The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay
Chapter 229 : DR. BURNEY's DIPLOMA.(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) No. 13, Rue d'Anj

DR. BURNEY's DIPLOMA.

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) No. 13, Rue d'Anjou, 14th April, 1811.

.....Have you received the letter in which I related that your diploma has been brought to me by the perpetual secretary of the cla.s.s of the Fine Arts of the Inst.i.tute of France?(212) I shall not have it conveyed but by some very certain hand, and that, now, is most difficult to find. M. Le Breton has given me, also, a book of the list of your camarades, in which he has written your name. He says it will be printed in next year's register.

He has delivered to me, moreover, a medal, which is a mark of distinction reserved for peculiar honour to peculiar select personages. Do you suppose I do not often--often--often think who would like, and be fittest to be the bearer to you of these honours? . . .

How kind was the collection of letters you made more precious by endorsing! I beseech you to thank all my dear correspondents, and to bespeak their patience for answers, which shall arrive by every wind that I can make blow their way; but yet more, beseech their generous attention to my impatience for more, should the wind blow fair for me before it will let me hail them in return.

Difficultly can they figure to themselves my joy--my emotion at receiving letters from such dates as they can give me!

[During this year Madame d'Arblay's correspondence with her English connexions was interrupted not only by the difficulty of conveying letters, but also by a dangerous illness and the menace of a cancer, from which she could only be relieved by submitting to a painful and hazardous operation. The fort.i.tude with which she bore this suffering, and her generous solicitude for Monsieur d'Arblay and those around her, excited the warmest sympathy in all who heard of her trial, and her French friends universally gave her the name of l'ange,(213) so touched were they by her tenderness and Magnanimity.]

(157) " Dr. Orkborne" is the name of one of the characters in "Camilla," a pedantic scholar, who lives only in his books.-ED.

(158) Widow of Sir Robert Strange, the celebrated engraver, and a very old friend of the Burney family. She was a Scotchwoman (her maiden name, Isabel Lumisden), and in her younger days an enthusiastic Jacobite. She obliged her lover, Strange, to join the young Pretender in 1745, and afterwards married him against her father's wish.-ED.

(159) "The other Bell" was the daughter of Sir Robert and Lady Strange.-ED.

(160) Wife of Sir Lucas Pepys, the physician.-ED.

(161) Anna Let.i.tia Barbauld, the well-known author, and editor of Richardson's Correspondence, etc.-ED.

(162) John Aiken, M.D., brother to Mrs. Barbauld, and, like his sister, an author and editor. His "Evenings at Home" is still a well-known book: many of our readers will probably have pleasant reminiscences of it, connected with their childhood.-ED.

(163) Barry had published a furious attack upon his fellow-Academicians in a "Letter to the Dilettanti Society." He was already, owing chiefly to his own violent temper, on ill terms with nearly all of them, and the "Letter" prove(I to be the last straw. Various charges were drawn up against the Professor of Painting, and he was expelled forthwith from the Academy, without being permitted to speak in his own defence.

(164) "By the help of a s.h.i.+lling."

(165) "With tears in his eyes."

(166) i.e., Mr. Locke.-ED.

(167) The French minister in England.-ED.

(168) A letter in which M. d'Arblay had acquainted his wife with the withdrawal of his commission in the French army, in consequence of his refusal, under any circ.u.mstances, to bear arms against England.-ED.

(169) Miss Cambridge.-ED.

(170) Lafayette was then living in retirement, with his wife and family, at is chateau of La Grange. -ED.

(171) "Quick, quick, madam, take your seat in the diligence, for here is an English gentleman who is sure to take the best place!"--There is evidently some mistake here, in making the book-keeper in Piccadilly speak French and talk about the diligence. That the paragraph relates to f.a.n.n.y's departure from London is evident from several pa.s.sages in the text: the mention, later, of changing horses at Canterbury, the references to her fellow-travellers at Calais. The date to the above paragraph is also clearly wrong, as it will be seen that on the 18th of April they were still on the road to Paris.-ED.

(172) "Quick! quick! look for it, or you will be arrested!"

(173) in the new calendar adopted by the Republic in 1793, a division of the month into decades, or periods of ten days, was subst.i.tuted for the old division into weeks. Every tenth day (d?cadi) was a day of rest, instead of every seventh day, (Sunday, Dimanche). The months were of thirty days each, with five odd festival days (Sansculottades) in the year, and a sixth (Festival of the Revolution) in Leap Year. Napoleon restored the Sunday in place of d?cadi. The new calendar was discontinued altogether, January 1, 1806.-ED.

(174) The date is again wrong--probably a misprint for April 21.-ED.

(175) Mrs. Damer, the sculptor, as an ardent Whig and supporter of Charles Fox, professed herself at this time an enthusiastic admirer of the first Consul. She had known jos?phine de Beauharnais before her marriage with Napoleon, and, after the peace of Amiens, visited Paris on Jos?phine's invitation. She was there introduced to Napoleon, to whom she afterwards presented a bust of Charles Fox, executed by herself. Mrs.

Damer's companions on this excursion were Mary Berry, the author (born 1763-died 1852), and her younger sister, Agnes Berry. These two ladies were prodigious favourites with Horace Walpole, who called them his "twin wives," and was, it is said, even desirous, in his old age, Of marrying the elder Miss Berry. One of his valued possessions was a marble bust of Mary Berry, the work of his kinswoman, Mrs. Damer. At his death in 1797 he bequeathed to the Miss Berrys a house for their joint lives, besides a legacy Of 4000 pounds to each sister. Mary Berry published an edition of her old admirer's works the year after his death.-ED.

(176) The Swiss home of her father, 'M. Necker, on the sh.o.r.e of the lake, and some ten miles north of the town of Geneva. Necker retired thither after his fall in 1790, and spent there, in retirement, the remaining years of his life. He died at Geneva, in April, 1804.-ED.

(177) Madame de Stael's orthography is here preserved.

" I should like to prove to you my zeal, madam, and I am afraid of being indiscreet. I hope you will have the goodness to let me know when you are sufficiently recovered from the fatigue of your journey, that I might have the honour of seeing you without being tiresome to you."

(178) The 4th Floria (April 23).

(179) "Madame d'Arblay can only be infinitely flattered by the extreme goodness of Madame the Countess de Stael. She will very certainly have the honour of calling upon Madame de Stael as soon as possible."

(180) Madame de Lafayette was thrown into prison after the flight of her husband; released in February, 1795, more than six months after the death of Robespierre. She then journeyed to Austria, and obtained leave to share, with her two daughters, her husband's captivity at Olmtz. Lafayette was released in September, 1797; returned to France in 1800, Napoleon not forbidding, though not quite approving. Madame de Lafayette's const.i.tution was permanently impaired by the confinement which she suffered at Olmtz. She died December 24, 1807.-ED.

(181) "It's a foreigner, it's an Englishwoman."

(182) "Have you seen the first Consul, madam?"

"Not yet, madam."

"It is doubtless what you most wish for, madam?"

"Yes, madam."

"Do you wish to have an excellent view of him, and to see him quite at your ease?"

"I am particularly desirous of it, madam."

(183) "Do thus, madam, and you will see him well, well; for I-am going to speak to him ! "

(184) "You see him, madam!"

"Whom?" exclaimed I, "the first Consul?"

"Oh no!--not yet;--but--that--that gentleman!"

(185) "yes, madam, I see that gentleman; he is very tall!"

(186) "Madam, it is my husband!"

(187) "What is the matter?"

(188) "M'ami, the--the first Consul, is he not coming?"

(189) "'Tis for my son ! you promised it me!"

(190) "Your name, madam, your name!"

(191) "I shall have it! I shall have it! for all those generals asked my name!"

(192) f.a.n.n.y's eldest sister, Esther, who married (1770) her cousin, Charles Rousseau Burney.-ED.