The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1

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After church a visit to Madame de Pastoret. Oh, my dear mother, think of
my finding her in that very boudoir, everything the same! Fanny and
Harriet were delighted with the beauty of the house till they saw her,
and then nothing could be thought of but her manner and conversation.
They are even more charmed with her than I expected: she is little
changed.

After a ball at the Polish Countess Orlowski's (the woman who is charmed
with _Early Lessons_, etc.), where Fanny and Harriet were delighted with
the children's dancing--they waltzed like angels, if angels waltz--after
this ball I went with the Count and Countess de Salis and La Baronne--I
was told that the first time it must be without my sisters--to the
Duchesse d'Escars, who _receives_ for the King at the Tuileries:
mounting a staircase of one hundred and forty steps. I thought the
Count's knees would have failed while I leaned on his arm; my own ached.
A long gallery, well lighted, opened into a suite of _little_ low
apartments, most beautifully hung, some with silk and some with
cashmere, some with tent drapery, with end ottomans, and lamps in
profusion. These rooms, with busts and pictures of kings, swarmed with
old nobility, with historic names, stars, red ribbons, and silver bells
at their button-holes: ladies in little white satin hats and _toques_,
with a profusion of ostrich or, still better, _marabout_ powder-puff
feathers; and the roofs were too low for such lofty heads.

After a most fatiguing morning at all the impertinent and pertinent
dressmakers and milliners, we finished by the dear delight of dining
with Madame Gautier at Passy. The drive there was delicious: we found
her with her Sophie, now a matron mother with her Caroline, like what
Madame Gautier and her Sophie were in that very room eighteen years ago.
All the Delessert family that remain were assembled except Benjamin, who
was detained by business in Paris. Madame Benjamin is very handsome,
nearer the style of Mrs. Admiral Pakenham than anybody I know; Francois
the same as you saw him, only with the additional crow's-feet of
eighteen years, sobered into a husband and father, the happiest I ever
saw in France. They have three houses, and the whole three terraces form
one long pleasure-ground. Judas-tree, like a Brobdingnag almond-tree,
was in full flower; lilacs and laburnums in abundance. Alexandre
Delessert takes after the father--good, sensible, commercial
conversation. He made a panegyric on the Jews of Hamburgh, who received
him at their houses with the utmost politeness and liberality. This was
_a propos_ of Walter Scott's Jewess, and, vanity must add, my own Jew
and Jewess, who came in for more than their due share.

Bank-notes were talked of: Francois tells me that the forging of
bank-notes is almost unknown at Paris: the very best artists--my
father's plan--are employed.

Tuesday we were at the Louvre: many fine pictures left. Dined at home:
in the evening to Madame de Pastoret's, to meet the Duchesse de Broglie:
very handsome, little, with large soft dark eyes: simple dress, winning
manner, soft Pastoret conversation: speaks English better than any
foreigner I ever heard: not only gracious, but quite _tender_ to me.

After Madame de Pastoret's we went to the Ambassador's and were received
in the most distinguished manner. We saw crowds of fine people and
conversed with Talleyrand, but he said nought worth hearing.

_May 20._

Paris is wonderfully embellished since we were here in 1803. Fanny and
Harriet are quite enchanted with the beauty of the Champs Elysees and
the Tuileries gardens: the trees are out in full leaf, and the deep
shade under them is delightful. I had never seen Paris in summer, so I
enjoy the novelty. Some of our happiest time is spent in driving about
in the morning, or returning at night by lamp or moonlight.

Lady Elizabeth Stuart has been most peculiarly civil to "Madame Maria
Edgeworth et Mesdemoiselles ses soeurs," which is the form on our
visiting tickets, as I was advised it should be. The Ambassador's hotel
is the same which Lord Whitworth had, which afterwards belonged to the
Princess Borghese. It is delightful! opening into a lawn-garden, with
terraces and conservatories, and a profusion of flowers and shrubs. The
dinner was splendid, but not formal; and nobody can _represent_ better
than Lady Elizabeth. She asked us to go with her and Mrs. Canning to the
opera, but we were engaged to Madame Recamier; and as she is no longer
rich and prosperous, I could not break the engagement.

We went to Madame Recamier's, in her convent--L'Abbaye aux Bois, up
seventy-eight steps; all came in with the asthma: elegant room, and she
as elegant as ever. Matthieu de Montmorenci, the ex-Queen of Sweden,
Madame de Boigne--a charming woman, and Madame la Marechale de Moreau--a
battered beauty, smelling of garlic, and screeching in vain to pass for
a wit.

Yesterday we had intended to have killed off a great many visits, but
the fates willed it otherwise. Mr. Hummelaur, attached to the Austrian
Embassy, came; and then Mr. Chenevix, who converses delightfully, but
all the time holding a distorting magnifying glass over French
character, and showing horrible things where we thought everything was
delightful. While he was here came Madame de Villeneuve and Madame de
Kergolay. Scarcely were they all gone, when I desired Rodolphe to let no
other person in, as the carriage had been ordered at eleven, and it was
now near two. "_Miladi!_" cried Rodolphe, running in with a card, "voila
une dame qui me dit de vous faire voir son nom."

It was "Madame de Roquefeuille," with her bright, benevolent eyes: and
much agreeable conversation. There is a great deal of difference between
the manners, tone, pronunciation, and quietness of demeanour of Madame
de Pastoret, Madame de Roquefeuille, and the little old Princess de
Broglie Revel, who are of the old nobility, and the striving, struggling
of the new, with all their riches and titles, who can never attain this
indescribable, incommunicable charm. But to go on with Saturday: Madame
de Roquefeuille took leave, and we caparisoned ourselves, and went to
Lady de Ros. She was at her easel, copying very well a portrait of
Madame de Grignan, and it was a very agreeable half-hour. Lady de Ros
and her daughter are very agreeable people. She has asked Fanny to meet
her three times a week, at the Riding-House, where she goes to take
exercise.

We were engaged to Cuvier's in the evening, and went first to M.
Jullien's, in the Rue de _l'Enfer_, not far from the Jardin des Plantes,
and there we saw one of the most extraordinary of all the extraordinary
persons we have seen--a Spaniard, squat, black-haired, black-browed,
and black-eyed, with an infernal countenance, who has written the
_History of the Inquisition_, and who related to us how he had been sent
_en penitence_ to a monastery by the Inquisition, and escaped by
presenting a certain number of kilogrammes of good chocolate to the
monks, who represented him as very penitent. But I dare not say more of
this man, lest we should never get to Cuvier's, which, in truth, I
thought we never should accomplish alive. Such streets! such turns! in
the old, old parts of the city: lamps strung at great distances: a
candle or two from high houses, making darkness visible: then bawling of
coach or cart-men, "Ouais! ouais!" backing and scolding, for no two
carriages could by any possibility pass in these narrow alleys. I was in
a very bad way, as you may guess, but I let down the glasses, and sat as
still as a frightened mouse: once I diverted Harriet by crying out, "Ah,
mon _cher_ cocher, arretez;" like Madame de Barri's "Un moment,
_Monsieur_ le Bourreau." It never was so bad with us that we could not
laugh. At last we turned into a _porte-cochere_, under which the
coachman bent literally double: total darkness: then suddenly trees,
lamps, and buildings; and one, brighter than the rest by an open portal,
illuminating large printed letters, "College de France."

Cuvier came down to the very carriage door to receive us, and handed us
up narrow, difficult stairs into a smallish room, where were assembled
many ladies and gentlemen of most distinguished names and talents.
Prony, as like an honest water-dog as ever; Biot (_et moi aussi je suis
pere de famille_), a fat, double volume of himself--I could not see a
trace of the young _pere de famille_ we knew--round-faced, with a bald
head and black ringlets, a fine-boned skull, on which the tortoise might
fall without cracking it. When he began to converse, his superior
ability was immediately apparent. Then Cuvier presented Prince
Czartorinski, a Pole, and many compliments passed; and then we went to a
table to look at Prince Maximilian de Neufchatel's _Journey to Brazil_,
magnificently printed in Germany, and all tongues began to clatter, and
it became wondrously agreeable; and behind me I heard English well
spoken, and this was Mr. Trelawny, and I heard from him a panegyric on
the Abbe Edgeworth, whom he knew well, and he was the person who took
the first letter and news to the Duchesse d'Angouleme at Mittau, after
she quitted France. She came out in the dead of the night in her
nightgown to receive the letter.

Tea and supper together: only two-thirds of the company could sit down,
but the rest stood or sat behind, and were very happy, loud, and
talkative: science, politics, literature, and nonsense in happy
proportions. Biot sat behind Fanny's chair, and talked of the parallax
and Dr. Brinkley. Prony, with his hair nearly in my plate, was telling
me most entertaining anecdotes of Buonaparte; and Cuvier, with his head
nearly meeting him, talking as hard as he could: not _striving_ to show
learning or wit--quite the contrary; frank, open--hearted genius,
delighted to be together at home, and at ease. This was the most
flattering and agreeable thing to me that could possibly be. Harriet was
on the off-side, and every now and then he turned to her in the midst of
his anecdotes, and made her completely one of us; and there was such a
prodigious noise nobody could hear but ourselves. Both Cuvier and Prony
agreed that Buonaparte never could bear to have any answer but a
_decided_ answer. "One day," said Cuvier, "I nearly ruined myself by
considering before I answered. He asked me, 'Faut-il introduire le sucre
de betrave en France?' 'D'abord, Sire, il faut songer si vos
colonies----' 'Faut-il avoir le sucre de betrave en France?' 'Mais,
Sire, il faut examiner----' 'Bah! je le demanderai a Berthollet.'"

This despotic, laconic mode of insisting on learning everything in two
words had its inconveniences. One day he asked the master of the woods
at Fontainebleau, "How many acres of wood are here?" The master, an
honest man, stopped to recollect. "Bah!" and the under-master came
forward and said any number that came into his head. Buonaparte
immediately took the mastership from the first, and gave it to the
second. "Qu'arrivait-il?" continued Prony; "the rogue who gave the guess
answer was soon found cutting down and selling quantities of the trees,
and Buonaparte had to take the rangership from him, and reinstate the
honest hesitater."

Prony is, you know, one of the most absent men alive. "Once," he told
me, "I was in a carriage with Buonaparte and General Caffarelli: it was
at the time he was going to Egypt. He asked me to go. I said, I could
not; that is, I would not; and when I had said those words I fell into a
reverie, collecting in my own head all the reasons I could for not going
to Egypt. All this time Buonaparte was going on with some confidential
communication to me of his secret intentions and views; and when it was
ended, le seul mot, Arabie, m'avait frappe l'oreille. Alors, je voudrais
m'avoir arrache les cheveux," making the motion so to do, "pour pouvoir
me rapeller ce qu'il venait de me dire. But I never could recall one
single word or idea."

"Why did you not ask Caffarelli afterwards?"

"I dared not, because I should have betrayed myself to him."

Prony says that Buonaparte was not obstinate in his own opinion with men
of science about those things of which he was ignorant; but he would
bear no contradiction in tactics or politics.

_May 29._

Madame Recamier has no more taken the veil than I have, and is as little
likely to do it. She is still beautiful, still dresses herself and her
little room with elegant simplicity, and lives in a convent [Footnote:
The Abbaye aux Bois.] only because it is cheap and respectable. M.
Recamier is living; they have not been separated by anything but
misfortune.

We have at last seen a comedy perfectly well acted--the first
representation of a new piece, _Les Folliculaires_: it was received with
thunders of applause, admirably acted in every character to the life. It
was in ridicule of journalists and literary young men.

LA CELLE, M. DE VINDE'S COUNTRY HOUSE,

_June 4._

Is it not curious that, just when you wrote to us, all full of Mrs.
Strickland at Edgeworthstown, we should have been going about everywhere
with Mr. Strickland at Paris? I read to him what you said about his
little girl and Foster as he was going with us to a breakfast at
Cuvier's, and he was delighted even to tears.

We breakfasted at Passy on our way here: beautiful views of Paris and
its environs from all the balconied rooms; and Madame Francois showed us
all their delightful comfortable rooms--the bed in which Madame Gautier
and Madame Francois had slept when children, and where now her little
Caroline sleeps. There is something in the duration of these family
attachments which pleases and touches one, especially in days of
revolution and change.

We arrived here in good time. La Celle [Footnote: La Celle St. Cloud,
built by Bachelier, first valet de chambre of Louis XIV., afterwards
sold to Madame de Pompadour, who sold it again in two years.] is as old
as Clotwold, the son of Clovis, who came here to make a hermitage for
himself--La Cellule. Wonderfully changed and enlarged, it became the
residence of Madame de Pompadour. The rooms are wainscotted: very large
_croissees_ open upon shrubberies, with rose acacias and rhododendrons
in profuse flower: the garden is surrounded by lime-trees thick and
high, and cut, like the beech-walk at Collon, at the end into arches
through the foliage, and the stems left so as to form rows of pillars,
through which you see, on one side, fine views of lawn and distant
country, while on the other the lime-grove is continued in arcades,
eight or nine trees deep.

To each bedroom and dressing-room there are little dens of closets and
ante-chambers, which must have seen many strange exits and entrances in
their day. In one of these, ten feet by six, the white wainscot--now
very yellow--is painted in gray, with monkeys in men's and women's
clothes in groups in compartments, the most grotesque figures you can
imagine. I have an idea of having read of this cabinet of monkeys, and
having heard that the principal monkey who figures in it was some real
personage.

The situation of La Celle is beautiful, and the country about it. The
grounds, terraces, orchards, farmyard, dairy, etc., would lead me too
far, so I shall only note that, to preserve the hayrick from the
incursion of rats, the feet of the stand, which is higher than that in
our back yard, are not only slated, but at the part next the hay covered
with panes of glass: this defies climbing reptiles.

M. and Madame de Vinde are exactly what you remember them; and her
grand-daughter, Beatrice, the little girl you may remember, is as kind
to Fanny and Harriet as M. and Madame de Vinde were to their sister.

Mr. Hutton wrote to me about a certain Count Brennar, a German or
Hungarian--talents, youth, fortune--assuring me that this transcendental
Count had a great desire to be acquainted with us. I fell to work with
Madame Cuvier, with whom I knew he was acquainted, and he met us at
breakfast at Cuvier's; and I asked Prony if M. and Madame de Vinde would
allow me to ask the Count to come here; and so yesterday Prony came to
dinner, and the Count at dessert, and he ate cold cutlets and good
salad, and all was right; and whenever any of our family go to Vienna,
he gave me and mine, or yours, a most pressing invitation thither--which
will never be any trouble to him.

I have corrected before breakfast here all of the second volume of
_Rosamond_, [Footnote: The sequel, or last part of _Rosamund._] which
accompanies this letter. We have coffee brought to us in our rooms about
eight o'clock, and the family assemble at breakfast in the dining-room
about ten: this breakfast has consisted of mackerel stewed in oil;
cutlets; eggs, boiled and poached, _au jus_; peas stewed; lettuce
stewed, and rolled up like sausages; radishes; salad; stewed prunes;
preserved gooseberries; chocolate biscuits; apricot biscuits--that is to
say, a kind of flat tartlet, sweetmeat between paste; finishing with
coffee. There are sugar-tongs in this house, which I have seen nowhere
else except at Madame Gautier's. Salt-spoons never to be seen, so do not
be surprised at seeing me take salt and sugar in the natural way when I
come back.

Carriages come round about twelve, and we drive about seeing places in
the neighbourhood--afterwards go to our own rooms or to the _salon_, or
play billiards or chess. Dinner is at half-past five; no luncheon and no
dressing for dinner. I will describe one dinner--Bouilli de boeuf--large
piece in the middle, and all the other dishes round it--rotie de
mouton--ris de veau pique--maquereaux--pates de cervelle--salad. 2nd
service; oeufs aux jus--petits pois--lettuce stewed--gateaux de
confitures--prunes. Dessert; gateaux, cerises, confiture d'abricot et de
groseille.

Hands are washed at the side-table; coffee is in the saloon: men and
women all gathering round the table as of yore. But I should observe,
that a great change has taken place; the men huddle together now in
France as they used to do in England, talking politics with their backs
to the women in a corner, or even in the middle of the room, without
minding them in the least, and the ladies complain and look very
disconsolate, and many ask, "If this be Paris?" and others scream
_ultra_ nonsense or _liberal_ nonsense, to make themselves of
consequence and to attract the attention of the gentlemen.

But to go on with the history of our day. After coffee, Madame de Vinde
sits down at a round table in the middle of the room, and out of a
work-basket, which is just the shape of an antediluvian work-basket of
mine, made of orange-paper and pasteboard, which lived long in the
garret, she takes her tapestry work: a chair-cover of which she works
the little blue flowers, and M. Morel de Vinde, pair de France, ancien
Conseiller de Parlement, etc., does the ground! He has had a cold, and
wears a black silk handkerchief on his head and a hat over it in the
house; three waistcoats, two coats, and a spencer over all. Madame de
Vinde and I talk, and the young people play billiards.

When it grows duskish we all migrate at a signal from Madame de Vinde,
"Allons, nous passerons chez M. de Vinde;" so we all cross the
billiard-room and dining-room, and strike off by an odd passage into M.
de Vinde's study, where, almost in the fire, we sit round a small table
playing a game called Loto, with different-coloured pegs and collars for
these pegs, and whoever knows the game of Loto will understand what it
is, and those who have never heard of it must wait till I come home to
make them understand it. At half-past ten to bed; a dozen small round
silver-handled candlesticks, bougeoirs, with wax candles, ready for us.
Who dares to say French country-houses have no comforts? Let all such
henceforward except La Celle.

The three first days we were here M. de Prony and Count de Brennar were
the only guests, the Count only for one day. M. de Prony is enough
without any other person to keep the most active mind in conversation of
all sorts, scientific, literary, humorous. He is less changed than any
of our friends. His humour and good-humour are really delightful; he is,
as Madame de Vinde says, the most harmless good creature that ever
existed; and he has had sense enough to stick to science and keep clear
of politics, always pleading "qu'il n'etait bon qu'a cela." He
accompanied us in our morning excursions to Malmaison and St. Germain.

Malmaison was Josephine's, and is still Beauharnais's property, but is
now occupied only by his steward. The place is very pretty--profusion of
rhododendrons, as under-wood in the groves, on the grass, beside the
rivers, everywhere, and in the most luxuriant flower. Poor Josephine! Do
you remember Dr. Marcet telling us that when he breakfasted with her,
she said, pointing to her flowers: "These are my subjects; I try to make
them happy."

The grounds are admirably well taken care of, but the solitude and
silence and the continual reference to the dead were strikingly
melancholy, even in the midst of sunshine and flowers, and the song of
nightingales. In one pond we saw swimming in graceful desolate dignity
two black swans, which, as rare birds, were once great favourites. Now
they curve their necks of ebony in vain.

The grounds are altogether very small, and so is the house, but fitted
up with exquisite taste. In the saloon is the most elegant white marble
chimney-piece my eyes ever did or ever will behold, a present from the
Pope to Beauharnais. The finest pictures have been taken from the
gallery; the most striking that remains is one of General Dessain,
reading a letter, with a calm and absorbed countenance--two mamelukes
eagerly examining his countenance. In the finely parqueted floor great
holes appear; the places from which fine statues of Canova's were, as
the steward told us, dragged up for the Emperor of Russia. This the man
told under his breath, speaking of his master and of the armies without
distinctly naming any person, as John Langan used to talk of the robbles
(rebels). You may imagine the feelings which made us walk in absolute
silence through the library, which was formerly Napoleon's: the gilt N's
and J's still in the arches of the ceiling: busts and portraits all
round--that of Josephine admirable.

At St. Germain, that vast palace which has been of late a barrack for
the English army, our female guide was exceedingly well informed;
indeed, Francis I., Henry IV., Mary de Medicis, Louis XIV., and Madame
de la Valliere seem to have been her very intimate acquaintances. She
was in all their secrets: showed us Madame de la Valliere's room, poor
soul! all gilt--the gilding of her woe. This gilding, by accident,
escaped the revolutionary destruction. In the high gilt dome of this
room, the guide showed us the trap-door through which Louis XIV. used to
come down. How they managed it I don't well know: it must have been a
perilous operation, the room is so high. But my guide, who I am clear
saw him do it, assured me his Majesty came down very easily in his
arm-chair; and as she had great keys in her hand, and is as large nearly
as Mrs. Liddy, I did not hazard a contradiction or doubt.

Did you know that it was Prony who built the Pont Louis XVI.? Perronet
was then eighty-four, and Prony worked under him. One night, when he had
supped at Madame de Vinde's, he went to look at his bridge, when he
saw--but I have not time to tell you that story.

During Buonaparte's Spanish War he employed Prony to make logarithm,
astronomical, and nautical tables on a magnificent scale. Prony found
that to execute what was required would take him and all the
philosophers of France a hundred and fifty years. He was very unhappy,
having to do with a despot who _would_ have his will executed, when the
first volume of Smith's _Wealth of Nations_ fell into his hands. He
opened on the division of Labour, our favourite pin-making: "Ha, ha!
voila mon affaire; je ferai mes calcules comme on fait les epingles!"
And he divided the labour among two hundred men, who knew no more than
the simple rules of arithmetic, whom he assembled in one large building,
and there these men-machines worked on, and the tables are now complete.

PARIS,

_June 9._

All is quiet here now, but while we were in the country there have been
disturbances. Be assured that, if there is any danger, we shall decamp
for Geneva.

_June 22._

We have spent a day and a half delightfully with M. and Madame Mole at
Champlatreux, their beautiful country place. He is very sensible, and
she very obliging. Madame de Ventimille was there, and very agreeable
and kind, also Madame de Nansouti and Madame de Bezancourt,
grand-daughter of Madame d'Houtitot: all remember you most kindly.

_June 24._

You ask for Dupont de Fougeres--alas! he has been dead some years. I
went to see Camille Jordan, who is ill, and unable to leave his sofa;
but he is fatter and better-looking than when we knew him--no alteration
but for the better. He has got rid of all that might be thought a little
affected--his vivacity being elevated into energy, and his politeness
into benevolence; his pretty little good wife was sitting beside him.

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