If our visit to Saint-Cyr had been paid in the year 1689, we might have
been in time for a rehearsal of “Esther,” or even (thrilling thought!)
for the famous “fifth” performance, where Madame de Sévigné sat between
Madame de Bagnols and the Maréchal de Bellefonds, in “the second bench
behind the Duchesses,” and showed her appreciation by an absorbed
attention and “certaines louanges sourdes et bien placées” which had
their reward. For the King was so gratified that he actually came and
spoke to her. “Madame, I am told you like it.” “Sire, what I feel is
beyond expression.” “Said his Majesty to me: ‘Racine is very clever.’
Said I to him: ‘Indeed, Sire, he is very clever, but these young people
are very clever, too.’” And off she goes for the torchlight drive to
Paris, thinking less, one suspects, of Racine and the “very clever young
people” who acted his piece, than of her own clever self, and the triumph
she had scored over her friends, who were merely fashionable or pretty.
Alas! Dates are stubborn things, and the date of Marie Jeanne’s arrival
at Saint-Cyr (1690) precludes all possibility of her having been (for
instance) the “youngest of the Israelites” on this occasion, and peeping
out from behind the curtains to see that brilliant audience. There were
many people in France who, if they had been questioned about the matter,
would have said it was just as well for herself. For it was not the
sturdy good sense of the Curé of Versailles, alone, that was now awake to
the danger of turning the heads of the young actresses; almost everybody
who gave any thought to the matter saw how much justice there was in his
blunt criticism that this was the way to train up theatrical “stars,” not
“novices.” The fact that Saint-Cyr did not primarily set itself to train
up “novices,” but rather good wives and mothers, lessened in no way the
force of M. Hébert’s strictures. And Madame de Maintenon was not slow to
perceive her mistake, and to repair it energetically.
It happened, accordingly, that it was into a very quiet Saint-Cyr—a
very dull Saint-Cyr, according to the girls, who had lived through the
excitement of the “Esther” performances of the year before—that Marie
Jeanne found herself. Now, one day was exactly like another, and anybody
who knew the time-tables could tell, exactly, what every little girl in
the place was doing at a given hour.
That makes it all the easier for us, who have left Marie Jeanne and her
companions, the Rouges, at their morning lessons, and must now come
back to finish the day with them. The classes are nearly ended now, and
there is a general, and not unpleasant feeling, that it is getting near
dinner-time.
But before going to dine there is something to be done. A little girl
must examine her conscience “to see in what she may have offended God
during the morning, to ask His pardon, and to form the resolution of
doing better, with His help, during the rest of the day.” The work she
has offered to Him, when she awoke in the morning, is now examined by
her, before she hands it in, so to speak; and the faults and blemishes
are, if not repaired, at least apologised for. “Most particularly does
she examine herself to see if she has fallen into the principal fault
from which she has undertaken to rid herself.” At Saint-Cyr, nobody is
considered too young to be allowed to forget the responsibility she has,
as between her own soul and God.
Dinner-hour is twelve o’clock; and again, as at breakfast, a little girl
is expected to really enjoy her food, and every care is taken to have
it both appetizing and abundant. It is instructive, in this regard, to
find Madame de Maintenon taking the Superior to task when an occasional
retrenchment is attempted. In 1696, she wrote to Madame du Peron:
“Madame, I have always forgotten to ask you why you continue to give rye
bread to the children at a time when wheat is not dear. It is well for
them to learn by their own experience the ups and downs of life, and they
ought to take their share in the nation’s reverses. But they must go
back to their ordinary régime when there is nothing to prevent it. The
tendency of communities is to retrench in the matter of food rather than
in things that show.” Again speaking to Madame de Glapion, she returns to
the subject, giving her a lesson in true economy, which not nuns alone,
but all housewives, might read with profit. It would appear that the nuns
had not only been pushing their spirit of saving (in what concerned the
girls) to the extreme, but that the work-mistresses had allowed a certain
spirit of commercialism to creep into their direction of the needlework
classes. “Are your girls sempstresses?” she asks, angrily. “Is it for
that the King has entrusted them to you?” It is far better for them
to learn to turn their hand to all kinds of sewing and mending—family
sewing one might call it—than to be expert mantua-makers. She protests
against the “economy” which savours of meanness and stupidity. “Indeed,
ma sœur, when the big girls have worn their dresses more than a year, it
is too much to expect the same dresses to last as long again with the
little ones. The same remark applies to ever so many other things, where
‘economy’ has been pushed to such an extreme that I don’t know where you
get material for mending. This is what it comes to: you keep mending,
and darning, and patching, continually, without reflecting, that if, on
the one hand, you save something, you waste so much silk, and thread and
time, on the other, that there is really nothing gained.” With these
liberal sentiments on the part of its foundress, we may expect to find
the “table” at Saint-Cyr abundant and excellent. It is true it had not
a great name for hospitality to strangers. “Be sure to take your dinner
before you go,” said Madame de Maintenon’s brother one day to Bourdalone,
who was to preach at Saint-Cyr. “Saint-Cyr is, in very truth, a House of
God. One eats not, neither does one drink.” “It is true,” said Madame
de Maintenon, gaily, “our ‘fort’ is education, and our ‘faible’ is
hospitality.” But, it is only fair to Saint-Cyr to add that what it saved
on its guests, it spent very profitably on its inmates. To one guest it
was hospitable, at all events—the little Duchess of Burgundy. Would you
like to know what she had for dinner one day she spent there? Lobster
soup (it was a fast day), eggs, “sur le plat,” baked sole, gooseberry
jelly, cream cakes, brown and white bread, and fresh butter. It sounds
appetizing.
Dinner was followed by recreation; and to be a “reasonable” little girl,
a little girl after Madame de Maintenon’s own heart, one had to put as
much good will into one’s recreation as into anything else. She loved to
see her girls run about, and dance, and play, and help their companions
to enjoy themselves. But a strange thing had been reported to her. When
they were in the garden, nobody could get them to move; and when they
were in the class-rooms, they were always complaining of having to sit
still so long. “Everything in its own place, and the garden was the place
to run about.”
Such a charming garden, and park, as Saint-Cyr possessed—designed
by the great Mansard, and with the King himself as sponsor for its
poetically-named groves and alleys: Allée de Réflexions; Allée Solitaire;
Allée du Cœur; Cabinet de Recueillement, and Cabinet Solitaire. If it
were not the Comte d’Haussonvilles from whom I draw this curious piece of
information, I should have inevitably credited Mademoiselle de Scudéry
with the choice of these names. They seem so utterly unlike what we
would expect from Louis XIV. One fancies Madame de Maintenon must have
only accepted them with a sort of resigned amusement. Certainly she had
no intention of allowing the names to justify themselves; for, instead
of the sentimental meditation which they seemed to suggest, she was all
for filling these groves and alleys with the gay laughter and games of
healthy and happy little girls.
In her system of education, recreation played a very important part—in
the first place for its hygienic value. “Let the children run about in
the open air as much as possible,” she is always preaching to her nuns,
“nothing will help them so much to grow tall and strong.” But, more
important still, at no time more frequently than during recreation does a
girl get an opportunity of sacrificing her own inclinations in order to
give pleasure to others—and this is a lesson no woman can learn too early
for her own happiness, if for nothing else. Moreover, proficiency in
games of skill was important from a social point of view. Everybody—from
the Royal Family down—played those games, and a girl would feel herself
at a disadvantage afterwards if she had not attained some proficiency in
them. Games like “I love my love” had, according to Madame de Maintenon,
the combined merits of making a girl quick-witted, and giving her
subject for reflection. It seems to me that Madame de Maintenon showed
an even greater amount of commonsense than usual in the answer she gave
a nun, who wished to know whether she approved of the little ones making
rag-dolls at recreation, in the two-fold design of making them handy and
amusing them. “Anything is better than keeping them unoccupied,” is her
reply; “but you will succeed better in making them handy, by employing
them at something genuinely useful. Little girls,” continues this keen
student of girl nature, “usually love to be working, and you cannot
make them happier than by giving them something useful to do. Show them
how to do this right, and you are not only amusing them, but training
them.” I wish every mother would take that lesson to heart. A little
girl of three or four usually develops all of a sudden a great taste for
sweeping, and baking, and washing (washing, particularly). Now, instead
of sending her out to play, a wise mother will seize the opportunity
of showing the little one how to do these things right. I saw the
prettiest sight the other day; it was a laundry lesson to a tiny girl of
three-and-a-half. You never saw such a happy little girl as the pupil; no
game ever invented could hold half the interest for her, and I am bound
to say that she displayed more aptitude than many a poor girl who came
to the work after her ’teens. For my part, I am convinced that sewing,
and sweeping, and washing, are far better instruments for hand-and-eye
training than paper-folding, and mixing and modelling dough into cakes
and scones, while quite as interesting to children as modelling in clay,
has the educational advantage which anything woven into the genuine web
of life has over what is extraneous to it. And here I may be allowed to
remark that much of the educational unrest, so keenly diagnosed by Dr.
Starkie, is due to the fact that parents, the first and natural teachers,
have in these days a tendency to turn over their children, body and soul
to a professional class—shirking their own duties. Everything nowadays,
is supposed to be taught at school; and the only part parents take in
their children’s education is to criticise the teachers, and grumble at
the results of the system. If parents did their own share, things would
be more satisfactory. And I include among the parents’ share the duty of
teaching cooking, etc., and training the willing little hands to turn
themselves to useful account in the busy family life around them.
But we have got far away from Marie Jeanne and the “Rouges” of Saint-Cyr,
who, after a jolly recreation in the park, are trooping into their
class-room for the two o’clock “instruction,” which as often as not,
Madame de Maintenon gave herself.
What did she talk about at these “instructions”? “Of everything under
the sun,” one is tempted to exclaim at first, when one turns over
the list of subjects drawn up by Madame de Berval. Books were rare
at Saint-Cyr, especially after the “Reform” of 1691, and it was from
these “instructions” that the girls laid in their provision of general
information. “Do not accustom them to a great diversity of reading; the
seven or eight books which are in use in your house would do them for all
their lives, if they only read for edification. Curiosity is dangerous
and insatiable.” But there are books for which she makes an exception:
“Try to make them love Saint Francis de Sales; his books are solid and
show one how to attain the greatest perfection, with the utmost courtesy
and refinement.” As for herself, one always feels that the “Introduction
à la Vie Dévote” was never long out of her hands; and she comes to her
girls with some of its chapters fresh in her memory. If to understand the
“pedagogy” of Saint-Cyr, one must have studied Fénélon’s “Education des
Filles,” to understand the whole spirit of the institution, the union of
“Religion and Commonsense,” on which it was founded, one must re-read
Saint Francis de Sales. Sometimes, especially for the bigger girls, the
“Instruction” began with a reading from the “Introduction.” We find an
interesting example in an “Instruction à la Classe Bleue” of March, 1712.
Madame de Maintenon interrupted the reading to ask Mademoiselle du Mesnil
what she understood by the _good-humoured_ and _generous_ humility of
which St. Francis de Sales spoke. “I believe,” said the young lady,
“that, in this case, the _good-humour_ would consist in not allowing
oneself to be discouraged by the faults, of which one’s humility forced
one to convict oneself; and the _generosity_ in setting oneself, with
all the courage and goodwill possible, to correct them.” Madame was
delighted with the answer, and went on to point out to the girls the
perfection and solidity of the Spirit of Saint Francis de Sales, “his
straightforwardness, gentleness, and the attractive way he had of leading
souls to God.” “Do you know him well, this Saint, my dear children?”
It appears they did, and Mademoiselle de Conflans proceeds to show
her knowledge (and a fine literary taste, too, it seems to me) in the
quotation she chooses from him, at Madame de Maintenon’s request. It is
from that admirable chapter on “the manner of practising true poverty
in the midst of riches” (Part III., Chapter XV.), and Mademoiselle de
Conflans quotes it almost literally: “Tell me, are not the gardeners
of great princes more concerned to cultivate and beautify the gardens
they have in charge, than if they were their own? And why is that?
Because, doubtless, they look on those gardens as belonging to the kings
and princes, with whom they wish to gain favour by their services.
My Philothea, the possessions we have are not ours.” (At this point,
Mademoiselle de Conflans ceases to quote but paraphrases admirably.)
“They are but given to us by God, to be managed for His glory, for
our salvation, and for the good of our neighbour. As long as these
ends are kept in view, we please God by looking well after our worldly
possessions....”
“Suppose, Mademoiselle,” continues Madame, “then that you were married
(she taught them, as we shall see presently, not to be afraid to mention
the word marriage at Saint-Cyr), and that you had plenty of money,
what would you do?” “I should feed and clothe my children well,” says
Mademoiselle (who had not studied her Francis de Sales for nothing); “I
should pay my debts; I should help my poor neighbours; I should take care
of people who were ashamed to ask assistance; and I should visit and
assist the sick poor in the hospitals.” “All that is excellent,” comments
Madame, approvingly, “but among all these different kinds of charity,
preference is to be given to that exercised towards your own poor tenants
and poor relations. But if you met with some financial reverses, would
it be right to borrow money to keep up your charities?” Mademoiselle
de Chaunac gives it as her opinion that it would. “If you really think
it would be right to borrow money to keep up one’s charities you are
very much mistaken. One’s first duty is towards one’s own children and
servants.”
That is good sense and justice, and the religion that was taught in
Saint-Cyr was never separated from one or the other. “Make them see
that true piety consists in the fulfilment of one’s duties; let them
learn those of a wife and of a mother, their obligations towards their
servants, the edification they owe to their neighbours, and what sort of
a life they can and ought to lead in the world.” She was never tired,
when talking to the girls, of contrasting true devotion with wrong-headed
“voteenism.” She defined the latter by its manifestations: leaving the
Blessed Sacrament to go to pray before a statue; leaving one’s class to
say extra prayers; putting one’s head against the wall, for fear of
allowing one’s devotion to evaporate, and being quite annoyed if one is
interrupted, for something quite necessary; waiting an hour outside the
confessional for “contrition” to fall from heaven, and then saying you
don’t feel like going to confession, for you have not the proper sorrow
for your sins; spending a lot of money on ornaments for the chapel and
leaving your sisters in want; employing at prayer much more time than
is marked out, and thereby neglecting the duties of your charge. “True
piety, ‘devotion in the spirit of Saint François de Sales,’” as she calls
it somewhere, “is, on the contrary, solid, simple, good-humoured, sweet,
and free, consisting rather in innocence of life than in austerities and
frequent retreats. When an educated woman misses vespers to stay with her
sick husband, everybody will approve; when she holds the principle that
we must honour our father and mother, however bad they may be, nobody
will laugh; when she maintains that it is better for a woman to rear her
children well, and train her servants, than to pass the whole morning in
her oratory, people will easily accommodate themselves to that religion,
and she will make it loved and respected.”
To prepare her girls for that exact fulfilment of duties which, according
to her (and Saint Francis), is the best sign of true piety, she adopted
two great means. The first was to train them to an exact observance of
present duties. She was always preaching to them the honour and glory of
work well done. It is a matter of pride to be able to sweep, and dust,
and mend _well_, and, far from being ashamed of doing these things, a
girl ought to be proud to be seen by everybody at them. But what of a
girl who does not care in the least how her work is done, provided she
gets through it some way or other? Madame de Maintenon has an ugly name
for such little girls, and she does not hesitate to apply it: Coward!
There was surely a terrible sting in the word, for girls of noble
birth, with a long tradition of soldierly honour in their families. One
fancies the lash of it made them turn to their sweeping, and dusting,
and polishing with more zeal than the fear of punishment would have
done. She likes her girls to remember they are noble, provided they show
themselves worthy of their birth. “In the world, nobility is recognised
by its true politeness; it loves to give pleasure, to spare trouble, to
relieve pain. If one of you were forced to take a position with some
individual, and could not bring yourself to do it, preferring to spend
the whole day working to earn the necessaries of life, I could not blame
her. If another received a proposal of marriage from a man of low birth,
and she answered me, ‘I cannot overcome the disinclination I feel to it,’
I would pity her for refusing a match which might make her happy, but
I should not find it strange, for these are inclinations common to the
nobility. If I should hear a girl say, ‘I would rather a thousand times
see my brother dead than hear that he had run away from the enemy, and
is a coward’—a noble heart spoke there, and I feel the same as you. If
some of you said, ‘I would rather wear homespun all my life than receive
presents,’ I should say, ‘these are girls who feel their nobility, and
are true to it.’” In the meantime, they can prove their nobility in no
way better than the care they take to fulfil their daily duties exactly.
In interesting their sense of honour, Madame de Maintenon shows her
knowledge of girl nature, grafted on a good stock.
For the future, she looks forward, picturing vividly the life that awaits
them. What matter if the picture be not very gay? It is well to face the
truth, and teach her girls to be prepared for it. Most of them will
marry; she hopes so, at all events, and in some cases goes out of her
way to provide them with husbands. “What Saint-Cyr wants,” she says on
one occasion, “is sons-in-law.” To all of them she repeats the advice
she gave a girl, on leaving: “Either marry, or become a nun; don’t be an
old maid.” She was more angry than ever her nuns remembered having seen
her, one day she heard that they would not mention the word “marriage,”
and that when they came to it in the Catechism, they passed it over.
“What! a Sacrament, instituted by Jesus Christ, which He has honoured
by His presence, the obligations of which are detailed by His apostles,
and must be taught by you to your girls, cannot be named! That is what
turns into ridicule the education given in convents. There is far more
immodesty in this affectation than there is in talking of what is really
innocent. When they have passed through matrimony, they will find there
is nothing to laugh at in it. You must accustom them to speak of it very
seriously, even sadly; for I believe it is the state of life in which one
experiences the most tribulations, even in the happiest marriage.”
She herself speaks of it to the girls often, and seriously—and, if the
truth must be told, too sadly. It was not quite fair to take her own
experience as typical. Shall I be accused of a frightful heresy, too, if
I judge her teaching that a woman should yield her taste and her judgment
in all things to a husband (no matter how absurd and fanatical he may be)
as extremely unwholesome?
The needlework lesson which followed the “Instruction” was considered
among the most important of the day’s programme. “Try to give the girls
a taste for work,” is a recommendation which is always recurring in
Madame de Maintenon’s letters. Nor was it only for its direct practical
application that she valued it for her girls. She wanted them, it is
true, to be able to turn their hands to anything: “to pass from new to
old, from fine to coarse, from dresses to underwear, caps and coifs.”
But she knew, long before Lady Henry Somerset, the extraordinary comfort
there is in the use of the hands. In a wonderfully suggestive article by
Maude Egerton King in the “Vineyard,” Lady Henry Somerset’s discovery
is recorded: “Who has not heard of Lady Henry Somerset and the help
she has discovered for poor women drunkards in the use of their hands?
She tells us how domestic grief brings desire for forgetting, and how
this is most easily bought in poisonous drink—poor substitute, indeed,
for the keen interest of handwork and the consolation found in its
conquest of things.” “There was comfort in carding the wool, solace
in the spinning-wheel, decision in the exacting shuttle as it flew to
escape the batten and reed.” Madame de Maintenon had tasted in many
hours of spirit weariness the solace of the busy hand: “nothing is more
necessary for our sex than the love of work; it calms the passions, it
occupies the mind, and filling up the time pleasantly, leaves one no
leisure for evil thoughts. What is a woman to do who cannot bear to stay
at home, or find pleasure in her household employments, or interest in
a bit of needlework. What can she do but seek it at the theatre, or
the card-table?” No wonder that next to piety, and reason, she values
needlework as an instrument of education.
There is a singing lesson yet to be gone through, and a catechism lesson,
before the supper and recreation, night prayers and examination of
conscience which end the day at Saint-Cyr. Whether the girls have a voice
or not, she likes them to join the singing-class. “Even if they cannot
sing, they will know something about it, and take pleasure in it,” she
tells the “Vertes” on one occasion, and goes on to impress them with the
necessity of letting slip no opportunity of learning anything likely to
be useful. “Look at me,” she says, “who found no talent so useful at
Court as to be able to do hair well!”
At the Catechism Classes she likes the girls to question one another, but
she had no patience with budding casuists, who made difficulties to show
their own cleverness. Did she scold the little Duchess of Burgundy who,
one day, doing Catechist to the “Bleues,” on being asked, “Where is the
Valley of Jehosaphat?” covered her own ignorance by the scorn she poured
on the questioner? “That’s a sensible question, indeed, Mademoiselle;
and you have great need of knowing it in order to get to Heaven.” I do
not think so. With Fénélon (whose precept in this particular was so
much better than his practice) she held that women have not the brains
for the subtleties of Theology or Philosophy. “Women only know things
by halves” (here she repeats Fénélon’s very words), “and the little
they know renders them proud, disdainful, talkative, and disgusted with
common things.” “I would much prefer to see your girl occupied with your
house-steward’s accounts than with the disputes of the Theologians,”
Fénélon had said, and Madame de Maintenon (especially after the Quietist
troubles, when even the “Rouges” talked of nothing else but “pure love,”
“holy indifference,” “simplicity,” and all the other jargon of Madame
Guyon’s letters) took the lesson to heart.
And now to conclude. In a letter to the “Dames de Saint Louis” of
February, 1706, she sums up the whole aim of the education of Saint-Cyr,
and nothing gives a more faithful picture of its ideal than her words:—
“Let all your instructions, conversations, reprimands, punishments,
rewards, relaxations, be employed to make your girls virtuous, pure,
modest, discreet, silent, reliable, kind, just, generous, lovers of
honour, of good faith and probity, giving pleasure in all that is
possible, hurting no one’s feelings, bearing peace everywhere, never
repeating aught but what will please and reconcile. Thirteen years are
not too long, my dear sisters, to train them up, and form them to so many
good things.”
Thirteen years are certainly not too long—nor a whole life!
Two Schoolgirl Diarists of the Eighteenth Century
I.—HÉLÈNE MASSALSKI
(_Paris 1771—1778_)
In the rather demure little company of girls—Irish, German, Italian,
English, and French—whom it has been my pleasant task to gather together,
what on earth has naughty Hélène Massalski to do? And what good purpose
could one hope to serve by reviving, for twentieth century Irish girls,
and their mothers and teachers, the mischievous pranks and schoolgirl
frolics of a little Polish maiden in her eighteenth century French
convent? All I can say now is that Hélène Massalski _will_ not be kept
away. “Here she comes,” with her scribbled diary, like Galuppi, “with his
old music,” and here’s all the good it brings:—
“What they lived once thus at Venice, where the merchants were
the kings,”
or at least so they lived in a fashionable Parisian convent of the
eighteenth century. Here we have (presented from a perfectly different
point of view from that from which we studied our other little girls’
school lives) a picture of the education, which produced the exquisite
and distinguished type of womanhood, represented by the “Grandes Dames”
and great Salon-holders of the ancient régime. Poor little girls! Not
a few of those who played “hunt the stag” through the spacious gardens
of l’Abbaye-aux-Bois, or were formed to “le bon ton et le bel usage” in
the society of Madame de Rochechouart, were to hold their last “Salon”
soon enough in the filthy prisons of the Revolution. But gracious,
high-hearted, and spirited to the end, one sees them do honour to
something in their convent training, which makes it seem to us a thing
very noble and fine indeed.
It is not in a schoolgirl’s diary—commenced when Hélène was ten years
old—that one can expect to find a philosophical presentation of the aims
and ideals of the education offered to the daughters of the noblest
families of France by the Bernardines of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. When the
little Polish Princess was scribbling her notes (and spoiling her
hand, as she naïvely confesses) she had no other idea than to copy the
big girls who had all succumbed to the fashionable craze for writing
“Mémoires.” But she has managed to give us a very real and convincing
picture of her school, and of her mistresses, and there is not a little
educational wisdom to be garnered from her shrewd comments on her
experiences.
I imagine my readers would not be particularly interested in the sequence
of events in Polish politics—feuds between the two great rival Polish
houses of Radiwill and Massalski; the election to the Throne of Poland
of the Massalski candidate, Stanislaus Augustus, with Russian help;
the sudden _volte-face_ of the Massalski’s towards nationalism; the
Confederation of Bar, and its éclatant defeat under Count Oginski—which
sent into exile in Paris, in the year of grace 1771, the Prince-Bishop
(Massalski) of Wilna. For us the Prince-Bishop is merely of importance as
the uncle of Hélène, and the date of his exile is only of note as that of
the year our little friend first went to school. She herself will tell us
her first day’s experiences:—
“I first came to the Abbaye-aux-Bois on a Thursday. My uncle’s friend,
Madame Geoffrin, brought me to the Abbess’s parlour, a beautiful room all
in white and gold. Madame de Rochechouart came to the parlour with Mère
Quatre-Temps, the latter being mistress of the Lower Division where I was
to be.
“They told me I was very pretty, and had pretty hair; but I made no
answer, because I had forgotten all the French I knew on the journey ...
though I understood everything that was said to me. They said they were
going to take me inside to dress me in the school uniform, and show me
to Madame Geoffrin afterwards. They opened the wicket of the Grille,
and passed me through it, for I was very small. They brought me to the
Abbess’s room then, and Soeur Crinoire put the uniform on me; but when I
saw it was black I began to cry bitterly; however, when they fastened the
blue ribbons on me, I was somewhat consoled. Then they gave me sweets,
and told me I should have some every day.
“The big girls who were on duty in the Abbess’s apartments came to have a
look at me, and I could hear them say: ‘Poor youngster; she cannot speak
any French; we must get her to talk Polish to see what sort of a language
it is.’ But I knew they would only make fun of me, so I wouldn’t say
a word. Then they said that I came from a country very far away called
Poland, and somebody said, ‘Oh! how funny it must feel to be a Pole!’”
Hélène was not long until she made a friend. Mademoiselle de Montmorency,
the daughter of one of the noblest houses of France, took the little
stranger on her knee, and asked her wouldn’t she like to have her for
her “little mother.” “I made signs that I should,” says Hélène, “for
I made up my mind not to speak until I should be able to talk like
everybody else.” The other girls wanted to know did Hélène think Mlle de
Montmorency pretty, and the little Pole put her hand to her eyes, “as
much as to say that she had lovely eyes.”
After being brought to the parlour to have her uniform inspected by her
uncle and Madame Geoffrin, Hélène was sent off by Madame de Rochechouart,
the mistress of schools, in care of Mademoiselle de Montmorency, to
make the acquaintance of her future companions. She gives a spirited
description of her reception at recreation, when the girls crowded round
her, anxious to see what sort of a strange being the little foreigner
was who could not speak French. At supper she made up with another
little girl called Mademoiselle de Choiseul, and even ventured on a word
or two in reply to something the latter said. At that, little Choiseul
clapped her hands and shouted: “Oh! the little Polish girl can speak
French!” Mlle de Choiseul told her that at roll-call she would have to
ask for recreation for all the Pensionnaires and give a party. Hélène
religiously complied with these recommendations, and her inauguration at
l’Abbaye-aux-Bois was complete.
She was not long making herself at home—even too much at home, if one may
judge from some of her escapades.
There were three divisions in the school—the “Blues,” the “Whites,”
and the “Reds.” The “Blues” were the little girls from seven to ten;
the “Whites” were the First Communion Class; and the “Reds” were the
big girls who were finishing their education. As these young girls all
belonged to the highest classes of society, and were destined to be
mistresses of great establishments, and to play a great and important
part in the social life of the time, their education had a very definite
objective, and one cannot but be impressed with the perfection with which
it was adapted to it. It was extremely practical on the one hand, and
on the other, laid great stress on the accomplishments most valued in
the circles in which the girls were to move. Extreme care was taken with
their dancing, their music, their drawing, and perhaps most of all with
their conversation, the art which the eighteenth century placed above
all others. They were early accustomed to good society, being often let
out to visit at great houses. We find Hélène out “three or four times a
week,” one carnival, at children’s balls given by Madame de la Vaupalière
and the Marquise du Châtelet, at another, out three times a week for
a whole month, to rehearse for the part of _Joas_ in _Athalie_ at the
Duchess of Mortemart’s. Royalty came to the school fêtes and school
balls, and the greatest ladies in Paris strove for invitations. Madame
de Rochechouart, the mistress of schools, had the habit of gathering
some of the girls, in whom she was most interested, into her room every
evening. “There,” says Hélène, “we read the newest books which could be
fittingly read by us—we talked of everything that interested Paris, for
the nuns spent so much of their time in the parlour, and we girls went
out so much, that we knew everything.... It seems to me that Madame de
Rochechouart and her sister had a distinction of manner all their own,
and a “tone” which we all caught—I mean those of us who visited them
much. Society ladies were astonished at the way we expressed ourselves,
Mademoiselle de Conflans in particular. There was a distinction about her
slightest remark.”
So much for their social training. For their domestic training there was
the admirable system of “Obédiences,” that is, a system by which the
principal duties of the great establishment were distributed among the
elder girls under the expert supervision of the choir nuns, and with
proper help from the lay-sisters. Future Duchesses and Countesses were
to be found in the “Lingerie” folding sheets and serviettes; in the
“Réfectoire” laying the cloth and setting the tables; in the “Sacristie”
mending altar-cloths and vestments; in the “Apothicairerie” making
poultices and mixing potions; in the “Cuisine” cooking or adding up
household accounts. And when these young girls became mistresses of great
houses themselves, their intimate knowledge of the practical working of
them thus acquired must have been of immense service to them.
It was to the “Blues” that Hélène first belonged, and she has been
thoughtful enough to copy out for us their “Timetable.” From which it
appears that they rose at seven in summer, and 7.30 in winter, and went
to bed all the year round at 9.30. They were in their places in the
class-room at 8, to be inspected by the mistress of the school, Madame
de Rochechouart, and studied and repeated their catechism until nine,
when they had breakfast. Mass was after breakfast, and they studied from
10 to 11. At 11 they had a music lesson, and at half-past a dancing
lesson. From 12 to 1 they had history and geography. At 1 they dined,
and recreation continued after dinner until 3 o’clock, when they went
back to the class-room for writing and arithmetic. From four to five they
had a dancing lesson (where they learned to dance those “farlanes” and
“montférines” in which Hélène was so proficient.) At five “goûter” and
recreation until six. At six they practised the harp or clavecin, and at
seven they had supper. On Sundays and fêtes they came to the schoolroom
at 8 and studied the Gospel until 9. At 11 they had a sermon from one of
the chaplains, and at 4 o’clock vespers.
The best masters in Paris were engaged for these young girls. Molé and
Larive, the “Stars” of the Comédie-Française, taught them declamation
and reading aloud; Philippe, Noverre, and Dauberval, “premier danseurs”
at the “Opéra” taught them dancing. When they were ill, they had the
King’s own doctor called in to prescribe for them, and expense was never
considered in the question of their education.
Hélène sketches in a most comic way the three mistresses of the “Blues”
in her time: Madame de Montluc (in religion Mère Quatre-Temps),
“good-natured, quiet, careful, but far too fussy”; Madame de Montbourcher
(Mère Sainte Macaire), “good-natured, stupid, very ugly, and _dreadfully_
afraid of ghosts”; Madame de Fresnes (Mère Sainte Bathilde), “ugly,
good-natured, great at telling stories.”
The “Blues” were usually promoted to the “White” or First Communion
Class at ten, but Hélène’s tendency to get into scrapes kept her back a
whole year, even after her companion in mischief, Mlle de Choiseul, had
been promoted. Probably the nuns thought it better to separate these two
choice spirits for a while, even though Hélène knew at her finger tips
everything that was to be known of the Blues’ programme.
“I knew my Ancient History, the History of France, and my Mythology
very well; I knew by heart the whole poem of ‘La Religion’ and ‘La
Fontaine’s Fables,’ two cantos of ‘La Henriade,’ and the whole of the
Tragedy of Athalie, in which I had played Joas” (at private theatricals,
given by the young Duchess of Mortemart, one carnival). “I danced very
well, I could sing at sight, and played the harp and the clavecin a
little. But,” she continues plaintively, “the continual scrapes I got
into, owing in a good deal to my friendship for Mlle de Choiseul, kept
me back. I was so fond of her, that I would rather be in penance with
her than see her punished alone; it was the same with her, and whenever
she saw me punished, she would go away and do something, so as to get
into penance too. The day was not long enough for us to say to each other
all we had to say; and at night, as her room opened into mine, she would
come to me, or I would steal into her.” And nice pranks they planned
in these nocturnal visits! They found out that by putting a little oil
on the hinges they could open a door without making any noise. Having
opportunely unearthed a bottle of oil, they proceeded to make use of
their discovery to make a round of the house in their dressing-gowns, and
see what mischief they could do.
“Once we took a bottle of ink and poured it into the holy water font,
which is just inside the choir door. The nuns say matins at two o’clock
every morning, and as they know them off by heart, there is no light
but that of the sanctuary lamp which barely lights the holy water font.
They took the holy water, and never noticed what they were doing to
themselves. But daylight came before matins were ended, and when they
saw each other all daubed with ink, they took a fit of laughing, and the
office was interrupted. They suspected that this was a trick of some of
the girls, and they set up an inquiry the next day, but it was never
discovered who did it.”
The two young ladies were less fortunate on another occasion.
“The ropes of the bells, called the ‘Gondi,’ because they were blessed by
the Archbishop of Paris of the name, pass through a tribune behind the
Abbess’s Throne. We climbed up one night, and tied our handkerchiefs as
tightly as ever we could round the ropes. The novice whose duty it was to
ring for matins, began to pull, but the knots on the ropes stopped them,
and the bells did not move. She pulled and pulled, but it was all no use.
Some of the nuns, noticing that it was after matins time, and hearing no
bell, came down to see what was the matter. They saw the novice killing
herself pulling away at the ropes. Then they came to the conclusion that
there must be something the matter with the bells, and climbing the
tribune, they found the handkerchiefs. Unfortunately, our initials were
on them, H.M. and J.C.!”
I imagine it did not require these initials for the mistress of schools,
Madame de Rochechouart, to know who the culprits were. She was a woman
of great wisdom and discernment, full of tact and knowledge of human
nature, and exercised the happiest influence on her wild young charges.
A look from her was enough for Hélène, who was quite beyond the control
of her other mistresses, and she tells a funny story of herself running
back to the class-room on occasions, all in tears, “because Madame
de Rochechouart looked at me with her big eyes.” “You silly child,”
the others would say, “do you want her to make her eyes small on your
account?”
The little Princess, who has a very sure hand for “portraits,” has left
us one of “Madame de Rochechouart, sister of the late Duke of Mortemart,
now twenty-seven years of age. Tall, beautifully made, a pretty foot, a
delicate white hand, superb teeth and great dark eyes, grave and rather
proud-looking, but with an enchanting smile.” The little girl lost her
heart completely to this nun, and her name occurs on every page of these
childish mémoires—until the last pathetic page, all stained with tears
for the death of Madame de Rochechouart, so wonderfully told on it. “She
possesses the love and respect of all the pensionnaires; she is rather
severe, but perfectly just; we all adore her, and fear her; she is not
demonstrative, but a word from her has an incredible effect; she is taxed
with being proud and somewhat caustic towards her equals, but she is
full of humanity and kindness for her inferiors. She is very clever and
extremely well informed.”
Her method of dealing with her girls proves her qualities. She knew how
to appeal to the sentiment strongest in them, “Noblesse Oblige,” and made
them fear, above all things, to tarnish the lustre of their name by a
low or unworthy action. Two of her girls, whose acquaintance we made in
Hélène’s pages, show the effect of this teaching of hers in a remarkable
manner. One was little Choiseul, Hélène’s particular friend, who on
the occasion of a family scandal, acted with a strength and nobility of
character, of which one could hardly believe a girl of fourteen capable.
The other was Mlle de Montmorency, Hélène’s “petite maman,” whose death
at the age of fifteen is one of the most moving episodes in Hélène’s
journal.
Madame de Rochechouart knew how to discriminate between faults that were
the effects of girlish giddiness, mere ebullitions of youth, and those
that arose from, or were likely to end in permanent defects of character.
Thus the episodes of the ink and the bells were not very severely
punished by her; and the adventure with the scullery boy from the Conte
de Beaumanoir’s kitchen, which Hélène relates with much zest, was touched
off in such a way as to make the girls feel the ridicule of it. But when
she found out her girls in anything low, or underhand, or dishonourable,
she made them feel the full weight of her displeasure.
Her wisdom was shown in her conduct on the occasion of a “Revolution” in
which the girls indulged, with the object of getting a very unpopular
mistress removed from the “White” Class. This mistress, Madame de Saint
Jérôme, had been appointed by the Abbess, contrary to the advice of
Madame de Rochechouart, who knew how unsuitable she was for her charge,
and told the Abbess plainly that she could not be responsible for the
consequences if Madame de Saint Jérôme were confirmed in it. In spite
of these representations, Madame de Saint Jérôme was retained. Then
the hotheads, de Choiseul, de Mortemart, de Chauvigny, and, of course,
Hélène, formed a conspiracy to bring about Madame de Saint Jérôme’s
removal. “The wearing of the green” (whether in the shape of leaf, or
blade of grass, or ribbon) was to be the badge of the conspirators—and
the pass-word and answer thereto was to be, “I take you without green,”
and the showing of it. In fine, as Hélène would say herself, it was all
very well arranged.
The occasion for the outbreak was furnished by Madame de Saint Jérôme.
One recreation day two little girls began to squabble, and, I am sorry
to say, in spite of their aristocratic names, they even came to blows.
Madame de Saint Jérôme, without inquiring into the rights of the
matter, put all the blame on one of them, Mlle de Lastic, and on her
expostulating, got into a frightful temper, caught Mlle de Lastic by the
back of the neck, and threw her down so violently that her nose began to
bleed. Then there was a dreadful to-do among all the girls, and their
attitude was so threatening that Madame de Saint Jérôme left the school
in terror of her life. Then Mlle de Mortemart got up on a table and asked
all those who had the green to show it, and there was a universal show
of it. A council of war was then called, and it was decided to leave the
schoolroom in a body, seize the kitchen and store-rooms,[15] and starve
the nuns into submission.
They put this fine project into execution, after chasing the nuns they
met in the kitchen and cellars. But they took the precaution to keep a
lay-sister, and a young nun as hostages, the former with the view to
having somebody to cook their supper for them.
After a little it was determined to send two of their number (Hélène and
de Choiseul were subsequently chosen) with terms of peace to Madame de
Rochechouart. These were drawn up in a very formal document, and embraced
the following demands: (1), a general amnesty; (2), the withdrawal of
Madame de Saint Jérôme; (3), eight days’ recreation.
Hélène and her fellow ambassador met a group of very anxious nuns on
their way to Madame de Rochechouart. “They asked us: ‘Well, what are the
rebels doing?’ We told them that we were carrying their proposals to
Madame de Rochechouart.
“We went into her room, but she looked at us with so severe an air that
I got pale, and Choiseul, bold as she is, trembled. However, she handed
her the request. Madame de Rochechouart asked if the girls were in the
schoolroom. We said ‘No.’ ‘Then,’ said she, ‘I can listen to nothing from
them. You may go and bring your complaints to the Abbess, or anybody you
like, for I won’t have anything to do with it. You have taken the best
possible means of disgusting me for ever with such pupils, who are far
more suited to enlist in some army or other, than to acquire the modesty
and gentleness which are a woman’s greatest charm.’ We were in a dreadful
state; Mademoiselle de Choiseul, who had more courage than I, threw
herself at her feet and said that a word from Madame de Rochechouart
would always have for her the force of a sovereign command, and that she
had no doubt but that all the others felt the same in this matter; but
that, in an affair of honour one would rather die than seem to betray
or abandon one’s companions.’ ‘Well, then,’ said Madame de Rochechouart,
‘you may speak to whoever you like, for, for my part, I am no longer your
mistress.’”
They went thereupon to the Abbess, but with not much better result. The
Abbess, indeed, promised a general amnesty if the rebels should return,
but insisted on the retention of Madame de Saint Jérôme, a condition
which the “peace delegates” felt they could not accept.
They returned therefore to the rebels’ quarters with no very encouraging
news. But, for the present, what these warriors were thinking of most was
their supper. This, it seems, was a very gay affair, and was followed by
games until what should have been bed-time—but wasn’t on this occasion
for the good reason that there were no beds. It is true they gathered
some straw from the poultry yard, and offered to make a bed from it for
Madame Saint Sulplice, the young nun they held as a hostage, but she
refused it, and said they should put the little ones in it, as being
the more delicate. “We wrapped their heads round with napkins and clean
dusters and dish-cloths,” says Hélène, “for fear they might catch cold.”
The others spent the night as best they could, “partly in talking, and
partly in sleeping.”
The next day ended it. The nuns, as the girls learned afterwards, were
very much embarrassed, and to put an end to this intolerable state of
things, some of them even advocated calling in the watch. But Madame de
Rochechouart, with her usual good sense, pointed out that this would
be the very means of creating a scandal—the thing which it was their
best policy to avoid. She advocated sending for the mothers of the
ringleaders, and accordingly the Duchesses de Chatellon and de Mortemart
arrived on the scene, together with the Marquise du Châtelet and some
other ladies. They carried off their own daughters and nieces from the
rebels’ citadel, and the rest of the troop being thus left without
leaders, soon capitulated on the terms of peace brought them presently by
a lay sister. The message was: “The classes are open, it is ten o’clock,
and those who shall be back in their places before twelve shall have a
general amnesty for the past.”
They kept Madame de Saint Jérôme in her post a month longer, for the sake
of the principle of the thing, and then quietly removed her.
In spite of all the trouble Hélène gave Mère Quatre-Temps, one is glad
to find that they parted good friends when the time came for Hélène to be
promoted to the “Whites.” “I went and asked pardon of Mère Quatre-Temps,”
she says prettily, “for all the trouble I had caused her, and thanked
her for her kindness. She told me she was really sorry not to have such
intimate relations with me in future. She said, too, that although I had
often driven her nearly wild, I had moments when I made up to her for all
that. I kissed her.”
In effect, Hélène had her moments of goodness, and in order that we may
part with her on as good terms as Mère Quatre-Temps, I am going to show
her in one of them.
It was the night of her First Confession. “Sœur Bichon[16] had come to
see my nurse, and while Mademoiselle Gioul, my maid, was undressing me,
Sœur Bichon said to me that she recommended herself to my prayers (for
although I said them in common with the class downstairs, they made me
say them again before putting me to bed). I said to Sœur Bichon: ‘What
do you want me to ask God for you?’ She said: ‘Pray to Him to make my
soul as pure as yours is at this moment.’ I said then, aloud, at the
end of my prayers: ‘Oh! my God, grant to Sœur Bichon that her soul may
be as white as mine ought to be at my age, if I had profited by all the
good lessons that have been given me.’ My nurse was delighted with the
way I had arranged this prayer, and hugged me, as did Sœur Bichon and
Mademoiselle Gioul. When I was in bed, I asked was it a sin to pray for
la grise (a gray cat which, like Mère Quatre-Temps, sometimes suffered
from the attentions of Hélène and little Choiseul, if one had only space
to tell the tale). My nurse and Sœur Bichon said it would be, and that I
should not talk of la grise to the good God.
“Afterwards as I was not sleepy, Sœur Bichon came to my bed, and said
that if I died that night, I should go straight to Paradise. I asked her
what I should see in Paradise. And she said to me, ‘Picture to yourself,
dearie, that Paradise is a great big hall, all made of diamonds, rubies,
emeralds, and other precious stones. Le bon Dieu is sitting on a throne.
Jesus Christ is on His right hand, and the Blessed Virgin on His left,
the Holy Ghost is leaning over His shoulder, and all the Saints are
passing up and down before Him.’ While she was telling me this, I fell
asleep.”
And so we leave her, dreaming of Heaven, in her little white convent bed,
poor little Hélène Massalski.
II.—ANNA GREEN WINSLOW
(_Boston 1771—1773_)
In 1771, the very year little Hélène Massalski was passed through
the wicket of the grill of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, and dressed in her
pensionnaire’s uniform to begin her adventurous school career, a demure
little maiden in far off America sat her down to write _her_ diary
too. It is impossible to imagine a greater or more piquant contrast
than that between the little Catholic girl in her French convent, and
the little Puritan who was sent to her “Aunt Deming” in Boston by her
parents in Nova Scotia to be “finished” by Boston teachers. While Hélène
was “spoiling her hand” scribbling memoirs which nobody could read but
herself, and getting Mlle. de Choiseul to write her “copy-book” for
her so as to avoid trouble with M. Charme, her writing-master, little
Anna Green Winslow was recording in careful penmanship the events of
her Puritan day “for the edification of her ‘Hond. Mamma’” and her own
practice in “making letters even.” Poor little girl! one feels that
something more than the chill of the Boston winter has got into her frail
little body; and one wishes for something better than the warmth of
“Unkle Joshua’s” fire to cheer her on bitter days on her way from school.
For in truth she is a very likeable little person, this “Pilgrim’s
daughter,” and one feels that in a kindlier atmosphere she would have
blossomed into something very dear and sweet. Sometimes in the midst of
her notes of “Mr. Hunt’s” and “Mr. Beacon’s” sermons, one comes across
the most naïve confession of personal vanity, and one cannot help loving
her for it. It was all very well for Mr. Beacon to tell her that “true
beauty consisted in holiness”; and to show her “Hond. Mamma” that she had
been paying attention she even took the pains to copy his very words—his
“lastly” to his dear young friends: “Let me tell you, you’l never be
truly beautiful till you’re like the king’s daughter, all glorious
within, all the ornimints you can put on while your souls are unholy
make you the more like white sepulchres garnished without, but full of
deformyty within. You think me very unpolite, no doubt, to address
you in this manner, but I must go a little further and tell you, how
cource soever it may sound to your delicacy, that while you are without
holiness, your beauty is deformyty—you are all over black and defiled,
ugly and loathsome to all holy beings, the wrath of the great God lies
upon you, and if you die in this condition, you will be turned into hell,
with ugly devils, to eternity.” That might be so; but it did not deter a
certain little girl from “dressing all (even to loading) of her best” for
“Miss Soley’s constitation” (“a very genteel, well-regulated assembly,”
she informs her mamma). “I was dressed in my yellow coat, black bib and
apron, black feathers on my head, my past (_i.e._, paste) comb, and all
my past garnet marquesett and jet pins, together with my silver plume—my
loket, rings, black collar round my neck, black mitts, and two or three
yards of blue ribbon (black and blue is high taste), stripped tucker
and ruffels (not my best) and my silk shoes compleated my dress.” Nor
was there much consolation in the thought of “interior whiteness” on
occasions when there seemed danger of Aunt Deming making her wear “‘the
black hatt with the red Dominie.’ For the people will ask me what I have
got to sell as I go along the street if I do, or how the folk at New
Guinie do? Dear Mamma, you don’t know the fation here—I beg to look like
other folk. You don’t know what a stir would be made in Sudbury-street,
were I to make my appearance there in my red Dominie and black Hatt.”
In contrast with Hélène’s exciting experiences, little Anna Green’s
sedate goings to and fro to writing school to Master Holbrook, or
“dansing-school” to Master Turner, or sewing school to Madam Smith seem
very tame indeed. It is quite an adventure for her “to be overtaken
by a lady who was quite a stranger to her,” and to be accosted by her
with “how do you do, Miss?” “I answered her, but told her I had not the
pleasure of knowing her.” She then asked, “What is your name, Miss? I
believe you think it is a very strange question to ask, but have a mind
to know.” It turns out that the lady is an old friend of Nanny’s mother,
and sends her all kinds of affectionate messages, including one “to come
up and live on Jamaîcaplain,” the attraction being “a nice meeting-house,
and a charming minister, and all so cleaver.” Sometimes when there is
absolutely nothing to tell, Nanny copies out, “with her Aunt’s leave,”
something which pleased that good lady very much, “and which I hope
will please you, my Papa and Mamma.” It turns out to be a rather dull
joke wherein Mr. W., “who don’t set up for an Expositor of Scripture,
yet ventures to send Dr. Byles a short comment on 1 Cor. ix. 11[17] in
the shape of a dozen pounds of chocolate.” To which the Dr. returned the
following very pretty answer: “Dr. Byles returns respects to Mr. W. and
most heartily thanks him for his judicious practical Familie Expositor,
which is in Tast.” To do Nanny justice, this “joke” is more in the “tast”
of Aunt Doming than her own, for the little lady has a charming sense
of humour, and sometimes employs it very prettily even against herself.
She was subject on occasions to “egregious fits of laughterre,” and can
give the drollest description of some things that tickle her fancy. For
instance, a “heddus roll” which Mr. D., the barber, made for her. “This
famous roll is not made _wholly_ of a red _cow tail_, but is a mixture of
that and horsehair (very coarse) and a little human hair of yellow hue,
that I suppose was taken out of the back part of an old wig. But D. made
it all carded together and twisted up. When it first came home, aunt put
it on, and my new cap on it; she then took up her apron and measured me,
and from the roots of my hair on my forehead to the top of my notions, I
measured above an inch longer than I did downward from the roots of my
hair to the end of my chin. Nothing renders a young person more amiable
than virtue and modesty without the help of fals hair, red cow tail, or
Mr. D.”
Poor “Mr. D.” He does not seem to have been the beau idéal of barbers.
Here is a picture of him at work. “In the course of my peregrination, as
Aunt calls it, I happened into a house where D. was attending the lady
of the family. How long she was at his opperation I know not. I saw him
twist, and tug, and pick, and cut off whole locks of grey hair at a slice
(the lady telling him she would have no hair to dress the next time) for
the space of an hour and a half, when I left them, he seeming not to be
near done.”
She certainly needed her sense of humour, for nothing could be more
depressing than the company she was forced to keep. If she wasn’t ill
herself, “with a whitloe on my fourth finger, and something like one
on my middle finger,” and being ‘seasoned’ by Aunt Deming with Globe
Salts, she was visiting sick relations and neighbours. She goes to see
Aunt Storer, and “finds Unkle Storer so ill that he keeps chamber. As
I went down I call’d at Mrs. Whitwell’s and must tell you Mr. and Mrs.
Whitwell are both ill, Mrs. Whitwell with rheumatism.” Later on: “It has
been a very sickly time here, not one person that I know of but has been
under heavy colds (all laid up at Unkle Storer’s).” The climate seems
to have been abominable. Almost every entry deals with the weather, and
it is only well on in May that there is any mention of warmth. Even
in June we read: “All last week till Saterday very cold and rainy.” A
snowstorm keeps her from dining with “Unkle Joshua” on 6th December,
and another from Mrs. Whitwell’s on the 14th. Christmas Eve, 1771, was
“the coldest day we have had since I have been in New England,” and all
folk abroad “have to run to keep themselves warm.” The rain of Sunday
froze on Monday, so that “walking was so slippery and the air so cold
that Aunt choses to have me for her scoller these days.” February 13th
was “a bitter cold day.” February 18th, “bitter cold” again. On February
22nd the weather entry reads: “Since about the middle of December ult.
we have had till this week a series of cold and stormy weather—every
snowstorm (of which we have had abundance) except the first ended with
rain, by which means the snow was so hardened that strong gales at N.W.
soon turned it and all above ground to ice, which this day seven-night
was from one to three, four, and, they say, in some places five feet
thick, in the streets of this town. Last Saturday morning we had a
snowstorm come on, which continued till 4 o’clock, p.m., when it turned
to rain, since which we have had a warm air with many showers of rain,
one this morning a little before day, attended with thunder. The streets
have been very wet, the water running like rivers all this week, so that
I could not possibly go to school.”
In spite of the weather Anna and Aunt Deming go to “meeting” with great
frequency, sometimes favoured by kind neighbours like Mr. Soley and “Mr.
Wales” with seats in their chaise. Anna is always supposed to write
down the text and as much of the sermon as she can in her diary, and as
sometimes Aunt Deming puts in her pen, the effect is slightly like that
produced by the elder Mr. Weller’s letter to Sam. She likes Mr. Hunt’s
sermons best, though she does not “understand all he said about the
external and internal evidence” for the authenticity of the Bible. On an
occasion when Mr. Hunt preached on “The Decrees of God” Anna had “set
down some of his observations on a loose sheet of paper. But my Aunt says
that a Miss of 12 years’ old can’t possibly do justice to the nicest
subject in Divinity, and therefore had better not attempt a repetition
of particulars, that she finds lie (as may be easily concluded) somewhat
confused in my young mind. She also says that in her poor judgment, Mr.
Hunt discoursed soundly, as well as ingeniously, upon the subject, and
very much to her instruction and satisfaction.”
I am sorry to have to add that Anna was a dreadfully bigoted young
person, and would not keep Christmas, “as the Pope and his associates
have ordained.” Moreover, she has a horror of anything savouring of
“episcopacie.” She is properly contemptuous of Dr. Pemberton’s and Dr.
Cooper’s “gowns.” “In the form of episcopal cassocks we hear the Docts.
design to distinguish themselves from the inferior clergy by these
strange habits (at a time too when the good people of New England are
threatened with and dreading the coming of an episcopal bishop).” She
pokes irreverent fun at the doctors’ sleeves: “I don’t know whether one
sleeve would make a full-trimmed negligee as the fashion is at present,
though I can’t say but it might make one of the frugal sort, with but
scant trimming ... Aunt says when she saw Dr. P. roll up the pulpit
stairs, the figure of Parson Trulliber recorded by Mr. Fielding occurred
to her mind, and she was really sorry a congregational divine should, by
any instance, give her so unpleasing an idea.”
She had her politics, too, as well as her religious convictions, though
there are only slight indications in the diary of the storm that was
to burst so soon, and of which Boston was to be the centre. She speaks
incidentally of the famous “Boston Massacre” (1770), when the British
troops sent to Boston to enforce the Townshend Acts fired at and killed
several unarmed citizens (and, as Daniel Webster said, the Revolution
began,) as the “murder of the 5th March last.” She had an account of
the first anniversary celebrations of the Boston Massacre, “yesterday’s
publick performances and exhibitions” ready to send to her “hond. Mamma,”
“but Aunt says I need not write about ’em because no doubt there will be
printed accounts.” She could have wished to be there herself, but could
not, her face being swollen with a heavy cold. She knew James Lovell, the
famous Boston patriot, who delivered the Anniversary Address. “Master
Jimmy Lovell,” she calls him in another place. _A propos_ of a “very
beautiful white feather hat,” for the purchase of which she had long
been saving up “papa’s kind allowance,” we learn she is, “as we say, a
daughter of liberty. I chose to wear as much of our own manufactory as
possible.” In which respect she is very much in the “fation,” as she
dearly loves to be. “Daughters of liberty,” we read elsewhere, “held
spinning and weaving bees, and gathered in bands pledging themselves
to drink no tea till the obnoxious Revenue Act was repealed.” Young
unmarried girls joined in an association with the proud declaration,
“We, the daughters of those Patriots who have appeared for the public
interest, do now with pleasure engage with them in denying ourselves the
drinking of foreign tea.” When she went “a-visiting to Colonel Gridley’s
with Aunt, and had danced with Miss Polly Deming to the ‘musick of the
minuet’ sung by Miss Becky Gridley, the Colonel brought in the talk of
Whigs and Tories, and taught me the difference between them.”
But in reality one suspects she understood even less of Col. Gridley’s
political lecture than of Mr. Beacon’s sermon—and led her quiet life from
day to day without the slightest suspicion of the great events whose
shadows were thus cast before. She got through her day’s work—whether
it were “spinning 30 knots of linning yarn (partly), new-footing a pair
of stockings for Lucinda, reading a part of the pilgrim’s progress,
coppieing part of my text journal,” or, as on the 9th March, a
“piece-meal” day’s work, when she “sew’d on the bosom of unkle’s shirt,
mended two pair of gloves, mended for the wash two handkerchiefs (one
cambrick), sewed on half a border of a lawn apron of aunt’s, read part of
the xxist chapter of Exodus, and a story in the ‘Mother’s Gift,’” without
suspecting that anything more exciting was in store for her than the
“constitations” of which she has given us such a graphic picture.
Very dull, I am afraid, these gatherings would have seemed to Hélène
Massalski, accustomed to her brilliant school balls during the carnival,
when “they left aside their school uniforms, and the mothers vied with
each other in dressing their daughters,” or to her representations of
“Esther,” when their costumes were designed after those of the Comédie
Française, and Hélène, as Esther, wore a gown all white and silver,
sparkling with diamonds valued at over one hundred thousand crowns, lent
by the Duchesses de Mortemart, de Gramont, and de Choiseul. But little
Anna Green Winslow thought them perfectly delightful, and told her mamma
about them very prettily:—
“I told you I was going to a constitation with Miss Soley. I have now the
pleasure to give you the result, viz., a very genteel, well-regulated
assembly which we had at Mr. Soley’s last evening, Miss Soley being
mistress of the ceremony. Mrs. Soley desired me to assist Miss Hannah in
making out a list of guests, which I did some time since. I wrote all
the invitation cards. There was a large company assembled in a handsome,
large, upper room in the new end of the house. We had two fiddles, and I
had the honour to open the diversion of the evening in a minuet with Miss
Soley.... Our treat was nuts, raisins, cakes, wine, punch hot and cold,
all in great plenty. We had a very agreeable evening from five to ten
o’clock. For variety we woo’d a widow, hunted the whistle, threaded the
needle, and while the company was collecting, we diverted ourselves with
playing of pawns, no rudeness, mamma, I assure you.”
In contrast to Madame de Rochechouart, _grande dame_ to her exquisite
finger tips, grave, gracious, beautiful and intellectual, poor Aunt
Deming, with her laboured jokes about “Mr. Calf,” and her appreciation
of Dr. Byles, cuts a sorry figure. We feel genuine compassion for poor
Nanny, obliged to spend so much time with her. Nothing can better
illuminate “Aunt Deming’s” character than a letter of hers to her “dear
neice,” when her “dear neice” had left her to go home to her mother. She
begins by congratulating her on having had a less “troublesome journey”
than she (Aunt Deming) anticipated. “I was always unhappy in anticipating
trouble—it is my constitution, I believe—and when matters have been
better than my fears, I have never been so dutifully thankful as my
bountiful benefactor had a right to expect. This also, I believe, is the
constitution of all my fellow-race.”
After condoling with her “neice” on her indisposition as well as that
of Flavia and her mamma, she goes on to her own pet theme: “I’m at
too great a distance to render you the least service, and were I near,
too much out of health to—some part of the time—even speak to you. I
am seized with exceeding weakness at the very seat of life, and to a
greater degree than I ever before knew. Could I ride, it might help me,
but that is an exercise my income will not permit. I walk out whenever
I can. The day will surely come when I must quit this frail tabernacle,
and it may be soon—I certainly know I am not of importance enough in this
world for anyone to wish my stay—rather am I, and do I consider myself a
cumberground. However, I shall abide my appointed time, and I desire to
be found waiting for my change.”
No wonder it was a relief for a little girl to get out even to see Madam
Storer’s funeral, or to visit Elder Whitwell’s rheumatic wife, or to see
“my Unkle Ned, who has had the misfortune to break his legs.” She very
much enjoyed a “setting-up” visit she paid to “Aunt Suky” to see the
latter’s new baby; more, one suspects, for the opportunity it gave her of
“dressing up just as if I was to go to the ball,” than for the sake of
Nurse Eaton’s “tow-cakes,” which cost her a “pistoreen” in good money.
“I took care to eat them before I paid for them,” she remarks shrewdly.
She loves babies, one can see, and sends affectionate messages to her own
little baby brother. On one occasion he “has made an essay for a post
script to your letter, mamma. I must get him to read it to me when he
comes up, for two reasons, the one is because I may have the pleasure of
hearing his voice, the other because I don’t understand his characters. I
observe that he is mamma’s ‘Ducky Darling.’”
“Cousin Charles Storer” seems to have been interested in the little
girl’s reading. He lends her “Gulliver’s Travels abreviated,” which
“Aunt says I may read for the sake of perfecting myself in reading a
variety of composures.” With her “nihil obstat” Aunt Deming slips in
an incidental lesson on “literary history.” “She sais farther that the
piece was desin’d as a burlesque upon the times in which it was wrote,
and Martimas Scriblensis and Pope Dunciad were wrote with the same design
and as parts of the same work, tho’ wrote by three several hands.” Later
on, Aunt Storer lent her three of cousin Charles’ books to read, “viz.,
The puzzeling cap,[18] the female Oraters, and the History of Gaffer
too-shoes.” She got the “History of Joseph Andrews abreviated” for a New
Year’s Gift, and began “Sir Charles Grandison”—whether she ever finished
it or not. The works of Fielding and Samuel Richardson “abreviated” seem
to have been favourite books for children, and figure in booksellers’
lists of the period as suitable for the “Instruction and Amusement of all
good Boys and Girls,” together with “The Brother Gift, or the Naughty
Girl Reformed”; “The Sister Gift, or the Naughty Boy Reformed,” and “Mr.
Winlove’s Moral Lectures.”
Compared with Hélène, who read the best literature of the day, under
the careful eye of Madame de Rochechouart, and was saturated in the
masterpieces of Corneille and Racine from her theatrical triumphs, poor
Anna’s literary pabulum seems very thin stuff indeed.
In 1773, Anna’s parents came from Nova Scotia to live in Marshfield, and
their little daughter left Aunt Deming’s house to return to them. At this
date, the diary therefore comes to an end.
She lived to hear of some of the greatest battles of the War of the
Revolution, and must have been rather puzzled which side to pray for,
seeing her own family divided on the question. But soon she was beyond
all earthly troubles, for she died of consumption in 1779.
[Illustration]
PAMELA AT BELLECHASSE
The Schooldays of Lady Edward Fitzgerald
“Pale, pretty Pamela!” So charming a picture she makes, in her husband’s
letters to his mother, as she sits in the window by the garden of Kildare
Lodge, daintily stitching for her baby; or out in the garden (while _he_
sits in the window) “busy in her little American jacket planting sweet
pea and mignonette”; or in stately Leinster House, making for him a
point of light in its gloom, of comfort in its loneliness, with her baby
in her arms, “her sweet, pale, delicate face bending over it, and the
pretty look she gives it,” that our hearts are hers for all time. Even
the sordid story of the after years cannot alienate them from her. For
us, in Ireland, whatever France may have done with her during the hard
and pitiless “twenties” of the nineteenth century, she lives for ever,
set by her husband’s love in an atmosphere of eternal youth, of eternal
romance—lovely and pale, and sweet—Lord Edward’s girl-wife.
This is why, having come across, in the _Mémoires_ of her mother, Madame
de Genlis, an account of the education shared by Pamela with the Orléans
children at the Convent of Bellechasse, I felt convinced that my readers
would be grateful to me for setting the story of it down at the end of
this book I have gathered, not of hero-lays indeed, but of tales of
little girls’ school lives in many ages and many lands.
Apart altogether from our special interest in Pamela, as Lord Edward
Fitzgerald’s wife, it is true that Madame de Genlis is too important
a figure in the history of education to be passed over in silence.
Through Miss Edgeworth’s _Moral Tales_, in which it is impossible to
mistake her influence, her ideas have influenced middle-class education
in Ireland as far down as the present generation at least (as distinct
from the “rising” generation, which will doubtless be preserved from
them by the thoughtfulness of our Education Boards in prescribing Miss
Edgeworth’s works for examination purposes). In this connection it would
be extremely interesting to inquire how far the outlook of the Irish
Bourgeoisie, which gives such offence to Mr. Yeats, can be laid at the
charge of Madame de Genlis.
In herself, that good lady united two oddly dissimilar educational
traditions, that of Madame de Maintenon, and that of Jean Jacques
Rousseau. Rousseau, perhaps, more because he was the fashion, and Madame
de Maintenon by conscious selection. But there was one aspect of Madame
de Maintenon’s system, which Madame de Genlis was, unhappily, unable to
assimilate, because there was wanting in her own the deep and genuine
piety which gives such strength to Madame de Maintenon.
It was in 1777, when the little twin Orléans Princesses were tiny babies,
that Madame de Genlis (in accordance with a promise to their mother made
before their birth: that she should take charge of their education),
withdrew from her brilliant position as Court Lady at the Palais Royal,
to the seclusion of the Convent of Bellechasse. She does not omit to
point out what a sacrifice she was making, but then—what will she not do
for her dear Duke and Duchess?
If the truth must be told, the sacrifice was more apparent than real. It
is easy enough to gather from Madame’s own hints that her position at
the Palais Royal, where she had made many enemies, was not altogether
pleasant. Moreover, she was shrewd enough to see that in the new
career as “gouvernante” of these royal children, there was a chance of
distinction for a woman of her very real talents and intelligence which
could never be gained at Court.
Clever actress and dramatist that she was, she never took more pains with
her setting than on this occasion. She herself had drawn the plans “for
the charming pavilion in the midst of the convent garden,” where she
and her pupils were to live. Hers, too, of course, was the idea of the
vine-covered pergola which connected it with the convent. The ceremony
of installation was arranged, one may be sure, by her, though she passes
it off as a “gentillesse” of the community. “I felt nothing but joy
in entering this peaceable asylum where I was to exercise so sweet a
sovereignty: I reflected that I should be able to give myself up to my
real tastes, and I should be no longer exposed to the malice which had
caused me such pain.”
There was not very much “seclusion” for the first few days, at all
events. Everybody of her acquaintance, whether at the Palais Royal, or
out of it, had heard so much of the establishment at Bellechasse that
there was a rush to see it. Madame de Genlis, for all her “quiet” tastes,
had the greatest pleasure in the world showing them round. “Everyone was
enchanted with the place, which was really charming. I had in my room
a large alcove, of which my bed only occupied the half; from it, there
opened a passage, leading to the Princesses’ room, where a glass door
without a curtain enabled me to see from my own bed everything that was
going on. One of the rooms of the suite held in glass-cases my whole
natural history collection. This and my bureau were all I had brought
with me from the Palais Royal.” You will never guess why the “bureau” has
such importance until Madame tells you that “she was the first woman to
have a bureau,” and was very much criticised for it, though now it was
all the fashion.
In those Rousseau days one took much thought for one’s dairy, and Madame
de Genlis tells of one built by the Duke, and to which she had the
pleasure of leading a charming milk-maid, after having married her to the
young German gardener.
Rousseau and Madame de Maintenon are both in her mind when she tells
us of the economy with which she managed the establishment—“such a
remarkable economy that it has been much talked about,” she adds with
complacence. “My first principle was to make up my account every day, and
to know the price of things, and especially the quantities of food-stuffs
given out every day in the kitchen for the different meals.... I knew
exactly how much rice or vermicelli was needed for soup for four, eight,
twelve persons. I knew the exact quantities required of sugar, jam,
cream, oil, butter, milk, cheese, eggs, etc. I sent to the markets every
week a man I could trust: he inquired in great detail about the price of
all provisions, and brought me back the information in writing.” Details
like these, constantly occurring in the Letters of Madame de Maintenon to
her brother and young sister-in-law, gave Madame de Genlis the greatest
pleasure.
She goes on to tell of the “delicious life” she leads at Bellechasse.
She is relieved by her position from the “fag” of paying visits, but she
can receive them very much at her ease. Men were received, this being a
privilege of Princesses of the Blood Royal, but they had to leave at ten
o’clock.... But, like Bourdalone going to preach at Saint Cyr, it is to
be hoped that they took their dinner before they went, for, “to avoid
useless expense, I had decided that none of my friends should dine at
Bellechasse, except my husband, my brother, and my two sisters-in-law.”
And these dined here but rarely.
She had hardly been installed when she got permission for her mother, and
her two daughters to come and live with her, and we may feel sure that
she early cast about in her mind for a reasonable pretext for introducing
on the scene poor little Pamela, who was being brought up like a
fisherman’s child in a little village in England.
In the meantime something really important and remarkable happened. The
Duke came one evening to Bellechasse, and announced to Madame de Genlis
that he should have to provide immediately a “gouverneur” for the two
young Princes, whose manners were getting atrocious. He instanced the
little Duke of Valois complaining of having to “tambourine” too long at
his father’s door, and quoted a pun of the same little Prince, which was
certainly not in the style of a Salon of the period. Their father came to
consult Madame de Genlis on the choice of a “gouverneur.” She proposed
several, and each met with an objection. M. de Schomberg would make the
boys little pedants; the Chevalier de Durfort would pass on to them his
own faults of over-emphasis and exaggeration; Monsieur de Thiars was
too frivolous. “What about myself, then?” “Why not?” replied the Duke
seriously. “His air and tone struck me greatly. I saw the possibility of
something extraordinary and glorious, and I desired its realisation with
all my heart.” As a matter of fact, before the Duke left the matter was
settled, and Madame de Genlis had an honour and a title that no woman in
France ever had before. Now the Ladies of the Palais Royal would know
what was behind her retirement!
She was so much afraid of any _contretemps_, that she even arranged the
details before the Duke left. The boys’ tutors, M. de Bonnard and the
Abbé Guyot and M. Le Brun, were to be kept on, and one of them was to
escort the Princes from the Palais to Bellechasse every day at twelve,
and escort them home again to the Palais at ten o’clock at night. “A
country house was to be bought, in which we should spend eight months of
the year; and I was to have complete control of their education. Knowing
that I myself was to teach them history, mythology, literature, etc.,
which, together with the lessons I gave to the Princesses, would leave me
not a moment’s leisure, the Duke offered me 20,000 francs. My reply was
that no money could pay for such a charge, that only friendship could be
its recompense. He insisted. I positively refused. It is therefore quite
gratuitously that I have educated these Princes.”
The arrangement, as far as the boys went, was that they were to get up
at seven and have their Latin lesson, and religious instruction from
the Abbé; they were then to have an arithmetic class with M. Le Brun,
who was to bring them to Bellechasse at twelve. The Abbé and M. Le Brun
could stay there, or go away as they pleased until the dinner-hour, two
o’clock. “After dinner, I took complete charge of the boys until nine,
when the masters returned to supper and to bring the boys away. I asked
M. Le Brun to keep a detailed journal of the way the boys spent their
mornings, leaving a wide margin for my observations. I myself wrote the
first pages. These pages contained particular instructions for M. Le
Brun on the education of the Princes. M. Le Brun brought me this journal
every morning; I read it immediately; I scolded or praised, punished or
rewarded the boys, according to what I saw in it.”
She next gives a portrait of the Duke of Valois, the future Louis
Philippe, at the age of eight. It appears his want of application was
the most noticeable thing about him. “I commenced by making them read
history. M. le duc de Valois paid absolutely no attention. He stretched,
and yawned, and you can imagine my astonishment when I saw him sprawl
back on the sofa on which we were sitting and settle his feet on the
table! I put him in penance on the spot.”
It would appear that the young Prince bore no grudge when the reason
of the thing was explained to him. “He loved reasoning, as other
children like nursery-tales.” In spite of his “natural good sense,” it
seems, however, that he had a most unreasoning aversion to two of the
oddest things, dogs and the smell of vinegar. It was the business of
his “gouverneur” to rid him of these aversions, and this was happily
accomplished. Among his gifts was a most remarkable memory. “I flatter
myself that I have succeeded in developing and cultivating this gift of
nature.”
Languages were to be taught at Bellechasse, and as far as possible
by the direct method. The “second Valet de Chambre” was a German, who
not only played the piano very well, but understood the principles of
his native language thoroughly. It was he who taught the Duke German.
He had an Italian valet who was supposed to speak nothing but Italian
to his young master, and an English tutor, “who gave him lessons in my
own room.” But, and it is here that Madame de Genlis shows herself so
astonishingly modern, what about utilising their play hours, too, for
learning English by getting a little English-speaking child to play
with them? Mr. Forth, who is buying horses for the Duke in England,
receives the commission to look for one, and finds her in little,
nameless, five-year-old Pamela, who, after a short delay, is installed
at Bellechasse, and made to share the education of the Princes and
Princesses of the Blood Royal!
It had been arranged that the Duke should buy a country-house for the
children, and choice was made of Saint Leu, where they spent all the year
except the winter. “In the beautiful park I had little gardens made for
each of my pupils, which they dug and planted for themselves.” (So Pamela
knew something about her business when she set about planting her “sweet
pea and mignonette” in the garden at Kildare Lodge).
The children had a chemist and botanist among their teachers, a Monsieur
Alyon, who accompanied them in all their walks, made them pick flowers,
and taught them Botany. M. Alyon gave them, every summer too, a practical
course in Chemistry, at which Madame de Genlis made a point of being
present. A Pole, called Merys, who was very clever at black-and-white
drawing, and water-colours, and had executed many commissions for the
Duchess, was employed by Madame to prepare slides for an historical magic
lantern. Four different sets of slides were painted by him, from written
descriptions made by Madame, and in this attractive way the children
learned their Bible History, Ancient History, Roman History, and History
of China and Japan. The youngsters, we learn, took their turn week about
lecturing with the lantern. Can anything be more modern?
Except, indeed, it be the way they learned Geography! She tells us of
“a delightful game” she invented for her pupils. “I made them stage and
play out in the garden, or inside the Château, according to the subject,
the most celebrated voyages.” Everybody in the house, including Madame
herself, had a rôle in these representations. They had wooden horses
for the cavalcade; “the lovely river in the park represented the sea;
a number of pretty little boats were our fleets. We had a wardrobe of
suitable costumes. The best ‘Voyages’ we played were those of Vasco de
Gamma and Snelgrove.”
Another device she had for teaching them history was to stage historic
tableau. “I proposed the subjects, and M. Merys grouped the actors.”
Those who were not performing had to guess the subject, which would be
either historical or mythological. So successful were these “tableaux”
that Madame got permission to build a regular little theatre for her
children. It was so arranged that the back of the stage could open, if
one so wished, and show “a long alley of the garden, all illuminated and
adorned with garlands of flowers.” For this little theatre Madame wrote a
great number of plays.
In this connection we are told of a success of Pamela. A “tableau” had
been arranged representing “Venus and Psyche,” and the parts were taken
by Pamela and her two half-sisters, Pamela’s rôle being that of “Love.”
David, the great historical painter, was present, and his enthusiasm knew
no bounds. It came nearer to his conception of ideal beauty than anything
he had ever seen, he declared.
So much for their life at Saint Leu during the summer. At Bellechasse
in the winter they were equally busy and equally happy. “I had a
turning-lathe put up in an ante-chamber, and all the children, as well
as myself, learned to use it. We learned indeed everything that did not
require brute force. We learned bookbinding and leather work, and made
an enormous number of Morocco leather pocket-books, equal in workmanship
to those manufactured in England; we went in for basket-making, making
laces, ribbons, artificial flowers, marble paper, wood-gilding, all
sorts of hair-work (even wig-making!) Finally, for the boys we had
carpentry.” We learn that the future King of the French, Louis Philippe,
was particularly good at carpentry. With the sole help of his little
brother, the Duke de Montpensier, he made for a poor woman of Saint Leu,
in whom he was interested, a great press, and a table with drawers, “both
articles as well made as if they had been the work of a first-class
joiner.”
Later on the Duke bought a seaside residence for the children, and here
they learned to fish, and swim, and collect shells, and “acquire,” as
Madame says, “all sorts of local information.”
In the midst of all this, the Revolution was brewing, and in a journey
Madame took with her pupils through the North of France, one feels she
did more than collect “local information.” She tried to make up her mind
which side was going to win, and feeling certain it was not the King’s,
she deliberately turned her pupils’ sympathies towards the Revolutionary
Party.
“The desire of showing all sides to my pupils (a thing which on this
occasion tempted me to take a rash step) brought me from Saint Leu to
spend some days at Paris in order to see the people band together to
storm the Bastille.” ... She gives a wonderful description of the great
ponderous black building swarming over with people, and of the cheers
that went up from the crowds, as stone after stone fell beneath the blows
of the assailants.
Among the cheers none were louder than those of little Pam, though one
wonders very much if she knew what they were about. There she stood in
the “Garden of Beaumarchais,” and waved her dainty handkerchief, and
hurt her pretty throat with cheers for Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!
Did she know, I wonder, that in the street, there among the crowd of
enthusiasts for Liberty, was a handsome young Irishman who had given up
his title to throw his lot in with the people, and live up to its new
doctrine of Equality? Did she know, I wonder, how she herself was to wear
that title, and wear it as a crown set by a stranger people’s love?
Perhaps not. It was some months later that Lord Edward first saw the girl
in the shadow of Madame de Genlis’ box at the opera. She reminded him of
a dead lady whom he had loved with a boy’s romantic passion, and he asked
for an introduction to Madame de Genlis.
A few days later Madame de Genlis was obliged to take Mademoiselle
d’Orléans to Tournay. Lord Edward and an English friend accompanied them.
Lord Edward, being much in charming Pamela’s society, lost his heart to
her and proposed for her. Madame de Genlis stipulated for the consent of
his mother, the Duchess of Leinster, and this being obtained, they were
married at Tournay in 1793.
MARJORIE FLEMING
Sir Walter Scott’s “Pet Marjorie”
Room now in our “rosebud garden of girls” for the dear little Scottish
lassie, Marjorie Fleming. For more than a hundred years she has been
sleeping under the plain white marble cross in the graveyard of
Abbotshall. Above her is the record of her life in length of years—of
which the ninth was not complete: Marjorie Fleming. Born 1803; died 1811.
Then, on the plinth, the name by which Sir Walter’s love has made her
famous: Pet Marjorie. And yet none of the little girls whose stories
I have told you is so well remembered as nine-year-old Marjorie, and
none of them has counted so many distinguished men of letters for her
admirers. Sir Walter Scott is only the first of a long list of great
writers who have loved the little maid, though he was the only one of
them who heard her voice repeating his ballads, and carried her proudly
on his shoulder to set her at the head of his supper-table as Queen of
the Revels. But seventy years after her death, Dr. John Brown (the
Charles Lamb of Scotland) fell a victim to her fascinations, and wrote
on her “the best book about a child that ever was written”; and when she
was more than ninety years dead—she that had not lived nine—Mr. William
Archer contributed a paper on her to the _Pall Mall Gazette_; Mr. Leslie
Stephen has written a sketch of her life for the _Dictionary of National
Biography_; while for the centenary of her birth (January 15, 1903) the
_Story of Pet Marjorie_ was retold by L. MacBean.
What is the secret of her charm? I think it is this: that Marjorie is “a
little child” in all the strange and beautiful connotation of the word.
All the poetry Wordsworth has taught us to find in childhood goes to the
making of Marjorie—with something more added:—
“Loving she is, and tractable, though mild,
And Innocence hath privilege in her
To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes.”
The exquisite lines to six-year-old Hartley Coleridge might have been
meant for her—
“whose fancies from afar were brought;
Who of her words did make a mock apparel,
And fitted to unutterable thought
The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol,”
with a difference to make her dearer. The children in Wordsworth “trail
their clouds of glory” in a region into which we may only gaze from
afar. Too rare is the atmosphere for our breathing; and we look at them
a little wistfully, from another plane, feeling ourselves shut out from
their “solitude” which to them is “blithe society.” Of that enchanted
region of childhood, Marjorie alone has tried to make us free. The thrill
the mother feels when her little one takes her into her confidence is
ours to feel when we read Marjorie’s three diaries. That, I think, is
what makes her so inexpressibly dear.
In Kirkcaldy, in 1803, Marjorie was born of good stock both in the
paternal and maternal line. A grandfather who had fought for “Bonnie
Prince Charlie” at Culloden on the Fleming side, and a grandfather
who had distinguished himself in surgery, on the Rae side, were fit
progenitors for romantic and clever Marjorie. Her Highland descent is
well justified; for Marjorie, humorous, vivid, impulsive, high-spirited,
and generous is a Celt to her finger-tips. Her face, too, as shown in Isa
Keith’s sketches, has the Celtic characteristics, especially the deep-set
eyes, with their indications of thought and humour, and the funny little
mouth that could, one feels, coax and pout equally well.
The Fleming nursery, when Marjorie made her first appearance in it, had
already two occupants, five-year-old William and two-year-old Isabella.
The presiding genius of the place was a certain Jeanie Robertson. Nurse
Jeanie was very particular about teaching her young charges their
Catechism, and Willie, at two years’ old, did her so much credit that she
was fond of showing off her young theologian, for the benefit of some
militia officers stationed in town. Jeanie put the questions in broad
Scots, beginning with: “Wha made ye, ma bonnie man?” For the correctness
of this, and the three next replies, Jeanie had no anxiety, but her tone
changed to menace and her closed “nieve” (fist) was shaken in the child’s
face as she demanded: “Of what are you made?” “Durrt” was the invariable
reply, delivered in an uncompromising tone. Whereat Jeanie would cuff
him, soundly. “Wull ye never learn to say ‘dust,’ ye thrawn deevil?”
Whether or not, it was from Jeanie that Marjorie learned to know so much
about the “deevil” I cannot say. But, at all events, she had a very
wholesome fear of him, mixed with a certain interest in her methods.
Cousin Isa, later on, taught her how to get the better of him (as she
taught her so many other useful things, as, for instance, to make
“simecolings, nots of interrigation, pearids and commas.”) She advised
her: “When I feel Satan beginning to tempt me that I flee from him and
he would flee from me.” But in the meantime there was a certain horrible
fascination in thinking of him going about “like a roaring lyon in search
of his pray,” and finding it in a little girl who “behaved extremely ill
in God’s most holy church,” and “would never attande” herself “nor let
Isabella attand,” or in a little girl “who stamped with her feet and
threw her new hat on the ground” when Isabella brought her upstairs to
teach her “religion and my multiplication and to be good and all my other
lessons.”
It was when Marjorie had just turned five that Cousin Isabella Keith
engaged on the course of education thus comprehensively described.
Isabella was hardly out of her teens herself, but to Marjorie she was the
embodiment of all wisdom. “Isabella,” she says in the second journal,
“teaches me everything I know, I am much indebted to her, she is learn,
and witty and sensible.” Then in another place: “I hope that at 12 or
13 years old I will be as learned as Miss Isa and Nancy Keith, for many
girls have not the advantage I have, and I am very very glad that Satan
has not given bols and many other misfortunes.” The reference to “bols,”
it must be explained, was suggested by the story of Job, in whom Marjorie
was much interested, feeling bound by their common enmity against the
“Divel.” “It was the same Divel that tempted Job that tempted me, I am
sure, but he resisted Satan, though he had boils and many many other
misfortunes which I have escaped.”
Isabella Keith had come on a visit from her Edinburgh home to her aunt’s
house at Kirkcaldy, and fell in love so deeply with her little cousin,
that she begged to be allowed to take her back with her to Edinburgh to
take charge of her education. The Flemings thought well of the plan, and
in the summer of 1808 Marjorie left Kirkcaldy and went to live at her
Aunt Keith’s house in No. 1, Charlotte-street, Edinburgh.
Young as she was, she had read all sorts of things before she had left
home. She seems to have learned to read, as some children will, who
grow up among books, almost unconsciously, and she made herself free
of her father’s library in the most complete manner. Charles Lamb’s
recipe for producing “incomparable old maids” had been tried in her
case with extraordinary results. Like “Cousin Bridget” in _Mackery End_,
“she was tumbled early, by accident or design, into a spacious closet
of good old English reading, and browsed at will upon that fair and
wholesome pasturage.” The plan may be all that Charles Lamb claims for
producing “incomparable old maids,” but its effects on children are more
questionable. Fortunately Marjorie seems to have got nothing worse from
it than a vocabulary and stock of phrases that seem a little beyond her
control, and a tremendous interest in romance, which cousin Isa has to
keep in check. She is constantly losing her heart, now to “a sailer” who
called here to say farewell; “it must be dreadful to leave his native
country where he might get a wife and perhaps me, for I love him very
much and with all my heart, but O I forgot Isabella forbid me to speak
about love.” Again to Mr. Crakey, with whom she “walked to Crakyhall
hand in hand in Innocence and metitation sweet thinking on the kind
love which flows in our tender hearted mind which is overflowing with
majestick pleasure.” And yet again to “Philip Caddie, who paid no little
attention to me, he took my hand and led me downstairs and shook my
hand cordialy.” But indeed it was a very innocent kind of romance, and
Cousin Isa need not have been alarmed, for Marjorie’s “own true love”
was Cousin Isa herself. Indeed once she has got away from the jargon of
books—Kotzebue’s _Pigeon and Fawny Rachel_ and _The Cottage Cook_, we
hear no more of her as a “loveress” except it be of “swine, geese, cocks,
and turkeys that made Ravelston so pleasant to me, indeed they are the
delight of my heart.”
She had not been long in Edinburgh when she wrote to tell her sister all
about it. The occasion was one of much solemnity, for, as she observes,
“this is the first time I ever wrote a letter in my life.” In this letter
she tells of the girls who play with her in the square, “and they cry
just like a pig when we are under the painful necessity of putting it
to death.” She draws a rather unflattering portrait of a certain Miss
Potune, “a lady of my acquaintance,” and this in spite of the fact that
“she praises me dreadfully.” “I repeated something out of Dean Swift, and
she said I was fit for the stage, and you may think I was primmed up with
majestick pride, but upon my word I felt myself turn a little birsay.”
Perhaps she felt that Miss Potune was only trying to flatter her, just
as she was doing with Aunt Keith. “This horrid fat simpliton says that
my aunt is beautiful, which is entirely impossible, for that is not her
nature.”
She returns again to the subject of Miss Potune in her diary, into which
we shall now be privileged to peep.
“Miss Potune is very fat, she pretends to be very learned, she says she
saw a stone that dropt from the skies, but she is a good Christian.” (The
sequence of thought is not particularly apparent, but we begin to follow
with more confidence in the next “lap,” starting with “Christian.”) “An
annababtist is a thing I am not a member of; I am a Pisplikan just now
and a Prisbeteren at Kercaldy, my native town, which though dirty is
clein in the country; sentiment is what I am not acquainted with, though
I wish it and should like to pratise it. I wish I had a great deal of
gratitude in my heart and in all my body. The English have great power
over the french; Ah me per adventure at this moment some noble Colnel at
this moment sinks to the ground without breath; and in convulsive pangs
dies; it is a melancholy consideration.”
Cousin Isabella had the little maid for a bedfellow, and we get some
funny glimpses of what she had to endure from that arrangement. “I’ve
slept with Isabella, but she cannot sleep with me. I’m so very restless.
I danced over her legs in the morning and she cried ‘Oh! dear, you
mad girl, Madgie,’ for she was very sleepy.”—(Oh! those little “Early
wide-awakes!” Which of us who have been wakened by them at four o’clock
in the morning will not sympathise with poor Isa Keith?) “Every morn
I awake before Isa, and oh I wish to be up and out with the larkies,
but I must take care of Isa, who when aslipe is as beautiful as Viness
and Jupiter in the sky.” On a later occasion Marjorie records: “I went
into Isabella’s bed to make her smile like the Genius Demedicus, or the
statute in ancient Greece, but she fell asleep in my very face, at which
my anger broke forth, so that I awoke her from a very comfortable nap.
All was now hushed up, but my anger again burst forth at her bidding
me get up.” Finally poor Isabella, in self-defence against “continual
figiting and kicking” had to banish Marjorie to the foot of the bed,
an arrangement not without its advantages, for it gave a certain young
person opportunity “to be continialy at work reading the Arabian nights
entertainment, which I could not have done had I slept at the top.” The
situation, moreover, inspired the following remarkable verses:—
“I love in Isa’s bed to lie
O such a joy and luxury
The bottom of the bed I sleep
And with great care I myself keep
Oft I embrace her feet of lillys
But she has got on all the pillies
Her neck I never can embrace
But I do hug her feet in place.
But I am sure I am contented
And of my follies am repented
I’m sure I’d rather be
In a small bed at liberty.”
Isabella would seem to have restored her soon again, however, for we
learn from a later poem:—
“When cold as clay when cold as ice
To get into a bed tis nice
It is a nice thing for to creep
But not to dose away and sleep
Into a bed where Isa lies
And to my questions she replies
Corrects my faults improves my mind
And tells me of the faults she find
But she is sound asleep sometimes
For that I have not got good rimes
But when awake I her teize much
And she doth squall at every touch
Then Isa reads in bed alone
And reads the fasts by good Nelson
Then I get up to say my prayers
To get my porridge and go downstairs.”
If Marjorie’s journal ranges in its discussion of subjects literally from
“Shakespeare” (or, as she calls him, “Shakepear,” “of which I have a
little knolege of,” thus summed up: “Macbeth is a pretty compisition but
awful one Macbeth is so bad and wicked, but Lady Macbeth is so hardened
in guilt she does not mind her faults and sins no,”) to the “Musical
Glasses” (Nancy’s and Isabella’s uncle has got musical glasses and the
sound of them is exceedingly sweet), her poetry is equally universal in
its range. From the “Ephibol on my Dear Love Isabella,” composed when the
poetess was six, to loyal verses on the King’s Birthday:—
“Poor man his health is very bad
And he is often very mad,”
and the Chef d’Oeuvre on “Mary Queen of Scots” we have a wide selection:—
“Poor Mary Queen of Scots was born
With all the graces which adorn
Her birthday is so very late
That I do now forget the date
Her education was in france
There she did learn to sing and dance
There she was married to the dauphin
But soon he was laid in the coffin,”
and so on through the whole romantic and tragic story to the end at
Fotheringay. Nay, even beyond it, goes our poet historian, lured on by
her sense of poetical justice against Queen Elizabeth:
“Elizabeth was a cross old maid
Now when her youth began to fade
Her temper was worce then before
And people did not her adore
But Mary was much loved by all
Both by the great and by the small
But hark her soul to heaven did rise
And I do think she gained a prize
For I do think she would not go
Into the awfull place below
There is a thing that I must tell
Elizabeth went to fire and hell
Him who will teach her to be cevel
It must be her great friend the divel.”
It is very consoling to know that Marjorie did not think any the worse of
beautiful Queen Mary for being a Catholic:
“She was a Roman Catholic strong
Nor did she think that it was wrong.”
Perhaps the fact that she herself was a “Pisplikan just now and a
Prisbeteren at Kercaldy, my native town, which though dirty is clein in
the country,” made her more tolerant than others of her nation:
“For they her faith could not well bear
And to upbraid her they would dare.”
Marjorie did not always keep to these “Epic Heights.” Her muse is
sometimes occupied with such subjects as the death of three young turkeys
eaten by the rats, the elopement of Jessy Watson the servant maid, and
her aunt’s monkey:
“There is a thing I love to see
That is our monkey catch a flee.”
Indeed her latest biographer opines that the lament for the three turkeys
will become the most famous of Marjorie’s poems:
“Three turkeys fair their last have breathed
And now this world for ever leaved
Their father and their mother too
Will sigh and weep as well as you
Mourning for their osprings fair
Whom they did nurse with tender care
Indeed the rats their bones have cranched
To eternity are they launched
There graceful form and pretty eyes
Their fellow fowls did not despise
A direful death indeed they had
That would put any parent mad
But she was more than usual calm
She did not give a single dam[19]
She is as gentel as a lamb
Here ends this melancholy lay
Farewell poor Turkeys I must say.”
This “melancholy lay” was addressed to the owner of the turkeys, Mrs.
Crawfurd, of Braehead—a “delightfull place” in Marjorie’s opinion. “Now I
am quite happy,” she records on the eve of a visit there, “for I am going
to-morrow to a delightfull place, Braehead by name, belonging to Mrs.
Craford, where there is ducks, cocks, hens, bubbyjocks, 2 dogs, 2 cats
and swine, which is delightful.”
The visit had its disappointments. First in the matter of the weather:
“I came here as I thought to enjoy nature’s delightful breath, it is
sweeter than a fial of rose oil, but Alas my hopes are dissopointed, it
is always spitring, but then I often get a blink and then I am happy.”
Moreover Marjorie’s and Job’s old enemy (and Elizabeth’s “great friend”)
was particularly busy at this time, and we have a constant record of
ill behaviour. “To-day I affronted myself before Miss Margaret and Miss
Isa Craford and Mrs. Craford and Mrs. Kermical, which was very nauty,
but I hope there will be no more evil in all my journal.” Alas for good
intentions! Behold what happened a few days after. “I am going to telle
you that in all my life I never behaved so ill, for when Isa bid me go
out of the room I would not go, and when Isa came to the room I threw my
book at her in a dreadful passion and she did not lick me but said ‘Go
into the room and pray,’ and I did it. I will never do it again. I hope
that I will never afront Isa, for she said she was never so afronted in
her life, but I hope it will never happen again.”
“I am going to turn over a new life and am going to be a very good girl
and be obedient to Isa Keith, here there is plenty of goosberrys which
makes my teath water....
“My religion is greatly falling off because I don’t pray with so much
attention when I am saying my prayers and my character is lost away
a-mong the Braehead people. I hope I will be religious again, but as for
regaining my character I despare for it.... Everybody just now hates me
and I deserve it, for I don’t behave well.”
In spite of her unfortunate experiences at Braehead, she was very anxious
to return to it, and upbraided Isa in verse, on another occasion, when
their visit, she learned, was only to be two days long:
“Beautious Isabella say
How long at braehead will you stay
O for a week or not so long
Then weel desart the busy throng
Ah can you see me sorrow so
And drop a hint that you must go
I thought you had a better hart
Than make me with my dear friends part
But now I see that you have not
And that you mock my dreadful lot
My health is always bad and sore
And you have hurt it a deal more.”
“The reason I wrote this poem is because I am going to Braehead only two
days.”
No wonder she loved Braehead: “Here at Braehead I enjoy rurel felisity to
perfection, content, retirement, rurel friendship, books all these dwell
here, but I am not sure of ease and alternate labour useful life.” At
Braehead even prose must take the colour of poetry from waving trees and
morning sunbeams:
“In the morning the first thing I see is most beautiful trees spreading
their luxurant branches between the Horison and me....
“I love to see the morning sun that rise so long before the moon ...
the moon that casts her silver light when the Horison sinks beneath the
clouds and scateres its light on the surface of the earth.”
Another place where Marjorie dearly loved to go visiting was Ravelston
House: “Ravelston is a fine place, because I get balm wine and many other
dainties, and it is extremely pleasant to me by the company of swine,
geese, cocks, etc., and they are the delight of my heart.”
Whether at home in Edinburgh, or in Braehead, or Ravelston, Isabella
continues the education of her little charge: “I am thinking,” says
Marjorie, in a serious Sunday mood, “how I shall improve the many talents
I have. I am sorry I have threwn them away, it is shocking to think of it
when many have not the instruction. I have, because Isabella teaches me
to or three hours every day in reading and writing and arethmatick and
many other things and religion into the bargain. On Sundays she teaches
me to be virtuous.” Saturday was a half-holiday—even from virtue! “This
is Saturday, and I am very glad of it, because I have play half of the
day and I get money too, but alas I owe Isabella fourpence, for I am
fined 2 pence whenever I bite my nails.”
On another Saturday we hear of her having “sauntered about the woulds and
by the burn side and dirtied myselfe, which puts me in mind of a song my
mother composed. It was that she was out and dirtied herselfe, which is
like me.”
Poor Isabella did not always have an easy task. The “multiplication
table” gave particular trouble. “I am now going to tell you about the
horible and wretched plaege that my multiplication gives me you can’t
conceive it—the most Devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7; it is
what nature itself can’t endure....” Sometimes the Devil gets out of the
“multiplication table” and comes even near more sacred ground. “To-day I
have been very ungrateful and bad and disobedient, Isabella gave me my
writing, I wrote so ill that she took it away and locked it up in her
desk where I stood trying to open it till she made me come and read my
bible, but I was in a bad homour and red it so carelessly and ill that
she took it from me and her blood ran cold, but she never punished me,
she is as gental as a lamb to me an ungrateful girl.”
Isabella tries the effect of praise:—
“Isabella has given me praise for checking my temper, for I was sulky
even when she was kneeling an hole hour teaching me to write.”
But Marjorie is honest enough to think a whipping would do herself good:
“But she never whipes me, so that I thinke I should be the better of it,
and the next time that I behave ill, I think she should do it, for she
never does it, but she is very indulgent to me, but I am very ungrateful
to her.”
It may have been at Ravelston (where “I am enjoying nature’s fresh air,
the birds are singing sweetly, the calf doth frisk and play, and nature
shows her glorious face, the sun shines through the trees”) that Marjorie
first saw and conquered Sir Walter. For all readers of _Waverley_ will
remember how deeply its author loved the old house and garden, where he
had played as a boy. The conquest was completed when Marjorie returned
to Edinburgh, and by all accounts it was not her beauty that worked the
charm. As Marjorie herself says, “I am very strong and robust and not
of the delicate sex, nor of the fair, but of the deficient in looks,”
and poor Isa Keith is quite concerned about her plainness: “She is grown
excessively fat and strong,” she writes about this time to Kirkcaldy,
“but I cannot say she is in great beauty, as she has lost two front
teeth, and her continued propensity to laugh exhibits the defect rather
strongly.” But in the eyes of Sir Walter, she was better than beautiful:
“She’s the most extraordinary creature I ever met with,” he told Mrs.
Keith, “and her repeating of Shakespeare overpowers me as nothing else
does.”
Dr. Brown draws some charming pictures of the great man and the little
child together, Marjorie teaching him nursery rhymes:—“He used to
say when he came to Alibi Crackaby he broke down. Pin-Pan, Musky-Dan,
Tweedle-um, Tweedle-um made him roar with laughter. He said Musky Dan
especially was beyond his endurance, bringing up an Irishman and his
hat fresh from the Spice Islands and odoriferous Ind; she getting quite
bitter in her displeasure at his ill behaviour and stupidity. Then he
would read ballads to her in his own glorious way, the two getting wild
with excitement over _Gil Morrice_ or the _Baron of Smailholm_, and he
would take her on his knees and make her repeat Constance’s speeches in
_King John_ till he swayed to and fro sobbing his fill.”
The year before she died she was at a Twelfth Night Supper at Scott’s in
Castlestreet. The company had all come—all but Marjorie; and all were
dull because Scott was dull. “Where’s that bairn? What can have come
over her? I’ll go myself and see!” And he was getting up, and would have
gone, when the bell rang, and in came Duncan Roy and his henchman Dougal,
with the Sedan chair which was brought right into the lobby and its top
raised. And there in its darkness and dingy old cloth sat Maidie in
white, her eyes gleaming, and Scott bending over her in ecstacy. “Sit
ye there, my dautie, till they all see you,” and forthwith he brought
them all. You can fancy the scene. And he lifted her up and marched to
his seat with her on his stout shoulder, and set her down beside him; and
then began the night, and such a night! Those who knew Scott best said
that night was never equalled. Maidie and he were the stars; and she gave
them Constance’s speeches, and Helvellyn, and all her repertoire, Scott
showing her off, and being oftimes rebuked by her for his intentional
blunders.
Perhaps the prudent mother at home in Kirkcaldy began to fear the effects
of all this notoriety and excitement on her little daughter’s character.
At all events she did not leave her in Edinburgh very many months after
this. In July, 1811, Marjorie bade good-bye to her darling Isabella and
returned to Kirkcaldy.
We have letters of hers, mainly to Isa, to fill up the simple story
of the next few months. In one of them, she refers to an epidemic of
measles. Little did Isabella think, as she laughed over the quaint
phrases, that there was something ominous in it. In November Marjorie
herself fell a victim to the epidemic, and was very ill for many weeks.
It was a strange Maidie even to those who knew her best that developed in
this illness—a very patient, submissive, and quiet Maidie, who liked best
to lie still and think. One day as she was lying very still her mother
asked her if there was anything she wished. “Oh, yes. If you would just
leave the room door open a wee bit, and play the ‘Land o’ the Leal,’ and
I will lie and think and enjoy myself.”
On Sunday, the 15th December, she was allowed to be up for a little
while, and her sister thus describes the scene.
“It was Sabbath evening, and after tea my father, who idolized the child,
and never afterwards in my hearing mentioned her name, took her in his
arms; and while walking up and down the room, she said: ‘Father, I will
repeat something to you: what would you like?’ He said ‘Just choose
yourself, Maidie.’ She hesitated for a moment, between the paraphrase
‘Few are Thy Days and Full of Woe,’ and the lines of Burns, ‘Why I am
loth to leave this Earthly Scene?’” but chose the latter.
That was the last earthly scene for poor little Maidie. Six days later,
they laid her to rest in the churchyard of Abbotshall.
FOOTNOTES
[1] Echlasc = horse-rod, with a goad at the end of it.
[2] Cuchairi = “trappers.”
[3] Immdorus = door-porch.
[4] Feici = ridge-pole.
[5] House of Manuscripts.
[6] Walther von der Vogelweide, a celebrated Middle High German lyrical
poet.
[7] Wolfram von Eschenbach, Middle High German epic poet.
[8] Watch-tower.
[9] 1425.
[10] A poem by Prudentius.
[11] A collection of fables.
[12] Gianfrancesco Gonzaga was made Marquis of Mantua on the occasion of
the visit of the Emperor Sigismund in 1433.
[13] The great codex of the Ptolemian System of the Universe.
[14] The residences of the smaller landed gentry in France, of the old
Régime, were called “noblesses” or “gentilhommières.”
[15] These were at the end of the garden.
[16] One of the lay-sisters.
[17] “If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if
we reap your carnal things?”
[18] A book of riddles.
[19] I am afraid Marjorie’s language is sometimes very “shoking” and
poor cousin Isa has her own troubles getting her to conform to a more
“ladylike” standard in the matter. “To-day,” she confesses on one
occasion, “I pronounced a word which should never come out of a lady’s
lips, but Isabella kindly forgave me because I said I would not do it
again. I will tell you what I think made me in so bad a humour is I got 1
or 2 cups of that bad bad sina tea to Day.”