I find Lord Eustace, or how much I could look upon him as a friend. In
many ways he is like Charlie (Halifax), but is no ceremony-lover. No, he
says he always admires Gallio--‘such an excellent straightforward
man,’--and even agrees with him on the special occasion on which we hear
of him.”
* * * * *
“_Hardwick Hall, Suffolk, Sept. 17._--I have been spending several happy
days with the Lowthers at Campsea Ashe, pleasant in every way, with much
agreeable conversation. One day, when it turned on the origin of words,
Mr. Lowther described how the expression of ‘never set the Thames on
fire’ originated in the reproach to an unenthusiastic cook, who would
never set her _tamise_ on fire.
“We went to Aldeburgh, sailing in a yacht down an estuary to a point
where the sea has eaten up what was once the site of a considerable
town, of which only the picturesque ‘Moot Hall’ remains, stranded on the
beach. It was a still, hot, glowing day, with a sea like that of the
Ancient Mariner.
“Yesterday we went to an old house, Parham Hall, which is a poem in
itself. In this flat country it stands in a wide moat, in a desolate
grassy hollow, surrounded by old trees, the richly sculptured oriels and
gables, grey, battered, and moss-grown, rising straight from the
waters.”
* * * * *
“_Holmhurst, Sept. 26._--From Campsea Ashe I went to visit Gery Cullum,
a friend I have long known, but never till lately been intimate with.
One of his nieces met me at the station at Bury St. Edmunds, and brought
me in a dogcart through that quaint town, past abbey gateways and the
church where Mary, sister of Henry VIII., is buried, to the fine old
house of Hardwick, which stands beyond a park well wooded with cedars
and indigenous box, and which, with its bright flowers and sculptured
terraces, well deserves the name of Allegro, as contrasted with
Penseroso, the old neighbouring house of Rushbrooke.
“There is a great charm about the interior--not fine, but very large and
most thoroughly comfortable--a small low hall with good portraits of
James I. and Elizabeth as a child, &c.; a dining-room with family
portraits; a library with curious MSS. The gardens are gorgeous in
colour, and there are delightful walks beyond, with pines of all
descriptions.
“The first day, knowing my love of being taken about, Gery arranged an
excursion to Hengrave, a very fine old house, with an exceedingly rich
front and stately garden, belonging to Lady Gage,[429] and close beside
it a church filled with curious tombs.
“On Sunday we went to service at Hawsteads, where the church has fine
old monuments of Drurys and Cullums, and we sat in a high James I. pew
to listen to a ranting Irish preacher, who lost himself completely in
the mazes of his own nonsense, and finally made us laugh by the emphasis
with which he announced, ‘As it is written, my brethren, in the Duke of
Bookeronomy,’ &c.
“On Monday we picnicked in the park of Penseroso, the old house of
Rushbrooke, standing in a wide moat, into which a former mistress of the
place, an unfaithful wife, was thrown by her husband, and upon which she
is said to float nightly. Her picture hangs above the magnificent
staircase, and the window whence she was thrown is pointed out at the
end of a suite of desolate unfurnished rooms. The house belonged to Lord
Jermyn, and, whatever his relation to Henrietta Maria may have been, two
magnificent cabinets of hers are here, which Lord Bristol, to his
despair, inadvertently sold, with the house, to its present possessors.
Here also the church has fine tombs.
“Apropos of the dispersion of family relics, Gery told me how young Mrs.
Le Strange of Hunstanton had inadvertently given away an old Persian
carpet, an absolute rag, to an old woman in the village, regarding it as
useless lumber. The next night she saw the most awful apparition, whom
she recognised from a portrait as her husband’s grandmother, old Mrs.
Styleman, looking most ferocious and diabolical. Soon an old neighbour
called and said, ‘How could you venture to give away the famous carpet:
you will have old Mrs. Styleman coming from the grave to remonstrate
about it;’ and then it was explained that Mrs. Styleman, who had been a
great heiress, and had possessed a number of beautiful things, had lived
to see almost all of them dispersed and sold, owing to the extravagance
of the family into which she married. At last only the carpet
remained--at that time a thing of some value, and in her old age she
said, ‘Now if ever you sell that, I swear before God that I will haunt
you till it is replaced.’ Mrs. Le Strange bought back the carpet and
laid it down in its former place, and old Mrs. Styleman has never
appeared since.
“From Hardwick I went to Mrs. Robert Drummond in the lovely little black
and white Upton Court of the fourteenth century, which she is renting
near Eton. Over the entrance is the little figure of a monk, and in the
wide porch rude old oak settees. It was a sanatorium of Merton Abbey,
and the quaint old fish-tanks of the monks remain.
“We went to Ockwells, the desolate and decaying old house of the
Norris’s, and finding the door off its hinges, entered, and went in and
out of the deserted rooms, in one of which a coat of mail was hanging
up.[430]
“And now I am at home again, furiously busy, alone, but never finding
the day half long enough for all I have to do. ‘Rien ne vous serait plus
laborieux qu’une grande oisiveté, si vous aviez le malheur d’y tomber.
Dégouté premièrement des affaires, puis des plaisirs, vous seriez enfin
dégouté de l’oisiveté elle-même.’ These are words of Louis XIV.,
admirable and worth thinking of.”
[Illustration: THE PORCH, HOLMHURST.]
* * * * *
“_Ickwellbury Oct. 14._--A visit to Mrs. Harvey. Parts of the house are
said to date from Henry II. The Ickwell is the oak-well, a pretty
bubbling spring in the garden.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 18._--An agreeable party at Worth (Mrs. Montefiore’s), the most
luxurious of modern houses, where a bit of the Law in a little bottle is
screwed upon the door of every bedroom. Mr. Algernon Tumour, who is
here, stated, and considered he proved, that the average life of a
five-pound note is only a single day.”
* * * * *
“_London, Nov. 27._--Charlie Halifax says that a tenant of Carlo Milnes
Gaskell (of Thornes) was found dead--murdered evidently--in one of his
woods. A very bad character in the neighbourhood, who was known to hate
the dead man, and who had been seen near the wood at the time of his
death, was arrested and tried for the murder. All the evidence was
against him, but he got off because, instead of measuring the footprints
near the body and then the boots of the accused, the boots had been
taken to the spot and fitted into the footprints, which allowed of its
being said that they had been manufactured by pressing the boots into
the soft earth. The man was always afterwards suspected of the murder,
but he got work in a factory. If the subject was spoken of, he became
very violent, and prayed that the devil might take him if he was guilty.
One day, after he had been declaiming thus, he was caught by the mill
machinery and torn to pieces. The iron claw which had caught him and
pulled him in is that always known as ‘the Devil.’”
* * * * *
“_London, Dec. 6._--Luncheon with Miss Seymour to meet Madame du
Quaire,[431] who talked of the Praslin murder. She was with the old
Duchesse de Grammont soon after, and Madame Alfred de Grammont was
there. They began to discuss the division of money apportioned to
different members of a family according to the French system, and they
spoke of a member of the Praslin family whom they thought stingy. One of
them added up her different expenses, ending with--‘et puis les
dix-mille francs pour l’Angleterre.’ At this Madame Alfred, who is
_très-bête_, suddenly broke in with,’ Avez vous été au Bois de Boulogne
ce matin?’ ‘It was then,’ said Madame du Quaire, ‘that I first learnt
that the Duc de Praslin was alive, and that they knew it.” The next day
the Duc de Grammont came to call upon me, and I told him of the
conversation, adding--“I know now that the Duke is alive.” He neither
allowed it nor denied it. A few days after, however, the Duke came again
and said, “J’ai une petite faveur à vous demander.” It was that I would
never repeat to his mother what I had said to him: it might upset her.
Of course I promised, but then I _knew_ the Duke was alive.’
“‘The Duke did not wish to marry Mademoiselle de Luzy: that is an
invention. He only murdered the Duchess because she was such a bore. He
certainly did not wish to marry any one else.’
“Miss Seymour[432] said that the Queen of the Belgians, speaking of the
Praslin murder to Mrs. Augustus Craven, said, ‘How dreadful to find one
was being murdered by one’s husband: one could not even cry out.’
“Madame du Quaire was reminded of her friend Madame Solkoff, whose hair
was quite snow-white whilst she was still quite young. ‘She was a Miss
Childe, you know, a daughter of that Mrs. Childe who had a salon--_un
salon très répandu_--at Paris. She eloped with a Polish Count, to whom
her family objected most intensely, and she was disinherited. Very soon
after her marriage it became known that it had turned out very ill, and
that the young Countess was very unhappy. Eventually it became
impossible for her to remain with her husband, and she went to live at
Cracow with her mother-in-law, who had a very fine old palace there, and
was very kind to her. She had a large apartment of her own in her
mother-in-law’s house, her bedroom being approached through her
sitting-room. She was still only twenty-two, when she was found one
morning insensible on the floor of her sitting-room in her night-dress,
and with the floor all around her saturated with blood from a terrible
wound in her head. Her cabinets and jewel-cases were all broken open and
rifled. The _interrogatoire_ came, and she was examined. She said that
in the night she heard a noise in her sitting-room, and going to see
what it was, had found a man breaking open her drawers; that she had
received a blow, and knew no more. It was in vain that she was
questioned as to whom she had seen; she affirmed that she could not
possibly tell who it was. But her hair was turned snow-white from that
night. It was not till she knew he was dead that she allowed it was her
husband she had seen.’
“Speaking of reading novels when young, Madame du Quaire said that she
remembered at eleven years old reading ‘La Princesse de Babylone,’ and
being found convulsed with laughter at the description of a
dinner-party given by the Witch of Endor. She was described as having
the guardianship of Nebuchadnezzar, who was browsing near her, and that
at her party, ‘_par délicatesse pour lui_,’ she would allow nothing to
appear which--in his unfortunate position--could wound his feelings--no
beef, &c., &c.
“Madame du Quaire talked of the prevailing passion for Buddhism, and
said, ‘I am not even going to attempt to believe in it, for it is not
necessary to salvation: there is such a tremendous quantity that I am
obliged to swallow, that I cannot possibly undertake anything--“_che non
e d’obligo_” as the Italian priests say.’
“Madame du Quaire had met Lady Colin Campbell at dinner and sat opposite
to her, but she did not know her. She could not help being attracted by
the necklace she wore, it was so very extraordinary. After a time it
seemed to be moving by itself. She fancied at first that this must be a
delusion, but, putting up her glasses, she certainly saw the necklace
writhing round Lady Colin’s throat. Seeing her astonished look, Lady
Colin said, ‘Oh, I see you are looking at my snake: I always wear a live
snake round my throat in hot weather: it keeps one’s neck so cool;’ and
it really was a live snake.”
* * * * *
“_Dec. 8._--Sat by Sir George Dasent at breakfast. A Mr. Frere passed
through the room. ‘He comes from Roffham,’ said Sir G., ‘one of those
places of which the name has such a rough East Anglian sound, and he is
member of the family which possessed the Paston Letters without knowing
it. There were six volumes of letters. Two of them were sent up, by
request, for Queen Charlotte to look at, and they were lost. She was
very accurate herself, that old woman, especially about things that were
lent to her, and there is no doubt that she had given them to one of her
ladies to return: anyhow they were lost. Afterwards, however, duplicate
copies of many of the lost letters were found to be still in the
possession of the family, and their existence quite disproved an
assertion that the letters had been forgeries.
“‘They were wonderful people, those old Pastons. They used to thrash
their daughters like anything if they did not behave themselves, and
then, when they had flogged them well, they would say, “And now they
must have silk dresses, rich, red, and beautiful!”’
* * * * *
“_Dec. 9._--Dined with M. B., who told me of Lady Vane[433] being quite
worn-out by the ghastly noises at their place in Cumberland: it was as
if some one were always trying to climb up a disused chimney in the
wall, and then falling violently down again. But lately, when Sir Henry
Vane was away, she had the wall opened. Inside she found a wide and very
lofty closet, narrowing into a funnel as it reached the roof, where it
opened by a very small hole to the sky. In it were human bones, a broken
water-bottle, and the cover of an old Bible, which bore a date. Lady
Vane had the bones gathered up and put into a box, which was left in a
corner of Sir Henry Vane’s room till his return.
“When Sir Henry Vane came home, he was exhausted by a long journey and
went at once to rest. Lady Vane did not intend to tell him of her
discovery till the next day. But suddenly, late in the afternoon, she
heard a tremendous noise in her husband’s room. She rushed in, and found
Sir Henry in a state of the greatest agitation. He said, ‘I have seen
the most frightful apparition--a woman in that corner,’ pointing to
where the box of bones had been deposited.
“From old family archives they found that, some years before, exactly at
the date upon the Bible cover, a woman had been walled up in the house.
She had made desperate efforts to escape up the funnel of the disused
chimney, and had always fallen down again. Sir Henry and Lady Vane
themselves buried the bones in the churchyard, and the house has been at
peace ever since.”
* * * * *
“_Thorncombe, Dec. 13._--Miss Montgomery is here, a lady of the most
impassive countenance, though she is the authoress of ‘Misunderstood.’”
* * * * *
“_Warwick Castle, Jan. 30, 1887._--A delightful visit to this beautiful
place. I came off suddenly on a telegram from Lady Warwick,[434] and
found several pleasant people, besides the family. More than ever have I
been charmed by Lady Warwick, who has the rarest of all
attractions--absolute simplicity, and ‘rien n’est difficile comme le
simple,’ as Madame de Maintenon used to say. Then most glorious in
position is the castle, with the river close underneath, so that the
family feed the swans daily from the aërial balcony outside the
breakfast-room window. Pilgrim-visitors constantly pour through the
rooms with the pictures, of which the finest are a grand Morone, and a
Raffaelle finished by Ghirlandajo. The visitors are conducted through
the rooms by the housekeeper, who is a great character in her way. When
the Prince of Wales was here, she showed him a relic which ‘belonged to
King James III.’--‘Ah! the old Pretender,’ said the Prince. ‘_We_ do not
think so, your Royal Highness,’ she replied very stiffly. The pictures
at Warwick are a real enjoyment, not only important and valuable, which
is generally thought enough, but each individually lovely and
suggestive. And the happy family life is perfection--such a sharing of
interests, the hunting sons not entirely engrossed by it, and no single
member of the family talking scandal or looking for motes in their
neighbours’ eyes. The old town is charming, with the Leicester hospital,
and the great church, chiefly renaissance, but with a fine gothic choir.
One evening there was a dance, and after it Mrs. Bob Lyttelton (Miss
Santley), who lives in the town, sang most gloriously.
“We have driven to see the exceedingly curious old house of Badeley
Clinton, of which my distant cousin, Mr. Dering, has married the widowed
owner. It is a most singular and poetical place, and there are many
curious stories about it. Handsome, refined, and naturally, not
affectedly, poetical and picturesque, Edward Dering is wonderfully
suited to the place, and its very solitariness facilitates his leading a
life there of almost mediaeval saintliness.”[435]
* * * * *
On the 26th of February 1887 I left England again for my French work,
and spent a month in Paris at a primitive and economical inn in the Rue
d’Amboise. Living here, I spent my days entirely amongst the historic
quarters, seeing nothing of the Boulevards or Rue de Rivoli, but making
great progress with a work--my “Paris”--which had no interruptions, and
in which I became increasingly interested as I knew more of my subject.
On the fine days of early March many excursions were very pleasant,
involving long walks to the Abbaye du Val, Nogent les Vierges, &c.
Unfortunately the weather changed before I set out on a tour through the
Bourbonnais; and in Provence, where many long excursions were necessary,
the mistral was quite terrific. Mounting into the wild fastnesses of the
Maritime Alps above S. Maximin, to visit the cave in which the Magdalen
is believed to have died, I caught a terrible chill, from which I was
afterwards very ill at Manosque. But the kindly though rough proprietors
of the inn--M. and Mme. Pascal--persuaded me to try the remedy of taking
no nourishment whatever except hot tea, and letting nature lie
absolutely at rest for forty-eight hours, and, as often since, I found
this quite answer, though during that time I drove in an open carriage
for eight hours to visit the Roman remains at Riez.
[Illustration: RIEZ.][436]
[Illustration: GRIGNAN.][437]
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_Avignon, April 3, 1887._--It has been a suffering week, owing to the
biting, rending, lacerating mistral, which has seemed perpetually to
tear one’s vitals inside out, and to frizzle them afterwards. Thursday I
went by rail to Montelimar, and then in a carriage with a horse which
either galloped furiously or would not go at all, over the sixteen miles
of mountain-road to Grignan, where Madame de Sévigné lived so much with
her daughter, and where she died. It is a really grand and striking
place--the immense château rising on a solitary rock, backed by a lovely
mountain distance, and the town at its foot surrounded by cork forests.
All was ruined at the Revolution, but the shell of the rich
palace-castle remains--‘un château vraiment royal,’ as Madame de
Sévigné calls it. In a solitary spot near is the cave, with old
ilex-trees, where she used to sit, and, even with blinding dust and
wind, the colouring was most beautiful.
[Illustration: CLOISTER OF CAVAILLON.][438]
“On Saturday, I had to spend five hours at Cavaillon, and wondered how
to dispose of myself. But, on reaching the cathedral, the whole
population was pouring in to take part in the funeral of a famous doctor
who had been a great benefactor of the place. Every one there was
presented by the family with a huge wax-candle, as long as a
walking-stick, and asked to ‘assist.’ I had one, and walked and stood
with my burning candle for two hours! It was a striking sight, thousands
taking part, and the old bishop pronouncing the elegy of the deceased,
whom he described as quite a saint. But oh! how it poured, and blew, and
swelched, and how deep was the white mortar-mud of Provence!”
* * * * *
“_Arles, April 13._--The visit to this place--perhaps more than any
other connected with happy days of our long-ago travels, and which I
have always avoided hitherto since I have been alone--has unexpectedly
proved a great pleasure. And I am glad, now I have seen so much, that I
still think Arles by far the most interesting place in the south of
France, and the excursion to Montmajour and Les Baux, which I made again
on Saturday, quite incomparable--the former, as far as I have seen the
world, one of its most beautiful ruins, the latter so glorious as to
scenery. Yesterday there was what the French call a bull-fight in the
amphitheatre, but there is nothing terrible: no horses, only men
enticing bulls with handkerchiefs, and when they run at them, vaulting
like chamois over the barriers; while the arcades of Roman masonry are
filled with vast multitudes, chiefly ‘belles Arlesiennes’ in their
picturesque costume--a very fine sight.”
[Illustration: MONTMAJOUR.][439]
[Illustration: LES BAUX.][440]
* * * * *
“_Aix in Provence, April 15._--All Provence, as you perhaps know, is
full of the same very early Church legend, that a number of the earliest
Christians, escaping from Jerusalem after the Ascension, landed here on
the coast and became the earliest missionaries of Gaul. Of these, Mary
Salome and Mary Cleopas are supposed to have stayed at Les Saintes
Maries in the Camargue, Lazarus to have gone to preach at Marseilles,
Restitutus at S. Restitut, Maximin at S. Maximin; but Mary Magdalen went
farther, spent years of penitence, and died in a cave at the top of the
mountains, which is certainly one of the most curious places of
pilgrimage in Europe. So it was to La Sainte Baume that I went
yesterday, starting at 6 A.M. by rail to S. Maximin, and there engaging
a carriage to Nant, where the road comes to an end. Thence it is an
ascent of an hour and a half through the steep lonely rocky forest,
covered with blue hepaticas, over stones, rocks, and quagmires. Near the
top it began to hail and rain furiously, and the cold was most intense,
snow still lying in great masses; but the cave is very curious, and the
view magnificent over the lower mountains, beyond the masses of Alpine
forest. How it poured! I sheltered at the worst times under some rocks,
and got safely down to the sunlit valley about five, then had to wait
at S. Maximin till nine o’clock for a train, and did not get back here
till nearly one.”
[Illustration: LES S. MARIES DE LA CAMARGUE.][441]
[Illustration: LA SALETTE.][442]
* * * * *
“_Grenoble, April 22._--On Wednesday evening, after returning from
Briançon to Gap, I engaged a carriage thence to Corps, at the foot of
the mountain of La Salette. It was supposed to be three hours’ drive,
but took five and a half hours, and we did not arrive till nine o’clock,
having spent the last two hours in pitch darkness, with a single
lanthorn, driving along the edge of the most terrific precipices, with a
driver who had never been there before! Still we arrived at last at the
very miserable inn. On Thursday morning I set off early on foot to La
Salette, three hours of weary steep ascent of the mountains, rather fine
in their snowy solitudes, but affording just a slight panic to a
solitary traveller owing to the bears which still prowl about there. In
the latter part of the way the snow was above my waist, but a little
gulley (turned into a watercourse from the meltings) was cut through it.
When at length I reached the convent, I was received with great
astonishment, as no one had visited those solitudes since April 6. All
around, and up to the first floor of the building, was deep massy snow,
not a rock to be seen. I was comfortably fed, however, and saw the
strange place to which 15,000 pilgrims come annually. You know the
story, how two children declared that the Virgin had appeared to them,
and told them that the bad language of the neighbouring villages was so
shocking that she could no longer restrain the avenging hand of her Son
unless a church was built. You will remember how Madame de Trafford
never varied in her account, that she was herself botanising in those
mountains in one of her eccentric expeditions, and came suddenly out of
a fog upon two children, to whom she spoke of the shocking language she
had heard, saying it was sure to be punished, and why was there no
church? &c.: then the fog became very thick again, and when it cleared,
the children were gone.”
* * * * *