tomb of Fénelon, which has a striking statue. But how ugly, how
treeless, how black with coal-dust is all this north-east of France. I
always imagined the Ardennes were pretty, but the beauty is only in the
Belgian part. Nothing can be more frightful than Sedan, Charleville,
Mezières, Valenciennes, and this place is also hideous; though perhaps
all has looked worse than usual under a black sky and incessant rain.
“On Thursday I saw Domremy, which is well worth a visit, and can be
little altered from the time of Jeanne Darc. Seen across the flat
meadows, backed by a low range of hills like Hawkestone, and with a
winding stream (the infant Meuse) like the Terne, it is really a little
like Stoke. The mere hamlet ends in the little church, hung all over
inside, and very prettily, with wreaths and banners, sent from all
quarters in honour of Jeanne; and close by is her quaint old cottage,
carefully preserved, with some of its old beams, an ancient armoire,
&c., and its original garden. It is now in the hands of Sisters of
Charity, who manage an orphanage joining her garden and established to
her memory.
[Illustration: DOMREMY, VILLAGE STREET.][443]
“It is really a great reward for many _misères de voyage_ that I have
now seen almost everything in Eastern France, and may soon think of
publishing that part of my work.”
[Illustration: HOUSE OF JEANNE DARC.][444]
[Illustration: EMBRUN.][445]
During the latter part of this French tour I had an unpleasant
adventure, which excited more attention than I ever anticipated at the
time. On April 19 I had gone from Gap to visit Embrun, a curious little
town in the Alpes Dauphinoises. I had not long left the station before I
was aware that I was watched and followed wherever I went. However, at
last I contrived to dodge my pursuer, and made, from behind a wall, the
sketch of the cathedral which I wanted, and then had dinner at the
hotel. When I was returning to the station, separated by a desolate
plain from the town, I saw, by the faint waning light, the same figure
following wherever I went. It was dark when the train by which I was to
leave was to start. I had taken my place, and the train was already in
motion, when it was stopped, and an official accompanied by a gendarme
entered the carriage and demanded what I had been doing at Embrun.
“Visiting the cathedral.” “Why should I visit the cathedral?” and so on,
through a long series of questions of the same kind. My passport was
demanded, and, though not usually considered necessary for English
travellers, I happened to have one. It was, however, refused as an
identification, not being dated in the present year. Fortunately, I
recollected having in my pocket-book an order from the Préfet de la
Seine authorising me to draw in all the palaces in Paris and elsewhere
in France, and this was considered sufficient. The train was allowed to
move on just as a crowd was collecting.
[Illustration: CHÂTEAU DE VIZILLE.][446]
At Briançon (where I spent the following day), I carefully abstained
from drawing, as it was a fortified town. But on April 23 I left the
station at Vizille to visit the old château of the famous Lesdiguières,
two miles distant. I had seen the château, and began to occupy the
quarter of an hour which remained before the omnibus started for the
station by sketching it from the village street, when I was pounced upon
by a gendarme. “Who has authorised you to sketch the château of
Vizille?”--“No one.”--“If you can draw this, you may also have drawn
other places. You will go with me to the gendarmerie;” and I was marched
through the long street of Vizille, followed by a crowd, and with the
hand of the gendarme occasionally grasping me by the shoulder. At the
gendarmerie a superior officer appeared, and, with the most extreme
insolence of manner, demanded what I had been doing in France, &c. “What
had I drawn?”--“Churches and mountains.”--“Ah! mountains! then it has
been very easy for you to make a little mark in the drawing, known only
to yourself, meaning here is a fortress, and there a fortress.”--“But I
am an Englishman.”--“Oh, you are, are you? Then I am all the more glad
that we have taken you, for we shall probably soon be at war with
England, and then you will make your sketches useful to your Government;
so you will consider yourself under arrest.” The letter of the Préfet de
la Seine was treated as worthless because it had no seal. The passport
was rejected altogether with contempt. After this, all further
protestations and remonstrances were answered by an insolent shout
of--“Taisez vous donc, vous êtes en état d’arrestation.”
Then the first gendarme was sent with me to the station, where my
portmanteaux were opened and ransacked, the contents being tossed out
upon the platform. Two suspicious articles were found. First, a slight
sketch of the gorge at Sisteron (not the fort; the fort is on the other
side of the rock), and, far worse, three volumes of the _Guide Joanne_
for France. “What did I want with guidebooks?”--“To study the
country.”--“Ah! that is just what I thought;” and all the officials of
the station were called in to witness the discovery. The gendarme then
declared that I must return with him and be locked up at Vizille, but a
train coming up at that moment, I made a dash into it, and probably
thinking a public scrimmage impolitic, the gendarme allowed the
station-master to fasten my boxes and bring me a ticket. The gendarme
then took his place opposite to me in a first-class carriage.
[Illustration: QUAYS OF GRENOBLE.][447]
At 5 P.M. the train arrived at Grenoble. At the station the gendarme of
Vizille summoned a gendarme of the town, and I was conducted as a
prisoner by the two to the Hotel Monnet. The gendarme of Vizille then
left me in care of the other, shut up in a room of the hotel, where the
gendarme of Grenoble sat silent opposite to me till 6.30. I thought that
then the other gendarme would come back from the Préfecture with an
order that I was to be freed from further annoyance. Not a bit of it! He
came back with an order that all my possessions were to be carefully
ransacked, and all the contents of my boxes were turned out upon the
floor. All suspected articles--all my sketches, manuscripts, letters,
and all the volumes of the _Guide Joanne_ were then put into my smallest
portmanteau, which one of the gendarmes carried, and I was marched
between the two to the old palace of the Dauphins, where the courts are.
Here two clerks (or secretaries of the Préfecture) subjected me to a
long examination--who I was, what was my employment, where I had been,
&c. The English letters found in my blotting-book (ordinary family
letters) were translated into French by a clerk who understood English.
All my drawings (chiefly of church architecture) were examined in
detail, and their objects inquired into. The terrible _Guides Joanne_
were passed in review and, after an hour, I was told I was free, but
without a single word of apology or regret. Indeed, I should not have
got away then if at last one of the clerks had not said in his insolent
manner, “Est que vous êtes donc un tel, qu’il n’y a une seule personne
dans toute cette partie de la France qui peut répondre de vous?” And
goaded to desperation I answered, “Well, yes, there is one person, it is
a lady; she is only a few miles from here now (at Aix les Bains): it is
the Queen of England.” On parting, the gendarme of Vizille was told in
my presence that he had only done his duty in arresting me for having
ventured to draw the Château of Lesdiguières; and he left, carrying off
in his pocket (by accident no doubt) a sealed packet which he had taken
from my dressing-case, saying, “Nous allons ouvrir ça devant ces
messieurs, ça doit être des instruments pour tirer des plans.” I called
the next day upon my examiners to ask them to obtain restitution of the
packet, but they declined to take any trouble. One of their comrades,
looking up from his writing, said insolently, “Puisque vous avez été
arrêté hier, est-ce qu’on ne vous a encore condamné?”
I wrote this story in the train, and posted it at one of the stations to
the editor of the _Times_, who inserted it in the paper, so that when I
reached home I found England ringing with it, and a question asked in
the House about it. I also complained to the Foreign Office, and Lord
Salisbury sent me afterwards the French answer to the inquiries made.
They allowed the facts of the examination, but denied that I had ever
been arrested, though the leading feature through the whole had been
that whenever I attempted to speak I had been silenced by a shout of
“Taisez-vous donc; rappelez-vous donc que vous êtes en arrestation.” The
sealed packet was never restored.
I returned home on May 3, and at the beginning of June was at Scotney
Castle.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Scotney, June 1, 1887._--We have been for the day at Glassenbury, the
old moated house of Mr. Atkin Roberts, in a wooded hollow of the hills,
surrounded by fine old trees, but of damp and dismal aspect. There is a
lime avenue there, haunted by a lady--once Miss Roberts--who is always
looking for her husband, for as she was riding away with him down the
avenue on their wedding-day, he was thrown from his horse and killed on
the spot. She never afterwards left the paternal home, where there are
pictures of her, unmarried and as a widow. Some hundred years ago the
last Roberts of Glassenbury had only daughters, and of these the last
married the then Duke of St. Albans. The Duke was a gambler and a
spendthrift, and sold all her fine things--her diamonds, her plate, her
china; but she was determined that he should not make away the place,
and that she would leave it to those who would take care of it; the
question was--to whom?
[Illustration: SCOTNEY CASTLE.][448]
“One day she had sent for a painter to come to Glassenbury to paint a
coat of arms on her carriage, and, when she showed him the arms, he
said, ‘Why, your Grace, those are the very arms I was employed to paint
at a place in Ireland, to which I went quite by accident, having been
shipwrecked on the coast close by.’ The Duchess inquired, and found that
the people in Ireland, for whom he had painted the arms, were very
distant relations, and she settled the property upon the Irish Colonel
Roberts, who left it to the present owner, his nephew, formerly Atkin.
“Sir Arthur Birch, who has some high appointment at the Bank of England,
has lately been at Scotney, full of a very singular circumstance. He had
two clerks, an elderly Mr. Sperati and a Mr. Lutwich, and they were very
intimate friends. One Whit-Monday evening, as he was sitting with his
wife by the fire in his house in Burlington Gardens, Mr. Lutwich, with a
very scared look, bade her mark the exact time, ‘for,’ said he, ‘I have
just seen Sperati; he has just appeared in this room, as distinctly as I
ever saw him in my life. He wore a very old coat of his, which I know
quite well, and had a very peculiar silver-knobbed stick in his hand; I
am certain he is dead, and I must go to his house and see.’
“But the wife urged him so much not to go then, and to wait till the
next morning, that he assented.
“As he was on his way in the morning to Sperati’s house, he met
Sperati’s brother, who said, ‘I was on my way to tell you sad news; my
brother died last night at nine o’clock, very suddenly, of
heart-disease.’ It was exactly the hour at which Mr. Lutwich had seen
him.
“Mr. Lutwich went on to the house, and saw the butler, whom he knew
well. He said, ‘I have an especial reason for asking about an old coat
which I remember well, and which your master use to have--has he worn
it lately?’--‘Well, it is strange you should ask about it, sir, because,
though he has not worn it for some time, he had it on last night.’--‘And
do you remember what stick he had in his hand?’--‘Yes, perfectly, sir,
it is in the hall now,’ and it was the very stick with which he had
appeared.
“Mrs. Papillon had been telling the Husseys of a very famous female
mesmerist living in Park Street. Late one night this person had a
visitor who urged her very much to consent to go at once to a mysterious
patient, to whom she could only travel blindfolded. She hesitated for
some time, but finally, being very much urged, she assented. A
well-appointed carriage was at the door, in which she was driven to the
railway. In the train she was blindfolded. Several hours were passed in
travelling by train. Then she was taken out to a carriage and driven for
some distance. On arriving at a house, she was led up a staircase and
into a large room. As her bandage was removed, she saw two ladies in
black just leaving the room. A gentleman was lying in bed, very
dangerously ill of typhoid fever. She mesmerised him and he fell asleep.
When he awoke, a great change for the better was perceptible. He said,
‘I feel better; I could drink a glass of beer.’ She said, ‘Give him the
beer.’ He drank it, and fell into a restful, natural sleep.
“Then the lady was blindfolded again and conveyed back in the same way
in which she came. When she reached her own house in Park Street, a
cheque for a very large amount was left in her hands. The next day she
read in the paper that the Prince of Wales--then most dangerously ill at
Sandringham--had rallied, and fallen into a deep natural sleep from the
moment of drinking a glass of beer.
“Mr. Hussey told me that an old Mr. and Mrs. Close of Nottingham were
very rich and great misers, and they both made wills leaving all they
possessed each to the other. However, as they died within a few hours of
each other, that made very little difference to anybody.
“When the heirs-at-law arrived at Nottingham--young people full of
spirits--they were greatly excited and brimming with curiosity. It was
known that there were splendid diamonds, and that vast wealth of every
kind existed, but at first nothing seemed to be forthcoming. Cupboards
and drawers were ransacked in vain. Nothing particular was found.
“At last, in a room at the top of the house a great trunk was
discovered. ‘Here,’ they said, ‘it all is; we shall find all the
treasures now.’ But when the trunk was opened, the upper part was found
to be full of nothing but scraps of human hair, as if for years the
off-scourings of all the old hair-brushes had been collected; then below
that was a layer of very dirty old curl-papers; and the bottom of the
box was full of still more dirty old corsets of ladies’ dresses,
and--the box was alive! When young Mrs. Close had dived into the box,
she exclaimed, ‘What disgusting old creatures our relations must have
been! This horrible mess might infest the whole house; we must have it
burnt at once.’ So she had some men up, and the trunk carried down into
the courtyard of the house, and a huge bonfire made there, and the
trunk upset into it.
“As it was burning, she stood by, and heedlessly, with her stick, pulled
one of the curl-papers towards her, and poked it open at her feet. It
was a £50 note! In an agony, she scrimmaged at the fire, and raked out
all she possibly could, but it was too late; most of the notes were
burnt; she only saved about £800.
“Naturally her husband was furious, and of course he was very unjust.
‘Any one but you would have examined the box carefully; there never was
such an idiot of a woman,’ &c. And every time he saw the burnt heap in
the courtyard, he burst forth afresh. So she sent for the dustman round
the corner, and had all the ashes carefully cleared away.
“Still nothing had been found of the diamonds. They had certainly
existed; there were always the diamonds to fall back upon. But though
they searched everywhere, nothing could be found of them. At last they
asked the only old lady with whom Mrs. Close had visited if she knew of
any one who could help them. ‘Yes, certainly,’ she said; ‘there’s old
Betty Thompson at the almshouses, she was always in and out of the house
as charwoman; she knew more of Mrs. Close and her ways than any one
else.’ So away they went to the almshouses, and asked Betty Thompson.
‘Oh yes,’ she said, ‘she knew very well that there were diamonds, very
fine diamonds indeed, but small good _they_ ever did to old Mrs. Close,
for she always kept them sewn up and hidden away in her old stays.’
“The stays had all perished in the fire; the diamonds would not have
burnt, but then the very ashes had been thrown away; there was no trace
left of them. The bank-notes were all very old--the few that were
saved--but they were quite good; but there was very little else left of
the great inheritance.”
* * * * *
_To_ LOUISA, MARCHIONESS OF WATERFORD.
“_Jermyn Street, June 16, 1887._--London is in gala costume, the streets
flooded with flowers, and the West End thoroughfares lined by stands,
with seats covered with red and gay awnings. I am perpetually thinking
of what Arthur Stanley’s ecstasy would have been on looking forward to
having so many kings and queens, besides no end of other royalty, in the
Abbey at once. On Saturday I was at Osterley, where the gardens were
quite lovely and delicious in the heat, and yesterday there was a
pleasant party at Lord Beauchamp’s, with little comedies to amuse
Princess Mary, who was exceedingly gracious and kind to me.
“Alas! we are expecting the news of Theodore Walrond’s death--a man
apparently as healthy in body as in mind till his last illness set in,
and quite universally beloved.”
* * * * *
“_June 17._--Yesterday I had luncheon with Miss Geary at her very pretty
house in Grosvenor Street, and met Lady Elgin and a charming, fresh,
sensible Miss Boscawen. I dined at Lady Manners’, where I made rather
friends with Lord Apsley: afterwards there was a large brilliant party
at Mrs. Portman’s.
“To-day my two young American friends, Sands and Martin, gave a most
pleasant luncheon. I sat by Lady Middleton, who talked charmingly and
gratefully of the happiness of married life--the pleasure to a woman of
entire self-renunciation: then of her own life, which she would not
exchange for any in the world, though she has had to give up all her own
inclinations, and to throw herself absolutely and entirely into the
interests of hunting. She said she never allowed an ill word on the
field, and if she heard one, rode even for miles till she caught up the
culprit to say so.”
* * * * *
“_June 19._--Lady Dorothy Nevill has been most funny about a burglary at
Lady Orford’s. While the family were away, a man came to the door, who
said he was sent to measure the dining-room chimney-piece, and asked the
old woman who was taking care of the place to go up to the top of the
house to get him a piece of tape for the purpose. When she came down,
the man was gone, and so were two of the best pictures. ‘I could swear
to the pictures anywhere,’ said the old woman afterwards, ‘for they were
of members of the Orford family.’ ‘They _were_ the Virgin Mary and St.
Sebastian,’ added Lady Dorothy, ‘and I leave you to imagine how far
_they_ were ever likely to have been members of the Orford family!’
“At breakfast I sat by Sir George Dasent. I spoke of his wonderful
memory. He said, ‘When I was a boy, my father saw me writing--writing
with a pen was never a strong point with me--but still I was busy at it,
and he asked me what I was doing. I said, “Writing down what I’ve
read.”--“Don’t write it down, my boy,” he said; “carry it all in your
head; it is much better,” and I have always done so.’
“He spoke of the folly of interfering in any street rows. ‘It had been a
wet day, and you know when the pavement is wet--why I cannot tell--you
can see much farther than at other times, and down the whole length of
Eaton Place I saw a man knock a woman down; she got up, and he knocked
her down again. He knocked her down several times running. At last I got
up to him and said, “You villain, to knock a woman down like that; how
can you dare to do it?”--“Now you just go along with you,” said the
woman; “he only gave me what I deserved.”--“Oh, if you like being
knocked down, it’s another matter,” I said.’
“‘One day in the street,’ he related, ‘I passed a party of Germans
abusing each other with most outrageous language, and I said, “Remember
there are police here as well as in Germany.” When I got near St Peter’s
Church, I was aware that one of the Germans was following me, and he
came up and said, “I am come to demand satisfaction.”--“Very well, you
shall have satisfaction,” I said, and I beckoned a policeman from the
other side of the street, who came across saying, “What can I do for
you, sir?” for all the police know me. So I said, “You will just take
this man up, and I will go with you and appear against him.” So we went
on our way, the policeman, the German, and I. When we had gone some way,
the policeman said, “It’s giving you a great deal of trouble, sir,
isn’t it, to go to the police-station; couldn’t we manage it here?’ So I
said, “Yes, perhaps we may as well try him here. If he kneels down in
the gutter in the mud and prays for forgiveness, we will let him off.”
So I said in German, “He (the policeman) says that if you kneel down in
the gutter and beg for forgiveness, he will let you off.”--“May not I
kneel on the pavement?” he said. “No, that will not do; you must kneel
in the mud, with your hands up so. “So down in the mud he went and said,
“I am very sorry for vat I have done,” and we let him go.’
“Chief-Justice Morris said he was sitting on the bench in Ireland, and
after a case had been tried, he said to the jurymen, ‘Now, to consider
this matter, you will retire to your accustomed place,’ and two-thirds
of them went into _the dock_.
“Another time he said to a culprit, ‘I can produce five witnesses who
saw you steal that cow.”--‘Yes,’ said the prisoner, ‘but I can produce
five hundred who did not.’
“Sir George Dasent said he should not go to the Abbey on the Jubilee
Day. His legs were so infirm now, that a touch would upset him, and,
when once down, he could not get up again. He had once been knocked down
by a newspaper--‘retributive, you might say.’”[449]
* * * * *
“_June 20._--The streets are all hung with scarlet and blue draperies,
and Waterloo Place is embowered in a succession of triumphal arches. The
crowds are tremendous. The foot-passengers have already expelled the
carriages from the principal thoroughfares, and two million more people
are expected to arrive to-day.
[Illustration: AT WESTMINSTER.][450]
“I dined last night with Charlie Halifax, meeting Lady Morton, the
Arundel Mildmays, and Sir Hickman Bacon--a pale frail youth, so
High-Church that he could not take part in any Jubilee gaieties
whilst ---- (one of their especial clergy) was imprisoned. Charlie was
very funny in his tantrums against the bishops. ‘I hate them all except
Lincoln, and--as cowards--I despise them.’ He said he would not go to
the service in the Abbey, because he considers it desecrated by having
seats erected over the altar!”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_June 21, 1887._--Nothing can have been more sublimely pathetic than
the whole ceremony (of the Jubilee)--more inexpressibly touching and
elevating. The Abbey, too, did not look spoilt: all the tiers of seats,
all the galleries disappeared utterly: nothing was visible between the
time-worn pillars and under the grey arches but the masses of people
they contained.
“I went at 8 A.M. It was not a moment too soon. Cabs charged two pounds
to the Abbey, but I walked very comfortably. The tickets had little maps
of the Abbey, with the entrance for the bearer marked on each. Mine was
by a door on the north-east behind St. Margaret’s, and there I waited,
with a small crowd, till nine struck, and some iron gates were opened by
the police, when we ran down an awned passage to where a staircase of
rough timber led up by the great Norris tomb to our places.
“Mine was simply perfect, a splendid place, from whence--
‘To see the lords of human kind go by,’
as Goldsmith says. I would not have changed it with any other in the
building. In the theatre it would have been the royal box--a little red
gallery to hold four, over the tomb of Aylmer de Valence; in front of
the gallery on the left of the sanctuary; close above the princesses of
Austria, Spain, and Portugal; opposite the kings; with a view of the
peers and peeresses in the right transept, and so near the Queen that
one could see every play of her expression. My companions were a doctor
of music in his red gown and two females of the middle class, who were
very good-natured in lending me their glasses.
“The time of waiting did not seem long: all was so full of interest.