Romantic Outlaws: The Extraordinary Lives of Mary Wollstonecraft and Her Daughter Mary Shelley

by Charlotte Gordon

  Rumors of an affair swept periodically through literary and political circles, and these were exacerbated when Hunt published a poem, The Tale of Rimini, that retold, and appeared to celebrate, the story of Paulo and Francesca, the incestuous lovers from Dante’s Inferno—confirmation, according to critics, of his immoral relationship with his wife’s sister. Although it is unlikely that Bess and Hunt ever consummated their relationship, it is true that, as with Shelley and Claire, there was a strong attraction and an intimacy that often trumped that of husband and wife.

  This situation was all too familiar to Mary, so she was not surprised to find that Bess and Marianne fought almost all the time. But it was shocking to wake up one morning and hear that while everyone was asleep, Bess had thrown herself in the pond behind the house, where she would have drowned had she not been discovered in time by the servants. Mary empathized as she watched Marianne struggle to manage the guilt, remorse, and anger that Bess’s act had evoked.

  To Mary, Bess’s suicide attempt was a warning bell. For all of her conflicts with her stepsister, Mary did not want Claire to kill herself, nor did she want their relationship to become as embittered as that of the Kent sisters. She knew that Bess had turned to opium and Marianne was already well on her way to alcoholism, and this was not the future she wanted for her sister or herself. However, she felt trapped. Their lives were too entangled, especially now that Claire was a single mother and even more dependent on Mary and Shelley. There was also the additional question of what to do with Allegra. If the baby remained with Claire, people would begin to suspect that Claire was her mother, not her aunt, which would shut the door on any future opportunity to appear in polite society. This was something Claire said she did not care about, but Mary did. She wanted her sister to become independent from her and Shelley, and societal acceptance was a necessary first step in making an advantageous marriage, or securing a job as a governess or teacher—the best options for Claire’s future. And so, after many weeks of discussion, Mary, Shelley, and the Hunts came up with a scheme: the Hunts would take Claire’s baby into their family for a few months and pretend she was theirs—they had four children; who would notice one more? Then the Shelleys and Claire would “adopt” Allegra back into their own household, letting the world think the baby was a little Hunt. It was an imperfect solution, far-fetched even, but Mary fully supported it, hoping that it might hasten the day when she would finally be free of Claire.

  CHAPTER 18

  MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT: IN LOVE

  [ 1792 ]

  ladies’ man, a veteran of the American Revolution, a land speculator on the lookout for fast money, an amateur philosopher, an author, and, some say, a spy, Gilbert Imlay is still something of a mystery today. Before he arrived in revolutionary France, he had spent a few years undercover, running from creditors. Now that he was in Paris, he hoped to sell land on the American frontier to those who were disenchanted with the Revolution or who had run afoul of the authorities.

  Imlay had been invited to the Christies’ party on the strength of his friendship with Joel Barlow, another American and an acquaintance of Mary, who adored Barlow’s wife, Ruth. In the weeks following the party, Imlay began to pursue Mary, and although she had not noticed him at first, her other suitors soon paled beside the exotic American. Imlay had a frontiersman’s quiet dignity; when he had an opinion, he got straight to the point, not waiting to hear what others thought. His manners were forthright, his American accent distinctive. Before long Mary discovered that their political views were almost identical. They both believed in liberty, equality, and women’s rights. Both supported the Revolution; both were worried about the escalating violence.

  He was also an excellent conversationalist—witty, flirtatious, and charming. Mary was entranced by the picture he drew of America: a republic with rippling green cornfields, small farms dotting the hillsides, strong men, pioneer women, and red, white, and blue flags of freedom waving from the liberty trees. During the next two weeks, as they sipped English tea at Helen Maria’s or chatted in the Barlows’ elegant drawing room at 22 Rue Jacob, Imlay inspired Mary by telling her that America was a place where utopian dreams could become reality, where men and women could learn to live together as equals, where slaves could be freed, where tyranny could, at last, be entirely eradicated from the earth. He had written two books that proved his credentials as a bona fide idealist. The first was a paean to the frontier. A Topographical Description of the Western Territory of North America not only provided the most accurate description of the trans-Allegheny region in print, it was a celebration of life in the wilderness. America, Imlay declared, was a country where “freedom is enthroned in the heart of every citizen.” His novel, The Emigrants, attacked the slave trade, inherited wealth, monarchies, strict divorce laws, and all impositions on freedom, including marriage, which he called a “state of degradation and misery” for women.

  Even before meeting Imlay, Mary had been interested in America; back in England, she had helped her brother Charles emigrate there and it had been a frequent topic of conversation at Johnson’s dinner parties. One of Johnson’s regulars, the scientist Joseph Priestley, had intrigued Mary by declaring his intention to move to America and breathe the air of freedom.

  The more Imlay talked, the more fascinated Mary became. Her dreams of America became entwined with her dreams of Imlay. The man, the country—both seemed to promise liberty and a new life. She and Imlay went for long walks around Paris and now, under these romantic circumstances, Mary saw the city differently. Paris was a “fairy scene” that “touch[ed] the heart.” She delighted in the “charming boulevards” and the city’s “simple, playful elegance.” The heavens seemed to “smile.” Even the air was “sweet” with the fragrance of the “clustering flowers.” Eventually, she confided in Imlay about Fuseli, and in return he told her about a “cunning” woman who had broken his heart. On April 19, Joel Barlow wrote his wife, Ruth, in London that he suspected Mary and Imlay were beginning an affair. “Between you and me—you must not hint it to her or to J[ohnson] or to anyone else—I believe [Mary] has got a sweetheart, and that she [will] finish by going with him to A[merica] a wife. He is of Kentucky and a very sensible man.”

  As the days grew warmer, the political situation became increasingly unsettled. The death of the king had not solved the people’s problems. Bread was still expensive and they were still poor. Angry outbursts erupted on street corners, and more and more “enemies of the people” were denounced. Gilbert and Mary watched as their French friends, the moderate Girondists, battled for their lives against the radical Jacobins. Even Théroigne de Méricourt, radical though she was, was attacked while giving an outdoor speech on the rights of women. A crowd of red-pantalooned working women pelted her with stones, knocked her off the podium, tore off her clothes, and smashed her skull open. Though de Méricourt did not die, she never fully recovered; imprisoned by the Jacobin police, she sat in a dark cell, injured and terrified, refusing to speak to any of her old friends.

  Mary was well aware that if the Jacobins came into power, Madame Roland, Olympe de Gouges, and many others who had opposed the execution of the king faced grave danger, as did their English sympathizers, including herself, Thomas Paine, and Helen Maria Williams. In addition, when England declared war on France, British citizens had immediately become enemies of the state. Only Imlay and Barlow were safe, because the French considered Americans comrades in arms. Everyone knew the situation was truly dire when the brave Madame Roland stopped holding her salons that spring; thereafter, Mary and her friends grew cautious about where they went in the city and what they said in public.

  To Mary, alarmed by these terrible accounts of violence, Imlay’s tales of America sounded more and more attractive. In the middle of May, about six weeks after they met, he declared his love and asked her to move back there with him, far from the excesses of the Revolution and the corruption of Europe. Mary was filled with rapture at the thought. Together they walked to
his apartment in Saint-Germain-des-Prés and they made love—she for the very first time. Later she remembered how Imlay’s eyes “glistened with sympathy,” how his kisses were “softer than soft.” At a party, a Frenchwoman seeking to win Mary’s approval said that she thought love affairs were unnecessary and that she herself was above them. “Tant pis pour vous” (“Tough luck for you”), Mary replied, filled with the rosy glow of passion. She had finally discovered what she had long suspected was true: sexual ardor was an essential component of loving a man, even if marriage was not. What mattered was the union of two hearts. True chastity lay not in virginity, but in fidelity to one’s beloved. There was no need for a legal document. If two people truly loved each other, then they would remain together forever. She could not imagine being with anyone but Imlay and she was sure he felt the same way. They were part of the revolution, pioneering a new kind of relationship between a man and a woman—a love affair between equals—something she had thought impossible, at least in her own lifetime.

  It was an extraordinary time to fall in love. On May 31, eighty thousand Parisians took to the streets, protesting the price of bread and calling for the ouster of the Girondists. The radical Jacobins capitalized on the riots, arresting many prominent leaders of the moderates, including Madame Roland. On June 1, it was announced that all resident aliens had to chalk their names on their doors. On June 2, the Girondists were forced from the Convention. The city had become a prison, and Mary worried that the paranoid authorities would accuse her hosts, Aline and her husband, of harboring a British spy. She decided to move to a cottage owned by the Filliettazes’ gardener in Neuilly, about four miles northwest of the city walls.

  Safety concerns aside, this cottage was a stroke of luck. Mary savored the idea of having a place of her own. Spending the night with Gilbert had been an awkward and almost impossible proposition while she was living with the Filliettazes. Open-minded though they were, her hosts were more conservative than Mary’s new revolutionary friends and would have been scandalized if she had hosted a male visitor. If she had disappeared to Gilbert’s house and not come back until morning, they would have been alarmed for her safety. But now Gilbert could come and stay with her. They could sleep in the same bed, share meals, and have long quiet evenings, just the two of them.

  Her first night in the cottage was strangely silent after Paris. Here there were no inquisitive neighbors or shopkeepers, no mobs patrolling the streets, no provocateurs shouting in the squares, no parties to attend, no host and hostess. She had not lived in the country for many years and reveled in the beauty around her, although it seemed odd to be in such a bucolic setting when only a few miles away the city was in turmoil. She spent hours reading and writing. The Filliettazes’ gardener liked her, as most servants did. He left her baskets of grapes and peaches and expressed concern about her habit of taking long walks alone when vagabonds and brigands hid in the woods. Undeterred, Mary roamed through the nearby fields, even trekking eleven miles to Versailles. She would be one of the last to see the deserted palace before the royal furniture was auctioned off later that summer. It was still very much as it had been when the king and queen lived there, though the halls echoed with emptiness. The “air is chill,” she wrote, “seeming to clog the breath; and the wasting dampness of destruction appears to be stealing into the vast pile on every side.” It was an eerie experience, walking alone through the Hall of Mirrors, the War Salon, the Hercules Room, the queen’s chambers. She felt surrounded by ghosts: the “gigantic” portraits of kings “seem to be sinking into the embraces of death.” Outside, all of the famous grottoes and statues were still there, including Marie Antoinette’s “Temple of Love” and her infamous “farm,” the petit hameau, where she and her ladies had dressed as shepherdesses and milked the prettiest, most gentle cows the servants could find. But now the grass was overgrown and the flowerbeds unweeded. Mary was both shocked and saddened by what she saw, writing, “I weep, O France, over the vestiges of thy former oppression.” Yet while she disapproved of the opulence of Versailles, its glorification of kings and their armies, she was also appalled at the reports she heard about the Jacobins’ abuse of power, killing people “whose only crime is their name.” Hope lay in freedom, she believed, not in tyranny, whether the tyrants were republican leaders or monarchs.

  When Gilbert came to visit her, she met him at the gates of the city. He smiled and embraced her, calling her “dear girl.” She told him how much she loved him, spilling out her plans and her hopes, which continued to evolve as the summer passed. Financial independence and literary fame were no longer enough. Now she wanted a snug domestic life with Gilbert, a simple cottage, a flower garden, and “cheerful poultry.” They could own a small plot of land and a cow. Maybe they could settle on the banks of the Ohio River, which Gilbert had assured her was one of the most captivating places on earth. There they could write and read and study, working to bring freedom to the rest of the world.

  However, there was a darker side to falling in love, she discovered. When Gilbert could not visit her, she despaired. If he had to cancel their meetings or did not appear, she was hurt and angry. Her notes to Gilbert reflect the complexity of her feelings, as well as the anxiety she felt that her ardor might drive him away. She did not want to frighten him, but she wanted him to know how much she loved him, expressing the same sort of passion she had once felt for Jane, Fanny, and Fuseli:

  You can scarcely imagine with what pleasure I anticipate the day, when we are to begin almost to live together; and you would smile to hear how many plans of employment I have in my head, now that I am confident my heart has found peace in your bosom.—Cherish me with that dignified tenderness, which I have only found in you; and your own dear girl will try to keep under a quickness of feeling, that has sometimes given you pain—Yes, I will be good, that I may deserve to be happy; and whilst you love me, I cannot again fall into the miserable state, which rendered life a burthen almost too heavy to be borne.

  For all her protestations of “confidence,” Mary was worried. She knew her happiness was contingent on Gilbert’s love and if he went away she would be lost. She tried not to press him too hard, looking forward to the day when they would “almost” live together, letting the prospect of sharing a house seem tentative. She knew that he did not like her melancholy or her rage when she sensed him distancing himself. She tried to control her feelings the way he asked her to, but she could not help herself. It was terrifying to need a man this much.

  As the summer faded into fall, the Jacobins tightened their grip on the city. Each week, Mary heard of new imprisonments: Olympe de Gouges, the Christies, Thomas Paine. Just how tense things had become was made clear one day when Mary paid a visit to the city and stepped in blood, running like rainwater down the street from the nearby guillotine. When she gasped, a passerby hushed her, warning her to keep quiet. It was crucial to express joy over the daily murders or one might be charged as a collaborator, a traitor to the Revolution. Even if she behaved with uncharacteristic circumspection, Mary knew it was not long before she, too, would be imprisoned.

  Faced with these mounting dangers, she began to worry that she would have to leave France, but she resisted making any plans for departure. She was not through witnessing this “revolution in the minds of men,” and she did not want to separate from Gilbert, who was now deeply enmeshed in his moneymaking schemes. England had placed an embargo on trade with the French, and Imlay, always on the lookout for new ventures, had stepped into the breach, masterminding French trade with America for soap, wheat, and other essentials.

  In August, they decided the best plan would be to have Gilbert register Mary as his wife at the American embassy. As “Mary Imlay,” she would be safe from the French authorities. In the eyes of the world, the couple would become man and wife without Mary’s having to forgo any of her legal rights and without Imlay’s having to swear to take care of her until the day he died.

  At the end of the summer, Mary returned to Pa
ris to live with Gilbert in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Imlay’s apartment was in a neighborhood that was quieter and less dangerous than the Marais, where she had lived before. The houses here were newly built out of white stone. They had high ceilings and tall windows and were set farther apart than in the older quarters. A few decades earlier, Saint-Germain-des-Prés had been more like a village than a part of Paris—bucolic and off the beaten track—and it still retained a rural flavor, with trees lining the streets and flower gardens. Many foreigners had moved there in an effort to avoid prison or death. When Mary walked down the street, she could hear a polyglot of languages: English, German, Italian, and Russian as well as French.

  After she had unpacked her boxes of books, Mary settled down to writing. Events were occurring so quickly it was hard to stay abreast of the latest news. She busied herself, taking notes and visiting friends she had not seen since her summer retreat, and at first all went smoothly, despite the tension that ruled the city. Her days with Imlay were blissful. They ate their meals together and had long conversations in the evening about the future, their own and that of France. She felt cherished, idealized, and charmed by his humor and warmth. Best of all, she was living in accordance with her philosophy. She had not surrendered her independence and yet was living with the man she loved. But this idyll was quickly cut short. Soon after Mary moved in, Imlay left for business, traveling 120 miles northwest to Le Havre to oversee his trading company, which had expanded beyond America to focus largely on Sweden and Norway.