Story of My Life Part 29

"But when some years had pa.s.sed, the great guardian spirit came to the mountains, and, stretching forth his wings, he gathered all the Fanti beneath them, and said, 'Now, my children, you shall go forth to see the world, and, when you return, you shall each say what is most highly esteemed by the lovers of art, and what it is that the children of men consider most beautiful and best.'

"Thus the Fanti of Carrara flew forth to see the world! They alighted first in the square at Genoa. All around were huge and stately palaces, and in the centre the statue of a hero, with the world lying captive at his feet. But what the Fanti remarked most was that in the most magnificent chambers of every palace, and even upon the statue of the great Columbus himself, sat the semblance of their despised sister the white Fante, as if enshrined and honoured. 'Alas!' exclaimed the Fanti, 'what degraded notions have these Genoese; let us examine places better worth our notice.'

So they came to Spain, and visited the Alhambra, but in every court, and even on the Fountain of Lions itself, they found the image of the white Fante seated before them. Thence they pa.s.sed on to London, to Paris, to Berlin, to Vienna, but it was ever the same. In every gallery of statues, over the hearth of every palace, upon the altar of every church, it seemed as if the white Fante was reigning. 'Ah,' they exclaimed, 'can _all_ men be thus degraded?

can _all_ good taste be banished from the earth? Let us see one more city nearer home, and from that let us form our judgment, for the inhabitants of these northern cities are not worthy to be ranked with mankind.'

"So the Fanti came to Milan, and beneath the wings of the great guardian spirit, rejoicing in their approaching triumph, they entered its vast square. And behold the spirit drew back his wings, and they beheld a mighty and an awful vision! Before them stood their sister, the Fante of the milk-white rocks, but no longer humble, no longer to be restrained even within the bounds of the greatest palace upon earth. Majestic in beauty, invincible in power, she raised her mighty wings to heaven in the aisles of a vast cathedral, and mounted higher and higher as by an a?rial staircase, till, far above all human things, she flung her snow-white tresses into the azure sky!

"Then the Fanti of the coloured robes bowed their heads and trembled, and acknowledged in penitence and humility--'Truly the Fante of the white rocks is the most beautiful thing in the world!'

"Who can go to Carrara, my auntie, and not feel this?"

We were for a few days at Turin. The society there was then, as it is still, the very climax of stagnation. One of its most admired ornaments was a beautiful young Contessa la Marmora. She did nothing all day, absolutely nothing, but sit looking pretty, with her chin leaning on her hand. Her mother-in-law was rather more energetic than herself, and hoping to rouse her, left a new "Journal des Modes" upon her table. Some days after, she asked what she thought of it. "Alas!" said the young Countess, with her beautiful head still leaning upon her hand, "I have been so much occupied, that I never have found time to look into it." In all my acquaintance since with Italian ladies, I have always found the same, that they are all intensely occupied, but that it is in doing--nothing!

Since the dreadful epidemic at court, which swept away at once the Queen, the Queen-Dowager, and the Duke of Genoa, the King had never received, and as his eldest daughter, Madame Clotilde, was not old enough to do so, there were no court parties. At the opera all the young ladies sat facing the stage, and the old ladies away from it; but when the ballet began there was a general change; the old ladies moved to the front, and the young ones went behind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IL VALENTINO, TURIN.[134]]

A great contrast to the Italians at Turin was Mr. Ruskin, whom we saw constantly. He was sitting all day upon a scaffold in the gallery, copying bits of the great picture by Paul Veronese. My mother was very proud of my drawings at this time, and gave them to him to look at. He examined them all very carefully and said nothing for some time. At last he pointed out one of the cathedral at Perugia as "the least bad of a very poor collection." One day in the gallery, I asked him to give me some advice. He said, "Watch me." He then looked at the flounce in the dress of a maid of honour of the Queen of Sheba for five minutes, and then he painted one thread: he looked for another five minutes, and then he painted another thread.[135] At the rate at which he was working he might hope to paint the whole dress in ten years: but it was a lesson as to examining what one drew well before drawing it. I said to him, "Do you admire all Paul Veronese's works as you do this?" He answered, "I merely think that Paul Veronese was ordained by Almighty G.o.d to be an archangel, neither more nor less; for it was not only that he knew how to cover yards of canvas with n.o.ble figures and exquisite colouring, it was that it was all _right_. If you look at other pictures in this gallery, or any gallery, you will find mistakes, corrected perhaps, but mistakes of every form and kind; but Paul Veronese had such perfect knowledge, he _never_ made mistakes."

The Charles Bunsens were at Turin, and we dined with them. With Mrs. C.

Bunsen was her brother, whom we thought a very dull, heavy young man.

Long afterwards he became very well known as the French Amba.s.sador, Waddington.

We saw Mr. Ruskin again several times in the Vaudois, whither we went from Turin, and stayed for several days at La Tour, riding on donkeys to the wild scene of the Waldensian battle in the valley of Angrogna, and jolting in a carriage to the beautiful villages of Villar and Bobbio--"une vraie penitence," as our driver expressed it, though the scenery is lovely. My mother was charmed to find an old woman at La Tour who had known Oberlin very well and had lived in his parish.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VILLAR, IN THE VAUDOIS.[136]]

Amongst the endless little out-of-the-way excursions which my mother, Lea, and I have made together in little _chars-?-banc_, one of those I remember with greatest pleasure is that from Vergogna up the Val Anzasca. The scenery was magnificent: such a deep gorge, with purple rocks breaking through the rich woods, and range upon range of distant mountains, with the snows of Monte Rosa closing them in. We stayed at a charming little mountain inn at Ponte Grande, where everything was extraordinarily cheap, and wandered in the meadows filled with globe-ranunculus and over-shadowed by huge chestnut-trees. In the evening the charcoal-burners came down from the mountains, where we had watched the smoke of the fires all day amongst the woods, and serenaded us under our windows, singing in parts, with magnificent voices, most effective in the still night. We were afterwards at Domo d'Ossola for a Sunday for the extraordinary f?te of the imaginary Santa Filomena--kept all day with frantic enthusiasm, cannons firing, bells ringing, and processions of girls in white, chaunting as they walked, pouring in from all the country parishes in the neighbourhood.

_To_ MRS. HARE (ITALIMA).

"_Lausanne, Sept. 3, 1858._--At Martigny we found _Galignani_, which we had not seen for some days, and you will imagine my distress at the sad news about Mr. Landor with which they were filled.[137] Dear Mr. Landor! I had always hoped and intended to be near him and watch over the last years of this old, old friend. I feel certain that there is much, which the world does not know, to be said on his side. I have known Mrs. Y. for years ... and always prophesied that she would be the ruin of Mr. Landor some day. For the poems, no excuse can be offered except that he was so imbued with the spirit of the cla.s.sical authors, that when he wished to write against Mrs. Y., he thought, 'How would Horace have written this?' and wrote accordingly, only that Horace would have said things a great deal worse.

'Some thought far worse of him, and judged him wrong; But verse was what he had been wedded to, And his own mind did like a tempest strong Come to him thus, and drove the weary wight along.'[138]

Whatever his faults are, I am sure you will feel that we who have known him well must draw a veil for ourselves over the failings of his old age, and remember only the many kind words of the dear old man, so tender in heart and so fastidious in taste, the many good and generous acts of his long life, and how many they are.

"How much we have been struck with the _pale_ blue of the Swiss lakes compared with the deep blue of those of Italy."

_To_ MY AUNT, ELEANOR PAUL.

"_Dijon, Sept. 12, 1858._--We found Fribourg quite up to our expectations, quite worth coming all the way round by Switzerland to visit. And the organ, how magnificent it is! We went in the evening to hear it, when all the beautiful gothic church was wrapped in darkness, except the solitary gleam of light in the organ-loft, and we all sat long in breathless expectation. When the music came, it was like a story. One seemed to be sitting far up the nave of some great cathedral, and to hear from the distant choir the choristers chaunting a litany, answering one another, and then swelling and joining in a universal chorus. Then, while they were singing, it was as if a great storm arose, the hail rattled and the rain splashed against the windows, the thunder crashed overhead, and the wind howled around. And then a mighty earthquake convulsed and shook the church to its very foundations.

But always, in the pauses of the storm, the sweet silvery voices of the choristers were heard above the roaring of the elements, and when the storm subsided, they joined in thanksgiving, which died away in the faint echoes of the surrounding hills. And all this was the organ!

"We came by Morat to Neuch?tel. It is a pretty, though not a striking place; but the view of the vast ma.s.s of Mont Blanc and of all the Oberland Alps in the rose-coloured glow is magnificent. The mother made inquiries after many old acquaintances,[139] to find most of them dead, and those who were still living old, old ladies of ninety and of one hundred.

"Did you ever hear of Doubs? We came through it yesterday, and it certainly seemed to us the most melancholy, ill-fated village we had ever seen. Some time ago there lived there a boy, whose stepmother was very cruel to him--so cruel that his whole aim and object in life was to obtain money enough to set up for himself and escape from her tyranny. At last he succeeded, and leaving his father's house with his heart full of bitterness, he invested his savings in a partners.h.i.+p with the owner of the village caf?, where he kept the accounts. One day his partner accused him of not giving him a fair share of the profits. This made him perfectly frantic--so furious that he determined to avenge himself by nothing less than the total destruction of his native place! He began by setting fire to his caf?, but the alarm was scarcely given when it was discovered that almost every other house was in flames. The inhabitants hurried from their beds, and were barely able to save themselves, their houses, cattle, and goods peris.h.i.+ng at one blow.

Only a few houses and the church escaped, in which the fugitives took refuge, and were beginning to collect their energies, when, after ten days, the fire broke out again in the night, and the rest of the village was consumed with all it contained, including a child of four years old. Between the two fires cholera had broken out, so that numbers perished from pestilence as well as exposure.

The author of all the misery was taken and transported, but the town is only now beginning to rise again from its ruins, and the people to raise their spirits."

On reaching Paris, we found Italima and my sister at the H?tel d'Oxford et Cambridge. Greatly to my relief, my mother decided that, as she was in perfect health and well supplied with visitors, it was an admirable opportunity for my remaining abroad to learn French: this I was only too thankful for, as it put off the evil day of my return to England, and encountering the family wrath about my refusal to take Orders. With my sister I spent an amusing day at Versailles on a visit to the Marquis and Marquise du Pr?t, the latter a daughter of the Duc de Grammont, and a very pretty, lively person. They lived in an ideal house of the _ancienne r?gime_, where the chairs, picture-frames, carpets, even the antimaca.s.sars, were carved or worked with the s.h.i.+elds, crests, and mottoes of the family.

After my sister left, the intrigues of Madame Davidoff, whom, in compliance with my mother's wishes, I had refused to visit, brought about my acquaintance with the Vicomte de Costa le Cerda, a Franco-Spaniard and ardent Catholic, who const.i.tuted himself my cicerone, and amongst other places took me to _s?ances_ of the Acad?mie de France, of which he was a member; and I should have been much interested in seeing all the celebrated philosophers, politicians, physicians, geologists, &c., if I had not been so ignorant of French literature that I had scarcely heard of any one of them before. The Marquis de Gabriac[140] (I forget how his office ent.i.tled him to do so) sent me a medal which enabled me to visit all profane, and the Archbishop of Paris a permission to enter all religious, inst.i.tutions.

Using the latter, I went with De Costa to the Benedictines, Ursulines, Carmelites, Pet.i.tes S?urs des Pauvres, and the ?uvre de la Compa.s.sion for bringing up little homeless boys. On Sundays I heard P?re F?lix, the philosophic Bourdaloue of the nineteenth century, preach with his musical voice to vast enthralled audiences in N?tre Dame.[141]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NOTRE DAME, PARIS.[142]]

Capital were the French lessons I received from the excellent M. Nyon, to whom I have always felt indebted. After Italima left Paris, I lodged with a Madame Barraud, who rented a small apartment at the back of a court in the Rue des Saints-P?res. Here my wretched little room looked out upon a blank wall, and was as thoroughly uncomfortable as it was possible to be. The weather soon became bitterly cold, and, to prevent being starved, I had to sit almost all day in the one poor uncarpeted sitting-room with old Madame Barraud herself, who was a most extraordinary character. Without the slightest apparent reason, a sudden suspicion would seize her, and she would rush off to the kitchen. In another minute she would return, wringing her hands, and would fling herself down in a chair with--"Oh, que je suis malheureuse! Oh, que je suis malheureuse! C'est une fille abominable cette Marie--cette tortue!

elle ne sait pas le service du tout," and then, before she had time to take breath, she would run off to investigate the causes of a fresh noise in the kitchen. You were never safe from her. Every moment that old woman would dart in like a whirlwind, just to wipe off one speck of dust she had discovered on the mirror, or to smooth some crease she suspected in the tablecloth; and almost before you could look up she was vanis.h.i.+ng with her eternal refrain of "que je suis mis?rable! que je suis malheureuse!"

The one subject of discussion till twelve o'clock was the d?je?ner, from twelve to six the dinner, and after that the d?je?ner of the next morning. Matters, however, were rather improved when Mademoiselle Barraud was at home--a thoroughly sensible, sterling person, who was generally absent on professional duties, being one of the first music-mistresses of the day. Sometimes Madame and Mademoiselle had friends in the evening, when it was amusing to see specimens of the better sort of third-cla.s.s Parisians.

I made very few friends at Paris, but the persons I saw oftenest were the Marquise du Pregnier and her old mother, who remembered the Reign of Terror and had lost both her parents by the guillotine. Occasionally I went in the evening to the salon of Madame Mohl, wife of Julius Mohl, the great Orientalist, but herself an Englishwoman, who had in early life been intimate with Chateaubriand and present at his touching last hours, when his friend Madame Recamier, beautiful to the end, sat watching him with her blind eyes. Madame Mohl was a most extraordinary-looking person, like a poodle, with frizzled hair hanging down over her face and very short skirts. Her salon, at 120 Rue de Bac, especially on Friday evenings, was at that time quite one of the social features of Paris. One savant used to drop in after the other and sit round her talking in a circle, and with a _finesse d'esprit_ all her own, she would address each in turn in her quick sharp voice, always saying something pungent or clever. Politics were the chief topic, and though I remember Madame Mohl once saying that "political society was not what could be called a _nouris.h.i.+ng_ occupation," there were no refreshments, however late the company stayed, but tea and biscuits. She had always had a sort of salon, even when, as Miss Clarke, she lived with her old mother in a very small apartment in the Abbaye-aux-Bois.

Ticknor speaks of her there as keeping a little _bureau d'esprit_ all her own, _? la fran?aise_.

One night when I was shown into her salon, I found, to my horror, that I was not only the first to arrive, but that the old lady was so engrossed in administering a violent scolding to her husband, that she was promenading the drawing-room half undressed, with her strange locks still in curl-papers. It was a most ridiculous scene, and my premature appearance not a little embarra.s.sing to them both. I retreated into the pa.s.sage till Madame Mohl was "done up," though that operation was not accomplished till many other guests had arrived.

M. Julius Mohl was the greatest contrast to his quicksilver wife. He used to be called "_le bourru bienfaisant_," from his rough exterior and genuine kindness of heart. He was really ten years younger than his wife, though she considered sixty-eight the right age for a woman to attain to, and never to her last day allowed that she had pa.s.sed that limit.

Madame Mohl was fond of describing how, when she was at Paris in her childhood, her elder sister, Mrs. Frewen, was taken by their mother and grandmother to the chapel royal at the Tuileries, where Marie Antoinette was then living in a kind of half-captivity. She was a very little girl, and a gendarme thought she would be crushed, and lifted her upon his shoulders, on which she was just opposite the King and Queen. She remembered, as in a picture, how on one side of them were first Madame Royale, then Madame Elizabeth, then the little Dauphin.

The cause which led to Mrs. Frewen seeing Marie Antoinette at that time was in itself very curious. She was returning from the south with her mother (Mrs. Clarke) and her grandmother. They reached Bordeaux, where they were to embark for England in a "smack." Their luggage was already on board; but, on the night before starting, the grandmother had a vivid dream that the smack was lost with all on board. In the morning she declared that nothing on earth should induce her to go in it. The daughter remonstrated vigorously about expense, but the old lady stood firm. They were able to take off their smaller things, but all their larger luggage had to be left. The smack went down on the Goodwin Sands and all was lost; so the family came to Paris.[143]

Of all the evenings I spent at Paris, the most interesting was one with the Archbishop, who kindly invited me to his old country ch?teau of Issy, once a palace of the Prince de Cond?, and very magnificent. The Archbishop, however, only inhabited the porter's lodge, and all the rest was left deserted. The Archbishop was playing at bagatelle with his chaplains when we entered, upon which he seated himself opposite to us (De Costa went with me) in an arm-chair. He was a fine old man with grey hair, dressed in cardinal's robes and crimson stockings, with the chain of a Grand Almoner of France round his neck. There was only one light in the high dark room, a lamp close to his shoulder, which threw a most picturesque light over him, like a Rembrandt portrait. He inquired about my visits to the different "religious" in Paris, and spoke regretfully of the difficulties encountered by the Pet.i.tes S?urs des Pauvres.

Then he talked to De Costa about his medical studies and about phrenology. This led him to the great Napoleon, of whose habits he gave a very curious account. He said that he believed his strange phrenological development was caused by his extraordinary way of feeding--that he never was known to take a regular meal, but that he had a spit on which a chicken was always roasting at a slow fire, and that whenever he felt inclined he took a slice. When demolished, the chicken was instantly replaced. It was the same with sleep: he never went to bed at regular hours, only when he felt sleepy. We had been warned that the Archbishop himself went to bed at nine, as he always rose at four; so at nine I got up and kissed his ring, as we always did then to the cardinals at Rome, but the kind old man insisted on coming out after us into the pa.s.sage, and seeing that we were well wrapped up in our greatcoats.

In October, Aunt Kitty (Mrs. Stanley) came for a few days to Paris, and going about with Arthur Stanley was a great pleasure.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Paris, Oct. 19, 1858._--I have been much disturbed by my dearest mother's writing twice to Aunt Kitty to urge upon me the duty of instantly deciding upon some situation. It seems so useless to make oneself miserable in the interval because situations and professions do not drop from the clouds whenever one chooses to call for them. You know how I have dreaded the return to England, simply because I knew how wearing the family onslaught would be directly I arrived, and that all peace would be at an end, and it certainly was not likely to mend matters to write to complain to the Stanleys of how grievously I had disappointed you, and that therefore I must decide instantly! If my mother will consider, she will see that it is no question of exerting oneself. I know exactly what there is to be had and what there is not, and we both know how extremely improbable it is that I could get _anything_ without some knowledge of modern languages, at least of French. This therefore is evidently the first point, and whilst one is employed all day long in struggling and striving to attain it, is it not rather hard to see letters from England about waste of time, want of effort, &c.?

"Were I to take an office in London _now_, the pay might possibly be as much as ?60 a year, without any vacation, or any hope of advance in life, and even in the most miserable lodgings it would be difficult to live in London under ?200 a year. However, if my mother hears of anything which she wishes me to take, I will certainly take it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE PONT NEUF, PARIS.[144]]

"Aunt Kitty has been very kind, and I have enjoyed going about with Arthur. Yesterday we went to the Conciergerie, where, by help of the Archbishop's letter and an order from the Pr?fecture of Police, we contrived to gain admittance. It is in the centre of Louis the Ninth's palace, of which it was once the dungeon, and has been very little altered. The room in which Marie Antoinette was confined for two months before her execution has scarcely been changed at all.

There are still the heavy barred doors, the brick floor, the cold damp smell, the crucifix which hung before the window and kneeling before which she received the viatic.u.m, the place where the bed stood, upon which the Queen could not lie down without being watched by the guards--who never took their eyes off--from the wicket opposite. Opening out of the Queen's prison is the small narrow chamber in which Robespierre was confined for one day, but where he never slept--brought there at eight, tried at eleven, executed at four. This opens into a large room, now the chapel, once the prison of Madame Elizabeth, and afterwards the place in which the Girondists held their last dreadful banquet before execution, when they sang the Ma.r.s.eillaise around the dead man on the table, and are said to have composed 'Mourir pour la Patrie.'

"To-day Arthur and I went by rail to Versailles, and took a little carriage thence to Port Royal. The country was lovely, the forest red and golden with autumnal tints. In a wooded valley, with a green lawn winding through it like a river, watered by a little brooklet, are the remains of Port Royal, the farmhouse where Racine and Pascal lived and wrote, the dovecot and fountain of M?re Ang?lique, the ruins of the church, the cemetery and cross, and 'the Solitude' where the nuns sat in solemn council around a crucifix in the middle of the woods. In the house is a collection of old pictures of the celebrities connected with the place.

Arthur, of course, peopled the whole place in imagination and description with the figures of the past, and insisted on our 'walking in procession' (of two) down the ruined church.

"We went on to Dampierre, a fine old ch?teau of the Duc de Luynes, with green drives and avenues; and then to Chevreuse, where we climbed up the hill to the ruined castle with machicolated towers and a wide view over the orange-coloured woods, where the famous Madame de Chevreuse lived."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PORT ROYAL.[145]]

"_Nov. 8._--The cold is almost insupportable! Parisians are so accustomed to their horrible climate, that Madame Barraud cannot understand my feeling it, and I have great difficulty in getting even the one little fire we have, and am occupied all day in shutting the doors, which every one else makes a point of leaving open. Madame Barraud describes her own character exactly when she stands in the middle of the room and says with a tragic voice, 'Je suis juste, Monsieur, je suis bonne; mais, Monsieur, je suis _s?v?re_!' She is excellent and generous on all great occasions, but I never knew any one who had such a power of making people uncomfortable by petty grievances and incessant fidgetting. Though she will give me fifty times more food than I wish, nothing on earth would induce her to light the fire in my bedroom, even in the most ferocious weather, because it is not '_son habitude_'. 'La bonne Providence m'a donn? un caract?re,' she said the other day, recounting her history. 'Avec ce caract?re j'ai fait un mariage de convenance avec M. Barraud: avec ce caract?re, ?tant veuve, j'ai pris ma pet.i.te fille de douze ans, et je suis venue ? Paris pour faire jouer son talent: avec ce caract?re, quand les fils de mon mari m'ont fait des mauvaises tourn?es, je n'ai rien dit, mais je les ai quitt?s pour toujours, parceque je n'ai pas voulu voir le nom de mon mari para?tre dans des querelles: je suis bonne, Monsieur, je suis juste, c'est ma nature; mais, Monsieur, je suis _s?v?re_; et je ne les reverrais _jamais_.' Just now she is possessed with the idea--solely based upon her having a new pair of shoes--that Marie, the maid, certainly has a lover concealed somewhere, and she constantly goes to look for him under the kitchen-table, in the cupboard, &c. She hangs up the chicken or goose for the next day's dinner in the little pa.s.sage leading to my room, and in the middle of the night I hear stealthy footsteps, and a murmur of 'Oh, qu'il est gras! Oh, qu'il sera d?licieux!' as she pats it and feels it all over."