Every Friday afternoon we had a reception in our hill-set garden, and
our maid Quintilia set out tea and fruit, &c., in the summer-house.
At the gate a basket was held, into which every one dropped a story as
they entered, and they were all read aloud after tea. One day, one of
these stories, a squib on Ultra-Protestants written by the younger Miss
Cavendish, led to a great fracas with the George Cavendishes, Admiral
and Mrs. Cavendish being perfectly furious with my gentle mother, who of
all people was the most innocent, as she could not have an idea of what
was in the stories till they were read aloud. Well do I remember coming
round the corner of the villa, and finding the Admiral storming at her
as she sat upon her donkey, with "My daughters shall never enter your
house again--they shall never enter it again!" and her sweet smile as
she replied, "Then, Admiral Cavendish, I have only to thank you so very
much for having so often allowed them to come to me hitherto,"--and the
Admiral's subdued look afterwards.
There was a little school established by the Grand Duchess just below
us, whither my mother sometimes went in the mornings. The children were
taught Scripture dialogues. One little girl would say to another, "Oh,
cara mia, cara amica mia, I have such a wonderful thing to tell you,"
and then would narrate how a babe was born in Bethlehem, &c., upon
which the hearer would exclaim, "O Gran Dio" in her amazement, and on
one occasion, with a cry of "O cielo!" pretended to faint away with
astonishment in the most natural way imaginable.
A long excursion from Lucca was that to Galicano, where a hermit with a
reputation of great sanctity was living under an overhanging cliff in
the mountains. He hid himself on our approach, but our large party
hunted him, and eventually unearthed him--an old dirty man in a brown
gown, with a chain of huge beads at his girdle. We wanted to see the
miraculous image of which he was guardian, but he would not show it
unless we were Catholics, and was much puzzled by my protesting that we
were, and my mother that we were not. However, at last he consented to
exhibit it, on condition that we all knelt, and that the ladies took off
their bonnets. We returned home much later than was expected, and so, as
we found afterwards, escaped seven bandits, who had been lying in wait
for us, and at last gave us up. The whole of the road from Lucca to
Galicano had then black crosses at intervals, commemorating the murders
committed there.
This summer at Lucca was altogether the greatest halt in my life I have
ever known. We seemed so removed from the world, and I was more free
from family snubbings than I had ever been before. But, all through the
time we were there, I had been far from well, and the doctor who was
consulted declared that I could not survive the severities of an English
winter. In spite of this, my mother never flinched in her determination
to return, for having once taken the impression (without the remotest
reason) that I had a tendency to Roman Catholicism, she had a far
greater terror of what she considered as danger to my soul than of any
danger to my body.
When we left the Bagni di Lucca on the 2nd of August, I left it in
despair. Behind us was a quiet, peaceful, and a far from useless life,
encircled by troops of friends, and supplying the literary and artistic
occupations in which I began to feel that I might possibly in time be
able to distinguish myself. Before me was the weary monotony of
Hurstmonceaux, only broken by visits from or to relations, by most of
whom I was disliked and slighted, if not positively ill-treated. I also
felt sure that all the influence of my aunts would be used with my
easily guided mother to force upon me the most uncongenial of
employments, which she was only too certain to allow them to advocate
as "especially desirable for Augustus, because they _were_ uncongenial!"
I was at this time also in more than usual disgrace, because disgust at
the sham Christians, sham Evangelicals, sham Protestants, with whom for
years I had been thrown, had induced me to avow my horror of Ordination.
In every way I felt myself unfitted for it. I wrote at this time--"'Some
fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith
they sprung up, because they had no depth of earth: and when the sun was
up, they were scorched; and, because they had no root, they withered
away.' If you want to know about my past religious 'impressions,' that
is just my story." Still the declaration of my determination not to take
Orders, dreaded and put off for years, cost me acutest suffering from
the pain and disappointment which I knew it inflicted upon my mother.
When we left Casa Bertini and descended the steep hill to our carriages,
we found that the whole society had been amusing themselves by dressing
in mourning, and were waiting to sing "a dirge" of their own
composition, as we drove away. But we had one or two more happy days. On
the morning after our arrival at Lucca town, we were astonished by
sounds of loud singing in the passage, and going out, found all those we
had so recently parted from at the Bagni singing in chorus some more
verses which they had composed as "a serenade," and bringing for us a
picture of the Ponte alla Maddalena, painted on a stone out of the
river. We quickly determined to spend the day in going with them to
Pisa, and making an excursion to the Gombo, where the Pisan pines end in
the sands by the seashore--and we did not return till midnight. It was
the custom at Lucca for those who drew to make little sketches in the
travellers' book at the hotel, and I had amused myself by doing one the
day before, and inscribing it "View from the Walls of Lucca," though it
was a wretched performance. When we came back, we found a most lovely
drawing opposite, inscribed--"View from the Walls of Lucca as it really
is." The Grand Duke's artist had been at the hotel in the interval.
[Illustration: PIETRA SANTA.[133]]
We travelled then with delicious slowness, only rolling onwards through
the most glorious scenery in the cool mornings and evenings, and resting
in the heat of mid-day, while, as at this time we only took our carriage
from place to place, we had no scruple in halting for days at Pietra
Santa, with its glorious views over the mountains, and old convents
embosomed in olives and cypresses; in making excursions to Serravezza
and to dismal Carrara; in lingering at La Spezia, where the avenue of
oleanders was in full blaze of bloom, and driving thence to Porto Venere
with its marble church and wonderful views along the cliffs--blue,
green, yellow, and coral-red, descending abruptly into the sea.
_To_ MY AUNT ELEANOR PAUL.
"_Lucca, August 3, 1858._--Once upon a time there was a lady
advanced in years, who had an only child. They were sick and
sorrowful, and the tempests of the world beat upon them. Driven
from home, they wandered hither and thither, seeking rest and
finding none, till at length one day they arrived, wearied and
wayworn, at the entrance of a mountain valley. 'Alas!' they
whispered, 'what place is this?'--'Take courage,' answered the
trees and fountains; 'rejoice,' shouted the flowers, 'for this is
the Happy Valley, where those who enter rest from all sickness and
trouble: this is the place where people may have a halt in life,
and where care and anxiety do not exist.' And when they heard these
words, the countenances of the weary lady and her son were glad,
and the flowers and the trees and the fountains laughed and shouted
for joy in the ceaseless golden sunshine. For two months the
strangers rested in the Happy Valley, and then once more the
tempest howled to receive them, and the voices of the unseen
sternly bade them depart; and slowly and sadly they arose, and went
out again into the wilderness, where every solitary flower, every
mountain and stream, seemed only an echo from a lost and beautiful
past.
"Oh, my auntie, do you know who the mother and son were, and what
was the Happy Valley to which they looked back with so much loving
regret?"
"_La Spezia, August_ 8.--We have been to Carrara. Do you know, my
auntie, that once upon a time there lived in the mountains of
Carrara a race of funny little people called Fanticelle? They were
the hobgoblins of the marble rocks, and were very merry, very
useful, and highly respected by every one. Each marble had its own
Fante; one was dressed in red, another in yellow, and others in
stripes of various colours; but the Fante of the white marble wore
only a simple dress as white as snow, and was greatly despised in
consequence by her companions, who were so fashionably attired.
Daily the poor white Fante was snubbed and insulted, and at last,
when the ancient Romans came to make quarries, and cut and hacked
her to pieces, and carried her remains away in carts, all the other
Fanti smiled in their cold satire and said, 'It only served the
vulgar creature right, for she did not even know how to dress
herself, and sitting upon the mountain with nothing on but her
night-dress was really quite indecorous.'
"But when some years had passed, the great guardian spirit came to
the mountains, and, stretching forth his wings, he gathered all the
Fanti beneath them, and said, 'Now, my children, you shall go forth
to see the world, and, when you return, you shall each say what is
most highly esteemed by the lovers of art, and what it is that the
children of men consider most beautiful and best.'
"Thus the Fanti of Carrara flew forth to see the world! They
alighted first in the square at Genoa. All around were huge and
stately palaces, and in the centre the statue of a hero, with the
world lying captive at his feet. But what the Fanti remarked most
was that in the most magnificent chambers of every palace, and
even upon the statue of the great Columbus himself, sat the
semblance of their despised sister the white Fante, as if enshrined
and honoured. 'Alas!' exclaimed the Fanti, 'what degraded notions
have these Genoese; let us examine places better worth our notice.'
So they came to Spain, and visited the Alhambra, but in every
court, and even on the Fountain of Lions itself, they found the
image of the white Fante seated before them. Thence they passed on
to London, to Paris, to Berlin, to Vienna, but it was ever the
same. In every gallery of statues, over the hearth of every palace,
upon the altar of every church, it seemed as if the white Fante was
reigning. 'Ah,' they exclaimed, 'can _all_ men be thus degraded?
can _all_ good taste be banished from the earth? Let us see one
more city nearer home, and from that let us form our judgment, for
the inhabitants of these northern cities are not worthy to be
ranked with mankind.'
"So the Fanti came to Milan, and beneath the wings of the great
guardian spirit, rejoicing in their approaching triumph, they
entered its vast square. And behold the spirit drew back his wings,
and they beheld a mighty and an awful vision! Before them stood
their sister, the Fante of the milk-white rocks, but no longer
humble, no longer to be restrained even within the bounds of the
greatest palace upon earth. Majestic in beauty, invincible in
power, she raised her mighty wings to heaven in the aisles of a
vast cathedral, and mounted higher and higher as by an aërial
staircase, till, far above all human things, she flung her
snow-white tresses into the azure sky!
"Then the Fanti of the coloured robes bowed their heads and
trembled, and acknowledged in penitence and humility--'Truly the
Fante of the white rocks is the most beautiful thing in the world!'
"Who can go to Carrara, my auntie, and not feel this?"
We were for a few days at Turin. The society there was then, as it is
still, the very climax of stagnation. One of its most admired ornaments
was a beautiful young Contessa la Marmora. She did nothing all day,
absolutely nothing, but sit looking pretty, with her chin leaning on her
hand. Her mother-in-law was rather more energetic than herself, and
hoping to rouse her, left a new "Journal des Modes" upon her table. Some
days after, she asked what she thought of it. "Alas!" said the young
Countess, with her beautiful head still leaning upon her hand, "I have
been so much occupied, that I never have found time to look into it." In
all my acquaintance since with Italian ladies, I have always found the
same, that they are all intensely occupied, but that it is in
doing--nothing!
Since the dreadful epidemic at court, which swept away at once the
Queen, the Queen-Dowager, and the Duke of Genoa, the King had never
received, and as his eldest daughter, Madame Clotilde, was not old
enough to do so, there were no court parties. At the opera all the young
ladies sat facing the stage, and the old ladies away from it; but when
the ballet began there was a general change; the old ladies moved to the
front, and the young ones went behind.
[Illustration: IL VALENTINO, TURIN.[134]]
A great contrast to the Italians at Turin was Mr. Ruskin, whom we saw
constantly. He was sitting all day upon a scaffold in the gallery,
copying bits of the great picture by Paul Veronese. My mother was very
proud of my drawings at this time, and gave them to him to look at. He
examined them all very carefully and said nothing for some time. At last
he pointed out one of the cathedral at Perugia as "the least bad of a
very poor collection." One day in the gallery, I asked him to give me
some advice. He said, "Watch me." He then looked at the flounce in the
dress of a maid of honour of the Queen of Sheba for five minutes, and
then he painted one thread: he looked for another five minutes, and then
he painted another thread.[135] At the rate at which he was working he
might hope to paint the whole dress in ten years: but it was a lesson as
to examining what one drew well before drawing it. I said to him, "Do
you admire all Paul Veronese's works as you do this?" He answered, "I
merely think that Paul Veronese was ordained by Almighty God to be an
archangel, neither more nor less; for it was not only that he knew how
to cover yards of canvas with noble figures and exquisite colouring, it
was that it was all _right_. If you look at other pictures in this
gallery, or any gallery, you will find mistakes, corrected perhaps, but
mistakes of every form and kind; but Paul Veronese had such perfect
knowledge, he _never_ made mistakes."
The Charles Bunsens were at Turin, and we dined with them. With Mrs. C.
Bunsen was her brother, whom we thought a very dull, heavy young man.
Long afterwards he became very well known as the French Ambassador,
Waddington.
We saw Mr. Ruskin again several times in the Vaudois, whither we went
from Turin, and stayed for several days at La Tour, riding on donkeys to
the wild scene of the Waldensian battle in the valley of Angrogna, and
jolting in a carriage to the beautiful villages of Villar and
Bobbio--"une vraie penitence," as our driver expressed it, though the
scenery is lovely. My mother was charmed to find an old woman at La Tour
who had known Oberlin very well and had lived in his parish.
[Illustration: VILLAR, IN THE VAUDOIS.[136]]
Amongst the endless little out-of-the-way excursions which my mother,
Lea, and I have made together in little _chars-à-banc_, one of those I
remember with greatest pleasure is that from Vergogna up the Val
Anzasca. The scenery was magnificent: such a deep gorge, with purple
rocks breaking through the rich woods, and range upon range of distant
mountains, with the snows of Monte Rosa closing them in. We stayed at a
charming little mountain inn at Ponte Grande, where everything was
extraordinarily cheap, and wandered in the meadows filled with
globe-ranunculus and over-shadowed by huge chestnut-trees. In the
evening the charcoal-burners came down from the mountains, where we had
watched the smoke of the fires all day amongst the woods, and serenaded
us under our windows, singing in parts, with magnificent voices, most
effective in the still night. We were afterwards at Domo d'Ossola for a
Sunday for the extraordinary fête of the imaginary Santa Filomena--kept
all day with frantic enthusiasm, cannons firing, bells ringing, and
processions of girls in white, chaunting as they walked, pouring in from
all the country parishes in the neighbourhood.
_To_ MRS. HARE (ITALIMA).
"_Lausanne, Sept. 3, 1858._--At Martigny we found _Galignani_,
which we had not seen for some days, and you will imagine my
distress at the sad news about Mr. Landor with which they were
filled.[137] Dear Mr. Landor! I had always hoped and intended to be
near him and watch over the last years of this old, old friend. I
feel certain that there is much, which the world does not know, to
be said on his side. I have known Mrs. Y. for years ... and always
prophesied that she would be the ruin of Mr. Landor some day. For
the poems, no excuse can be offered except that he was so imbued
with the spirit of the classical authors, that when he wished to
write against Mrs. Y., he thought, 'How would Horace have written
this?' and wrote accordingly, only that Horace would have said
things a great deal worse.
'Some thought far worse of him, and judged him wrong;
But verse was what he had been wedded to,
And his own mind did like a tempest strong
Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along.'[138]
Whatever his faults are, I am sure you will feel that we who have
known him well must draw a veil for ourselves over the failings of
his old age, and remember only the many kind words of the dear old
man, so tender in heart and so fastidious in taste, the many good
and generous acts of his long life, and how many they are.
"How much we have been struck with the _pale_ blue of the Swiss
lakes compared with the deep blue of those of Italy."
_To_ MY AUNT, ELEANOR PAUL.
"_Dijon, Sept. 12, 1858._--We found Fribourg quite up to our
expectations, quite worth coming all the way round by Switzerland
to visit. And the organ, how magnificent it is! We went in the
evening to hear it, when all the beautiful gothic church was
wrapped in darkness, except the solitary gleam of light in the
organ-loft, and we all sat long in breathless expectation. When the
music came, it was like a story. One seemed to be sitting far up
the nave of some great cathedral, and to hear from the distant
choir the choristers chaunting a litany, answering one another,
and then swelling and joining in a universal chorus. Then, while
they were singing, it was as if a great storm arose, the hail
rattled and the rain splashed against the windows, the thunder
crashed overhead, and the wind howled around. And then a mighty
earthquake convulsed and shook the church to its very foundations.
But always, in the pauses of the storm, the sweet silvery voices of
the choristers were heard above the roaring of the elements, and
when the storm subsided, they joined in thanksgiving, which died
away in the faint echoes of the surrounding hills. And all this was
the organ!
"We came by Morat to Neuchâtel. It is a pretty, though not a
striking place; but the view of the vast mass of Mont Blanc and of
all the Oberland Alps in the rose-coloured glow is magnificent. The
mother made inquiries after many old acquaintances,[139] to find
most of them dead, and those who were still living old, old ladies
of ninety and of one hundred.
"Did you ever hear of Doubs? We came through it yesterday, and it
certainly seemed to us the most melancholy, ill-fated village we
had ever seen. Some time ago there lived there a boy, whose
stepmother was very cruel to him--so cruel that his whole aim and
object in life was to obtain money enough to set up for himself and
escape from her tyranny. At last he succeeded, and leaving his
father's house with his heart full of bitterness, he invested his
savings in a partnership with the owner of the village café, where
he kept the accounts. One day his partner accused him of not
giving him a fair share of the profits. This made him perfectly
frantic--so furious that he determined to avenge himself by nothing
less than the total destruction of his native place! He began by
setting fire to his café, but the alarm was scarcely given when it
was discovered that almost every other house was in flames. The
inhabitants hurried from their beds, and were barely able to save
themselves, their houses, cattle, and goods perishing at one blow.
Only a few houses and the church escaped, in which the fugitives
took refuge, and were beginning to collect their energies, when,
after ten days, the fire broke out again in the night, and the rest
of the village was consumed with all it contained, including a
child of four years old. Between the two fires cholera had broken
out, so that numbers perished from pestilence as well as exposure.
The author of all the misery was taken and transported, but the
town is only now beginning to rise again from its ruins, and the
people to raise their spirits."
On reaching Paris, we found Italima and my sister at the Hôtel d'Oxford
et Cambridge. Greatly to my relief, my mother decided that, as she was
in perfect health and well supplied with visitors, it was an admirable
opportunity for my remaining abroad to learn French: this I was only too
thankful for, as it put off the evil day of my return to England, and
encountering the family wrath about my refusal to take Orders. With my
sister I spent an amusing day at Versailles on a visit to the Marquis
and Marquise du Prât, the latter a daughter of the Duc de Grammont, and
a very pretty, lively person. They lived in an ideal house of the
_ancienne régime_, where the chairs, picture-frames, carpets, even the
antimacassars, were carved or worked with the shields, crests, and
mottoes of the family.
After my sister left, the intrigues of Madame Davidoff, whom, in
compliance with my mother's wishes, I had refused to visit, brought
about my acquaintance with the Vicomte de Costa le Cerda, a
Franco-Spaniard and ardent Catholic, who constituted himself my
cicerone, and amongst other places took me to _séances_ of the Académie
de France, of which he was a member; and I should have been much
interested in seeing all the celebrated philosophers, politicians,
physicians, geologists, &c., if I had not been so ignorant of French
literature that I had scarcely heard of any one of them before. The
Marquis de Gabriac[140] (I forget how his office entitled him to do so)
sent me a medal which enabled me to visit all profane, and the
Archbishop of Paris a permission to enter all religious, institutions.
Using the latter, I went with De Costa to the Benedictines, Ursulines,
Carmelites, Petites Sœurs des Pauvres, and the Œuvre de la
Compassion for bringing up little homeless boys. On Sundays I heard Père
Félix, the philosophic Bourdaloue of the nineteenth century, preach with
his musical voice to vast enthralled audiences in Nôtre Dame.[141]
[Illustration: NOTRE DAME, PARIS.[142]]
Capital were the French lessons I received from the excellent M. Nyon,
to whom I have always felt indebted. After Italima left Paris, I lodged
with a Madame Barraud, who rented a small apartment at the back of a
court in the Rue des Saints-Pères. Here my wretched little room looked
out upon a blank wall, and was as thoroughly uncomfortable as it was
possible to be. The weather soon became bitterly cold, and, to prevent
being starved, I had to sit almost all day in the one poor uncarpeted
sitting-room with old Madame Barraud herself, who was a most
extraordinary character. Without the slightest apparent reason, a sudden
suspicion would seize her, and she would rush off to the kitchen. In
another minute she would return, wringing her hands, and would fling
herself down in a chair with--"Oh, que je suis malheureuse! Oh, que je
suis malheureuse! C'est une fille abominable cette Marie--cette tortue!
elle ne sait pas le service du tout," and then, before she had time to
take breath, she would run off to investigate the causes of a fresh
noise in the kitchen. You were never safe from her. Every moment that
old woman would dart in like a whirlwind, just to wipe off one speck of
dust she had discovered on the mirror, or to smooth some crease she
suspected in the tablecloth; and almost before you could look up she
was vanishing with her eternal refrain of "que je suis misérable! que je
suis malheureuse!"
The one subject of discussion till twelve o'clock was the déjeûner, from
twelve to six the dinner, and after that the déjeûner of the next
morning. Matters, however, were rather improved when Mademoiselle
Barraud was at home--a thoroughly sensible, sterling person, who was
generally absent on professional duties, being one of the first
music-mistresses of the day. Sometimes Madame and Mademoiselle had
friends in the evening, when it was amusing to see specimens of the
better sort of third-class Parisians.
I made very few friends at Paris, but the persons I saw oftenest were
the Marquise du Pregnier and her old mother, who remembered the Reign of
Terror and had lost both her parents by the guillotine. Occasionally I
went in the evening to the salon of Madame Mohl, wife of Julius Mohl,
the great Orientalist, but herself an Englishwoman, who had in early
life been intimate with Chateaubriand and present at his touching last
hours, when his friend Madame Recamier, beautiful to the end, sat
watching him with her blind eyes. Madame Mohl was a most
extraordinary-looking person, like a poodle, with frizzled hair hanging
down over her face and very short skirts. Her salon, at 120 Rue de Bac,
especially on Friday evenings, was at that time quite one of the social
features of Paris. One savant used to drop in after the other and sit
round her talking in a circle, and with a _finesse d'esprit_ all her
own, she would address each in turn in her quick sharp voice, always
saying something pungent or clever. Politics were the chief topic, and
though I remember Madame Mohl once saying that "political society was
not what could be called a _nourishing_ occupation," there were no
refreshments, however late the company stayed, but tea and biscuits. She
had always had a sort of salon, even when, as Miss Clarke, she lived
with her old mother in a very small apartment in the Abbaye-aux-Bois.
Ticknor speaks of her there as keeping a little _bureau d'esprit_ all
her own, _à la française_.
One night when I was shown into her salon, I found, to my horror, that I
was not only the first to arrive, but that the old lady was so engrossed
in administering a violent scolding to her husband, that she was
promenading the drawing-room half undressed, with her strange locks
still in curl-papers. It was a most ridiculous scene, and my premature
appearance not a little embarrassing to them both. I retreated into the
passage till Madame Mohl was "done up," though that operation was not
accomplished till many other guests had arrived.
M. Julius Mohl was the greatest contrast to his quicksilver wife. He
used to be called "_le bourru bienfaisant_," from his rough exterior and
genuine kindness of heart. He was really ten years younger than his
wife, though she considered sixty-eight the right age for a woman to
attain to, and never to her last day allowed that she had passed that
limit.
Madame Mohl was fond of describing how, when she was at Paris in her
childhood, her elder sister, Mrs. Frewen, was taken by their mother and
grandmother to the chapel royal at the Tuileries, where Marie Antoinette
was then living in a kind of half-captivity. She was a very little girl,
and a gendarme thought she would be crushed, and lifted her upon his
shoulders, on which she was just opposite the King and Queen. She
remembered, as in a picture, how on one side of them were first Madame
Royale, then Madame Elizabeth, then the little Dauphin.
The cause which led to Mrs. Frewen seeing Marie Antoinette at that time
was in itself very curious. She was returning from the south with her
mother (Mrs. Clarke) and her grandmother. They reached Bordeaux, where
they were to embark for England in a "smack." Their luggage was already
on board; but, on the night before starting, the grandmother had a vivid
dream that the smack was lost with all on board. In the morning she
declared that nothing on earth should induce her to go in it. The
daughter remonstrated vigorously about expense, but the old lady stood
firm. They were able to take off their smaller things, but all their
larger luggage had to be left. The smack went down on the Goodwin Sands
and all was lost; so the family came to Paris.[143]
Of all the evenings I spent at Paris, the most interesting was one with
the Archbishop, who kindly invited me to his old country château of
Issy, once a palace of the Prince de Condé, and very magnificent. The
Archbishop, however, only inhabited the porter's lodge, and all the rest
was left deserted. The Archbishop was playing at bagatelle with his
chaplains when we entered, upon which he seated himself opposite to us
(De Costa went with me) in an arm-chair. He was a fine old man with grey
hair, dressed in cardinal's robes and crimson stockings, with the chain
of a Grand Almoner of France round his neck. There was only one light
in the high dark room, a lamp close to his shoulder, which threw a most
picturesque light over him, like a Rembrandt portrait. He inquired about
my visits to the different "religious" in Paris, and spoke regretfully
of the difficulties encountered by the Petites Sœurs des Pauvres.
Then he talked to De Costa about his medical studies and about
phrenology. This led him to the great Napoleon, of whose habits he gave
a very curious account. He said that he believed his strange
phrenological development was caused by his extraordinary way of
feeding--that he never was known to take a regular meal, but that he had
a spit on which a chicken was always roasting at a slow fire, and that
whenever he felt inclined he took a slice. When demolished, the chicken
was instantly replaced. It was the same with sleep: he never went to bed
at regular hours, only when he felt sleepy. We had been warned that the
Archbishop himself went to bed at nine, as he always rose at four; so at
nine I got up and kissed his ring, as we always did then to the
cardinals at Rome, but the kind old man insisted on coming out after us
into the passage, and seeing that we were well wrapped up in our
greatcoats.
In October, Aunt Kitty (Mrs. Stanley) came for a few days to Paris, and
going about with Arthur Stanley was a great pleasure.
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_Paris, Oct. 19, 1858._--I have been much disturbed by my dearest
mother's writing twice to Aunt Kitty to urge upon me the duty of
instantly deciding upon some situation. It seems so useless to make
oneself miserable in the interval because situations and
professions do not drop from the clouds whenever one chooses to
call for them. You know how I have dreaded the return to England,
simply because I knew how wearing the family onslaught would be
directly I arrived, and that all peace would be at an end, and it
certainly was not likely to mend matters to write to complain to
the Stanleys of how grievously I had disappointed you, and that
therefore I must decide instantly! If my mother will consider, she
will see that it is no question of exerting oneself. I know exactly
what there is to be had and what there is not, and we both know how
extremely improbable it is that I could get _anything_ without some
knowledge of modern languages, at least of French. This therefore
is evidently the first point, and whilst one is employed all day
long in struggling and striving to attain it, is it not rather hard
to see letters from England about waste of time, want of effort,
&c.?
"Were I to take an office in London _now_, the pay might possibly
be as much as £60 a year, without any vacation, or any hope of
advance in life, and even in the most miserable lodgings it would
be difficult to live in London under £200 a year. However, if my
mother hears of anything which she wishes me to take, I will
certainly take it.
[Illustration: THE PONT NEUF, PARIS.[144]]
"Aunt Kitty has been very kind, and I have enjoyed going about with
Arthur. Yesterday we went to the Conciergerie, where, by help of
the Archbishop's letter and an order from the Préfecture of Police,
we contrived to gain admittance. It is in the centre of Louis the
Ninth's palace, of which it was once the dungeon, and has been very
little altered. The room in which Marie Antoinette was confined for
two months before her execution has scarcely been changed at all.
There are still the heavy barred doors, the brick floor, the cold
damp smell, the crucifix which hung before the window and kneeling
before which she received the viaticum, the place where the bed
stood, upon which the Queen could not lie down without being
watched by the guards--who never took their eyes off--from the
wicket opposite. Opening out of the Queen's prison is the small
narrow chamber in which Robespierre was confined for one day, but
where he never slept--brought there at eight, tried at eleven,
executed at four. This opens into a large room, now the chapel,
once the prison of Madame Elizabeth, and afterwards the place in
which the Girondists held their last dreadful banquet before
execution, when they sang the Marseillaise around the dead man on
the table, and are said to have composed 'Mourir pour la Patrie.'
"To-day Arthur and I went by rail to Versailles, and took a little
carriage thence to Port Royal. The country was lovely, the forest
red and golden with autumnal tints. In a wooded valley, with a
green lawn winding through it like a river, watered by a little
brooklet, are the remains of Port Royal, the farmhouse where Racine
and Pascal lived and wrote, the dovecot and fountain of Mère
Angélique, the ruins of the church, the cemetery and cross, and
'the Solitude' where the nuns sat in solemn council around a
crucifix in the middle of the woods. In the house is a collection
of old pictures of the celebrities connected with the place.
Arthur, of course, peopled the whole place in imagination and
description with the figures of the past, and insisted on our
'walking in procession' (of two) down the ruined church.
"We went on to Dampierre, a fine old château of the Duc de Luynes,
with green drives and avenues; and then to Chevreuse, where we
climbed up the hill to the ruined castle with machicolated towers
and a wide view over the orange-coloured woods, where the famous
Madame de Chevreuse lived."
[Illustration: PORT ROYAL.[145]]
"_Nov. 8._--The cold is almost insupportable! Parisians are so
accustomed to their horrible climate, that Madame Barraud cannot
understand my feeling it, and I have great difficulty in getting
even the one little fire we have, and am occupied all day in
shutting the doors, which every one else makes a point of leaving
open. Madame Barraud describes her own character exactly when she
stands in the middle of the room and says with a tragic voice, 'Je
suis juste, Monsieur, je suis bonne; mais, Monsieur, je suis
_sévère_!' She is excellent and generous on all great occasions,
but I never knew any one who had such a power of making people
uncomfortable by petty grievances and incessant fidgetting. Though
she will give me fifty times more food than I wish, nothing on
earth would induce her to light the fire in my bedroom, even in the
most ferocious weather, because it is not '_son habitude_'. 'La
bonne Providence m'a donné un caractère,' she said the other day,
recounting her history. 'Avec ce caractère j'ai fait un mariage de
convenance avec M. Barraud: avec ce caractère, étant veuve, j'ai
pris ma petite fille de douze ans, et je suis venue à Paris pour
faire jouer son talent: avec ce caractère, quand les fils de mon
mari m'ont fait des mauvaises tournées, je n'ai rien dit, mais je
les ai quittés pour toujours, parceque je n'ai pas voulu voir le
nom de mon mari paraître dans des querelles: je suis bonne,
Monsieur, je suis juste, c'est ma nature; mais, Monsieur, je suis
_sévère_; et je ne les reverrais _jamais_.' Just now she is
possessed with the idea--solely based upon her having a new pair of
shoes--that Marie, the maid, certainly has a lover concealed
somewhere, and she constantly goes to look for him under the
kitchen-table, in the cupboard, &c. She hangs up the chicken or
goose for the next day's dinner in the little passage leading to my
room, and in the middle of the night I hear stealthy footsteps, and
a murmur of 'Oh, qu'il est gras! Oh, qu'il sera délicieux!' as she
pats it and feels it all over."
At the end of November I returned to England. Two years after, when we
were in Paris on our way to Italy, I went to the Rue des Saints-Pères.
Madame Barraud was dead then, and her daughter, left alone, was
lamenting her so bitterly that she was quite unable to attend to her
work, and sat all day in tears. She never rallied. When I inquired, as
we returned through Paris, Mademoiselle Barraud had followed her mother
to the grave; constantly as she had been scolded by her, wearisome as
her life seemed to have been made, the grief for her loss had literally
broken her heart.
During the winter we were absent at Rome, our house of Lime was lent to
Aunt Esther (Mrs. Julius Hare) and Mrs. Alexander. Two cabinets
contained all our family MSS., which Aunt Esther knew that I valued
beyond everything else. Therefore, she forced both the cabinets open and
destroyed the whole--all Lady Jones's journals and letters from India,
all Bishop Shipley's letters--every letter, in fact, relating to any
member of the Hare family. She replaced the letters to my adopted mother
from the members of her own family in the front of the cabinets, and
thus the fact they had nothing behind them was never discovered till we
left Hurstmonceaux, two years after. When asked about it, Aunt Esther
only said, "Yes, I did it: I saw fit to destroy them." It was a strange
and lasting legacy of injustice to bequeath, and I think I cannot be
harsh in saying that only a very peculiar temperament could construe
such an act into "right-doing."