The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Iii Part 6

MISS BURNEY'S ADMIRATION OF MADAME DE STAEL.

(f.a.n.n.y Burney to Dr. Burney.) Mickleham, February 29, 1793 Have you not begun, dearest sir, to give me up as a lost sheep?

Susanna's temporary widowhood, however, has tempted me on, and spelled me with a spell I know not how to break. It is long, long since we have pa.s.sed any time so completely together; her three lovely children only knit us the closer. The widowhood, however, we expect now quickly to expire, and I had projected my return to my dearest father

Page 47

for Wednesday next, which would complete my fortnight here but some circ.u.mstances are intervening that incline me to postpone it another week. Madame de Stal, daughter of M. Necker, and wife of the Swedish amba.s.sador to France, is now head of the little French colony in this neighbourhood. M. de Stael, her husband, is at present suspended in his emba.s.sy, but not recalled and it is yet uncertain whether the regent Duke of Sudermania will send him to Paris, during the present horrible Convention, or order him home. He is now in Holland, waiting for commands. Madame de Stal, however, was unsafe in Paris, though an amba.s.sadress, from the resentment owed her by the commune, for having received and protected in her house various destined victims of the 10th August and of the 2nd September. She was even once stopped in her carriage, which they called aristocratic, because of its arms and ornaments, and threatened to be murdered, and only saved by one of the worst wretches of the Convention, Tallien, who feared provoking a war with Sweden, from such an offence to the wife of its amba.s.sador. She was obliged to have this same Tallien to accompany her, to save her from ma.s.sacre, for some miles from Paris, when compelled to quit it.

She is a woman of the first abilities, I think, I have ever seen; she is more in the style of Mrs. Thrale than of any other celebrated character, but she has infinitely more depth, and seems an even profound politician and metaphysician. She has suffered us to hear some of her works in MS., which are truly wonderful, for powers both of thinking and expression. She adores her father, but is much alarmed at having had no news from him since he has heard of the ma.s.sacre of the martyred Louis; and who can wonder it should have overpowered him?

Ever since her arrival she has been pressing me to spend some time with her before I return to town. She wanted Susan and me to pa.s.s a month with her, but, finding that impossible, she bestowed all her entreaties upon me alone, and they are grown so urgent, upon my preparation for departing, and acquainting her my furlough of absence was over, that she not only insisted upon my writing to you, and telling why I deferred my return, but declares she will also write herself, to ask your permission for the visit. She exactly resembles Mrs. Thrale in the ardour and warmth of her temper and partialities. I find her impossible to resist, and therefore, if your answer to Page 48

her is such as I conclude it must be, I shall wait upon her for a week. She is only a short walk from hence, at juniper Hall.

FAILING RESOURCES.

There can be nothing imagined more charming, more fascinating, than this colony ; between their sufferings and their argr?mens they occupy us almost wholly. M. de Narbonne, alas, has no thousand pounds a year! he got over only four thousand pounds at the beginning, from a most splendid fortune; and, little foreseeing how all has turned out, he has lived, we fear, upon the princ.i.p.al ; for he says, if all remittance is withdrawn, on account of the war, he shall soon be as ruined as those companions of his misfortunes with whom as yet he has shared his little all. He bears the highest character for goodness, parts, sweetness of manners, and ready wit. You could not keep your heart from him if you saw him only for . half an hour. He has not yet recovered from the black blow of the king's death, but he is better, and less jaundiced ; and he has had a letter which, I hear, has comforted him, though at first it was almost heart-breaking, informing him of the unabated regard for him of the truly saint-like Louis. This is communicated in a letter from M. de Malesherbes.(69)

THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

M. d'Arblay is one of the most singularly interesting characters that can ever have been formed. He has a sincerity, a frankness, an ingenuous openness of nature, that I had been unjust enough to think could not belong to a Frenchman. With all this, which is his military portion, he is pa.s.sionately fond of literature, a most delicate critic in his own language, welt versed in both Italian and German, and a very elegant

Page 49

poet. He has just undertaken to become my French master for p.r.o.nunciation, and he gives me long daily lessons in reading.

Pray expect wonderful improvements! In return, I hear him in English; and for his theme, this evening he has been writing an English address "? Mr. Burney," (ie. M. le Docteur), joining in Madame de Stael's request.

I hope your last club was more congenial? M. de Talleyrand insists on conveying this letter for you. He has been on a visit here, and returns again on Wednesday. He is a man of admirable conversation, quick, terse, fin, and yet deep, to the extreme of those four words. They are a marvellous set for excess of agreeability.

"THIS ENCHANTING MONSIEUR D'ARBLAY."

(f.a.n.n.y Burney to Mrs. Locke.) Mickleham.

Your kind letter, my beloved Fredy, was most thankfully received, and we rejoice the house and situation promise so much local comfort; but I quite fear with you that even the bas bleu will not recompense the loss of the "Junipre" society. It is, indeed, of incontestable superiority. But you must burn this confession, or my poor effigy will blaze for it. I must tell you a little of our proceedings, as they all relate to these people of a thousand.

M. d'Arblay came from the melancholy sight of departing Norbury to Mickleham, and with an air the most triste, and a sound of voice quite dejected, as I learn from Susanna for I was in my heroics, and could not appear till the last half hour. A headache prevented my waiting upon Madame de Stal that day, and obliged me to retreat soon after nine o'clock in the evening, and my douce compagne would not let me retreat alone. We had only robed ourselves in looser drapery, when a violent ringing at the door startled us; we listened, and heard the voice of M. d'Arblay, and Jerry answering, "They're gone to bed." "Comment? What?" cried he: "C'est impossible! what you say?" Jerry then, to show his new education in this new colony, said "All?e couch?e!" It rained furiously, and we were quite grieved, but there was no help. He left a book for "Mlle. Burnet," and word that Madame de Stael could not come on account of the bad weather. M. Ferdinand was with him and has bewailed the disaster Page 50

and M. Sicard says he accompanied them till he was quite wet through his redingote; but this enchanting M. d'Arblay will murmur at nothing.

The next day they all came, just as we had dined, for a morning visit,--Madame de Stael, M. Talleyrand, M. Sicard, and M.

d'Arblay; the latter then made "insistance" upon commencing my "master of the language," and I think he will be almost as good a one as the little don.(70)

M. de Talleyrand opened, at last, with infinite wit and capacity.

Madame de Stael whispered me, "How do you like him?" "Not very much," I answered, "but I do not know him." "Oh, I a.s.sure you,"

cried she, "he is the best of the men."

I was happy not to agree ; but I have no time for such minute detail till we meet. She read the n.o.ble tragedy of "Tancr?de,"(71) till she blinded us all round. She is the most charming person, to use her own phrase, "that never I saw." . .

We called yesterday upon Madame de Stael, and sat with her until three o'clock, only the little don being present. She was delightful; yet I see much uneasiness hanging over the whole party, from the terror that the war may stop all remittances.

Heaven forbid!

TALLEYRAND IS FOUND CHARMING.

(f.a.n.n.y Burney to Mrs locke.) Thursday, Mickleham.

I have no heart not to write, and no time to write. I have been scholaring all day, and mastering too : for our lessons are mutual, and more entertaining than can easily be conceived. My master of the language says he dreams of how much more solemnly he shall write to charming Mrs. Locke after a little more practice. Madame de Stael has written me two English notes, quite beautiful in ideas, and not very reprehensible in idiom. But English has nothing to do with elegance such as theirs--at least, little and rarely. I am always exposing myself to the wrath of John Bull, when this c?terie come in compet.i.tion; It is inconceivable what a convert M. de Talleyrand has made of me; I think him now one of the first members, and one of the most charming, of this exquisite set: Susanna is as completely a proselyte, Page 51

His powers of entertainment are astonis.h.i.+ng, both in information and in raillery. We know nothing of how the rest of the world goes on. They are all coming to-night. I have yet avoided, but with extreme difficulty, the change of abode. Madame de Stael, however, will not easily be parried, and how I may finally arrange I know not. Certainly I will not offend or hurt her, but otherwise I had rather be a visitor than a guest

Pray tell Mr. Locke that " the best of the men " grows upon us at every meeting. We dined and stayed till midnight at "junipre" on Tuesday, and I would I could recollect but the twentieth part of the excellent things that were said. Madame de Stael read us the opening of her work "Sur le Bonheur:" it seems to me admirable.

M. de Talleyrand avowed he had met with nothing better thought or more ably expressed; it contains the most touching allusions to their country's calamities.

A PROPOSED VISIT TO MADAME DE STAEL DISAPPROVED OF.

(Doctor Burney to f.a.n.n.y Burney.) Chelsea College, February 19, 1793.

Why, f.a.n.n.y, what are you about, and where are you? I shall write at you, not knowing how to write to you, as Swift did to the flying and romantic Lord Peterborough. I had written the above, after a yesterday's glimmering and a feverish night as usual, when behold! a letter of requisition for a further furlough! I had long histories ready for narration de vive voix, but my time is too short and my eyes and head too -weak for much writing this morning. I am not at all surprised at your account of the captivating powers of Madame de Stael. It corresponds with all I had heard about her, and with the opinion I formed of her intellectual and literary powers, in reading her charming little "Apologie de Rousseau." But as nothing human is allowed to be perfect, she has not escaped censure. Her house was the centre of revolutionists Previous to the 10th of August, after her father's departure, and she has been accused of partiality to M.

de N.(72) But Perhaps all may be jacobinical malignity. However, unfavourable stories of her have been brought hither, and the Page 52

Burkes and Mrs. Ord have repeated them to me. But you know that M. Necker's administration, and the conduct of the n.o.bles who first joined in the violent measures that subverted the ancient establishments by the abolition of n.o.bility and the ruin of the church, during the first National a.s.sembly, are held in greater horror by aristocrats than even the members of the present Convention. I know this will make you feel uncomfortable, but it seemed to me right to hint it to You. If you are not absolutely in the house of Madame do Stael when this arrives, it would perhaps be possible for you to waive the visit to her, by a compromise, of having something to do for Susy, and so make the addendum to your stay under her roof. . .

(f.a.n.n.y Burney to Dr. Burney.) Mickleham, February 22, '03, What a kind letter is my dearest father's, and how kindly speedy ! yet it is too true it has given me very uncomfortable feelings.

I am both hurt and astonished at the acrimony of malice; indeed, I believe all this Party to merit nothing but honour, compa.s.sion, and praise. Madame de Stael, the daughter of M. Necker--the idolising daughter--of course, and even from the best principles, those of filial reverence, entered into the opening of the Revolution just as her father entered into it; but as to her house having become the centre of revolutionists before the 10th of August, it was so only for the const.i.tutionalists, who, at that period, were not only members of the then established government, but the decided friends of the king. The aristocrats were then already banished, or wanderers from fear, or concealed and silent from cowardice; and the jacobins --I need not, after what I have already related, mention how utterly abhorrent to her must be that fiend-like set. The aristocrats, however, as you well observe, and as she has herself told me, hold the const.i.tutionalists in greater horror than the Convention itself.

This, however, is a violence against justice which cannot, I hope, be lasting ; and the malignant a.s.sertions which persecute her, all of which she has lamented to us, she imputes equally to the bad and virulent of both these parties. The intimation concerning M. de N. was, however, wholly Page 53

new to us, and I do firmly believe it a gross calumny. M. de N.

was of her society, which contained ten or twelve of the first people in Paris, and, occasionally, almost all Paris ! she loves him even tenderly, but so openly, so simply, so unaffectedly, and with such utter freedom from all coquetry, that, if they were two men, or two women, the affection could not, I think, be more obviously undesi,gning. She is very plain, he is very handsome ; her intellectual endowments must be with him her sole attraction.

M. de Talleyrand was another of her society, and she seems equally attached to him. M. le Viscomte de Montmorenci she loves, she says, as her brother: he is another of this bright constellation, and esteemed of excellent capacity. She says, if she continues in England he will certainly come, for he loves her too well to stay away. In short, her whole coterie live together as brethren. Madame la Marquise de la Ch?tre, who has lately returned to France, to endeavour to obtain de quoi vivre en Angleterre,(73) and who had been of this colony for two or three months since the 10th of August, Is a bosom friend of Madame de Stael and of all this circle : she is reckoned a very estimable as well as fas.h.i.+onable woman ; and a daughter of the unhappy Montmorin, who was killed on the 1st of September(74) is another of this set. Indeed, I think you could not spend a day with them and not see that their commerce is that of pure, but exalted and most elegant, friends.h.i.+p.

I would, nevertheless, give the world to avoid being a guest under their roof, now I have heard even the shadow of such a rumour; and I will, if it be possible without hurting or of-fending them. I have waived and waived acceptance almost from the moment of Madame de Stael's arrival. I prevailed with her to let my letter go alone to you, and I have told her, with regard to your answer, that you were sensible of the honour her kindness did me, and could not refuse to her request the week's furlough ; and then followed reasons for the Compromise you pointed out, too diffuse for writing. As Yet they have succeeded, though she is surprised and disappointed. She wants us to study French and English together, and nothing could to me be more desirable, but for this invidious report.

M. d'Arblay as well as M. de Narbonne, sent over a declaration in favour of the poor king. M. d'A. had been the Page 54

commandant at Longwy, and had been named to that post by the king himself In the accusation of the infernals, as Mr. Young justly calls them, the king is accused of leaving Longwy undefended, and a prey to the Prussians. M. d'Arblay, who before that period had been promoted into the regiment of M. de Narbonne, and thence summoned to be adjutant-general of Lafayette, wrote therefore, on this charge, to M. de Malesherbes, and told him that the charge was utterly false . that the king had taken every precaution for the proper preservation of Longwy, and that M. d'Arblay, the king's commandant, had himself received a letter of thanks and approbation from Duniouriez, who said, nothing would have been lost had every commandant taken equal pains, and exerted equal bravery. This original letter M. d'Arblay sent to M. Malesherbes, not as a vindication of himself, for he had been summoned from Longwy before the Prussians a.s.sailed it, but as a vindication of the officer appointed by the king, while he had yet the command.

M. de Malesherbes wrote an answer of thanks, and said he should certainly make use of this information in the defence, However, the fear of Dumouriez, I suppose, prevented his being named. M.

d'Arblay, in quitting France with Lafayette, upon the deposition of the king, had only a little ready money in his pocket, and he has been d?cr?(75) I since, and all he was worth in the world is sold and seized by the Convention. M. de Narbonne loves him as the tenderest of brothers, and, while one has a guinea in the world, the other will have half. "Ah!" cried M. d'Arblay, upon the murder of the king, which almost annihilated him, "I know not how those can exist who have any feelings of remorse, when I scarce can endure my life, from the simple feeling of regret that ever I p.r.o.nounced the word liberty in France!"

M. DE LALLY TOLENDAL AND HIS TRAGEDY.

(Mrs. Phillips to Mrs. Locke.) Mickleham, April 2, 1793.

....I must, however, say something of juniper, whence I had an irresistible invitation to dine, etc., yesterday, and