(Madame d’Arblay to Miss Planta.) Camilla Cottage, Westhamble, February 11, 1802. A most unexpected, and, to me, severe event, draws from me now an account I had hoped to have reserved for a far happier communication, but which I must beg you to endeavour to seek some leisure moment for making known, with the utmost humility, to my royal mistress. . . .
Upon the total failure of every effort M. d’Arblay could make to recover any part of his natural inheritance, he was advised by his friends to apply to the French government for half pay, upon the claims of his former military services. He drew up a memoir, openly stating his attachment and loyalty to his late king, and appealing for this justice after undeserved proscription. His right was admitted, but he was informed it could only be made good by his re-entering the army; and a proposal to that effect was sent him by Berthier, the minister of war.
The disturbance of his mind at an offer which so many existing circumstances forbade his foreseeing, was indescribable. He had purposed faithfully retiring to his hermitage, with his fellow-hermit, for the remainder of his life: and nothing upon earth could ever induce him to bear arms against the country which had given him asylum, as well as birth to his wife and child; — and yet a military spirit of honour, born and bred in him, made it repugnant to all his feelings to demand even retribution from the government of his own country, yet refuse to serve it. Finally, therefore, he resolved to accept the offer conditionally — to accompany the expedition to St. Domingo, for the restoration of order in the French colonies, and then, restored thus to his rank in the army, to claim his retraite. This he declared to the minister of war, annexing a further clause of receiving his instructions immediately from the government.
The minister’s answer to this was, that these conditions were impossible. Relieved rather than resigned-though dejected to find himself thus thrown out of every promise of prosperity, M. d’Arblay hastened back to his cottage, to the inexpressible satisfaction of the- recluse he had left there. short, however, has been its duration! A packet has just followed him, containing a letter from Berthier, to tell him that his appointment was made out according to his own demands! and Page 205 enclosing another letter to the commander-in-chief, Leclerc, with the orders of government for employing him, delivered in terms, the most distinguished, of his professional character.
All hesitation, therefore, now necessarily ends, and nothing remains for M. d’Arblay but acquiescence and despatch, — while his best consolation is in the assurance he has universally received, that this expedition has the good wishes and sanction of England. And, to avert any misconception or misrepresentation, he has this day delivered to M. Otto(167) a letter, addressed immediately to the first Consul, acknowledging the flattering manner in which he has been called forth, but decidedly and clearly repeating what he had already declared to the war minister, that though he would faithfully fulfil the engagement into which he was entering, it was his unalterable resolution never to take up arms against the British government.
I presume to hope this little detail may, at some convenient moment, meet her majesty’s eyes-with every expression of my profoundest devotion.
M. D’ARBLAY’s DISAPPOINTMENT.
(Madame d’Arblay to M. d’Arblay.) Westhamble, March 14, 1802. O my dearest friend,- Can the intelligence I have most desired come to me in a form that forbids my joy at it? What tumultuous sensations your letter of the 8th has raised!(168) Alas! that to relinquish this purpose should to you be as great unhappiness as to me was its suggestion! I know not how to enter upon the subject — how to express a single feeling. I fear to seem ungrateful to providence, or to you ungenerous. I will only, therefore, say, that as all your motives have been the most strictly honourable, it is not possible they should not, ultimately, have justice done them by all.
That I feel for your disappointment I need not tell you, when you find it has power to shake to its foundation what would else be the purest satisfaction of my soul. Let us — let us hope fairer days will ensue and do not let the courage which was so prompt to support you to St. Domingo fail you in remaining at Paris.
What you say of the year’s probation I knew not before. Would you have me make any inquiry if it be irreversible?’ I should think not; and am most ready and eager to try by every means in my power, if you will authorize me. If not, to follow you, whithersoever you will, is much less my duty than my delight! You have only to dictate whither, and how, and every doubt, every fear, every difficulty, will give way to my eager desire to bring your little boy to you. Would I not have left even Kin to have followed you and your fate even to St. Domingo? ’Tis well, however, you did not listen to me, for that poor little susceptible soul could not, as yet lose us both at once, and be preserved himself He has lived’ so singularly alone with us, and for us, that he does not dream of any possible existence in which we should be both separated from him.
But of him — our retreat — our books — our scribbling — our garden — our unique mode of life — I must not talk to you now, now that your mind, thoughts, views, and wishes are all distorted from themes of peace, domestic life, and literary pursuits; yet time, I hope, reflection, your natural philosophy of accommodating yourself to your fate, and your kindness for those who are wholly devoted to you, will bring you back to the love of those scenes, modes, and sentiments, which for upwards of eight years have sufficed for our mutual happiness.
I had been negotiating for apartments at Twickenham, opposite Richmond, ever since you went, and on Friday I wrote to close with the engagement. This very morning I have two letters, full of delight at our approaching neighbourhood. Miss C.(169) herself writes in tears, she says, of joy, that I should be so near her, and that you should have wished it, and blesses you for your confidence in her warm friendship. It is quite impossible to read of such affection and zeal and goodness with dry eyes. I am confounded how to disenchant her — yet so generous and disinterested she is, that, however disappointed, she will be sure to rejoice for me in our re-union; for you, my dearest friend! ah! who can rejoice? Your mind was all made up to the return of its professional pursuits, and I am frightened out of all my own satisfaction by MY dread of the weight of this chagrin upon your spirits. What you can do to avert depression,, that cruel underminer of every faculty that makes life worth sustaining, I beseech you to call forth. Think how I have worked for fortitude since Feb. 11th. Alas! vainly I have tried what most I wished — my poor pen! — but now “occupe-toi pour raliser l’esprance.” Those words will operate like magic, I trust; and I will not close my eyes this night till I have committed to paper some opening to a new essay. Be good, then, and don’t let me be as unhappy this way as I have been the other. Direct always to me, Norbury Park, Dorking. Heaven bless — bless you
[Here follows, in the original edition, another letter in French, from M. d’Arblay to his wife. We translate the following passage.-ED.
“At Ventose, year 10, (March 12, 1802). “You have doubtless communicated to our friends at Norbury Park, the letters which I have sent you. Did I tell you that I sent a copy of those letters to M. de Lafayette?(170) M. de Lafayette came at once to Paris, and requested an interview with Bonaparte, who granted it immediately. Addressing him, M. de Lafayette said, ‘ I have come to speak to you of one of my friends and companions — d’Arblay.’ ‘I know that business,’ said the first Consul, in a tone which expressed more good-will than I ventured to hope for, at least, more than I had been given reason to expect. ‘I assure you,’ said M. de Lafayette to me, the next day, ‘you have some good friends with the first Consul, who had already spoken to him on your business. He seemed to me, from the first instant, rather disposed in your favour than angry with you. . . . When I told him of your fear lest this business should have excited his displeasure, he replied positively, that it should do you no injury whatever, and that he would regard, in the step you had taken, only the husband of Cecilia.’
“I hope you will not be very displeased at the way this business, which has caused
me much vexation, has terminated. I think I may even add, in confidence, that I am, perhaps, not without a near prospect of getting my retiring pension. Come to me, then, my dearest. Page 208
ON THE EVE OF MADAME D’ARBLAY’S JOURNEY To FRANCE.
(Madame d’Arblay to Doctor Burney.) March 30, 1802. Now, indeed, my dearest father, I am in an excess of hurry not to be exceeded by even any of yours. I have a letter from M. d’Arblay, to tell me he has already taken us an apartment, and he dates from the 5th of April, in Paris, where he has reasons for remaining some time, before we go to his good uncle, at Joigny. I am to take the little sweet child with me you saw here one day, Mlle. de Chavagnac, whose father, le Comte de Chavagnac, has desired her restoration. My kind Mrs: Locke is almost in affliction at parting with her though glad of an opportunity of sending her with friends the poor thing knows and loves. I fear, I have so very much to do here, that I shall have a very, very short enjoyment of my beloved father at Chelsea but I shall get there as soon as possible, and stay there to my last moment. I have a thousand things, and very curious ones, to tell you; but I must defer them for vive voix. I am really bewildered and almost trembling with hurry, and with what I am going to undertake! Yet through all, i bless God every moment of my life that M. d’Arblay went not to that pestilential climate I do all — all I can to keep up my courage — or rather to make up; and when I feel faltering, I think of St Domingo! Every body that knows St Domingo now owns that he had hardly a chance for safety, independent of tempests in the voyage, and massacres in the mountains. May I but be able to console him for all he has sacrificed to my peace and happiness! and no privation will be severe, so that at our stated period, Michaelmas twelvemonth, we return to my country, and to my dearest father, whom heaven bless and preserve, prays his dutiful, affectionate and grateful, and devoted daughter, F. d’A.
DIARY: (Addressed to Dr. Burney).
IN FRANCE DURING THE PEACE AND SUBSEQUENTLY.
April, 1802-I seize, at length, upon the largest paper I can procure, to begin to my beloved father some account of our journey, and if I am able, I mean to keep him a brief Page 209 journal of my proceedings during this destined year or eighteen months’ separation,-secure of his kindest interest in all that I may have to relate, and certain he will be anxious to know how I go on in a strange land : ’tis my only way now of communicating with him, and I must draw from it one of my dearest worldly comforts, the hopes of seeing his loved hand with some return.
April 15.-William and John conducted my little boy and me in excellent time to the inn in Piccadilly, where we met my kind Mrs. Locke and dear little Adrienne de Chavagnac. The parting there was brief and hurried; and I set off on my grand expedition, with my two dear young charges, exactly at five o’clock. . . .
Paris, April 15, 1802.-The book-keeper came to me eagerly, crying “vite, vite, madame, prenez votre place dans la diligence, car voici un Monsieur Anglais, qui surement va prendre la meileure!” En effet, ce Monsieur Anglais did not disappoint his expectations, or much raise mine - for he not only took the best place, but contrived to ameliorate it by the little scruple with which he made every other worse, from the unbridled expansion in which he indulged his dear person, by putting out his elbows against his next, and his knees and feet against his opposite neighbour. He seemed prepared to look upon all around-him with a sort of sulky haughtiness, pompously announcing himself as a commander of distinction who had long served at Gibraltar and various places, who had travelled thence through France, and from France to Italy, who was a native of Scotland, and -of proud, though unnamed genealogy ‘; and was now going to Paris purposely to behold the first Consul, to whom he meant to claim an introduction through Mr. Jackson. His burnt complexion, Scotch accent, large bony face and figure, and high and distant demeanour, made me easily conceive and believe him a highland chief. I never heard his name, but I think him a gentleman born, though not gently bred. Page 210
The next to mention is a Madame Raymond or Grammont, for I heard not distinctly which, who seemed very much a gentlewoman, and who was returning to France, too uncertain of the state of her affairs to know whether she might rest there or not. She had only one defect to prevent my taking much interest in her; this was, not merely an avoidance, but a horror of being touched by either of my children; who, poor little souls, restless and fatigued by the confinement they endured, both tried to fling themselves upon every passenger in turn; and though by every one they were sent back to their sole prop, they were by no one repulsed with such hasty displeasure as by this old lady, who seemed as fearful of having the petticoat of her gown, which was stiff, round, and bulging, as if lined with parchment, deranged, as if she had been attired in a hoop for Court.
The third person was a Madame Blaizeau, who seemed an exceeding good sort of a woman, gay, voluble, good humoured, and merry. All we had of amusement sprung from her sallies, which were uttered less from a desire of pleasing others, her very natural character having none of the high polish bestowed by the Graces, than from a jovial spirit of enjoyment which made them produce pleasure to herself. She soon and frankly acquainted us she had left France to be a governess to some young ladies before the Revolution, and under the patronage, as I think, of the Duke of Dorset - she had been courted, she told us, by an English gentleman farmer, but he would not change his religion for her, nor she for him, and so, when every thing was bought for her wedding, they broke off the connexion; and she afterwards married a Frenchman. She had seen a portrait, set richly in diamonds, of the king, prepared for a present to the first Consul; and described its superb ornaments and magnificence, in a way to leave no doubt of the fact. She meant to stop at St. Denis, to inquire if her mother yet lived, having received no intelligence from or of her, these last ten eventful years!
At Canterbury, while the horses were changed, my little ones and I went to the cathedral; but dared merely seize sufficient time to view the outside and enter the principal aisle. I was glad even of that much, as its antique grandeur gave me a pleasure which I always love to cherish in the view of fine old cathedrals, those most permanent monuments Of what our ancestors thought reverence to God, as manifested in munificence to the place dedicated to his worship. Page 211
At Dover we had a kind of dinner-supper in one, and my little boy and girl and I retired immediately after it, took some tea in our chamber, and went to rest.
April 16.-As we were not to sail till twelve, I had hoped to have seen the castle and Shakspeare’s cliff, but most unfortunately it rained all the morning, and we were confined to the inn, except for the interlude of the custom-house, where, however, the examination was so slight, and made with such civility, that we had no other trouble with it than a wet walk and a few shillings. Our passports were examined; and we then ‘ went to the port, and, the sea being perfectly smooth, were lifted from the quay to the deck of our vessel with as little difficulty as we could have descended from a common chair to the ground.
ARRIVAL AT CALAIS.
The calm which caused our slow passage and our sickness, was now favourable, for it took us into the port of Calais so close and even with the quay, that we scarcely accepted even a hand to aid us from the vessel to the shore.
The quay was lined with crowds of people, men, women, and children, and certain amphibious females, who might have passed for either sex, or anything else in the world, except what they really were, European women! Their men’s hats, men’s jackets, and men’s shoes - their burnt skins, and most savage-looking petticoats, hardly reaching, nay, not reaching their knees, would have made me instantly believe any account I could have heard of their being just imported from the wilds of America.
The vessel was presently filled with men, who, though dirty and mean, were so civil and gentle, that they could not displease, and who entered it so softly and quietly, that, neither hearing nor seeing their approach, it seemed as if they had availed themselves of some secret trap-doors through which they had mounted to fill the ship, without sound or bustle,
in a single moment. When we were quitting it, however, this tranquillity as abruptly finished, for in an instant a part of them rushed round me, one demanding to carry Alex, another Adrienne, another seizing my critoire, another my arm, and some one, I fear, my parasol, as I have never been able to find it since.
We were informed we must not leave the ship till Monsieur le commissaire arrived to carry us, I think, to the Municipality of Calais to show our passports. Monsieur le commisSaire in white with some red trappings, soon arrived, civilly hastening himself quite out of breath to save us from waiting’ We then mounted the quay, and I followed the rest of the passengers, who all followed the commissary, accompanied by two men carrying the two children, and two more carrying one my critoire, and the other insisting on conducting its owner. The quantity of people that surrounded and walked with us, surprised me; and their decency, their silence their quietness astonished me. To fear them was impossible: even in entering France with all the formed fears hanging upon its recent though past horrors. But on coming to the municipality, I was, I own, extremely ill at ease, when upon our gouvernante’s desiring me to give the commissary my passport, as the rest of the passengers had done, and my answering it was in my critoire, she exclaimed, “Vite! Vite! cherchez-le, ou vous serez arrte!”(172) You may be sure I was quick enough, or at least tried to be so, for my fingers presently trembled, and I could hardly put in the key.
In the hall to which we now repaired, our passports were taken and deposited, and we had new ones drawn up and given us in their stead. On quitting this place we were accosted by a new crowd, all however as gentle, though not as silent, as our first friends, who recommended various hotels to us, one begging we would go to Grandsire, another to Duroc, another to Meurice — and this last prevailed with the gouvernante, whom I regularly followed, not from preference, but from the singular horror my otherwise worthy and wellbred old lady manifested, when, by being approached by the children, her full round coats risked the danger of being modernised into the flimsy, falling drapery of the present day.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 644