Complete Novels of Maria Edgeworth

by Maria Edgeworth

  Next comes Camille Jordan, with great eloquence of pen, not of tongue; [Footnote: Orator and statesman, 1771-1821.] and M. de Prony, a great mathematician, of whom you don’t care to know more, but you would if you heard him.

  Who comes next? Madame Campan, mistress of the first boarding-school here, who educated Madame Louis Buonaparte, and who professes to keep her pupils entirely separate from servants, according to Practical Education, and who paid us many compliments. Teaches drawing in a manner superior to anything I had any idea of in English schools: she gave me a drawing in a gilt frame, which I shall show to you. At Madame Campan’s, as my father told you, we met the beautiful Madame Recamier, and at her dinner we met the most fashionable tragic and comic poet, and the richest man in Paris sat beside Charlotte. We went to the Opera with Madame Recamier, who produces a great sensation whenever she appears in public. She is certainly handsome, very handsome, but there is much of the magic of fashion in the enthusiasm she creates.

  There is a Russian Princess here, who is always carried in and out of her carriage by two giant footmen, and a Russian Prince, who is so rich that he is never able to spend his fortune, and asks advice how he shall do it. He never thinks, it seems, of giving it away.

  Who comes next? Kosciusko, [Footnote: The Polish patriot and leader, 1756-1817.] cured of his wounds, simple in his manners, like all truly great men. We met him at the house of a Polish Countess, whose name I cannot spell.

  Who comes next? M. de Leuze, who translated the Botanic Garden as well as it could be translated into Fénelon prose; and M. and Madame de Vindé, who have a superb gallery of paintings, and the best concerts in Paris, and a library of eighteen thousand volumes well counted and well arranged; and what charms me more than either the books or the pictures, a little grand-daughter of three years old, very like my sweet Fanny, with stockings exactly the same as those Aunt Mary knitted for her, and listing shoes precisely like what Fanny used to wear: she sat on my knee, and caressed me with her soft, warm little hands, and looked at me with her smiling intelligent eyes.

  Dec. 3. Here I am at the brink of the last page, and I have said nothing of the Apollo, the Invalides, or Les Sourds et Muets. What shall I do? I cannot speak of everything at once, and when I speak to you so many things crowd upon my mind.

  Here, my dear aunt, I was interrupted in a manner that will surprise you as much as it surprised me, by the coming in of Monsieur Edelcrantz, a Swedish gentleman, whom we have mentioned to you, of superior understanding and mild manners: he came to offer me his hand and heart!!

  My heart, you may suppose, cannot return his attachment, for I have seen but very little of him, and have not had time to have formed any judgment, except that I think nothing could tempt me to leave my own dear friends and my own country to live in Sweden.

  My dearest aunt, I write to you the first moment, as next to my father and mother no person in the world feels so much interest in all that concerns me. I need not tell you that my father,

  Such in this moment as in all the past,

  is kindness itself; kindness far superior to what I deserve, but I am grateful for it.

  To MISS SOPHY RUXTON. PARIS, RUE DE LILLE, No. 525, Dec. 8, 1802.

  I take it for granted, my dear friend, that you have by this time seen a letter I wrote a few days ago to my aunt. To you, as to her, every thought of my mind is open. I persist in refusing to leave my country and my friends to live at the Court of Stockholm, and he tells me (of course) that there is nothing he would not sacrifice for me except his duty: he has been all his life in the service of the King of Sweden, has places under him, and is actually employed in collecting information for a large political establishment. He thinks himself bound in honour to finish what he has begun. He says he should not fear the ridicule or blame that would be thrown upon him by his countrymen for quitting his country at his age, but that he should despise himself if he abandoned his duty for any passion. This is all very reasonable, but reasonable for him only, not for me; and I have never felt anything for him but esteem and gratitude.

  * * * * *

  Mrs. Edgeworth, however, writes:

  * * * * *

  Maria was mistaken as to her own feelings. She refused M. Edelcrantz, but she felt much more for him than esteem and admiration; she was exceedingly in love with him. Mr. Edgeworth left her to decide for herself; but she saw too plainly what it would be to us to lose her, and what she would feel at parting from us. She decided rightly for her own future happiness and for that of her family, but she suffered much at the time and long afterwards. While we were at Paris, I remember that in a shop where Charlotte and I were making some purchases, Maria sat apart absorbed in thought, and so deep in reverie, that when her father came in and stood opposite to her she did not see him till he spoke to her, when she started and burst into tears. She was grieved by his look of tender anxiety, and she afterwards exerted herself to join in society, and to take advantage of all that was agreeable during our stay in France and on our journey home, but it was often a most painful effort to her. And even after her return to Edgeworthstown, it was long before she recovered the elasticity of her mind. She exerted all her powers of self-command, and turned her attention to everything which her father suggested for her to write. But Leonora, which she began immediately after our return home, was written with the hope of pleasing the Chevalier Edelcrantz; it was written in a style which he liked, and the idea of what he would think of it was, I believe, present to her in every page she wrote. She never heard that he had even read it. From the time they parted at Paris there was no sort of communication between them, and beyond the chance which brought us sometimes into company with travellers who had been in Sweden, or the casual mention of M. Edelcrantz in the newspapers or scientific journals, we never heard more of one who had been of such supreme interest to her, and to us all at Paris, and of whom Maria continued to have all her life the most romantic recollection. I do not think she repented of her refusal, or regretted her decision; she was well aware that she could not have made him happy, that she would not have suited his position at the Court of Stockholm, and that her want of beauty might have diminished his attachment. It was better perhaps that she should think so, as it calmed her mind, but from what I saw of M. Edelcrantz I think he was a man capable of really valuing her. I believe that he was much attached to her, and deeply mortified at her refusal. He continued to reside in Sweden after the abdication of his master, and was always distinguished for his high character and great abilities. He never married. He was, except very fine eyes, remarkably plain. Her father rallied Maria about her preference of so ugly a man; but she liked the expression of his countenance, the spirit and strength of his character, and his very able conversation. The unexpected mention of his name, or even that of Sweden, in a book or a newspaper, always moved her so much that the words and lines in the page became a mass of confusion before her eyes, and her voice lost all power.

  I think it right to mention these facts, because I know that the lessons of self-command which she inculcates in her works were really acted upon in her own life, and that the resolution with which she devoted herself to her father and her family, and the industry with which she laboured at the writings which she thought were for the advantage of her fellow-creatures, were from the exertion of the highest principle. Her precepts were not the maxims of cold-hearted prudence, but the result of her own experience in strong and romantic feeling. By what accident it happened that she had, long before she ever saw the Chevalier Edelcrantz, chosen Sweden for the scene of The Knapsack I do not know, but I remember his expressing his admiration of that beautiful little piece, and his pleasure in the fine characters of the Swedish gentleman and peasants.

  CHARLOTTE EDGEWORTH to MRS. CHARLOTTE SNEYD. RUE DE LILLE, CHEZ LE CITOYEN VERBER, Dec. 8, 1802.

  MY DEAR AUNT CHARLOTTE — One of the great objects of a visit to Paris was, you know, to see Buonaparte; the review is, as you see by the papers, over, and my father has not spoken
to the great man — no, he did not wish it. All of our distant friends will be I am afraid disappointed, but some here think that my father’s refusal to be presented to him shows a proper pride. All the reasons for this mode of conduct will serve perhaps for debate, certainly for conversation when we return.

  Madame Suard says that those societies are most agreeable where there are fewest women: if there were not women superior to her I should not hesitate to assent to her proposition, and I should with pleasure read Madame de Staël’s book called Le Malheur d’être femme. If, on the contrary, all women were Madame de Pastorets, or Madame Delesserts, or Madame Gautiers, I think I should take up the book with the intention not to be convinced.

  Some of the most horrible revolutionists were the most skilled in the sciences, and are held in the utmost detestation by numbers of sensible men who admire their ingenuity and talents. We saw one of these, a teacher at one of the chief Academies, and my father, who was standing near him, heard him, after having been talking on several most amusing and interesting subjects, give one of the deepest sighs he ever heard.

  The Abbé de Lille reads poetry particularly well, his own verses in a superior manner: we heard him, and were extremely pleased. He is very old, and so blind that his wife, whom he calls “Mon Antigone,” is obliged to lead him.

  As you may suppose, we go as often as we can to the Gallery. I thank my dear Aunt Mary for thinking of the pleasure I should have in seeing the Venus de Medicis; she has not yet arrived, but I have seen the Apollo, who did surprise me! On our way here we had seen many casts of him, and I have seen with you some prints: I could not have believed that there could have been so much difference between a copy and the original.

  10th. You see I am often interrupted. I will introduce you to our company last night at the Delesserts’. All soirées here begin at nine o’clock.

  “Madame Edgeworth” is announced: — room full without being crowded — enough light and warmth. M. Delessert père at a card-table with a gentleman who is a partner in his bank, and an elderly lady. There is a warm corner in the room, which is always large enough to contain Madame Delessert and two or three ladies and gentlemen. Madame Delessert advances to receive Madame Edgeworth, and invites her to sit beside her with many kind words and looks. Madame Gautier expresses her joy at seeing us. Now we are seated. M. Benjamin Delessert advances with his bow to the ladies. Madame Gautier, my father, and Maria, get together. M. Pictet, nephew to our dear Pictet, makes his bow and adds a few words to each. “Mademoiselle Charlotte,” says Madame Delessert to me, “I was just speaking of you.” I forget now what she had been saying, I have only the agreeable idea. Madame Grivel enters, a clever, good-natured little woman, wife to the partner who is at cards. Enter M. François Delessert and another gentleman. How the company divides and changes itself I am not at present supposed to know, for young M. Pictet has seated himself between my mother and me, and has a long conversation with me, in which Madame Grivel now and then joins: she is on the other side of me. Mademoiselle Lullin, our friend Pictet’s sister, and his and her virtues are discussed. Physics and meta-physics ensue; harmony, astonishing power of chords in music, glass broken by vibration, dreams, Spain — its manners and government. Young M. Pictet has been there: people there have little to do, because their wants are easily supplied.

  Here come tea and cakes, sweetmeats, grapes, cream, and all the goods of life. The lady who was playing at cards now came and sat beside me, amusing me for a long time with a conversation on — what do you think? — Politics and the state of France! M. François repeats some good lines very well. Laughter and merriment. Now we are obliged to go, and with much sorrow we part.

  I see I never told you that we saw the Review, and we saw a man on a white horse ride down the ranks; we saw that he was a little man with a pale face, who seemed very attentive to what he was about, and this was all we saw of Buonaparte.

  MARIA EDGEWORTH to MISS SOPHY RUXTON. PARIS, Dec. 1802.

  I add to the list of remarkables and agreeables the Count and Countess de Segur, father and mother to our well-bred translator; [Footnote: Of Belinda] she a beautiful grandmother, he a nobleman of the old school, who adds to agreeable manners a great deal of elegant literature. Malouet, the amiable and able councillor of the King, must also be added to your list: we met him yesterday, a fine countenance and simple manners; he conversed freely with my father, not at all afraid of committing himself. In general I do not see that prodigious fear of committing themselves, which makes the company of some English men of letters and reputation irksome even to their admirers. Mr. Palmer, the great man of taste, who has lived for many years in Italy, is here, and is very much provoked that the French can now see all the pictures and statues he has been admiring, without stirring out of Paris. The Louvre is now so crowded with pictures, that many of them are seen to disadvantage. The Domenichino, my Aunt Ruxton’s favourite, is not at present visible. Several of the finest pictures are, as they say, sick, and the physicians are busy restoring them to health and beauty. May they not mar instead of mending! A Raphael which has just come out of their hospital has the eyes of a very odd sort of modern blue. The Transfiguration is now in a state of convalescence; it has not yet made its appearance in public, but we were admitted into the sick-room.

  Half Paris is now stark mad about a picture by Guérin of Phèdre and

  Hippolyte, which they actually think equal to Raphael.

  Of the public buildings Les Invalides appears to me the finest; here are all the flags and standards used in battle, or won from foreign nations, — a long-drawn aisle of glory that must create ambition in the rising generation of military in France. We saw here a little boy of nine years old with his tutor, looking at Turenne’s monument, which has been placed with great taste, alone, with the single word TURENNE upon the sarcophagus. My father spoke to the little boy and his tutor, who told him he had come to look at a picture in which the heroic action of one of the boy’s ancestors is portrayed. We went into the hospital library, and found a circle of old soldiers, sitting round a stove all reading most comfortably. It was a very pleasing and touching sight. One who had lost both his hands, and who had iron hooks at the end of his wrists, was sitting at a table reading Télémaque with great attention; he turned over the leaves with these hooks.

  My aunt asks me what I think of French society? All I have seen of it I like extremely, but we hear from all sides that we see only the best of Paris, — the men of literature and the ancienne noblesse. Les nouveaux riches are quite a different set. My father has seen something of them at Madame Tallien’s (now Cabarus), and was disgusted. Madame Recamier is of quite an opposite sort, though in the first fashion, a graceful and decent beauty of excellent character. Madame de Souza, the Portuguese Ambassadress, is a pretty and pleasing woman, authoress of Adèle de Senanges, which she wrote in England. Her friends always proclaim her title as author before her other titles, and I thought her a pleasing woman before I was told that she had pronounced at Madame Lavoisier’s an eloquent eulogium on Belinda. I have never heard any person talk of dress or fashions since we came to Paris, and very little scandal. A scandalmonger would be starved here. The conversation frequently turns on the new petites pièces and little novels which come out every day, and are talked of for a few days with as much eagerness as a new fashion in other places. They also talk a vast deal about the little essays of criticism. In yesterday’s Journal des Débats, after a flaming panegyric on Buonaparte, “Et après avoir parlé de l’univers de qui peut-on parler? Des plus grandes des Poètes — de Racine”: then follows a criticism on Phèdre.

  We saw the grand Review the day before yesterday from a window that looked out on the court of the Louvre and Place de Carousal. Buonaparte rode down the lines on a fine white Spanish horse. Took off his hat to salute various generals, and gave us a full view of his pale, thin, woebegone countenance. He is very little, but much at ease on horseback: it is said he never appears to so much advantage as on horseback.
There were about six thousand troops, a fine show, well appointed, and some, but not all, well mounted. On those who had distinguished themselves in the battle of Marengo all eyes were fixed. While I was looking out of the window a gentleman came in who had passed many years in Spain: he began to talk to me about Madrid, and when he heard my name, he said a Spanish lady is translating Practical Education from the French. She understands English, and he gave us her address that we may send a copy of the book to her.

  Mr. Knox, who was presented to Buonaparte, and who saw all the wonderful presentations, says that it was a huddled business, all the world received in a very small room. Buonaparte spoke more to officers than to any one else, affected to be gracious to the English. He said, “L’Angleterre est une grande nation, aussi bien que la France, il faut que nous soyons amis!” Great men’s words, like little men’s dreams, are sometimes to be interpreted by the rule of contraries.

  To MRS. MARY SNEYD. PARIS, Jan. 10, 1803.

  Siècle réparateur, as Monge has christened this century.

  I will give you a journal of yesterday: I know you love journals. Got up and put on our shoes and stockings and cambric muslin gowns, which are in high esteem here, fur-tippets and fur-clogs, — GOD bless Aunt Mary and Aunt Charlotte for them, — and were in coach by nine o’clock, drove to the excellent Abbé Morellet’s, where we were invited to breakfast to meet Madame d’Ouditot, the lady who inspired Rousseau with the idea of Julie. Julie is now seventy-two years of age, a thin woman in a little black bonnet: she appeared to me shockingly ugly; she squints so much that it is impossible to tell which way she is looking; but no sooner did I hear her speak, than I began to like her; and no sooner was I seated beside her, than I began to find in her countenance a most benevolent and agreeable expression. She entered into conversation immediately: her manner invited and could not fail to obtain confidence. She seems as gay and open-hearted as a girl of fifteen. It has been said of her that she not only never did any harm, but never suspected any. She is possessed of that art which Lord Kames said he would prefer to the finest gift from the queen of the fairies, — the art of seizing the best side of every object. She has had great misfortunes, but she has still retained the power of making herself and her friends happy. Even during the horrors of the Revolution, if she met with a flower, a butterfly, an agreeable smell, a pretty colour, she would turn her attention to these, and for the moment suspend her sense of misery, not from frivolity, but from real philosophy. No one has exerted themselves with more energy in the service of her friends. I felt in her company the delightful influence of a cheerful temper, and soft attractive manners, — enthusiasm which age cannot extinguish, and which spends but does not waste itself on small but not trifling objects. I wish I could at seventy-two be such a woman! She told me that Rousseau, whilst he was writing so finely on education, and leaving his own children in the Foundling Hospital, defended himself with so much eloquence that even those who blamed him in their hearts, could not find tongues to answer him. Once at dinner, at Madame d’Ouditot’s, there was a fine pyramid of fruit. Rousseau in helping himself took the peach which formed the base of the pyramid, and the rest fell immediately. “Rousseau,” said she, “that is what you always do with all our systems; you pull down with a single touch, but who will build up what you pull down?” I asked if he was grateful for all the kindness shown to him? “No, he was ungrateful: he had a thousand bad qualities, but I turned my attention from them to his genius and the good he had done mankind.”