THE LOVE STORY OF LAPEROUSE.
"My story is a romance"--"Mon histoire est un roman"--wrote Laperouse
in relating the events with which this chapter will deal. We have seen
him as a boy; we have watched him in war; we shall presently follow him
as a navigator. But it is just as necessary to read his charming love
story, if we are to understand his character. We should have no true
idea of him unless we knew how he bore himself amid perplexities that
might have led him to quote, as peculiarly appropriate to his own case,
the lines of Shakespeare:--
"Ay me! for ought that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth,"
During the period of his service in the East Indies, Laperouse
frequently visited Ile-de-France (which is now a British possession,
called Mauritius). Then it was the principal naval station of the
French in the Indian Ocean. There he met a beautiful girl, the daughter
of one of the subordinate officials at Port Louis. Louise Eleonore
Broudou is said to have been "more than pretty"; she was distinguished
by grace of manner, charm of disposition, and fine, cultivated
character. The young officer saw her often, admired her much,
fell in love with her, and asked her to marry him. Mademoiselle loved
him too; and if they two only had had to be consulted, the happy union
of a well-matched pair might have followed soon.
It signified little to Laperouse, in love, that the lady had neither
rank nor fortune. But his family in France took quite a different view.
He wrote to a favourite sister, telling her about it, and she lost no
time in conveying the news to his parents. This was in 1775. Then the
trouble began.
Inasmuch as he was over thirty years of age at this time, it may be
thought that he might have been left to choose a wife for himself. But
a young officer of rank in France, under the Old Regime, was not so
free in these matters as he would be nowadays. Marriage was much more
than a personal affair. It was even more than a family affair. People
of rank did not so much marry as "make alliances"--or rather, submit
to having them made for them. It was quite a regular thing for a
marriage to be arranged by the families of two young people who had
never even seen each other. An example of that kind will appear
presently.
The idea that the Comte de Laperouse, one of the smartest officers in
the French King's navy, should marry out of his rank and station,
shocked his relatives and friends as much as it would have done if he
had been detected picking pockets. He could not, without grave risk of
social and professional ruin, marry until he had obtained the
consent of his father, and--so naval regulations required--of his
official superiors. Both were firmly refused. Monsieur de Ternay, who
commanded on the Ile-de-France station, shook his wise head, and told
the lover "that his love fit would pass, and that people did not
console themselves for being poor with the fact that they were
married." (This M. de Ternay, it may be noted, had commanded a French
squadron in Canada in 1762, and James Cook was a junior officer on the
British squadron which blockaded him in St. John's Harbour. He managed
to slip out one night, much to the disgust of Colville, the British
Admiral, who commented scathingly on his "shameful flight.")
The father of Laperouse poured out his forbidding warnings in a long
letter. Listen to the "tut-tut" of the old gentleman at Albi:--
"You make me tremble, my son. How can you face with coolness the
consequences of a marriage which would bring you into disgrace with the
Minister and would lose you the assistance of powerful friends? You
would forfeit the sympathies of your colleagues and would sacrifice the
fruit of your work during twenty years. In disgracing yourself you
would humiliate your family and your parents. You would prepare for
yourself nothing but remorse; you would sacrifice your fortune and
position to a frivolous fancy for beauty and to pretended charms which
perhaps exist only in your own imagination. Neither honour nor probity
compels you to meet ill-considered engagements that you may have
made with that person or with her parents. Do they or you know that you
are not free, that you are under my authority?" He went on to draw a
picture of the embarrassments that would follow such a marriage, and
then there is a passage revealing the cash-basis aspect of the old
gentleman's objection: "You say that there are forty officers in the
Marine who have contracted marriages similar to that which you propose
to make. You have better models to follow, and in any case what was
lacking on the side of birth, in these instances, was compensated by
fortune. Without that balance they would not have had the baseness and
imprudence to marry thus." Poor Eleonore had no compensating balance of
that kind in her favour. She was only beautiful, charming and
sweet-natured. Therefore, "tut-tut, my son!"
In the course of the next few months Laperouse covered himself with
glory by his services on the AMAZON, the ASTREE, and the SCEPTRE, and
he hoped that these exploits would incline his father to accede to his
ardent wish. But no; the old gentleman was as hard as a rock. He
"tut-tutted" with as much vigour as ever. The lovers had to wait.
Then his mother, full of love for her son and of pride in his
achievements, took a hand, and tried to arrange a more suitable match
for him. An old friend of the family, Madame de Vesian had a
marriageable daughter. She was rich and beautiful, and her lineage was
noble. She had never seen Laperouse, and he had never seen her,
but that was an insignificant detail in France under the old Regime. If
the parents on each side thought the marriage suitable, that was
enough. The wishes of the younger people concerned were, it is true,
consulted before the betrothal, but it was often a consultation merely
in form, and under pressure. We should think that way of making
marriages most unsatisfactory; but then, a French family of position in
the old days would have thought our freer system very shocking and
loose. It is largely a matter of usage; and that the old plan, which
seems so faulty to us, produced very many happy and lasting unions,
there is much delightful French family history to prove.
Laperouse had now been many months away from Ile-de-France and the
bright eyes of Eleonore. He was extremely fond of his mother, and
anxious to meet her wishes. Moreover, he held Madame de Vesian in high
esteem, and wrote that he "had always admired her, and felt sure that
her daughter resembled her." These influences swayed him, and he gave
way; but, being frank and honest by disposition, insisted that no
secret should be made of his affair of the heart with the lady across
the sea. He wrote to Madame de Vesian a candid letter, in which he
said:--
"Being extremely sensitive, I should be the most unfortunate of men if
I were not beloved by my wife, if I had not her complete confidence, if
her life amongst her friends and children did not render her
perfectly happy. I desire one day to regard you as a mother, and to-day
I open my heart to you as my best friend. I authorise my mother to
relate to you my old love affair. My heart has always been a romance
(MON COEUR A TOUJOURS ETE UN ROMAN); and the more I sacrificed prudence
to those whom I loved the happier I was. But I cannot forget the
respect that I owe to my parents and to their wishes. I hope that in a
little while I shall be free. If then I have a favourable reply from
you, and if I can make your daughter happy and my character is
approved, I shall fly to Albi and embrace you a thousand times. I shall
not distinguish you from my mother and my sisters."
He also wrote to Monsieur de Vesian, begging him not to interfere with
the free inclinations of his daughter, and to remember that "in order
to be happy there must be no repugnance to conquer. I have, however,"
he added, "an affair to terminate which does not permit me to dispose
of myself entirely. My mother will tell you the details. I hope to be
free in six weeks or two months. My happiness will then be
inexpressible if I obtain your consent and that of Madame de Vesian,
with the certainty of not having opposed the wishes of Mademoiselle,
your daughter."
"I hope to be free"--did he "hope"? That was his polite way of putting
the matter. Or he may have believed that he had conquered his love for
Eleonore Broudou, and that she, as a French girl who understood his
obligations to his family, would--perhaps after making a few
handkerchiefs damp with her tears--acquiesce.
So the negotiations went on, and at length, in May, 1783, the de Vesian
family accepted Laperouse as the fiance of their daughter. "My project
is to live with my family and yours," he wrote. "I hope that my wife
will love my mother and my sisters, as I feel that I shall love you and
yours. Any other manner of existence is frightful to me, and I have
sufficient knowledge of the world and of myself to know that I can only
be happy in living thus."
But in the very month that he wrote contracting himself--that is
precisely the word--to marry the girl he had never seen, Eleonore, the
girl whom he had seen, whom he had loved, and whom he still loved in
his heart, came to Paris with her parents. Laperouse saw her again. He
told her what had occurred. Of course she wept; what girl would not?
She said, between her sobs, that if it was to be all over between them
she would go into a convent. She could never marry anyone else.
"Mon histoire est un roman," and here beginneth the new chapter of this
real love story. Why, we wonder, has not some novelist discovered these
Laperouse letters and founded a tale upon them? Is it not a better
story even told in bare outline in these few pages, than nine-tenths of
the concoctions of the novelists, which are sold in thousands? Think of
the wooing of these two delightful people, the beautiful girl and the
gallant sailor, in the ocean isle, with its tropical perfumes and
colours, its superb mountain and valley scenery, bathed in
eternal sunshine by day and kissed by cool ocean breezes by night--the
isle of Paul and Virginia, the isle which to Alexandre Dumas was the
Paradise of the World, an enchanted oasis of the ocean, "all carpeted
with greenery and refreshed with cooling streams, where, no matter what
the season, you may gently sink asleep beneath the shade of palms and
jamrosades, soothed by the babbling of a crystal spring."
Think of how he must have entertained and thrilled her with accounts of
his adventures: of storms, of fights with the terrible English, of the
chasing of corsairs and the battering of the fleets of Indian princes.
Think of her open-eyed wonder, and of the awakening of love in her
heart; and then of her dread, lest after all, despite his consoling
words and soft assurances, he, the Comte, the officer, should be
forbidden to marry her, the maiden who had only her youth, her beauty,
and her character, but no rank, no fortune, to win favour from the
proud people who did not know her. The author is at all events certain
of this: that if the letters had seen the light before old Alexandre
Dumas died, he would have pounced upon them with glee, and would have
written around them a romance that all the world would have rejoiced to
read.
But while we think of what the novelists have missed, we are neglecting
the real story, the crisis of which we have now reached.
Seeing Eleonore again, his sensitive heart deeply moved by her sorrow,
Laperouse took a manly resolution. He would marry her despite
all obstacles. He had promised her at her home in Ile-de-France. He
would keep his promise. He would not spoil her beautiful young life
even for his family.
But there was the contract concerning Mademoiselle de Vesian. What of
that? Clearly Laperouse was in a fix. Well, a man who has been over
twenty-five years at sea has been in a fix many times, and learns that
a bold face and tact are good allies. Remembering the nature of his
situation, it will be agreed that the letter he wrote to his mother,
announcing his resolve, was a model of good taste and fine feeling:
"I have seen Eleonore, and I have not been able to resist the remorse
by which I am devoured. My excessive attachment to you had made me
violate all that which is most sacred among men. I forgot the vows of
my heart, the cries of my conscience. I was in Paris for twenty days,
and, faithful to my promise to you, I did not go to see her. But I
received a letter from her. She made no reproach against me, but the
most profound sentiment of sadness was expressed in it. At the instant
of reading it the veil fell from my eyes. My situation filled me with
horror. I am no better in my own eyes than a perjurer, unworthy of
Mademoiselle de Vesian, to whom I brought a heart devoured by remorse
and by a passion that nothing could extinguish. I was equally unworthy
of Mademoiselle Broudou, and wished to leave her. My only excuse,
my dear mother, is the extreme desire I have always had to
please you. It is for you alone, and for my father, that I wished to
marry. Desiring to live with you for the remainder of my life, I
consented to your finding me a wife with whom I could abide. The choice
of Mademoiselle de Vesian had overwhelmed me, because her mother is a
woman for whom I have a true attachment; and Heaven is my witness
to-day that I should have preferred her daughter to the most brilliant
match in the universe. It is only four days since I wrote to her on the
subject. How can I reconcile my letter with my present situation? But,
my dear mother, it would be feebleness in me to go further with the
engagement. I have doubtless been imprudent in contracting an
engagement without your consent, but I should be a monster if I
violated my oaths and married Mademoiselle de Vesian. I do not doubt
that you tremble at the abyss over which you fear that I am about to
fall, but I feel that I can only live with Eleonore, and I hope that
you will give your consent to our union. My fortune will suffice for
our wants, and we shall live near you. But I shall only come to Albi
when Mademoiselle de Vesian shall be married, and when I can be sure
that another, a thousand times more worthy than I am, shall have sworn
to her an attachment deeper than that which it was in my power to
offer. I shall write neither to Madame nor Monsieur de Vesian. Join to
your other kindnesses that of undertaking this painful commission."
There was no mistaking the firm, if regretful tone, of that
letter; and Laperouse married his Eleonore at Paris.
Did Mademoiselle de Vesian break her heart because her sailor fiance
had wed another? Not at all! She at once became engaged to the Baron de
Senegas--had she seen him beforehand, one wonders?--and married him
in August! Laperouse was prompt to write his congratulations to her
parents, and it is diverting to find him saying, concerning the lady to
whom he himself had been engaged only a few weeks before, that he
regretted "never having had the honour of seeing her!"
But there was still another difficulty to be overcome before Laperouse
and his happy young bride could feel secure. He had broken a regulation
of the service by marrying without official sanction. True, he had
talked of settling down at Albi, but that was when he thought he was
going to marry a young lady whom he did not know. Now he had married
the girl of his heart; and love, as a rule, does not stifle ambition.
Rather are the two mutually co-operative. Eleonore had fallen in love
with him as a gallant sailor, and a sailor she wanted him still to be.
Perhaps, in her dreams, she saw him a great Admiral, commanding
powerful navies and winning glorious victories for France. Madame la
Comtesse did not wish her husband to end his career because he had
married her, be sure of that.
Here Laperouse did a wise and tactful thing, which showed that he
understood something of human nature. Nothing interests old
ladies so much as the love affairs of young people; and old ladies in
France at that time exercised remarkable influence in affairs of
government. The Minister of Marine was the Marquis de Castries. Instead
of making a clean breast of matters to him, Laperouse wrote a long and
delightful letter to Madame la Marquise. "Madame," he said, "mon
histoire est un roman," and he begged her to read it. Of course she
did. What old lady would not? She was a very grand lady indeed, was
Madame la Marquise; but this officer who wrote his heart's story to
her, was a dashing hero. He told her how he had fallen in love in
Ile-de-France; how consent to his marriage had been officially and
paternally refused; how he had tried "to stifle the sentiments which
were nevertheless remaining at the bottom of my heart." Would she
intercede with the Minister for him and excuse him?
Of course she would! She was a dear old lady, was Madame la Marquise.
Within a few days Laperouse received from the Minister a most paternal,
good natured letter, which assured him that his romantic affair should
not interfere with his prospects, and concluded: "Enjoy the pleasure of
having made someone happy, and the marks of honour and distinction that
you have received from your fellow citizens."
Such is the love story of Laperouse. Alas! the marriage did not bring
many years of happiness to poor Eleonore, much as she deserved them.
Two years afterwards, her hero sailed away on that expedition
from which he never returned. She dwelt at Albi, hoping until hope gave
way to despair, and at last she died, of sheer grief they said, nine
years after the waters of the Pacific had closed over him who had wooed
her and wedded her for herself alone.