CHAP. X
Thirty English families, it was calculated, were settled, before the Revolution, in Avignon and its territory. The grandson of James II. had lived here for some time. I used to enter, with some little feeling of Jacobitical enthusiasm, the house of the Marquise D. which he had inhabited. The Pretender was accompanied by some who "thought his pretensions well-founded: " others were attracted by the sort of court, held here by the vice legate, and by the attentions which it was then the usage of the court of Rome to pay to foreigners, particularly to the English. It was convenient also that a war between England and France did not affect a subject of the former country at Avignon. The intercourse betwixt this city and Italy had caused more attention to be paid to literature and the fine arts than is usual in provincial towns: that these flourished here, the names of Vernet, Flechier, Poole, and others bear honourable testimony.
Avignon was now become French, and as such, on a par with other French towns. I chose it as a place in which to live for a few years, and superintend the education of my children: it was in my way to Italy, my ulterior object. I determined on the south of France on account of the health of Mrs. – , who, though subject to violent coughs, which had more than once threatened her life, has not suffered from them since we have been to the southward of Lyons.
But the wounds inflicted by the Revolution, and during the reign of terror, were hardly stanched; the recollection of the evils they had endured was still recent, – still afflicted the spirits of those who formed the first class of society at Avignon. I have already mentioned the feeling with which one of them expressed himself on this subject. The most fortunate amongst them, – at least he told me he so considered himself, – was the Marquis – , who, after being obliged to fly and absent himself for fifteen years, recovered his estate with the loss only of the rents during those years. Almost every lady, at that time old enough to have been an object of persecution, had been put in prison, and there, with her companions, had discussed the question whether the guillotine was an easy mode of death. One of them said to me, "You see us tristes; but sometimes we forget ourselves, and then le caractère national perce."38
In 1795, almost every large house in Avignon bore on its walls a notice, – "Propriété nationale à vendre;"39 and even houses not confiscated, as well as other property, were sold to relieve the immediate distress of their owners. A house, which I considered as the best in the town, which had been but lately built at an expense of two hundred thousand francs, was sold for thirty thousand to the father of my banker: its noble proprietor gave as a reason for acceding to so disproportionate a bargain, that his wife and daughter had nothing to eat.
Great wealth was a crime as well as royalism or nobility. Two persons, in authority at Avignon during the reign of terror, were making out a list of emigrants: a third was present, who, having nothing else to do, was holding the candle to the two municipal revolutionists. "Shall we set him down in the list?" whispered one of them to the other, meaning the third, the candle-holder. – "Ce seroit un peu trop fort, puisqu'il est présent."40– "Qu' importe? il n'osera pas réclamer, et il est riche."41 Danton, who by the by, was minister of justice, said "La révolution est une mine qu'il faut exploiter."42
A revolutionary tribunal held its permanent sitting at Orange, and every day carts full of victims were sent off thither from Avignon. My friend the Marquise – was then a child of six years old; a plan was laid to take her in the cart and throw her into the Rhone by the way: she could not be convicted of incivisme, but she was an heiress. The plot was defeated by her bonne or nurse-maid, who took care that the child should be out of the way at the time of the departure of the cart.
The trials at Orange were the pleasantest scenes imaginable. "Tu n'es pas royaliste? Tu n' as pas conspiré contre l'état?"43 or some such questions, in an ironical tone, decided the fate of the prisoner. "Voilà des hommes qui tranchent sur tout,"44 said I to my narrator. He forgave the pun.
An elderly woman, – her understanding childish through age, and who was deaf withal, – was put in accusation with her son. "Tu as pleuré la mort du roi,"45 said the judges to the mother, charging her also with having put on mourning on the occasion. "O yes," said the old woman, "I was very sorry for the king, poor, dear, good man; and I put on a black silk apron and a black ribbon round my cap." The judges, seeing the people inclined by this simplicity to a sentiment of compassion, advanced to something more serious. "Tu as conspiré contre l'état."46 Here the son put himself forward: "Messieurs, do what you will with me; but my mother – you see her imbecillity; she is deaf: how can she have conspired against the state?" "Elle est sourde?" said the judge: "écris, greffier, qu'elle a conspiré sourdement contre l'état."47 This pun is not to be forgiven. Arrived at the place of execution, the mother, seeing the assembled crowd, asked her son the meaning of it; whether it was a fair, or some fête. He obtained as a favour from the executioner, that his mother might be the first to suffer death.
A noble had a conversation with a man who, though known as one of the chief assassins of that æra, lived quietly at Avignon. "I should imagine that, since you have failed of your purpose, you must feel some regret at having uselessly shed so much blood." – "Au contraire, our regret is that we did not shed more: mais ce sera pour une autre fois."48
In expectation of this autre fois, some of the few nobles to whom any wealth was left were making up a purse in readiness for a second emigration: – let it be remembered this was in the year 1818. Others of them lived economically, indifferent as to the consideration in which they might be held after so many mortifications; or disgusted with the law of equal partition of inheritance, which reduced all their children to mediocrity of wealth, – an evil they wished to remedy by their savings. I recollect, in passing, that I was well acquainted with a noble, an aristocrat, who detested every act of the constituent assembly, but thought this law of partage perfectly just and reasonable: he was a younger brother.
From all that has preceded, it will be inferred that the public mind at Avignon was not in a state to abandon itself unreservedly to the pleasures of society. Yet fêtes were occasionally given; balls, with, now and then, a petit souper, were not uncommon during carnival; and every evening might be passed in company, in the salon of some lady who had taken her day of the week for receiving. At these parties cards were supplied, but paid for by those who used them, at a price which, though moderate, covered the expense both of cards and wax candles. This practice, pretty well established in England, was defended by the example of the court, where it is permitted. We could not do better than follow the practice of the court. Ordinarily no refreshments were given: one conscientious lady, however, told her friends that her surplus card-money enabled her to treat them with ices and petits gâteaux. No invitation was sent after the first notice, which was considered as good so long as the weekly reception should continue.
Besides these reunions, to which all the acquaintance of the mistress of the house were of course admitted, there were sometimes parties by invitation, when the refreshments were sufficient and decorous. I endeavoured to set the fashion of tea, and gave a thé, as much in conformity, as to the mode of it, with the notions of the country, as my imagination could make it out. A large table, covered with a cloth as at dinner time, bore upon it not only the tea equipage, with its usual accompaniments of tartines and toast, but also fruits, and cakes, and an immense round flat tart, showing preserve through a gridiron of pastry, with wine and syrups for those whom tea would deprive of sleep. The Marquise – followed my example, and gave a thé, of which she condescended to ask my opinion: I told her, that in order that the tea should be good, it was indispensable that the water should be not only hot, but boiling; excusing at the same time the boldness of my counsel, on the ground that it was not obtruded, but demanded. She tried again, and succeeded to admiration. Tea is now in pretty general use at evening parties in the north of France.
While my elder children even were yet too young to bear their part in soirées, I contented myself with entertaining, now and then, a few Messieurs at dinner, after consulting a friend on the enterprise, with a declaration that I could not invite ladies, as their taste would require more research and delicacy of preparation than I could hope to arrive at. He admitted the difficulty would be lessened by this restriction however ungallant, and proceeded to tell me, that a dinner invariably begins by soup and bouilli: as this latter however must be insipid if the the soup is good, it is well to accompany it by a sausage, or some high-tasted meat: then come the entremets, then the rôti with its salad: after which, said he, "tout naturellement on fait monter le poisson."49 Nothing could appear to me more unnatural than fish after meat; but I was in such a complaisant disposition, that I agreed to every thing. The douceurs terminate the repast, succeeded by the dessert.
So many English travel in France, and so many write their travels, that these matters are well known: the repetition may be endured as a part of a family history; I speak of them with a due sense of their importance:
– qualia vincant
Pythagoram, Anytique reum, doctumque Platona.
Having discovered what might be considered as a good French dinner, en province, I set to work, not neglecting the improvements suggested by an English education, by no means so useless, on this head, as the French imagine.
It will be seen, that the arbitrary parts of a French dinner are the made dishes and the sweets: the bouilli and rôti are obligatory; the former because you are hungry, the latter, lest you should still be so. I approve of the order in which the fish appears, having seen many persons choke themselves in England by eating of it with an appetite as yet unsatiated. Even to the fried fish I ventured, contrary to usage, to add a sauce, (in a sauce-boat be it well understood,) which those who partook of it admitted to be an improvement. A stuffed turkey, with sausage balls, was allowed to be better than a dry rôti: a hare, with a pudding and currant jelly, was declared to be delicious. I obtained permission to serve the cheese, as a thing of mauvaise odeur, by itself, recalling only the salad, instead of making it a part of the dessert. By these means, and by the help of stuffed loins of mutton, roasted tongues, or boiled, with but little flavour of salt, new college puddings, and other unknown luxuries too tedious to mention, (a phrase I ought to have employed long ago,) I have the patriotic consolation of thinking that I gave a favourable idea of the English kitchen, which, in defiance of popular opinion, I affirm to be better than the French, though their artists in this line are superior. The chief differences are, that the French make prepared and high-seasoned dishes of their vegetables, and think it barbarous to eat them, au naturel, along with their meat; and that they will not believe that their meat contains any juice, or gravy, or flavour, till they have extracted it by culinary process, and laid it beside the meat in the dish. Indeed their climate, which provides for them so many excellent things, refuses them pasture to fatten beef; but they have fine artificial grasses and hay: of every other object of gourmandise, except fat beef, they have all that the most voracious, or the most delicate appetite can demand.
An invitation to dinner is always taken au pied de la lettre; it never trenches on the evening parties; – all retire immediately after coffee.
Nothing can be more easy than the entrance into society in a provincial town in France: you have only to send billets of invitation, taking care first to make a general visit to all whom you invite; which visit is returned by those who mean to accept that or any future invitation. In the second winter of my residence, we took an evening for weekly reception, beginning by an invitation to a ball. Dancing was, for this time, prevented by the arrival of the news of the death of King George III. On occasion of another ball, I observed that those who, from whatever reason, had been prevented from assisting at the ball, took particular care to present themselves at the following weekly soirée, when, as on other soirées, no refreshments were given, as we thought it right to conform to the usage of the place. Indeed this mode of visiting has its advantages: the visited is thus the obliged party; insomuch that those, who themselves do not receive, make no scruple of repeating their visits. Those who do thus receive, expect of course to be visited in their turn.
It is perhaps in consequence of this mode of receiving, that the custom is established, that the newly-arrived shall make the first call. However agreeable it might be to a stranger to be invited to cards and conversation only, the inhabitants of a town cannot know that it would be agreeable, till they are, by implication, told so. One exception to the rule confirms my opinion of its origin. The Duc – , who, in my first winter, gave a ball every week, called on me to invite my family. The rule was, nevertheless, so far observed, that the Duchesse did not call till after we had accepted the invitation. The practice, from whatever it may arise, is very embarrassing to the mauvaise honte of an Englishman: this may easily be surmounted, when it is perceived that the first visit is always considered as a polite attention.
But the only serious social embarrassment I experienced, arose from my imperfect use of the language: I had learned French when a boy; when I left England I had long read it, almost as easily as English; arrived in France, I found I had two studies to perform, two difficulties to encounter; to make myself understood, and to understand: the first I could do indifferently well; but I passed a twelvemonth in France before I could understand what was said by the men, and two years before I could understand what was said by the ladies. I found that not to understand was more disadvantageous than not to be understood; since those who endured my bad French with patience were, very naturally, displeased on discovering that they had been throwing away their words on one who could not fully comprehend their meaning. I seriously advise every Englishman who purposes to establish his family for some years in France, if he is not competent to follow a conversation in the language of that country, to go thither first himself alone, and establish himself for a few months in French society: he will thus make more progress in a month, than afterwards, with his family, in a year: for the frequent use of an old language indisposes the organs of speech to the acquisition of a new one. The ears too require their lesson.
I will also repeat the counsel given to me by a friend, a détenu, whose son, at the age of seventeen, spoke English like a foreigner; it was, constantly to talk English in the family. Notwithstanding my exact compliance with this advice, my youngest child, from having learned three languages before entering her tenth year, speaks English less perfectly than the others: she left England when but three years old, and, a year after, said, somewhat boastingly, "J'ai oublié mon Anglois." In truth, seven or eight years absence has produced in all the family some little forgetfulness of our native tongue; nay, I fear that my reader may find some Gallicisms in the writing of one, who did not quit his native land till far advanced in the fiftieth year of his age.
No parent will be content that his children should forget their native language: whether it may be necessary, in order to avoid this inconvenience, to enjoin the use of it within the family, will depend on circumstances, on the age of the children, on the length of the intended stay or residence abroad. The means will, so far forth, hinder and delay the attainment of the language of the country, without which both improvement and amusement are utterly hopeless, as social intercourse is impossible. The French are not the less impatient of bad French, on account of the imperturbable politeness with which they hear it.
CHAP. XI
I found a very good drawing-master at Avignon, an élève of David, one who had studied in Italy, an intelligent man; his conversation pleased and instructed me. I had much difficulty to meet with a master of the French language: no one here wanted to learn French; they were contented with such as they talked: there was no demand for institutors in this branch of education. At last I found a professor of the royal college, an ingenious man, but utterly unpractised in the art of teaching French, which he might suppose "came by nature;" and being besides unacquainted with English, he was unable to explain to his scholars of my family, any rules of grammar, whether general or particular. That I may dismiss him with honour in this my mention of him, I will recite an epigram of his composition at the beginning of the Revolution:
O liberté chérie! en vain je te poursuis:
Par tout je vois ton arbre, et nulle part tes fruits.50
Of dancing-masters and music-masters I need not speak; their art is at the end of their fingers or of their toes. I had some trouble in managing the temper of the professor of the first of these arts, who was a Gascon; and the natural pride of the professor of music, who was a noble: but, by the help of some tact united with good-will, I obtained my end, which was, that they should depart contented. The climate did not permit dancing lessons to be taken, except in the winter.
I do not advise any one, habituated to the climate of England, and in good health, to come abroad for the sake of climate. Charles II. was certainly right when he said, one may in England be out of doors more days in the year, and more hours in the day, than in any other country. I quoted this saying to a friend, who replied, "Mais c'est toujours en souffrant;"51 and, being accustomed to heat, he reckoned all suffering from that cause as nothing: he had been in England, and recollected how his nose was bitten, and his fingers benumbed by the frost. A friend at Avignon called on me in the middle of the day, having crept along the shady side of the streets. It is there the custom in summer to keep the windows shut during the heat of the day. I complained to my visitant of this practice, as depriving one of air when gasping for it. "Mais que voulez-vous? l'air est en feu."52 I put the thermometer out at a north window, and it rose two degrees. During the greatest heat of the hot summer of 1820, I observed the thermometer pretty regularly at midnight, and found it to stand at 80 Fahrenheit.
One may rise early, and enjoy the coolness of the morning: true; but for this end it is necessary to go to bed early, and be deprived of the coolness of the evening. I knew, however, one man who had the good-sense and resolution to dispose of his day during summer in the following manner: he went to bed at midnight, rose at four in the morning, took his exercise, transacted his affairs, eat his déjeuné à la fourchette, as may be supposed, with a good appetite, and went to bed again at mid-day: at four p. m. he rose again, made his toilette, eat his dinner, and went into society, till the end of the second of the two days which he thus contrived to form out of twenty-four hours. I have been told that such is the practice of the English in the East Indies.
The plague of bugs may be avoided by care and cleanliness: the defence against gnats is a gause net surrounding the bed; but wo be to those who find one or more gnats enclosed within the net itself, as happens not unfrequently from the carelessness of the femme de chambre: the hum of the insect, and the dread of his attack, deprive you of sleep: there is no remedy but to wait till he settles upon the face; and then, while he is busy with his first bite, with an expectant and prepared hand to crush him. Flies are also very troublesome in these envied regions of the south; but flies are not like those Cassiuses, the gnats; – "they sleep o'nights."
The bise or north wind, coming from the frozen Alps, following the course of the Rhone, and spreading wide to right and left, is very delightful and refreshing during the summer at Avignon: but, in the winter, it penetrates even to the marrow of the bones, and sometimes, for several days together, blows with such violence, that people are afraid to walk the streets, lest they should be knocked on the head by falling tiles or chimneys. This bise is supposed to render the climate healthy: the Avignonais have a proverb: – "Avenio ventosa; si ventosa, fastidiosa; si non ventosa, venenosa." How far it is "venenosa," I have but too much reason to know.
The Rhone is sometimes frozen over at Avignon: I have seen people walk across it on the ice. The cold during part of the winter is sometimes greater than that of Paris; and I have seen the cold of the hyver moyen53 of Paris marked, on a French thermometer, as two degrees of Reaumur lower, that is stronger, than the cold of the hyver moyen of London. All the world knows that in summer it is much hotter at Paris than at London: the vine bears witness to it; but both heat and cold are tempered to England by passing over the sea.
To sum up all that I have to say at present on the subject of climate, I believe lat. 45, half way between the pole and the equator, to be, all other circumstances being equal, the best of the climes that are "mortalibus ægris Munere concessæ Divôm." Habit reconciles both to cold and heat. One consideration may not be unimportant to families that wish to economize: cold is costly. Returning into France from Italy, I find the difference between the rent of a house in Naples and that of a house in a country town, to be filled up by the expense of firing; and, at the beginning of my first winter, am almost ruined in manteaus, great coats, pelisses, blankets, and other flannels.
A country town in France is better supplied with society than a country town in England, inasmuch as the French country gentry do not disdain to live in a country town. All of them have an hotel, an apartment, or at least a pied à terre, as they called it, in the largest country town in their neighbourhood, and resort thither during the winter. From the time of the wheat harvest, which in the south is towards the end of June, till the time for planting is ended, they not only live, but are very busy in the country. The practice of letting land for the half of the produce compels them to be on the spot to take charge of their own share: but, in bad weather, and during the long evenings, they seek shelter in the town. Here the members of the ancient noblesse, now without fortune, without privilege, still viewed by the many with sentiments of political dislike, – maintain their superiority over men, their equals in moral honesty, more wealthy and better instructed than themselves. And how do they maintain it? By manners. It is admirable to see with what grace and ease, without arrogating any thing to themselves or derogating from others, without art or design, – they assert their dignity, and contrive that it be recognised by those with whom they have to do. Some of those who have not the advantage, if such it may be called, of noble birth, endeavour to imitate, while others affect to despise, these manners, which throw such a charm over society; but it is impossible to despise, and very difficult to imitate them: they seem to result from an early, an almost perpetual consciousness of self-importance, corrected by a constant intercourse with others entitled to equal respect and deference. The manners of military men, more frank, and open, and manly than those of the noblesse, want the polish attained by the latter: for military men, while they derive confidence from the glory of their profession, are chiefly conversant with those whom they command or obey. "The depôt of good manners is to be found with the nobles of ancient families," said one of them to me.
Before the revolution there were in France twenty-seven thousand families of the noblesse. By the charte the nobles of imperial creation preserve their titles, the ancient nobles resume theirs. Of titles, however, very little use is made in conversation; the little particle de answers all demands of noble self-love; and even a Duc or Duchesse is contented to be addressed, in familiar parlance, as Monsieur de – or Madame de – . This little particle de multiplies itself with astonishing rapidity, like the English addition Esq.; and the act by which it is assumed is no more contested in France, than that which, with us, niches a man of merit between knight and gentleman. Three or four de were brought into the world at Avignon, during my stay there.
What shows the practice of unauthorised assumption of the de to be by no means so novel as its censurers pretended, is, that I found the de sometimes to precede names which signified trades: of these there are many in all countries; whereas the de ought only to indicate the terre, or estate, like the d'Igby of my maternal ancestors, and can with propriety be used for no other purpose.
But the ambition of nominal distinction was not always thus cheaply to be gratified, if I may believe the feeling lament of an old noble, that is a noble of old family, "Such an one fancies, some fine morning, that he is a count or marquis: he calls himself so: the world laughs." – "But the title passes current?" A shrug of the shoulders gave me to understand that the subject was too distressing to be further pursued. O chivalry, thou act fallen on grievous, – on money-loving times!
The title of Baronet is insignificant, having its origin too in a paltry sum of money paid to a needy king. The list (for it is not an order,) contains names that do honour to it: yet I heard in my youth a young man of one of the first families in Ireland, afterwards Marquess of – , talk peevishly of "a parcel of d – d baronets." In endeavouring to be superior to their equals, or equal to their superiors, they undertake a task which must make them unacceptable to both parties. The ancient noblesse of France has neither feudal rights nor political power; but it has its origin in what may be called the heroic ages of Europe: the peerage of France must look up to the nobles with respect; and the people, that it may honour them, asks only to rank them among its friends.
It is a pity that the nobles should be generally reproached with want of instruction: many of them plead in excuse that they are enfans de la revolution, born at a time when their education was of necessity neglected. I mentioned this excuse to an avocat. "Bah! they well know that their fathers were as ignorant as themselves." The avocat's argument was not conclusive; the nobles of the present day might, but for the unsettled time of their youth, have partaken of the gradual improvement in knowledge which pervades all classes; and the remark, "je suis meilleur gentilhomme que mon père, parceque j'ai une génération de plus,"54 might have applied to other advantages than that of counting one generation more. The French nobles have now no longer that which, according to Juvenal, makes ignorance tolerable: let us hope they will avail themselves of their diminished wealth to acquire that learning, which, according to the proverb, though I do not believe it, is better than house and land.
The practice of letting farms to a métayer, who retains a share of the produce, and pays his rent with the remainder, is resorted to and continued from necessity. The farmer has not capital enough to stock a farm. If the proprietor, after having made the necessary advances for the occupation of the land, were to let the whole for a money rent, the farmer would soon be in arrears, and would end by running away. Métairie I suppose to be derived from the Italian metá, which signifies half. The landlord's share is however not always in this proportion: on fertile soils, and on account of rich products, he receives more than where more labour is required to reap an equal or less benefit. I believe the half to be the minimum.
After having passed through nearly the whole length of Europe, with a taste prepared by a youth passed, as Gibbon says, "in port and prejudice;" and in the same college too, I venture to assert, that wine is good in proportion as the country in which it is produced is near the all-enlivening sun. The wine of Champagne, which cannot remain for a minute and a half in the glass without growing flat; that of Burgundy, which is hardly ever found but in an acid state; that of Bordeaux, "claret for boys;" – not any one of these wines is to be compared (not for strength only, but for flavour also,) to the wines of the Rhone and of Provence. Such is my opinion: experto credat who will.
It may amuse my reader to learn that he may perhaps have been drinking French wine, when he little suspected that it lay concealed in "humble port." A trade, which in its first stage is not contraband, whatever it may be in its second, is carried on between the French shores of the Mediterranean and Portugal: wines are shipped off to Oporto, which, by the help of brandy and other manipulation, become good port wine for the London market.
I was told by a négociant, an intelligent man, not a wine-merchant, that it was the wish of the wine-growers of France, that wine imported into England should pay a duty ad valorem, on the price, not on the quantity. He did not expect that the English government should be content to receive a less amount of duty on the same quantity of wine, the mean quality supposed the same: but he asserted that wines of inferior quality, which could not be imported in the face of the duty per gallon, would then find their way; that the consumption of wine would be much increased; and the English government, as well as the French wine-dealer and proprietor of vineyards, would both be benefited. As fiscal regulations have spoiled our malt liquor, it would be but fair to allow to those who are now ruining their health with rum and water, the pleasure of drinking sometimes a bottle of small French wine. What? A bottle of Burgundy at a farmer's ordinary? Gentlemen travellers drinking claret? So much are men the slaves of habit, that the supposition appears extravagant; and, after a twelvemonth, the thing itself would be no more astonishing than it is now in France.