The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 by Maria Edgeworth

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We have had but one day's rain since we left you; if we had picked the
weather we could not have had finer. The country through which we came
from Brussels was for the most part beautiful, planted in side-scenes,
after my father's manner, you know. The English who can see nothing
worth seeing in this country, must certainly pass through it with huge
blinkers of prejudice.

PARIS, _Wednesday._

We arrived about three o'clock, and are lodged for a few days at the
Hôtel de Courlande. I forgot to tell you that we saw an officer with
furred waistcoat, and furred pockets, and monstrous moustache; he looked
altogether very like the Little Gibbon in Shaw's _Zoology_, only the
Little Gibbon does not look as conceited as this man did.

We are now, my dear Aunt Mary, in a magnificent hotel in the fine
square, formerly Place Louis Quinze, afterwards Place de la Revolution,
and now Place de la Concorde. Here the guillotine was once at work night
and day; and here died Louis Seize, and Marie Antoinette, and Madame
Roland: opposite to us is the Seine and _La Lanterne._ On one side of
this square are the Champs Élysées.

_To_ MRS. MARY SNEYD.

PARIS, RUE DE LILLE,

_Oct. 31, 1802._

I left off at the Hôtel de Courlande. We were told there was a fine view
of Paris from the leads; and so indeed there is, and the first object
that struck us was the Telegraph at work! The first _voiture de remise_
(job-coach in plain English) into which we got, belonged to--whom do you
think?--to the Princess Elizabeth. The Abbé Edgeworth had probably been
in this very coach with her. The master of this house was one of the
King's guards, a Swiss. Our apartments are all on one floor. The day
after our arrival M. Delessert, he whom M. Pictet describes as a French
Rumford, invited us to spend the evening with his mother and sister. We
went: found an excellent house, a charming family, with whom we felt we
were perfectly acquainted after we had been in the room with them for
five minutes. Madame Delessert, [Footnote: The benevolence of the
generous Madame Delessert is said to be depicted in one of the stories
in Berquin's _Ami des Enfans._] the mother, an elderly lady of about
sixty, has the species of politeness and conversation that my Aunt
Ruxton has: I need not say how much I like her. Her daughter, Madame
Gautier, has fine large black eyes, very obliging and sensible, well
dressed, not at all naked: people need not be naked here unless they
choose it. Rousseau's _Letters on Botany_ were written for this lady; he
was a friend of the family. She has two fine children of eight and ten,
to whose education she devotes her time and talents. Her second brother,
François Delessert, about twenty, was educated chiefly by her, and does
her great credit, and what is better for her, is extremely fond of her:
he seems the darling of his mother, _François mon fils_ she calls him
every minute. In his countenance and manners he is something like Henry;
he has that sober kind of cheerfulness, that ingenuous openness, and
that modest, gentlemanlike ease which pleases without effort, and
without bustle. Madame Gautier does not live at Paris, but at a country
house at Passy, the Richmond of Paris, about two miles out of town. She
invited us to spend a day there, and a most pleasant day we passed. The
situation beautiful, the house furnished with elegance and good sense,
the society most agreeable. M. Delessert _père_, an old sensible man,
the rest of the family, and Madame de Pastoret, [Footnote: Madame de
Pastoret is the "Madame de Fleury" of Miss Edgeworth's story. She first
established infant schools in France.] a literary and fashionable lady,
with something of Mrs. Saunderson's best style of conversation: M. de
Pastoret, her husband, a man of diplomatic knowledge; Lord Henry Petty,
son of Lord Lansdowne, with whom my father had much conversation; the
Swiss Ambassador, whose name I will not attempt to spell; M. Dumont,
[Footnote: M. Pierre Etienne Louis Dumont, tutor to Lord Henry Petty
(afterwards the famous second Marquis of Lansdowne), had translated
Bentham's _Traités sur la Législation_, and _Théorie des Peines et des
Récompenses._ He became an intimate friend and much-valued critic of
Miss Edgeworth.] a Swiss gentleman, travelling with Lord Henry Petty,
very sensible and entertaining, I am sorry that he has since left Paris;
M. d'Etaing, of whom I know nothing; and last, but indeed not least, the
Abbé Morellet, [Footnote: The author of several works on political
economy and statistics; born 1727, died 1819.] of whom you have heard my
father speak. O! my dear Aunt Mary, how you would love that man, and we
need not be afraid of loving him, for he is near eighty. But it is
impossible to believe that he is so old when one either hears him speak,
or sees him move. He has all the vivacity, and feeling, and wit of
youth, and all the gentleness that youth ought to have. His conversation
is delightful, nothing too much or too little; sense, and gaiety, and
learning, and reason, and that perfect knowledge of the world which
mixes so well but so seldom with a knowledge of books. He invited us to
breakfast, and this morning we spent with him. My dearest Aunt Mary, I
do wish you had been with us; I know that you would have been so much
pleased. The house so convenient, so comfortable, so many inventions the
same as my father's. He has a sister living with him, Madame de
Montigny, an amiable, sensible woman: her daughter was married to
Marmontel, who died a few years ago: she alas! is not at Paris.

My father did not present any of his letters of introduction till
yesterday, because he wished that we should be masters and mistresses of
our own time to see sights before we saw people. We have been to
Versailles--melancholy magnificence--La petite Trianon: the poor Queen!
and at the Louvre, or as it is now called, La Musée, to see the
celebrated gallery of pictures. I was entertained, but tired with seeing
so many pictures, all to be admired, and all in so bad a light, that my
little neck was almost broken, and my little eyes almost strained out,
trying to see them. We were all extremely interested yesterday seeing
what are called Les Monuments Français--all the statues and monuments of
the great men of France, arranged according to their dates in the
apartments of the ancient Monastery des Augustins. Here we saw old Hugh
Capet, with his nose broken, and King Pepin, with his nose flattened by
time, and Catherine de Medicis, in full dress, but not in full beauty,
and Francis I., and dear Henry IV.

We have been to the Théâtre Français and to the Théâtre Feydau, both
fine houses: decorations, etc., superior to English: acting much
superior in comedy; in tragedy they bully, and rant, and throw
themselves into Academy attitudes too much.

R.L. EDGEWORTH _to_ MISS CHARLOTTE SNEYD.

PARIS, _Nov. 18, 1802._

Maria told you of M. and Madame de Pastoret; in the same house on
another floor--for different families here have entire "apartments," you
observe the word, in one house--we met M. and Madame Suard: [Footnote:
M. Suard was editor of the _Publiciste._] he is accounted one of the
most refined critics of Paris, and has for many years been at the head
of newspapers of different denominations; at present he is at the head
of _La Publiciste._ He is prudent, highly informed, not only in books,
but in the politics of different states and the characters of men in all
the different countries of Europe. Madame Suard has the remains of much
beauty, a _belle esprit_, and aims at singularity and independence of
sentiment. Would you believe it, Mr. Day paid his court to her thirty
years ago? She is very civil to us, and we go to their house once a
week: literati frequent it, and to each of them she has something to
say.

At Madame de Pastoret's we met M. Degerando [Footnote: Marie Joseph
Degerando, writer on education and philosophy, 1772-1842.] and M.
Camille Jordan. Not Camille de Jourdan, the assassin, nor Camille
Desmoulins, another assassin, nor General Jourdan, another assassin, but
a young man of agreeable manners, gentle disposition, and much
information; he lives near Paris, with his Pylades Degerando, who is
also a man of much information, married to a pretty sprightly domestic
woman, who nurses her child in earnest. Camille Jordan has written an
admirably eloquent pamphlet on the choice of Buonaparte as first consul
for life; it was at first forbidden, but the Government wisely
recollected that to forbid is to excite curiosity. We three have had
profound metaphysical conferences in which we have avoided contest and
have generally ended by being of the same opinion. We went, by
appointment, to Madame Campan's--she keeps the greatest boarding-school
in France--to meet Madame Recamier, the beautiful lady who had been
nearly squeezed to death in London. How we liked the school and its
conductress, who professes to follow _Practical Education_, I leave to
Maria to tell you. How we like Madame Recamier is easily told; she is
certainly handsome, but there is nothing noble in her appearance; she
was very civil. M. de Prony, [Footnote: Gaspard Clair François Marie
Riche, baron de Prony, the great mathematician, 1755-1839.] who is at
the head of the Engineers des Ponts et Chaussées--civil engineers--was
introduced to us by Mr. Watt. I forgot to speak of him; he has just left
Paris. M. de Prony showed us models and machines which would have
delighted William. M. l'Abbé Morellet's niece next engaged our
attention; she and her husband came many leagues to see us; and we met
also Madame de Vergennes, Madame de Remusat, and Madame Nansoutit, all
people of knowledge and charming manners. Madame Lavoisier and the
Countess Massulski, General Kosciusko, Prince Jablounsk_i_, and Princess
Jablounsk_a_, and two other Princesses, I leave to Maria. Mons.
Edelcrantz, private secretary to the King of Sweden; Mons. Eisenman, a
German; Mons. Geofrat, the guardian from Egypt of the Kings of Chaldea
and seven Ibises; Mons. de Montmorenci--that great name: the Abbé
Sicard, who dines here to-morrow; Mons. Pang, Mons. Bertrant, Mons.
Milan, Mons. Dupont, Mons. Bareuil the illuminati man, and Mr. Bilsbury,
I leave to her and Charlotte.

MRS. EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. MARY SNEYD.

PARIS, _Nov. 21, 1802._

Mr. Edgeworth's summary of events closed, I believe, last Thursday.
Friday we saw beauty, riches, fashion, luxury, and numbers at Madame
Recamier's; she is a charming woman, surrounded by a group of adorers
and flatterers in a room where are united wealth and taste, all of
modern execution and ancient design that can contribute to its
ornament--a strange _mélange_ of merchants and poets, philosophers and
parvenus--English, French, Portuguese, and Brazilian, which formed the
company; we were treated with distinguished politeness by our hostess,
who concluded the evening by taking us to her box at the Opera, where,
besides being in company with the most fashionable women in Paris, _we
were seen_ by Buonaparte himself, who sat opposite to us in a railed
box, through which he could see, but not be seen.

Saturday we saw the magnificent Salle of the Corps Legislatif, and in
the evening passed some hours in the agreeable society of Madame de
Vergennes and her daughters. Sunday we were very happy at home. Monday
morning, just as we were going out, M. Pictet was announced; we neither
heard his name nor distinctly recollected his looks, he is grown so fat
and looks so well, more friendly no man can be. I hope he perceives we
are grateful to him. The remainder of that day was spent in the gallery
of pictures, where we met Mr. Rogers, the poet, and Mr. Abercrombie. The
evening was spent with M. Pictet at his sister's, an agreeable,
well-informed widow, with three handsome daughters. Tuesday we went to
the National Library, where we were shown a large number of the finest
cameos, intaglios, and Roman and Greek medals, and many of the
antiquities brought from Egypt; and in the evening we had again the
pleasure of M. Pictet's company, and of the charming Madame de Pastoret,
who was so obliging as to drink tea with us. Yesterday we had the
pleasure of being at home, when several learned and ingenious men called
on us, and consequently heard one of the most lively and instructive
conversations on a variety of topics for three hours: as I think it is
Mr. Edgeworth's plan to knock you down with names, I will just enumerate
those of our visitors, Edelcrantz, a Swede, Molard, Eisenman, Dupont,
and Pictet the younger. After they went, we paid a short visit to the
pictures and saw the Salle du Tribunat and the Consul's apartments at
the Tuileries: on the dressing-table there were the busts of Fox and
Nelson. At our return home we saw the good François Delessert and
another man, who was the man who took Robespierre prisoner, and who has
since made a clock which is wound up by the action of the air on
mercury, like that which Mr. Edgeworth invented for the King of Spain.
He told us many things that made us stare, and many that made us shiver,
and many more that made us wish never to see him again.

In the evening we went to Madame Suard's. Don't imagine that these
ladies are all widows, for they have husbands, and in many instances the
husband _vaut mieux que la femme._ At Madame Suard's we met the famous
Count Lally Tolendal and the Duc de Crillon. This morning Maria has gone
with the Pictets to see the Abbé Sicard's deaf and dumb.

Mr. Edgeworth has not yet seen Buonaparte: he goes to-morrow to wait on
Lord Whitworth as a preliminary step. It is a singular circumstance that
Lord Whitworth, the new Ambassador, has brought to Paris the same
horses, and the same wife, and lives in the same house as the last
Ambassador did eleven years ago: he has married the widow of the Duke of
Dorset, who was here then.

In England many are the tales of scandal that have been related of the
Consul and all his family: I don't believe them. A lady told me it was
"vraiment extraordinaire qu'un jeune homme comme lui ait de moeurs si
exemplaires--et d'ailleurs on ne s'attend pas qu'un homme soit fidèle à
une femme qui est plus agée que lui: mais si agée aussi! Il aime la
soumission plus que la beauté: s'il lui dit de se coucher à huit heures,
elle se couche: s'il faut se lever à deux heures, elle se leve! Elle est
une bonne femme, elle a sauvé bien des vies."

Has Maria told you that she has had her _Belinda_ translated into French
by the young Count de Segur, an amiable young man of one of the most
ancient families of France, married to a grand-daughter of the
Chancellor d'Aguesseau? Many people support themselves by writing for
journals, and by translating English books, yet the price of literature
seems very low, and the price of all the necessaries of life very high.
The influx of English has, they say, doubled the price of lodgings and
of all luxuries.

MARIA EDGEWORTH _to_ MRS. RUXTON.

PARIS, _Dec. 1, 1802._

I have been treasuring up for some time everything I have seen and heard
which I think would interest you; and now my little head is so full that
I must empty it, or it would certainly burst. All that I have seen and
heard has tended to attach me more firmly to you by the double effect of
resemblance and of contrast. Every agreeable person recalls you; every
disagreeable, makes me exclaim, how different, etc.

I wish I could paint the different people we have seen in little
William's magic-lanthorn, and show them to you. At Madame Delessert's
house there are, and have been for years, meetings of the most agreeable
and select society in Paris: she has the courage absolutely to refuse to
admit either man or woman of whose conduct she cannot approve; at other
houses there is sometimes a strange mixture. To recommend Madame
Delessert still more powerfully to you, I must tell you that she was the
benefactress of Rousseau; he was, it is said, never good or happy except
in her society: to her bounty he owed his retreat in Switzerland. She is
nobly charitable, but if it were not for her friends no one would find
out half the good she does. One of her acts of beneficence is recorded
in Berquin's _Ami des Enfans_, but even her own children cannot tell in
which story it is. Her daughter, Madame Gautier, gains upon our esteem
every day.

Turn the handle of the magic-lanthorn: who is this graceful figure, with
all the elegance of court manners, and all the simplicity of domestic
virtue? She is Madame de Pastoret. She was chosen preceptress to the
Princess in the _ancien régime_ in opposition to the wife of Condorcet,
and M. de Pastoret had I forget how many votes more than Condorcet when
it was put to the vote who should be preceptor to the Dauphin at the
beginning of the Revolution. Both M. and Madame de Pastoret speak
remarkably well; each with that species of eloquence which becomes them.
He was President of the First Assembly, and at the head of the King's
Council: the four other ministers of that council all perished! He
escaped by his courage. As for her, the Marquis de Chastelleux's speech
describes her: "Elle n'a point d'expression sans grace et point de grace
sans expression."

Turn the magic-lanthorn. Here comes Madame Suard and Monsieur, a member
of the Academy: very good company at their house. Among others Lally
Tolendal, who is exceedingly like Father Tom, and whose real name of
Mullalagh he softened into Lally, said to be more eloquent than any man
in France; M. de Montmorenci, worthy of his great name.

Push on the magic-lanthorn slide. Here comes Boissy d'Anglas: a fine
head! Such a head as you may imagine the man to have who, by his single
courage, restrained the fury of one of the National Assemblies when the
head of one of the deputies was cut off and set on the table before him.

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.

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