A lady of rank, and nearly related to my mother, was not ashamed to ask her for 30,000 francs, which she pretended had been expended in bribes to procure her release. My mother replied by simply relating the story of Rossigneux, and saw her relative no more.
NOBLE CONDUCT OF JEROME.43
What a scene had she to encounter on returning to her own residence ! The house bare and desolate, the seals yet on the doors, and I in the kitchen, still deaf and imbecile, in consequence of the malady that had so nearly ended in my death. My mother had remained firm before the terror of the scaffold, but she sank under this misery. The day after her return she was attacked with jaundice, which lasted fiye months, and left an affection of the liver, from which she suffered throughout her life.
At the end of six months, the small part of the estate of her husband that had remained unsold, was restored to her. We were then both recovered.
" On what does my lady imagine she has lived, since she left the prison ? " asked Nanette, one day.
" I do not know; you must have sold the plate, the linen, or the jewels."
" There were none left to sell."
" Well then, on what ? "
" On money which Jerome forwarded to me every week, with the express command that I was not to mention it to my lady ; but now that she can return it, I will tell her the real fact."
My mother had the gratification of saving the life of this man, when proscribed with the terrorists. She concealed him, and aided his escape to America.
He returned under the consulate, with a little fortune which he had made in the United States, and which he afterwards augmented by speculations in Paris. My mother treated him as a friend, and her family loaded him with marks of grateful kindness ; yet he would never form one of our society. He used to say to my mother, " I will come and sec you
44 DIFFICULTIES OF MADAME DE CUSTINE.
when you are alone, you will always receive me with kindness, for I know your heart; but your friends will regard me as some strange animal; I shall not be at my ease with them. I was not born as you were; I cannot speak as you do." My mother always continued a faithful friend to him. lie had the utmost confidence in her, and used often to relate to her his domestic troubles, but never spoke on politics or religion. lie died while I was yet a child, about the commencement of the period of the Empire.
My poor mother passed in struggling with poverty the best years of that life which had been so miraculously preserved.
Of the enormously rich estate of my grandfather, nothing remained to us but the debts. The govern-inent took the property, but left the task of paying the creditors to those whom it had robbed of the means for so doing.
Twenty years were spent in ruinous lawsuits, with the view of recovering for me some of tliis estate. My mother was my guardian. Her love for me prevented her ever again marrying; besides, made a widow by the hands of the executioner, she did not feel herself free to act as do other women.
Our involved and complicated affairs wrere her torment. We were ever kept suspended betwixt fear and hope, and struggling meanwhile with want. At one time riches would appear within our grasp; at another, some unforeseen reverse, some chicanery of the law, deprived lis of every prospect. If I have any taste for the elegancies of life, I attribute it to the privations of my early youth.
A year after her liberation, my mother obtained
BALLAD OF LE ROSIER.
45
a passport to proceed to Switzerland. Here her mother and her brother, who did not dare to enter France, awaited her.
Their meeting, notwithstanding the renewal of griefs which it called forth, was a consolation.
Madame de Sabran had, at one time, ceased to hope that she should ever again see her daughter. This meeting was therefore the realisation of the charming ballad of Le Rosier, which had then become celebrated throughout Europe.
My grandmother being unable, as an emigre, to write letters to her daughter during the reign of terror, contrived to have conveyed to her in prison, these beautiful and touching verses.
Am or J. Jacques. — Je Vui plantê,je l`ai vu nuítre.
i. Est bien à moi, car l'ai fait naître, Ce beau rosier, plaisirs trop courts ! II a fallu fuir et peut-être Plus ne le verrai de mes jours.
п. Beau rosier cede à la tempète : Faiblesse désarme fureurs, Sous les autans com`be ta tête, 0ù bien e'en est fait de tes íleurs.
ni. Bien que me fit, mal que me cause En ton penser s'offrent à moi; Auprès de toi n'ai vu que roses, Ne sens qu'épines loin de toi.
IV.
Étais ma joie, étais ma gloire, Et mes plaisirs et mon bonheur ; Ne périras dans ma mémoire : Та racine tient à mon cœur !!
46
LAVATEIÌ.
v.
Rosier prends so¡ii de ton feuillage, So¡s tonjours beau, so¡s toujours vert, Ann ({lie voye après l'orage Tes fleurs égayer шоп liiver.
The wish was accomplished, the rose bush had reflourished, and the united children were again pressed to the bosom of their tender mother.
This Swiss journey was one of the happiest portions of my mother's life; my grandmother was one of the most distinguished and amiable women of her time; and my uncle, the Count Elzéar de Sabran, though younger than his sister, possessed superior and precocious powers of mind.
Lavater was a friend of Madame de Sabran's, who took her daughter to Zurich purposely to present her to this oracle of the philosophy of that day. The great physiognomist, on perceiving her, turned towards Madame de Sabran, observing ,"Ah, madame, what a fortunate mother you are ! your daughter is transparent! Never have I seen so much sincerity; I can read tln`ough her face ! "
After her return to France, she devoted herself to two objects, namely, the re-establishment of my fortune, and the direction of my education. I owe to her all that I am, and all that I have. She became also the eentre of a eirele of distinguished persons, among whom were some of the first men of our country. M. de Chateaubriand continued her friend to the last.
For painting she had almost the talent of an artist, and never passed a day without shutting her-
DEATH IN 1826.
47
self up in her studio for several hours. The world she loved not — it frightened, wearied, and disgusted her; she had seen it, in its depths, too early; nevertheless, she was born with, and had ever preserved, that generosity which is the virtue of more prosperous lives.
Her timidity in society was proverbial among her family ; her brother used to observe that she had more fear of a salon than of the scaffold.
During the whole period of the empire, she and her friends sided with the opposition. After the death of the Due d'Enghien, she never visited Malinaîson, nor did she ever again see Madame Bonaparte.
In 1811 she made, with me, the tour of Switzerland and Italy. On this occasion she accompanied me every where, and, either on horseback or on foot, crossed the most dangerous passages of the Alps.
We passed the winter at Rome, in a most agreeable society. My mother was no longer young; yet the classic grace of her features made a strong impression on Canova, whose ingenuous character she much admired. One day I said to her, ¢¢ With your romantic mind, I should not wonder at your marrying Canova."
<¢ Do not be afraid," she replied. <¢ If he were not Marquis d' Ischia, I might be tempted."
I had the happiness of having her life preserved to me until the 13th of July, 1826. She died of the same disease that proved fatal to Bonaparte. This malady, of which the germ had long existed, was accelerated by grief, caused by the death of my wife and only child.
It was in honour of my mother that Madame de
48MADAME DE STAEL.
Stael, who knoAv her well and loved her warmly, gave the name of Delphine to the heroine of her first romance.
At the age of fifty-six years she still retained a beauty that struck even those who had not known her in her youth, and were not, therefore, seduced by the charms of memory.
&nb
sp; PECULIARITIES IN ТПЕ RUSSIAN CHARACTER. 49
CHAP. IV.
CONVERSATION AT LUBECK ON PECULIARITIES IN THE RUSSIAN
CHARACTER.JOURNEY FROM BERLIN TO LUBECK.IMAGINARY
EVILS. TRAVEMUNDE. CHARACTER OP NORTHERN LAND
SCAPES.HOLSTEIN FISHERMENSUBLIMITY OF FLAT SCENERY.
NIGHTS OF THE NORTH. IT IS CIVILISATION WHICH
HEIGHTENS ADMIRATION OF THE SCENES OF NATURE. THE
STEPPES OF RUSSIA.BURNING OF THE STEAMER NICHOLAS I.
ROAD FROM SCH`VERIN TO LUBECK. A GERMAN STATESMAN.
THE FAIR BATH-`VOMAN OF TRAVEMUNDE. REFLECTIONS.
This morning, at Lubeck, the landlord of the hotel, hearing that I was going to embark for Russia, entered my room with an air of compassion which made me laugh. This man is more clever and humorous than the sound of his voice, and his manner of pronouncing the French language, would at first lead one to suppose.
On hearing that I was travelling only for my pleasure, he began exhorting me, with the good-humoured simplicity of a German, to give up my project.
"You are acquainted with Russia ? " said I to him.
" No, sir ; but I am with Russians ; there are many who pass through Lubeck, and I judge of the country by the physiognomy of its people."
" What do you find, then, in the expression of their countenance that should prevent my visiting them ? "
" Sir, they have two faces. I do not speak of the valets, who have only one; but of the nobles. "When tliev arrive in Europe they have a gay, easy, contented
VOL. I.D
50 JOURNEY FROM BERLIN TO LUBECK,
air, like horses set free, or birds let loose from their cages: men, women, the young and the old, are all as happy as schoolboys on a holiday. The same persons when they return have long faces and gloomy looks; their words are few and abrupt; their countenances full of care. I conclude from this, that a country which they quitted with so much joy, and to which they return with so much regret, is a bad country."
Cí Perhaps you are right," I replied ; " but your remarks, at least, prove to me that Eussians are not such dissemblers as they have been represented."
íf They are so among themselves ; but they do not mistrust us honest Germans," said the landlord, retiring, and smiling knowingly.
Here is a man who is afraid of being taken for a good-natured simpleton, thought I: he must travel himself in order to know how greatly the description, which travellers (often superficial and careless in their observations) give of different nations, tends to influence these nations' character. Each separate individual endeavours to protest against the opinion generally established with respect to the people of his country.
Do not the women of Paris aspire to be simple and unaffected ? It may be here observed, that nothing can be more opposite than the Russian and the German character.
My journey from Berlin to Lubeck was very melancholy. An imaginary trouble (at least I still hope that there is no foundation for it) lias produced in me one of those nervous agitations, that are more disquieting than the best founded grief.
The imagination well knows how to torment itself.
IMAGINARY EVILS.51
I shall die, without comprehending why, under the same circumstances, persons whom I love appear to me in danger, and those who are indifferent to me in safety. I have a visionary heart. The silence of a dear friend, after a letter in which he had promised me another by the next courier, suddenly became to me a certain proof that some great misfortune had happened. "When once this idea had possessed my mind, I became its prey; my solitary carriage peopled itself with phantoms. In this fever of the soul, fears are no sooner conceived than realised. All is possible; therefore the misfortune is undoubted: thus it is that despair reasons. "Who has not felt this torment ? but no one feels it so often, so forcibly, as myself. Alas ! it is the troubles of the mind that make us fear death ; for death only puts au end to those of the body. All this is a dream, yet dreams are warnings: they are more to me than realities, for there is a closer affinity between the phantoms of the imao`ination and the mind that produces them, than between that mind and the external world.
This morning the fresh air of the fields, the beauty of the heavens, the smooth and tranquil aspect of the landscape on the sweet shores which border the Baltic at Travennmde, have quieted these secret forebodings, and dissipated, as if by enchantment, the unbroken dream which had tormented me for these three days past. It is not because I have wisely reflected — What can reason do against the influences of a supernatural power? but, fatigued with causeless fear, I have become re-assured also without a cause. This repose, therefore, cannot be security. An evil, apprehended without cause, and dissipated without rca-
D 2
52
TIÏAVEMUNDE.
on, may return ; a word, a cloud, the flight of a bird, may persuade me irresistibly that I have no right to be at ease. The same arguments may convince me that I am wrong to be uneasy.
Travemnnde has been undergoing improvements for the last ten years, and, what is more, the improvements have not spoilt it. A magnificent road has been completed between Lubeck and the sea; it forms one embowered avenue, under the shade of which the postilions convey you through orchards and hamlets, thinly scattered among the fields, to the mouth of the river. I have seen nothing so pastoral on any other coast. Though the town is lively, the surrounding country is silent and rural; it is a meadow, level with the sea, whose pastures, enlivened by numerous flocks, terminate only where the green turf is bathed by the salt water.
The Baltic here has the appearance of a lake, and its shores have an aspect of tranquillity that appears supernatural. One fancies one's self in the midst of happy shades, in Virgil's Elysian fields. The view of the Baltic Sea, notwithstanding its storms and rocks, inspires me with the idea of security. The waters of the most dangerous gulfs do not convey to the imagination the impression of extension without bounds. It is the idea of infinity which awes the man who stands on the borders of the great ocean.
The tinkling of the sheep-bell mingles with the ringing of the bells on board the steam-boats, in the port of Travemnnde. This sudden reminiscence of modern industry, in the midst of a country where a pastoral life is still that of a great part of the population, appears to me poetical without being ex-
HOLSTEIN FISIIEKMEN.
53
citing. This region inspires a healthful repose; it is a refuge from the encroachments of the age, and though level, open to the eye, and easily traversed, one feels here as much in solitude as thoim`h in the
О
midst of an island difficult of access, and where man has not disfigured nature. Here repose is inevitable — the mind sleeps and Time folds his wings.
The people of Holstein and Mecklenburg possess a serene kind of beauty, which accords with the gentle and peaceable aspect of their land, and the coldness of their climate. The colour in their cheeks, the even surface of the country, the monotony of their habits, the uniform aspect of the landscape, all is in harmony.
The hardships which the fishermen have to encounter during winter, when, to reach the sea, they have to cross a border of three leagues of ice, whose broken surface often presents chasms that are perilous to overleap, impart a kind of excitement to a life that would be otherwise very monotonous. Without this winter campaign, the inhabitants of the coast would languish in the corner of their huts, wrapped in sheep skins. The opulence of the sea-bathers upon this fine shore, is a source from which the peasants during summer obtain sufficient to supply their necessities for the rest of the year, without exposing themselves to so much peril and fatigue ; but man wants more than the necessaries of life. Among the men of Travemnnde the winter fishery is the source of every superfluity; the dangers which they voluntarily face during this rude season, enable them to gratify their more elegant tastes. It is for earrings, or a chain of gold for the neck of his mistress, or for
D 3
54.SUBLIMITY OF FLAT SCENER
Y.
a satin cravat for his own — in short, it is, not to eat, btit to adorn himself and those whom he loves, that the fisherman of Travemunde struggles at the peril of his life against the billows and the ice. He would not face this needless danger if he were not something above the mere animal; for the wants of luxury spring from the nobler part of our nature., and can perhaps be subdued only by a sentiment still more noble.
This country pleases me in spite of its uniform aspect. The vegetation is luxuriant. On the fifth of July the verdure still appears fresh ; the seringas in the gardens scarcely begin to blossom. The sun in these sluggish climes* is like a great lord, rising late, and showing himself for only a short time. The influences of spring begin but to appear in the month of June, when the days are again about to decline. But if the summer be short, the days are long, and then there reigns a sort of sublime serenity throughout a landscape in which the horizontal sim is scarcely visible, and where the sky is, in itself, the chief object. In viewing this land, level as the sea whose flow it scarcely arrests — a land sheltered alike from the revolutions of nature, and from the troubles of society—we are touched with that kind of admiration which we feel in gazing on the face of a virgin. It is, by comparison, like the pure charm of the eclogue,
* The author, in the remarks which here follow, appears to be alluding rather to the general climate of the Baltic Sea, than to that of its southern coast, which he has been just describing, and to which some of his remarks will not apply. The latitude of Travemunde is very nearly the same as that of York. — Trans
Russia in 1839 -Empire of the Czar: A Journey Through Eternal Russia Page 7
