Chapter XIX: Foxholes (2)

_January 18th_.--I fully intended to come to see you to-day, and to bring you the MS. volumes of C. C. G.; but I am very lame with rheumatism in my knee, and the weather is so infernal that I cannot use the carriage, and I am afraid to make the expedition in a cab. I must therefore defer my call till I can move better. On such a day as this one can only burrow like the rabbits.

I think the Cenci article in the new 'Ed. Rev.' will interest you.

_January 22nd_.--I send you Vols. III. and IV. of the mystic record. Pray keep it locked up.

In the 'True Tale of the Cenci,' by T. Adolphus Trollope, there was much that Mr. Cheney dissented from, and he wrote a long letter on the subject, which Reeve in due course forwarded to Trollope. This led to a reply, with which, as far as Reeve's correspondence shows, the discussion dropped. If it was continued further, it was without Reeve's assistance.

_To Mr. E. Cheney_

_January 23rd_.--I saw Lady Shelley to-day, and, as I told her you could not call on her, she very obligingly said she would be happy to call on you and bring you the enlarged photograph of the poet to look at. These photographs are done on porcelain. There are only three copies of them, which Lady S. has got. The negative is destroyed. ... She says the drawing is the image of Shelley's sister, Helen Shelley.

_January 31st_.--Many thanks for your prompt return of the volumes. I am glad they have amused you, and you can give evidence that they are not very wicked. I am afraid I cannot supply any more until I have been down to Foxholes, as I find I have locked up part of the MS. there; and I must now have the whole of it bound.

_February 3rd_.--I send you Trelawny's book on Shelley, and I also enclose an interesting letter from Mr. Trollope in answer to your remarks on the Cenci article. You will see he has taken pains with the subject. I did not mention your name to him in connexion with the remarks, but only with reference to the Philobiblon notes. He therefore does not know that you are as well acquainted with the Italians as he is.

_To Mr. Dempster_

_C. O., February 26th_.--I hope this will not arrive too late to congratulate you on having achieved in health and good spirits three-quarters of the road to our centenary. Unluckily, the last quarter is the most difficult. But _sursum corda_! When I look back and about me, I am astonished to have got so far. The great pleasure of advancing years is retrospection. One sees such groups and groups of pleasant people. The prospective eyes of youth see nothing so real or charming. I fancy I am sitting with you on a flowery bank of heather in the Highlands, about August 15th, talking of these things. There are a dozen brace of dead grouse in the bag. Donald is at the well. Don't remind me that it is February, 1 in London, the wind in the northeast.

Here the Journal records:--

_February 27th_.--My sister-in-law, Helen Blackett, died at Matfen.

_March 4th_.--Charles Newton and Sir J. Hooker elected by The Club.

_April 28th_.--I was named Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries for four years.

_From Lord Kimberley_

_35 Lowndes Square, May 3rd_.--There is a savage article in the 'Quarterly' (by Froude, I believe), many of the statements in which arise from mere ignorance. Whatever chance of success Carnarvon's scheme of confederation had--it was in any case small--was destroyed by Froude's blundering, which was caused mainly by his knowing nothing whatever about the political history and literature of the colony. But, for all that, his article is worthy of attention. Like you, I am very apprehensive about the Zulu war; but this is too long a story for a short note. I should very much like to talk the matter over with you.

The Journal again:--

_May 15th_.--Presided at Antiquaries as V.-P.

_June 11th_.--Great party at Count Muenster's for the golden wedding of Emperor Wilhelm.

_From Mr. E. Cheney_

_Audley Square, July 1st_.--I have an impression of Shelley's portrait, which Colnaghi has just engraved. Sir Percy wishes it not to be re-copied, and he entertains no doubt of its authenticity. He says it is extremely like a maiden aunt of his--the only survivor of the past generation of the Shelleys. I beg your acceptance of an impression.

_To Mr. E. Cheney_

_July 1st_.--I am uncommonly obliged to you for the exquisite engraving of the drawing of Shelley. I shall cherish it alike in memory of him, and of a better man--yourself, and for the strange legend about it.

I am sorry to hear that ------ has taken offence at the mention of her father in the 'Greville Memoirs.' I was wholly unconscious of the offence, and indeed had forgotten that he was mentioned in them at all.... I should like, with great simplicity, to say to these eminent persons that I value the honour of being the Editor of Charles Greville's Journals infinitely more than any distinction that Queens or Duchesses could bestow on me. But I esteem the talents and good qualities of ------ and certainly I never dreamed she was offended.

And then the Journal:--

_July 5th_.--Lady Waldegrave died. The news came while we were attending Lord Lawrence's funeral in Westminster Abbey.

_26th_.--To Foxholes. _August 16th_.--Visit to Weymouth; 18th, drove to Abbotsbury.

_August 30th_.--Tom Longman died at Farnborough--seventy-five.

_September 3rd_.--His funeral.

_5th_.--To St. Malo with Christine and Hopie; 6th, to Dinard and on to Dinan; 8th, to Guingamp; 9th, to Lannion, seeing Chateau de Tonguebec on the way; 10th, to Louannec--fine rocky coast; 11th, Morlaix--drove to St. Pol de Leon; 12th, Brest, but it rained; 13th, to Auray; 14th, expedition to Carnac; 15th, expedition to Locmaria-quer; 16th, Auray to St. Malo; 18th, home again--a pleasant tour.

_24th_.--To Stratton, to see Lord Northbrook about article on Affghan War. Read him the article.

_October 21st_.--Lord Northbrook at Foxholes.

_30th_.--Left Foxholes. Visit to Pember's [at Lymington], Beaulieu Abbey. To town on November 1st.

Frequent mention has been made of M. de Circourt's letters, the writing of which occupied a great part of his time. In a short memoir, or, rather, an appreciation, which Reeve contributed to the 'Edinburgh Review' of October 1881, he wrote: 'It was his pleasure and his desire to live and die comparatively unknown. With an insatiable curiosity and love of knowledge, with an extraordinary facility in mastering languages, and a universal love of literature; with a memory so precise and so inexhaustible that it retained without effort all he had acquired, he found in the mere exercise of these singular gifts a sufficient employment for a long and not inactive life.... He possessed and enjoyed the friendship of an extraordinary number of men of the highest distinction, not only in France, but in all lands. The correspondence he carried on with his friends in Germany, Italy, England, Switzerland, America, and Russia was inconceivably voluminous. To each of them he wrote in their own respective language, equally vehement and profuse in every tongue.'

The bulk of his letters to Reeve alone is truly formidable. But these, and presumably most others, were to a very great extent political or literary pamphlets, which, though not given to the press, were--there can be little doubt--intended to be circulated among a select public such as he delighted in addressing. Two of the latest of these, written very shortly before his death, are here given:--

_From M. de Circourt_

La Celle, October 27th.

My dear Reeve,--I don't know whether the article 'Germany since the Peace of Frankfort' has done in Great Britain so much noise as the 'Affghanistan,' which has been, over here, an event in the literary-politic world. But the first one is quite equal to the second, and gives career to endless (alas! useless, too!) reflections. It is a sombre picture, quite in the style of Rembrandt, with a _chiaroscuro_ much akin to darkness. It can be objected that the lights are sacrificed to the shades. But, excepting the strong constitution of the Imperial army, and the perfection to which, according to competent judges, the preparations for an offensive and defensive war have been pushed, I cannot see anything, in the condition of finances, industry, husbandry, and, above all, public morals, which is not threatening, if not absolutely disheartening. No traveller comes back from Germany without a tale of woe. _Savior armis Luxuria incubuit, victamque ulciscitur Galliam_. And while the rancour and the thirst for vengeance are still, in France, what they were in 1871, the whole of power, riches, and fashion in Germany crowding to Paris, give it a sort of transient popularity, and suffers itself to be led by what is among us most frivolous, most immoral, and even less French, in the old and legitimate sense of that word. It is very curious to observe how the strangers flock to Paris in order to enjoy the spectacle of themselves, reckoning the French for nothing save the ministers of their pleasures, _et improbi turba impia vici_. If, in the midst of these brilliant saturnalia, the _pares_ were to rise, and another Commune spring from the kennel to the day, how many of the lords of the Philistines would be buried under the ruins of the temple of Dagon? But to revert to Germany, or, rather, to her ruler.

Prince Bismarck, I apprehend, has lived too long. He begins to feel the fickleness of fortune. He has never had any friends; he begins to be burdensome to his associates. I don't know whether he could have managed a Parliament elected after the actual method on the Continent; I am certain that he did not, and never was able to, uphold a consistent and honourable system whatever. He is no financier, no economist; and as he does always act upon the interests of the present hour, without regard to past engagements, he can have with him but those who superstitiously deem him a prophet, or those who choose to _servir a tout prix_. He is rude, suspicious, and vindictive. The only great minister with whom he can be compared, Richelieu, was at least frank and open towards friend and foe. Bismarck has never negotiated with any man, nor charged any man with an important measure, without becoming their ruin, or changed them into implacable enemies--Savigny, Usedom, Arnim, Gortschakoff. The good genius of his country has protected Moltke against his insidious praises and bitter censures. It is easy to prove that, during the late war, all the good advice given to the King came from Moltke; all hurried, or lame, or improvident, or perfidiously cruel measures came from the Chancellor. Why did he leave half of the forts round Paris in the power, not of our army, but of the armed rabble, to which he left the possession of 1,500 field-pieces and 300,000 guns, while he disarmed the regulars to the last man? To his calculations we owe the Commune; posterity will hold him responsible for that incalculable calamity, which it was at every hour in his power to avert, or to crush instantly. Presently his tenure of office is very precarious. The Emperor is eighty-two, and has never liked Bismarck; he has given recently some signs that he feels galled by the chain. The Crown Prince may make use of him, and sacrify his personal feelings to the advantage not to upset suddenly the system of government; but, under Friedrich Wilhelm V., it is more than probable that Bismarck shall have to choose between retire or obey. Even in the present occurrence, considering that France is wholly taken up with her internal dissensions, which are not likely to become soon better, and that Russia has need of time for recruiting her exhausted resources, it was certainly not sound policy to blow the trumpet of a coalition which was, presently, dreamed of by nobody, and shall, in the future, result from the necessity of things.

The article upon the Code of Criminal Law is an excellent treatise of _Criminalison_; we, too, want a _refonte_ of our criminal law. What is called civilisation has gorged our society with an infinity of malpractices unknown to our ruder but better fathers; and we suffer from the bane of modern civilisation, that idiot charity towards the refuse of mankind, coupled to a perfect indifference for the honest people they assail or bring to ruin. To that endemic disease of the mind no penal statute can afford a remedy. MacMahon was as weak as a school-girl on such occasions; Grevy is scarce better; at least he does not call weakness Christian charity.

'The Impressions of Theophrastus Such' are little intelligible to me, merely because I have read so few books of the authoress. Doudan [Footnote: Ximenes Doudan (1800-72) was in early life a tutor in the family of the Due de Broglie, and remained attached to him. His critical judgement and sparkling conversation made him a special feature of the Duchess's _salon_. He was well known in literary society, and was compared by Reeve (_Ed. Rev._, July 1878) with John Allen of Holland House. Like Allen, his reputation was based almost entirely on his conversation and encyclopaedic knowledge. After his death, his few essays and numerous letters were collected and edited by the Comte d'Haussonville, under the title of _Melanges et Lettres_(4 tomn. 8vo. 1876).] wrote that he could never be quite unhappy while he had _des romans anglais a lire_; I confess that, when they are not first-rate, they seem to me to belong rather to the department of industry than to that of literature. The article upon the civil engineers of Britain is an admirable compilation of much that's useful to know and easy to understand; the magnificence of the _tableau_ strikes the fancy and weighs upon the mind. But, after all, is humanity become grander, or better, or happier by so many performances of the inquisitive and constructive genius? _That's the question_. With trembling hope I'll answer Yes! Life is less dark, a little longer, and better provided against the material plagues of nature: but farther?

I am pent up with a severe cold, and losing the last day of a capricious autumn. Mme. d'Affry has promised me a visit.

What of the parliamentary strife between Disraeli and his rivals? At least, it is _Diomedes cum Glauco_, statesman pitched against statesman. But in our camp: _non melius compositus cum Bitho Bacchius_. Yours truly,

A. C.

The letter that follows is endorsed by Reeve 'M. de Circourt's last letter to me. He was struck with apoplexy on the 15th, and died on the 17th of November. The last token of fifty years' friendship':--

_From the Comte de Circourt_

La Celle, November 12th.

My dear Sir,--Many thanks for your kind letter of the 6th. I am still an invalid, _conjuguant_ in all its tenses the verb _grippe_, with its near relation bronchitis. However, I am recovering by-and-by, and the weather--not fine, still very mild--helps me towards recovering my liberty of locomotion. I am the more sorry for my _reclusion_ that I had begun some plantations in my garden. Fancy what it is to plant trees by half-dozens and to buy land by wheelbarrows!

We are in a state of partial fermentation and general disgust. The President _videt meliora probatque, deteriora sequitur_; he is absolutely sunken in the opinions, but tolerated, because he lets every party at freedom to plot and to hope. Waddington does not fare better, but Jules Simon has presently no chance of replacing him. The sympathy which Ferry has proclaimed for the Reformed Church [Footnote: See _Times_, November 8th.]--very natural in itself--may be mischievous for them; our nation has never any sympathy for minorities. The leaders of the Clerical party have lowered their teaching and their practices to the level of the most obtuse intellects and the most childish enthusiasms; they make conquests by myriads; and as, in our present state of society, numbers are accounted for everything, the Government and ruling party have already encountered, and shall encounter more and more, a formidable opposition, which, if it does not drag the country into civil war, cannot fail to accelerate and precipitate the fate of the Republican Government. As the Duc d'Aumale seems resolved never to put himself forward, the conjectures hover between Galliffet [Footnote: General de Galliffet was more especially known for the stern justice he had meted out to the Communards of 1871.] and several others, all men of action, although none of them has the prestige which made, in 1799, the task of Bonaparte so wonderfully easy. The 'Great Unknown' will be revealed to us by some sudden stroke; our people is perfectly disposed to acknowledge a master, and prays only that 'nous ayons un bon tyran,' since we must have one.

Lord Beaconsfield's speech [Footnote: At the Mansion House on the 10th. See _Times_, November 11th.] shall not put an end to the embarrassments of our Exchange, shaken to its foundations by the curiously tragical episode [Footnote: 'Gigantic swindle' would more correctly designate it. See _Times_, November 7th. Philippart, having made away with some 100,000,000 francs, had judiciously vanished.] of Philippart. _Imperium et Libertas_, i.e. 'Domination abroad and Freedom at home,' is a proud legacy of 'the most high and palmy days of Rome'; but it will be difficult to force the submission to that maxim upon all the powers of the world. If the Turks had studied the history of classical times, they would believe that the days of _Civis Romanus sum_ and the _Reges clientes Populi Romani_ are come again for the East; and what immense space does this name design, since the exclusive and dominating influence claimed by the Premier begins at the Adriatic and ends--nowhere; for the whole of Affghanistan being brought under British control, and Turkish Asia on the other side being claimed as a protected and indirectly governed country, it will become necessary that the intermediate region, Persia, be assimilated to the rest of the dependencies of an Empire which, at the farthest end, shall soon be contiguous to China.

The task of the Russian people is very different. The stern decrees of Providence have made of it the antagonist and hereditary foe of the Asiatic barbarics, which it has faced under the walls of Kief and Moscow, and pressed, by dint of repeated battles and immense sacrifices, to the foot of the Himalaya range and the course of the Upper Oxus. Sooner or later, a tremendous shock must happen between the two gigantic Empires which meet upon that debateable ground. I hope I may never witness it; but I do regret much the disparition of the ample neutral ground, which till lately stretched from the Indus to the Yaxartes....

Many wishes for your health and occupations.

Yours very truly,

A. CIRCOURT.

The Journal gives the chronicle of the last weeks of the year:--

_November 22nd_.--Visit to Chatsworth. Delane died. _23rd_.--Chatsworth. Long talk with Lord Hartington.

_29th_.--Delane's funeral at Easthampstead. Went down with Barlow and Stebbing; then across by Woking to Lithe Hill (Haslemere); very cold.

At Christmas severe illness came on--gout and violent bleeding of the nose. I was totally laid up for two months.

The year had been a sad one, and had marked its progress by the death of many of Reeve's dearest and oldest friends--Lady Blackett (to whom he had always been tenderly attached), Longman, Circourt, and Delane.