Of my associates stood prepared for flight
To augment the band of emigrants in arms [L]
Upon the borders of the Rhine, and leagued
With foreign foes mustered for instant war. 185
This was their undisguised intent, and they
Were waiting with the whole of their desires
The moment to depart.
An Englishman,
Born in a land whose very name appeared
To license some unruliness of mind; 190
A stranger, with youth's further privilege,
And the indulgence that a half-learnt speech
Wins from the courteous; I, who had been else
Shunned and not tolerated, freely lived
With these defenders of the Crown, and talked, 195
And heard their notions; nor did they disdain
The wish to bring me over to their cause.
But though untaught by thinking or by books
To reason well of polity or law,
And nice distinctions, then on every tongue, 200
Of natural rights and civil; and to acts
Of nations and their passing interests,
(If with unworldly ends and aims compared)
Almost indifferent, even the historian's tale
Prizing but little otherwise than I prized 205
Tales of the poets, as it made the heart
Beat high, and filled the fancy with fair forms,
Old heroes and their sufferings and their deeds;
Yet in the regal sceptre, and the pomp
Of orders and degrees, I nothing found 210
Then, or had ever, even in crudest youth,
That dazzled me, but rather what I mourned
And ill could brook, beholding that the best
Ruled not, and feeling that they ought to rule.
For, born in a poor district, and which yet 215
Retaineth more of ancient homeliness,
Than any other nook of English ground,
It was my fortune scarcely to have seen,
Through the whole tenor of my school-day time,
The face of one, who, whether boy or man, 220
Was vested with attention or respect
Through claims of wealth or blood; nor was it least
Of many benefits, in later years
Derived from academic institutes
And rules, that they held something up to view 225
Of a Republic, where all stood thus far
Upon equal ground; that we were brothers all
In honour, as in one community,
Scholars and gentlemen; where, furthermore,
Distinction open lay to all that came, 230
And wealth and titles were in less esteem
Than talents, worth, and prosperous industry.
Add unto this, subservience from the first
To presences of God's mysterious power
Made manifest in Nature's sovereignty, 235
And fellowship with venerable books,
To sanction the proud workings of the soul,
And mountain liberty. It could not be
But that one tutored thus should look with awe
Upon the faculties of man, receive 240
Gladly the highest promises, and hail,
As best, the government of equal rights
And individual worth. And hence, O Friend!
If at the first great outbreak I rejoiced
Less than might well befit my youth, the cause 245
In part lay here, that unto me the events
Seemed nothing out of nature's certain course,
A gift that was come rather late than soon.
No wonder, then, if advocates like these,
Inflamed by passion, blind with prejudice, 250
And stung with injury, at this riper day,
Were impotent to make my hopes put on
The shape of theirs, my understanding bend
In honour to their honour: zeal, which yet
Had slumbered, now in opposition burst 255
Forth like a Polar summer: every word
They uttered was a dart, by counter-winds
Blown back upon themselves; their reason seemed
Confusion-stricken by a higher power
Than human understanding, their discourse 260
Maimed, spiritless; and, in their weakness strong,
I triumphed.
Meantime, day by day, the roads
Were crowded with the bravest youth of France, [M]
And all the promptest of her spirits, linked
In gallant soldiership, and posting on 265
To meet the war upon her frontier bounds.
Yet at this very moment do tears start
Into mine eyes: I do not say I weep--
I wept not then,--but tears have dimmed my sight,
In memory of the farewells of that time, 270
Domestic severings, female fortitude
At dearest separation, patriot love
And self-devotion, and terrestrial hope,
Encouraged with a martyr's confidence;
Even files of strangers merely seen but once, 275
And for a moment, men from far with sound
Of music, martial tunes, and banners spread,
Entering the city, here and there a face,
Or person singled out among the rest,
Yet still a stranger and beloved as such; 280
Even by these passing spectacles my heart
Was oftentimes uplifted, and they seemed
Arguments sent from Heaven to prove the cause
Good, pure, which no one could stand up against,
Who was not lost, abandoned, selfish, proud, 285
Mean, miserable, wilfully depraved,
Hater perverse of equity and truth.
Among that band of Officers was one,
Already hinted at, [N] of other mould--
A patriot, thence rejected by the rest, 290
And with an oriental loathing spurned,
As of a different caste. A meeker man
Than this lived never, nor a more benign,
Meek though enthusiastic. Injuries
Made _him_ more gracious, and his nature then 295
Did breathe its sweetness out most sensibly,
As aromatic flowers on Alpine turf,
When foot hath crushed them. He through the events
Of that great change wandered in perfect faith,
As through a book, an old romance, or tale 300
Of Fairy, or some dream of actions wrought
Behind the summer clouds. By birth he ranked
With the most noble, but unto the poor
Among mankind he was in service bound,
As by some tie invisible, oaths professed 305
To a religious order. Man he loved
As man; and, to the mean and the obscure,
And all the homely in their homely works,
Transferred a courtesy which had no air
Of condescension; but did rather seem 310
A passion and a gallantry, like that
Which he, a soldier, in his idler day
Had paid to woman: somewhat vain he was,
Or seemed so, yet it was not vanity,
But fondness, and a kind of radiant joy 315
Diffused around him, while he was intent
On works of love or freedom, or revolved
Complacently the progress of a cause,
Whereof he was a part: yet this was meek
And placid, and took nothing from the man 320
That was delightful. Oft in solitude
With him did I discourse about the end
Of civil government, and its wisest forms;
Of ancient loyalty, and chartered rights,
Custom and habit, novelty and change; 325
Of self-respect, and virtue in the few
For patrimonial honour set apart,
And ignorance in the labouring multitude.
For he, to all intolerance indisposed,
Balanced these contemplations in his mind; 330
And I, who at that time was scarcely dipped
Into the turmoil, bore a sounder judgment
Than later days allowed; carried about me,
With less alloy to its integrity,
The experience of past ages, as, through help 335
Of books and common life, it makes sure way
To youthful minds, by objects over near
Not pressed upon, nor dazzled or misled
By struggling with the crowd for present ends.
But though not deaf, nor obstinate to find 340
Error without excuse upon the side
Of them who strove against us, more delight
We took, and let this freely be confessed,
In painting to ourselves the miseries
Of royal courts, and that voluptuous life 345
Unfeeling, where the man who is of soul
The meanest thrives the most; where dignity,
True personal dignity, abideth not;
A light, a cruel, and vain world cut off
From the natural inlets of just sentiment, 350
From lowly sympathy and chastening truth;
Where good and evil interchange their names,
And thirst for bloody spoils abroad is paired
With vice at home. We added dearest themes--
Man and his noble nature, as it is 355
The gift which God has placed within his power,
His blind desires and steady faculties
Capable of clear truth, the one to break
Bondage, the other to build liberty
On firm foundations, making social life, 360
Through knowledge spreading and imperishable,
As just in regulation, and as pure
As individual in the wise and good.
We summoned up the honourable deeds
Of ancient Story, thought of each bright spot, 365
That would be found in all recorded time,
Of truth preserved and error passed away;
Of single spirits that catch the flame from Heaven,
And how the multitudes of men will feed
And fan each other; thought of sects, how keen 370
They are to put the appropriate nature on,
Triumphant over every obstacle
Of custom, language, country, love, or hate,
And what they do and suffer for their creed;
How far they travel, and how long endure; 375
How quickly mighty Nations have been formed,
From least beginnings; how, together locked
By new opinions, scattered tribes have made
One body, spreading wide as clouds in heaven.
To aspirations then of our own minds 380
Did we appeal; and, finally, beheld
A living confirmation of the whole
Before us, in a people from the depth
Of shameful imbecility uprisen,
Fresh as the morning star. Elate we looked 385
Upon their virtues; saw, in rudest men,
Self-sacrifice the firmest; generous love,
And continence of mind, and sense of right,
Uppermost in the midst of fiercest strife.
Oh, sweet it is, in academic groves, 390
Or such retirement, Friend! as we have known
In the green dales beside our Rotha's stream,
Greta, or Derwent, or some nameless rill,
To ruminate, with interchange of talk,
On rational liberty, and hope in man, 395
Justice and peace. But far more sweet such toil--
Toil, say I, for it leads to thoughts abstruse--
If nature then be standing on the brink
Of some great trial, and we hear the voice
Of one devoted, one whom circumstance 400
Hath called upon to embody his deep sense
In action, give it outwardly a shape,
And that of benediction, to the world.
Then doubt is not, and truth is more than truth,--
A hope it is, and a desire; a creed 405
Of zeal, by an authority Divine
Sanctioned, of danger, difficulty, or death.
Such conversation, under Attic shades,
Did Dion hold with Plato; [O] ripened thus
For a Deliverer's glorious task,--and such 410
He, on that ministry already bound,
Held with Eudemus and Timonides, [P]
Surrounded by adventurers in arms,
When those two vessels with their daring freight,
For the Sicilian Tyrant's overthrow, 415
Sailed from Zacynthus,--philosophic war,
Led by Philosophers. [Q] With harder fate,
Though like ambition, such was he, O Friend!
Of whom I speak. So Beaupuis (let the name
Stand near the worthiest of Antiquity) 420
Fashioned his life; and many a long discourse,
With like persuasion honoured, we maintained:
He, on his part, accoutred for the worst.
He perished fighting, in supreme command,
Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire, 425
For liberty, against deluded men,
His fellow country-men; and yet most blessed
In this, that he the fate of later times
Lived not to see, nor what we now behold,
Who have as ardent hearts as he had then. 430
Along that very Loire, with festal mirth
Resounding at all hours, and innocent yet
Of civil slaughter, was our frequent walk;
Or in wide forests of continuous shade,
Lofty and over-arched, with open space 435
Beneath the trees, clear footing many a mile--
A solemn region. Oft amid those haunts,
From earnest dialogues I slipped in thought,
And let remembrance steal to other times,
When, o'er those interwoven roots, moss-clad, 440
And smooth as marble or a waveless sea,
Some Hermit, from his cell forth-strayed, might pace
In sylvan meditation undisturbed;
As on the pavement of a Gothic church
Walks a lone Monk, when service hath expired, 445
In peace and silence. But if e'er was heard,--
Heard, though unseen,--a devious traveller,
Retiring or approaching from afar
With speed and echoes loud of trampling hoofs
From the hard floor reverberated, then 450
It was Angelica [R] thundering through the woods
Upon her palfrey, or that gentle maid
Erminia, [S] fugitive as fair as she.
Sometimes methought I saw a pair of knights
Joust underneath the trees, that as in storm 455
Rocked high above their heads; anon, the din
Of boisterous merriment, and music's roar,
In sudden proclamation, burst from haunt
Of Satyrs in some viewless glade, with dance
Rejoicing o'er a female in the midst, 460
A mortal beauty, their unhappy thrall.
The width of those huge forests, unto me
A novel scene, did often in this way
Master my fancy while I wandered on
With that revered companion. And sometimes--465
When to a convent in a meadow green,
By a brook-side, we came, a roofless pile,
And not by reverential touch of Time
Dismantled, but by violence abrupt--
In spite of those heart-bracing colloquies, 470
In spite of real fervour, and of that
Less genuine and wrought up within myself--
I could not but bewail a wrong so harsh,
And for the Matin-bell to sound no more
Grieved, and the twilight taper, and the cross 475
High on the topmost pinnacle, a sign
(How welcome to the weary traveller's eyes!)
Of hospitality and peaceful rest.
And when the partner of those varied walks
Pointed upon occasion to the site 480
Of Romorentin, home of ancient kings, [T]
To the imperial edifice of Blois, [U]
Or to that rural castle, name now slipped
From my remembrance, where a lady lodged, [V]
By the first Francis wooed, and bound to him 485
In chains of mutual passion, from the tower,
As a tradition of the country tells,
Practised to commune with her royal knight
By cressets and love-beacons, intercourse
'Twixt her high-seated residence and his 490
Far off at Chambord on the plain beneath; [W]
Even here, though less than with the peaceful house
Religious, 'mid those frequent monuments
Of Kings, their vices and their better deeds,
Imagination, potent to inflame 495
At times with virtuous wrath and noble scorn,
Did also often mitigate the force
Of civic prejudice, the bigotry,
So call it, of a youthful patriot's mind;
And on these spots with many gleams I looked 500
Of chivalrous delight. Yet not the less,
Hatred of absolute rule, where will of one
Is law for all, and of that barren pride
In them who, by immunities unjust,
Between the sovereign and the people stand, 505
His helper and not theirs, laid stronger hold
Daily upon me, mixed with pity too
And love; for where hope is, there love will be
For the abject multitude. And when we chanced
One day to meet a hunger-bitten girl, 510
Who crept along fitting her languid gait
Unto a heifer's motion, by a cord
Tied to her arm, and picking thus from the lane
Its sustenance, while the girl with pallid hands
Was busy knitting in a heartless mood 515
Of solitude, and at the sight my friend
In agitation said, "'Tis against 'that'
That we are fighting," I with him believed
That a benignant spirit was abroad
Which might not be withstood, that poverty 520
Abject as this would in a little time
Be found no more, that we should see the earth
Unthwarted in her wish to recompense
The meek, the lowly, patient child of toil,
All institutes for ever blotted out 525
That legalised exclusion, empty pomp
Abolished, sensual state and cruel power,
Whether by edict of the one or few;
And finally, as sum and crown of all,
Should see the people having a strong hand 530
In framing their own laws; whence better days
To all mankind. But, these things set apart,
Was not this single confidence enough
To animate the mind that ever turned
A thought to human welfare? That henceforth 535
Captivity by mandate without law
Should cease; and open accusation lead
To sentence in the hearing of the world,
And open punishment, if not the air
Be free to breathe in, and the heart of man 540
Dread nothing. From this height I shall not stoop
To humbler matter that detained us oft
In thought or conversation, public acts,
And public persons, and emotions wrought
Within the breast, as ever-varying winds 545
Of record or report swept over us;
But I might here, instead, repeat a tale, [X]
Told by my Patriot friend, of sad events,
That prove to what low depth had struck the roots,
How widely spread the boughs, of that old tree 550
Which, as a deadly mischief, and a foul
And black dishonour, France was weary of.
Oh, happy time of youthful lovers, (thus
The story might begin). Oh, balmy time,
In which a love-knot, on a lady's brow, 555
Is fairer than the fairest star in Heaven! [Y]
So might--and with that prelude _did_ begin
The record; and, in faithful verse, was given
The doleful sequel.
But our little bark
On a strong river boldly hath been launched; 560
And from the driving current should we turn
To loiter wilfully within a creek,
Howe'er attractive, Fellow voyager!
Would'st thou not chide? Yet deem not my pains lost:
For Vaudracour and Julia (so were named 565
The ill-fated pair) in that plain tale will draw
Tears from the hearts of others, when their own
Shall beat no more. Thou, also, there may'st read,
At leisure, how the enamoured youth was driven,
By public power abased, to fatal crime, 570
Nature's rebellion against monstrous law;
How, between heart and heart, oppression thrust
Her mandates, severing whom true love had joined,
Harassing both; until he sank and pressed
The couch his fate had made for him; supine, 575
Save when the stings of viperous remorse,
Trying their strength, enforced him to start up,
Aghast and prayerless. Into a deep wood
He fled, to shun the haunts of human kind;
There dwelt, weakened in spirit more and more; 580
Nor could the voice of Freedom, which through France
Full speedily resounded, public hope,
Or personal memory of his own worst wrongs,
Rouse him; but, hidden in those gloomy shades,
His days he wasted,--an imbecile mind. [Z] 585
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
[Footnote A: This must either mean a year from the time at which he took
his degree at Cambridge, or it is inaccurate as to date. He graduated in
January 1791, and left Brighton for Paris in November 1791. In London he
only spent four months, the February, March, April, and May of 1791.
Then followed the Welsh tour with Jones, and his return to Cambridge in
September 1791.--Ed.]
[Footnote B: With Jones in the previous year, 1790.--Ed.]
[Footnote C: Orléans.--Ed.]
[Footnote D: The Champ de Mars is in the west, the Rue du Faubourg St.
Antoine (the old suburb of St. Antony) in the east, Montmartre in the
north, and the dome of St. Geneviève, commonly called the Panthéon, in
the south of Paris.--Ed.]
[Footnote E: The clergy, noblesse, and the 'tiers état' met at Notre
Dame on the 4th May 1789. On the following day, at Versailles, the
'tiers état' assumed the title of the 'National Assembly'--constituting
themselves the sovereign power--and invited others to join them. The
club of the Jacobins was instituted the same year. It leased for itself
the hall of the Jacobins' convent: hence the name.--Ed.]
[Footnote F: The Palais Royal, built by Cardinal Richelieu in 1636,
presented by Louis XIV. to his brother, the Duke of Orléans, and
thereafter the property of the house of Orléans (hence the name). The
"arcades" referred to were removed in 1830, and the brilliant 'Galerie
d'Orléans' built in their place.--Ed.]
[Footnote G: On the 14th July 1789, the Bastille was taken, and
destroyed by the Revolutionists. The stones were used, for the most
part, in the construction of the Pont de la Concorde.--Ed.]
[Footnote H: Charles Lebrun, Court painter to Louis XIV. of France
(1619-1690)--Ed.]
[Footnote I: The Republican general, Michel Beaupuy. See p. 302
[Footnote N below], and the note upon him by Mons. Emile Legouis of
Lyons, in the appendix [Note VII] to this volume, p. 401.--Ed.]
[Footnote K: Carra and Gorsas were journalist deputies in the first
year of the French Republic. Gorsas was the first of the deputies who
died on the scaffold. Carlyle thus refers to them, and to the "hundred
other names forgotten now," in his 'French Revolution' (vol. iii. book
i. chap. 7):
"The convention is getting chosen--really in a decisive spirit. Some
two hundred of our best Legislators may be re-elected, the Mountain
bodily. Robespierre, with Mayor Pétion, Buzot, Curate Grègoire and
some threescore Old Constituents; though we men had only _thirty
voices._ All these and along with them friends long known to the
Revolutionary fame: Camille Desmoulins, though he stutters in speech,
Manuel Tallein and Company; Journalists Gorsas, Carra, Mersier, Louvet
of _Faubias_; Clootz, Speaker of Mankind, Collet d'Herbois, tearing a
passion to rags; Fahre d'Egalantine Speculative Pamphleteer; Legendre,
the solid Butcher; nay Marat though rural France can hardly believe
it, or even believe there is a Marat, except in print." Ed.]
[Footnote L: Many of the old French Noblesse, and other supporters of
Monarchy, fled across the Rhine, and with thousands of emigrés formed a
special Legion, which co-operated with the German army under the Emperor
Leopold and the King of Prussia.--Ed.]
[Footnote M: Compare book vi. l. 345, etc.--Ed.]
[Footnote N: Beaupuy. See p. 297 [Footnote I, above]:
"Save only one, hereafter to be named," [Line 132]
and the note on Beaupuy, in the appendix [Note VII] to this volume, p.
401.--Ed.]
[Footnote O: Compare Wordsworth's poem 'Dion', in volume vi. of this
edition.--Ed.]
[Footnote P: When Plato visited Syracuse, in the reign of Dionysius,
Dion became his disciple, and induced Dionysius to invite Plato a second
time to Syracuse. But neither Plato nor Dion could succeed in their
efforts to influence and elevate Dionysius. Dion withdrew to Athens, and
lived in close intimacy with Plato, and with Speusippus. The latter
urged him to return, and deliver Sicily from the tyrant Dionysius, who
had become unpopular in the island. Dion got some of the Syracusan
exiles in Greece to join him, and "sailed from Zacynthus," with two
merchant ships, and about 800 troops. He took Syracuse, and became
dictator of the district. But--as was the case with the tyrants of the
French Revolution who took the place of those of the old regime (record
later on in 'The Prelude')--the Syracusans found that they had only
exchanged one form of rigour for another. It is thus that Plutarch
refers to the occurrence.
"Many statesmen and philosophers assisted him (_i. e._ Dion); "as for
instance, Eudemus, the Cyprian, on whose death Aristotle wrote his
dialogue of the Soul, and Timonides the Leucadian."
(See Plutarch's 'Dion'.) Timonides wrote an account of Dion's campaign
in Sicily in certain letters to Speusippus, which are referred to both
by Plutarch and by Diogenes Laertius,--Ed.]
[Footnote Q: See the previous note [Footnote P directly above].--Ed.]
[Footnote R: See the 'Orlando Furioso' of Ariosto, canto i.:
'La donna il palafreno à dietro volta,
E per la selva à tutta briglia il caccia;
Ne per la rara più, che per la folta,
La più sicura e miglior via procaccia.
The lady turned her palfrey round,
And through the forest drove him on amain;
Nor did she choose the glade before the thickest wood,
Riding the safest ever, and the better way.'
Ed.]
[Footnote S: See the 'Gerusalemme Liberata' of Tasso, canto vi. Erminia
is the heroine of 'Jerusalem Delivered'. An account of her flight occurs
at the opening of the seventh canto.--Ed.]
[Footnote T:
"_Rivus Romentini_, petite ville du Blaisois, et capitale de la
Sologne, aujourd'hui sous-préfecture du départ. de Loir-et-Cher."
It was taken in 1356 and in 1429 by the English, in 1562 by the
Catholics, in 1567 by the Calvinists, and in 1589 by the Royalists.
"Henri IV. l'érigea en comté pour sa maîtresse Charlotte des Essarts,
1560. François I. y rendit un édit célèbre qui attribuait aux prélats
la connaissance du crime d'hérésie, et la répression des assemblées
illicites."
('Dictionnaire Historique de la France', par Ludovic Lalaune. Paris,
1872.)--Ed.]
[Footnote U: Blois,
"Louis XII., qui était né à Blois, y séjourna souvent, et
reconstruisit complétement le château, où la cour habita fréquemment
au XVI'e. siècle."
('Dict. Histor. de la France', Lalaune.) The town is full of historical
reminiscences of Louis XII., Francis I., Henry III., and Catherine and
Mary de Medici. Wordsworth went from Orleans to Blois, in the spring of
1792.--Ed.]
[Footnote V: Claude, the daughter of Louis XII.--Ed.]
[Footnote W: Chambord;
"célèbre château du Blaisois (Loir-et-Cher), construit par Francois
I., sur l'emplacement d'une maison de plaisance des comtes de Blois.
Donné par Louis XV. à son beau-père Stanislas, puis au Maréchal de
Saxe, il revint ensuit à la couronne; et en 1777 Louis XVI. en accorda
la jouissance à la famille de Polignac."
(Lalaune.)
A national subscription was got up in the 'twenties, under Charles X.,
to present the château to the posthumous son of the Duc de Berry, who
afterwards became known as the Comte de Chambord, or Henri V.--Ed.]
[Footnote X: The tale of 'Vaudracour and Julia'. (Mr. Carter, 1850.)]
[Footnote Y: The previous four lines are the opening ones of the poem
'Vaudracour and Julia'. (See p. 24.)--Ed.]
[Footnote Z: The last five lines are almost a reproduction of the
concluding five in 'Vaudracour and Julia'.--Ed.]
* * * * *
BOOK TENTH
RESIDENCE IN FRANCE--'continued'