Chapter XIII: Section 21: (1797-8) (6)

Yet, though the busts and medallions I have seen are, in general, such good resemblances that I think I should have known him untold, he has by no means the look to be expected from Bonaparte, but rather that of a profoundly studious and contemplative man, who "o'er books consumes" not only the "midnight oil" but his own daily strength, "and wastes the puny body to decay" by abstruse speculation and theoretic plans or rather visions, ingenious but not practicable. But the look of the commander who heads his own army, who fights his own battles, who conquers every difficulty by personal exertion, who executes all he plans, who performs even all he suggests; whose ambition is of the most enterprising, and whose bravery is of the most daring cast:--this, which is the look to be expected from his situation, and the exploits which have led to it, the spectator watches for in vain. The plainness, also, of his dress, so conspicuously contrasted by the finery of all around him, conspires forcibly with his countenance, so "sicklied o'er with the pale hue of thought," to give him far more the air of a student than a warrior.

The intense attention with which I fixed him in this short but complete view made me entirely forget the lady who had promised me to hold him in conference. When he had passed, however, she told me it was upon his return she should address him, as he was too much hurried to be talked with at the moment of going to the parade. I was glad to find my chance not over, and infinitely curious to know what was to follow.

THE PARADE OF TROOPS.

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, Page 233

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. I am the last to be a judge upon this subject, but as a remarker, he only appeared to me a man who knew so well he could manage the animal when he pleased, that he did not deem it worth his while to keep constantly in order what he knew, if urged or provoked, he could subdue in a moment.

Precisely opposite to the window at which I was placed, the chief Consul stationed himself after making his round and thence he presented some swords of honour, spreading out one arm with an air and mien which changed his look from that of scholastic severity to one that was highly military and commanding. . . .

A SCENE.

The review over, the chief Consul returned to the palace. The lines were again formed, and he re-entered our apartment with his suite. As soon as he approached our window, I observed my first acquaintance start a little forward. I was now all attention to her performance of her promise; and just as he reached us she stretched out her hand to present him a petition!

The enigma of the conference was now solved, and I laughed at my own wasted expectation. Lui parler, however, the lady certainly did; so far she kept her word; for when he had taken the scroll, and was passing on, she rushed out of the line, and planting herself immediately before him so as to prevent his walking on, screamed, rather than spoke, for her voice was shrill with impetuosity to be heard and terror of failure, "C'est pour mon fils! vous me l'avez promis!"(189) The first Consul stopped and spoke; but not loud enough for me to hear his voice: while his aides-de-camp and the attending generals surrounding him more closely, all in a Page 234

breath rapidly said to the lady, "Votre nom, madame, votre nom!"(190) trying to disengage the Consul from her importunity, in which they succeeded, but not with much ease, as she seemed purposing to cling to him till she got his personal answer. He faintly smiled as he passed on, but looked harassed and worn; while she, turning to me, with an exulting face and voice, exclaimed, "Je l'aurai! je l'aurai!" meaning what she had petitioned for--"car . . . tous ces gnraux m'ont demands mon nom!" (191) Could any inference be clearer?

The moment the chief Consul had ascended the steps leading to the inner apartment, the gentlemen in black with ,gold chains gave a general hint that all the company must depart, as the ambassadors and the ministers were now summoned to their monthly public audience with the chief Consul. The crowd, however, was so great, and Madame d'Henin was so much incommoded, and half ill, I fear, by internal suffering, that M. d'Arblay procured a pass for us by a private door down to a terrace leading to a quiet exit from the palace into the Tuileries garden.

WITH M. D'ARBLAY'S RELATIVES AT JOIGNY.

(Madame d'Arblay to Mrs. Burney.)(192) Paris, 1802. .....With the nearest relatives now existing of M. d'Arblay I am myself more pleased than I can tell you. We have spent a fortnight at joigny,(193) and found them all awaiting us with the most enthusiastic determination to receive with open arms and open heart the choice and the offspring of their returned exile. Their kindness has truly penetrated me; and the heads of the family, the uncle and the aunt, are so charming as well as so worthy, that I could have remained with them for months had not the way of life which their residence in a country town has forced them to adopt, been utterly at war with all that, to me, makes peace, and happiness, and cheerfulness, namely, the real domestic life of living with my own small but all-sufficient family. I have never loved a dissipated Page 235

life, which it is no virtue in me, therefore, to relinquish; but I now far less than ever can relish it, and know not how to enjoy anything away from home, except by distant intervals; and then with that real moderation, I am so far from being a misanthrope or sick of the world, that I have real pleasure in mixed society. It is difficult, however, in the extreme, to be able to keep to such terms. M. d'Arblay has so many friends, and an acquaintance so extensive, that the mere common decencies of established etiquettes demand, as yet, nearly all my time; and this has been a true fatigue both to my body and my spirits.

M. d'Arblay is related, though very distantly, to a quarter of the town, and the other three-quarters are his friends or acquaintance; and all of them came, first, to see me; next, to know how I did after the journey; next, were all to be waited upon in return ; next, came to thank me for my visit; next, to know how the air of Joigny agreed with me - next, to make a little further acquaintance ; and, finally, to make a visit of cong. And yet all were so civil, so pleasant, and so pleased with my monsieur's return, that could I have lived three lives, so as to have had some respite, I could not have found fault for it was scarcely ever with the individual intruder, but with the continuance or repetition of interruption.

SOME JOIGNY ACQUAINTANCES.

(Madame d'Arblay to Miss Planta, for the queen and princesses.) Passy, December 19, 1802. .....Rarely, indeed, my dear Miss Planta, I have received more pleasure than from your last most truly welcome letter, with assurances so unspeakably seasonable. I had it here at Passy the 5th day after its date. I thank you again and again, but oh! how I thank God!

Permit me now to go back to Joigny, for the purpose of giving some account of two very interesting acquaintances we made there. The first was Colonel Louis Bonaparte,(194) youngest brother but one, (Jerome) of the first Consul. His

Page 236

regiment was quartered at joigny, where he happened to be upon our last arrival at that town, and where the first visit he made was to M. MBazille, the worthy maternal uncle of M. d'Arblay. He is a young man of the most serious demeanour, a grave yet pleasing countenance, and the most reserved yet gentlest manners. His conduct in the small town (for France) of joigny was not merely respectable, but exemplary; he would accept no distinction in consequence of his powerful connexions, but presented himself everywhere with the unassuming modesty of a young man who had no claims beyond what he might make by his own efforts and merits. He discouraged all gaming, to which the inhabitants are extremely prone, by always playing low himself; and he discountenanced parade, by never suffering his own servant to wait behind his chair where he dined. He broke up early both from table and from play - was rigid in his attentions to his military duties, strict in the discipline of is officers as well as men, -and the first to lead the way in every decency and regularity. When to this I add that his conversation is sensible, and well bred, yet uncommonly diffident, and that but twenty-three summers have yet rolled over his head, so much good sense, forbearance, and propriety, in a situation so open to flattery, ambition, or vanity, obtained, as they merited, high consideration and perfect good will.

I had a good deal of conversation with him, for he came to sit by me both before and after his card-party wherever I had the pleasure to meet him ; and his quiet and amiable manners, and rational style of discourse, made him a great loss to our society, when he was summoned to Paris, upon the near approach of the event which gave him a son and heir. He was very kind to my little Alex, whom he never saw without embracing, and he treated M. d'Arblay with a marked distinction extremely gratifying to me.

The second acquaintance to which I have alluded is a lady, Madame de Souza.(195) She soon found the road to my good will and regard, for she told me that she, with another lady, had been fixed upon by M. del Campo, my old sea-visitor, for the high honour of aiding him in his reception of the first lady of our land and her lovely daughters, upon the grand fte which he gave upon the dearest and most memorable of occasions(196) and she spoke with such pleasure and gratitude of Page 237

the sweet condescension she then experienced, that she charmed and delighted me, and we struck up an intimacy without further delay. Our theme was always ready, and I only regretted that I could see her but seldom, as she lived two or three miles out of Joigny, at Cesy, in the small chteau of la ci-devant Princesse de Beaufremont, a lady with whom I had had the honour of making acquaintance in Paris, and who is one of those who suffered most during the horrors of the Revolution. At the dreadful period when all the rage was to burn the property and title-deeds of the rich and high-born, her noble chteau, one of the most considerable in France, was. utterly consumed, and all her papers; that no record of her genealogy might remain, were committed, with barbarous triumph, to the flames : yet was this, such is her unhappy fate, the least of her misfortunes ; her eldest daughter, a beautiful young creature, upon whom she doted, was in the chteau at this horrible period, and forced to make her escape with such alarm and precipitance, that she never recovered from the excess of her terror, which robbed her of her life before she was quite seventeen years of age !

Around the small and modest chteau de Cesy, in which Madame de Beaufremont and her youngest and now only daughter, Madame de Listenois, at present reside, the grounds have been cultivated in the English style; and the walks, now shady, now open, now rising, now descending, with water, bridges, cascades, and groves, and occasional fine picturesque views from the banks of the Yonne, are all laid out with taste and pretty effects. We strolled over them with a large party, till we came to a little recess. Madame de Beaufremont then took me by the arm, and we separated from the company to enter it together, and she showed me an urn surrounded with cypress trees and weeping willows, watered by a clear, small, running rivulet, and dedicated to the memory of her first-born and early-lost lamented daughter. Poor lady! she seems entirely resigned to all the rest of her deprivations, but here the wound is incurable ! yet, this subject apart, she is cheerful, loves society, or rather social discourse, with a chosen few, and not only accepts with Pleasure whatever may enliven her, but exerts herself to contribute all that is in her power to the entertainment of others. She has still preserved enough from the wreck of her Possessions to live elegantly, though not splendidly; and her table is remarkably well served. She has a son-in-law, M. Page 238

de Listenois, whom I did not see; but her remaining daughter Madame de Listenois, is a very fine young woman. Madame de Souza has spent the whole summer with these ladies. She told me she liked England so very much, and was so happy during the six weeks she passed there, that she wept bitterly on quitting it. She was received, she says, at Court in the most bewitching manner, and she delights in retracing her honours, and her sense of them. She is still so very handsome, though sickly and suffering, that I imagine she must then have been exquisitely beautiful. I am told, by a French officer who has served in Spain, M. de Meulan, that when she left that country she was reckoned the most celebrated beauty of Madrid.

I had another new acquaintance at Joigny, also, in a lady who came from Auxerre, as she was pleased to say, to see me, Madame La Villheurnois, widow of M. La Villheurnois, who was amongst the unhappy objects dports, by the order of the Directory, la Guiane.(197) As soon as the first civilities were over, she said, "Permettez, madame! connaisseZ-vous Sidney?"(198) I could not doubt who she meant, though there is no avoiding a smile at this drolly concise way of naming a man by his nom de baptme.(199) She was extremely surprised when I answered no; telling me she had concluded "que tout le monde en Angleterre"(200) must know Sidney! Yes, I said, by character certainly ; but personally I had never the gratification of meeting with him. She told me she was intimately acquainted with him herself, from seeing him continually when he was confined in the Temple, as she attended there her "malheureux poux,"(201) and she saw also, she said, "son valet et son jockey,"(202) whom she never suspected to be disguised emigrants, watching to aid his escape. "Surtout," she added, "comme le jockey avait des trous aux bas terribles,")203) which

Page 239

induced her daughter to buy him a new pair of stockings for charity. A gentleman who accompanied her to Joigny, her secretary, told me he had played at ball with Sidney every day for six months, while he also attended upon poor M. La Vilheurnois......

THE INFLUENZA IN PARIS.

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Passy, March 23, 1803. I have been anxious to write since I received your last kind inquiries, my dearest padre; but so tedious has been my seizure, that I have not yet got from its wraps or confinements. I feel, however, as if this were their last day, and that to-morrow would have the honour to see me abroad. I have had no fever, and no physician, and no important malady; but cold has fastened upon cold, so as utterly to imprison me. La gripe,(204) however, I escaped, so has Alex, and our maid and helpers--and M. d'Arblay, who caught it latterly in his excursions to Paris, had it so slightly that but for the fright attached to the seizure (which I thought would almost have demolished me at first, from the terror hanging on its very name at that fatal period) I should have deemed it a mere common cold. It is now universally over, but the mischief it has done is grievously irreparable. . . . It was a disastrous and frightful time. The streets of Paris were said to be as full of funerals as of cabriolets. For my own part, I have not once been able to enter that capital since I left it at the end of October. But I cannot help attributing much of the mortality which prevailed in consequence of this slight disease, to the unwholesome air occasioned by the dreadful want of cleanliness in that city, which, but for the healthiness of the beautiful and delicious walks around it, i.e., the Boulevards, must surely have proved pestilential. The air of our house at Passy is perfectly pure and sweet.

M. d'Arblay is now making a last effort with respect to his retraite,(205) which has languished in adjournment above a year. He has put it into the hands of a faithful and most amiable friend, now in high esteem with the premier Consul, General Lauriston, who so kindly renewed an ancient friendship with his former camarade when he was on his splendid short embassy in England. If through him it should fail, I shall never think of it more. Page 240

RUMOURS OF WAR.

(Madame dArblay to Mrs. Locke) NO- 54, Rue Basse, Passy, near Paris, April 30, 1803. How to write I know not, at a period so tremendous-nor yet how to be silent. My dearest, dearest friends ! if the war indeed prove inevitable, what a heart-breaking position is ours!-to explain it fully would demand folios, and yet be never so well done as you, with a little consideration, can do it for us. Who better than Mr. Locke and his Fredy-who so well can comprehend, that, where one must be sacrificed, the other will be yet more to be pitied ?-I will not go on-I will talk only of you, till our fate must be determined. And M. d'Arblay, who only in the wide world loves his paternal uncle as well (we always except ourselves at Westminster! how tenderly does he join in my every feeling! and how faithfully keep unimpaired all our best and happiest sympathies!

May 2.--Better appearances in the political horizon now somewhat recruit my spirits, which have been quite indescribably tortured, rather than sunk, by the impossibility of any private arrangement for our mutual happiness in the dread event of war. God Almighty yet avert it! And should it fall to the lot of Lauriston to confirm the peace, what a guardian angel upon earth I shall deem him! How I wish he could meet with you! he is so elegant in his manners he would immediately give you pleasure; and his countenance is so true in announcing him amiable, that you might look at him with trust as well as satisfaction. . . .

May 13--Ah, my dearest friends--what a melancholy end to my hopes and my letter. I have just heard that Lord Whitworth(206) set off for Chantilly last night; war therefore seems inevitable; and my grief, I, who feel myself now of two countries, is far greater than I can wish to express. While posts are yet open, write to me, my beloved friend, and by Hamburg. I trust we may still and regularly correspond, long as the letters may be in travelling. As our letters never

Page 241

treat but of our private concerns, health and welfare neither country can object to our intercourse.

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney). Passy, May 6, 1803. if my dearest father has the smallest idea of the suspense and terror in which I have spent this last fortnight, from the daily menace of war, he will be glad, I am sure, of the respite allowed me-if no more--from a visit I have just received from Mrs. Huber, who assures me the Ambassador has postponed his setting off, and consented to send another courier.(207) To say how I pray for his success would indeed be needless. I have hardly closed my eyes many nights past. My dearest father will easily conceive the varying conflicts of our minds, and how mutual are our sufferings. . . .

We were buoyed up here for some days with the hope that General Lauriston was gone to England as plenipo, to end the dread contest without new effusion of blood: but Paris, like London, teems with hourly false reports, and this intelligence, unhappily, was of the number. The continued kindness and friendship of that gentleman for M. d'Arblay make me take a warm interest in whatever belongs to him. About ten days ago, when M. d'Arblay called upon him, relative to the affair so long impending of his retraite, he took his hand, and said "Fais-moi ton compliment!"(208) You are sure how heartily M. d'Arblay would be ready to comply-"but "what," he demanded, "can be new to you of honours?" "I have succeeded," he answered, "for you!--the first Consul has signed your mmoire." When such delicacy is joined to warm attachment, my dearest father will not wonder I should be touched by it. . . .

M. d'Arblay has now something in his native country, where all other claims are vain, and all other expectations completely destroyed. He had been flattered with recovering some portion, at least, of his landed property near Joigny; but those who have purchased it during his exile add such enormous and unaccountable charges to what they paid for it at that period, that it is become, to us, wholly unattainable.

Page 242

" OUR LITTLE CELL AT PASSY."

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Passy, April 11, 1804. We live in the most quiet, and, I think, enviable retired merit. Our house is larger than we require, but not a quarter furnished. Our view is extremely pretty from it, and always cheerful; we rarely go out, yet always are pleased to return. We have our books, our prate, and our boy--how, with all this, can we, or ought we to suffer ourselves to complain of our narrowed and narrowing income? If we are still able to continue at Passy, endeared to me now beyond any other residence away from you all, by a friendship I have formed here with one of the sweetest women I have ever known, Madame de Maisonneuve, and to M. d'Arblay by similar sentiments for all her family, our philosophy will not be put to severer trials than it can sustain. And this engages us to bear a thousand small privations which we might, perhaps, escape, by shutting ourselves up in some spot more remote from the capital. But as my deprivation of the society of my friends is what I most lament, so something that approaches nearest to what I have lost affords me the best reparation.

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Passy, May 29, 1808. Before I expected it, my promised opportunity for again writing to my most dear father is arrived. I entirely forget whether, before the breaking out of the war stopt our correspondence, M. d'Arblay had already obtained his retraite: and, consequently, whether that is an event I have mentioned or not. Be that as it may, he now has it--it is 1500 livres, or 62 pounds, 10 shillings. per annum. But all our resources from England ceasing with the peace, we had so little left from what we had brought over, and M. d'Arblay has found so nearly nothing remaining of his natural and hereditary claims in his own province, that he determined upon applying for some employment that might enable him to live with independence, how ever parsimoniously. This he has, with infinite difficulty, etc., at length obtained, and he is now a rdacteur in the civil department of les Btimens, etc.(209) This is no sinecure. He

Page 243

attends at his bureau from half-past nine to half-past four o'clock every day; and as we live so far off as Passy he is obliged to set off for his office between eight and nine, and does not return to his hermitage till past five. However, what necessity has urged us to desire, and made him solicit, we must not, now acquired, name or think of with murmuring or regret. He has the happiness to be placed amongst extremely worthy people; and those who are his chefs in office treat him with every possible mark of consideration and feeling. We continue steady to our little cell at Passy, which is retired, quiet, and quite to ourselves, with a magnificent view of Paris from one side, and a beautiful one of the country on the other. It is unfurnished-indeed, unpapered, and every way unfinished; for our workmen, in the indispensable repairs which preceded our entering it, ran us up bills that compelled us to turn them adrift, and leave every thing at a stand, when three rooms only were made just habitable.

THE PRINCE OF WALES EULOGIZED.

(Dr. Burney to Madame d'Arblay.) July 12, 1805. . . . Your brother, Dr. Charles, and I have had the honour last Tuesday of dining with the Prince of Wales at Lord Melbourne's at the particular desire of H.R.H. He is so good-humoured and gracious to those against whom he has no party prejudice, that it is impossible not to be flattered by this politeness and condescension. I was astonished to find him, amidst such constant dissipation, possessed of so much learning, wit, knowledge of books in general, discrimination of Character, as well as original humour. He quoted Homer to my son as readily as if the beauties of Dryden or Pope were under consideration. And as to music, he is an excellent critic; has an enlarged taste-- admiring whatever is excellent in its kind, of whatever age or country the composers or performers may be; without, however, being insensible to the superior genius and learning necessary to some kinds of music more than others.

The conversation was general and lively, in which several of the company, consisting of eighteen or twenty, took a share, till towards the heel of the evening, or rather the toe of the morning; for we did not rise from table till one Page 244

o'clock, when Lady Melbourne being returned from the opera with her daughters, coffee was ordered; during which H.R.H. took me outside and talked exclusively about music near half an hour, and as long with your brother concerning Greek literature. He is a most excellent mimic of well-known characters: had we been in the dark any one would have sworn that Dr. Parr and Kemble were in the room. Besides being possessed of a great fund of original humour, and good humour, he may with truth be said to have as much wit as Charles II., with much more learning--for his merry majesty could spell no better than the bourgeois gentilhomme.

DR. BURNEY AT BATH.

(Dr. Burney to Madame dArblay.) June 12, 1808. . . . Last autumn I had an alarming seizure In my left hand and, mine being pronounced a Bath case, on Christmas Eve I set out for that city, extremely weak and dispirited-put myself under the care of Dr. Parry, and after remaining there three months, I found my hand much more alive, and my general health considerably amended.

During my invalidity at Bath I had an unexpected visit from your Streatham friend,(210) of whom I had lost sight for more than ten years. I saw very few people, but none of an evening nor of a morning, on the days my hand was pumped on. When her name was sent in I was much surprised, but desired she might be admitted; and I received her as an old friend with whom I had spent much time very happily, and never wished to quarrel. She still looks well, but is grave, and candour itself; though still she says good things, and writes admirable notes and letters, I am told, to my granddaughters C. and M., of whom she is very fond. We shook hands very cordially, and avoided any allusion to our long separation and its cause; the Caro Sposo still lives, but is such an object from the gout that the account of his sufferings made me pity him sincerely; he wished, she told me, "to see his old and worthy friend," and, un beau matin, I could not refuse compliance with his wish. She nurses him with great affection and tenderness, never goes out or has company when he is in pain. Page 245

AFFECTIONATE GREETINGS To DR. BURNEY.

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) September, 1808. After being so long robbed of all means of writing to my beloved father, I seize, with nearly as much surprise as gratitude, a second opportunity of addressing him almost before the first can have brought my hand to his sight. When will some occasion offer to bring me back-not my revenge, but my first and most coveted satisfaction ? With how much more spirit, also, should I write, if I knew what were received of what already I have scrawled ! Volumes, however, must have been told you, of what in other times I should have written, by Maria. For myself, when once a reunion takes place, I can scarcely conceive which will be hardest worked, my talking faculties or my listening ones. O what millions of things I want to inquire and to know! The rising generation, me thinks, at least, might keep me some letters and packets ready for occasional conveyances. I should be grateful beyond measure. M. d'Arblay writes--"how desired is, how happy shall be, the day, in which we shall receive your dearest blessing and embrace! Pray be so kind not to forget the mate always remembering your kindness for him and his. A thousand thousand loves to all."

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) No. 13, Rue d'Anjou, Paris, May 2, 1810. A happy May-day to my dearest father! Sweet-scented be the cowslips which approach his nostrils! lovely and rosy the milkmaids that greet his eyes, and animating as they are noisy the marrow-bones and cleavers that salute his ears! Dear, and even touching, are these anniversary recollections where distance and absence give them existence only in the memory! and, at this moment, to hear and see them I Would exchange all the Raphaels in our Museum, and the new and beautiful composition of Paesiello in the chapel.

Could you but send me a little food for the hope now in private circulation that the new alliance of the Emperor(211) may perhaps extend to a general alliance of all Europe, Oh, Page 246

heaven! how would that brighten my faculties of enjoyment! I should run about to see all I have hitherto omitted to seek, with the ardent curiosity of a traveller newly arrived ; and I should hasten to review and consider all I have already beheld, with an alertness of vivacity that would draw information from every object I have as yet looked at with undiscerning tameness. Oh, such a gleam of light would new-model or re-model me, and I should make you present to all my sights, and partake of all the wonders that surround me !

Were not this cruel obscurity so darkening to my views, and so depressing to my spirits, I could tell my dearest father many things that might amuse him, and detail to him, in particular, my great and rare happiness in a point the most essential, after domestic comforts, to peace of mind and cheerfulness, namely, my good fortune in my adopted friends in this my adopted country. The society in which I mix, 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. The individuals with whom I chiefly mix, from being admired at first for their talents or amiability, are now sincerely loved for their kindness and goodness. Could I write more frequently, or with more security that I write not to the winds and the waves, I would characterize the whole set to you, and try to make us yet shake hands in the same Party. . . .

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) No. 13, Rue d'Anjou, Paris, ce 16 Sept. 1810. Can I tell you, my dearest father!-oh, no! I can never tell you-the pleasure, the rapture with which I received your letter by Madame Solvyns. It had been so cruelly long since I had heard from you, so anxious and suffering a space since I had seen your handwriting, that, when at last it came, I might have seemed, to one who did not know me, rather penetrated by sudden affliction than by joy. But how different was all within to what appeared without! My partner-in-all received it at his bureau, and felt an impatience so unconquerable to communicate so extreme a pleasure that he quitted everything to hasten home; for he was incapable of going on with his business. How satisfactory, also, is all the intelligence ! how gaily, with what spirit written ! . . .

I do nothing of late but dream of seeing you, my most dear

Page 247

father. I think I dream it wide awake, too; the desire is so strong that it pursues me night and day, and almost persuades me it has something in it of reality : and I do not choose to discourage even ideal happiness.

DR. BURNEY's DIPLOMA.

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) No. 13, Rue d'Anjou, 14th April, 1811. .....Have you received the letter in which I related that your diploma has been brought to me by the perpetual secretary of the class of the Fine Arts of the Institute of France?(212) I shall not have it conveyed but by some very certain hand, and that, now, is most difficult to find. M. Le Breton has given me, also, a book of the list of your camarades, in which he has written your name. He says it will be printed in next year's register. He has delivered to me, moreover, a medal, which is a mark of distinction reserved for peculiar honour to peculiar select personages. Do you suppose I do not often--often--often think who would like, and be fittest to be the bearer to you of these honours? . . .

How kind was the collection of letters you made more precious by endorsing! I beseech you to thank all my dear correspondents, and to bespeak their patience for answers, which shall arrive by every wind that I can make blow their way; but yet more, beseech their generous attention to my impatience for more, should the wind blow fair for me before it will let me hail them in return. Difficultly can they figure to themselves my joy--my emotion at receiving letters from such dates as they can give me!

[During this year Madame d'Arblay's correspondence with her English connexions was interrupted not only by the difficulty of conveying letters, but also by a dangerous illness and the menace of a cancer, from which she could only be relieved by submitting to a painful and hazardous operation. The fortitude with which she bore this suffering, and her generous solicitude for Monsieur d'Arblay and those around her, excited the warmest sympathy in all who heard of her trial, and her French friends universally gave her the name of l'ange,(213) so touched were they by her tenderness and Magnanimity.]

(157) " Dr. Orkborne" is the name of one of the characters in "Camilla," a pedantic scholar, who lives only in his books.-ED.

(158) Widow of Sir Robert Strange, the celebrated engraver, and a very old friend of the Burney family. She was a Scotchwoman (her maiden name, Isabel Lumisden), and in her younger days an enthusiastic Jacobite. She obliged her lover, Strange, to join the young Pretender in 1745, and afterwards married him against her father's wish.-ED.

(159) "The other Bell" was the daughter of Sir Robert and Lady Strange.-ED.

(160) Wife of Sir Lucas Pepys, the physician.-ED.

(161) Anna Letitia Barbauld, the well-known author, and editor of Richardson's Correspondence, etc.-ED.

(162) John Aiken, M.D., brother to Mrs. Barbauld, and, like his sister, an author and editor. His "Evenings at Home" is still a well-known book: many of our readers will probably have pleasant reminiscences of it, connected with their childhood.-ED.

(163) Barry had published a furious attack upon his fellow-Academicians in a "Letter to the Dilettanti Society." He was already, owing chiefly to his own violent temper, on ill terms with nearly all of them, and the "Letter" prove(I to be the last straw. Various charges were drawn up against the Professor of Painting, and he was expelled forthwith from the Academy, without being permitted to speak in his own defence.

(164) "By the help of a shilling."

(165) "With tears in his eyes."

(166) i.e., Mr. Locke.-ED.

(167) The French minister in England.-ED.

(168) A letter in which M. d'Arblay had acquainted his wife with the withdrawal of his commission in the French army, in consequence of his refusal, under any circumstances, to bear arms against England.-ED. (169) Miss Cambridge.-ED.

(170) Lafayette was then living in retirement, with his wife and family, at is chateau of La Grange. -ED.

(171) "Quick, quick, madam, take your seat in the diligence, for here is an English gentleman who is sure to take the best place!"--There is evidently some mistake here, in making the book-keeper in Piccadilly speak French and talk about the diligence. That the paragraph relates to Fanny's departure from London is evident from several passages in the text: the mention, later, of changing horses at Canterbury, the references to her fellow-travellers at Calais. The date to the above paragraph is also clearly wrong, as it will be seen that on the 18th of April they were still on the road to Paris.-ED.

(172) "Quick! quick! look for it, or you will be arrested!"

(173) in the new calendar adopted by the Republic in 1793, a division of the month into decades, or periods of ten days, was substituted for the old division into weeks. Every tenth day (dcadi) was a day of rest, instead of every seventh day, (Sunday, Dimanche). The months were of thirty days each, with five odd festival days (Sansculottades) in the year, and a sixth (Festival of the Revolution) in Leap Year. Napoleon restored the Sunday in place of dcadi. The new calendar was discontinued altogether, January 1, 1806.-ED.

(174) The date is again wrong--probably a misprint for
April 21.-ED.

(175) Mrs. Damer, the sculptor, as an ardent Whig and supporter of Charles Fox, professed herself at this time an enthusiastic admirer of the first Consul. She had known josphine de Beauharnais before her marriage with Napoleon, and, after the peace of Amiens, visited Paris on Josphine's invitation. She was there introduced to Napoleon, to whom she afterwards presented a bust of Charles Fox, executed by herself. Mrs. Damer's companions on this excursion were Mary Berry, the author (born 1763-died 1852), and her younger sister, Agnes Berry. These two ladies were prodigious favourites with Horace Walpole, who called them his "twin wives," and was, it is said, even desirous, in his old age, Of marrying the elder Miss Berry. One of his valued possessions was a marble bust of Mary Berry, the work of his kinswoman, Mrs. Damer. At his death in 1797 he bequeathed to the Miss Berrys a house for their joint lives, besides a legacy Of 4000 pounds to each sister. Mary Berry published an edition of her old admirer's works the year after his death.-ED.

(176) The Swiss home of her father, 'M. Necker, on the shore of the lake, and some ten miles north of the town of Geneva. Necker retired thither after his fall in 1790, and spent there, in retirement, the remaining years of his life. He died at Geneva, in April, 1804.-ED.

(177) Madame de Stael's orthography is here preserved.

" I should like to prove to you my zeal, madam, and I am afraid of being indiscreet. I hope you will have the goodness to let me know when you are sufficiently recovered from the fatigue of your journey, that I might have the honour of seeing you without being tiresome to you."

(178) The 4th Floria (April 23).

(179) "Madame d'Arblay can only be infinitely flattered by the extreme goodness of Madame the Countess de Stael. She will very certainly have the honour of calling upon Madame de Stael as soon as possible." (180) Madame de Lafayette was thrown into prison after the flight of her husband; released in February, 1795, more than six months after the death of Robespierre. She then journeyed to Austria, and obtained leave to share, with her two daughters, her husband's captivity at Olmtz. Lafayette was released in September, 1797; returned to France in 1800, Napoleon not forbidding, though not quite approving. Madame de Lafayette's constitution was permanently impaired by the confinement which she suffered at Olmtz. She died December 24, 1807.-ED.

(181) "It's a foreigner, it's an Englishwoman."

(182) "Have you seen the first Consul, madam?"

"Not yet, madam."

"It is doubtless what you most wish for, madam?"

"Yes, madam."

"Do you wish to have an excellent view of him, and to see him quite at your ease?"

"I am particularly desirous of it, madam."

(183) "Do thus, madam, and you will see him well, well; for I-am going to speak to him ! "

(184) "You see him, madam!"

"Whom?" exclaimed I, "the first Consul?"

"Oh no!--not yet;--but--that--that gentleman!"

(185) "yes, madam, I see that gentleman; he is very tall!"

(186) "Madam, it is my husband!"

(187) "What is the matter?"

(188) "M'ami, the--the first Consul, is he not coming?"

(189) "'Tis for my son ! you promised it me!"

(190) "Your name, madam, your name!"

(191) "I shall have it! I shall have it! for all those generals asked my name!"

(192) Fanny's eldest sister, Esther, who married (1770) her cousin, Charles Rousseau Burney.-ED.

(193) joigny was the birth-place of M. d'Arblay.-ED.

(194) Louis Bonaparte was born in 1778, and, young as he was, had already served with distinction in the campaign in Italy. He was subsequently king of Holland from 1806 to 1810, when that country was annexed by Napoleon to the French Empire. He married Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter, by her first marriage, of Napoleon's wife, Josephine, and was the father of the Emperor Napoleon III.-ED.

(195) Authoress of "Adle de Senange," etc.

(196) On the king's recovery, in the spring of 1789.-ED.

(197) Many of the leading members of the Councils of "Ancients" and of "Five Hundred " had been transported to Guiana after the coup d'tat of September 4, 1797. See note (146) ante, p. 136.-ED.

(198) "Excuse me, madam ! do you know Sidney? Sidney " is Sir Sidney Smith, whose gallant and successful defence of Acre against the French,, in the spring of 1799, obliged Napoleon to relinquish the invasion of Syria.-ED.

(199) Christian name.

(200) "Every one in England."

(201) "Unfortunate husband."

(202) "His valet and his jockey, (groom)."

(203) "Especially as the jockey had terrible holes in his stockings."

(204) The influenza.

(205) Retiring pension.

(206) The English ambassador in Paris. All hopes of a satisfactory termination to the dispute between the English and French governments being now at an end, Lord Whitworth was ordered to return to England, and left Paris May 12, 1803. His return was followed by the recall of the French minister in London, and the declaration of war between the two countries.-ED.

(207) The reader will have noticed that the date of this letter is earlier than that of the paragraph in the preceding letter, in which Fanny alludes to the departure of the Ambassador from Paris.-ED.

(208) "Make me your compliments."

(209) "Or, as we might say, a clerk in the department of works."- ED.

(210) Mrs. Piozzi.-ED.

(211) Napoleon was crowned Emperor of the French, November 19, 1804. His "new alliance" was his marriage, in the spring Of 1810, with the archduchess Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor of Austria. With this alliance in view he had been divorced from Josphine at the close of the preceding year.-ED

(212) Dr. Burney had been elected a corresponding member of this section of the Institute.-ED.

(213) The angel.

Page 248