Shortly after Mary’s marriage, Madame de Frontignac sailed with her husband for home, where they lived in a very retired way on a large estate in the South of France. An intimate corresponden e was kept up between her and Mary for many years, from which we shall give our readers a few extracts. Her first letter is dated shortly after her return to France.
“At last, my sweet Marie, you behold us in peace after our wanderings. I wish you could see our lovely nest in the hills, which overlook the Mediterranean, whose blue waters remind me of Newport harbor and our old days there. Ah, my sweet saint, blessed was the day I first learned to know you! for it was you, more than anything else, that kept me back from sin and misery. I call you my Sibyl, dearest, because the Sibyl was a prophetess of divine things out of the Church; and so are you. The Abbé says, that all true, devout persons in all persuasions belong to the True Catholic Apostolic Church, and will in the end be enlightened to know it; what do you think of that, ma belle? I fancy I see you look at me with your grave, innocent eyes, just as you used to; but you say nothing. “I am far happier, ma Marie, than I ever thought I could be. I took your advice, and told my husband all I had felt and suffered. It was a very hard thing to do; but I felt how true it was, as you said, that there could be no real friendship without perfect truth at bottom; so I told him all, and he was very good and noble and helpful to me; and since then he has been so gentle and patient and thoughtful, that no mother could be kinder; and I should be a very bad woman, if I did not love him truly and dearly, — as I do. “I must confess that there is still a weak, bleeding place in my heart that aches yet, but I try to bear it bravely; and when I am tempted to think myself very miserable, I remember how patiently you used to go about your house-work and spinning, in those sad days when you thought your heart was drowned in the sea; and I try to do like you. I have many duties to my servants and tenants, and mean to be a good châtelaine, and I find, when I nurse the sick and comfort the poor, that my sorrows are lighter. For, after all, Mary, I have lost nothing that ever was mine, — only my foolish heart has grown to something that is should not, and bleeds at being torn away. Nobody but Christ and His dear Mother can tell what this sorrow is; but they know, and that is enough.” The next letter is dated some three years after. “You see me now, my Marie, a proud and happy woman. I was truly envious, when you wrote me of the birth of your little son; but now the dear good God has sent a sweet little angel to me, to comfort my sorrows and lie close to my heart; and since he came, all pain is gone. Ah, if you could see him! he has black eyes and lashes like silk, and such little hands! — even his finger-nails are all perfect, like little gems; and when he puts his little hand on my bosom, I tremble with joy. Since he came, I pray always, and the good God seems very near to me. Now I realize, as I never did before, the sublime thought that God revealed Himself in the infant Jesus; and I bow before the manger of Bethlehem where the Holy Babe was laid. What comfort, what adorable condescension for us mothers in that scene! — My husband is so moved, he can scarce stay an hour from the cradle. He seems to look at me with a sort of awe, because I know how to care for this precious treasure that he adores without daring to touch. We are going to call him Henri, which is my husband’s name and that of his ancestors for many generations back. I vow for him an eternal friendship with the son of my little Marie; and I shall try and train him up to be a brave man and a true Christian. Ah, Marie, this gives me something to live for! My heart is full, — a whole new life opens before me!” Somewhat later, another letter announces the birth of a daughter, — and later still, the birth of another son; but we shall only add one more, written some years after, on hearing of the great reverses of popular feeling towards Burr, subsequently to his duel with the ill-fated Hamilton. “Ma chère Marie, — Your letter has filled me with grief. My noble Henri, who already begins to talk of himself as my protector, (these boys feel their manhood so soon, ma Marie!) saw by my face, when I read your letter, that something pained me, and he would not rest till I told him something about it. Ah, Marie, how thankful I then felt that I had nothing to blush for before my son! how thankful for those dear children whose little hands had healed all the morbid places of my heart, so that I could think of all the past without a pang! I told Henri that the letter brought bad news of an old friend, but that it pained me to speak of it; and you would have thought, by the grave and tender way he talked to his mamma, that the boy was an experienced man of forty, to say the least. “But, Marie, how unjust is the world! how unjust both in praise and blame! Poor Burr was the petted child of society; yesterday she doted on him, flattered him, smiled on his faults, and let him do what he would without reproof; today she flouts and scorns and scoffs him, and refuses to see the least good in him. I know that man, Mary, — and I know, that, sinful as he may be before Infinite Purity, he is not so much more sinful than all the other men of his time. Have I not been in America? I know Jefferson; I knew poor Hamilton, — peace be with the dead! Neither of them had a life that could bear the sort of trial to which Burr’s is subjected. When every secret fault, failing, and sin is dragged out, and held up without mercy, what man can stand? “But I know what irritates the world is that proud, disdainful calm which will neither give sigh nor tear. It was not that he killed poor Hamilton, but that he never seemed to care! Ah, there is that evil demon of his life, — that cold, stoical pride, which haunts him like a fate! But I know he does feel; I know he is not as hard at heart as he tries to be; I have seen too many real acts of pity to the unfortunate, of tenderness to the weak, of real love to his friends, to believe that. Great have been his sins against our sex, and God forbid that the mothers of children should speak lightly of them; but is not so susceptible a temperament, and so singular a power to charm as he possessed, to be taken into account in estimating his temptations? Because he is a sinning man, it does not follow that he is a demon. If any should have cause to think bitterly of him, I should. He trifled inexcusably with my deepest feelings; he caused me years of conflict and anguish, such as he little knows; I was almost shipwrecked; yet I will still say to the last that what I loved in him was a better self, — something really noble and good, however concealed and perverted by pride, ambition, and self-will. Though all the world reject him, I still have faith in this better nature, and prayers that he may be led right at last. There is at least one heart that will always intercede with God for him.”
It is well known, that, for many years after Burr’s death, the odium that covered his name was so great that no monument was erected, lest it should become a mark for popular violence. Subsequently, however, in a mysterious manner, a plain granite slab marked his grave; by whom erected has been never known. It was placed in the night by some friendly, unknown hand. A laborer in the vicinity, who first discovered it, found lying near the spot a small porte-monnaie, which had perhaps been used in paying for the workmanship. It contained no papers that could throw any light on the subject, except the fragment of the address of a letter on which was written “Henri de Frontignac.”
THE END
AGNES OF SORRENTO
Agnes of Sorrento first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly beginning in May 1861 and completing its serialisation in April 1862. In England the work was first published in The Cornhill Magazine, which was an attempt to receive at least some money from the British market at a time when international copyright laws did not exist. It was in the summer of 1859 that Stowe took her final trip to Europe; she stayed for several months in Italy with her children and her attention began to turn to religious figures of the past associated with the Catholic Church. She began to write Agnes of Sorrento during the winter she spent in Italy in 1859 and the origins of the tale occurred due to a good-natured writing contest between Stowe and some of her friends. When the work finally appeared in book form the novelist sent a letter to her publisher explaining the inception of the novel. Stowe wrote that she was with a party of friends on an excursion through Southern Italy when a storm struck in Salerno and the group w
as forced to spend a couple of nights in very gloomy conditions.
Stowe states that the friends decided to keep themselves entertained by creating stories and it was here that the first chapters of the novel were composed and read. Agnes of Sorrento is considered an historical novel, although the author was keen to express that she was not attempting to chronicle a perfectly accurate history and the events in the text are only part of a ‘dreamland’. The novel is centred round a young woman called Agnes, who lives in a peaceful and spiritually fulfilling convent and yet is being sought as a wife by an Italian prince. The heroine has to decide her future and determine what she believes her duties should be to the charming monk Savonarola. He was actually a real life figure who fought against the corruption, despotism and the exploitation of the poor by the church and this inspired Stowe to include him in her work.
The first edition
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
CHAPTER I. THE OLD TOWN
CHAPTER II. THE DOVE-COT
CHAPTER III. THE GORGE
CHAPTER IV. WHO AND WHAT
CHAPTER V. IL PADRE FRANCESCO
CHAPTER VI. THE WALK TO THE CONVENT
CHAPTER VII. THE DAY AT THE CONVENT
CHAPTER VIII. THE CAVALIER
CHAPTER IX. THE ARTIST MONK
CHAPTER X. THE INTERVIEW
CHAPTER XI. THE CONFESSIONAL
CHAPTER XII. PERPLEXITIES
CHAPTER XIII. THE MONK AND THE CAVALIER
CHAPTER XIV. THE MONK’S STRUGGLE
CHAPTER XV. THE SERPENT’S EXPERIMENT
CHAPTER XVI. ELSIE PUSHES HER SCHEME
CHAPTER XVII. THE MONK’S DEPARTURE
CHAPTER XVIII. THE PENANCE
CHAPTER XIX. CLOUDS DEEPENING
CHAPTER XX. FLORENCE AND HER PROPHET
CHAPTER XXI. THE ATTACK ON SAN MARCO
CHAPTER XXII. THE CATHEDRAL
CHAPTER XXIII. THE PILGRIMAGE
CHAPTER XXIV. THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS
CHAPTER XXV. THE CRISIS
CHAPTER XXVI. ROME
CHAPTER XXVII. THE SAINT’S REST
CHAPTER XXVIII. PALM SUNDAY
CHAPTER XXIX. THE NIGHT-RIDE
CHAPTER XXX. “LET US ALSO GO, THAT WE MAY DIE WITH HIM”
CHAPTER XXXI. MARTYRDOM
CHAPTER XXXII. CONCLUSION
The frontispiece
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In the summer of 1859, Mrs. Stowe made her third and last journey to Europe. During the summer, the whole family was abroad, save the youngest; but in the autumn Mr. Stowe and one of the daughters returned to America, leaving Mrs. Stowe with two daughters and a son to spend the winter in Italy. The residence there was mainly to establish the health of the family; but Mrs. Stowe had entered into engagements with the New York Ledger and the New York Independent to furnish contributions, with a design ultimately of collecting the papers and recasting them for a volume to be published in the spring of 1860 in America and England, under the title of Leaves from Foreign Books for Home Reading. She had indeed entered into an agreement with Sampson Low & Co., the London publishers of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Dred, for the publication of the volume, but a sudden change of plans brought her home before she had perfected her book, and it was never published.
Meanwhile her dramatic instinct had begun to work upon the material thus gathered. It was impossible for her, with her strong religious nature and her active interest in structural Christianity to avoid subjecting the great church so constantly in evidence to those tests of personal religion which had been familiar to her from childhood. Her stay in Florence brought vividly before her the figure of Savonarola, and her imagination, in seeking to recover the life of his day, instinctively invested it with the spiritual struggles so well known to her and her circle. There was no consciousviii protestantizing of the life, as one may say, but the story which she told naturally reflected the color of her own religious training. Agnes of Sorrento was begun in this Italian winter, and had its immediate origin, as she herself explains in the following note, in a friendly contest of story telling. It was not completed until some time after the return to America, finding its first publication in The Atlantic Monthly in America and The Cornhill Magazine in England. In The Atlantic it was begun in May, 1861, and finished in April, 1862.
In the party with Mrs. Stowe were Mr. and Mrs. Howard of Brooklyn, and their children. When the tale made its final appearance in book form, it was accompanied by the following passages from a letter to the publishers by Mrs. Stowe. The “Annie” referred to was Miss Annie Howard.
“The author was spending some weeks with a party of choice and very dear friends, on an excursion to southern Italy. Nothing could have been more fabulously and dreamily bright and beautiful than the whole time thus employed. Naples, Sorrento, Salerno, Pæstum, Pompeii, are names of enchantment which will never fade from the remembrance of any of that party. At Salerno, within a day’s ride of Pæstum, the whole company were detained by a storm for a day and a night. The talents of the whole company were called in requisition to make the gloomy evening pass pleasantly with song and jest and story. The first chapters of this story were there written and read, to the accompanying dash of the Mediterranean. The plan of the whole future history was then sketched out. Whether it ever find much favor in the eyes of the world or not, sure it is, the story was a child of love in its infancy, and its flowery Italian cradle rocked it with an indulgent welcome.
“The writer and the party were fresh from strolls andix rambles about charming Sorrento; they had explored the gloomy gorge, and carried away golden boughs of fruits and blossoms from her orange orchards. Under the shadow of the old arched gateway they had seen, sitting at her orange stand, a beautiful young girl, whose name became Agnes in the story; and in the shadows of the gorge they met that woman straight and tall, with silver hair, Roman nose, and dark eyes, whose name became Elsie. The whole golden scene receded centuries back, and they saw them in a vision as they might and must have been in other days.
“The author begs to say that this story is a mere dreamland, that it neither assumes nor will have responsibility for historical accuracy. It merely reproduces to the reader the visionary region that appeared to the writer; and if some critic says this date be wrong, or that incident out of place, let us answer, ‘Who criticises perspective and distances, that looks down into a purple lake at eventide? All dates shall give way to the fortunes of our story, and our lovers shall have the benefit of fairy-land; and whoso wants history will not find it here, except to our making, and as it suits our purpose.’
“The story is dedicated to the dear friends, wherever scattered, who first listened to it at Salerno. Alas! in writing this, a sorrow falls upon us, — the brightest, in youth and beauty, and in promise of happy life, who listened to that beginning, has passed to the land of silence.
“When our merry company left Sorrento, all the younger members adorned themselves with profuse knots of roses, which grew there so abundantly that it would seem no plucking could exhaust them. A beautiful girl sat opposite the writer in the carriage and said, ‘Now I will count my roses; I have just seven knots, and in each seven roses.’ And in reply, another remarked, ‘Seven is the perfect number, and seven times seven is perfection.’ ‘It is no emblem,’ she said gayly, ‘of what a perfect time of enjoymentx we have had.’ One month later, and this rose had faded and passed away.
“There be many who will understand and tenderly feel the meaning, when we say that this little history is dedicated to the memory of Annie.”
CHAPTER I. THE OLD TOWN
The setting sunbeams slant over the antique gateway of Sorrento, fusing into a golden bronze the brown freestone vestments of old Saint Antonio, who with his heavy stone mitre and upraised hands has for centuries kept watch thereupon.
A quiet time he has of it up there in the golden Italian air, in petrified act of blessing, while orange lichens and green mosses from year to year embroider qua
int patterns on the seams of his sacerdotal vestments, and small tassels of grass volunteer to ornament the folds of his priestly drapery, and golden showers of blossoms from some more hardy plant fall from his ample sleeve-cuffs. Little birds perch and chitter and wipe their beaks unconcernedly, now on the tip of his nose and now on the point of his mitre, while the world below goes on its way pretty much as it did when the good saint was alive, and, in despair of the human brotherhood, took to preaching to the birds and the fishes.
Whoever passed beneath this old arched gateway, thus saint-guarded, in the year of our Lord’s grace —— , might have seen under its shadow, sitting opposite to a stand of golden oranges, the little Agnes.
A very pretty picture was she, reader, — with such a face as you sometimes see painted in those wayside shrines of sunny Italy, where the lamp burns pale at evening, and gillyflower and cyclamen are renewed with every morning.
She might have been fifteen or thereabouts, but was so small of stature that she seemed yet a child. Her black hair was parted in a white unbroken seam down to the high forehead, whose serious arch, like that of a cathedral door, spoke of thought and prayer. Beneath the shadows of this brow lay brown, translucent eyes, into whose thoughtful depths one might look as pilgrims gaze into the waters of some saintly well, cool and pure down to the unblemished sand at the bottom. The small lips had a gentle compression, which indicated a repressed strength of feeling; while the straight line of the nose, and the flexible, delicate nostril, were perfect as in those sculptured fragments of the antique which the soil of Italy so often gives forth to the day from the sepulchres of the past. The habitual pose of the head and face had the shy uplooking grace of a violet; and yet there was a grave tranquillity of expression, which gave a peculiar degree of character to the whole figure.
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 164
