Miss Burney at Norbury Park—Execution of the French King—Madame de Staël
and Talleyrand at Mickleham—Miss Burney’s Impressions of M. d’Arblay—
Proposed Marriage—Visit to Chesington—The Marriage takes place—A Happy
Match—The General as Gardener—Madame d’Arblay resumes her Pen—Birth of
a Son—‘Edwy and Elgiva’—Acquittal of Warren Hastings—Publishing Plans—
The Subscription List—Publication of ‘Camilla’—Visit of the Author to
Windsor—Interview with the King and Queen—A Compliment from their
Majesties—The Royal Family on the Terrace—Princess Elizabeth—Great
Sale of ‘Camilla’—Criticisms on the Work—Declension of Madame
d’Arblay’s Style—Camilla Cottage—Wedded Happiness—Madame d’Arblay’s
Comedy of ‘Love and Fashion’ withdrawn—Death of Mrs. Phillips—
Straitened Circumstances—The d’Arblays go to France—Popularity of
Bonaparte—Reception at the Tuileries and Review—War between England
and France—Disappointments—Life at Passy—Difficulty of Correspondence—
Madame d’Arblay’s Desire to return to England—Sails from Dunkirk.
On the opening of 1793, the French Constitutionalists were at the lowest
point of depression and disgrace. They were reviled on all hands for
having given weight and impetus to a movement which they were impotent
to control. Norbury Park and Mickleham were eager that Miss Burney
should see their new friends and judge them for herself. “Your French
colonies,” she wrote in reply to Mrs. Locke’s pressing invitation, “are
truly attractive: I am sure they must be so to have caught me—so
substantially, fundamentally the foe of all their proceedings while in
power.” Having tarried long enough to pay her birthday duty to the
Queen, she left London at the commencement of the season, and went down
to Surrey. A day or two after her arrival came the news of the French
King’s execution. The excitement caused by this intelligence quickened
the already frequent intercourse between the Lockes and Juniper Hall,
and Fanny soon found herself on familiar terms with the refugees. Before
the end of January, Madame de Staël appeared on the scene, and placed
herself at the head of the little colony. Necker’s daughter had earned
the rage of the Commune by her exertions to save life during the
massacres of August and September; nor was it at all clear that the
privilege which she enjoyed as wife of the Swedish Ambassador would
avail for her protection. She had, therefore, crossed the Channel, and
now joined her Constitutionalist friends at Juniper Hall, whither she
was soon followed by Talleyrand, who had come to England in her company.
No other party of refugees could boast two names of equal distinction,
though French titles had become plentiful as blackberries in several
parts of England. Madame de Staël paid the most flattering attention to
the author of ‘Cecilia,’ whose second novel had procured her
considerable reputation in Paris. A warm but short-lived intimacy
between the two ladies ensued. No two persons could be less suited to
one another than our timid, prudish little Burney and the brilliant and
audacious French _femme de lettres_. The public acts of the Bishop of
Autun—‘the viper that had cast his skin,’ as Walpole called him—had not
inclined Fanny in his favour; but his extraordinary powers conquered her
admiration, and as she listened to the exchanges of wit, criticism, and
raillery between him and Madame de Staël, she could see for the moment
no blemishes in either, and looked on the little band of exiles, some of
whom could almost vie with these leaders, as rare spirits from some
brighter world. The group, consisting at different times of some dozen
persons,[112] were all most agreeable; but one, perhaps the least
dazzling of the whole constellation, proved more attractive than the
rest:
“M. d’Arblay,” wrote Fanny, “is one of the most singularly interesting
characters that can ever have been formed. He has a sincerity, a
frankness, an ingenuous openness of nature, that I have been unjust
enough to think could not belong to a Frenchman. With all this, which is
his military portion, he is passionately fond of literature, a most
delicate critic in his own language, well versed in both Italian and
German, and a very elegant poet. He has just undertaken to become my
French master for pronunciation, and he gives me long daily lessons in
reading. Pray expect wonderful improvements! In return, I hear him in
English.”
The natural consequences followed. In a few days we read: “I have been
scholaring all day, and mastering too; for our lessons are mutual, and
more entertaining than can easily be conceived.” Our novelist, in short,
was more romantic than any of her own creations: Evelina, Cecilia, and
Camilla were prosaic women compared with Frances. On the verge of
forty-one, she gave away her heart to an admirer, suitable to her in
age, indeed, but possessing neither fortune, occupation, nor prospects
of any kind. Whatever property d’Arblay could claim, the Convention had
confiscated. Fanny herself had nothing but the small annuity which she
enjoyed during the Queen’s pleasure, and which might be discontinued if
she married this Roman Catholic alien. Such a match, in any case,
implied seclusion almost as complete as that from which she had recently
escaped. This was anything but the issue that her father had been
promised when he was pressed to sanction her resignation. It is not
surprising, therefore, that he wrote her a remonstrance stronger and
more decided than he had been in the habit of addressing to any of his
children. But Dr. Burney stood alone. The Lockes and Phillipses were as
much fascinated by their French neighbours as his enamoured daughter.
Susanna was in avowed league with the enemy. Mr. Locke gave it as his
opinion that two persons, with one or more babies, might very well
subsist on a hundred a year. Thus assailed by opposing influences, Fanny
went to deliberate in solitude at Chesington, and sauntered about the
lanes where she had planned ‘Cecilia,’ wondering if the Muse would ever
visit her again. The General’s pursuing letters convinced her that his
grief at her hesitation was sincere and profound. He made a pilgrimage
to see her, which vouched his devotion, and gained him the support of
her simple hostesses, Mrs. Hamilton and Kitty Cooke, who wept at his
tale of misfortunes, and learned for the first time what was meant by
the French Revolution. Finally, through the mediation of his favourite
Susanna, Dr. Burney was persuaded to give way and send a reluctant
consent. The wedding took place on the 31st of July, 1793, in Mickleham
Church, in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Locke, Captain and Mrs.
Phillips, M. de Narbonne, and Captain Burney, who acted as proxy for his
father. On the following day, the ceremony was repeated at the Sardinian
Chapel in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, according to the rites of the Romish
Church.
The marriage proved eminently happy. Dr. Burney, though he shrank from
giving away the bride, was a respecter of accomplished facts, and soon
became on excellent terms with his new son-in-law. The late impetuous
lovers proceeded to translate their romance into the most sober prose.
Love in a cottage had been the goal of their ambition. Mr. Locke had
promised a site for the cottage; but as funds for building it were not
immediately forthcoming, the pair went first into farm lodgings,
afterwards into a hired house of two or three rooms at Bookham, within
two miles of Mickleham and Norbury Park. D’Arblay, a man of real honour,
would have left his wife, almost in their honeymoon, to fight for Louis
XVII. at Toulon; but his offer of service was declined by the English
Government, and thenceforth the General resigned himself to wait for
better times. Like a sensible man, _il cultivait son jardin_. Like a man
of sense, but not like a good husbandman. His wife, who, notwithstanding
her happiness, seems to have lost her sense of humour very soon after
matrimony, enjoyed one of her last hearty laughs at the expense of her
lord:
“This sort of work is so totally new to him, that he receives every
now and then some of poor Merlin’s[113] ‘disagreeable compliments’;
for when Mr. Locke’s or the Captain’s gardeners favour our grounds
with a visit, they commonly make known that all has been done wrong.
Seeds are sowing in some parts when plants ought to be reaping, and
plants are running to seed while they are thought not yet at maturity.
Our garden, therefore, is not yet quite the most profitable thing in
the world; but M. d’A. assures me it is to be the staff of our table
and existence.
“A little, too, he has been unfortunate; for, after immense toil in
planting and transplanting strawberries round our hedge here at
Bookham, he has just been informed they will bear no fruit the first
year, and the second we may be ‘over the hills and far away.’
“Another time, too, with great labour, he cleared a considerable
compartment of weeds; and when it looked clean and well, and he showed
his work to the gardener, the man said he had demolished an asparagus
bed! M. d’A. protested, however, nothing could look more like _des
mauvaises herbes_.
“His greatest passion is for transplanting. Everything we possess he
moves from one end of the garden to another to produce better effects.
Roses take place of jessamines, jessamines of honeysuckles, and
honeysuckles of lilacs, till they have all danced round as far as the
space allows; but whether the effect may not be a general mortality,
summer only can determine.
“Such is our horticultural history. But I must not omit that we have
had for one week cabbages from our own cultivation every day! Oh, you
have no idea how sweet they tasted! We agreed they had a freshness and
a _goût_ we had never met with before. We had them for too short a
time to grow tired of them, because, as I have already hinted, they
were beginning to run to seed before we knew they were eatable.”
While the General was gardening, Madame plied her pen, using it once
more, after the lapse of a dozen years, with a definite purpose of
publication. Her first composition was for a charitable object. It was
an address to the ladies of England on behalf of the emigrant French
clergy, who, to the number of 6,000, were suffering terrible distress
all over the country. This short paper is an early example of the
stilted rhetoric which gradually ruined its author’s style. Some months
later we hear of a more important work being in progress. This tale,
eventually published under the title of ‘Camilla,’ was commenced in the
summer of 1794, though it did not see the light till July, 1796.
A son, their only child, was born on December 18, 1794, and was baptized
Alexander Charles Louis Piochard, receiving the name of his father, with
those of his two god-fathers, Dr. Charles Burney the younger, and the
Count de Narbonne.
An illness, which retarded the mother’s recovery, interrupted the
progress of her novel, and perhaps counted for something in the failure
of the tragedy with which, as we mentioned before, she tempted fortune
on the stage. ‘Edwy and Elgiva’—so this drama was called—was produced at
Drury Lane on March 21, 1795. It says much for the author’s repute that
John Kemble warmly recommended her work to Sheridan, who seems to have
accepted it without hesitation or criticism. The principal characters
were undertaken by Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. At the close of the
performance, it was announced that the piece was withdrawn for
alterations. There was a little complaint that several of the actors
were careless and unprepared; but, on the whole, Madame d’Arblay bore
her defeat with excellent temper. She consoled herself with the thought
that her play had not been written for the theatre, nor even revised for
the press; that the manuscript had been obtained from her during her
confinement; and that she had been prevented by ill-health from
attending rehearsals, and making the changes which, on the night of
representation, even her unprofessional judgment perceived to be
essential. Yet it is difficult to imagine that a tragedy by the author
of ‘Evelina’ could, under any circumstances, have been successful; and
we are more surprised that Sheridan was so complaisant than that Dr.
Burney had always shrugged his shoulders when the Saxon drama was
mentioned in his hearing.
Three years sooner the dramatist would have felt her personal mishap
more keenly, as she would have welcomed with far livelier pleasure an
event of a public nature which occurred shortly afterwards. On April 23,
1795, Warren Hastings was triumphantly acquitted. The incident hardly
stirred her at all. She was now experiencing that detachment which is
the portion of ladies even of social and literary tastes, when they have
accomplished the great function of womanhood. Her father writes her a
pleasant account of his London life, relating some characteristic
condolences which he had received from Cumberland on the fate of her
play, mentioning his own visit of congratulation to Hastings, and
chatting about the doings at the Literary Club. The blissful mother
replies in a letter, dated from the ‘Hermitage, Bookham,’ which is
principally occupied with praises of rural retirement and the
intelligent infant, though it ends with some words about the tragedy,
and a postscript expressing satisfaction at the acquittal. Not long
before, Frances Burney had repined at living in what she rather inaptly
called a monastery: Frances d’Arblay is more than content with the
company of her gardener and their little ‘perennial plant.’ At her
marriage, she had counted on having the constant society of Susanna and
her Captain, as well as the Lockes; but in June, 1795, the Phillipses
remove to town, and are not missed. The Bambino not only supplied all
gaps, but made his willing slave work as hard at ‘Camilla’ as, long
years before, she had worked at ‘Cecilia’ under the jealous eye of her
Chesington daddy.
She was now as keen as Crisp would have had her be in calculating how
she could make most money by her pen. ‘I determined,’ she says, ‘when I
changed my state, to set aside all my innate and original abhorrences,
and to regard and use as resources myself what had always been
considered as such by others. Without this idea and this resolution, our
hermitage must have been madness.’ She had formerly objected to a plan,
suggested for her by Burke, of publishing by subscription, with the aid
of ladies, instead of booksellers, to keep lists and receive names of
subscribers. She determined to adopt this plan in bringing out
‘Camilla.’ The Dowager Duchess of Leinster, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe,
and Mrs. Locke, gave her the required assistance. In issuing her
proposals, she was careful not to excite the prejudice which still
prevailed against works of fiction.[114] She remembered that the word
_novel_ had long stood in the way of ‘Cecilia’ at Windsor, and that the
Princesses had not been allowed to read it until it had been declared
innocent by a bishop. ‘Camilla,’ she warned her friends, was ‘not to be
a romance, but sketches of characters and morals put in action.’ It was,
therefore, announced simply as ‘a new work by the author of Evelina and
Cecilia.’ The manuscript was completed by the end of 1795; but, as in
the case of ‘Cecilia,’ six months more elapsed before the day of
publication arrived.
Meanwhile, the subscription-list filled up nobly. When Warren Hastings
heard what was going forward, we are told that “he gave a great jump,
and exclaimed, ‘Well, then, now I can serve her, thank Heaven, and I
will! I will write to Anderson to engage Scotland, and I will attack the
East Indies myself!’” Nor was Edmund Burke less zealous than his old
enemy. Protesting that for personal friends the subscription ought to be
five guineas instead of one, he asked for but one copy of ‘Camilla’ in
return for twenty guineas which he sent on behalf of himself, his wife,
his dead brother Richard, and the son for whom he was in mourning. In
the same spirit, three Misses Thrale order ten sets of the book. As we
glance down the pages of the list, we meet with most of the survivors of
the old Blue Stockings, with Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Montagu,
and Hannah Moore. There, too, are many literary women of other types:
Anna Barbauld, Amelia Alderson, afterwards Mrs. Opie, Mary Berry, Maria
Edgeworth, Sophia and Harriet Lee.[115] There the incomparable Jane
Austen, then a girl of twenty, pays tribute to a passed mistress of her
future art. There also figure the names of many of the writer’s former
colleagues in the royal household. Even Mrs. Schwellenberg is on the
list. Perhaps, as the book was to be dedicated by permission to the
Queen, this was almost a matter of course. But the subscription was, in
fact, a testimonial to a general favourite from hundreds of attached
friends, some of whom cared little for literature; as well as from a
crowd of distant admirers, who regarded her as the most eminent female
writer of her time.
The first parcel of ‘Camilla; or, A Picture of Youth,’ reached Bookham
on an early day in July, 1796; and Madame d’Arblay at once set off for
Windsor to present copies to the King and Queen. Immediately on her
arrival, she was admitted to an audience of the Queen, during which the
King entered to receive his share of the offering. The excellent monarch
was in one of his most interrogative moods, and particularly curious to
learn who had corrected the proofs of the volumes before him. His
flattered subject confessed that she was her own reader. ‘Why, some
authors have told me,’ cried he, ‘that they are the last to do that work
for themselves! They know so well by heart what ought to be, that they
run on without seeing what is. They have told me, besides, that a mere
plodding head is best and surest for that work, and that the livelier
the imagination, the less it should be trusted to.’ Madame had carried
her husband with her to Windsor. They were detained there three days;
and, as Walpole remarks with some emphasis, even M. d’Arblay was allowed
to dine. Horace means, of course, that the General, who had the Cross of
St. Louis, was invited to a place at Mdlle. Jacobi’s table. Just before
dinner, Madame d’Arblay was called aside by her entertainer, and
presented, in the name of their Majesties, with a packet containing a
hundred guineas, as a ‘compliment’ in acknowledgment of her dedication.
On the following day, the Chevalier and his wife repaired to the
Terrace. “The evening was so raw and cold that there was very little
company, and scarce any expectation of the Royal Family; and when we had
been there about half an hour the musicians retreated, and everybody was
preparing to follow, when a messenger suddenly came forward,
helter-skelter, running after the horns and clarionets, and hallooing to
them to return. This brought back the straggling parties, and the King,
Duke of York, and six Princesses soon appeared.... The King stopped to
speak to the Bishop of Norwich[116] and some others at the entrance, and
then walked on towards us, who were at the further end. As he
approached, the Princess Royal said, ‘Madame d’Arblay, sir;’ and
instantly he came on a step, and then stopped and addressed me, and
after a word or two of the weather, he said, ‘Is that M. d’Arblay?’ and
most graciously bowed to him, and entered into a little conversation,
demanding how long he had been in England, how long in the country, etc.
Upon the King’s bowing and leaving us, the Commander-in-Chief most
courteously bowed also to M. d’Arblay; and the Princesses all came up to
speak to me, and to curtsey to him, and the Princess Elizabeth cried,
‘I’ve got leave! and mamma says she won’t wait to read it first!’”
The lively Princess, who was then twenty-six years of age, and had been
concerned in bringing out a poem entitled the ‘Birth of Love,’ with
engravings from designs by herself, intended to communicate that she had
obtained permission to read ‘Camilla,’ though it had not yet been
examined by her mother.
The subscribers to the new novel exceeded eleven hundred; but the number
of copies printed was four thousand. Out of these only five hundred
remained at the end of three months—a rate of sale considerably more
rapid than that of ‘Cecilia’ had been. Macaulay mentions a rumour that
the author cleared more than three thousand guineas by her work. This is
not an improbable account; for Dr. Burney told Lord Orford within the
first six weeks that about two thousand pounds had already been
realized.[117] The material results were astonishing; yet ‘Camilla’
could not be considered a success. The ‘Picture of Youth’ had neither
the freshness of ‘Evelina,’ nor the mature power of ‘Cecilia.’ It was
wanting alike in simplicity and polish. By disuse of her art, the writer
had lost touch with the public; by neglect of reading, she had gone back
in literary culture. Hence it was generally felt that the charm which
she had exercised was gone. The reviews were severe; new admirers
appeared not; old friends found their faith a good deal tried. When the
first demand was satisfied, there seems to have been no call for a fresh
edition, though some years afterwards Miss Austen boldly coupled[118]
‘Camilla’ with ‘Cecilia’ as a ‘work in which most thorough knowledge of
human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest
effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world.’ When its five
volumes were most sharply handled, brother Charles could console the
chagrined author with the distich:
‘Now heed no more what critics thought ’em,
Since this you know, all people bought ’em.’
The composition of ‘Camilla’ has been blamed for the opposite faults of
affectation and slovenliness. ‘Every passage,’ says Macaulay, ‘which the
author meant to be fine is detestable; and the book has been saved from
condemnation only by the admirable spirit and force of those scenes in
which she was content to be familiar.’ Other censors have observed that,
while the rhetoric is inflated, the grammar is occasionally doubtful,
and the diction sometimes barbarous. Now, it must be owned that the
ordinary vocabulary of the Burneys was not remarkable for purity or
elegance. In their talk and intimate letters, both the father and the
daughters expressed themselves in the most colloquial forms, not seldom
lapsing into downright slang. To give one instance only, the atrocious
vulgarism of ‘an invite’ for ‘an invitation’ occurs in several parts of
the Diary. When writing for the press, Dr. Burney guarded himself by the
adoption of a wholly artificial style, that swelled, from time to time,
into tedious magniloquence. Fanny was schooled for writing ‘Cecilia’ by
the critical discussions of the Streatham circle, by much intercourse
with Johnson, and by some study of style—chiefly the style of the
‘Ramblers’ and ‘Lives of the Poets.’ Having despatched her second novel,
she ceased to be careful about literary questions. This indifference
increased after her marriage. When describing the reception of ‘Camilla’
at Windsor, ‘the Queen,’ she writes, ‘talked of some books and authors,
but found me wholly in the clouds as to all that is new.’ Her husband,
insensible, of course, to the niceties of a foreign idiom, but
apparently admiring pompous phraseology, conceived a relish for Dr.
Burney’s style; and Madame, delighting to think her ‘dear father’
perfect, was pleased to place his English in the very first class.[119]
The eloquence of ‘Camilla’ seems to mingle faint Johnsonian echoes with
the stilted movement of the music-master’s prose; while too often the
choice of words is left to chance. A recent editor of the two earlier
novels has called attention to the numerous vulgarities of expression,
not put into vulgar mouths, which occur in ‘Camilla.’ ‘People “_stroam_
the fields,” or have “a depressing _feel_.”’ This editor suggests that
Miss Burney’s five years at Court may have done much to spoil her
English, remarking that ‘she lived at Windsor among hybrids.’ By
‘hybrids’ we suppose we are to understand equerries. But the equerries,
if not possessing great culture, were, at any rate, gentlemen of good
position. If they used the incriminated phrases why not also the
personages of the novel? We take it, however, that ‘to stroam the
fields’ is not a low phrase acquired by Fanny at Court, but a
provincialism which she learned in her native county, where the verb to
‘stroam,’ or to ‘strome,’ was certainly in use a hundred years ago,[120]
and is, we are assured, familiarly employed at the present day. We
believe that Madame d’Arblay’s English was ruined, not by associating
with Colonel Digby, or even Colonel Manners, but by neglect of reading,
by retirement from lettered society, by fading recollections of Johnson,
by untoward family influences, and by a strong hereditary tendency to
run into fustian.
In October, 1796, Dr. Burney lost his second wife, who, after a
prolonged period of ill-health, died at Chelsea Hospital. To prevent him
from brooding over his bereavement, Madame d’Arblay induced her father
to resume a poetical history of astronomy which he had begun some time
before. This occupation amused him for some time, though in the end the
poem, which ran to a great length, was destroyed unfinished.
Out of the profits made by his wife’s publication, M. d’Arblay built a
small house on land leased to him by Mr. Locke at West Humble, near
Dorking, and called it Camilla Cottage. If a family, as well as a
nation, is happy that has no history, we must conclude that the
d’Arblays lived very much at ease for some years after their removal to
their new abode. When the excitement of planning, building, and taking
possession is exhausted, Madame’s pen finds little to record, beyond the
details of occasional interviews with the Queen and Princesses at
Buckingham House. She wisely declines a proposal of Mrs. Crewe to make
her directress of a weekly paper, which was to have been started, under
the name of _The Breakfast-Table_, to combat the progress of Jacobinical
ideas. Later on she abandons unwillingly a venture of a different kind.
Still thirsting for dramatic success, she had written a comedy called
‘Love and Fashion;’ and towards the close of 1799 was congratulating
herself on having it accepted by the manager of Covent Garden
Theatre.[121] The piece was put into rehearsal early in the following
spring; but Dr. Burney was seized with such dread of another failure,
that, to appease him, his daughter and her husband consented to its
being withdrawn. The compliance cost some effort: Fanny complained that
she was treated as if she ‘had been guilty of a crime, in doing what she
had all her life been urged to, and all her life intended—writing a
comedy.’ ‘The combinations,’ she added, ‘for another long work did not
occur to me: incidents and effects for a drama did.’
This was only a transient disappointment. In the first days of 1800 came
a lasting sorrow, in the loss of Mrs. Phillips, who, since the autumn of
1796, had been living with her husband in Ireland, and who died
immediately after landing in England on her way to visit her
father.[122] But, except by this grief, the peace of Camilla Cottage was
never interrupted so long as the husband and wife remained together. In
her old age, Madame d’Arblay looked back to the first eight years of her
married life as to a period of unruffled happiness.
Then occurred a crisis. The d’Arblays had borne poverty cheerfully, even
joyfully, so long as any stretch of economy would enable them to keep
within their income. The cost of living and the burden of taxation had
begun to increase almost from the day of their marriage. One of the
motives for bringing out ‘Camilla’ was the rise of prices, which had
doubled within the preceding eighteen months. Hardly was Camilla Cottage
occupied, when an addition to the window-tax compelled the owners to
block up four of their new windows. The expense of building so much
exceeded calculation that, after all bills were settled, the balance
remaining from the foundress’s three thousand guineas produced only a
few pounds of annual interest. In the spring of 1800, we read that the
gardener has planted potatoes on every spot where they can grow, on
account of the dreadful price of provisions. Towards the close of 1801,
it is admitted that for some time previously they had been encroaching
on their little capital, which was then nearly exhausted. As soon,
therefore, as the preliminaries of peace were signed, M. d’Arblay
determined to remove his family to France, hoping to recover something
from the wreck of his fortune, and to obtain from the First Consul some
allowance for half-pay as a retired officer. Crossing the Channel alone,
in the first instance, the General involved himself in a double
difficulty: he failed with the French Government by stipulating that he
should not be required to serve against his wife’s country, while he had
cut off his retreat by pledging himself at the English Alien Office not
to return within a year. In this dilemma, he wrote to his wife to join
him in Paris with their child. Madame d’Arblay obeyed the summons,
amidst the anxious forebodings of her father, but with the full approval
of the Queen, who granted her a farewell audience, admitting that she
was bound to follow her husband.
Dr. Burney’s fears were more than justified by the event. His daughter
left Dover a few days after the treaty was signed at Amiens. When she
reached Paris, she found the city rejoicing at the conclusion of the
war, yet worshipping Bonaparte, whose temper and attitude showed that
the peace could not last. A reception by the First Consul, followed by a
review, both of which Madame d’Arblay witnessed from an ante-chamber in
the Tuileries, afforded striking evidence of the military spirit which
animated everything:
“The scene, with regard to all that was present, was splendidly gay
and highly animating. The room was full, but not crowded, with
officers of rank in sumptuous rather than rich uniforms, and
exhibiting a martial air that became their attire, which, however,
generally speaking, was too gorgeous to be noble.
“Our window was that next to the consular apartment, in which
Bonaparte was holding a levée, and it was close to the steps ascending
to it; by which means we saw all the forms of the various exits and
entrances, and had opportunity to examine every dress and every
countenance that passed and repassed. This was highly amusing, I might
say historic, where the past history and the present office were
known.
“Sundry footmen of the First Consul, in very fine liveries, were
attending to bring or arrange chairs for whoever required them;
various peace-officers, superbly begilt, paraded occasionally up and
down the chamber, to keep the ladies to their windows and the
gentlemen to their ranks, so as to preserve the passage or lane,
through which the First Consul was to walk upon his entrance, clear
and open; and several gentlemanlike-looking persons, whom in former
times I should have supposed pages of the back-stairs, dressed in
black, with gold chains hanging round their necks, and medallions
pending from them, seemed to have the charge of the door itself,
leading immediately to the audience chamber of the First Consul.
“But what was most prominent in commanding notice, was the array of
the aides-de-camp of Bonaparte, which was so almost furiously
striking, that all other vestments, even the most gaudy, appeared
suddenly under a gloomy cloud when contrasted with its brightness....
“The last object for whom the way was cleared was the Second Consul,
Cambacérès, who advanced with a stately and solemn pace, slow,
regular, and consequential; dressed richly in scarlet and gold, and
never looking to the right or left, but wearing a mien of fixed
gravity and importance. He had several persons in his suite, who, I
think, but am not sure, were ministers of state.
“At length the two human hedges were finally formed, the door of the
audience chamber was thrown wide open with a commanding crash, and a
vivacious officer—sentinel—or I know not what, nimbly descended the
three steps into our apartment, and placing himself at the side of the
door, with one hand spread as high as possible above his head, and the
other extended horizontally, called out in a loud and authoritative
voice, ‘Le Premier Consul!’
“You will easily believe nothing more was necessary to obtain
attention; not a soul either spoke or stirred as he and his suite
passed along, which was so quickly that, had I not been placed so near
the door, and had not all about me facilitated my standing foremost,
and being least crowd-obstructed, I could hardly have seen him. As it
was, I had a view so near, though so brief, of his face, as to be very
much struck by it. It is of a deeply impressive cast, pale even to
sallowness, while not only in the eye, but in every feature—care,
thought, melancholy, and meditation are strongly marked, with so much
of character, nay, genius, and so penetrating a seriousness, or rather
sadness, as powerfully to sink into an observer’s mind....
“The review I shall attempt no description of. I have no knowledge of
the subject, and no fondness for its object. It was far more superb
than anything I had ever beheld; but while all the pomp and
circumstance of war animated others, it only saddened me; and all of
past reflection, all of future dread, made the whole grandeur of the
martial scene, and all the delusive seduction of martial music, fill
my eyes frequently with tears, but not regale my poor muscles with one
single smile.
“Bonaparte, mounting a beautiful and spirited white horse, closely
encircled by his glittering aides-de-camp, and accompanied by his
generals, rode round the ranks, holding his bridle indifferently in
either hand, and seeming utterly careless of the prancing, rearing, or
other freaks of his horse, insomuch as to strike some who were near me
with a notion of his being a bad horseman.”
Having introduced his wife to old friends in Paris, and paid a visit
with her to his relations at Joigny, the General settled his family in a
small house at Passy. Instead of being seen at Chelsea again within
eighteen months, as her father had been led to expect, she was detained
in France more than ten years. From the moment when Lord Whitworth
quitted Paris in May, 1803, her opportunities of communicating with
England were few and far between. All remittances thence, including her
annuity, ended with the peace. The claims to property on which her
husband had built proved delusive. Apparently they would have been
without means of any kind, but that, just as war was declared, the
influence of General Lauriston procured for his old comrade the
_retraite_, or retiring allowance, for which the latter had been
petitioning. Yet this only amounted to £62 10s. yearly, so that the
luckless pair would have been far better off in their cottage at West
Humble. Moreover, the receipt of half-pay made it impossible for them to
risk any attempt at escape while the war continued. At length, in 1805,
M. d’Arblay obtained employment in the Civil Department of the Office of
Public Buildings. He became, in fact, a Government clerk, plodding daily
between his desk and a poorly-furnished home at suburban Passy. He seems
to have been eventually promoted to the rank of _sous-chef_ in his
department.
We learn, however, from the scanty notices belonging to this period,
that the Chevalier was treated with consideration by the heads of his
office, and that he and Madame kept their footing in Parisian society.
‘The society in which I mix,’ writes the lady, ‘when I can prevail with
myself to quit my yet dearer fireside, is all that can be wished,
whether for wit, wisdom, intelligence, gaiety, or politeness.’ She would
resume, she adds, her old descriptions if she could only write more
frequently, or with more security that she was not writing to the winds
and the waves. Her worst distress was the rarity with which letters
could be despatched, or travel either way, with anything like safety. At
another time she tells her father: ‘I have never heard whether the last
six letters I have written have as yet been received. Two of them were
antiques that had waited three or four years some opportunity ... the
two last were to reach you through a voyage by America.’ The very letter
in which this is said lost its chance of being sent, and was not
finished till a year later. Dr. Burney, in his fear of a miscarriage,
finally gave up writing, and charged his family and friends to follow
his example. Fanny had nothing to regret in her husband, except his
being overworked and in poor health: her heart shrank from leaving him;
yet her longing for England increased from year to year. Her visionary
castles, she said, were not in the air, but on the sea.
In 1810 she had prepared everything for flight, when fresh rigours of
the police obliged her to relinquish her design. In 1811 she had a
dangerous illness, and was operated upon by the famous surgeon, Baron de
Larrey, for a supposed cancer. In the summer of 1812, when Napoleon had
set out on his Russian campaign, she obtained a passport for America,
took ship with her son at Dunkirk, and landed at Deal. During the
interval between her first and second attempts at crossing, all
correspondence with England was prohibited on pain of death. One letter
alone reached her, announcing in brief terms the death of the Princess
Amelia, the renewed and hopeless derangement of the King, and the death
of Mr. Locke.
-----
Footnote 112:
Among other names, we find, besides those already mentioned, the
Marquise de la Châtre, M. de Jaucourt, M. Sicard, the Princesse
d’Hénin, De Lally Tollendal, Dumont.
Footnote 113:
A French inventor whom Fanny had met at Streatham.
Footnote 114:
How strong this prejudice continued to be was shown not long
afterwards in a notable instance. Jane Austen’s father offered her
‘Pride and Prejudice’ to Cadell on November 1, 1797; the proposal was
rejected by return of post, without an inspection of the manuscript,
though Mr. Austen was willing to bear the risk of the publication.
Footnote 115:
Author of the ‘Canterbury Tales.’
Footnote 116:
Dr. Manners Sutton, then also Dean of Windsor, and afterwards
Archbishop of Canterbury.
Footnote 117:
Lord Orford to Miss Berry, Aug. 16, 1796.
Footnote 118:
In ‘Northanger Abbey,’ which, though written in 1798, was not prepared
for the press till 1803.
Footnote 119:
Diary, iv. 3.
Footnote 120:
Forby’s ‘Vocabulary of East Anglia,’ p. 330.
Footnote 121:
According to her biographer, the manager had promised her £400 for the
right of representation.
Footnote 122:
Her death took place on January 6, 1800; she was buried in Neston
churchyard, where Dr. Burney placed an epitaph to her memory.
-----