Chapter XIV: Book II: 446 (2)

Pour la première fois, quand, rempli d'espérance,
Je franchis vos remparts,
Ainsi que l'horizon, un avenir immense
S'ouvrait à mes regards.

L'Italie à mes pieds, et devant moi le monde[535]!

That world, have I really penetrated into it? Christopher Columbus saw an apparition which showed him the land of his dreams before he had discovered it; Vasco de Gama met the giant of the storms on his road: which of those two great men presaged my future? What I should have loved above all would have been a life glorious through a brilliant result, and obscure through its destiny. Do you know which were the first European ashes to rest in America? They were those of Bjorn the Scandinavian: he died on landing at Winland, and was buried by his companions on a promontory. Who knows that[536]? Who knows of him whose sail preceded the vessel of the Genoese pilot to the New World? Bjorn sleeps on the point of an unknown cape, and since a thousand years his name has been handed down to us only by the sagas of the poets, in a language no longer spoken.

*

[Sidenote: Italy.]

I had begun my wanderings in an opposite direction to that of other travellers. The old forests of America had displayed themselves to me before the old cities of Europe. I happened upon the latter when they were at the same time renewing their youth and dying in a fresh revolution. Milan was occupied by our troops; they were completing the demolition of the castle, that witness to the wars of the Middle Ages.

The French army was settling in the plains of Lombardy as a military colony. Guarded here and there by their comrades on sentry, these strangers from Gaul, with forage-caps on their heads and sabres by way of reaping-hooks over their round jackets, presented the appearance of gay and eager harvesters. They moved stones, rolled guns, drove waggons, ran up sheds and huts of brushwood. Horses pranced, curveted, reared among the crowd, like dogs fawning on their masters. Italian women sold fruit on their flat baskets at the market of that armed fair; our soldiers made them presents of their pipes and steels, saying to them as the ancient barbarians, their ancestors, said to their beloved:

"I, Fotrad, son of Eupert, of the race of the Franks, give to thee, Helgine, my dear wife, in honour of thy beauty (_in honore pulchritudinis tuæ_), my dwelling in the quarter of the Pines[537]."

We are curious enemies: we are at first considered rather insolent, rather too gay, too restless; but we have no sooner turned our backs than we are regretted. Lively, witty, intelligent, the French soldier mixes in the occupations of the inhabitant on whom he is billeted: he draws water at the well, as Moses did for the daughters of Madian, drives away the shepherds, takes the lambs to the washing-place, chops the wood, lights the fire, watches the pot, carries the baby in his arms, or sends it to sleep in its cradle. His good humour and activity put life into everything; one grows to look upon him as a conscript of the family. Does the drum beat? The lodger runs to his musket, leaves his host's daughters weeping on the threshold, and quits the cabin of which he will never think again until he is admitted to the Invalides.

On my passage through Milan, a great people aroused was for a moment opening its eyes. Italy was recovering from her sleep, and remembering her genius as it were a heavenly dream: useful to our reviving country, she brought to the shabbiness of our poverty the grandeur of the Transalpine nature, nurtured as she was, that Ausonia, on the master-pieces of the arts and the lofty reminiscences of the famous motherland. Austria has come; she has again laid her cloak of lead over the Italians; she has forced them back into their coffin. Rome has re-entered her ruins, Venice her sea. Venice sank down, while beautifying the sky with her last smile; she set all charming in her waves, like a star doomed to rise no more.

General Murat was in command at Milan. I had a letter for him from Madame Bacciochi. I spent the day with the aides-de-camp; these were not so poor as my comrades before Thionville. French politeness reappeared under arms; it was bent upon showing that it still belonged to the days of Lautrec[538].

I dined in state, on the 23rd of June, with M. de Melzi[539], on the occasion of the christening of a son of General Murat[540]. M. de Melzi had known my brother; the manners of the Vice-President of the Cisalpine Republic were distinguished; his household resembled that of a prince who had never been anything else. He treated me politely and coldly; he found me in exactly the same disposition as himself.

[Sidenote: First glimpses of Rome.]

I reached my destination on the evening of the 27th of June, the day before the eve of St. Peter's Day[541]. The Prince of Apostles was awaiting me, even as my indigent patron[542] received me since at Jerusalem. I had followed the road of Florence, Siena, and Radicofani. I hastened to go to call upon M. Cacault[543], whom Cardinal Fesch was succeeding, while I was replacing M. Artaud[544].

On the 28th of June, I ran about all day, and cast a first glance upon the Coliseum, the Pantheon, the Trajan Column, and the Castle of St. Angelo. In the evening, M. Artaud took me to a ball at a house in the neighbourhood of the Piazza San-Pietro. One saw the fiery girandole of the dome of Michael Angelo in between the whirling waltzes spinning before the open windows; the rockets of the fireworks on the Molo d'Adriano spread out brilliantly at Sant' Onofrio, over Tasso's tomb: silence, solitude and night filled the Roman Campagna.

The next day, I assisted at the St. Peter's Mass. Pius VII.[545], pale, sad and religious, was the real pontiff of tribulations. Two days later I was presented to His Holiness: he made me sit beside him. A volume of the _Génie du Christianisme_ lay open, in an obliging fashion, upon his table. Cardinal Consalvi[546], supple and firm, gently and politely resistant, was the living embodiment of the old Roman policy, minus the faith of those days and plus the tolerance of the century.

When going through the Vatican, I stopped to contemplate those staircases which one can ascend on mule-back, those sloping galleries folding one upon the other, adorned with master-pieces, along which the popes of old used to pass with all their pomp, those _loggie_ decorated by so many immortal artists, admired by so many illustrious men, Petrarch, Tasso, Ariosto, Montaigne, Milton, Montesquieu, and queens and kings, mighty or fallen, and a whole people of pilgrims from the four quarters of the globe: all that now without movement or sound; a theatre whose deserted tiers, open to solitude alone, are scarce visited by a ray of the sun.

I had been advised to take a walk by moonlight: from the top of the Trinità-del-Monte, the distant buildings looked like a painter's sketches or like softened coast-lines seen from the deck of a ship at sea. The orb of night, that globe supposed to be an extinct world, turned its pale deserts above the deserts of Rome; it cast its light upon streets without inhabitants, closes, squares, gardens where none passed, monasteries where the voices of the cenobites were no longer heard, cloisters as mute and desolate as the porticoes of the Coliseum.

What happened, eighteen centuries ago, at this very hour and in this very spot? What men have here crossed the shadow of those obelisks, after that shadow had ceased to fall upon the sands of Egypt? Not only is Ancient Italy no more, but the Italy of the Middle Ages has disappeared. Nevertheless, traces of the two Italies still linger in the Eternal City: where modern Rome shows its St. Peter's and its master-pieces, ancient Rome boasts its Pantheon and its remains; where, on the one hand, the consuls walked down from the Capitol, on the other, the pontiffs issued from the Vatican. The Tiber separates the two glories: seated in the same dust, pagan Rome sinks deeper and deeper into its tombs, and Christian Rome glides slowly into its catacombs.

*

Cardinal Fesch had hired the Palazzo Lancelotti, not far from the Tiber: I have since seen the Principessa Lancelotti there, in 1828. The top floor of the palace was allotted to me; when I entered, so large a number of fleas hopped on to my legs that my white trousers were quite black with them. The Abbé de Bonnevie and I did the best we could to get our lodging washed down. I had a feeling as though I had returned to my kennel in the New Road; this memory of my poverty was not altogether unpleasant. Once settled in this diplomatic corner, I began to deliver pass-ports and to busy myself with functions of similar importance. My handwriting was an obstacle to my talents, and Cardinal Fesch shrugged his shoulders whenever he saw my signature. As I had almost nothing to do in my aerial chamber, I looked across the roofs at some washing-girls in a neighbouring house, who made signs to me; a future opera-singer, practising her voice, persecuted me with her everlasting _solfeggio_; I was happy when some funeral passed by for a change! From my lofty window I saw, in the abyss of the street below, the convoy of a young mother: she was carried, her face uncovered, between two files of white pilgrims; her new-born babe, dead too and crowned with flowers, lay at her feet.

[Sidenote: My work at the embassy.]

I committed a great mistake: I very innocently believed it my duty to call upon illustrious personages; I coolly went and paid the tribute of my respects to the ex-King of Sardinia[547]. This unusual proceeding caused a terrible hubbub; the diplomatists all drew themselves up.

"He is lost! he is lost!" whispered all the train-bearers and _attachés_, with the charitable pleasure which men take in the mishaps of any of their fellow-creatures. No diplomatic dunce but thought himself superior to me by the full height of his stupidity. Every one hoped for my fall, notwithstanding that I was nobody and counted as nobody; no matter, it was some one who fell, and that is always agreeable. I, in my simplicity, had no notion of my crime, nor, as ever since, would I have given a straw for any place whatever. Kings, to whom I was believed to attach so great an importance, had in my eyes only that of misfortune. My shocking blunders were reported from Rome to Paris: luckily I had to do with Bonaparte; what should have been my ruin saved me.

However, if at once and at the first leap to become First Secretary of Embassy under a prince of the Church, an uncle of Napoleon, seemed something, it was nevertheless as though I had been a copying-clerk in a prefect's office. In the contests that were at hand, I might have found work; but I was initiated into no mysteries. I was perfectly satisfied to be set to the litigious business of the _chancellerie_: but what was the use of wasting my time over details within the capacity of all the clerks?

On returning from my long walks and my rambles along the Tiber, all that I found to interest me was the cardinal's parsimonious worrying, the heraldic boasting of the Bishop of Châlons, and the incredible lying of the future Bishop of Morocco[548]. The Abbé Guillon, taking advantage of a similarity between his name and one almost identical in sound, pretended that he was the man who, after escaping by a miracle from the massacre at the Carmes, gave absolution to Madame de Lamballe[549] at the Force. He bragged that he had been the author of Robespierre's speech to the Supreme Being. I bet one day that I would make him say that he had been to Russia: he did not quite agree to this, but he modestly confessed that he had spent a few months in St. Petersburg.

M. de La Maisonfort[550], a man of intelligence, then in hiding, applied to me for assistance, and soon M. Bertin the Elder[551], proprietor of the _Débats_, helped me with his friendly offices in a painful circumstance. Exiled to the island of Elba by the man who, when himself returned from Elba, drove him to Ghent, M. Bertin, in 1803, had obtained from the Republican M. Briot[552], whom I have known, leave to complete his exile in Italy. With him I visited the ruins of Rome, and was present at the death of Madame de Beaumont: two things which have connected his life with mine. A refined critic, he gave me, as did his brother, excellent advice about my works. Had he been elected to Parliament, he would have shown a real talent for oratory. He had long been a Legitimist, had undergone the trial of imprisonment in the Temple and transportation to Elba, and his principles have in reality remained the same. I will be true to the companion of my sad days; it would be paying too high a price for all the political opinions of the world to sacrifice one hour of sincere friendship: it is enough that my opinions will never vary, and that I shall remain attached to my memories.

[Sidenote: The Princesse Borghèse.]

About the middle of my stay in Rome, the Princesse Borghèse[553] arrived; I had some shoes to deliver to her from Paris. I was presented to her; she made her toilet in my presence; the slippers which she put on her young and pretty feet were but for a moment to tread this ancient soil.

At last a sorrow came to give me occupation: we can always rely upon that resource.

*

At the time of my departure from France we had greatly blinded ourselves regarding Madame de Beaumont's condition; she cried much, and her will has proved that she believed herself to be condemned. Nevertheless her friends, refraining from communicating their fears to one another, sought to console each other; they believed in the miraculous powers of the waters, to be perfected later by the Italian sun; they separated and took different roads; appointments were made in Rome.

Fragments written by Madame de Beaumont in Paris, at Mont-Dore, in Rome, and discovered among her papers, display her state of mind:

"PARIS.

"For some years past my health has been perceptibly
declining. Symptoms which I thought to be the signal for
departure have supervened before I am ready to depart. The
illusions increase as the illness progresses. I have seen
many examples of that singular weakness, and I perceive that
they will avail me nothing. Already I find myself taking
remedies which are as irksome as they are insignificant, and
I shall doubtless have no greater strength to protect myself
against the cruel remedies with which they never fail to
martyrize those condemned to die of consumption. Like the
others, I shall abandon myself to hope: to hope! Can I, then,
wish to live? My past life has been a series of misfortunes,
my present life is full of excitements and disturbances:
peace of mind has fled from me for ever. My death would be a
momentary sorrow to a few, a boon to others, and the greatest
of boons to myself.

"This 21st of Floréal, 10 May, is the anniversary of the
death of my mother and brother:

Je péris la dernière et la plus misérable[554]!

[Sidenote: Illness of madame de Beaumont.]

"Oh, why have I not the courage to die? This illness,
which I was almost weak enough to dread, has subsided, and
perhaps I am condemned still to live long; it seems to me,
nevertheless, that I would gladly die:

Mes jours ne valent pas qu'il m'en coûte un soupir[555].

"None has more cause than I to complain of nature: by
refusing me everything, it has given me the sense of all
I lack. At every moment I feel the weight of the complete
mediocrity to which I am condemned. I know that self-content
and happiness are often the price of this mediocrity of which
I complain so bitterly; but by not adding to it the gift of
illusion, nature, in my case, has turned it into a torture.
I am like a fallen creature who cannot forget what he has
lost, and who has not the force to recover it. That absolute
lack of illusion, and hence of enthusiasm, is the cause of my
unhappiness in a thousand ways. I judge myself as a stranger
might do, and I see my friends as they are. My only value
lies in an extreme kindness of heart, which is not active
enough to command appreciation, nor to be of any real use,
and which loses all its charm owing to the impatience of my
character: my suffering from the misfortunes of others is
greater than my power to relieve them. Nevertheless, I owe to
it the few real joys that have occurred in my life; I owe to
it especially my ignorance of envy, the common attribute of
conscious mediocrity."

"MONT DORE.

"I had intended to enter into a few details concerning
myself, but _ennui_ causes the pen to drop from my fingers.

"All the bitterness and painfulness of my position would
change to happiness if I were sure that I had but a few
months to live.

"Even if I had the strength myself to end my sorrows in
the only possible way, I should not exert it: it would
be defeating my own intention, showing the measure of my
suffering, and leaving too grievous a wound in the heart
which I have deemed worthy to sustain me in my trials.

"I 'beseech myself in tears' to take a step which is as
rigorous as it is inevitable. Charlotte Corday says that
'every act of self-sacrifice bestows more pleasure in the
execution than it has cost pain in the conception;' but her
death was near at hand, and I may still live long. What will
become of me? Where can I hide? What tomb shall I choose? How
can I shut out hope? What power can block up the door?

"To go away in silence, to court oblivion, to bury myself
for ever, that is the duty laid upon me which I hope to have
the courage to fulfill. If the cup is too bitter, once I am
forgotten, nothing can compel me to empty it to the dregs,
and who knows but my life may, after all, not be so long as I
fear.

"If I had decided upon the place of my retirement, I believe
I should be more calm; but the difficulty of the moment adds
to the difficulties that arise from my weakness, and it
requires something supernatural to act against one's self
with vigour, to treat one's self as harshly as a violent and
cruel enemy could do."

"ROME, 28 _October._

"During the past ten months I have never ceased to suffer.
During the last six, all the symptoms of consumption, and
some in the last degree: I lack only the illusions, and maybe
I have some!"

M. Joubert, alarmed at this desire for death which was torturing Madame de Beaumont, addressed these words to her in his _Pensées_:

"Love life and respect it, if not for its own sake, at least
for that of your friends. In whatever state your own may
be, I shall always prefer to know that you are occupied in
spinning it out rather than in tearing it to pieces."

At the same time my sister was writing to Madame de Beaumont. I have the correspondence, which death placed in my hands. The poetry of the ancients pictures one of the Nereids as a flower floating on the deep; Lucile was that flower. In comparing her letters with the fragments just quoted, one is struck by the similarity of heart-heaviness expressed in the different language of those unhappy angels. When I think that I have lived in the company of such minds as those, I am surprised at my own insignificance. My eyes never light without bitter grief upon those pages written by two superlative women, who vanished from this earth at a short distance one from the other.

"LASCARDAIS, 30 _July._

"I was so much charmed, madame, at last to receive a letter
from you that I did not allow myself the time to have the
pleasure of reading it through at once: I interrupted its
perusal to go and tell all the inmates of this house that I
had heard from you, without considering that my gladness is
of but little importance here, and that hardly anyone even
knows that I am in correspondence with you. Seeing that I was
surrounded by indifferent faces, I went back to my room, and
determined to be glad by myself. I sat down to finish reading
your letter, and, although I have read it over many times,
in truth, madame, I do not know the whole contents. The joy
which I constantly feel at the sight of this so long desired
letter interferes with the attention which I ought to give to
it.

[Sidenote: Letters from Lucile.]

"And so you are going away, madame? Do not, once you have
reached Mont-Dore, forget your health; give it all your care,
I entreat you, with all the fervour and affection of my
heart. My brother has written to me that he hopes to see you
in Italy. Fate and nature alike are pleased to distinguish
him from me in a very favourable manner. But at least I will
not yield to my brother the happiness of loving you: that I
will share with him all my life. Alas, madame, how oppressed
and downcast is my heart! You cannot know the good your
letters do me, the contempt with which they inspire me for my
ills! The idea that you think of me, that you are interested
in me, exalts my courage extraordinarily. Write to me
therefore, madame, so that I may cherish an idea so essential
to me.

"I have not yet seen M. Chênedollé; I long greatly for
his arrival. I shall be able to tell him of you and of M.
Joubert: that will be a great pleasure to me. Allow me,
madame, once more to urge you to think of your health, the
bad condition of which incessantly afflicts me and occupies
my thoughts. How can you not love yourself? You are so
lovable and so dear to all: have the justice, then, to do
much for yourself.

"LUCILE."

"2 _September._

"What you tell me, madame, of your health alarms and saddens
me; however, I reassure myself by thinking of your youth and
remembering that, although you are very delicate, you are
full of life.

"I am disconsolate at your being in a country which you do
not like. I would wish to see you surrounded with objects
calculated to distract and to cheer you. I hope that, when
your health recovers, you will become reconciled to Auvergne:
there is no spot incapable of presenting some beauty to such
eyes as yours. I am now living at Rennes: my loneliness suits
me fairly well. I change my residence frequently, madame, as
you see; it looks much as though I were out of place on the
earth: in reality, it is long since I first began to look
upon myself as one of its superfluous products. I believe,
madame, that I spoke to you of my sorrows and perturbations.
At present, all that is over, and I enjoy an inward peace of
which none has it any longer in his power to rob me. In spite
of my age, having, through circumstances and taste, almost
constantly led a solitary life, I knew nothing whatever,
madame, of the world: I have at last made that disagreeable
acquaintance. Fortunately, reflection came to my aid. I asked
myself in what way that world could be so formidable and
where lay the worth of a world which can never, in evil and
good alike, be aught but an object of pity. Is it not true,
madame, that man's judgment is as shallow as the rest of his
being, as changeable and of an incredulity as great as its
ignorance? All these reasons, good or bad, have enabled me
to fling behind me with ease the fantastic garment in which
I had arrayed myself. I found myself full of sincerity and
strength; I am no longer capable of being troubled. I am
working with all my might to recover possession of my life,
to obtain entire control of it.

"You must also, madame, believe that I am not too much to
be pitied, since my brother, the best part of myself, is
agreeably placed, and since I have eyes left with which to
admire the marvels of nature, God for my support, and for an
asylum a heart full of peace and gentle memories. If you have
the kindness, madame, to continue to write to me, that will
be a great added happiness to me."

*

Mystery of style, a mystery everywhere perceptible, nowhere present; the revelation of a painfully privileged nature; the ingenuousness of a girl whom one might imagine to be in her first youth; and the humble simplicity of a genius unaware of its own power, all breathe out of these letters, a large number of which I have suppressed. Did Madame de Sévigné write to Madame de Grignan with a more grateful affection than Madame de Caud to Madame de Beaumont? "Her tenderness might well pretend to keep pace with her own." My sister loved my friend with all the passion of the tomb, for she felt that she was going to die. Lucile had hardly ever left the neighbourhood of the Rochers[556]; but she was the daughter of her century and the Sévigné of solitude.

*

A letter from M. Ballanche, dated 30 Fructidor, informed me of the arrival of Madame de Beaumont, who had come from Mont Dore on her way to Italy. He told me that I need not fear the misfortune which I dreaded, and that the health of the sufferer seemed to be improving. On reaching Milan, Madame de Beaumont met M. Bertin, who had been called there on business: he had the kindness to take charge of the poor traveller and to escort her to Florence, where I had gone to meet her. I was shocked at the sight of her. She had but sufficient strength left to smile. After a few days' rest, we left for Rome, travelling at a foot-pace, in order to avoid the jolting. Madame de Beaumont received assiduous attentions everywhere: a charm interested you in this lovable woman, so suffering and so forlorn. The very maids at the inns gave way to this sweet commiseration.

[Sidenote: Mournful days.]

My feelings may be easily guessed: we have all accompanied friends to the grave, but they were mute, and no remnant of inexplicable hope came to render your sorrow more keen. I no longer saw the fine landscape through which we passed. I had taken the Perugian road: what was Italy to me? I still thought her climate too severe, and, if the wind blew ever so little, its breezes seemed storms to me. At Terni, Madame de Beaumont spoke of going to see the cascade; she made an effort to lean on my arm, and sat down again, saying:

"We must leave the waters to flow without us."

I had hired for her in Rome a lonely house near the Piazza d'Espagna, at the foot of the Monte Pincio[557]; it had a little garden with orange-trees growing against the walls, and a court-yard in which stood a fig-tree. There I set down my dying charge. I had had much difficulty in procuring this retreat, for there is a prejudice in Rome against diseases of the chest, which are considered as infectious.

At that period of the revival of social order, all that had belonged to the old monarchy was sought after. The Pope sent to inquire after the daughter of M. de Montmorin; Cardinal Consalvi and the members of the Sacred College followed His Holiness' example; Cardinal Fesch himself showed Madame de Beaumont, to the day of her death, marks of deference and respect which I should not have expected of him. I had written to M. Joubert of the anxiety with which I was torn before Madame de Beaumont's arrival:

"Our friend writes to me from Mont Dore," I said, "letters
that shatter my soul: she says that she feels 'that there
is no more oil in the lamp;' she speaks of 'the last throbs
of her heart.' Why was she left alone on this journey? Why
did you not write to her? What will become of us if we lose
her? Who will console us for her? We realize the value of our
friends only at the moment when we are threatened with their
loss. We are even mad enough, when all is well, to think
that we can leave them with impunity. Heaven punishes us; it
snatches them from us, and we are appalled at the solitude
which they leave around us. Forgive me, my dear Joubert:
to-day I feel as though my heart were twenty years old; this
Italy has made me young again; I love all that is dear to
me with the same vehemence as in my early years. Sorrow is
my element: I am myself again only when I am unhappy. My
friends at present are of so rare a sort that the mere dread
of seeing them taken from me freezes my blood. Bear with my
lamentations: I am sure you are as unhappy as I. Write to me,
and write also to that other Breton unfortunate."

At first, Madame de Beaumont felt a little relieved. The sufferer herself began again to believe in her life. I had the satisfaction of thinking that at least Madame de Beaumont would not leave me again: I expected to take her to Naples in the spring, and from there to send in my resignation to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. M. d'Agincourt[558], that true philosopher, came to see the light bird of passage, which had stopped at Rome before proceeding to the unknown land; M. Boquet, already the oldest of our painters, called. These relays of hope kept up the sufferer, and lulled her with an illusion which at the bottom of her soul she no longer retained. Letters, cruel to read, expressing hopes and fears, reached me from every side. On the 4th of October, Lucile wrote to me from Rennes:

*

[Sidenote: Letters from Lucile.]

"I commenced a letter for you the other day; I have just made
a useless search for it; in it I spoke to you of Madame de
Beaumont, and complained of her silence towards me. Dear,
what a sad, strange life I have led for some months! And the
words of the prophet are constantly recurring to my mind: 'He
will crown thee with tribulation, he will toss thee like a
ball[559].' But let us leave my troubles and speak of your
anxieties. I cannot persuade myself that they are justified.
I always see Madame de Beaumont full of life and youth, and
almost incorporeal; my heart can feel no foreboding where
she is concerned. Heaven, which knows our feelings for her,
will doubtless preserve her for us. Dear, we shall not lose
her; I seem to have an inward sense that that is certain.
I sincerely hope that, when you receive this letter, your
anxiety will have disappeared. Tell her from me of all the
real and tender interest I take in her; tell her that to
me her memory is one of the most beautiful things in this
world. Keep your promise and do not fail to let me have news
of her as often as possible. Alas, what a long time will
elapse before I receive a reply to this letter! How cruel a
thing is distance! What makes you speak of your return to
France? You are trying to humour me, you are deceiving me.
Amid all my troubles there arises one sweet thought, that of
your friendship, the thought that I exist in your memory in
the shape in which it has pleased God to fashion me. Dear, I
see no other safe shelter for me upon earth but your heart;
I am a stranger and unknown to all the rest. Adieu, my poor
brother. Shall I see you again? This idea does not present
itself to my mind very distinctly. If you see me again, I
fear you will find me quite out of my senses. Adieu, you to
whom I owe so much! Adieu, unmixed felicity! O memories of my
happy days, can you not now lighten a little my sad hours?

"I am not one of those who exhaust all their sorrow at the
moment of separation; each day adds to the grief which I feel
at your absence and, if you were to stay in Rome a hundred
years, you would not come to the end of that grief. In order
to delude myself as to absence, not a day passes but I read
some pages of your work: I make every effort to imagine that
I hear you speak. My love for you is very natural: ever since
our childhood you have been my protector and my friend; you
have never cost me a tear, never made a friend but he has
become mine. My kind brother, Heaven, which is pleased to
make sport of all my other felicities, wills that I should
find my happiness wholly in you, that I should trust myself
to your heart. Give me news soon of Madame de Beaumont.
Address your letters to me at Mademoiselle Lamotte's,
although I do not know how long I shall be able to remain
there. Since our last separation, I have always, where my
house is concerned, been like a quicksand that gives way
beneath my feet: assuredly to anyone who does not know me I
must appear incomprehensible; nevertheless I vary only in
form, for inwardly I remain constantly the same."

The song of the swan preparing to die was conveyed by me to the dying swan: I was the echo of that last ineffable music!

*

[Sidenote: And Madame de Krüdener.]

Another letter, very different from the above, but written by a woman who has played an extraordinary part, Madame de Krüdener[560], shows the empire which Madame de Beaumont, with no strength of beauty, fame, power, or wealth, exercised over people's minds:

"PARIS, 24 _November_ 1803.

"I learnt two days ago from M. Michaud[561], who has returned
from Lyons, that Madame de Beaumont was in Rome and that she
was very, very ill: that is what he told me. I was deeply
grieved by this; I had a nervous shock, and I thought a great
deal of this charming woman, whom I had not known long,
but whom I loved truly. How often have I wished for her
happiness! How often have I hoped that she might cross the
Alps and find beneath the sky of Italy the sweet and profound
emotions which I myself have there experienced! Alas, can
she have reached that delightful country only to know pain
and to be exposed to dangers which I dread! I cannot tell
you how this idea grieves me. Forgive me if I have been so
much absorbed by this that I have not yet spoken to you of
yourself, my dear Chateaubriand; you must know my sincere
attachment for you, and to show you the genuine interest
which I take in Madame de Beaumont is to touch you more than
I should have done by writing of yourself. I have that sad
spectacle before my eyes; I have the secret of sorrow, and
my soul is always torn at the sight of those souls to which
nature gives the power of suffering more than others. I had
hoped that Madame de Beaumont would enjoy the privilege which
she had received, of being happier; I had hoped that she
would recover some little health with the sun of Italy and
the happiness of having you by her side. Ah, reassure me,
speak to me; tell her that I love her sincerely, that I pray
for her! Has she had my letter written in reply to hers to
Clermont? Address your answer to Michaud: I ask you only for
one word, for I know, my dear Chateaubriand, how sensitive
you are, and how you suffer. I thought she was better; I did
not write to her; I was overwhelmed with business; but I
thought of the happiness she would find in seeing you again,
and I imagined how it would be. Tell me something of your own
health; believe in my friendship, in the interest which I
have vowed to you for ever, and do not forget me.

"B. KRÜDENER."

The improvement which the air of Rome had produced in Madame de Beaumont did not last: true, the indications of an immediate dissolution disappeared; but it seems that the last moment always lingers as it were to deceive us. Two or three times, I had tried the effect of a drive with the patient; I strove to divert her thoughts by pointing out the country and the sky to her: she no longer cared for anything. One day I took her to the Coliseum: it was one of those October days that are to be seen only in Rome. She contrived to alight, and went and sat upon a stone facing one of the altars placed in the circle. She raised her eyes and turned them slowly around those porticoes which had themselves so many years been dead, and which had seen so many die; the ruins were adorned with briers and columbines saffroned by autumn and bathed in light. The dying woman next lowered her eyes, which had left the sun, stage by stage, till they came to the arena; she fixed them upon the altar cross, and said:

"Let us go; I am cold."

I took her home again; she went to bed and rose no more. I was in correspondence with the Comte de La Luzerne[562]; I sent him from Rome, by each mail, the bulletin of his sister-in-law's health. He had taken my brother with him when Louis XVI. charged him with a diplomatic mission to London: André Chénier was a member of this embassy.

The doctors, whom I called together again after the experiment of the drive, declared to me that nothing but a miracle could save Madame de Beaumont. She was impressed with the idea that she would not outlive All Souls' Day, the 2nd of November; then she remembered that one of her kinsmen, I do not know which, had died on the 4th of November. I told her that her imagination was troubled; that she would come to see the falsity of her alarms; she replied, to console me:

"Ah, yes, I shall go farther!"

She noticed a few tears which I was trying to conceal from her; she held out her hand to me, and said:

"You are a child; were you not prepared for it?"

On the eve of her death, Thursday the 3rd of November, she seemed more composed. She spoke to me of the disposal of her property, and said, speaking of her will, "that all was settled, but that all had to be done, and that she would have liked to have had only two hours in which to see to it."

In the evening, the doctor told me that he felt obliged to warn the sufferer that the time had come for her to think of setting her conscience in order: I broke down for a minute; I was staggered by the fear of hastening the few moments which Madame de Beaumont had still to live by the formal preparations for death. I railed at the doctor, and then entreated him to wait at least till the next day.

I passed a cruel night, with this secret locked in my bosom. The patient did not permit me to spend it in her room. I remained outside, trembling at every sound I heard: when the door was half opened, I perceived the feeble gleam of an expiring night-light.

[Sidenote: The last scene.]

On Friday the 4th of November, I entered, followed by the doctor. Madame de Beaumont observed my agitation, and said:

"Why do you look like that? I have had a good night."

The doctor thereupon intentionally told me aloud that he wished to speak to me in the next room. I went out: when I returned, I no longer knew if I lived. Madame de Beaumont asked me what the doctor wanted. I flung myself at her bedside and burst into tears. She lay for a moment without speaking, looked at me, and said in a firm voice, as though she wished to give me strength:

"I did not think that it was quite so near; well, the time has come to say good-bye. Send for the Abbé de Bonnevie."

The Abbé de Bonnevie, having obtained powers, went to Madame de Beaumont. She told him that she had always had a deep religious feeling at heart, but that the extraordinary misfortunes which had befallen her during the Revolution had led her for some time to doubt the justice of Providence; that she was ready to admit her errors and to recommend herself to the eternal mercy; that she hoped, however, that the ills which she had suffered in this world would shorten her time of expiation in the next. She made a sign to me to withdraw, and remained alone with her confessor.

I saw him come back an hour later, wiping his eyes, and saying that he had never heard more beautiful language, nor seen such heroism. The parish priest was sent for to administer the sacraments. I returned to Madame de Beaumont. When she saw me, she asked:

"Well, are you pleased with me?"

She spoke feelingly of what she deigned to call "my kindness" to her: ah, if I had at that moment been able to buy back a single one of her days by the sacrifice of all my own, how gladly would I have done so! Madame de Beaumont's other friends, who were not present at this sight, had at all events but once to weep for her: whereas I stood at the head of the bed of pain in which man hears his last hour strike, and each smile of the patient restored me to life and made me lose it again as it died away. One lamentable thought distracted me: I noticed that Madame de Beaumont had not until her last breath suspected the real attachment which I bore for her; she did not cease to show her surprise, and she seemed to die disconsolate and charmed. She had believed herself a burden to me, and had wished to go to set me free.

The priest arrived at eleven o'clock: the room filled with that indifferent crowd of idlers which cannot be prevented from running after the priest in Rome. Madame de Beaumont faced the formidable solemnity without the least sign of fear. We fell upon our knees, and the patient received Communion and Extreme Unction at once. When all had retired, she made me sit on the edge of her bed and spoke to me for half an hour of my affairs and of my plans with the greatest elevation of mind and the most touching friendship; she urged me, above all, to live with Madame de Chateaubriand and M. Joubert: but was M. Joubert himself to live?

She asked me to open the window, as she felt oppressed. A sun-ray came and lit up her bed: this seemed to cheer her. She then reminded me of plans for retiring to the country which we had sometimes discussed, and she began to cry.

Between two and three in the afternoon, Madame de Beaumont asked to be changed to another bed by Madame Saint-Germain[563], an old Spanish lady's-maid, who waited on her with the affection worthy of so kind a mistress: the doctor forbade this, fearing lest Madame de Beaumont might die during the moving. She then told me that she felt the agony approach. Suddenly she flung back her blanket, held out her hand to me, pressed mine convulsively; her eyes wandered. With her one free hand she made signs to some one whom she saw standing at the foot of her bed; then, bringing the hand back to her breast, she said:

"It is there!"

[Sidenote: Death of madame de Beaumont.]

Dismayed, I asked her if she knew me: a faint smile broke through her delirium; she gave me a little nod of the head: her speech already was no longer of this world. The convulsions lasted only a few minutes. We supported her in our arms, the doctor, the nurse, and myself: one of my hands lay upon her heart, which could be felt against her wasted frame; it beat swiftly, like a clock winding off its broken chain. Oh, moment of fear and horror, I felt it stop! We let down upon her pillow the woman who had found rest; her head drooped. Some locks of her uncurled hair fell over her forehead; her eyes were closed, night had set in for ever. The doctor held a mirror and a light to the stranger's mouth: the mirror was not dimmed with the breath of life and the light remained unmoved. All was ended.

*

Generally those who weep are able to indulge their tears in peace; there are others to take upon themselves to attend to the last cares of religion: as representing for France the Cardinal Minister, then absent, and as the sole friend of M. de Montmorin's daughter and responsible to her family, I was obliged to superintend everything; I had to fix the place of burial, to look after the depth and width of the grave, to order the winding-sheet and to give the carpenter the dimensions of the coffin.

Two monks watched by the coffin, which was to be carried to San Luigi dei Francesi. One of these fathers was from Auvergne and a native of Montmorin itself. Madame de Beaumont had expressed the wish to be buried in a piece of cloth which her brother Auguste[564], the only one to escape the scaffold, had sent her from the Mauritius. This cloth was not in Rome; only a piece of it was found, which she always carried with her. Madame Saint-Germain fastened this strip around the body with a cornelian containing some of M. de Montmorin's hair. The French ecclesiastics were invited; the Princesse Borghèse lent the funeral car of her family; Cardinal Fesch had left orders, in case of an accident but too clearly foreseen, to send his livery and his carriages. On Saturday the 5th of November, at seven o'clock in the evening, by the gleam of torch-light and amidst a large crowd, Madame de Beaumont passed along the road where we have all to pass. On Sunday the 6th of November, the burial mass was celebrated. The funeral would have been less French in Paris than it was in Rome. That religious architecture which displays in its ornaments the arms and inscriptions of our ancient country; those tombs on which are inscribed the names of some of the most historic families of our annals; that church, under the protection of a great saint, a great king and a great man: all this did not console misfortune, but honoured it. I had wished that the last scion of a once exalted race should at least find some support in my humble attachment, and that friendship should not fail it as fortune had done.

The people of Rome, accustomed to strangers, accept them as brothers and sisters. Madame de Beaumont left a pious memory behind her on that soil so hospitable to the dead; she is still remembered: I have seen Leo XII.[565] pray at her tomb[566]. In 1828[567], I visited the monument of her who was the soul of a vanishing society; the sound of my footsteps around this silent monument, in a lonely church, was a warning to me:

"I shall always love thee," says the Greek epitaph; "but thou, among the dead, drink not, I pray thee, of the cup which would cause thee to forget thy former friends[568]."

If the calamities of a private life were to be measured by the scale of public events, those calamities would hardly deserve a word in a writer's Memoirs. Who has not lost a friend? Who has not seen him die? Who could not recall a similar scene of mourning? The comment is just, yet no one has ever corrected himself of telling his own adventures: sailors on board the ship that carries them have a family on shore of whom they think and of whom they talk with one another. Every man has within himself a world apart, foreign to the laws and to the general destinies of the ages. It is, moreover, a mistake to believe that revolutions, famous accidents, resounding catastrophes are the only records of our nature: we all labour singly at the chain of our common history, and all these separate existences together compose man's universe in the eyes of God.

[Sidenote: Letters of sympathy.]

To collect regrets around the ashes of Madame de Beaumont is but to lay upon her tomb the wreaths intended for her:

M. DE CHÊNEDOLLÉ TO CHATEAUBRIAND.

"You can have no doubt, my dear', unhappy friend, of the
great part which I take in your affliction. My grief is not
so great as yours, because that is impossible; but I am very
deeply afflicted by this loss, which darkens yet further this
existence which for so long has been nothing but suffering to
me. It is thus that all that is good, lovable and sensitive
vanishes from the face of the earth. My poor friend, hasten
back to France; come and seek consolation with your old
friend. You know how well I love you: come.

"I was excessively anxious about you: it was more than three
months since I had heard from you, and three of my letters
have remained unanswered. Have you received them? Madame de
Caud suddenly ceased writing to me two months ago. This hurt
me mortally, and yet I cannot think that I have done anything
to offend her. But, whatever she may do, she can never take
from me the fond and respectful friendship which I have vowed
to her for life. Fontanes and Joubert also no longer write to
me; so that all whom I loved seem to have combined to forget
me at once. Do not you forget me, O my good friend: leave
me one heart upon which I can rely in this vale of tears!
Farewell, I embrace you weeping. Be sure, my good friend,
that I feel your loss as it should be felt.

"23 _November_ 1803."

M. DE FONTANES TO CHATEAUBRIAND.