The group left Paris in three carriages on 21 July 1830: Anne in her own with servants and luggage, Lady Stuart de Rothesay with her two young daughters in a landau, and a third carriage for her servants and luggage – twelve people in all. They arrived in Bordeaux on 26 July; so hot, hardly resolution to dress at all.18 On 28 July, unsettling news arrived from Paris, where the July Revolution had broken out. The last Bourbon king, Charles X, a reactionary, had ordered the dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies, limited the vote and restricted freedom of the press. In response, tradesmen, workers and students built barricades on the streets against the authorities – including beneath Aunt Anne’s windows, while she was all alone in Paris. After three days of violent clashes, the king abdicated and fled to England. In southern France, the revolution was felt only indirectly: newspapers were not printed, the Tricolore was flown instead of the white and gold flag of the monarchy, and Anne was surprised to find she could not cash a bill of credit from the Rothschild bank. Rather anxious, the group sought shelter with the British consul in Pau. After days of great uncertainty, Lady Stuart received news from her husband, instructing her to continue with her vacation as planned. Aunt Anne reported to her niece that all was calm again and the ‘citizen king’ Louis Philippe was being proclaimed monarch that day, 9 August; she selflessly wished Anne pleasant travels. Anne did not recognise that her aunt had been desperate with fear during the days of the revolution, just as she did not see through the British ambassador’s tactical reasons for having his wife put on a pretence of normality.
As on the trip around Belgium and Germany the previous year with Lady Stuart’s mother-in-law, Anne soon grew bored of the high society to which she aspired. I am heartily sick of this life of trammel, she complained. I get no real walking, am getting fatter and all day tortured by dress too tight. Oh, that I was unknown and walking and riding about at my ease.19 Usually, she would have tried to liven up the trip with a flirt. But the wife of the British ambassador was taboo, even for Anne Lister. Expeditions to Eaux Bonnes and Eaux Chaudes only made her all the more keen, having already crossed the Bernese Highlands, to see the higher mountains of the Pyrenees. Starting from Luz-Saint-Sauveur, where they stayed for three weeks, she finally had the longed-for opportunity. Without informing Lady Stuart, Anne hired a guide, Pierre Jean Charles, packed a rucksack with crampons and a change of clothes, and announced to her surprised travelling companion, at the end of a picnic at the famous Cirque de Gavarnie, that she’d see them in four days’ time. Anne later reminded Lady Stuart how grave you looked, but her friend did give her a piece of chocolate and the five-franc-piece20 to take along.
Anne and her guide spent the night in Gavarnie, where they hired a local smuggler who knew the mountains well. In the early morning of 24 August, Anne started by arranging my dress, etc. Loops & strings put to my old black merino that I have all along rode in here, so as to tie it up round me,21 and then climbed in the finest weather with her two guides to the top of the Brèche de Roland (2807 m), a spectacular natural breach in the main crest of the Pyrenees. Today’s visitors pass only the remains of a glacier, but in Anne’s time the ice was still so steep that, in spite of iron cramps strapped round our feet, and long iron pointed sticks in our hands to hold by, it was with some difficulty we got up it. In the next glacier, still worse than the other, one of the guides with an axe cut little steps for himself and the rest of us, that we could just stick our toes into, and, one after another, we all got safe over. At 12:30 they were standing in the legendary gap, enjoying the view for ten minutes. Getting to the bottom did not give us much trouble – my foot slipped, I found myself sitting instead of standing, and, in this way, glided down so nicely they all thought I had done it on purpose.22 In the Spanish part of the Pyrenees, they headed south and spent the night in a modest shepherd’s hut near Góriz. They got up at 3:15 the next morning and spent four hours climbing Monte Perdido (3,355 m), the third highest mountain in the Pyrenees. It is now the heart of the Spanish Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido, and can be reached by practised mountain hikers without mountaineering equipment. Anne Lister also found the ascent more fatiguing than difficult. The view was magnificent, particularly towards Spain. It was not, however, entirely for the view I had gone up – I was curious to try the effect of the air at so great an elevation, but none of the inconveniences so often complained of, affected me at all. I felt only that the breeze was light and exhilarating. Up there, it was the perfect solitude, the profound stillness that gave me a sensation I had never had before. The descent took them three hours; along the magnificent gorge d’Ortessa – the ‘European Grand Canyon’ – at the end of a long day they reached Torla, at that time still a picturesque little town.23 Anne collapsed that evening, as she had after her extremely long hike across the elevations of the Lake District. They brought me goat’s milk – it was no sooner down than up again. Then called for wine and got an enormous bottle of vin de Carignan, like a rich cordial. A little of this with water and a large plate, 3 bunches, of grapes was all I could take.24 She later recalled, no moment of my life has made a deeper impression on me, than the moment of my return from Mt Perdu.25
The next morning, she had barely greased my shoes with the oil of the lamp, or poor things they seemed as if they would hardly last me home,26 when along came the village priest to pay his respects. We contrived to understand each other in Latin. He immediately asked if I was christiana. I guessed there was but one step in Spain from christian or Roman Catholic to heretic or infidel, and said yes. This opened to me every drawer of the sacristy, and even the very pipes of the organ. A policeman also asked sceptical questions, having been informed that I had been drawing military plans! You would have laughed to see the careful examination of my little note book,27 Anne later played down the incident in a letter to her aunt. As the notebook contained neither sketches of the landscape nor passages in suspicious secret code, she was allowed to mount the mules she had ordered with her guides and ride back to France via Ordesa, San Nicolás de Bujaruelo and Port de Gavarnie. They reached Gavarnie at nine in the evening, spent another night there and walked back to Saint-Sauveur the next day. The only person she told of her experience was Lady Stuart de Rothesay, who welcomed her with some relief, for it was not quite a lady’s expedition.28
Four days later, Anne hiked via the Col du Tourmalet mountain pass – which the Tour de France cyclists ascend every year – to Bagnères de Bigorre, and booked accommodation for the whole group in the spa resort. During the three weeks Lady Stuart spent taking the waters, Anne again got bored. She took her servants Charles and Cameron back deeper into the Pyrenees to Bagnères de Luchon on the border with Spain. Despite a dire warning from Lady Stuart, Anne wanted to give in to the temptation to cross the border a second time. The scenery on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees seems so much bolder and finer than on the French.29 She had also taken a fancy to the constantly knitting shepherds there and the fine black eyes, and long black braided hair of the women.30 Not taking her leave of Lady Stuart, she crossed the border at Bosost, spent one night in Las Bordas and the next in Vielha. The next morning, she was stopped by two soldiers. The Spanish authorities feared the July Revolution might cross over from France and were arresting every suspicious foreigner in the border region. Many years later, an insinuation of Anne’s suggests she was arrested and was to be put into prison in the provincial capital, Jaca. We do not know whether she talked the soldiers there round or bribed them, but Anne was then escorted to Benasque, where she took part in a festival without letting her guards bother her. We had music and dancing and singing. The fandango and bolero delighted me, and the fine wild notes of a young whiskered Don, who accompanied himself on the guitar, seemed to inspirit us all. I never in my life ate such fine, large, delicious grapes or drank such rich, strong wines. She returned to Bagnères de Bigorre via Port de Venasque and the Hospice de France.
Lady Stuart greeted her with accusations. She had heard rumours of Anne’s arrest. She
excoriated Anne’s adventures, which put her on the spot as the wife of the British ambassador. I think she does not much like my character of enterprise.31 For the remaining six weeks, Anne stayed obediently by her side. They travelled via Toulouse, Narbonne, Montpellier, Nîmes, Arles, Marseille and Toulon to Hyères, where they stayed for ten days. All in all, Anne did not think much of the French Mediterranean coast. The clear blue sky – the scented air was delightful; but, save the dark green orange-gardens of Hières, there was a glare that blinded me. All is too white.32 On 1 November they began their return journey along the Rhône Valley, staying in Lyon and arriving back in Paris on 14 November 1830.
There, it was not only the stumps of felled street trees used for the barricades that reminded them the July Revolution had taken place. The legal and political fallout of the Trois Glorieuses almost led France into another war, something which was also feared in other parts of Europe. Belgium had seceded from the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Anne Lister’s friends at the embassy were facing the aftermath of the intrigues the ambassador himself had contrived during the July Revolution. Ignoring the neutral stance imposed on him by the British government, Lord Stuart de Rothesay had tried to manoeuvre another man onto the throne rather than the citizen king Louis Philippe, causing diplomatic difficulties for Britain. When a new government came to power in London under Earl Grey, Lord Stuart was not only recalled from Paris but dismissed from the diplomatic corps entirely. The Stuarts had to leave the embassy by Christmas.
This was a heavy blow to Anne Lister. And another piece of news also scotched her hopes for better social standing: Sibella Maclean had died. She is the first friend I ever lost. I know not quite what is my feeling; but it is one of great heaviness and heart-sinking, though I know that her release was a mercy, and what all must have desired.33 As part of her grieving process, she copied their entire correspondence into her diary.
Instead of savouring her breakthrough to high society, Anne had to take stock of her financial position in the politically turbulent winter of 1830–1831. She and her aunt were spending too much money in Paris. Shibden Hall had brought in an income of £1,062 over the past year. The trip to the south of France had cost Anne £300 instead of the £200 she had expected. There being no sign of a rich match on the horizon, Anne had to try to make more money out of her assets by means of investments and business ideas. Returning to England was all the more expedient because a war would have cut Anne and her aunt off from their funds. For Aunt Anne as well, there was no alternative but her going back to Shibden; there is so much excitement here; who knows how it will end!34
However, neither of them were keen to return to Shibden Hall, where Jeremy and Marian Lister were now setting the tone. The servants dine at one o’clock, Anne learned from a letter from her sister. My aunt we cannot imagine will object to dine with my father at two o’clock, and you, of course, have a tray, as usual; Anne had always eaten later than the rest of the family, not valuing their company. I must say I think your having so many servants, considering the accommodations, a serious inconvenience. Anne might be able to keep her servant George but she was told to let her maid go, as they cannot interfere with the house servants, or in the kitchen in any way. There were no capacities for Anne’s and her aunt’s laundry so it would have to be dealt with elsewhere, Anne’s finer items might possibly be washed early on Thursday mornings. Marian also wanted to put a stop to any plans of her sister’s for Anne’s own estate. I think it is absolutely necessary that not a word is said relative to alterations either in the house, or out of the house, my father will not agree to them, he cannot endure them, and I assure you it can but create in both unpleasant feeling. Marian set rules for the future use of sugar, then asked her sister to give good notice of her arrival. And now my dear Anne I fancy I have mentioned everything that can signify, for it surely is not needful to say that we shall do all in our power to make my aunt and yourself comfortable, though of course my father must of necessity live in his usual quiet regular way.35 Aunt Anne and her niece must have exchanged dark looks after reading this letter. Hoping for a bolthole to escape the inevitable conflict, Anne kept her room on rue St Victor for £17 a year. The two left the city on 23 May 1831. Aunt Anne had spent almost five uninterrupted years in Paris.
Six days later they arrived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park, where they stayed two nights with the dowager Lady Stuart and Vere Hobart. Since their parting in Calais, Anne had attempted to flirt by letter with meiner lieben lieben Vere36 – my dear, dear Vere, writing in German. Vere was open to Anne’s suggestion to spend the next winter together in Italy. As a taste of things to come, Anne sent a surprise package to Pembroke Lodge after her departure. My dear Miss Lister, I have nothing in the world to tell you (which you will say is a promising commencement to my letter), but, Vere continued her letter, I must say how delicious we found your Marseille figs, [...] safe and dry and unsticky, and as sweet to my nose as the figs to my palate. [...] I marvel much at your parting with them so easily, you see how I would have acted in similar circumstances – gobbled them up, to be sure.37
At Shibden Hall, life with Jeremy and Marian was as uncomfortable as anticipated. Against Marian’s instructions, Anne immediately had a ground-floor room divided, erecting an interior wall, adding two windows in the exterior wall and installing a fireplace so that Aunt Anne could lead a warm life without having to climb stairs. Having given the necessary orders around the house, Anne fled to York only two and a half weeks later. There, however, her old friends the Duffins and Belcombes bored her, and things were no better at Langton Hall, where she spent three weeks in July with Isabella Norcliffe.
So off Anne went on a spontaneous trip to the Netherlands in early August, taking Mariana Lawton along for lack of alternatives. They spent three weeks visiting Rotterdam, Utrecht, The Hague, Leiden, Haarlem and Amsterdam and admiring localities so beautifully clean and neat, you might eat off the streets.38 Yet it was an ill-fated journey to Holland.39 We do not know what exactly happened, as the ten pages left blank in Anne’s diary were never filled. On the return journey they stopped in London, where at the King’s Theatre they heard Nicolò Paganini, whose wondrous fiddling on one string surprised and kept us awake in spite of a rather restless night the night before on board the steamer. On the way north they visited the cathedrals of Norwich, Ely, Peterborough and Lincoln – but no ecclesiastical building I have ever seen equals York cathedral.40 Anne was back at Shibden Hall on 24 August 1831.
She could stand it only for a few days. On 10 September she left for Manchester to try out a brand new invention: a train ride. The line to Liverpool, regarded as the ‘mother of all railways’, had been opened a year previously. For the 35-mile stretch, bridges and viaducts had been built, foundations were sunk in a bog, cuttings were made through rock, and a tunnel was dug beneath the centre of Liverpool to extend the tracks all the way to the port. Anne wanted to take a look at this feat of engineering, boarding a train at 7:15 in the morning. We went twenty miles an hour, but so comfortably and steadily, one might have been writing, if one chose it, all the way.41 She reached Liverpool by 9:10. Anne began her return journey an hour later. Better understanding the thing, got into the very last carriage, a sort of open German waggon (merely the top covered) with glass windows all along the back so that we had a back view all along the line of railroad – far the best place for seeing.42 She was back in Manchester by 12:06. It was impossible not to be surprised, and gratified at the steam expedition. As a shareholder in canals, Anne was nonetheless pleased to hear that the plan to extend the railway via Halifax to Leeds had been abandoned for the time being. Great doubts whether it would pay, she informed her aunt. You may therefore set your mind at ease about the Calder & Hebble Navigation.43
From Manchester, a restless Anne travelled on to London, where she once again stayed with the dowager Lady Stuart and Vere Hobart. Anne asked Vere to say for certain whether they would spend the winter together in the south, if possible in
Rome and Naples. Vere, however, asked to think it over until 20 October; Vere is being courted,44 Lady Stuart told Anne. Anne tried to make the best of the situation and passed the four weeks of waiting with a trip along the south coast of England. On her return to London, Vere was not making a point of crossing the water;45 cholera had reached Europe for the first time, and had already claimed several thousand lives in Vienna and Berlin. As Vere had been told to seek out a milder climate for health reasons, the Stuarts suggested that she and Anne should spend a few months on the Channel at Hastings. Not wanting to return to Shibden Hall and unable to go abroad alone, Anne pretended to welcome the suggestion.
The two women arrived in Hastings on 25 October 1831; they found a house at 15 Pelham Square, which they rented until the following spring. It had two ground-floor reception rooms and two bedrooms above. The rent included cleaning, lighting the stove and preparing meals, otherwise I have thrown all the cares of housekeeping on Miss Hobart who really manages very nicely, far better than I should do.46 They took excursions and Anne walked on the beach a great deal, with or without Vere. Vere helped Anne to learn German, and Anne accompanied the charmingly singing47 Vere on the pianoforte.
Anne was soon coming up with plans for living together – if Vere can be persuaded to it, as Phyllis Ramsden paraphrases Anne’s coded diary passages. Yet as early as 10 November there was a first tiff with Vere over her callers. The vicinity to London meant Vere’s social life was not interrupted, in fact it seems she had more visitors than ever, with eligible bachelors in particular paying calls, hoping – as did Anne Lister – to use the opportunity to chat with the rich heiress away from the eagle eyes of the dowager Lady Stuart. After another tiff things came to a head over Christmas. AL stays in bed all day, to avoid one of Vere’s beaux! Anne had agreed to spend the winter in damp, rainy, windswept Hastings so as to extract Vere from her family’s influence and win her over. Now, though, things could not be further from intimate togetherness in their house by the sea. Vere thinks AL very ‘odd’, without seeing the sexual character of Anne’s ‘oddness’. Anne concluded the year with a page and a half of coded notes about Vere.
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