The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Iii Part 39

(193) joigny was the birth-place of M. d'Arblay.-ED.

(194) Louis Bonaparte was born in 1778, and, young as he was, had already served with distinction in the campaign in Italy. He was subsequently king of Holland from 1806 to 1810, when that country was annexed by Napoleon to the French Empire. He married Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter, by her first marriage, of Napoleon's wife, Josephine, and was the father of the Emperor Napoleon III.-ED.

(195) Auth.o.r.ess of "Ad?le de Senange," etc.

(196) On the king's recovery, in the spring of 1789.-ED.

(197) Many of the leading members of the Councils of "Ancients"

and of "Five Hundred " had been transported to Guiana after the coup d'?tat of September 4, 1797. See note (146) ante, p.

136.-ED.

(198) "Excuse me, madam ! do you know Sidney? Sidney " is Sir Sidney Smith, whose gallant and successful defence of Acre against the French,, in the spring of 1799, obliged Napoleon to relinquish the invasion of Syria.-ED.

(199) Christian name.

(200) "Every one in England."

(201) "Unfortunate husband."

(202) "His valet and his jockey, (groom)."

(203) "Especially as the jockey had terrible holes in his stockings."

(204) The influenza.

(205) Retiring pension.

(206) The English amba.s.sador in Paris. All hopes of a satisfactory termination to the dispute between the English and French governments being now at an end, Lord Whitworth was ordered to return to England, and left Paris May 12, 1803. His return was followed by the recall of the French minister in London, and the declaration of war between the two countries.-ED.

(207) The reader will have noticed that the date of this letter is earlier than that of the paragraph in the preceding letter, in which f.a.n.n.y alludes to the departure of the Amba.s.sador from Paris.-ED.

(208) "Make me your compliments."

(209) "Or, as we might say, a clerk in the department of works."- ED.

(210) Mrs. Piozzi.-ED.

(211) Napoleon was crowned Emperor of the French, November 19, 1804. His "new alliance" was his marriage, in the spring Of 1810, with the archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor of Austria. With this alliance in view he had been divorced from Jos?phine at the close of the preceding year.-ED

(212) Dr. Burney had been elected a corresponding member of this section of the Inst.i.tute.-ED.

(213) The angel.

Page 248 SECTION 23.

(1812-14.)

MADAME D'ARBLAY AND HER SON IN ENGLAND,

[At the commencement of the year 1814 was published "The Wanderer, or Female Difficulties," the fourth and last novel by the author of "Evelina," "Cecilia," and "Camilla." The five volumes were sold for two guineas-double the price of "Camilla,"--and we gather from Madame d'Arblay's own statement that she received at least fifteen hundred pounds for the work.

She informs us also that three thousand six hundred copies were sold during the first six months. This pecuniary profit, however, was the only advantage which she derived from the book. It was severely treated by the critics ; its popularity,-- if it ever had any, for its large sale was probably due to the author's high reputation,--speedily declined; and the almost total oblivion into which it pa.s.sed has remained unbroken to the present day.

Yet "The Wanderer" was deserving of a better fate. In many respects it is not inferior to any of Madame d'Arblay's earlier works. Its princ.i.p.al defect is one of literary style, and its style, though faulty and unequal, is by no means devoid of charm and impressiveness. The artless simplicity and freshness of "Evelina" render that work, her first novel, the most successful of all in point of style. In "Cecilia" the style shows more of conscious art, and is more laboured. In "Camilla" and "The Wanderer" it is at once more careless and more affected than in the earlier novels ; her English is at times slipshod, at times disfigured by attempts at fine writing. But, admitting all this, we must admit also that f.a.n.n.y, even in "The Wanderer," proves herself mistress of what we may surely regard as the most essential part of style-its power of affecting the reader agreeably with the intentions of the author. She plays upon her reader's emotions with a sure touch; she excites or soothes him at her will; she arouses by turns his compa.s.sion, his mirth, his resentment, according as she strikes the keys of pathos, of humour, or of irony. A style which is capable of producing such effects is not rashly to be condemned on the score of occasional affectations and irregularities.

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The question of style apart, we do not feel that "The Wanderer"

shows the slightest decline in its author's powers. The plot is as ingeniously complicated as ever, the suspense as skilfully maintained; the characters seem to us as real as those in "Evelina," or "Cecilia," or in the "Diary" itself; the alternate pathos and satire of the book keep our attention ever on the alert. That it failed to win the suffrages of the public was certainly due to no demerit in the work. Many causes may have conspired against it. The public taste had long been debauched by novels of that nightmare school in which Mrs Radcliffe and "Monk"

Lewis were the leaders. Moreover, in the very year in which "The Wanderer" was published, appeared the first of a series of works of fiction which, by their power and novelty, were to monopolise, for a time, the public attention and applause, and which were thereafter to secure for their author a high rank among the immortals of English literature. At the end of the fifth volume of "The Wanderer" were inserted a few leaves, containing a list of books recently published or "in the press;" and last on the list of the latter stands "Waverley, or 'Tis Sixty Years since."

Like " Evelina," "The Wanderer" is inscribed in a touching dedication (this time, however, in prose, and with his name prefixed) to f.a.n.n.y's beloved father. The dedication is dated March 14, 1814 : on the 12th of the following month Dr. Burney died at Chelsea College, in his eighty-seventh year.-ED.]

NARRATIVE OF MADAME D'ARBLAY'S JOURNEY TO LONDON.

ANXIETY TO SEE FATHER AND FRIENDS.

Dunkirk, 1812. There are few events of my life that I more regret not having committed to paper while they were fresher in my memory, than my police adventure at Dunkirk, the most fearful that I have ever experienced, though not, alas, the most afflicting, for terror, and even horror, are short of deep affliction; while they last they are, nevertheless, absorbers; but once past, whether ill or well, they are over, and from them, as from bodily pain, the animal spirits can rise uninjured: not so from that grief which has its source in irreInediable calamity; from that there is no rising, no relief, save in hopes of eternity: for here on earth all buoyancy of mind that Might produce the return of peace, is sunk for ever. I will Page 250

now, however, put down all that recurs to me of my first return home.

In the year 1810, when I had been separated from my dear father, and country, and native friends, for eight years, my desire to again see them became so anxiously impatient that my tender companion proposed my pa.s.sing over to England alone, to spend a month or two at Chelsea. Many females at that period, and amongst them the young d.u.c.h.esse de Duras, had contrived to procure pa.s.sports for a short similar excursion ; though no male was permitted, under any pretence, to quit France, save with the army.

Reluctantly--with all my wishes in favour of the scheme,--yet most reluctantly, I accepted the generous offer; for never did I know happiness away from that companion, no, not even out of his sight! but still, I was consuming with solicitude to see my revered father--to be again in his kind arms, and receive his kind benediction.

A MILD MINISTER OF POLICE.

For this all was settled, and I had obtained my pa.s.sport, which was brought to me without my even going to the police office, by the especial favour of M. Le Breton, the Secretaire Perp?tuel ?

l'Inst.i.tut. The ever active services of M. de Narbonne aided this peculiar grant ; though, had not Bonaparte been abroad with his army at the time, neither the one nor the other would have ventured at so hardy a measure of a.s.sistance. But whenever Bonaparte left Paris, there was always an immediate abatement of severity in the police; and Fouch?, though he had borne a character dreadful beyond description in the earlier and most horrible times of the Revolution, was,'at this period, when minister of police, a man of the mildest manners, the most conciliatory conduct, and of the easiest access in Paris. He had least the glare of the new imperial court of any one of its administration; he affected, indeed, all the simplicity of a plain Republican. I have often seen him strolling in the most shady and unfrequented parts of the "Elysian Fields," m.u.f.fled up in a plain brown rocolo, and giving le bras to his wife, without suite or servant, merely taking the air, with the evident design of enjoying also an unmolested t?te-?-t?te. On these occasions, though he was universally known, n.o.body approached him; and he seemed, himself, not to observe that any other person Page 251

was in the walks. He was said to be remarkably agreeable in conversation, and his person was the best fashioned and most gentlemanly of any man I have happened to see, belonging to the government. Yet, such was the impression made upon me by the dreadful reports that were spread of his cruelty and ferocity at Lyons,(214) that I never saw him but I thrilled with horror. How great, therefore, was my obligation to M. de Narbonne and to M.

Le Breton, for procuring me a pa.s.sport, without my personal application to a man from whom I shrunk as from a monster.

EMBARKATION INTERDICTED.

I forget now for what spot the pa.s.sport was nominated, perhaps for Canada, but certainly not for England and M. Le Breton, who brought it to me himself, a.s.sured me that no difficulty would be made for me either to go or to return, as I was known to have lived a life the most inoffensive to government, and perfectly free from all species of political intrigue, and as I should leave behind me such sacred hostages as my husband and my son.

Thus armed, and thus authorized, I prepared, quietly and secretly, for my expedition, while my generous mate employed all his little leisure in discovering where and how I might embark - when, one morning, when I was bending over my trunk to press in its contents, I was abruptly broken in upon by M. de Boinville, who was in my secret, and who called upon me to stop! He had received certain, he said, though as yet unpublished information, that a universal embargo was laid upon every vessel, and that not a fishing-boat was permitted to quit the coast. Confounded, affrighted, disappointed, and yet relieved, I submitted to the blow, and obeyed the injunction. M. de Boinville then revealed to me the new political changes that occasioned this measure, which he had learned from some confiding friends in office; but which I do not touch upon, as they are now in every history of those times.

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I pa.s.s on to my second attempt, in the year 1812.

Disastrous was that interval ! All correspondence with England was prohibited under pain of death ! One letter only reached me, most unhappily, written with unreflecting abruptness, announcing, without preface, the death of the Princess Amelia, the new and total derangement of the king, and the death of Mr. Locke. Three such calamities overwhelmed me, overwhelmed us both, for Mr.

Locke, my revered Mr. Locke, was as dear to my beloved partner as to myself. Poor Mrs. C concluded these tidings must have already arrived, but her fatal letter gave the first intelligence, and no other letter, at that period, found its way to me. She sent hers, I think, by some trusty returned prisoner. She little knew my then terrible situation ; hovering over my head was the stiletto of a surgeon for a menace of cancer yet, till that moment, hope of escape had always been held out to me by the Baron de Larrey-- hope which, from the reading of that fatal letter, became extinct.

A CHANGE OF PLAN.