YOUTH.
Convent life.--Its influence upon Jane.--Jane leaves the convent.--Her
attachment to one of the nuns.--Jane partakes of the Lord's
Supper.--Preparations for the solemnity.--Jane's delight in
meditation.--Departure from the convent.--Jane goes to live with her
grandmother.--Character of the latter.--Jane's intellectual
progress.--Her father's delight.--Jane learns to engrave.--Her mother
impatient for her return.--The visit to Madame De Boismorel.--Remarks
of servants.--Appearance of Madame De Boismorel.--Her reception of the
visitors.--Madame De Boismorel's volubility.--Jane's dignified
rejoinders.--Jane's indignation.--She visits Versailles.--Jane's
disgust at palace life.--She resorts to the gardens.--Characteristic
remark.--Jane's meditations.--Jane returns home.--Her manner of
reading.--Jane devotes herself to domestic duties.--She goes to
market.--Jane's aptitude for domestic duties.--From the study to the
kitchen.--Domestic education.--Dissolute lives of the Catholic
clergy.--New emotions.--Insolence of the aristocracy.--Jane's
indignation.--New acquaintances.--Jane's contempt for their ignorance
and pride.--A noble but illiterate lady.--Deference paid to her.--Habits
of reflection.
The influence of those intense emotions which were excited in the
bosom of Jane by the scenes which she witnessed in her childhood in
the nunnery were never effaced from her imaginative mind. Nothing can
be conceived more strongly calculated to impress the feelings of a
romantic girl, than the poetic attractions which are thrown around the
Roman Catholic religion by nuns, and cloisters, and dimly-lighted
chapels, and faintly-burning tapers, and matins, and vespers, and
midnight dirges. Jane had just the spirit to be most deeply captivated
by such enchantments. She reveled in those imaginings which clustered
in the dim shades of the cloister, in an ecstasy of luxurious
enjoyment. The ordinary motives which influence young girls of her age
seem to have had no control over her. Her joys were most highly
intellectual and spiritual, and her aspirations were far above the
usual conceptions of childhood. She, for a time, became entirely
fascinated by the novel scenes around her, and surrendered her whole
soul to the dominion of the associations with which she was engrossed.
In subsequent years, by the energies of a vigorous philosophy, she
disenfranchised her intellect from these illusions, and, proceeding to
another extreme, wandered in the midst of the cheerless mazes of
unbelief; but her fancy retained the traces of these early impressions
until the hour of her death. Christianity, even when most heavily
encumbered with earthly corruption, is infinitely preferable to no
religion at all. Even papacy has never swayed so bloody a scepter as
infidelity.
Jane remained in the convent one year, and then, with deep regret,
left the nuns, to whom she had become extremely attached. With one of
the sisters, who was allied to the nobility, she formed a strong
friendship, which continued through life. For many years she kept up a
constant correspondence with this friend, and to this correspondence
she attributes, in a great degree, that facility in writing which
contributed so much to her subsequent celebrity. This letter-writing
is one of the best schools of composition, and the parent who is
emulous of the improvement of his children in that respect, will do
all in his power to encourage the constant use of the pen in these
familiar epistles. Thus the most important study, the study of the
power of expression, is converted into a pleasure, and is pursued with
an avidity which will infallibly secure success. It is a sad mistake
to frown upon such efforts as a waste of time.
While in the convent, she, for the first time, partook of the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Her spirit was most deeply impressed
and overawed by the sacredness of the ceremony. During several weeks
previous to her reception of this solemn ordinance, by solitude,
self-examination, and prayer, she endeavored to prepare herself for
that sacred engagement, which she deemed the pledge of her union to
God, and of her eternal felicity. When the hour arrived, her feelings
were so intensely excited that she wept convulsively, and she was
entirely incapable of walking to the altar. She was borne in the arms
of two of the nuns. This depth of emotion was entirely unaffected, and
secured for her the peculiar reverence of the sacred sisters.
That spirit of pensive reverie, so dangerous and yet so fascinating,
to which she loved to surrender herself, was peculiarly in harmony
with all the influences with which she was surrounded in the convent,
and constituted the very soul of the piety of its inmates. She was
encouraged by the commendations of all the sisters to deliver her mind
up to the dominion of these day-dreams, with whose intoxicating power
every heart is more or less familiar. She loved to retire to the
solitude of the cloisters, when the twilight was deepening into
darkness, and alone, with measured steps, to pace to and fro,
listening to the monotonous echoes of her own footfall, which alone
disturbed the solemn silence. At the tomb of a departed sister she
would often linger, and, indulging in those melancholy meditations
which had for her so many charms, long for her own departure to the
bosom of her heavenly Father, where she might enjoy that perfect
happiness for which, at times, her spirit glowed with such intense
aspirations.
At the close of the year Jane left the peaceful retreat where she had
enjoyed so much, and where she had received so many impressions never
to be effaced. Her parents, engrossed with care, were unable to pay
that attention to their child which her expanding mind required, and
she was sent to pass her thirteenth year with her paternal grandmother
and her aunt Angelieu. Her grandmother was a dignified lady of much
refinement of mind and gracefulness of demeanor, who laid great stress
upon all the courtesies of life and the elegances of manners and
address. Her aunt was gentle and warm-hearted, and her spirit was
deeply imbued with that humble and docile piety, which has so often
shone out with pure luster even through all the encumbrances of the
Roman Catholic Church. With them she spent a year, in a seclusion from
the world almost as entire as that which she found in the solitude of
the convent. An occasional visit to her parents, and to her old
friends the nuns, was all that interrupted the quiet routine of daily
duties. Books continued still her employment and her delight. Her
habits of reverie continued unbroken. Her lofty dreams gained a daily
increasing ascendency over her character.
She thus continued to dwell in the boundless regions of the intellect
and the affections. Even the most commonplace duties of life were
rendered attractive to her by investing them with a mysterious
connection with her own limitless being. Absorbed in her own thoughts,
ever communing with herself, with nature, with the Deity, as the
object of her highest sentiment and aspirations, though she did not
despise those of a more humble mental organization, she gave them not
a thought. The evening twilight of every fine day still found her at
her chamber window, admiring the glories of the setting sun, and
feeding her impassioned spirit with those visions of future splendor
and happiness which the scene appeared to reveal. She fancied she
could almost see the wings of angels gleaming in the purple sunlight.
Through those gorgeous avenues, where clouds were piled on golden
clouds, she imagined, far away, the mansions of the blessed. These
emotions glowing within her, gave themselves utterance in prayers
earnest and ardent, while the tears of irrepressible feeling filled
her eyes as she thought of that exalted Being, so worthy of her pure
and intensest homage.
The father of Jane was delighted with all these indications of a
marked and elevated character, and did all in his power to stimulate
her to greater zeal in her lofty studies and meditations. Jane became
his idol, and the more her imaginative mind became imbued with the
spirit of romantic aspirations, the better was he pleased. The ardor
of her zeal enabled her to succeed in every thing which she undertook.
Invincible industry and energy were united with these dreams. She was
ambitious of knowing every thing; and when her father placed in her
hands the _burin_, wishing to teach her to engrave, she immediately
acquired such skill as to astonish both of her parents. And she
afterward passed many pleasant hours in engraving, on highly-polished
plates of brass, beautiful emblems of flowers as tokens of affection
for her friends.
The mother of Jane, with far better judgment, endeavored to call back
her daughter from that unreal world in which she loved to dwell, and
to interest her in the practical duties of life. She began to be
impatient for her return home, that she might introduce her to those
household employments, the knowledge of which is of such unspeakable
importance to every lady. In this she was far from being unsuccessful;
for while Jane continued to dream in accordance with the encouragement
of her father, she also cordially recognized the good sense of her
mother's counsels, and held herself ever in readiness to co-operate
with her in all her plans.
[Illustration: THE VISIT.]
A little incident which took place at this time strikingly illustrates
the reflective maturity which her character had already acquired.
Before the French Revolution, the haughty demeanor of the nobility of
France assumed such an aspect as an American, at the present day, can
but feebly conceive. One morning, the grandmother of Jane, a woman of
dignity and cultivated mind, took her to the house of Madame De
Boismorel, a lady of noble rank, whose children she had partly
educated. It was a great event, and Jane was dressed with the utmost
care to visit the aristocratic mansion. The aspiring girl, with no
disposition to come down to the level of those beneath her, and with
still less willingness to do homage to those above her, was entirely
unconscious of the mortifying condescension with which she was to be
received. The porter at the door saluted Madame Phlippon with
politeness, and all the servants whom she met in the hall addressed
her with civility. She replied to each with courtesy and with dignity.
The grandmother was proud of her grand-daughter, and the servants paid
the young lady many compliments. The instinctive pride of Jane took
instant alarm. She felt that _servants_ had no right to presume to pay
_her_ compliments--that they were thus assuming that she was upon
their level. Alas! for poor human nature. All love to ascend. Few
are willing to favor equality by stepping down. A tall footman
announced them at the door of the magnificent saloon. All the
furnishing and arrangements of this aristocratic apartment were
calculated to dazzle the eye and bewilder the mind of one unaccustomed
to such splendor. Madame De Boismorel, dressed with the most
ostentatious display of wealth, was seated upon an ottoman, in stately
dignity, employing her fingers with fancy needle-work. Her face was
thickly covered with rouge, and, as her guests were announced, she
raised her eyes from her embroidery, and fixing a cold and unfeeling
glance upon them, without rising to receive them, or even making the
slightest inclination of her body, in a very patronizing and
condescending tone said to the grandmother,
"Ah! _Miss_ Phlippon, good morning to you!"
Jane, who was far from pleased with her reception in the hall, was
exceedingly displeased with her reception in the saloon. The pride of
the Roman maiden rose in her bosom, and indignantly she exclaimed to
herself, "So my grandmother is called _Miss_ in this house!"
"I am very glad to see you," continued Madame De Boismorel; "and who
is this fine girl? your grand-daughter, I suppose? She will make a
very pretty woman. Come here, my dear. Ah! I see she is a little
bashful. How old is your grand-daughter, Miss Phlippon? Her complexion
is rather brown, to be sure, but her skin is clear, and will grow
fairer in a few years. She is quite a woman already."
Thus she rattled on for some time, waiting for no answers. At length,
turning again to Jane, who had hardly ventured to raise her eyes from
the floor, she said, "What a beautiful hand you have got. That hand
must be a lucky one. Did you ever venture in a lottery my dear?"
"Never, madam," replied Jane, promptly. "I am not fond of gaming."
"What an admirable voice!" exclaimed the lady. "So sweet and yet so
full-toned! But how grave she is! Pray, my dear, are you not a little
of a devotee?"
"I know my duty to God," replied Jane, "and I endeavor to fulfill it."
"That's a good girl," the noble lady rejoined. "You wish to take the
veil, do you not?"
"I do not know what may be my destination, neither am I at present
anxious to conjecture it."
"How very sententious!" Madame De Boismorel replied. "Your
grand-daughter reads a great deal, does she not, Miss Phlippon?"
"Yes, madam, reading is her greatest delight."
"Ay, ay," rejoined the lady; "I see how it is. But have a care that
she does not turn author. That would be a pity indeed."
During this conversation the cheeks of Jane were flushed with wounded
pride, and her heart throbbed most violently. She felt indignant and
degraded, and was exceedingly impatient to escape from the humiliating
visit. Conscious that she was, in spirit, in no respect inferior to
the maidens of Greece and Rome who had so engrossed her admiration,
she as instinctively recoiled from the arrogance of the haughty
occupant of the parlor as she had repelled the affected equality of
the servants in the hall.
A short time after this she was taken to pass a week at the luxurious
abodes of Maria Antoinette. Versailles was in itself a city of palaces
and of courtiers, where all that could dazzle the eye in regal pomp
and princely voluptuousness was concentered. Most girls of her age
would have been enchanted and bewildered by this display of royal
grandeur. Jane was permitted to witness, and partially to share, all
the pomp of luxuriously-spread tables, and presentations, and court
balls, and illuminations, and the gilded equipages of embassadors and
princes. But this maiden, just emerging from the period of childhood
and the seclusion of the cloister, undazzled by all this brilliance,
looked sadly on the scene with the condemning eye of a philosopher.
The servility of the courtiers excited her contempt. She contrasted
the boundless profusion and extravagance which filled these palaces
with the absence of comfort in the dwellings of the over-taxed poor,
and pondered deeply the value of that regal despotism, which starved
the millions to pander to the dissolute indulgence of the few. Her
personal pride was also severely stung by perceiving that her own
attractions, mental and physical, were entirely overlooked by the
crowds which were bowing before the shrines of rank and power. She
soon became weary of the painful spectacle. Disgusted with the
frivolity of the living, she sought solace for her wounded feelings in
companionship with the illustrious dead. She chose the gardens for her
resort, and, lingering around the statues which embellished these
scenes of almost fairy enchantment, surrendered herself to the luxury
of those oft-indulged dreams, which lured her thoughts away from the
trivialities around her to heroic character and brilliant exploits.
"How do you enjoy your visit, my daughter?" inquired her mother.
"I shall be glad when it is ended," was the characteristic reply,
"else, in a few more days, I shall so detest all the persons I see
that I shall not know what to do with my hatred."
"Why, what harm have these persons done you, my child?"
"They make me feel injustice and look upon absurdity," replied this
philosopher of thirteen.
Thus early did she commence her political meditations, and here were
planted the germs of that enthusiasm which subsequently nerved her to
such exertions for the disenthralment of the people, and the
establishment of republican power upon the ruin of the throne of the
Bourbons. She thought of the ancient republics, encircled by a halo of
visionary glory, and of the heroes and heroines who had been the
martyrs of liberty; or, to use her own energetic language, "I sighed
at the recollection of Athens, where I could have enjoyed the fine
arts without being annoyed at the sight of despotism. I was out of
all patience at being a French-woman. Enchanted with the golden period
of the Grecian republic, I passed over the storms by which it had been
agitated. I forgot the exile of Aristides, the death of Socrates, and
the condemnation of Phocion. I little thought that Heaven reserved me
to be a witness of similar errors, to profess the same principles, and
to participate in the glory of the same persecutions."
Soon after Jane had entered her fourteenth year, she left her
grandmother's and returned to her parental home. Her father, though
far from opulence, was equally removed from poverty, and, without
difficulty, provided his family with a frugal competence. Jane now
pursued her studies and her limitless reading with unabated ardor. Her
mind, demanding reality and truth as basis for thought, in the
developments of character as revealed in biography, in the rise and
fall of empires as portrayed in history, in the facts of science, and
in the principles of mental and physical philosophy, found its
congenial aliment. She accustomed herself to read with her pen in her
hand, taking copious abstracts of facts and sentiments which
particularly interested her. Not having a large library of her own,
many of the books which she read were borrowed, and she carefully
extracted from them and treasured in her commonplace book those
passages which particularly interested her, that she might read them
again and again. With these abstracts and extracts there were freely
intermingled her own reflections, and thus all that she read was
carefully stored up in her own mind and became a portion of her own
intellectual being.
Jane's mother, conscious of the importance to her child of a knowledge
of domestic duties, took her to the market to obtain meat and
vegetables, and occasionally placed upon her the responsibility of
most of the family purchases; and yet the unaffected, queenly dignity
with which the imaginative girl yielded herself to these most useful
yet prosaic avocations was such, that when she entered the market, the
fruit-women hastened to serve her before the other customers. The
first comers, instead of being offended by this neglect, stepped
aside, struck by those indescribable indications of superiority which
ever gave her such a resistless influence over other minds. It is
quite remarkable that Jane, apparently, never turned with repugnance
from these humble avocations of domestic life. It speaks most highly
in behalf of the intelligence and sound judgment of her mother, that
she was enabled thus successfully to allure her daughter from her
proud imaginings and her realms of romance to those unattractive
practical duties which our daily necessities demand. At one hour, this
ardent and impassioned maiden might have been seen in her little
chamber absorbed in studies of deepest research. The highest themes
which can elevate or engross the mind of man claimed her profound and
delighted reveries. The next hour she might be seen in the kitchen,
under the guidance of her placid and pious mother, receiving from her
judicious lips lessons upon frugality, and industry, and economy. The
white apron was bound around her waist, and her hands, which, but a
few moments before, were busy with the circles of the celestial globe,
were now occupied in preparing vegetables for dinner. There was thus
united in the character of Jane the appreciation of all that is
beautiful, chivalric, and sublime in the world of fact and the world
of imagination, and also domestic skill and practical common sense.
She was thus prepared to fascinate by the graces and elegances of a
refined and polished mind, and to create for herself, in the midst of
all the vicissitudes of life, a region of loveliness in which her
spirit could ever dwell; and, at the same time, she possessed that
sagacity and tact, and those habits of usefulness, which prepared her
to meet calmly all the changes of fortune, and over them all to
triumph. With that self-appreciation, the expression of which, with
her, was frankness rather than vanity, she subsequently writes, "This
mixture of serious studies, agreeable relaxations, and domestic cares,
was rendered pleasant by my mother's good management, and fitted me
for every thing. It seemed to forebode the vicissitudes of future
life, and enabled me to bear them. In every place I am at home. I can
prepare my own dinner with as much address as Philopoemen cut wood;
but no one seeing me thus engaged would think it an office in which I
ought to be employed."
Jane was thus prepared by Providence for that career which she
rendered so illustrious through her talents and her sufferings. At
this early period there were struggling in her bosom those very
emotions which soon after agitated every mind in France, and which
overthrew in chaotic ruin both the altar and the throne. The
dissolute lives of many of the Catholic clergy, and their indolence
and luxury, began to alarm her faith. The unceasing denunciations of
her father gave additional impulse to every such suggestion. She could
not but see that the pride and power of the state were sustained by
the superstitious terrors wielded by the Church. She could not be
blind to the trickery by which money was wrested from tortured
consciences, and from ignorance, imbecility, and dotage. She could not
but admire her mother's placid piety, neither could she conceal from
herself that her faith was feeling, her principles sentiments. Deeply
as her own feelings had been impressed in the convent, and much as she
loved the gentle sisters there, she sought in vain for a foundation
for the gigantic fabric of spiritual dominion towering above her. She
looked upon the gorgeous pomp of papal worship, with its gormandizing
pastors and its starving flocks, with its pageants to excite the sense
and to paralyze the mind, with its friars and monks loitering in sloth
and uselessness, and often in the grossest dissipation, and her reason
gradually began to condemn it as a gigantic superstition for the
enthrallment of mankind. Still, the influence of Christian sentiments,
like a guardian angel, ever hovered around her, and when her
bewildered mind was groping amid the labyrinths of unbelief, her
_heart_ still clung to all that is pure in Christian morals, and to
all that is consolatory in the hopes of immortality; and even when
benighted in the most painful atheistic doubts, _conscience_ became
her deity; its voice she most reverently obeyed.
She turned from the Church to the state. She saw the sons and the
daughters of aristocratic pride, glittering in gilded chariots, and
surrounded by insolent menials, sweep by her, through the Elysian
Fields, while she trod the dusty pathway. Her proud spirit revolted,
more and more, at the apparent injustice. She had studied the
organization of society. She was familiar with the modes of popular
oppression. She understood the operation of that system of taxes, so
ingeniously devised to sink the mass of the people in poverty and
degradation, that princes and nobles might revel in voluptuous
splendor. Indignation nerved her spirit as she reflected upon the
usurpation thus ostentatiously displayed. The seclusion in which she
lived encouraged deep musings upon these vast inequalities of life.
Piety had not taught her submission. Philosophy had not yet taught her
the impossibility of adjusting these allotments of our earthly state,
so as to distribute the gifts of fortune in accordance with merit.
Little, however, did the proud grandees imagine, as in courtly
splendor they swept by the plebeian maiden, enveloping her in the dust
of their chariots, that her voice would yet aid to upheave their
castles from their foundations, and whelm the monarchy and the
aristocracy of France in one common ruin.
At this time circumstances brought her in contact with several ladies
connected with noble families. The ignorance of these ladies, their
pride, their arrogance, excited in Jane's mind deep contempt. She
could not but feel her own immeasurable superiority over them, and yet
she perceived with indignation that the accident of birth invested
them with a factitious dignity, which enabled them to look down upon
her with condescension. A lady of noble birth, who had lost fortune
and friends through the fraud and dissipation of those connected with
her, came to board for a short time in her father's family. This lady
was forty years of age, insufferably proud of her pedigree, and in her
manners stiff and repulsive. She was exceedingly illiterate and
uninformed, being unable to write a line with correctness, and having
no knowledge beyond that which may be picked up in the ball-room and
the theater. There was nothing in her character to win esteem. She was
trying, by a law-suit, to recover a portion of her lost fortune. Jane
wrote petitions for her, and letters, and sometimes went with her to
make interest with persons whose influence would be important. She
perceived that, notwithstanding her deficiency in every personal
quality to inspire esteem or love, she was treated, in consequence of
her birth, with the most marked deference. Whenever she mentioned the
names of her high-born ancestry--and those names were ever upon her
lips--she was listened to with the greatest respect. Jane contrasted
the reception which this illiterate descendant of nobility enjoyed
with the reception which her grandmother encountered in the visit to
Madame De Boismorel, and it appeared to her that the world was
exceedingly unjust, and that the institutions of society were highly
absurd. Thus was her mind training for activity in the arena of
revolution. She was pondering deeply all the abuses of society. She
had become enamored of the republican liberty of antiquity. She was
ready to embrace with enthusiasm any hopes of change. All the games
and amusements of girlhood appeared to her frivolous, as, day after
day, her whole mental powers were engrossed by these profound
contemplations, and by aspirations for the elevation of herself and of
mankind.