Personal Sketches of His Own Times, Vol. 2 (of 3)
Under colour of taking her vacant cottage for a friend, a party of my family went to Maquetra, to learn what we could respecting Mrs. Jordan’s residence there. The old lady recollected her name, but pronounced it in a way which it was scarcely possible for us to recognise. A long conversation ensued, in some parts as interesting, and in others nearly as light as the subject could admit of. – Madame Ducamp repeated to us a hundred times, in five minutes, that she had “beaucoup, beaucoup de vénération pour cette chère, chère malheureuse dame Anglaise!” whom she assured us, with a deep sigh, was “sans doute un ange supérieur!” She was proceeding to tell us every thing she knew, or I suppose could invent, when, perceiving a child in the garden pulling the flowers, she abruptly discontinued her eulogium, and ran off to drive away the intruder; having done which, she returned to resume: but too late! in her absence her place had been fully and fairly occupied by Agnes, an ordinary French girl, Madame Ducamp’s bonne (servant of all work), whom we soon found was likely to prove a much more truth-telling person than her mistress.
Agnes informed us, with great feeling, that “the economy of that charming lady was very strict: nécessairement, je crains,” added she, with a slow movement of her head and a truly eloquent look. They had found out (she said) that their lodger had been once riche et magnifique; but when there she was very – very poor indeed! “But,” exclaimed the poor girl, her eye brightening up and her tone becoming firmer, “that could make no difference to me! si j’aime, – j’aime! J’ai servi cette pauvre dame avec le même zèle (peut-être encore plus) que si elle eut été une princesse!”
This frank-hearted display of poor Agnes’s sentiments was extremely affecting; it was, however, not in fact called for, since Mrs. Jordan might have commanded, during the whole period of her continental residence, any sums she thought proper. She had money in the bank, in the funds, and in miscellaneous property, and had just before she came over received some thousands. But she was become nearly careless as well of pecuniary as other matters, and took up a whim (for it was nothing more) to affect poverty, – thus deceiving the world, and giving, herself, a vantage-ground to the gossiping and censorious.
Agnes’s information went on to show that Mrs. Jordan’s whole time was passed in anxious expectation of letters from England, and on the English post-days she was peculiarly miserable. We collected from the girl that her garden and guitar were her only resources against that consuming melancholy which steals even the elements of existence, and plunges both body and mind into a state of morbid languor – the fruitful parent of disease, insanity, and death.
At this point of the story Madame Ducamp would no longer be restrained, and returned to the charge with redoubled assertions of her own friendship to “the poor lady,” and bonne nature in general.
“Did you know her, Monsieur?” said she: “alas! she nearly broke my heart by trying to break her own!”
“I have heard of her since I arrived here, Madame,” replied I cautiously.
“Ah! Monsieur, Monsieur,” rejoined Madame Ducamp, “if you had known her as well as Agnes and I did, you would have loved her just as much. I am sure she had been accustomed to grandeur, though I could never découvrir la cause de sa ruine. Ah!” pursued Madame, “she was aimable et honnête beyond description; and though so very poor, paid her louage like a goddess.” At this moment some other matter, perhaps suggested by the word louage, came across the old woman’s brain, and she again trotted off. The remaining intelligence which we gathered from Agnes related chiefly to Mrs. Jordan’s fondness for music and perpetual indulgence therein, and to her own little achievements in the musical way on a guitar, which she produced, – whereby, she told us with infinite naïveté, she had frequently experienced the gratification of playing and singing Madame to sleep! She said that there was some little mutual difficulty in the first place as to understanding each other, since the stranger was ignorant of the French language, and she herself “had not the honour” to speak English. “However,” continued Agnes, “we formed a sort of language of our own, consisting of looks and signs, and in these Madame was more eloquent than any other person I had ever known.” Here the girl’s recollections seemed fairly to overcome her; and with that apparently exaggerated sensibility which is, nevertheless, natural to the character of her country, she burst into tears, exclaiming, “Oh Ciel! oh Ciel! – elle est morte! elle est morte!”36
I cannot help thinking that the deep and indelible impression thus made by Mrs. Jordan upon an humble unsophisticated servant girl exemplifies her kind and winning manners better than the most laboured harangues of a whole host of biographers.
Madame Ducamp meanwhile had been fidgeting about, and arranging every thing to show off her cottage to the greatest advantage; and without further conversation, except as to the price of the tenement, we parted with mutual “assurances of the highest consideration.”
I renewed my visits to the old woman; but her stories were either so fabulous or disconnected, and those of Agnes so unvaried, that I saw no probability of acquiring further information, and lost sight of Mrs. Jordan’s situation for a considerable time after her departure from Boulogne. I thought it, by-the-bye, very extraordinary that neither the mistress nor maid said a word about any attendant of Mrs. Jordan, even although it was not till long after that I heard of Col. Hawker and Miss K * * * * having accompanied her from England. After Mrs. Jordan left Boulogne, it appears that she repaired to Versailles, and subsequently, in still greater privacy, to St. Cloud, where, totally secluded, and under the name of Johnson, she continued to await, with agitated impatience, in a state of extreme depression, the answers to some letters, by which was to be determined her future conduct as to the distressing business that had led her to the continent. Her solicitude arose not so much from the real importance of this affair as from her indignation and disgust at the ingratitude which she had experienced, and which by drawing aside the curtain from before her unwilling eyes, had exposed a novel and painful view of human nature.
At that period I occupied a large hotel adjoining the Bois de Boulogne. Not a mile intervened between us; yet, until long after Mrs. Jordan’s decease, I never heard she was in my neighbourhood. There was no occasion whatever for such entire seclusion; but the anguish of her mind had by this time so enfeebled her, that a bilious complaint was generated, and gradually increased. Its growth did not appear to give her much uneasiness – so dejected and lost had she become. Day after day her misery augmented, and at length she seemed (we were told) actually to regard the approach of dissolution with a kind of placid welcome!
The apartments she occupied at St. Cloud were in a house in the square adjoining the palace. This house appeared to me large, gloomy, cold, and inconvenient; just the sort of place which would tell in description in a romance. It seemed almost in a state of dilapidation. I could not, I am sure, wander over it at night without a superstitious feeling. The rooms were numerous, but small; the furniture scanty, old, and tattered. The hotel had obviously once belonged to some nobleman; and a long, lofty, flagged gallery stretched from one wing of it to the other, which looked over a large uncultivated garden, and a charming country beyond. But Mrs. Jordan’s chambers were wretched: no English comforts solaced her latter moments! In her little drawing-room, a small old sofa was the best piece of furniture: on this she constantly reclined, and on it she expired.37
The account given to us of her last moments, by the master of the house, was very affecting: he likewise thought she was poor, and offered her the use of money, which offer was of course declined. Nevertheless, he said, he always considered her apparent poverty, and a magnificent diamond ring which she wore, as quite incompatible, and to him inexplicable. I have happened to learn since that she gave four hundred guineas for that superb ring. She had also with her, as I heard, many other valuable trinkets; and on her death, seals were put upon all her effects, which I understand still remain unclaimed.
From the time of her arrival at St. Cloud, it appears, Mrs. Jordan had exhibited the most restless anxiety for intelligence from England. Every post gave rise to increased solicitude, and every letter she received seemed to have a different effect on her feelings. Latterly she appeared more anxious and miserable than usual: her uneasiness increased almost momentarily, and her skin became wholly discoloured. From morning till night she lay sighing upon her sofa.
At length an interval of some posts occurred during which she received no answers to her letters, and her consequent anxiety, my informant said, seemed too great for mortal strength to bear up against. On the morning of her death this impatient feeling reached its crisis. The agitation was almost fearful: her eyes were now restless, now fixed; her motion rapid and unmeaning; and her whole manner seemed to bespeak the attack of some convulsive paroxysm. She eagerly requested Mr. C * * *, before the usual hour of delivery, to go for her letters to the post. On his return, she started up and held out her hand, as if impatient to receive them. He told her there were none. She stood a moment motionless; looked toward him with a vacant stare; held out her hand again, as if by an involuntary action; instantly withdrew it, and sank back upon the sofa from which she had arisen. He left the room to send up her attendant, who however had gone out, and Mr. C * * * returned himself to Mrs. Jordan. On his return, he observed some change in her looks that alarmed him: she spoke not a word, but gazed at him steadfastly. She wept not – no tear flowed: her face was one moment flushed – another livid: she sighed deeply, and her heart seemed bursting. Mr. C * * * stood uncertain what to do: but in a minute he heard her breath drawn more hardly, and as it were sobbingly. He was now thoroughly terrified: he hastily approached the sofa, and leaning over the unfortunate lady, discovered that those deep-drawn sobs had immediately preceded the moment of Mrs. Jordan’s dissolution. She was already no more!
Thus terminated the worldly career of a woman at the very head of her profession, and one of the best-hearted of her sex! Thus did she expire, after a life of celebrity and magnificence, in exile and solitude, and literally of a broken heart! She was buried by Mr. Forster, now chaplain to the ambassador.
Our informant told this little story with a feeling which evidently was not affected. The French have a mode of narrating even trivial matters with gesticulation and detail, whereby they are impressed on your memory. The slightest incident they repeat with emphasis; and on this occasion Mr. C * * * completed his account without any of those digressions in which his countrymen so frequently indulge.
Several English friends at Paris, a few years ago, entered into a determination to remove Mrs. Jordan’s body to Père la Chaise, and place a marble over her grave. The subscription, had the plan been proceeded in, would have been ample; but some (I think rather mistaken) ideas of delicacy at that time suspended its execution. As it is, I believe I may say, “Not a stone tells where she lies!”
MEMORY
Diversity of the author’s pursuits – Superficial acquirements contrasted with solid – Variety and change of study conducive to health – Breeding ideas – How to avoid ennui– The principles of memory and fear – The author’s theory respecting the former, and his motive for its introduction.
My pursuits from my earliest days have been (right or wrong) all of my own selection: some of them were rather of a whimsical character; others merely adopted pour passer le temps; a few of a graver and more solid cast. (The law was an indispensable one.) On the whole, I believe I may boast that few persons, if any, of similar standing in society adopted a greater variety of occupations than myself.
The truth is, I never suffered my mind to stagnate one moment; and unremittingly sought to bring it so far under my own controul, as to be enabled to turn its energies at all times, promptly and without difficulty, from the lightest pursuits to the most serious business, and vice versâ; and, for the time being, to occupy it exclusively on a single subject. These are the arts of managing thought; a person who can do such things is never bilious!
My system (if such it may be called) led me to a dabbling in sciences, arts, and literature – just sufficient to feed my intellect with varieties, and keep my mind busy and afloat without being overloaded: thus, I dipped irregularly into numerous elementary treatises, embracing a great variety of subjects – among which, even theology, chemistry, physic, anatomy, architecture, the trades and mechanical arts, (to say nothing of politics) were included. In a word, I looked into every species of publication I could lay my hands on; and I never have been honoured by one second of ennui, or felt a propensity to an hour’s languor during my existence except when I was actually sick. My mind is never disordered, and my brain having plenty of occupation, I never had time to go mad!
This fanciful – the reader may, if he pleases, say superficial and frivolous species of learning and self-employment, would, I doubt not, be scouted with contempt by learned LL. Ds., Bachelors of Arts, Fellows of Colleges, Wranglers at Universities, &c. These gentlemen very properly saturate their capacities with more solid stuff, each imbibing, even to the dregs, one or two dignified, substantial sciences, garnished with dead languages, and served up to their pupils with a proper seasoning of pedantry and importance. Thus they enjoy the gratification of being wiser in something than their neighbours, without much troubling their organs of variety; a plan, I readily admit, more appropriate to learning and philosophy, and perhaps more useful to others: but at the same time, I contend that mine (and I speak with the experience of a very long life) is conducive in a greater degree to pleasure, to health, to happiness; and I shrewdly suspect far more convenient to the greater number of capacities.
A certain portion of external and internal variety, like change of air, keeps the animal functions in due activity, while it renders the mind supple and elastic, and more capable of accommodating itself with promptitude to those difficult and trying circumstances into which the vicissitudes of life may plunge it. I admire and respect solid learning; but even a superficial knowledge of a variety of subjects tends to excite that inexhaustible succession of thoughts which, at hand on every emergency, gives tone and vigour both to the head and heart, (not infrequently excluding more unwelcome visitors,) and is a decided and triumphant enemy to hanging, drowning, shooting, cutting of throats, and every other species of suicide except that which so frequently originates from being too rich– a misfortune which seldom falls to the lot of persons who follow the system I have recommended. I do really think, that if a very rich man, who meditated suicide, would for one moment reflect what sincere pleasure his heirs, executors, administrators, and personal representatives (probably his wife and children) would derive from his dangling from the ceiling, he would lock up his rope and become vastly more hospitable.
All my life I perceived the advantage of breeding ideas: the brain can never be too populous, so long as you keep its inhabitants in that wholesome state of discipline, that they are under your command, not you under theirs; and, above all things, never suffer a mob of them to come jostling each other in your head at the same time: keep them as distinct as possible, or it is a hundred to one they will make a blockhead of you at last.
From this habit it has ensued that the longest day is always too short for me. If in tranquil mood, I find my ideas as playful as kittens; if chagrined, consolatory fancies are never wanting. When a man can send the five orders of architecture to build castles in the firmament, of any shape, size or materials he may fancy, and furnish it accordingly, I think a permanent state of melancholy quite unnecessary. Should I grow weary of thoughts relating to the present, my memory carries me back fifty or sixty years with equal politeness and activity; and never ceases shifting time, place, and person, till it lights on some matter more agreeable.
I had naturally very feeble sight: at fifty years of age, to my extreme surprise, I found it had strengthened so much as to render the continued use of spectacles unnecessary; and now I can peruse the smallest print without any glass, and can write a hand so minute, that I know several elderly gentlemen of my own decimal who cannot conquer it even with their reading-glasses. For general use I remark, that I have found my sight more confused by poring for a given length of time over one book, than in double that time when shifting from one print to another, and changing the place I sat in, and of course the quality of light and reflection: to a neglect of such precautions I attribute many of the weak and near visions so common with book-worms.
But another quality of inestimable value which I did and still do possess, thank Heaven! in a degree which, at my time of life, if not supernatural, is not very far from it – is a memory of the most wide-ranging powers: its retrospect is astonishing to myself, and has wonderfully increased since my necessary application to a single science has been dispensed with. The recollection of one early incident of our lives never fails to introduce another; and the marked occurrences of my life from childhood to the wrong side of a grand climacteric are at this moment fresh in my memory, in all their natural tints, as at the instant of their occurrence.
Without awarding any extraordinary merit either to the brain, or to those human organs generally regarded as the seat of recollection, or rather retention of ideas, I think this fact may be accounted for in a much simpler way – more on philosophical than on organic principles. I do not insist on my theory being a true one; but as it is, like Touchstone’s forest-treasure, “my own,” I like it, and am content to hold by it “for better, for worse.”
The two qualities of the human mind with which we are most strongly endowed in childhood are those of fear and memory; both of which accompany us throughout all our worldly peregrinations – with this difference, that with age the one generally declines, while the other increases.
The mind has a tablet whereon Memory begins to engrave occurrences even in our earliest days, and which in old age is full of her handy-work, so that there is no room for any more inscriptions. Hence old people recollect occurrences long past better than those of more recent date; and though an old person can faithfully recount the exploits of his schoolfellows, he will scarcely recollect what he himself was doing the day before yesterday.
It is also observable that the recollection, at an advanced period, of the incidents of childhood, does not require that extent of memory which at first sight may appear essential; neither is it necessary to bound at once over the wide gulf of life between sixty years and three.
Memory results from a connected sequence of thought and observation: so that intervening occurrences draw up the recollection as it were to preceding ones, and thus each fresh-excited act of remembrance in fact operates as a new incident. When a person recollects well (as one is apt to do) a correction which he received in his childhood, or whilst a schoolboy, he probably owes his recollection not to the whipping, but to the name of the book which he was whipped for neglecting; and whenever the book is occasionally mentioned, the whipping is recalled, revived, and perpetuated in the memory.
I once received a correction at school, when learning prosody, for falsely pronouncing the word semisopitus; and though this was between fifty and sixty years ago, I have never since heard prosody mentioned but I have recollected that word, and had the schoolmaster and his rod clearly before my eyes. I even recollect the very leaf of the book whereon the word was printed. Every time I look into a book of poetry, I must of course think of prosody, and prosody suggests semisopitus, and brings before me, on the instant, the scene of my disgrace.
This one example is sufficient for my theory, and proves also the advantage of breeding ideas, since, the more links to a chain, the farther it reaches.
The faculty of memory varies in individuals almost as much as their features. One man may recollect names, dates, pages, numbers, admirably, who does not well remember incidents or anecdotes; and a linguist will retain fifty thousand words, not one-tenth part of which a wit can bury any depth in his recollection.
This admission may tend to excite doubts and arguments against the general application of my theory: but I aim not at making proselytes; indeed I have only said thus much to anticipate observations which may naturally be made respecting the extent to which my memory has carried the retention of bygone circumstances, and to allay the scepticism which might perhaps otherwise follow.
POLITICAL CONDUCT OF THE AUTHOR
Letter from the author to Mr. Burne, relating to the political conduct of the former at the period of the Union – Extracts from letters written to the author by Lord Westmoreland – General reflections on the political condition of Ireland at the present time – Hint toward the revival of a curious old statute – Clerical justices – The king in Ireland – The Corporation of Dublin – The “Glorious Memory” – Catholics and Protestants – Mischievous virulence of party feeling.
The introduction of the following letter and extracts (though somewhat digressive from my original intention in compiling this work) is important to me, notwithstanding they relate to times so long past by; inasmuch as certain recent calumnies assiduously propagated against me demanded at my hands a justification of my conduct toward government at the period of the Union. With this view the letter in question was written to my friend Mr. Burne, whom I requested to communicate its contents to my connexions in Dublin, or indeed to any person who might have been prejudiced against me by those aspersions. Having, however, reason to fear that only a very partial circulation of my letter took place, I have adopted this opportunity of giving it full publicity by mixing it up with these sketches: —
“Paris, Rue de Richelieu, 2nd May, 1825.“My dear Friend,
“I am well aware that the reports you mention as to my ‘having broken trust with the government in the years 1799 and 1800’ had been at one period most freely circulated: but I could scarcely suppose the same would be again and lately revived, to do me injury on a very important concern. This has not been altogether without its operation, and I feel it a duty to myself unequivocally to refute such imputation. The fact is proved in few words: – I could not break my trust with the government, for I never accepted any trust from them. I never entered into any stipulation or political engagement with any government; and every public act which I did – every instance of support which I gave, resulted from my own free agency and unbiassed judgment.
“My first return to parliament, in the year 1790, for the city of Tuam, was altogether at my own expense. I had before stood a contested election for Ballynakill, formerly my father’s borough. I was under no tie nor obligation to the government: I had not then, nor have I ever had, any patron; I never, in fact, solicited patronage: I never submitted to the dictation of any man in my life: my connexion with government therefore was my own choice, and the consequent support I gave to Lord Westmoreland’s administration of my own freewill. I liked Lord Buckinghamshire (Major Hobart) individually, and lived much in his society: I respected Lord Westmoreland highly, and he has always been very obliging to me during a period of seven-and-thirty years whenever he had an opportunity. During his administration I accepted office; and on his recall, he recommended Lord Camden to return me to parliament. Mr. Pelham did so for the city of Clogher; but made no sort of terms with me, directly or indirectly. In the autumn of 1798 Mr. Cooke wrote to me, and I had two interviews with him; on the second, I found that a Union would probably be submitted to parliament; and I promptly replied, that I must decline all further support to any government which should propose so destructive a measure, at the same time tendering my seat. He replied, ‘That I should think better of it.’
