modulated by the ideas of his author, and
that of the hearer, by an accidental interjection of momentary comment
or applause, confesses its accord. It was in this manner that we read
together the admirable sonnets of Petrarch, and passed in review the
sublime effusions of Dante. The letters of Eloisa to Abelard afforded
us singular delight. We searched into the effusions of the Troubadours,
and, among all their absurdities and inequality, we found a wildness, a
daring pouring forth of the soul, an unpruned richness of imagination,
and, from time to time, a grandeur of conception and audacious
eccentricity of thought, that filled us with unlooked for transport.
At other times, when not regularly engaged in this species of reading,
we would repeat passages to each other, communicate the discoveries of
this sort that either had made in solitude, and point out unobserved
beauties, that perhaps neither of us would have remarked, but for
the suggestions of the other. It is impossible for two persons to be
constituted so much alike, but that one of them should have a more
genuine and instantaneous relish for one sort of excellence, and
another for another. Thus we added to each other’s stores, and acquired
a largeness of conception and liberality of judgment that neither of
us would have arrived at if separate. It is difficult to imagine how
prolific this kind of amusement proved of true happiness. We were
mutually delighted to remark the accord of our feelings, and still
more so, as we perceived that accord to be hourly increasing, and what
struck either as a blemish in the other, wearing out and disappearing.
We were also led by the same means to advert to the powers of mind
existing in each, the rectitude of judgment and delicacy of feeling. As
our attachment hourly increased, we rejoiced in this reciprocation of
benefits, while each gave or received something that added to value of
mind and worth of character. Mutual esteem was incessantly kept alive,
and mutual esteem is the only substantial basis of love. Each of us
hourly blessed our common lot, while each believed it impracticable
elsewhere to have found so much worth blended with so much sweetness.
But we did not confine ourselves to the library and fireside. We
walked, we rode, we travelled together; we observed together the
beauties of nature, and the system of the universe; we traversed many
provinces of France, and some parts of Italy and Spain; we examined
the characters of mankind, as they are modified by the varieties of
natural descent, or the diversities of political government. In all
this we found peculiar gratification. There is something in the scent
and impression of a balmy atmosphere, in the lustre of sunshine, in
the azure heaven and the purple clouds, in the opening of prospects on
this side and on that, in the contemplation of verdure and fertility,
and industry and simplicity and cheerfulness, in all their variations,
in the very act and exercise of travelling, peculiarly congenial to
the human frame. It expands the heart, it makes the spirit dance,
and exquisitely disposes us for social enjoyment. The mind becomes
more elevated and refined, it assumes a microscopical and unwonted
sensibility; it feels things which, in ordinary moments, are unheeded
and unknown; it enjoys things too evanescent for a name, and too minute
to be arrested; it trembles with pleasure through every fibre and every
articulation.
One thing is necessary to be mentioned in this place, though, while it
adds to the fidelity of delineation, I am aware it breaks the tone of
feeling, and the harmony of the picture. But it is not my intention
in this history to pass myself for better than I am. I have laid down
to myself the sacred maxim of absolute truth and impartiality. I must
confess, therefore, with whatever anguish, my extreme inferiority to
my incomparable partner. She had all the simplicity of genuine taste.
The more she delivered herself up to nature, the greater was her
content. All superfluous appendages and show appeared to her as so
many obstacles to enjoyment. She derived her happiness from the tone
of her own mind, and stood in no need of the gaping admiration and
stupid wonder of others to make her feel herself happy. But I retained
the original vice of my mind. The gestures of worship and the voice
of applause were necessary to me. I did not suffice to myself. I was
not satisfied with the tranquil and inglorious fruition of genuine
pleasures, forgetting the vain and anxious tumult of the world,
and forgotten by those who figured on its theatre. It may be, that
Marguerite could, and ought, by insensible degrees, to have rooted out
this disease of my mind. But I am concerned only with the statement of
facts; and I know that no such thing was the effect of our intercourse.
This absurd passion did not, however, at this time, lead me to any
fatal extremities. It contented itself with the frivolous gratification
resulting from a certain portion of ostentation and expense. I
maintained a considerable train of servants: my apartments were
magnificent, and my furniture splendid. When we travelled, it was
with an attendance little short of princely. Idiot that I was, to
regard this as an addition to the genuine pleasures which I have above
enumerated! When we were at home, every accidental guest was received
and entertained with extraordinary pomp, a pomp not directed to add to
his accommodation, but that was designed to leave him impressed with
astonishment and admiration at the spirit of his host. Often, indeed,
did I feel this ostentation an encumbrance: often did I languish for
the ease and freedom which result from a mediocrity of circumstances.
But this I called, doing honour to my ancestors and my country, and
vindicating the consideration due to the house of St. Leon.
To quit this painful recollection.--A circumstance which tended at this
time to fill the measure of my happiness, consisted in the dear pledges
which Marguerite bore me of our mutual affection. It is impossible for
him who has not experienced it, to conceive the accumulation which
a genuine tenderness derives from this source. The difficulties are
many that attend upon pregnancy; trifles are at that period sources
of fatigue and injury; it is necessary that the person should be
protected, and the mind tranquil. We love to watch over a delicate
plant, that appears to call for all our anxiety and attention. There
is in this case the sentiment, without the repulsive circumstances
that attends upon our sympathy with a dangerous and alarming disease.
Marguerite, by her sensibility and growing attachment, abundantly
rewarded my cares. At length the critical period arrives, when an event
so extraordinary occurs, as cannot fail to put the human frame in
considerable jeopardy. Never shall I forget the interview between us
immediately subsequent to her first parturition, the effusion of soul
with which we met each other after all danger seemed to have subsided,
the kindness which animated us, increased as it was by ideas of peril
and suffering, the sacred sensation with which the mother presented her
infant to her husband, or the complacency with which we read in each
other’s eyes a common sentiment of melting tenderness and inviolable
attachment!
This, she seemed to say, is the joint result of our common affection.
It partakes equally of both, and is the shrine in which our sympathies
and our life have been poured together, never to be separated. Let
other lovers testify their engagements by presents and tokens; we
record and stamp our attachment in this precious creature, a creature
of that species which is more admirable than any thing else the world
has to boast, a creature susceptible of pleasure and pain, of affection
and love, of sentiment and fancy, of wisdom and virtue. This creature
will daily stand in need of an aid we shall delight to afford; will
require our meditations and exertions to forward its improvement, and
confirm its merits and its worth. We shall each blend our exertions,
for that purpose, and our union, confirmed by this common object
of our labour and affection, will every day become more sacred and
indissoluble.--All this the present weakness of my beloved Marguerite
would not allow her to say. But all this occurred to my reflections;
and, when we had time tranquilly to compare our recollection of the
event, it plainly appeared that in all this our hearts and conceptions
had most truly sympathised.
The possessing a third object, a common centre of anxiety to both, is
far from weakening the regard of such a couple for each other. It does
not separate or divert them; it is a new link of connection. Each is
attached to it the more for the sake of either; each regards it as a
sort of branch or scion, representing the parent; each rejoices in its
health, its good humour, its smiles, its increase in size, in strength,
and in faculties, principally from the idea of the gratification
they will communicate to the other. Were it not for this idea, were
it possible the pleasure should not be mutual, the sentiment would
be stripped of its principal elevation and refinement; it would be
comparatively cold, selfish, solitary, and inane.
In the first ten years of our marriage my wife brought me five
children, two sons and three daughters. The second son only died in
his infancy. My predominant passion at this time was that of domestic
pleasures and employments, and I devoted myself, jointly with the
mother, to the cultivation of the minds of my children. They all
in a considerable degree rewarded our care; they were all amiable.
Taught by the example of their parents, they lived in uncommon
harmony and affection. Charles, the eldest, was a lad of a bold and
active disposition; but the sentiments of virtue and honour that were
infused into him, both by Marguerite and myself, found a favourable
reception, and promised to render those qualities, which, if left to
themselves, might have been turbulent and dangerous, productive of
the happiest consequences. Julia, his eldest sister, was uncommonly
mild and affectionate, alive to the slightest variations of treatment,
profoundly depressed by every mark of unkindness, but exquisitely
sensible to demonstrations of sympathy and attachment. She appeared
little formed to struggle with the difficulties of life and the frowns
of the world; but, in periods of quietness and tranquillity nothing
could exceed the sweetness of her character and the fascination of
her manners. Her chief attachment was to her mother, though she was
by no means capable of her mother’s active beneficence and heroic
fortitude. Louisa, the second daughter, resembled her mother in person,
and promised to resemble her in character. Marguerite, the youngest,
differed from the whole family, in the playfulness and frolic of her
disposition. Her vivacity was inexhaustible, and was continually
displaying itself in innocent tricks, and smart, unexpected sallies.
Nothing could possibly be more ingenuous than this admirable infant;
nothing more kind, considerate, and enthusiastic in her tenderness and
grief, when an occasion occurred to call forth these sentiments. But
the moment the sorrowful occasion was over, she would resume all her
vivacity; and even sometimes, in the midst of her tears, some trait of
her native humour would escape. I know not whether all the family were
not more attached to the little Marguerite than to any other individual
member, as she certainly oftenest contributed to their amusement and
pleasure.--Such was the amiable circle, one and all of whom have been
involved by me in the most tremendous ruin and disgrace.