Four Years in France Part 14

There was a very great difference in the ages of my elder and younger children; it was impossible for me to suit my plan to them all: for the sake of the younger it would have been advisable to stay some time longer in France; but for the advantage of the elder I thought it right to hasten my journey to Italy. I fixed the time of my departure from Avignon for the month of October following, 1821.

No master of the Italian language was here to be found. Kenelm soon acquired the use of it, as far as books, without conversation, could teach him; and, in the evenings of the spring and summer, after our promenade, gave lessons to his sisters and brother, whom he required to prepare themselves in the morning: he also gave them lectures in geography. In this employment he gratified his kind affections, and derived pleasure from the performance of what he imposed on himself as a duty.

In truth his whole life seemed to be regulated by a sense of duty: he endeavoured to please others from a principle of benevolence: in speaking of others he was careful to avoid all censure or rash judgment, all contemptuous or angry expressions; he followed after that charity, which "beareth all things, hopeth all things;" it was evident that, without excluding the innocent and laudable motives of action, he endeavoured to sanctify all he did by referring it to the glory of the Author of all good. His mind had been cultivated as far as his years and opportunities had allowed. The love of G.o.d had supplied to him the principle of true sensibility, and his judgment of moral objects was correct and delicate. His reading had been chiefly of French literature and of history. In England he had pa.s.sed much of his time in society and other engagements, and he had not had leisure for reading: he regretted that he could not stay another twelvemonth there for the purpose of going through a course of English literature.

I had always encouraged him to discuss with me whatever questions arose, to enter into argument and try the ground of his opinions: in criticism, in politics, in religion even, he had followed this method. I held it useful thus to call forth and exercise his powers; I wished to establish his judgment on a surer basis than that which can be laid by authority alone; a basis so liable to be shaken, so likely to be removed by an intercourse with the world, which surprises, enchants, and often fatally deceives those who are unprepared for it.

I was conversing one day with him and his brother on the subject of the ma.s.sacre at Thessalonica, in the reign of the emperor Theodosius,--and of the father who, being arrested with his two sons going out of the amphitheatre, entreated the soldiers, who were about to put them both to death, at least to spare him one of them; the soldiers consented, leaving the choice to the father: he, in an agony of grief, ran from one son to the other, unable to resign either of them: the soldiers, becoming impatient, at length slew them both.

Kenelm's remark was, "the father was more happy afterwards than he would have been had he decided. If he had saved one son, he would have continually reproached himself, during the rest of his life, with the death of the other."

Within a few short months I was myself to witness the death of one son, and to pa.s.s some weeks in dreadful suspense as to the fate of the son that remained to me. The Father of Mercies inflicted not on me the horrible necessity of choosing between them. He spared one, to alleviate and repair the loss of him whom he took to himself.

If I seem to any to have dwelt too long on the praise of Kenelm, let this be allowed to the remembrance of his kind, confiding, and grateful affection to me, his gentle and amiable manners towards the rest of his family, the well-grounded hope of virtuous and meritorious conduct in his pa.s.sage through life. All this is now only in remembrance; but "the remembrance is sweet."

I had said to Kenelm on his return from England, "You have behaved in such a manner during the time that you have been your own master, that I may now trust that your character and principles are fixed and established: you have acquired an entire right to my confidence."

The trial of the ground of this confidence was short, and, towards the end, most painful; but it was conclusive and satisfactory.

In the spring of 1821, arrived the news of the beginning and end of what was called for a time the revolution of Piedmont, and of the insurrection of the garrison of Alexandria.

The difficulty of obtaining protection or employment in diplomacy, the career to which, in his own purpose, he had destined himself, and to which he had in some degree directed his studies, offered itself at this time so forcibly to the mind of Kenelm, that he inclined to enter into the military profession. He said, "The King of Sardinia must, at this time, want soldiers. I will go to him at Nice: I shall see you all again in your way to Italy." He added, "I cannot choose the French service, as I should run the risk of being employed against my own country: a great variety of circ.u.mstances shows that the English service must be at least _unpleasant_ to a catholic: there remain only Austria and Sardinia." On inquiry, however, we found that no commission was granted in the army of this latter power, unless to those who had been educated in the military academy, or who had served four years in the ranks as private soldiers.

Kenelm retained the purpose of making inquiries concerning the Austrian service when he should arrive in Italy. Austria, though now removed to a distance from England by the cession of the Low Countries, had been for more than a century its almost constant ally. I was not sorry that inquiries, and any measures to be adopted in consequence, were delayed for some time, and advised that the interval should be employed in reflecting how far the military profession might suit a character of great vivacity indeed, but thoughtful and given to literary pursuits. I could account for this sudden ebullition of Kenelm's warlike ardour, only by the delight which he took in reading the "Victoires et Conquetes," which publication began about this time; and by his intercourse with some of the officers in garrison. He a.s.serted too that the trade of a soldier is the most independent of any, and brought in defence of his a.s.sertion some very specious arguments. His ardour, though restrained, was by no means extinguished: he was steady to his purpose, and never relinquished it.

In the month of July a fair is held at Beaucaire, on the Rhone, a small town twelve miles from Avignon, opposite Tarrascon. This is one of the few fairs in Europe that are still the scene of great commercial operations; commis, travellers, and the post office are rapidly causing the disparition of less convenient inst.i.tutions. To Beaucaire, however, as yet, resort merchants from Germany, Italy, and Spain; and to Beaucaire also resort the idle and curious of the district for many leagues around. The Avignonais wondered that we could pa.s.s two summers without visiting it; and, as I could now no longer say "I will go next year," I was obliged to avow that my real reason for absenting myself from a scene which they thought so interesting, was my unwillingness to subject any of the females of my family to the inconvenience of finding, or, what would have been worse, not finding beds in so crowded a town; and to stay all night was indispensable, as the finest sight of all was the illumination of the streets of booths erected as a supplement to the insufficient buildings of the town. One friend proposed to me his example. He had left Avignon, with ladies in company of course, three hours before sunset; arrived at Beaucaire in time to lead his ladies about, both by owls-light and lamp-light; supped in a room which, he allowed, had not the recommendation of being either retired, or cleanly, or free from the fumes of tobacco; and brought his ladies home again at three in the morning.

Men are but children of a larger growth,

said some one without suspecting that he was launching any thing but a sarcasm: it is however a profound reflection. Children must be amused because they cannot know any thing of the world into which they are about to enter; and men must be amused on account of their unwillingness to think of a future state of existence. The childish mortal is however less silly than the manly mortal immortal.

I recommended to my sons to visit Arles, taking Beaucaire in their way at the time of the fair, at which they might stay as long as they pleased, and no longer. They got into a boat early in the morning, and descended the Rhone as far as Tarrascon; pa.s.sed four hours, including repast and repose, at the fair; then again took to their boat, which conveyed them to the ancient and once important city of Arles. From Avignon to Tarrascon they found the banks of the Rhone varied and picturesque: lower down, the river displays a great spread of water, but its sh.o.r.es are flat. They slept at Arles, viewed its ancient monuments, obelisk, amphitheatre, sarcophagi, and walked to St. Remy. In the evening of the next day they returned home, and regaled us with a pleasant account of their "voyage par mer et par terre."[66] They were particularly pleased with St. Remy, and we resolved on a family party to that place: the excursion was, however, deferred for a month, on account of a visit to a friend's campagne or country house.

St. Remy is four leagues from Avignon: at the end of the second mile, we crossed by a ferry the Durance, a mighty Alpine torrent. I had before observed that its waters are colder and more turbid than those of the Rhone at the point of their confluence. The Rhone deposits in the Leman Lake a part of the soil it brings with it in its course through the Valais. The Durance is so impetuous, that its bridge on the road to Ma.r.s.eilles is almost always insecure. A company of Dutchmen undertook to confine this river to a certain bed by embanking, on condition of receiving all the land they should recover: but though they could, no doubt, deal very well with placid and stagnant ca.n.a.ls, they found the Durance so impatient of d.y.k.es, as the Araxes was indignant at a bridge, that they abandoned the enterprise.

My sons, who were our stewards and ciceroni, had ordered a basket of provisions to be brought by the carriage, that we might dine _au frais_ near the monuments, the objects of our visit. We took cafe au lait, however, on arriving at the village, supplying the place of milk by beating the yolks of fresh eggs into a liquid foam here called _lait de poule_, and well known as a subst.i.tute for an article, the want of which is not much felt by those who are used to be without it. We had no b.u.t.ter: beurre frais de Lyon is sent down the Rhone to Avignon, and sometimes contains maggots. I paid ten sous a day for a small quant.i.ty of beurre du jour made on purpose for our family breakfast,--the only demand for it in all the town.

The want of b.u.t.ter, and the scarcity of our four pleasant early fruits, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, and strawberries, a rare and short-lived luxury in the south of France,--are great privations; and this must be added to the inconveniences of a hot climate. Even cherries quickly become uneatable, breeding worms within them as soon as ripe.

We walked to the Mausoleum and triumphal arch at half a league's distance. They are situate near the side of the road now leading from Nismes to Ma.r.s.eilles, which probably, at the time even of the erection of these monuments, led from one to the other of these ancient cities.

We had risen by a very slight ascent to a great height, and now enjoyed a fine prospect all around, except that, for about one fourth of the horizon, the view was bounded by a range of rocks of most curious and fantastic forms. Not far from the foot of this range, and very near to each other, are placed the arch and Mausoleum. The arch itself and all below it, is still perfect; but all above it has been pulled down and carried away: the vault of the arch is highly ornamented. The Mausoleum is a most elegant structure. If I say that it resembles a detached campanile of a church of Grecian architecture, it is more for the sake of indicating its form, than from having seen any thing in that kind resembling or equal to it. On a lofty bas.e.m.e.nt rises a square building surmounted by a circular colonnade, of the Corinthian order, supporting a dome or cupola. At the four corners of the square building are Corinthian pillars; on each side, the wall is pierced by an arch, and, on the frieze above, is the inscription

s.e.x. M. Julii C. F. parentibus suis.

In the centre under the cupola stand two statues: there is no door or opening below.

My sons amused themselves with taking drawings of the objects before them. The air, notwithstanding the season of the year, was cool and fresh at the elevation at which we were placed; and we took our dinner under the arch, having brought from the cafe of St. Remy some beer, which, in the spirit of contradiction, is much liked in this country of the vine. I thought it vile stuff, and preferred our wine from Avignon: those of my children who had not tasted or forgotten the taste of home-brewed, thought it a luxury: it is rather dearer than wine, being, very justly, equally taxed. It is called _biere de Mars_;--a proof that the right season is known for "corrupting barley into a certain similitude of wine." Caesar's word _corruptum_ ought to be translated "fermented," but it is happily ambiguous.

My servant told me that while he was waiting with the basket of provisions for our coming from the village, a gentleman, whom he took for English, followed by his groom, came up to the monuments, walked his horse once quietly round them, looked at him, Antoine, without saying a word, and then rode away.

There is not a single house near these edifices except a Maison des Fous, an extensive establishment, and celebrated for good management. I visited a house of this sort at Avignon, where the patients seemed to have every comfort their situation permitted. Several of them were amusing themselves in the large court: we pa.s.sed by them in going out.

One of them addressed himself to the gentleman who accompanied me: "Sir, I entreat you to interest yourself for me; it is horrible for me to live amongst these unhappy mad people. You see I am not mad; I am placed here by my relations that they may keep possession of a little estate that belongs to me." My friend asked, "Why do you not speak to the administrators?"--"I have done so often, but all to no purpose; _ce sont des ours_."[67] I do not know the end of the affair.

We returned in the cool of the evening. On repa.s.sing the ferry, I did not get into the carriage again, but walked with my sons to the town.

The carriage had some difficulty in pa.s.sing the gate, owing to a piece of cheese and some other remains of our dinner, which the gate-keeper perceived at the bottom of the basket. Antoine laughed at him: "C'est mon souper:[68]" but it was no laughing matter; it was a question of the droits reunis. The coachman explained that the provisions had been taken out of the town in the morning, and the carriage pa.s.sed on.

We were much pleased with our excursion, and I promised my family to take them to Nismes before we should set off for Italy; but we had found the day, 18th of August, too hot, and determined to wait till the weather should be somewhat cooler.

FOOTNOTES:

[66] Voyage by sea and land.

[67] They are bears.

[68] It is my supper.

CHAP. XVI.

Sat.u.r.day, the twenty-fifth of August, the fete of the king was celebrated with sports and rejoicings. A joute d'eau was held on the Rhone; that is to say--two boats row as fast as possible in opposite directions bearing each of them a man, standing on the prow, armed with a long pole. At the moment that the boats pa.s.s by each other, each of the two men strives to push the other with his pole into the water. If both parties fail, the a.s.sistants are, for that time, disappointed; if one of the two tumbles in, they laugh and are delighted. Sometimes it happens, from the unsteadiness of their position and the effort which each makes to overturn the other, that both fall in, and, in that case, the joy of the standers and sitters-by is increased, as Malthus would say, not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical proportion: it is not merely doubled; it is augmented a hundred-fold. Flags, and bells, and music, and the presence of the authorities and of a vast concourse of spectators, leave not the least doubt in the mind of any one but that he has been well amused. In the evening there was a ball at the prefecture.

Being somewhat indisposed, I did not stir out on this day. Kenelm had for some time past complained of languor and want of appet.i.te, which he attributed to the heat of the summer. At St. Remy he had been in excellent spirits, pa.s.sing on before us to hinder us from seeing the monuments till arrived at the right point of view; and, on the fete of St. Louis, he had been gay with the gay. No symptom of illness appeared till the following evening at the house of the general commanding the department; he then complained to me of a sensation of cold. I desired him to remove from the open window; he soon felt himself better, and joined in the dance with which the party concluded. This visit is to be remarked as the last he made.

During the three following days he was tolerably well, and, on the alternate days, took his bath in the Rhone, as it had been his custom to do during the summer, in a retired place at a small distance from the town. While bathing the last time, he cried out to his brother, "My pulse is gone." A sensation of cold had induced him to feel his pulse, and he was somewhat alarmed at this symptom of its intermission. He appeared to wish to make light of it when he came home, but it must be supposed that his own feelings made him apprehensive of illness.

Afterwards it became evident that the predisposition to the fever, of which the chilliness three evenings before had been a symptom, had again manifested itself by this intermission of the pulse.

He now reposed in me a confidence, the purport of which ought perhaps to be numbered among the symptoms of the coming malady, though I was as yet unable to account for it in this way. He said his scruples, such as he had combated and surmounted three years before, had returned and had distressed him of late, beginning from a time to which he referred; since which time, and, as he believed, from the efforts he had made, he had suffered from a head-ache and pains in his chest and limbs. Not aware that an illness was at hand which would account for the sensations of which he complained without reference to any mental uneasiness, I endeavoured by reproaches and praises to restore his tranquillity. "You are indebted for your head-ache and other pains to allowing your mind to dwell on useless and groundless apprehensions. Cheerfulness, hope, and gaiety are the best things in the world to make the blood circulate and distribute equally the animal heat. Enough has been said to you on the subject of scruples, and you have admitted the reasonableness of what has been said: I had hoped they were gone for ever. You are a great comfort and blessing to me: be satisfied with yourself. You were at confession and communion five days ago: has any thing occurred since, on which you would consult your director?" He replied, "No, nothing." This we afterwards remembered with great comfort.

In the evening we went to the promenade, and walked till it was dark. I then asked if he would go home and play a game at chess: he said playfully, "Yes, if you will let me rest my head on my hands, and stick up my shoulders." This posture he had been used to take sometimes in the study-room in college, where it was permitted, being neither a mortal sin nor false grammar: of course he had since avoided and corrected the habit.

The next day the annual distribution of prizes took place at the Royal College. This scene had some attraction for Kenelm as reminding him of Stoneyhurst. He did not stay to the end of the ceremony, complaining of a sense of fatigue. In the evening he walked out again for the last time: we stopt to listen to some music on the walk, when I observed that he was excessively chill. He said to his mother, "I hope my father will be satisfied with my obedience; I have dragged myself along, cold and tired." I had urged him to walk, in the hope of diverting him. We went home; there was no question of chess; he retired early to rest.

The day following, the last of the month of August, he appeared to be well, and recovered from all sense of fatigue: he announced his intention of bathing in the Rhone as usual. I requested him to give it up, till it should be seen whether the chilliness, that seemed to renew its attacks like the fits of an ague, should again come upon him. To this he a.s.sented. He took his lesson of drawing without complaint; but, almost immediately after the departure of the master, was seized with a violent s.h.i.+vering: he put on a great coat; then wrapped himself in blankets, lying on the sofa. The sense of cold still continuing, he took soup, and afterwards tea. Towards evening he desired to have his bed brought down from his chamber, and placed in the inner salon: this was done. He soon broke out into a violent perspiration. Nothing more was apprehended, than that he had taken cold at his last bathing in the Rhone.

His malady was however the dreadful typhus, so fatal in crowded hospitals, in camps and prisons. To an insulated patient, well taken care of, the danger is much diminished; and, but for error, and worse than error, of the medical men who attended, my elder son had probably not fallen a victim to it, and the younger would have been kept out of the way of contagion.

In the first spring that I had pa.s.sed at Avignon, my children, owing to the change of climate, all of them, beginning with the youngest, at short intervals from each other, fell ill of the scarlet fever. At that time I had sent for a physician, who treated them with much care, and, as I judged from the event, with sufficient skill. In the course of three years he had occasionally attended when his advice was wanted. His practice was among the best families of the town; he was a middle-aged man, married, and father of a family. He was entrusted by the munic.i.p.ality with the place of physician to the hospital, in which quality he gave lectures on anatomy, at which, so long as the dissected subject was fresh, I had allowed my sons to attend.

The typhus is an universal prostration of the forces of the body; it is no wonder then that Kenelm felt no inclination to leave his bed. For two days he remained there without seeming to himself to have any illness to complain of. M. le Docteur Roche was sent for: he p.r.o.nounced the disorder to be a catarrhal fever; the symptoms nothing unfavourable; the perspiration beneficial, but excessive; and ordered the removal of some of the bed-clothes. He prescribed at this time no medicine.

As this man was considered as devout, and had frequently conversed with us on religious subjects, Kenelm, on account of the effect which he supposed his scruples to have had on his health, and a.s.sured that they would not be a subject of ridicule to a pious man, thought it right to confide them to him. The doctor coincided entirely with the reasoning of his patient: he said, "For some time past you have been forming unwholesome chyle: the bowels must be relieved; perspiration, so as not to weaken you, but to carry off the fever, probably caused by the cold bath, must be sustained: all will soon be well again." Kenelm had talked of his scruples in so edifying a manner, as to inspire the devout doctor with great respect for his piety and humility: returning into the first salon, he said to the mother: "Madame, votre fils est un ange:" she replied, "Pas encore."[69] This is one of those prophetic expressions launched at hazard, of which so many examples are on record.

On the fourth day of the malady, the delirium commenced. Roche was one of those physicians who never find out that they are in the wrong: he added the epithet "nervous," to his former definition of the fever, and ordered a calming draught at night. He called three times a day: he felt the pulse of his patient: if the delirium had failed to alarm him, the pulse might have indicated the typhus, by the "subsaltus tendonis," a weak tremulous motion in the wrist, close by the pulse. From this fourth day of his illness, I began to watch every night by the bed-side of Kenelm till two o'clock in the morning: for several years past I had been accustomed not to retire to rest till after midnight; to sit up an hour or two longer was therefore no great fatigue. Antoine, who was directed to go to bed at eight in the evening, then relieved me for the rest of the night. We adopted this arrangement, not foreseeing how long the illness would last, though the period of the typhus is well known to be thirty days. Kenelm's brother and sisters attended and served him during the day, without fear of contagion, the existence of which was positively denied by Roche, and which indeed was not to be apprehended in a case of "nervous catarrhal fever." The care of his mother extended to every moment of the day and night: her chamber was the next room to the salon in which her son lay: on the least noise she was at his bed-side. What she endured of toil, seemingly beyond human strength, and how her maternal feelings were tortured, will appear in the sequel.

One of the symptoms of the malady was the induration of the belly: it became hard and tight like a drum or inflated bladder; this proceeded from the meteorized state of the bowels; and the vapour or fumes, ascending thence to the brain, as in the case of drunkenness, caused delirium. It was attempted to relieve this induration by emollient fomentations. Kenelm's delirium was not so entire, but that his attention might be directed by those around him to any object that might require it: he spoke French or English, according to the nation of the person whom he addressed; and it was remarkable, that he talked French without hesitating or correcting his phrases, as he was wont to do in health: the delirium in this also resembling drunkenness, which, in its earlier stage, gives a firm and ready elocution.