The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay
Chapter 236 : Page 288 My eyes were suffused with tears, from mingled emotions I glided nimbly throu

Page 288

My eyes were suffused with tears, from mingled emotions I glided nimbly through the crowd to a corner at the other end of the room, where Lady Crewe joined me almost instantly, and with felicitations the most amiably cordial and lively.

We then repaired to a side-board on which we contrived to seat ourselves, and Lady Crewe named to me the numerous personages of rank who pa.s.sed on before us for presentation. But every time any one espied her and approached,, she named me also; an honour to which I was very averse. This I intimated, but to no purpose; she went on her own way. The curious stares this produced, in my embarra.s.sed state of spirits, from recent grief, were really painful to sustain ; but when the seriousness of my representation forced her to see that I was truly in earnest in my desire to remain unnoticed, she was so much vexed, and even provoked, that she very gravely begged that, if such were the case, I would move a little farther from her; saying, "If one must be so ill-natured to people as not to name you, I had rather not seem to know who you are myself."

AN IMPORTANT LETTER DELAYED.

When, at length, her ladys.h.i.+p's chariot was announced, we drove to Great c.u.mberland-place, Lady Crewe being so kind as to convey me to Mrs. Angerstein. As Lady Crewe was too much in haste to alight, the sweet Amelia Angerstein came to the carriage to speak to her, and to make known that a letter had arrived from M. de la Ch?tre relative to my presentation, which, by a mistake of address, had not come in time for my reception.(244)

This note dispelled all of astonishment that had enveloped with something like incredulity my own feelings and perceptions in my unexpected presentation and reception. The king himself had personally desired to bestow upon me this mark of royal favour.

What difficulty, what embarra.s.sment, what confusion should I have escaped, had not that provoking mistake which kept back my letter occurred

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M. D'ARBLAY ARRIVES IN ENGLAND.

Madame d"Arblay to Mrs. locke.) April 30, 1814.

My own dearest friend must be the first, as she will be among the warmest, to partic.i.p.ate in my happiness--M. d'Arblay is arrived.

He came yesterday, quite unexpectedly as to the day, but not very much quicker than my secret hopes. He is extremely fatigued with all that has pa.s.sed, yet well ; and all himself, i.e., all that is calculated to fill my heart with grat.i.tude for my lot in life.

How would my beloved father have rejoiced in his sight, and in these glorious new events!(245)

A BRILLIANT a.s.sEMBLAGE.

(Madame d'Arblay to M. d'Arblay) June 18, 1814.

Ah, mon ami! you are really, then, well?--really in Paris?-- really without hurt or injury? What I have suffered from a suspense that has no name from its misery shall now be buried in restored peace, and hope, and happiness. With the most fervent thanks to providence that my terrors are removed, and that I have been tortured by only false apprehensions, I will try to banish from my mind all but the joy, and grat.i.tude to heaven, that your safety and health inspire. Yet still, it is difficult to me to feel a.s.sured that all is well ! I have so long been the victim to fear and anguish, that my spirits cannot at once get back their equilibrium. . . .

Hier j'ai quitt? ma retraite, tr?s volontiers, pour(246) indulge myself with the sight of the Emperor of Russia. How was I charmed with his pleasing, gentle, and so perfectly una.s.suming air, manner, and demeanour! I was extremely gratified, also, by seeing the King of Prussia, who interests us all here, by a look that still indicates his tender regret for the partner of his hopes, toils, and sufferings, but not of his victories and enjoyments.

It was at the queen's palace I saw them by especial and most gracious permission. The Prussian princes, six in number, and the young prince of Mecklenburg, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Oldenbourg, were of the party. All our royal Page 290

dukes a.s.sisted, and the Princesses Augusta and Mary. The Princess Charlotte looked quite beautiful. She is wonderfully improved. It was impossible not to be struck with her personal attractions, her youth, and splendour. The d.u.c.h.ess of York looked amongst the happiest; the King of Prussia is her brother.

M. D'ARBLAY ENTERS Louis XVIII.'S BODY-GUARD.

(Madame d'Arblay to Mrs. locke.) London, July, 1814.

After a most painful suspense I have been at length relieved by a letter from Paris. It is dated the 18th of June, and has been a fortnight on the road. It is, he says, his fourth letter, and he had not then received one of the uneasy tribe of my own.

The consul-generals.h.i.+p is, alas, entirely relinquished, and that by M. d'Arblay himself, who has been invited into the garde du corps by the Duc de Luxembourg, for his own company an invitation he deemed it wrong to resist at such a moment ; and he has since been named one of the officers of the garde du corps by the king, Louis XVIII., to whom he had taken the customary oath that very day--the 18th.

The season, however, of danger over, and the throne and order steadily re-established, he will still, I trust and believe, retire to civil domestic life. May it be speedily! After twenty years' lying by, I cannot wish to see him re-enter a military career at sixty years of age, though still young in all his faculties and feelings, and in his capacity of being as useful to others as to himself. There is a time, however, when the poor machine, though still perfect in a calm, is unequal to a storm.

Private life, then, should be sought while it yet may be enjoyed; and M. d'Arblay has resources for retirement the most delightful, both for himself and his friends. He is dreadfully worn and fatigued by the last year; and he began his active services at thirteen years of age. He is now past sixty. Every propriety, therefore, will abet my wishes, when the king no longer requires around him his tried and faithful adherents. And, indeed, I am by no means myself insensible to what is so highly gratifying to his feelings as this mark of distinction bien plus honorable, cependant,(247) as he adds, than lucrative. . . . . .

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(Madame d'Arblay to Mrs. Locke.) August 9, 1814.

The friends of M. d'A. in Paris are now preparing to claim for him his rank in the army, as he held it under Louis XVI., of mar?chal de Camp; and as the Duc de Luxembourg will present, in person, the demand au roi, there is much reason to expect it will be granted.

M. de Thuisy, who brought your letter from Adrienne, has given a flouris.h.i.+ng account of M. d'A. in his new uniform, though the uniform itself, he says, is very ugly. But so sought is the company of the garde du corps du roi that the very privates, M.

de T. says, are gentlemen. M. d'A. himself has only the place of sous-lieutenant; but it is of consequence sufficient, in that company, to be signed by the king, who had rejected two officers that had been named to him just before he gave his signature for M. d'A.

August 24, 1814.

M. d'Arblay has obtained his rank, and the kind king has dated it from the aera when the original brevet was signed by poor Louis XVI. in 1792.

[Here follows, in the original edition, a long letter in French from M. d'Arblay to his wife, dated " Paris, August 3 0, 1814. "

He records the enthusiasm manifested by the people of Paris on the arrival of the king and the d.u.c.h.ess of Angoul?me, and the flattering reception given by the king to the Duke of Wellington.

"After having testified his satisfaction at the sentiments which the duke had just expressed to him on the part of the prince regent, and told him that he infinitely desired to see the peace which had been so happily concluded, established on solid foundations, his majesty added, 'For that I shall have need of the powerful co-operation of his royal highness. The choice which he has made of you, sir, gives me hope of it. He honours me. . .

. I am proud to see that the first amba.s.sador sent to me by England is the justly celebrated Duke of Wellington."' M.

d'Arblay counts with certainty upon his wife's joining him in November, and ventures upon the unlucky a.s.sertion that " the least doubt of the stability of the paternal government, which has been so miraculously restored to us, is no longer admissible."-ED.]

(214) Lyons rebelled against the Republic in the summer of 1793: against Jacobinism, in the first instance, and guillotined its jacobin leader, Chalier; later it declared for the king. After a long siege and a heroic defence, Lyons surrendered to the Republicans, October 9, 1793, and Fouch? was one of the commissioners sent down by the Convention to execute vengeance on the unfortunate town. A terrible vengeance was taken. "The Republic must march to liberty over corpses," said Fouch?; and thousands of the inhabitants were shot or guillotined. -ED.

(215) The reputed a.s.sa.s.sin of the Duc d'Enghien. ["a.s.sa.s.sin" is surely an unnecessarily strong term. The seizure of the Duke d'Enghien on neutral soil was illegal and indefensible: but he was certainly guilty of conspiring against the government of his country. He was arrested, by Napoleon's orders, in the electorate of Baden, in March, 1804; carried across the frontier, conveyed to Vincennes, tried by court-martial, condemned, and shot forthwith.-ED.]

(216) The disastrous campaign in Russia. Napoleon left Paris on the 9th Of May, 1812.-ED.

(217) "So that we divine her meaning."

(218) "Who are you?

"My name is d'Arblay."

"Are you married?"

"Yes."

"Where is your husband?"

"At Paris."

"Who is he?"

"He works in the Home Office."

"Why are you leaving him?"

(219) "You are English?"

(220) "Follow me!"

(221) "You do not think proper to follow me, then?"

(222) "I have nothing to do here, sir, I believe."

(223) "We shall see!" "

(224) "Young Man!"