NEW ENGLAND IN FRENCH EYES.
We owe our readers a digression at this point, while we return for a
few moments to say a little more of the fortunes of Madame de
Frontignac, whom we left waiting with impatience for the termination of
the conversation between Mary and Burr. "_Enfin, chère Sybille_," said
Madame de Frontignac, when Mary came out of the room, with her cheeks
glowing and her eye flashing with a still unsubdued light, "_te voilà
encore_! What did he say, _mimi_?--did he ask for me?"
"Yes," said Mary, "he asked for you."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him that you wished me to excuse you."
"How did he look then?--did he look surprised?"
"A good deal so, I thought," said Mary.
"_Allons, mimi_,--tell me all you said, and all he said." "Oh," said
Mary, "I am the worst person in the world; in fact, I cannot remember
anything that I have said; but I told him that he must leave you, and
never see you any more."
"Oh, _mimi_, never!"
Madame de Frontignac sat down on the side of the bed with such a look
of utter despair as went to Mary's heart.
"You know that it is best, Virginie; do you not?"
"Oh, yes, I know it; _mais pourtant, c'est dur comme la mort_. Ah,
well, what shall Virginie do now?"
"You have your husband," said Mary.
"_Je ne l'aime point_," said Madame de Frontignac.
"Yes, but he is a good and honorable man, and you should love him."
"Love is not in our power," said Madame de Frontignac.
"Not every kind of love," said Mary, "but some kinds. If you have a
kind, indulgent friend who protects you and cares for you, you can be
grateful to him, you can try to make him happy, and in time you may
come to love him very much. He is a thousand times nobler man, if what
you say is true, than the one who has injured you so."
"Oh, Mary!" said Madame de Frontignac, "there are some cases where we
find it too easy to love our enemies."
"More than that," said Mary; "I believe, that, if you go on patiently
in the way of duty, and pray daily to God, He will at last take out of
your heart this painful love, and give you a true and healthy one. As
you say, such feelings are very sweet and noble; but they are not the
only ones we have to live by;--we can find happiness in duty, in
self-sacrifice, in calm, sincere, honest friendship. That is what you
can feel for your husband."
"Your words cool me," said Madame de Frontignac; "thou art a sweet
snow-maiden, and my heart is hot and tired. I like to feel thee in my
arms," she said, putting her arms around Mary, and resting her head
upon her shoulder. "Talk to me so every day, and read me good cool
verses out of that beautiful Book, and perhaps by-and-by I shall grow
still and quiet like you."
Thus Mary soothed her friend; but every few days this soothing had to
be done over, as long as Burr remained in Newport. When he was finally
gone, she grew more calm. The simple, homely ways of the cottage, the
healthful routine of daily domestic toils, into which she delighted to
enter, brought refreshment to her spirit. That fine tact and exquisite
social sympathy, which distinguish the French above other nations,
caused her at once to enter into the spirit of the life in which she
moved; so that she no longer shocked any one's religious feelings by
acts forbidden by the Puritan idea of Sunday, or failed in any of the
exterior proprieties of religious life. She also read and studied with
avidity the English Bible, which came to her with the novelty of a
wholly new book in a new language; nor was she without a certain
artistic appreciation of the austere precision and gravity of the
religious life by which she was surrounded.
"It is sublime, but a little _glaciale_, like the Alps," she sometimes
said to Mary and Mrs. Marvyn, when speaking of it; "but then," she
added, playfully, "there are the flowers,--_les roses des Alpes_,--and
the air is very strengthening, and it is near to heaven,--_faut
avouer_."
We have shown how she appeared to the eye of New England life; it may
not be uninteresting to give a letter to one of her friends, which
showed how the same appeared to her. It was not a friend with whom she
felt on such terms, that her intimacy with Burr would appear at all in
the correspondence.
* * * * *
"You behold me, my charming Gabrielle, quite pastoral, recruiting from
the dissipations of my Philadelphia life in a quiet cottage, with most
worthy, excellent people, whom I have learned to love very much. They
are good and true, as pious as the saints themselves, although they do
not belong to the Church,--a thing which I am sorry for; but then let
us hope, that, if the world is wide, heaven is wider, and that all
worthy people will find room at last. This is Virginie's own little,
pet, private heresy; and when I tell it to the Abbé, he only smiles;
and so I think, somehow, that it is not so very bad as it might be.
"We have had a very gay life in Philadelphia, and now I am growing
tired of the world, and think I shall retire to my cheese, like
Lafontaine's rat.
"These people in the country here in America have a character quite
their own, very different from the life of cities, where one sees, for
the most part, only a continuation of the forms of good society which
exist in the Old World.
"In the country, these people seem simple, grave, severe, always
industrious, and, at first, cold and reserved in their manners towards
each other, but with great warmth of heart. They are all obedient to
the word of their minister, who lives among them just like any other
man, and marries and has children.
"Everything in their worship is plain and austere; their churches are
perfectly desolate; they have no chants, no pictures, no
carvings,--only a most disconsolate, bare-looking building, where they
meet together, and sing one or two hymns, and the minister makes one or
two prayers, all out of his own thoughts, and then gives them a long,
long discourse about things which I cannot understand enough English to
comprehend.
"There is a very beautiful, charming young girl here, the daughter of
my hostess, who is as lovely and as saintly as St. Catharine, and has
such a genius for religion, that, if she had been in our Church, she
would certainly have been made a saint.
"Her mother is a good, worthy matron; and the good priest lives in the
family. I think he is a man of very sublime religion, as much above
this world as a great mountain; but he has the true sense of liberty
and fraternity; for he has dared to oppose with all his might this
detestable and cruel trade in poor negroes, which makes us, who are so
proud of the example of America in asserting the rights of men, so
ashamed for her inconsistencies.
"Well, now, there is a little romance getting up in the cottage; for
the good priest has fixed his eyes on the pretty saint, and discovered,
what he must be blind not to see, that she is very lovely,--and so, as
he can marry, he wants to make her his wife; and her mamma, who adores
him as if he were God, is quite set upon it. The sweet Marie, however,
has had a lover of her own in her little heart, a beautiful young man,
who went to sea, as heroes always do, to seek his fortune. And the
cruel sea has drowned him; and the poor little saint has wept and
prayed, till she is so thin and sweet and mournful that it makes one's
heart ache to see her smile. In our Church, Gabrielle, she would have
gone into a convent; but she makes a vocation of her daily life, and
goes round the house so sweetly, doing all the little work that is to
be done, as sacredly as the nuns pray at the altar. For you must know,
here in New England, the people, for the most part, keep no servants,
but perform all the household work themselves, with no end of spinning
and sewing besides. It is the true Arcadia, where you find cultivated
and refined people busying themselves with the simplest toils. For
these people are well-read and well-bred, and truly ladies in all
things. And so my little Marie and I, we feed the hens and chickens
together, and we search for eggs in the hay in the barn. And they have
taught me to spin at their great wheel, and at a little one too, which
makes a noise like the humming of a bee.
"But where am I? Oh, I was telling about the romance. Well, so the good
priest has proposed for my Marie, and the dear little soul has accepted
him as the nun accepts the veil; for she only loves him filially and
religiously. And now they are going on, in their way, with preparations
for the wedding. They had what they call 'a quilting' here the other
night, to prepare the bride's quilt,--and all the friends in the
neighborhood came;--it was very amusing to see.
"The morals of this people are so austere, that young men and girls are
allowed the greatest freedom. They associate and talk freely together,
and the young men walk home alone with the girls after evening parties.
And most generally, the young people, I am told, arrange their
marriages among themselves before the consent of the parents is asked.
This is very strange to us. I must not weary you, however, with the
details. I watch my little romance daily, and will let you hear further
as it progresses.
"With a thousand kisses, I am, ever, your loving
"Virginie."