_April 29._
One moment of reward for two days of indescribable hurry I have at this
quiet interval after breakfast, and I seize it to tell you that Fanny is
quite well: so far for health. For beauty, I have only to say that I am
told by everybody that my sisters are _lovely_ in English, and
_charmantes_ in French. Last night was their _début_ at Lady
Granard's--a large assembly of all manner of lords, ladies, counts,
countesses, princes, and princesses, French, Polish, and Italian:
Marmont and Humboldt were there. I was told by several persons of rank
and taste--Lady Rancliffe, the Countess de Salis, Lady Granard, Mrs.
Sneyd Edgeworth, _and_ a Polish Countess, that my sister's dress, the
grand affair at Paris, was _perfection_, and I believed it! Humboldt is
excessively agreeable, but I was twice taken from him to be introduced
to grandeurs, just as we had reached the most interesting point of
conversation.
_May 3rd._
On Sunday we went with the Comtesse de Salis and the Baronne de Salis,
who is also Chanoinesse, but goes into the world in roses and pink
ribbons nevertheless, and is very agreeable, moreover, and with M. Le
Baron, an officer in the Swiss Guards, an old bachelor, to St. Sulpice,
to hear M. Fressenus. He preached in the Kirwan style, but with
intolerable monotony of thumping eloquence, against _les Liberaux_,
Rousseau, etc.; it seemed to me old stuff, ill embroidered, but it was
much applauded. _Mem._: the _audience_ were not half so attentive or
silent at St. Sulpice as they were at the Théâtre Français the night
before.
After church a visit to Madame de Pastoret. Oh, my dear mother, think of
my finding her in that very boudoir, everything the same! Fanny and
Harriet were delighted with the beauty of the house till they saw her,
and then nothing could be thought of but her manner and conversation.
They are even more charmed with her than I expected: she is little
changed.
After a ball at the Polish Countess Orlowski's (the woman who is charmed
with _Early Lessons_, etc.), where Fanny and Harriet were delighted with
the children's dancing--they waltzed like angels, if angels waltz--after
this ball I went with the Count and Countess de Salis and La Baronne--I
was told that the first time it must be without my sisters--to the
Duchesse d'Escars, who _receives_ for the King at the Tuileries:
mounting a staircase of one hundred and forty steps. I thought the
Count's knees would have failed while I leaned on his arm; my own ached.
A long gallery, well lighted, opened into a suite of _little_ low
apartments, most beautifully hung, some with silk and some with
cashmere, some with tent drapery, with end ottomans, and lamps in
profusion. These rooms, with busts and pictures of kings, swarmed with
old nobility, with historic names, stars, red ribbons, and silver bells
at their button-holes: ladies in little white satin hats and _toques_,
with a profusion of ostrich or, still better, _marabout_ powder-puff
feathers; and the roofs were too low for such lofty heads.
After a most fatiguing morning at all the impertinent and pertinent
dressmakers and milliners, we finished by the dear delight of dining
with Madame Gautier at Passy. The drive there was delicious: we found
her with her Sophie, now a matron mother with her Caroline, like what
Madame Gautier and her Sophie were in that very room eighteen years ago.
All the Delessert family that remain were assembled except Benjamin, who
was detained by business in Paris. Madame Benjamin is very handsome,
nearer the style of Mrs. Admiral Pakenham than anybody I know; François
the same as you saw him, only with the additional crow's-feet of
eighteen years, sobered into a husband and father, the happiest I ever
saw in France. They have three houses, and the whole three terraces form
one long pleasure-ground. Judas-tree, like a Brobdingnag almond-tree,
was in full flower; lilacs and laburnums in abundance. Alexandre
Delessert takes after the father--good, sensible, commercial
conversation. He made a panegyric on the Jews of Hamburgh, who received
him at their houses with the utmost politeness and liberality. This was
_à propos_ of Walter Scott's Jewess, and, vanity must add, my own Jew
and Jewess, who came in for more than their due share.
Bank-notes were talked of: François tells me that the forging of
bank-notes is almost unknown at Paris: the very best artists--my
father's plan--are employed.
Tuesday we were at the Louvre: many fine pictures left. Dined at home:
in the evening to Madame de Pastoret's, to meet the Duchesse de Broglie:
very handsome, little, with large soft dark eyes: simple dress, winning
manner, soft Pastoret conversation: speaks English better than any
foreigner I ever heard: not only gracious, but quite _tender_ to me.
After Madame de Pastoret's we went to the Ambassador's and were received
in the most distinguished manner. We saw crowds of fine people and
conversed with Talleyrand, but he said nought worth hearing.
_May 20._
Paris is wonderfully embellished since we were here in 1803. Fanny and
Harriet are quite enchanted with the beauty of the Champs Élysées and
the Tuileries gardens: the trees are out in full leaf, and the deep
shade under them is delightful. I had never seen Paris in summer, so I
enjoy the novelty. Some of our happiest time is spent in driving about
in the morning, or returning at night by lamp or moonlight.
Lady Elizabeth Stuart has been most peculiarly civil to "Madame Maria
Edgeworth et Mesdemoiselles ses soeurs," which is the form on our
visiting tickets, as I was advised it should be. The Ambassador's hotel
is the same which Lord Whitworth had, which afterwards belonged to the
Princess Borghese. It is delightful! opening into a lawn-garden, with
terraces and conservatories, and a profusion of flowers and shrubs. The
dinner was splendid, but not formal; and nobody can _represent_ better
than Lady Elizabeth. She asked us to go with her and Mrs. Canning to the
opera, but we were engaged to Madame Recamier; and as she is no longer
rich and prosperous, I could not break the engagement.
We went to Madame Recamier's, in her convent--L'Abbaye aux Bois, up
seventy-eight steps; all came in with the asthma: elegant room, and she
as elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, the ex-Queen of Sweden,
Madame de Boigne--a charming woman, and Madame la Maréchale de Moreau--a
battered beauty, smelling of garlic, and screeching in vain to pass for
a wit.
Yesterday we had intended to have killed off a great many visits, but
the fates willed it otherwise. Mr. Hummelaur, attached to the Austrian
Embassy, came; and then Mr. Chenevix, who converses delightfully, but
all the time holding a distorting magnifying glass over French
character, and showing horrible things where we thought everything was
delightful. While he was here came Madame de Villeneuve and Madame de
Kergolay. Scarcely were they all gone, when I desired Rodolphe to let no
other person in, as the carriage had been ordered at eleven, and it was
now near two. "_Miladi!_" cried Rodolphe, running in with a card, "voilà
une dame qui me dit de vous faire voir son nom."
It was "Madame de Roquefeuille," with her bright, benevolent eyes: and
much agreeable conversation. There is a great deal of difference between
the manners, tone, pronunciation, and quietness of demeanour of Madame
de Pastoret, Madame de Roquefeuille, and the little old Princess de
Broglie Revel, who are of the old nobility, and the striving, struggling
of the new, with all their riches and titles, who can never attain this
indescribable, incommunicable charm. But to go on with Saturday: Madame
de Roquefeuille took leave, and we caparisoned ourselves, and went to
Lady de Ros. She was at her easel, copying very well a portrait of
Madame de Grignan, and it was a very agreeable half-hour. Lady de Ros
and her daughter are very agreeable people. She has asked Fanny to meet
her three times a week, at the Riding-House, where she goes to take
exercise.
We were engaged to Cuvier's in the evening, and went first to M.
Jullien's, in the Rue de _l'Enfer_, not far from the Jardin des Plantes,
and there we saw one of the most extraordinary of all the extraordinary
persons we have seen--a Spaniard, squat, black-haired, black-browed,
and black-eyed, with an infernal countenance, who has written the
_History of the Inquisition_, and who related to us how he had been sent
_en pénitence_ to a monastery by the Inquisition, and escaped by
presenting a certain number of kilogrammes of good chocolate to the
monks, who represented him as very penitent. But I dare not say more of
this man, lest we should never get to Cuvier's, which, in truth, I
thought we never should accomplish alive. Such streets! such turns! in
the old, old parts of the city: lamps strung at great distances: a
candle or two from high houses, making darkness visible: then bawling of
coach or cart-men, "Ouais! ouais!" backing and scolding, for no two
carriages could by any possibility pass in these narrow alleys. I was in
a very bad way, as you may guess, but I let down the glasses, and sat as
still as a frightened mouse: once I diverted Harriet by crying out, "Ah,
mon _cher_ cocher, arrêtez;" like Madame de Barri's "Un moment,
_Monsieur_ le Bourreau." It never was so bad with us that we could not
laugh. At last we turned into a _porte-cochère_, under which the
coachman bent literally double: total darkness: then suddenly trees,
lamps, and buildings; and one, brighter than the rest by an open portal,
illuminating large printed letters, "Collège de France."
Cuvier came down to the very carriage door to receive us, and handed us
up narrow, difficult stairs into a smallish room, where were assembled
many ladies and gentlemen of most distinguished names and talents.
Prony, as like an honest water-dog as ever; Biot (_et moi aussi je suis
père de famille_), a fat, double volume of himself--I could not see a
trace of the young _père de famille_ we knew--round-faced, with a bald
head and black ringlets, a fine-boned skull, on which the tortoise might
fall without cracking it. When he began to converse, his superior
ability was immediately apparent. Then Cuvier presented Prince
Czartorinski, a Pole, and many compliments passed; and then we went to a
table to look at Prince Maximilian de Neufchatel's _Journey to Brazil_,
magnificently printed in Germany, and all tongues began to clatter, and
it became wondrously agreeable; and behind me I heard English well
spoken, and this was Mr. Trelawny, and I heard from him a panegyric on
the Abbé Edgeworth, whom he knew well, and he was the person who took
the first letter and news to the Duchesse d'Angoulême at Mittau, after
she quitted France. She came out in the dead of the night in her
nightgown to receive the letter.
Tea and supper together: only two-thirds of the company could sit down,
but the rest stood or sat behind, and were very happy, loud, and
talkative: science, politics, literature, and nonsense in happy
proportions. Biot sat behind Fanny's chair, and talked of the parallax
and Dr. Brinkley. Prony, with his hair nearly in my plate, was telling
me most entertaining anecdotes of Buonaparte; and Cuvier, with his head
nearly meeting him, talking as hard as he could: not _striving_ to show
learning or wit--quite the contrary; frank, open--hearted genius,
delighted to be together at home, and at ease. This was the most
flattering and agreeable thing to me that could possibly be. Harriet was
on the off-side, and every now and then he turned to her in the midst of
his anecdotes, and made her completely one of us; and there was such a
prodigious noise nobody could hear but ourselves. Both Cuvier and Prony
agreed that Buonaparte never could bear to have any answer but a
_decided_ answer. "One day," said Cuvier, "I nearly ruined myself by
considering before I answered. He asked me, 'Faut-il introduire le sucre
de betrave en France?' 'D'abord, Sire, il faut songer si vos
colonies----' 'Faut-il avoir le sucre de betrave en France?' 'Mais,
Sire, il faut examiner----' 'Bah! je le demanderai à Berthollet.'"
This despotic, laconic mode of insisting on learning everything in two
words had its inconveniences. One day he asked the master of the woods
at Fontainebleau, "How many acres of wood are here?" The master, an
honest man, stopped to recollect. "Bah!" and the under-master came
forward and said any number that came into his head. Buonaparte
immediately took the mastership from the first, and gave it to the
second. "Qu'arrivait-il?" continued Prony; "the rogue who gave the guess
answer was soon found cutting down and selling quantities of the trees,
and Buonaparte had to take the rangership from him, and reinstate the
honest hesitater."
Prony is, you know, one of the most absent men alive. "Once," he told
me, "I was in a carriage with Buonaparte and General Caffarelli: it was
at the time he was going to Egypt. He asked me to go. I said, I could
not; that is, I would not; and when I had said those words I fell into a
reverie, collecting in my own head all the reasons I could for not going
to Egypt. All this time Buonaparte was going on with some confidential
communication to me of his secret intentions and views; and when it was
ended, le seul mot, Arabie, m'avait frappé l'oreille. Alors, je voudrais
m'avoir arraché les cheveux," making the motion so to do, "pour pouvoir
me rapeller ce qu'il venait de me dire. But I never could recall one
single word or idea."
"Why did you not ask Caffarelli afterwards?"
"I dared not, because I should have betrayed myself to him."
Prony says that Buonaparte was not obstinate in his own opinion with men
of science about those things of which he was ignorant; but he would
bear no contradiction in tactics or politics.
_May 29._
Madame Recamier has no more taken the veil than I have, and is as little
likely to do it. She is still beautiful, still dresses herself and her
little room with elegant simplicity, and lives in a convent [Footnote:
The Abbaye aux Bois.] only because it is cheap and respectable. M.
Recamier is living; they have not been separated by anything but
misfortune.
We have at last seen a comedy perfectly well acted--the first
representation of a new piece, _Les Folliculaires_: it was received with
thunders of applause, admirably acted in every character to the life. It
was in ridicule of journalists and literary young men.