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 Cornell University Library 
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 Memoirs of Madame ''f?,t?,°|^jj^i|[;|]nmKf|n 
 3 1924 026 391 940 
 

 51 
 
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Cornell University 
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 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026391940 
 
► ^- 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 *i^ 
 
"Sweet Spirit with the Golden Voice." — Brizeux. 
 
 " The most courageous, tender, and compassionate of 
 feminine souls — site wham I do not hesitate to call the 
 Mater Dolorosa of poetry." — Sainte-Beuve. 
 
Memoirs 
 
 OF 
 
 Madame DesbordesValmore. 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 C. A. SAINTE-BEUVE. 
 
 WTTS A SELECTION FROM HER POEMS. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY HARRIET W. PRESTON. 
 
 ► +- 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1873- 
 
 -►■« 
 
>■*- 
 
 -*■< 
 
 Entered accordicg to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, bj 
 
 BOBERTS BROTHERS, 
 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congr- ?, at Washington. 
 
 OAMBEIDQE : 
 OF JOHN WILSON AND BON. 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 This informal but most tender sketch of a gifted 
 woman, little known among us, is also affecting 
 as a memorial of the lamented biographer. 
 
 I think there must be many who feel with me, 
 that when the refined spirit of M. Sainte-Beuve 
 passed away from this world, his loss fell with 
 especial heaviness upon the women in it. For 
 he, and"! had almost said he alone, did them 
 and their work that perfect justice which neither 
 extenuates nor sets down in malice ; neither exag- 
 gerates the actual nor requires the impossible. 
 In a time of much blatant outcry, of rude and 
 inquisitive attacks upon woman's rightful reserve, 
 of wild claims on what is thought to be her 
 behalf, both loudly njade and loudly repelled, and 
 all tending to an inevitable cheapening of her 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 name and efforts, — this one man united the chiv- 
 alry of the old time to the critical spirit of the 
 new. He never compromised his own dignity 
 in seeking to portray a woman, and he never 
 wounded hers ; but, by virtue of a deep and 
 always delicate sympathy, he fathomed what is 
 foolishly called the "mystery" of her nature ; and 
 told, in all carefulness and charity, the complex 
 and unsymmetrical truth. 
 
 If the knightly soul that was in him seemed 
 sometimes to exaggerate the purely literary value 
 of what a woman had done, it was partly because 
 he realized better than another her obstacles and 
 limitations. But he also taught the world that 
 the highest order of critical ability sometimes dis- 
 covers beauties where the next can do no more than 
 smartly signalize defects ; and it is certain that, like 
 the grace of God himself, his goodness made one 
 humble. I do not see how it is possible for a 
 thoughtful and aspiring — I will not say ambi- 
 tious — girl to close the perusal of one of 
 M. Sainte-Beuve's later "Portraits de Femmes," 
 without feeling rise to her very lips some such 
 
 -►^ 
 
PREFACE. vil 
 
 confession as this : " Our efforts have been frag- 
 mentary in the past, our aims low or unstable, 
 our achievements poor ; but here I see gently 
 presented, a new ideal of modest and conscien- 
 tious work, and feel encouraged to encounter 
 its immense and hitherto unthought-of difficul- 
 ties." 
 
 I hope, therefore, that some, to whom the name 
 of Mme. Desbordes-Valmore is not very familiar, 
 will be won to the story of her life, by the fact 
 that it was the last memorial of a woman, prepared 
 by the respectful hand of the kind master who is 
 gone; and that, beginning thus, they will pres- 
 ently learn to love the subject of the memoir 
 herself, for the graces of her mind and character, 
 and the overwhelming sorrows that she endured. 
 
 In making a selection from her poems, I have 
 been guided chiefly by a desire to illustrate the 
 vicissitudes of her life and the full compass of her 
 mnsical tones ; but I hope also that I have not 
 unfairly represented, save by the necessary inade- 
 quacy of my translation, the general quality of 
 her talent. 
 
 ► ^- 
 
vni PREFACE. 
 
 I have ventured to omit from my translation 
 of the memoir several rather long notes, by 
 M. Sainte-Beuve's posthumous editor. They are 
 full of interest for Frenchmen, but would, I 
 thought, be confusing and even tiresome to Amer- 
 can readers, by reason of their very abundance 
 of proper names and personal details. Every 
 note from the author's own hand I have carefully 
 retained and rendered. 
 
 Haeeiet W. Preston, 
 Danvers, Nov. 26, 1872. 
 
^ ^ 
 
 MEMOIRS 
 
 OP 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 I. 
 
 ' I ^HE English have an admirable way of 
 paying a last tribute to their eminent 
 or pleasing poets. Immediately on the 
 death of such, they arrange and publish 
 extracts from their writings, private papers, 
 letters written and received ; and the result 
 is a distinct and truthful likeness. Thus 
 the sister of that gentle and affectionate 
 poetess, Felicia Hemans, published in 1840 
 a memoir of the life and writings of the 
 latter. The kindness and confidence of 
 MM. Valmore, father and son,^ have en- 
 
 1 When the last of the ensumg articles had appeared, M. 
 Sainte-Beuve expressed his obligations to the elder M. Valmore 
 in the following terms : — " May 6, 1869, I have to thank you, 
 1 
 
MEMOIRS OF 
 
 abled me to examine the private family 
 treasure which they have piously preserved 
 and set in order, in the papers, notes, and 
 correspondence of another tender and impas- 
 sioned poetess, Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, 
 — one who united an exquisite moral sen- 
 sibility to a thrilling gift of song, or rather 
 with whom sensibility and the gift of song 
 were one. Her verses are doubtless the 
 expression of her life : in them she is re- 
 flected in hues both warm and bright ; they 
 ring with her cries of love and grief. Yet 
 it has seemed to me, after a cursory exam- 
 
 my dear sir, for having procured me the opportunity and the 
 means thus to present an interior view of tliis charming and 
 pathetic figure. Very few families liave, like yours, that dig- 
 nified and noble habit of thought and feeling which makes the 
 greatest glory of a beloved member to consist in the fullest 
 revelation of the truth. You and your excellent son seem to me 
 models in this respect, — such as I have not encountered twice 
 in my career as a literary and biographical critic. I hope the 
 public will reward you by the fonder admiration it shall 
 award, — nay, has already awarded to one who was imique 
 both as a woman and a poet. I am, with the most affectionate 
 respect, yours, 
 
 " Sainte-Beuve.'' 
 
 •i* ^ 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 3 
 
 ination of these manuscript remains, that 
 there is room to illustrate more fully, not 
 the poet, but the woman ; and that she 
 would lose nothing by being closely followed 
 through the complications of her career, 
 her every-day work, and the peculiarly af- 
 fecting trials of her actual existence. At 
 present I can but give an idea, and, as it 
 were, present an abridgment of the book 
 that might be made. But it seems to me 
 that a sketch of that life — so refined, so 
 generous, and so sorely tried — must be not 
 only deeply interesting but actually consol- 
 ing to many another equally harassed 
 spirit, toward whom fate has been perpetu- 
 ally chilling and unkind. I would prepare 
 a manual for all who have the artist's sus- 
 ceptibility, more especially for women with 
 hearts both soft and proud, barely coura- 
 geous, that suffer unmercifully and bleed to 
 the very last, but never despair. 
 
MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Marceline - Felicite - Josephe Desbordes, 
 who died in Paris, June 23, 1859, was born 
 at Douai, June 20, 1786, No. 32 Rue Notre 
 Dame, — now 36 Rue de Valenciennes. 
 Her father was an heraldic painter. Her . 
 uncle, Constant Desbordes, was, in the 
 fullest sense of the word, a good portrait 
 painter, a friend of Gerard, and highly es- 
 teemed by M. de Forbin. He attained suc- 
 cess in the exhibitions. A portrait which 
 he painted of his brother was presented by 
 Mme. Valmore to the museum of her native 
 town. There were great-uncles of the name 
 of Desbordes, — Avealthy and long-estab- 
 lished booksellers in Holland, who had re- 
 mained Protestant, and who seem to have 
 proposed that their Douai relatives should 
 succeed them in business, provided their 
 children might be educated in the Protes- 
 tant faith, which had been that of their com- 
 mon ancestors before the revocation of the 
 
 n- 
 
>.r 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 5 
 
 edict of Nantes. The offer was refused. 
 A profound Catholic piety prevailed in the 
 humble house on the Eue Notre Dame. 
 The family was rather numerous, — three 
 daughters and a son. Reminiscences of that 
 earliest period of childhood will one day 
 revive under the pen of little Marceline, 
 the youngest and most gifted of the family. 
 There remained with her a kind of glorified 
 "\dsion of her babyhood, of the beauty and 
 caresses of her mother, the care of her el- 
 dest sister, and of that first domestic happi- 
 ness too early shattered. The Revolution, 
 as may well be imagined, ruined the trade 
 of an armorial painter, and it became neces- 
 sary to seek some other means of subsist- 
 ence. Among the far-away memories, which, 
 at a later period, seized so powerfully upon 
 the imagination of Mme. Valmore, there 
 were evidently some which assumed in their 
 vagueness a kind of legendary character. 
 
 ■*■* 
 
^ 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 I shall leave her to relate them in her own 
 sweet and graceful fashion; although ex- 
 act criticism might here find it necessary to 
 make corrections or at least require expla- 
 nations. It is certain, however, that some- 
 where about 1799, little Marceline accom- 
 panied her mother to Guadeloupe, where 
 they counted on finding a relative who had 
 there amassed a fortune. They arrived, 
 however, to find the country in a blaze of 
 revolt, the yellow-fever raging, and their 
 relative dead ; and there the mother of 
 Mile. Desbordes herself died of the epi- 
 demic. The child was received by the wife 
 of a ship-owner from Nantes, whose name 
 has been preserved, — Mme. Geudon. Her 
 husband engaged passage for Marceline on 
 a vessel bound for France. The story they 
 tell of Joseph Vernet was re-enacted during 
 her passage, — without a thought of imita- 
 tion on her part. The ship having encoun- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. '] 
 
 tered a violent storm, it was found impossible 
 to persuade the chUd to go below. The 
 sailors who had become attached to her, tied 
 her among the shrouds, and thence she wit- 
 nessed the conflict. In the fragile mould 
 of her fourteen years, her artist nature re- 
 vealed itself. By her courage, her modesty, 
 and her forlorn situation, she had interested 
 every one on board except the captain, — a 
 brutal man, whom she had interested too 
 strongly in another fashion. Unable to ac- 
 complish his purpose, he resolved to extort 
 what he could, and when they landed at 
 Dunkirk, he retained the orphan's poor 
 little trunk, containing her scanty ward- 
 robe, on pretence of reimbursing himself 
 for the price of her passage, which the un- 
 fortunate child had been unable to pay. 
 Thus did life present to her from its outset 
 a cruel and unrighteous aspect. She found 
 her family in the utmost destitution ; and 
 
 -*■■* 
 
MEMOIRS OF 
 
 then it was that, after long hesitation, she 
 resigned herself to the stage. 
 
 She began at the theatre of Lille, with 
 every thing to learn. By dint of studious 
 nights, close economy, and many privations, 
 she passed the ordeal. She was overtaxed, 
 but gave way only in secret. One day she 
 dropped in a swoon upon her own staircase, 
 after too long a fast, and was taken up by a 
 friend and neighbor who had been startled 
 by the noise of her fall. She contracted at 
 this time a habit of suffering which refined 
 and softened her talent in the end, but 
 passed irremediably into her life. 
 
 Mile. Desbordes was now engaged at the 
 Theatre des xA.rts at Rouen, to play the 
 simple and innocent parts (ingmuiies), in 
 which she succeeded admirably, for she was 
 ingenuousness itself. Never having been at 
 any school or conservatory she had acquired 
 no mannerism, no little artificial airs, and 
 
-^i 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 9 
 
 merely obeyed the dictates of her own fine 
 and simple nature. There was observable 
 in her delivery a great naturalness of inflec- 
 tion, which rendered her meaning transpar- 
 ently clear, and the comic passages in par- 
 ticular very effective. She Avas observed at 
 Rouen by certain actors from the Comic 
 Opera at Paris, who were there to give a 
 few performances, and who, on their return, 
 spoke of her to Gretry in such a manner 
 that the good-natured master undertook the 
 charge of her musical education. From his 
 own observations he soon came to take a 
 really fatherly interest in her ; and, touched 
 by her noble but sad expression, he called 
 her " a little dethroned queen." Under his 
 auspices she made her debut at the Opera 
 Comique, in one of his own pieces, her part 
 being that of Lisbeth in the opera of the 
 same name, and she made a favorable im- 
 pression. A little later M. Jars, whom we 
 
i 
 
 lO MEMOIRS OF 
 
 afterwards knew as deputy of the Rhone, 
 but whose first attempts were in the way of 
 light literature, gave her the part of Julie in 
 the opera of " Julie ou le Pot de Fleurs," the 
 music of which was by Spontini. She had 
 a thrilling, sympathetic voice, and Elleviou 
 INIartin and Gavaudan, who came to wit- 
 ness her first appearance, heard her with 
 tears. The " Journal des Debats," for 
 March 16, 1805, in a notice of her second 
 appearance in the part of Julie, praised 
 her warmly. The article must have been 
 by Geoffroy, and says : — 
 
 " The two principal parts are perfectly played, 
 the officer by Elleviou, whose grace and vivacity 
 > are well known; the niece by Mile. Desbordes, 
 with whose talent I was unacquainted. This young 
 dSbutante had escaped my notice, but she does 
 not deserve such indifference. After Mile. Mars, 
 she is unsurpassed and hardly equalled in simple 
 characters. She is not silly as the innocents in 
 other theatres are apt to be, but only frank and 
 
■>.f 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. ii 
 
 artless. She has a correct and delicate accent, 
 and carries herself with great ease and a native 
 simplicity ; — admirable qualities these, but al- 
 most buried in this theatre, for, though Mile. 
 Desbordes plays and recites finely, she has no 
 voice for singing. The musicians must renounce 
 in her favor their science and their harmonies. 
 The orchestra must retire and make itself naught. 
 Little vaudevilles might be composed expressly for 
 her which would be decidedly more agreeable than 
 those grand arias, equally fatiguing to the audi- 
 ence and the cantatrice." 
 
 She possessed all manner of rare and re- 
 fined qualities ; yet one may see from this 
 very eulogism that there was a slight lack 
 of physical power, of that material stuff 
 which is an essential accompaniment of 
 such qualities, which carries them off, as 
 one may say, and sets them in relief. We 
 find on examination still other testimonials, 
 giving a most flattering idea of her talent in 
 pathetic or impassioned parts. Thus, later. 
 
12 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 in 1813 or 1815, she played at the Odeon 
 the part of Evelina in one of Rigaud's 
 dramas ; and the " Mercure " commended 
 her in terms like these : — 
 
 " Mile. Desbordes makes an agreeable Evelina. 
 She is extremely intelligent, and her carriage is 
 perfect. She might serve as a model to more 
 than one actress at the Th^S,tre Fran^ais. Her 
 talent is closely related to that of Mile. Desgar- 
 cins, whom she frequently recalls. Her voice, 
 too, is sweet, — winning, and yet strong. . . ." 
 
 The misfortune of Mile. Desbordes as an 
 actress was the vagrant life which necessity 
 imposed upon her. She was condemned to 
 be for ever making her debut. After her 
 first success at the Opera Comique, money 
 difficulties and her father's interest com- 
 pelled her to sacrifice the future to the 
 present, and to accept an engagement at 
 Brussels, where she took the part of first 
 young lady in comedy, and of young Du- 
 
 ►i* * 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 13 
 
 gazon^ in opera. Subsequently she re- 
 turned to the theatre of Eouen, where she 
 played first young lady only, and was always 
 warmly welcomed and appreciated by the 
 public, but her singing days were over. 
 " At twenty," she says, " my private griefs 
 compelled me to give up singing, for the 
 sound of my own voice made me weep. 
 But the music reverberated in my aching 
 brain, and my thoughts involuntarily ar- 
 ranged themselves in harmonious numbers." 
 Music was beginning to turn to poetry 
 within her, and so it came to pass, that the 
 elegy one day blossomed upon her lips. 
 
 Summoned to the Odeon in 1813, she first 
 appeared, March 27, in the part of Claudine 
 in a piece of Pigault-Lebrun's, " Claudine 
 and Florian." Here she achieved a marked 
 success in several parts, and particularly in 
 
 1 The part of an artless, merry, and innocent girl, so called 
 from the famous comidimne. Mile. Dugazon, who was in her 
 prime at the outbreak of the great Revolution. (Tr.) 
 
tr« 
 
 14 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 that of Eulalie in " Misanthropy and Re- 
 pentance." So many tears were shed over 
 her performance that one day a wicked wit, 
 who had heard tell of this tearful and irre- 
 sistible triumph, and who attributed it to 
 the infatuation of the public, solemnly took 
 his seat in the balcony and ostentatiously 
 spread out upon the railing a couple of 
 white handkerchiefs, in order to staunch 
 the floods of tears which were about to flow. 
 The jester was outwitted. The piece began, 
 he listening at the outset with the most 
 cheerful countenance in order to render his 
 neighbors absurd. As the interest grew, 
 there were symptoms of emotion ; and, 
 finally, in the scene where Eulalie pours 
 forth the anguish of her broken heart upon 
 the breast of the countess, hardly a breath 
 was drawn. It was no use ; a few stifled 
 sighs were heard here and there about the 
 hall, then sobs, — finally the face of the 
 
»*- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 IS 
 
 malicious critic itself changed, he put his 
 handkerchiefs away, and only used them 
 furtively to wipe away some genuine tears. 
 Such was the power of that simple, natural 
 playing, of that voice whose compass was 
 so wide, its notes so tender and thrilling, 
 yet whose prevailing strain of emotion did 
 not preclude, upon occasion, accents of ex- 
 ceeding lightness and gayety. 
 
 In 1815 she returned to Brussels, and 
 there, on the fourth of September, 1817, she 
 was married to M. Valmore, who belonged 
 to the same theatre as herself, and had 
 become seriously and strongly attached to 
 her. Her first vplume of poems appeared 
 in 1818. After residing for about a year in 
 Paris, she and her husband were both en- 
 gaged in March, 1821, for the theatre at 
 Lyons, where they remained two years, at 
 the expiration of which time Mme. Valmore 
 finally quitted the dramatic career. A sec- 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
1 6 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ond and third edition of her poems (1820- 
 1822) had now fixed her place in the very 
 front rank of female poets. 
 
 It had never been permitted her fully and 
 satisfactorily to develop and perfect her orig- 
 inal talent ; that gift, namely, of dramatic ex- 
 pression which she certainly possessed in an 
 extraordinary degree, but which was too 
 dependent on accidental surroundings and 
 physical qualities. She who, at her various 
 debuts, had seen her name associated with 
 that of Mile. Mars, had been obliged almost 
 immediately to surrender her engagements, 
 to withdraAV to a distance and succeed or 
 fail (which comes to about the same thing) 
 outside the charmed centre, on the very 
 confines of renown, — far from the com- 
 mon focus of light and sound. It is given 
 to poetry alone, being pure flame, to tri- 
 umph over all obstacles, — misfortune, exUe, 
 error even, and the rebuffs of fate. 
 
 ► *■ 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 17 
 
 Isevertheless, her theatrical career of 
 twenty years could not fail of leaving deep 
 and permanent traces on her character. It 
 sharpened her sensibilities ; it directed her 
 acute intelligence to a great variety of sub- 
 jects ; she acquired by its means a faculty 
 for suffering which sprang from the very 
 delicacy of her mind and was fostered by 
 her humility. In her day the prejudice 
 against actors and actresses was far from 
 surmounted; witness the scandal occasioned 
 by the interment of Mile. Raucourt. Not 
 the clergy only, but the world itself, pro- 
 fessed a species of reprobation, — a shade 
 of anathema. Doubtless since the days of 
 Adriemle Le Couvreur, female comedians 
 of wit and genius had advanced a step and 
 won an important point in public considera- 
 tion ; they saw the best of men, but women 
 did not recognize them. Not until the days 
 of Rachel did the last barrier fall, and not 
 
MEMOIRS OF 
 
 only women of fashion, but even young girls 
 of the highest rank aspire to the friendship 
 of an actress. Sensitive, modest, and with- 
 out reproach, Mme. Valmore was rather 
 inclined to exaggerate this falseness of posi- 
 tion, so conspicuously condemned and stul- 
 tified in her own person. One would have 
 thought to hear her that she had lived in 
 the times of Champmesle. In some of 
 her first poems she gave expression to the 
 painful chill which she experienced, from 
 this cause. She is addressing a friend who 
 was untroubled by any such scruples, and 
 her verses have a Racinian purity which 
 renders them worthy of recall. 
 
 " The world where you are queen was ever harsh to me ; 
 It never knew ray heixrt. so proud and yd so soft; 
 Ijehind the lofty wall its scorn had reared aloft, 
 Doomed were my early years to frigid misery. 
 
 For Thalia's shrine had been my refuge in distress, 
 And Hope had lured me on with promise vain and gay ; 
 Yet many a time tears I could not repress 
 Under the jester's crown made way. 
 
 4^- 
 
►r 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 19 
 
 In the vain shows where wit doth win applause, 
 Hushed lies the heart, and hidden : 
 
 To please becomes the first of laws ; 
 To love is aye forbidden. 
 
 " O strange caprice of the unstable crowd ! 
 
 gracious Muse, beloved and yet despised ! 
 Honors divine by night allowed. 
 
 By day anathematized ! 
 
 V 
 
 " ' Away,' I cried, ' with this incongruous blending 
 
 Of triumph and of shame ! 
 The grievous pride to our estate descending, 
 
 The scattered lights of fame ! ' 
 So sore to feel, so languid in aspiring. 
 
 Bearing a barb for ever in my breast. 
 Wife, mother, — these sweet names in vain desiring, 
 
 1 longed for my last rest." 
 
 Yet we Avho made Mme. Valmore's ac- 
 quaintance in later years found her always 
 loyal to the memories and associations of 
 her early life, cherishing precious friend- 
 ships which that life had bequeathed to her, 
 and which were among the most illustrious 
 of their kind. She was intimate with that 
 
20 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 great and queenly singer, Mme. Branchu^ 
 who reigned in the days of the first empire, 
 and who held that the opera had terribly 
 degenerated, when the prefect of the palace 
 no longer offered her his hand and court- 
 eously introduced her, as Count de Eemusat 
 never failed to do if she was summoned to 
 play at Saint Cloud. Mme. Valmore also 
 remained strongly attached to Mile. Bigotini, 
 the captivating but impassioned danseuse, 
 who used to perform Nina ou la Folle par 
 amour, — the Malibran of the dance. She 
 was besides the devoted friend of Mile. 
 Mars, — of whom we shall presently hear 
 her speak, — Mile. Mars, who, outside the 
 theatre, was the most sagacious, decided, and 
 self-possessed of women, full of noble and 
 liberal actions, although she had the name 
 of being parsimonious. It was Mme. Val- 
 
 1 Mme. Branohu (Rose Timole'one Caroline) n& Chevalier 
 de Lavit at Saint Domingo. Died at Passy, Oct. 14th, 1850. 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 21 
 
 more, who one day summoned all her cour- 
 age, and, in the name of friendship, said to 
 Mile. Mars the fatal word that the public 
 was beginning' to weary of her. '' You 
 must not delay. The moment is more than 
 come. You must retire." Mile. Mars heard 
 and thanked her, and showed thereby both 
 good feeling and good sense. 
 
 Of the numerous authors whose works 
 she had interpreted, and whom she had 
 seen and sometimes known personally, she 
 retained — without presuming to pass judg- 
 ment on them — a clear and just impres- 
 sion ; she preserved their distinctive traits, 
 and, when questioned about them, used to 
 talk enchantingly. Desaugiers, who af- 
 fected melancholy, and who " made haste 
 to be gay for fear he should have time to 
 be sad ; " M. Etienne, the dramatic author, 
 who, at the close of his life, was near pass- 
 ing for a distinguished citizen, and in whose 
 
 -*■■* 
 
*■ 
 
 22 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 character she wondered that aiiy one should 
 see any thing remarkable, — these and many 
 more she characterized finely in a single 
 phrase. Sometimes of an evening, when 
 there chanced to be a brief truce in the 
 warfare of her life, she would recur to her 
 theatrical reminiscences and tell all manner 
 of pleasant stories. She had played when 
 very young with that admirable actress, 
 Mme. Gontier, who had long before in- 
 spired a passion in M. de Florian, and who 
 was herself extravagantly enamoured of that 
 brilliant captain of dragoons, the author of 
 many a happy jest. Mme. Gontier was 
 very religious in her old age, although she 
 remained a comedienne, and never came 
 upon the stage without having once or twice 
 made the sign of the cross in the side scenes. 
 All the young actresses loved to tease her 
 who had played " Aunt Aurora " so to the 
 life. They would gather around her as she 
 
^.r 
 
 ZIME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 23 
 
 sat by the fire, and ask her over and over 
 again the same malicious question, — " Nov/ 
 is it possible, Grandma Gontier, that M. de 
 riorian used to beat you % " And the ex- 
 cellent Mother Gontier, penitent though 
 she was, would deign no reply or explana- 
 tion save this, pronounced in her eighteenth- 
 century fashion: "Ah, but you see, my 
 children, he never paid ! " A strange sort 
 of morality, and more common than one 
 cares to think ! Yet it is well enough to 
 set this anecdote over against one of Flo- 
 rian's fables or pastorals. 
 
 Mrae. Valmore used also to tell, with 
 a mixture of fun and pathos, the following 
 anecdote of that happy time of youth and 
 poverty, when one may say with truth, even 
 of a woman : " Dans un grenier qu'on est 
 bien a vingt ans ! " She was playing at 
 the Odeon, and lodging, I think, in the 
 same street, in a very small apartment un- 
 
*i^ 
 
 24 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 der the roof, with a humble dressing-maid 
 who shared, as a friend, the privations of 
 her life. In those days there used to be 
 theatrical amateurs, who haunted the or- 
 chestra, and criticised or advised the artists. 
 Such an one was M. Andre de Murville, an 
 old friend of Fontanes, a son-in-law (think 
 of it ! ) of Sophie Arnauld, a disappointed 
 author, who had never achieved more than 
 a half or quarter success, a perpetual candi- 
 date for the Academy, guilty of many ab- 
 surdities, but still a man of wit, learning, 
 and a certain good taste. This M. de Mur- 
 ville became much attached to the young 
 actress, and undertook to be her counsellor. 
 He used, therefore, to visit her often, and 
 always precisely at dinner-time, when he 
 would unceremoniously invite himself and 
 remain. There ensued a great panic in the 
 modest hoiisehold, on account of the sudden 
 increase of expense occasioned by this un- 
 
 ►i*- 
 
►i*- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 25 
 
 expected guest, who had the large appetite 
 of one who does not always dme. It was 
 as if a couple of birds, living upon seeds 
 and crumbs of bread, should see arrive, in 
 the character of a friend, a huge, good- 
 natured vulture, famished for flesh, and dis- 
 posed to do honor to their own repast. One 
 day, as Murville was mounting the last steps 
 of the staircase, the maid rushed in terror 
 into her mistress's room, and announced a 
 peril more imminent than usual. It was 
 the end of the month, and for reasons only 
 too cogent, there was barely food enough 
 left for two abstemious feminine stomachs. 
 What was to be done \ Poor Murville, 
 after the first greetings, was not slow to per- 
 ceive the embarrassment which he caused. 
 He talked right and left, — art, the drama. 
 Mile. Gaussin, Mile. Desgarcins, and other 
 brilliant models, but muttered between his 
 teeth in a kind of aside • " O my children. 
 
26 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 no matter what I any thing ! A good large 
 piece of bread. That surely cannot incom- 
 mode you ! " And he made the mortifying 
 gesture of, a hungry man. The unhappy 
 author was indeed famished. But you 
 should have heard Mme. Valmore re- 
 hearse that little scene. One laughed 
 and cried in the same breath. It was a 
 regular bit of comic opera or demi-vaude- 
 ville. 
 
 The correspondence of this epoch has not 
 been preserved. It is only in the decline 
 of life, when we have come to the age of 
 retrospection, that we think of saving our 
 letters. Among those addressed to Mme. 
 Valmore in 1821 and the following years, I 
 have, however, found some interesting ones 
 from Mme. Sophie Gay, who had taken a 
 strong fancy to our author, and who, when 
 the latter was living at Lyons or Bordeaux, 
 kept her informed of all that occurred in 
 
 ► '*- 
 
>ii ^ 
 
 J/JIE. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 27 
 
 the poetical world of Paris, — of the first 
 success of the beautiful Delphine, the daz- 
 zling homage she received, and also of her 
 first unhappy attachment to that young offi- 
 cer, gentleman, and poet, Alfred de Vigny. 
 There are also letters from a less distin- 
 guished person, Mme. de Launay, who ap- 
 peared on the stage under the name of 
 Mile. Hopkins, — exceedingly vivacious, 
 witty, and agreeable. Piquant details might 
 be extracted from these last, concerning 
 more than one famous or temporarily fash- 
 ionable artist ; and one at least of these 
 anecdotes, I think, may be profitably re- 
 peated. It is the story of the outrageous 
 reception accorded to those English actors 
 who, in 1822, attempted for the first time to 
 give us some idea of Shakspeare. In 1822 
 national and classical intolerance yet reigned 
 supreme; we were in a chronic rage 
 against Albion, and the invective of the 
 
 ►J^ ■' — - — -^ 
 
r 
 
 28 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " Messenienne " ^ was our law. Five years 
 later, in 1827-28, when a second English 
 troupe returned to the charge in the repre- 
 sentation of Shakspeare, a great advance 
 had been made in the interval among culti- 
 vated minds. The ideas of the " Globe " 
 newspaper had come to prevail among our 
 youth ; and this time there was a grave, 
 attentive, studious reception, — and even 
 some enthusiasm. Miss Smithson, among 
 others, captivated us all ; and Berlioz, that 
 man of noble intelligence just gone from 
 among us, was smitten as suddenly as Ro- 
 meo himself, and beheld the realization of 
 his supreme ideal, — genuine beauty. In 
 1822, however, we were still in the bondage 
 of a blind and thoroughly brutal prejudice. 
 I know no better word. The reader shall 
 judge. The date is not a particularly hon- 
 orable one in oUr literary history, and might 
 
 ' Originally an elegy on the sorrows of Messenia. Subse- 
 quently an elegy on the woes of any invaded country. (Tr.) 
 
 4<- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 29 
 
 well be expunged, but only on condition 
 that the scandal be never repeated. 
 
 "We have at the Porte-Saint-Martin," wrote 
 Mme. (le Launay, Aug. 6, 1822, " a troupe of 
 English comedians. Apparently they are not 
 very good, but is that any reason why they should 
 be flayed alive ? The pit precipitated itself tumul- 
 tuously upon the stage in order to force the actors 
 off it. In vain did the poor English appeal to 
 the rights of hospitality. Our bearish populace 
 knew nothing about that. One actress was 
 wounded in the forehead by a great sou. Finally, 
 after the most terrific racket, Pierson, the actor, 
 came forward and asked if the English might go 
 on. Before replying, the pit greeted poor Pierson 
 with deafening applause, until he was perfectly 
 stupefied. After testifying their ardent patriotism 
 to this great actor, they decided that they would 
 hear the rest of the tragedy of ' Othello.' The cur- 
 tain rose for the third time, and disclosed Desde- 
 mona on a bed. Immediately they began to cry, 
 ' Give her a glass of . . . that's what she needs.' 
 The actress began to sing. All the whistles of 
 Saint Cloud sprang to the lips of our gentle com- 
 
 ► *■ 
 
^*" 
 
 30 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 patriots, for an accompaniment. Then came 
 apples, nuts, eggs, and sous. The poor woman 
 nearly died bowing to this gallant pit, — but it 
 was pitiless. Oh, how the Parisian is changed ! 
 What has become of our enviable reputation as 
 a hospitable people? Where are the thousand 
 amiable qualities that once were ours, and that 
 made me proud of belonging to the parish of Saint 
 Eustache. And now my countrymen have just 
 committed a gross injustice. Why ? Because 
 they want to claim reprisals ! Leave to others 
 their savage humor ; but do you. Frenchmen , keep 
 your shining qualities. They say these unfor- 
 tunate actors are going to Lyons. You must tell 
 me how they fare in that place." 
 
 Has the " gentle " Frenchman really im- 
 proved % Does he not now and then uncon- 
 sciously re-enact the same scene with altered 
 names ? Do not our dandies and kid- 
 glove gentry have recourse to the same 
 methods ] Remember the performances of 
 Tannhaiiser ! 
 
 Mme. Valmore's first reputation as a 
 
 4^ 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 31 
 
 tender elegiac poet, and pleasing writer of 
 narrative verse, was made in the years be- 
 tween 1824 and 1827. While she was 
 away from Paris, residing at Lyons or Bor- 
 deaux, her new star had taken its place in 
 our poetic firmament, and shone there with 
 a soft lustre tranquil and unclouded. Mme. 
 Valmore had never broken with tradition. 
 She had introduced a new variety of the 
 romance. She had rendered the elegy more 
 tender and feminine, and translated into a 
 sweeter key the impassioned avowal and the 
 plaint of the forsaken heart. Mme. Sophie 
 Gay wrote of her in October, 1820, after 
 quoting some of her verses. " How could 
 one better depict the charm of that melan- 
 choly which M. de Segur calls the luxury 
 of grief? " And she promised her a place 
 in the temple of Taste beside Mme. Des 
 Houlieres.^ M. Creuze de Lesser, an au- 
 
 1 Article in the " Eevue Encyclope'dique.'' 
 
32 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 thor with a dash of the administrator, but 
 not without merit, wrote to her from Mont- 
 pellier, December 1st, 1827. 
 
 " For a long time, madame, I have read and I 
 have liked what you have published. Among all 
 the women of our day who write, you have incon- 
 testably the most sensibility and the most grace. 
 The reputation of a woman is apt to be a little 
 exaggerated. I was reminded of this the other 
 day in reading the poems of Mme. Dufr^noy, Avho 
 lias written some 'v-ery pretty things, but too few 
 of them for the place that some would award her. 
 Your reputation, madame, is of a better quality. 
 You rise higher than she, and you do it oftener. 
 You have done some exquisite things which are also 
 inimitable ; and you know how to gild with the 
 halo of poetry transports of feeling which it is 
 impossible to forget. There is plenty of wit in 
 France ; but genuine sensibility is exceedingly rare 
 among us, and this is one of your domains. It 
 gives me extreme pleasure to be able to be at once 
 so frank and so flattering." 
 
 He tempers his eulogium by certain 
 
 ► ■*- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 33 
 
 strictures on faults of haste and carelessness. 
 Such was then the judgment of classical 
 minds of a good quality, and in its own 
 place I respect it. The order of criticism 
 is appropriate to the form of poetry. 
 
 But how much had this lovely and aifect- 
 ing muse yet to gain, before inspiring the 
 last poems and lyrics of Mme. Valmore, 
 especially those which have been publishe^d 
 since her death ! 
 
 The spur of constant suffering, patient 
 effort also, the suggestions of poets bolder 
 and more vigorous than herself, the exam- 
 ples by which she fondly and emulously 
 profited, and a mysterious but ever increas- 
 ing skill in the management of her own 
 tearful tones, — these things effected, to- 
 wards 1834, a sensible change in her work, 
 and conducted her, if not to artistic perfec- 
 tion, so difficult of complete attainment, at 
 least to the free and full development of 
 
34 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 those warm sympathetic qualities which 
 centred in her soul. Would you measure 
 the advance thus made ? Set side by side 
 with our author's earliest poems the wail 
 that I subjoin, and which I have rescued 
 from a heap of blotted and corrected first 
 drafts. At least it shall not be said that 
 this my first article on Mme. Valmore is 
 wholly prosaic, — unrelieved by a single 
 one of those piercing notes which she alone 
 (and perhaps Dorval) could deliver. That 
 note is here employed on a familiar theme, 
 — I the anguish of a broken heart, of a 
 wound whose depth one dares not search 
 and prove, 
 
 PARTED. 
 
 Do not write. I am sad and would my life were o'er. 
 A summer without thee? — Oh, night of starless 
 gloom ! — 
 I fold the idle arras, that cannot clasp thee more — 
 To knock at my heart's door, were like knocking on 
 a tomb. 
 
 Do not write. 
 
■*.1 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 35 
 
 Do not write. We will learn unto ourselves to die. 
 Ask God, or ask thyself of my love, if thou wouldst 
 know; 
 But to hear thee calling far away and calling tenderly, 
 "Were to hear the songs of Heaven afar and never 
 hope to go. 
 
 Do not write. 
 
 Do not write ; for I fear thee. I do not dare to think 
 How thy voice was wont to sound lest it seem to call 
 anew. 
 Do not show living water to one who cannot drink ; 
 The writing of a friend is a likeness passing true. 
 Do not write. 
 
 Do not write those sweet words, for I may not read them 
 now : 
 They would flood my foolish heart with a deceitful 
 bliss. 
 They are brilliant with thy smile, with thy tenderness 
 aglow ; 
 I could not choose but dream thou hadst sealed them 
 with a kiss. 
 
 Do not write. 
 
 ' So sang the Valmore of later years in 
 the retrospect of her sorrows, old and new. 
 Compare these verses with some of her ear- 
 
36 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 liest elegies, — "Ma sceur, il est parti," and 
 others. There is just as much difference in 
 her order as there is between an ode in one 
 of Victor Hugo's earliest " Collections " and 
 one of the " Contemplations." It was doubt- 
 less under the impression left by some such 
 outburst that Michelet once wrote to her, — 
 " Sublimity is natural to you." And after 
 looking over her last collection of poems he 
 wrote to his son (Dec. 25th, 1859) :' — 
 
 " My heart is full of her. The other day I saw 
 Orphee, and she came back to me with perfectly 
 irresistible power, agitating my heart as none but 
 she ever could. 
 
 " Oh, how deeply I regret that while she lived 
 I so seldom gave expression to the profound and 
 peculiar sympathy between us ! " ^ 
 
 1 The day after the present article appeared, M. Sainte- 
 Beuve received from M. Michelet the following letter : — 
 "How perfectly, my dear sir, you hare divined and described 
 her who alone among us had the gift of tears, — that gift which 
 smites the rock and dissipates the drought o£ the soul ! I knew 
 her only in advanced years when she was tenderer than ever. 
 
 -* 
 
^.f 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 37 
 
 II. 
 
 One does not write the life of a woman, 
 — her formal biography. I shall only note 
 those salient points in Mme. Valmore's 
 career, without which it would be impossi- 
 ble to appreciate extracts from her corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 That restless destiny which had repeatedly 
 driven her back and forth from Rouen to 
 Brussels, and from Brussels to Rouen, not 
 to mention a few brief sojourns at Paris, — 
 was varied in 1838 by a final and notable 
 episode. In August of that year, a certain 
 theatrical manager conceived the idea of 
 engaging French actors to perform at the 
 time of the consecration of the Emperor 
 
 but shadowed by approaching death ; distracted, as one might 
 say, by death and love. Affectionately yours, 
 
 " J. MiCHELET." 
 
 March 23, 1869. 
 
■^.I 
 
 38 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Ferdinand as king of Lorabardy, which was 
 to take place at Milan, and was expected to 
 attract thither a crowd of strangers. Mme. 
 Valmore, with her two daughters, accompa- 
 nied her husband on this expedition, leaving 
 only her son in France. For the artists 
 who put serious faith in the engagement, 
 it proved a cruel deception ; but the poet 
 gained a glimpse of an illustrious land, — 
 of the wide horizons and the landscapes be- 
 loved of Virgil, and her taste could not fail 
 to be enlarged. A little album in which 
 she noted down her impressions presents 
 them only fragmentarily ; but it was there 
 that she conceived and sang her fine invoca- 
 tion to the sun : — 
 
 " thou, who smilest brightly still 
 
 On him of low estate, 
 Of poverty and pain and ill 
 
 Ever compassionate, 
 A passing storm thy brow may shade 
 
 But hope at eve will shine ; 
 
 >-^ 
 
■t* 
 
 39 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 And hope hath never been betrayed 
 By that farewell of thine. 
 
 " Uncurtained is my casement bare, 
 
 Save that thou madest grow 
 A plane-tree there, whose foliage fair 
 
 Shall wreathe my humble brow. 
 We roam this grand Italian land 
 
 Alone in poor disguise ; 
 But feel the warmth on every hand 
 
 Of thy sweet charities.'' 
 
 The image of the plane-tree at the cur- 
 tainless window — at least in the two first 
 lines of the stanza — is captivating. One 
 feels that it is taken from life, and not a 
 poetic fiction. And in a letter to Mme. 
 Pauline Duchambge, dated Milan, Sept. 20, 
 1838, just before her return, I read these 
 words : " Mile. Mars will bring you a leaf 
 of the plane-tree which served me for a 
 curtain." 
 
 It seems that Mile. Mars had gone to 
 Milan to give a few performances on the 
 
 •i*- 
 
40 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 i 
 
 occasion of the ceremony mentioned above ; 
 and it was a happy chance for her impru- 
 dent countrymen, whom the knavery of the 
 impresario had left literally in the streets. 
 She played for their benefit, to assist them 
 to return home. The quarterly payment of 
 Mme. Valmore's own little pension also 
 came opportunely, and was divided among 
 these needy ones ; and, when this proved 
 insufficient, she sold some of her personal 
 effects for the same purpose. , 
 
 After this excursion, — the longest, ex- 
 cept the voyage to the Antilles, which she 
 ever attempted, Mme. Valmore returned 
 with her family to Paris and lived there 
 habitually. If she continued to wander it 
 was only from quarter to quarter, — from 
 one to another of those various lodgings into 
 which domestic necessities too often forced 
 her. I have spoken of her receiving a 
 pension, and must explain the circum- 
 
*i^ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 41 
 
 stances, the rather as her letters are full of 
 painful allusions to the matter, from which, 
 nevertheless, it would be unjust to draw 
 extreme conclusions against society and 
 men. Mme. Valmore never accused any 
 one. She was by nature as far removed 
 from recrimination as from declamation. 
 She had really met in her sorrowful career 
 with many friends who were neither insen- 
 sible to her needs nor inactive on her 
 behalf; but personally she was too modest 
 and delicate much to enjoy favors, and far 
 more inclined to give than receive services. 
 A lady for whose goodness of heart and 
 graces of manner we can never be suffi- 
 ciently grateful, Mme. Eecamier, early in 
 formed by M. de Latouche of the genius 
 and the circumstances of Mme. Valmore, 
 eagerly undertook to obtain a favor for her. 
 When M. de Montmorency was elected 
 member of the French Academv, in 1825, 
 
>.r 
 
 42 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 he generously resolved to transfer the salary 
 to some needy man of letters, as Lucien 
 Bonaparte had done before him, — who, it 
 may be remembered, had given his pension 
 from the institute to Beranger, then hardly 
 known. Mme. Eecamier instantly thought 
 of suggesting Mme. Valmore to M. de Mont- 
 morency ; but was met by a scruple on the 
 part of the lady herself. M. de Latouche, 
 who knew her well, had dissuaded ISfcne. 
 Recamier from the outset; and Mme. Val- 
 more, the moment the idea was broached to 
 her, recoiled from it with instinctive dis- 
 taste. She felt, she knew not why, that 
 she could not be under obligation to a great 
 nobleman, were he the best man in the 
 world. The modest and high-minded ple- 
 beian could never have endured to have the 
 malicious world say of her what it used to 
 say of a somewhat noted litterateur, and the 
 tallest man I ever knew, who went in those 
 
 *<r 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 43 
 
 days by the name of M. de Montmoi-ency's 
 beggar. From Bordeaux, where she was 
 then residing, she hastened to reply to Mme. 
 Hecamier. 
 
 " Forgive me that my hands do not open to 
 accept a gift so kindly offered. My heart alone 
 shall receive and treasure all that is most precious 
 and consoling in such a benefit, — the memory, 
 namely, of the benefactor, and a sense of grati- 
 tude unincumbered by gold. I can only beg you 
 to accept my warmest thanks and my respectful 
 refusal. It is to your adorable goodness that I 
 owe this compliment on the part of a distinguished 
 man who does not know me, and to you, Madame, 
 I shall always remain devoted." 
 
 In the same letter, however, Mme. Val- 
 more, knowing the steps that Mme. Reca- 
 mier had taken to procure her a regular 
 pension through the intercession of M. de 
 La Rouchefoucauld, added, — 
 
 ' ' But if, Madame, the other favor of which you 
 deem me not unworthy is some day granted, I 
 
 ■+ < 
 
44 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 shall be glad to owe it to you. I would like to 
 have genius in order to justify your flattering 
 patronage, and to deserve the purely literary 
 encouragement which you hint at in the future. 
 I should be perfectly content to obtain that through 
 you, and neither too proud nor too humble to ac- 
 cept it." 
 
 Yet when the little pension in question 
 was obtained, — a pension in the king's 
 name, — the modest and magnanimous poet- 
 ess had a wounded feeling and a moral 
 repugnance to touching it. She seems even 
 to have thought in her simplicity, that the 
 money of the state ought to go straight 
 from the sovereign to one's own door, and 
 in May, 1826, she wrote to an excellent 
 friend of hers, — a justice of the peace at 
 Douai, — M. Duthilleul, — 
 
 " I was told that I had a pension. I received 
 a letter frorti a minister to that effect, and it 
 was put in the papers, and that is the last I 
 have heard of it. I deserved it so little that I do 
 
 -* 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 45 
 
 not regret it, any more than I wanted or asked 
 for it." 
 
 In September, her uncle, Constant Des- 
 bordes, wrote to her that a good deal of 
 surprise was expressed at the bureau of the 
 royal household that she had neither ap- 
 peared there herself nor sent a representa- 
 tive ; since her pension, which was dated 
 the previous January, had now been run- 
 ning nine months. He had felt before, he 
 said, that he ought to scold her for appear- 
 ing too indifferent to a favor so entirely 
 honorable to herself. Her friend Mme. de 
 Launay also, who had learned the news 
 from the journals, and had written a lively 
 letter of congratulation, felt obliged to rally 
 and rate her in her own peculiar fashion.^ 
 
 1 In a letter dated Nov. 1, 1826, Mme. de Launay wrote like 
 a good royalist, and spirited and sensible friend as she was, but 
 wholly unable to comprehend Mme. Valmore's scruples : " I 
 forgive you the nonchalance which you assume about receiving 
 a pension, which cannot fail from every point of view of being 
 
46 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 The truth is that, although entirely ignorant 
 of politics and every thing pertaining thereto, 
 Mme. Valmore's sympathies were liberal 
 and popular, devoted to the oppressed and 
 the vanquished. She was a thorough patriot 
 in the sense in which the word was then 
 employed, and had been Ul six weeks on 
 account of the disaster at Waterloo. From 
 
 exceedingly acceptable. It flatters both the vanity and the 
 purse. None but the saints would refuse such a favor, and 
 even to them I should say, ' Gracious saints, this money may 
 prove useful to those wlio are dependent upon you, so pray lay 
 aside your indiflerence or disdain. Do not think of yourselves, 
 but consider tliat the pension may be useful about bringing up 
 your children.' This consideration ought, I think, to decide 
 Sainte Marceline to accept the gifts of Providence. Consider, 
 my friend, the hand wliich offers you this gift is that of tlie 
 most honorable man in the world. Our king's heart is the 
 home of every virtue. lie is extremely sensitive, pious, and 
 tender-hearted. I do assure you lie is a very angel upon earth. 
 How can you who are so good and affectionate fail to love 
 him ? Believe me, Charles X. is worthy of you and me. Now 
 take your pension or I shall be angry." Mme. de Launay 
 would have been still more mystified had she known that the 
 first thought of her singular friend had been to give her first 
 three quarters to the Greek cause, because she knew not how 
 to justify and purify the money in her own eyes. Finally she 
 gave it to her uncle Desbordes. 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 47 
 
 1830 onward, her heart leaped at every 
 great national or popular explosion, — days 
 of July, Poland, and Warsaw, the insur- 
 rection at Lyons in 183i, which she herself 
 witnessed, February, 1848, — but I for- 
 bear. In great crises like these she was no 
 longer mistress of her feelings. Suddenly, 
 swiftly as a flock of doves, they rose into 
 the upper air. She could not help embrac- 
 ing the side of the people and of all peoples. 
 One can understand what it must have cost 
 her to receive gifts from the great and pow- 
 erful, from those whom she could not call 
 her brothers. She believed that, in certain 
 cases, " money demoralizes even the giver." 
 She had a theory, only too well justified by 
 experience, that the poor and suff'ering 
 ought to confide their sorrows only to one 
 another, — ought to assist and support one 
 another. Her Christianity, as we shall see, 
 wds of this type. She was the child of the 
 
 > 4- 
 
48 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Sermon on the Mount. However, the pen- 
 sion was granted and continued. Under 
 Louis Philippe, — thanks to the kindness 
 of M. Thiers, — it was even increased, and 
 although subject later to variations and re- 
 ductions it never fell below two thousand 
 francs. So much it is but just to say in 
 defence of society and those in power. It 
 does not alter the rest of the story, and the 
 pathetic facts I have to tell remain in all 
 their bitter reality. We do not sufficiently 
 realize, the happy and affluent especially 
 are too apt to forget, that when once a hum- 
 ble household has fallen behindhand in its 
 expenses, when work has been suspended 
 and arrears created which have grown into 
 debts, there is no such thing as recovery : 
 this weight must be carried for life. That 
 which exactly suffices under the simplest 
 ordinary conditions, if once exceeded, can 
 never be regained. In the hand-to-mouth 
 
 ^ 
 
-r 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 49 
 
 life of the proletary, recovery from disaster 
 or indebtedness is simply impossible. No 
 political economy can alter this inexorable 
 fact. 
 
 Another preliminary explanation must be 
 made. It concerns Mme. Valmore's relig- 
 ion, which will reappear on every page. 
 Sh^vvas pious ; but her piety was all charity, 
 and it was peculiar to herself. Educated 
 in the revolutionary years, in a poor and 
 simple home, near a ruined church and 
 opposite a rustic cemetery, where she used 
 both to play and pray, clinging passionately 
 to her baby faiths and all the sweet super- 
 stitions of her early years, she confounded 
 in the same homely affection, God and her 
 father, the virgin and her mother and 
 sisters. She was an augel of filial devo- 
 tion to her father, whom she' lost in 1817. 
 She continued to live in the very presence 
 of the dear departed; whom she perpetually 
 
50 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 invoked. An eminent and kindly critic, 
 M. Vinet (himself a positive Christian), in 
 speaking of Mme* Valmore's volume en- 
 titled " Tears,'' found it impossible to divest 
 himself of the idea that there was a species 
 of sacrilege in the confused adoration which 
 associated God and the angels with her 
 various human loves, — even the most in- 
 tense. But the truth is that no love which 
 was sincere and worthy of the name was 
 profane in her eyes.^ And the only point 
 needful to note is this, — that even in her 
 
 1 M. Vinet's article appeared in a Protestant journal, — 
 "Le Semeur." Mme. Valmore received it thoughtfully and 
 with respect, and alluded to it in a letter written on the eighth 
 of December, 1833, to M. Froussard, the principal of the insti- 
 tution at Grenoble, where her son was at school. " I have 
 read the article to which you drew my attention. It seems to 
 me sober and just, and I have shed a good many tears over it. 
 The ardent and devoted love which I bear my children may 
 perhaps win me forgiveness for other errors. If an eternity 
 of pain could follow a life stormy and bitter as mine has been, 
 my heart would break indeed." Her tender heart, still more 
 than her sound head, rejected this idea of everlasting punish- 
 ment. A few months after the publication of these articles, 
 M. Sainte-Beuve wrote to the excellent widow of M. Vinet, 
 
 ►i^ 
 
 4 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 51 
 
 most cherished beliefs she remained inde- 
 pendent, and never introduced a third per- 
 son, — a man between herself and God. If 
 she went into a church to pray, — as she 
 often did, — it was between the services 
 and when the nave was empty. She had 
 her Christ, the Christ of the poor and for- 
 saken, the prisoner and the slave, the Christ 
 of the Magdalene, and the good Samaritan, 
 a Christ of the future of whom she herself 
 has sung in one of her sweetest strains : — 
 
 " He whose pierced hands have broken so many chains.'' 
 1 
 
 But as years went by and sorrows multiplied, 
 and fate dealt heavy blows, this faith was in- 
 evitably crossed by many a doubt, and often 
 
 who had read and re-read and was deeply affected by them, 
 but who repudiated on her husband's behalf the formidable 
 interpretation put upon his words : " Do not be too uneasy 
 about the critique on Mme. Valmore. It was severe indeed, 
 for it was written by a Christian man who never jested, either 
 with words or things; but the impression made upon Mme. 
 "Valmore herself was altogether serious, and it seems to me 
 that she accepted it just as M. Vinet would have wished her 
 to do." 
 
 ► •<- 
 
52 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 obscured by funereal shadows. When 
 there was no one left for her to exhort, to" 
 warm and comfort with her own hopes, 
 when at last she was alone with herself, — 
 illusions all dissipated ; realities confirmed 
 and exhausted, even to the dregs, — in the 
 long months that preceded her death, a 
 great silence fell upon her. We must re- 
 member, too, when we read what she has 
 ■written, that a poet is not necessarily a 
 physician, nor a philosopher {fortunatus et 
 ille deos qui novit agrestes), and also that, 
 behind the charming play of her imagina- 
 tion and the impulses of her heart, that heart 
 which remained, in so many respects, that of 
 a little child, this woman possessed extraor- 
 dinary fortitude, and a sublime courage. 
 
 Her immediate family consisted of five be- 
 loved beings : her husband, Avho was honor , 
 and probity itself, — who suff'ered as a man 
 only can from compulsory inaction, and 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 53 
 
 asked only honest employment, and the 
 privilege to work,^ — and three children, 
 rarely gifted, a son born in 1820, and two 
 daughters. Undine, born in 1822, and Ines, 
 in 1826. Of these girls, both of whom 
 died before her, Ines, the younger, — deli- 
 cate, poetic, sensitive, and inclined to mel- 
 ancholy, self-distrustful, and anxiously af- 
 fectionate (" there never was a child," said 
 her mother, " who needed so much caress- 
 ing"), — was attacked by a malady whose 
 chief symptom was extreme prostration, 
 and expired at the age of twenty, December 
 4, 1846. Undine, whose real name was 
 Hyacinthe, but who had been called Undine 
 from infancy, was also of ja poetic tempera- 
 ment, and even herself a poet, inheriting 
 
 1 He obtained, at last, in September, 1852, a humble but 
 honorable and congenial place in the Imperial Library, as 
 editor of the " Catalogue." Those who furthered his appoint- 
 ment can Ijardly have realized, with what a " sacred content," 
 what a " deep sigh of gratitude," they filled hearts little ac- 
 customed to success. I copy these expressions word for word. 
 
► r 
 
 54 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 from her mother the gift of song. She died 
 at thirty, February 12, 1853. She had been 
 married a short time before to M. Langlais, 
 representative from the department of the 
 Sarthe, and afterwards councillor of state, 
 a man of merit, who died on a mission to 
 the Emperor Maximilian, in Mexico. This 
 fascinating Undine had points both of like- 
 ness and unlikeness to her mother. Small 
 of stature, with regular features and lovely 
 blue eyes, she had something angelic and 
 puritanical about her, a serious and stead- 
 fast character, a pure and lofty sensibility. 
 Unlike her mother, who opened her heart 
 to all, whose every hour was invaded, she 
 felt the necessity of control and reserve ; 
 and the reticence of her premature wisdom 
 sometimes awoke a sort of anxiety and af- 
 fectionate alarm in the heart of her mother, 
 unaccustomed to dissociate aifection from 
 entire confidence. She used sometimes to say 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 55 
 
 to herself with reference to Undine, during 
 the weary seasons when the latter was away, 
 and in the sleepless nights when anxiety be- 
 came a positive nightmare : " This mother's 
 love is just as painful as the other." Un- 
 dine was a great student. She passed sev- 
 eral years as an assistant teacher, and a 
 cherished friend as well, in the boarding- 
 school of Mme. Bascans at Chaillot. I used 
 sometimes to go and see her there. She 
 had undertaken Latin and read the " Odes 
 of Horace " intelligently. She read Eng- 
 lish, and had translated into verse several 
 of Cowper's poems, especially the hymn be- 
 ginning " God moves in a mysterious way," 
 a poem which recalls the canticles of Ra- 
 cine, and breathes the very spirit of Saint 
 Paul. She also read Pascal, whose Thoughts 
 were in those years the subject of much 
 literary criticism. Concerning them she 
 wrote to a friend : — 
 
. tl< 
 
 56 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " When I came home at night I found your 
 letter and Pascal, whom I have not been able to 
 leave since. So you see I have been both busy 
 and happy for many days. It is very sweet to 
 find kindred spirits in the past, and to live with 
 them still in spite of death." 
 
 She had written a poem on the " Jour des 
 Morts," which was also her birthday, in 
 which she said, addressing the loved and 
 lost, whom she imagined, as it were, trans- 
 figured in their higlier life : — 
 
 " Wliat matter names and spheres to you, 
 Friends of our friends, beloved and true ? 
 Doubtless the homage of our tears 
 Moves angel liearts in those far spheres, 
 And in the rest that you have won 
 Love surely lives, thuugh teaxs are done.'' 
 
 In 1848, thanks to the recommendation 
 of Armand Marrast, Undine was appointed 
 inspectress of girls' schools, an office whose 
 duties she fulfilled conscientiously until 
 attacked by her last illness. 
 
 *■■*- 
 
.MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 57 
 
 Among Mme. Valmore's other near rela- 
 tives, hardly less dear to her than her own 
 home circle, were a brother at Douai, and 
 two sisters and a niece living at Eouen, — 
 apparently in very narrow circumstances. 
 The brother, to whom she wrote regularly, 
 "was an old soldier who had served under 
 the empire in the war with Spain, but who 
 had never risen above the grade of sergeant, 
 and had been made a prisoner by the Eng- 
 lish on the Scotch pontoons. Old, infirm, 
 and poor, he was unable to attain even the 
 dignity of an invalid ; and all that was pos- 
 sible was to obtain for him, through the 
 special representations of M. Martin, of the 
 Nord, the privilege of being lodged and 
 boarded in the hospital of Douai, nearly 
 opposite the house where he was born. 
 This humble brother was always to be re- 
 lieved, encouraged, and even assisted by 
 occasional remittances of money '(twenty 
 
 -»t< 
 
►fi ■ >i> 
 
 58 MEMOIRS OF ' 
 
 francs a month if possible) ; but while dol- 
 ing out her tiny alms, the loving sister found 
 means infinitely to diversify the moral balm 
 which she poured into his wounds. 
 
 And now let us speak of herself Let us 
 follow her a while through some of the 
 most peculiar and private ramifications of her 
 correspondence, beginning with the letters 
 addressed to the aforesaid brother, Felix 
 Desbordes, pensioner of the general hospital 
 at Douai. 
 
 " January U, 1843. 
 " My eldest girl is all this while in England, 
 to my great sorrow ; ^ her absence is beginning to 
 be unendurable. I trust that the fine weather 
 will quite set her up again, and pray God with 
 all my heart that it may be so. Dear Felix, 
 
 I Undine had undertaken this journey as companion to the 
 daughter of Mme. Branchu. Her lungs were already affected, 
 but she did not know the gravity of her situation, whicli had 
 been revealed to us by a consultation witli Doctor Louis, and 
 she reposed entire confidence in the homoeopathic treatment 
 of Doctor Curie. 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 59 
 
 when the burden of our sorrows becomes too heavy 
 to be borne, let us not forget that his goodness 
 has never quite forsaken us, and that we are his 
 children. Something great is concealed by what 
 we suffer, and the more we pay in advance, the 
 more richly will he reward us for having sought 
 and trusted him in the midst of our trials. There 
 are times when my heart will sink, and yet I 
 always feel myself upheld by that divine hand, 
 which made us brother and sister that we might 
 love and help one another. Dear Felix, you 
 know the joy it is to me to fulfil my charge, and 
 I thank you for the manner in which you have 
 fulfilled yours. Your faithful affection has many 
 a time consoled me for the light and transient 
 character of this world's friendships. Ours will 
 be eternal. I send you twenty-five francs. I 
 could not make it more. There is always some 
 reason why I must check the impulses of my 
 heart. You believe it: do you not? Of course 
 you do ; for if I were not poor, you would not 
 be so." 
 
►J* 
 
 60 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " April 14, 1843. 
 
 " You see, dear brother, that I am always a 
 little behindhand iu the discharge of my duty. 
 Obstacles of many kinds seem to contradict that 
 word always. But you see, too, that perseverance 
 in well-doing always touches the heart of God, 
 wlio seems to say at last, ' That will do ! ' Still, 
 if my heart had always been right, it seems as if I 
 must have prospered with so good a father. It 
 makes me happy to know, dear brother, that you 
 have an impulse to prayer. I do not think tliere 
 is any thing sweeter or more satisfactory in life than 
 voluntarily to turn to him who gave us our being, 
 and all that we lo-\e on earth. Worldly posses- 
 sions fade away, but this refuge remains immuta- 
 ble. If we believe in a just and compassionate 
 Judge, nothing can humiliate us. He will restore 
 all that we thought stolen or lost. It seems to 
 me that the great love I bear to God makes me 
 cling all the more fondly to the earthly ties by 
 which he himself has bound my woman's heart. 
 You, too, will feel the stormier transports of manly 
 love subside in the presence of that vast affection 
 which purifies all others, and you will become like 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
►J4 ^ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 6 1 
 
 a little child, made rich and happy by a flower. 
 Think with what consideration you might surround 
 yourself, even in that retreat, that lazaretto of the 
 soul. 
 
 " Mme. Saudeur, who came four days ago, 
 brought me your letter and the manuscripts, which 
 I have not yet had time to open, for I am all at 
 sixes and sevens. Work, letters, housekeeping, 
 sewing, and visitors fill up my days, which last 
 from eight o'clock till midnight. I will speak of 
 what you sent me at some future time. Do not 
 forget what I siiid to you about treasuring all that 
 you remember clearly of our family, and our dear 
 parents. I left home so young, that I know, per- 
 haps, less than you of our origin. Nothing is 
 clear in my memory, except that we were very 
 happy, and very unhappy ; that there was a great 
 deal of sunshine for us at Sin (a village near 
 Douai), and a great many flowers on the fortifi- 
 cations ; a dear good father in our humble home, 
 and a dear, beautiful mother, very loving, and 
 sorely missed from among us." 
 
 ^ 
 
62 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "January 24, 1847. 
 " I send you herewith fifteen francs. You can- 
 not have wanted them as badly as I have wanted 
 to send them ; but our circumstances have not 
 improved. When God will, Felix. He is above 
 our cries. You can still lighten your poor sister's 
 heart by the love she knows you feel for her. 
 Your admirable bearing and patient dignity are 
 like a cross of honor, shining all the brighter be- 
 cause worn over a shabby coat. Leave all to 
 God and time, and never cease to love your sor- 
 rowing sister." 
 
 " March 8, 1847. 
 " You see, mon ami, that I only write to-day 
 to beg you to wait; and because I would not keep 
 my letter back until I might have money to send 
 you. I desire, above every thing, to spare you 
 the anxiety which a long silence would occasion ; 
 knowing well that you are just as fond of me as I 
 shall be rejoiced to share with you the first ray 
 of prosperity which the Virgin sends. This 
 last break-up overcame me entirely. It was 
 terribly hard to relinquish all the little com- 
 
 -* 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 63 
 
 forts I had. How poor I must be, to let you 
 be so poor ! " 
 
 We have now gained all the insight pos- 
 sible, into the secrets of that heart-rending 
 destiny. 
 
 There has been a, great diversity of opin- 
 ion about the then minister of justice, Mar- 
 tin of the Nord. I do not think that his 
 end should invalidate any thing that v?as good 
 in his life ; and it is but justice to his 
 memory to say that he was very humane, 
 and that Mme. Valmore never appealed in 
 vain to him, as a compatriot and national 
 representative. Scarcely a year passed that 
 she did not ask of him Christmas gifts for 
 the poor, or the release of prisoners ; and 
 she had a way of insinuating into her 
 request a word of their Flemish patois 
 (accout'm tin peo), which never failed of 
 success. 
 
 *"*- 
 
64 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " March 8, 1847. 
 
 " A very serious anxiety has just been added 
 to my otlier troubles on account of the dangerous 
 illness of il. Martin, of the Nord. He is exceed- 
 ingly good to me, and has been very merciful to 
 several prisoners whom he has pardoned at my 
 intercession. Moreover he has thrice opened the 
 Odcon to supposed friends of Valmore's, on whose 
 behalf he appealed to the minister. I shall never 
 forget jM. Martin, nor cease to pray for him. It 
 was his influence which obtained your own humble 
 place, after he had made application for you, at 
 the Invalides. In a word, I have never seen any 
 thing in him but kindness, and unfailing charity. 
 His misfortune affects mo very much." 
 
 We are not used, as I have said, to regard 
 Mile. Mars, the actress, from a sentimental 
 point of view. In her theatrical relations, 
 this highly-gifted woman was considered 
 rude and severe to those associated with 
 her ; but to those whom she really loved, 
 she was a staunch, loyal, brave, and vala- 
 
 V ■*- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 65 
 
 able friend. Her letters to Mme. Valmore, 
 brisk, resolute, and almost manly in tone, 
 reveal her in the latter light, — a firm, faith- 
 ful soul, active in her affection, and entirely 
 trustworthy ; and Mme. Valmore rewarded 
 her by a kind of adoring gratitude. 
 
 " April 7, 1847. 
 
 " Your kind letter found me overwhelmed by 
 new and keen afflictions. Already sti'icken by the 
 terrible death of M. Martin, I am agonized anew 
 by that of my life-long friend, Mile. Mars. I 
 adored her genius, and her inimitable grace, and I 
 loved her with all my heart, for a faithful friend, 
 whom our misfortunes had never alienated. In 
 the midst of her last sickness, she was eagerly 
 interested about procuring my dear Valmore a 
 place in Paris. Good Felix, I beseech you to 
 offer a prayer for that almost divine woman. If 
 you knew how she had felt for me, in my maternal 
 sorrow, you would love her as we love the angels. 
 As such I mourn her. I am a sorely bereaved 
 woman, my poor friend. 
 S 
 
 *^ 
 
66 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " Undine remains at Chaillot, teaching a host 
 of children. This takes her from us, but she dis- 
 charges her onerous duties with courage and gayety, 
 and they do not seem to prey upon her health. I 
 am always anxious about that. Hippolyte is 
 doing extremely well, and is universally beloved. 
 He is a good boy, and has a very uncommon 
 intellect. He has, moreover, the charm of an 
 open character, and very quiet tastes. May God 
 bless him ! 
 
 " I enclose in this letter twelve poor francs, 
 and I press your hand affectionately. If our 
 Lord and the Virgin take pity on me, you shall 
 be the first to know it. 
 
 " They are in terrible trouble at Eouen, but 
 you have enough to bear without my telling you 
 the tale of their distress. Wait and believe." 
 
 "June 15, 1847. 
 ' ' I have been too much depressed to write to 
 you ; I could not even frank my letter. You 
 see, my dear friend, that to try for a place just 
 now is absolutely suffocating ; still we have some 
 hope. But if our dear father and mother can see. 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 67 
 
 from where they are, what their children endure, 
 I pity them, loving as they always were. This is 
 a dreadfully melancholy idea, and yet it is consol- 
 ing. The saddest of all would be, to think that 
 we were nothing to those whom we have never 
 ceased to mourn. 
 
 " I try to find solace in work, but write I can- 
 not, for my thoughts will dwell upon Ines, my 
 dear, lost child. 
 
 "I am studying, or trying to study. I want 
 to add Spanish to the English language, which I 
 know pretty well. Spanish has a fascination for 
 me, because I have a fancy that our family came 
 from Spain, on the side of our paternal grand- 
 mother. Do you not think, inon ami, that our 
 uncle had a thoroughly Spanish face? And our 
 good grandmother, also, whom I loved so dearly, 
 when we used to visit her together. 
 
 " Then, too, I remember well your own sojourn 
 in Spain, and its terrible consequences, my poor 
 brother. All these things, and the thought that 
 you spoke that language in your warlike youth, 
 help to make Spanish the most interesting of all 
 studies to me." 
 
 ^ 4« 
 
68 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 She ennobled, as much as possible, the 
 past of her unfortunate brother, in order to 
 give ■ him dignity in his own eyes. She 
 threw a halo of romance around every inci- 
 dent, and persuaded herself that it was all 
 reminiscence. 
 
 This idea of a Spanish descent was very 
 alluring to her imagination. She was not 
 sure of it, but tried to convince herself, and 
 besought her brother to assist her faith. 
 
 " I always had a fancy for studying Spanish, 
 because Douai is full of the traces of that nation. 
 I think, brother, that we ourselves must have been 
 Spanish on our father's side. Consider, Felix ! 
 It cannot be but that our dear grandmother, our 
 father, and our uncle Constant, came of that race, 
 whose features are so unlike the genuine Flanders 
 type." 
 
 It was miraculous that she could study at 
 all, amid a life so harassed and broken up. 
 Poetry, at least, came to her unsought, as 
 
 4 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 69 
 
 a song, a sigh, or a wail of sorrow. During 
 a sleepless night, or a hurried day ; on a 
 quay, or under a carriage entrance, in a 
 shower of rain ; amid the commonest or the 
 saddest of outward circumstances, something 
 began to sing within her, and she recalled 
 the strain as best she could. But the bare 
 reality of her life, as well as the moral 
 beauty of her nature, is here revealed with- 
 out disguise. 
 
 " August 8, 1847. 
 " My Deak Beothek, — Your friend Devrez, 
 who is about starting for our dear Flanders, is 
 liapp)' to be the bearer of our remembrances, and 
 of a little parcel for you. The time has not yet 
 come when I can send you more frequent, or 
 larger remittances. From the depths of my heart 
 a perpetual prayer goes up to God, that those I 
 love may be happy. Meanwhile, he who has 
 tried us thus severely, has also supported us 
 miraculously, in the midst of our incurable wounds. 
 The sweet sunshine, faith in him, and the love of 
 
70 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 my dear ones ! And so I bless you, Felix, for 
 your afFection, which has helped me to bear my 
 sorrows. 
 
 " My heart overflows with gratitude and bless- 
 ing toward those friends, both past and present, 
 who have, at least, provided for your poor nights 
 and days a shelter from the chance arrows of fate. 
 Your lot is far from brilliant, but the poignant 
 anxiety, caused by our actual necessities, and 
 those of Eugenie and Cecile,i sometimes causes 
 me to acquiesce, with a sigh, in the knowledge 
 that you have a shelter, if ever so humble, in sight 
 of our early home. That home, also, was visited 
 by storm, and shaken by all the winds of misfor- 
 tune. Never forget to give the house my greet- 
 ing, and remember me also to our grandmother, 
 and our good father, and our dear and gracious 
 mother, shipwrecked so far from home. 
 
 "Dear Felix, i"; is both sweet and sad to re- 
 member. It is love and hope in one." 
 
 In connection with these absolutely confi- 
 dential letters, one should re-read the piece 
 
 1 The sisters at Rouen. 
 
 -* 
 
->.^ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 71 
 
 entitled " Tristesse," which contains her 
 whole childhood, and represents for us her 
 " Feuillantines " : — 
 
 " Shall I never play again in my mother's garden close ? 
 Nor fling me down to rest on the graves with blos- 
 soms gay ? 
 
 Dear church, no priest was thine, no service and no 
 state. 
 
 My childish treble rang adown thy empty aisle, 
 Around thy every window the bramble waved elate, 
 And the mutilated Christ looked down compassionate. 
 
 Shall I ever dream of heaven as there erewhile ? " 
 
 Prose and poetry, romance and reality, in 
 her were mingled and confounded. After a 
 life of sixty years, as at the very first, she 
 lived in the presence of the beloved beings 
 who had surrounded and sheltered her in- 
 fancy, and whom she never ceased to regard 
 as the invisible witnesses, the judges and 
 guardians, of her life. 
 
72 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " Sept. 28, 1847. 
 " You are realizing the conviction I have always 
 entertained, that you would one day, in the midst 
 of your obscurity and misfortunes, surround your 
 name with consideration and esteem. After all 
 you have endured, I do not think any thing could 
 touch me more. I love you dearly, my brother, 
 and I have done so all my life. Judge whether 
 or no 1 am pleased and proud to-day, to think 
 that you are consoling our blessed father for the 
 accumulated miseries that he sustained. I never, 
 for an instant, waver in my profound belief that 
 our dear father is the constant witness of your 
 actions, and that it is he who has awakened within 
 you the germ of that religious faith, to which he 
 sacrificed iiis great inheritance, from our Protestant 
 uncles. I have ever revered the courage, no less 
 than the poverty, which he bequeathed to us, in 
 giving all his fortune to the poor. It cannot be 
 that the Virgin, who presided over our birth, in 
 the Rue Notre-Dame, can have forgotten this. 
 No, Felix, it cannot be. She loves, in you, the 
 son of him who was a father to the poor, and 
 gives you in charge to those who protect and de- 
 vote themselves to them. 
 
 ■** 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 73 
 
 " But politics poison the mind. I who was 
 filled with reverent emotion on visiting Geneva, 
 the country of our paternal grandfather, I and my 
 little family were there pursued by cries of ' Down 
 with the French ! '^ It was only a passing ebul- 
 lition of hatred, but it cut me to the heart. This 
 earthly life is indeed an exile, my dear brother. 
 Let us try to submit. For my own part, I con- 
 fess that I pass half my time upon my knees. 
 And shall we not see again those whom we have 
 loved so dearly ? Oh ! it is a great thought, that 
 even we, in our poverty, may so direct our lives 
 that we shall, at least, deserve that blessing. To 
 gain in strength and elevation of mind, day by 
 day; to shame, or at least to soften, those who 
 have despised us, and render them glad to have 
 been our allies and old friends, — there is some- 
 thing in all this which may yet sanctify life." 
 
 1 She refers here to an incident of her return from Italy, in 
 1838. The little party returned by, way of the Simplon and 
 Geneva. It was just when Louis Philippe was arming against 
 Switzerland, in order to compel the extradition of Prince Louis 
 Napoleon, and the patriotic indignation of the Swiss against 
 our nation, which they confounded with our government, was 
 extreme. It was unfortunate, on arriving in any of their towns, 
 to be known for a Frenchman. 
 
 >--4- 
 
74 
 
 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 There was no paling or faltering in her 
 piety, — the utter freshness and delicacy of 
 her moral sense, — through all her wander- 
 ing life. Observe this : — 
 
 " I love and bless you for having implanted 
 your name, as you have done, in the esteem of 
 those about you. , Seed by seed, — jjut the har- 
 vest will not fail; How could you comfort me 
 more ? I bless you in our father's and our moth- 
 er's name." 
 
 That " seed .by seed " recalls another 
 remark of hers, about the painful virtue of 
 patience, Avhich she illustrated by a simple 
 feminine gesture. " We must make our 
 lives as we sew, — stitch by stitch." 
 
 I have a great deal yet to say ; I have 
 hardly begun. Every day we devote weary 
 pages to the so-called men of authority and 
 action, who pass for having ruled the world, 
 when they were themselves ruled ; who have 
 managed, and sometimes bartered nations. 
 
 ► ■♦- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 75 
 
 And what should signify a few pages, more 
 or less, when our subject is one of those 
 rare beings who dwell and really rule in the 
 spiritual sphere, — the realm of the heart ; 
 who, all their life long, have cherished and 
 culled the fairest flowers of feeling; inno- 
 cent, afflicted souls, who appeal to us by 
 their sorrows, and who teach or recall sweet 
 truths, or perhaps bitter truths sweetly 
 spoken, to their poor fellow-men. And 
 now, — to interrupt for a moment my con- 
 tinuous note, which, however, I propose to 
 resume, — I will quote, before I close this 
 chapter, a letter of quite another sort ; sad 
 indeed, — for Mme. Valmore seemed vowed 
 to sorrow, — yet light and graceful ; full of 
 an engaging, nay captivating, charity.^ Note 
 the delicacy with which it is expressed. 
 
 1 " Amor volat, currit, et Isetatur ; liber est et non tenetur." 
 Mme. Valmore's letter reminds me of this passage in the 
 " Imitation.'' 
 
76 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 She was affectionately concerned about a 
 young musician, the son of a poor portress, 
 who had become insane, and whom she here 
 recommends to the most humane and gene- 
 rous of physicians ; to him who would have 
 saved, if he could, her dear Ines. 
 
 "To DocTOE Veyne. 
 
 August, 17, 1853. 
 
 " There lives at No. 10 Rue de Eichelieu, a 
 good old portress. I never saw her but .once, but 
 ever since then I have felt the influence of her 
 sorrowful star. Yours, my dear Samaritan, must 
 follow the divine order once received to pour oil 
 into every wound. 
 
 " The son of this woman is very sick. He is 
 poor, like herself; very handsome, very musical, 
 very proud, and very intelligent, — a kind of 
 Chatterton. 
 
 ' ' And once he met upon the stairs a youthful 
 shape which he took for Kitty Bell, — that is all. 
 
 " Mortification, silence, and perhaps the very 
 violence of the remedies he adopted, brought on 
 the fever with which he lies stricken. 
 
 ► *- 
 
I 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 77 
 
 "His mother told the whole story to Mme. 
 Duchambge, and she came straight as an arrow to 
 me, and begged me to summon you, for the poor 
 young man wants to kill himself. His forehead 
 seems to be on fire ; he says a spider went into his 
 ear. 
 
 ' ' You see to what an obscure drama I invite 
 you. I hesitated for a few minutes, thinking of 
 the poor return my gratitude had made you hither- 
 to ; but your heart attracts mine, and I fly, as a 
 bird to the sun, with the address of the wounded 
 man. No. 10 Rue de Richelieu. Your eyes alone, 
 will, I think, have great power over the poor soul 
 who wants to go ; but it must be prevented for his 
 mother's sake. It is frightful, — frightful to see 
 the young die, and to be left behind." 
 
 Her daughters were both dead when she 
 wrote this letter ; Undine only a few months 
 before. It was thus that Mme. Valmore 
 consoled, or shall we say avenged herself 
 for her inconsolable griefs, by compassion- 
 ating all who suffered as she had done, and 
 
78 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 making herself a sister of charity to the 
 humblest. 
 
 III. 
 
 We cannot say every thing at once, and 
 no sooner have we noticed the prominent 
 features of a character, than we perceive 
 others which correct and complement these, 
 and must also have an important place in a 
 speaking likeness of the person. Born in 
 the ranks of the people, Mme. Valmore 
 remained a plebeian at heart, yet she was 
 such without prejudice or premeditation, 
 and was far from perpetually insisting on 
 barriers and dividing lines. Her relations 
 with the princely order, for such she had, 
 were pervaded by an indescribable air of 
 good-natured mockery. I refer especially 
 to the friendship of the then reigning Prince 
 
 -* 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 19 
 
 Florestan of Monaco, an excellent but weak- 
 minded man ; a great patron of the theatre, 
 and friend of comedians, tickled by the 
 incognito which required that he should be 
 addressed as " M. Grimaldi," when he called 
 at her house ; who one day asked me in all 
 seriousness if I did not think Pigault-Le- 
 brun the best historian of France, and of 
 whom she once wrote to a lady friend : 
 " You know how sincerely I have been and 
 am attached to this prince, the most harm- 
 less person who ever bore the name." How- 
 ever we are not talking of princes in disguise, 
 nor kings of Yvetot. Mme. Valmore had 
 actual access to genuine dignitaries, and we 
 will see how she bore herself with such, and 
 of what use she made them. 
 
 She was intimately acquainted, from 1836 
 onward, with M. Antoine de Latour, who 
 was first tutor, and afterwards private sec- 
 retary, to the youngest son of Louis Philippe, 
 
 -►< 
 
8o MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the Due de Montpensier. M. de Latour 
 was a university man, and, by nature, rather 
 a poet than a professor. He was deeply 
 interested in the verses of Mme. Valmore, 
 and, through these, in her fate ; for there 
 never was a poet whose life and works were 
 more entirely identified. Before writing his 
 article about her in the " Revue de Paris," 
 he requested some particulars concerning 
 her past life, her literary predilections, and 
 what he called the education of her thought 
 and the formation of her genius. She was 
 then absent from Paris, and the letter in 
 which she replied, or rather excused herself 
 from replying, to his inquii-ies, is too charac- 
 teristic not to be quoted here. 
 
 " Lyons, Oct. 15, 1836. 
 
 "Have you never heard, monsieur, from that 
 
 model woman, Mme. Tastu, who has been good 
 
 enough to penetrate into my obscurity, how far 
 
 removed I have been from all literary associations, 
 
-»*« 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 8 1 
 
 and from the brilliant publications which I have 
 been unable to study and enjoy, for the reason 
 that my life has been at once unsettled and retired. 
 The particulars which you request about that 
 unstable and undistinguished life can be very soon 
 told. I am condemned to a feverish unrest. 
 My life languishes where God wills. I am trav- 
 elling toward the other, and trying to lead my 
 children safely thither. I should have revelled in 
 the study of poets and poetry, but have been fain 
 to be content with dreaming of this as of the other 
 good things of this world. I shall quit Lyons, a 
 few months hence, with all my family, for — I 
 know not what place. I do not know how I have 
 lived through so many shocks, — and yet I live. 
 My fragile existence, monsieur, slipped sorrow- 
 fully into this world amid the pealing bells of a 
 revolution, in whose whirlpool I was soon to be 
 involved. I was born at a churchyard gate, in 
 the shadow of a church whose saints were soon to 
 be desecrated. Their statues lying overthrown 
 amid the grass of the graves were my earliest and 
 only friends. Not to dwell too long upon mem- 
 ories, which, however charming to myself, would 
 6 
 
 *r~ 
 
82 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 be tedious to you, I enclose a little poem of mine, 
 " My Mother's Home," in which I once endeav- 
 ored to express my fond yet sad attachment to 
 that native land which I was forced to leave at 
 the age of ten, never to see it more, — at least, I 
 fear I shall not. You could not write any thing 
 about me, monsieur, indulgent as you are, without 
 revealing a very ignorant and a very useless crea- 
 ture. Can a few songs justify any general interest 
 in me, or admit me to a place in a learned book? 
 Monsieur, I do not know any thing and I do not 
 learn any thing. Ever since I was sixteen I have 
 been subject to fever, and those who love me a 
 little have more than once wept for me as dead, 
 80 slight appeared my hold on life. For a good 
 while I was confused and crushed by what I suf- 
 fered ; I lived very much alone, although belong- 
 ing to a profession outwardly frivolous ; I thought 
 every one else was happy, and I could not make 
 up my own mind not to be so. I know now that 
 others suffer too. I am sadder for this knowledge, 
 but very much more resigned. INIy pity has found 
 a new object, my hopes a new goal. They are 
 above, and I am trying to follow them." 
 
 *i*- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 83 
 
 The reader will have remarked how she 
 speaks of Mme. Tastu ; with what deep 
 feeling and respect for her solid qualities, 
 no less than for that feminine genius which 
 had, in its youth, a few poetical notes both 
 true and pure. The two extracts which I 
 subjoin are also from letters to M. de Latour, 
 and will henceforth be inseparable from the 
 name of Mme. Tastu. Her place among 
 female poets, and the final award of her 
 talent, are here succinctly defined : — 
 
 " Lyons, Feb. 7, 1837. 
 
 "... I have told you what I think of Mme. 
 Tastu. I love her profoundly. Hers is a pure 
 and distinguished soul, which meets a hard fate 
 with a pathetic serenity. Two years ago I ad- 
 dressed some verses to her which I never dared to 
 send. I feel annihilated before these charming 
 celebrities, and when I hear my name associated 
 with theirs, God knows how my heart quakes." 
 
 •^A 
 
^ 
 
 84 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 And in a letter from Paris, dated Decem- 
 ber 23, 1837,— 
 
 " ... I shall miss nothing in the solitude I 
 am leaving, but a kind of nearness to Mme. Tastu. 
 I love her. She is a constant sufferer, and unfail- 
 ingly courageous. A dear woman, whom I ven- 
 ture to call my sistei:" 
 
 M. de Latour being an admirable scholar, 
 with a thorough classical training, had re- 
 marked in ]\Ime. Valmore's verses faults of 
 carelessness and weakness, or rather, it may 
 be, certain precocities of expression which 
 appeared like affectations, and marred, at 
 times, the effect of an inspiration which was 
 always sincere. He undertook to point 
 these out to her, at first in a general way, at 
 the close of his very graceful article in the 
 " Revue de Paris," afterwards by letter, and 
 more in detail. She was infinitely obliged 
 to him, and expressed her gratitude in terms 
 which illustrate once more her uncommon 
 
-*i* 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 85 
 
 humility, and her very characteristic fashion 
 of thinking and speaking from another's 
 point of view. And was not her faulty 
 originality worth quite as much as a more 
 correct heautyl 
 
 "Lyons, Feb. 7, 1837. 
 "... You are very skilful at concealing 
 faults, or inventing excuses for them, and I thank 
 you for it with tears in my eyes, for there is no 
 reason why what I write should not be monstrously 
 incoherent, and full of improper and ill-arranged 
 words. If I thoughfrseriously about this, I should 
 be utterly ashamed ; but, monsieur, have I the 
 time? I never see a denizen of that literary 
 world which forms taste and purifies language. I 
 am my own sole judge, and I know nothing, so 
 where is my security? Once in my life, but a 
 long while ago, a man of great talent was a little 
 fond of me ; enough so to point out certain unsus- 
 pected blunders and imprudences, in the verses 
 which I was beginning to collect. But that clear- 
 sighted and courageous affection just flitted across 
 my life and vanished. I have never learned any 
 
^ »i. 
 
 86 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 thing since then, and, shall I say it, monsieur? I 
 have not desired to learn any thing. I am climb- 
 ing, as best I may, to the goal of an existence in 
 which I speak very much oftener to God than to the 
 world. You understand this, and have made it 
 my defence against the taste which I have so often 
 and so innocently offended. Who else will ever 
 fulfil this task as you have done? I could not do 
 it, were I to try with all my might ; for, in order 
 to justify myself, I should have to plunge again 
 into times which I dread to remember. Yours 
 was the quiet courage needful for such an eflfort, 
 and I heard you as I would hear my last judge. 
 I heard you, monsieur, for they read me your 
 analysis of those faulty and even useless books (if 
 any thing on earth is useless), which you read so 
 patiently, setting your heart and your wit to the 
 task of extracting therefrom something to love, to 
 praise, to pity ! 
 
 " If I should some day see you, — as I sincerely 
 hope I may, — will you have the patience and the 
 brave honesty to inform me just what is bad and 
 what is good, in a style which I cannot criticise 
 for myself? Oh yes, you will enlighten me, if 
 
MJSIE. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 87 
 
 that is possible, and you will see that I deserve, 
 at least, by my own sincerity, that first and rarest 
 of favors, — truth." 
 
 And in a letter from Paris, dated Novem- 
 ber 20, 1837,— 
 
 " Mark whatever is repwg'nawf to you in the 
 verses which I have just written for you. I do 
 not see clearly. A little light, if you please ! " 
 
 And once again, in a letter of December 
 23, 1837,— 
 
 " I come out of my fog once more and make 
 an effort to reach you. I have thought that the 
 best way of thanking you for your advice would 
 be to profit by it, and so I have carried your light 
 wherever I could, and corrected a part of the 
 faults you pointed out. Not all, however ; the 
 irregularity of the verses, and their ai-rangement in 
 pairs, now of masculines and now of feminines, 
 and subsequently with the two kinds intermingled 
 according to my fancy, I could not alter without 
 injury to the sense. For the future, however, I 
 will be extremely careful. 
 
88 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 ' ' I shall not copy here all that I have tried to 
 improve. If ever my new volume finds a place, 
 — its true place would be that of a drop of water 
 in the sea, — you will read it all, will you not, 
 before it is published? You promised me." 
 
 But M. de Latour was to Mme. Valmore 
 far more than a critical adviser. By virtue 
 of his position and his character, he \^'as 
 also an intercessor and a channel of favor. 
 A man of fine and gentle nature, who famil- 
 iarized the court with poetry, he was the 
 translator of Silvio Pcllico, and not unlike 
 the latter in his habits of heart and mind. 
 Having once experienced his genuine good- 
 ness, Mme. Valmore did not hesitate to 
 appeal to him at every crisis. Lyons, where 
 she was then living, Avas the centre of trou- 
 ble and Avoe. She herself called it " that 
 scourged city,'' and pictured its condition 
 vividly to M. de Latour. 
 
>r 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 89 
 
 "Lyons, Feb. 7, 1837. 
 " My lot has been so hard of late that I could 
 scarcely take breath. Judge for yourself! All 
 the miseries of Lyons are added to my own, — 
 twenty or thirty thousand workmen begging daily 
 for a little bread, a little fire, a garment, lest they 
 die. Can you realize, monsieur, this universal 
 and insurmountable despair which appeals to one 
 in God's name, and makes one ashamed of daring 
 to have food and fire and two garments, when 
 these poor creatures have none? I see it all, and 
 it paralyzes me." 
 
 In 1834, at the time of the great insurrec- 
 tion of republicans and working-men, which 
 she had witnessed, and of which she had felt 
 herself a victim, matters had been even 
 worse. She had then addressed a sort of 
 canticle to Queen Marie-Amaliej appealing 
 to her as a woman and a mother : bxit this 
 touching plaint, which was printed in the 
 volume entitled " Pauvres Fleurs," had, in 
 some sort, the air of an old-time ballad ; it 
 
 ■* 
 
go MEMOIRS OF 
 
 seemed to belong to the days of Queen 
 Blanche, and the poet was disguised as a 
 trouvere. 
 
 The stanzas which I quote below have a 
 very diiFerent and far more poignant charac- 
 ter. They were written under the immedi- 
 ate impression of the atrocious spectacle she 
 was witnessing, and which the cynicism of 
 civil war renders the same in every age, 
 whether in the days of the League or in our 
 own. I have made out these unfinished 
 verses from rough-drafts in her note-books ; 
 and I give them as I found them, in frag- 
 ments, as befits the subject. But what 
 cries ! What indignation ! That only is a 
 truly brave and strong compassion which is 
 thus mingled with wrath, and is capable, at 
 need, of heart-wrung accents like these. 
 The leaf which I transcribe is like a page 
 torn from the tragedies of D'Aubigne. 
 
 ►i* »t* 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 91 
 
 LYONS, 1834. 
 
 We cannot even bury these dead of ours ; 
 Too great the cost of priestly funerals : 
 So they lie stark, all torn with cruel balls, 
 
 Awaiting cofiins, crosses, and remorse ! 
 
 Now is the assassin king ! He stalks to fetch 
 The price of blood from out the treasury ; 
 
 He slays, in passing, some defenceless wretch, 
 Yet still insatiate with blood is he. 
 
 God sees him. God will gather like bruised flowers 
 The souls of babes and women who to him 
 Are fled, — the air with outraged souls ^ is dim. 
 
 On earth men wade in blood, — Merciful Powers ! 
 
 The spirit haunts its desecrated corse : 
 But all too dear are priestly funerals ; 
 So our dead lie all torn with cruel balls, 
 
 Awaiting cofRns, crosses, and remorse. 
 
 Wear black, my sisters ! — Weep as ne'er before ; 
 
 They will not let us take our slain away ; 
 
 They make one heap of their dishonored clay ; 
 And, God, thou knowest that never arms they bore ! 
 
 1 This verse recalls one of D'Aubigne's about the massa- 
 cres of St. Bartholomew, and the sanguinary exhalations of 
 
 carnage, — 
 
 A riieure que le ciel fume de sang et d'ames. 
 
 The image common to the two verses is simple and sublime. 
 
 4* 
 
* 
 
 92 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 As I have before said, one must not expect 
 of Mme. Valmore a logical sequence of 
 ideas, nor any system whatever. Her heart 
 was her constant guide. Her sympathies 
 carried her away. 
 
 On her return from Lyons to Paris, 
 being already under obligations to M. 
 de Latour, she presently availed herself 
 of the circumstance, to recommend to his 
 notice a poet-mechanic of Rouen, a linen- 
 printer by trade, and, in by-gone days, 
 a rhymester. This modest and worthy 
 man, Thodore Lebreton by name, was in 
 feeble health, but found friends and patrons 
 in high places, and rose to be assistant- 
 librarian of the city library at Equen. In 
 addressing his essays to M. de Latour with 
 a request for a dedication, Mme. Valmore 
 began by the following apologue, after the 
 manner of the Persian poet Saadi, some of. 
 whose works she had read, and whom she 
 professed to adore. 
 
. ^ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 93 
 
 " MoNSiEUE, — I have read in a book that a 
 poor bird which had been battered and beaten to the 
 ground by a tempest, was once picked up by a chari- 
 table and powerful creature, who healed his broken 
 wing as God himself might have done, after which 
 the bird returned to the home of the birds in the 
 sky, and among the storms. 
 
 " The healer heard no more from him, and said 
 to himself, W'here is gratitude ? 
 
 ' ' But one day he remarked a sharp tapping at 
 his window, and opened it. God had answered 
 his inquiry. The bird had brought another 
 wounded bird along, dragging his wing, and at 
 the point of death. 
 
 " On what heart was the image of the benefac- 
 tor more deeply graven than on that which had 
 seemed oblivious ? " 
 
 So utterly graceful was the poet's fashion 
 of presenting another poet. Happily it was 
 also a poet whom she addressed ; for it ap- 
 peared that the preface to these humble 
 Essays, which was probably not by the 
 author of the verses, was unnecessarily red- 
 
 ^ — 44 
 
94 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 olent of the proUtaire life to which they 
 referred, and smacked a little of social doc- 
 trines which were reputed dangerous. But 
 when M. de Latour gently advised her of 
 the fact, it was Mme, Valmore's turn to be 
 astonished. 
 
 " I really do not understand what there is 
 wrong about that Preface, of which the work- 
 man is as innocent as 1 myself. I was told 
 that it was equally simple and just, and on 
 this ground I drew your attention to it. Thank 
 you for having seen only the suffering laborer 
 amid tendencies of which I know nothinff." 
 
 In the delicate and affectionate relation 
 subsisting between herself and M. de Latour, 
 I might remark other recommendations and 
 pressing intercessions of which she became 
 the medium ; a few words of deep and 
 reverent sympathy for Queen Marie-Amalie, 
 on the occasion of the death of the Due 
 d'0rl6ans; and also, but earlier, another 
 
 i 
 
••:*- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 95 
 
 impetuous cry for pardon, uttered just after 
 the chief leader of the insurrection of May 
 12, 1839, had been condemned to death. 
 
 •' Oh, sir, for the love of the king and the 
 queen, do not let such a thing be ! Speak ! Sue 
 for pardon ! You do not know what that blood 
 will cost. Monsieur, I press your hands and con- 
 jure you in the name of that august and loving 
 mother, that mercy may be shown by those in 
 power, and quickly. My prayer bears witness to 
 my love for the queen, and my profound reverence 
 for your own character. 
 
 " Your very humble and devoted servant, 
 
 " Mahceline Valmoee. 
 "July 13, 1839." 
 
 The date indicates Barbes, who had been 
 condemned the night before by the Court of 
 Peers. So true it is that when intercession 
 was to be made for another, she never con- 
 sidered herself. " She works with a will," 
 said M. Martin of the Nord, when she put 
 in her repeated pleas for him, two or three 
 at a time. 
 
 »i<- 
 
1«- 
 
 96 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 She may be said to have received from 
 nature, or from Heaven, a vocation, and, as 
 it were, a special gift for the help and de- 
 liverance of prisoners. It was a part of her 
 religion, and had been so since childhood. 
 In the valley of the Scarpe, when she was 
 very small, she saw up in the high tower of 
 a donjon an old prisoner, who extended his 
 hands to her, and she set out the self-same 
 day, with her brother, to walk to Paris and 
 request his release, which, they had told her, 
 could only be obtained there. The two 
 were brought back at night to their anxious 
 mother, who did not know what had become 
 of them ; but Mme. Valmore remained faith- 
 ful, as long as she lived, to the spirit of this 
 childish adventure. Every prisoner, every 
 captive, no matter what his cause or party, 
 was sacred to her. In 1834 she addressed 
 some verses to M. de Peyronnet, then a 
 prisoner at Ham. Subsequently she ad- 
 
*■■*- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 97 
 
 dressed some to another prisoner at Ham, — 
 to the prisoner merely. At Lyons she often 
 visited, in the prisons of Perroche, those 
 who were detained on account of the various 
 riots and insurrections. She exercised over 
 them her own peculiar power of sympathy 
 and gift of consolation, assisted by a voice 
 which was maternal to the lowly, and sisterly 
 to unfortunates of a higher class. A sufferer 
 appealed to her by his very misfortunes. If, 
 in her private prayers and spiritual exercises, 
 she allowed no breastwork ■ of authority 
 between God and herself, she readily en- 
 tered into relations with the priesthood 
 when there was a question of succor to be 
 obtained, or a united effort for deliverance. 
 
 But nowhere did her pathetic words, her 
 plaintive bird-notes oftener echo, nowhere 
 did she beat her wings more wildly, than 
 against the gratings of the castle of Doul- 
 lens, where the strange republic of 1848, 
 
98 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 which succeeded in shooting, imprisoning, 
 or transporting all the real republicans, and 
 leaving itself with only royalists at its head, 
 had shut up the obstinate and indomitable 
 Citizen Raspail. Political questions quite 
 apart, Mme. Valmore saw in him only a 
 benefactor of the people and a martyr in the 
 cause of humanity, and her thoughts and 
 good wishes never deserted him in exile and 
 banishment. The austere yet tender friend- 
 ship which she inspired in that stoical 
 soul was one of the triumphs of her sweet 
 genius. We shall refer to it again, and cite 
 with pleasure some precious testimony con- 
 cerning it.^ 
 
 I hasten to return to the family letters, 
 
 ■ This passage obtained for M. Sainte-Beiive the interest- 
 ing note which follows, which still retains its black seal, and 
 the device, in memory of M. Raspail's career, of " Vincula 
 decora," surrounded by chains. " Monsieur, thanks for your 
 courage. Not every free-thinker has obtained such a testi- 
 monial in his lifetime. 
 
 "F. V. Raspail." 
 Arcueil-Cachan, May 7, 1869. 
 
 >*■ 
 
 ■4 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 99 
 
 which will give natural occasion for a few 
 more passing remarks on the character and 
 the mind of this loving and much-tried* 
 woman. Eesuming at the point where we 
 left it the correspondence with her brother, 
 at Douai, we meet once more with piteous 
 troubles, and humble wants relieved, and 
 first of all with that modest pension, which 
 she had begun by appropriating with a sort 
 of shame, but which she now considers a 
 blessing. 
 
 "October 26, 1847. 
 
 "Two days ago I received the quarterly pay- 
 ment, long so painful to my indomitable pride, 
 but which I have lived to welcome as if heaven 
 had opened to relieve our misfortunes. 
 
 " However, let us not be cast down. It is 
 easier to resign one's self to indigence if one thrills 
 at the sight of trees and sunshine, and the pleasant 
 daylight, and surely hopes to see again those whose 
 loss one mourns. 
 
 " Just now I could hardly get twenty francs for 
 
 ►i< tH 
 
lOO MEMOIRS OF 
 
 a volume. Music, politics, commerce, frightful 
 poverty, and equally frightful luxury, absorb 
 every thing. 
 
 ' ' My dear husband asks that you will pray for 
 him in the name of the Scotch pontoons. That 
 will win a hearing with God." 
 
 "January 12, 1848. 
 
 ' ' Undine is still immured in her boardins- 
 school. If I want to embrace her, I have to so 
 there. I am going now, — taking advantage of 
 the unusual sunshine, and I embrace you on her 
 behalf, who is so industrious and so good. Hers 
 is a hard profession ; but, dear Felix, we have no 
 dowry for our angels, and what are grace and wit 
 and wisdom in times like these?" 
 
 The character of Undine w&,s one source 
 of anxiety to her mother. The natures and 
 habits of the two were unlike. The silence 
 and self-restraint of Undine seemed like a 
 tacit reproach to the raptures and the anxie- 
 ties which her mother stood ready daily to 
 lavish on all who required them. Undine 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. loi 
 
 pursued her own distinct line of life, both in 
 friendship and in study. Her mother called 
 her " our dear, learned lady," thereby indi- 
 cating that she believed her more accom- 
 plished than herself. In Undine's former 
 vacations, she had hardly been able to enjoy 
 her society at all, a fact which she good- 
 naturedly bewailed in the following passage 
 from a letter to M. Richard at Rouen, who 
 
 had married her niece. 
 
 " August 22, 1847. 
 " Undine awarded to our affection twenty-four 
 hours of her vacation, after a confinement which 
 had worn on her very much. She then went, 
 three days since, to Tarare, to sleep and breathe 
 her fill of mountain air. I said not a word against 
 this resolution, seeing how languid she was, and 
 having only a stifling room to give her, and less 
 than ever of that quiet gayety which promotes the 
 health and moral well-being of the young. I 
 know by sad experience that these sensitive young 
 souls need either happiness or the dream of it, and 
 that they should be fed, from the first, on unal- 
 
I02 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 terable indulgence. You know, besides, that all 
 our sweet Undine's dreams are so high and pure, 
 that one may resign with entire confidence the 
 pleasure of her presence. To enjoy what she was 
 not enjoying would be a very imperfect satisfaction 
 to me, and I do not feel the energy to love simply 
 for my own delight. The truth is, my dear 
 Eichard, I have no happiness now save that of 
 others. ]\Iine is shattered." 
 
 The storm of February, 1848, burst upon 
 France. Mme. Valmore could not refrain 
 from applauding. She did not reason : she 
 followed her instincts. She felt with the 
 people, having, as I have said, a popular 
 soul. Cold logic, — the prevision and com- 
 prehension of general truths, — these are 
 not to be expected of her. She had always 
 been on the side of the suffering and op- 
 pressed ; she was so still, on the day when 
 she dreamed that the people had triumphed 
 and was free. She sang her psean, — 
 addressing it to her brother Felix. 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 103 
 
 " March 1, 1848. 
 
 " The storm was so sublime one could not be 
 afraid. We did not think of ourselves, but we 
 panted for the people who were dying for us. 
 No ! you never can have seen any thing finer, 
 simpler, grander ; but I am too much overcome 
 by admiration and emotion, to describe it to you. 
 It would have killed me if that adorable populace 
 could have doubted that it had my blessing. Tell 
 this to no one but the Virgin ; for it is as true as 
 my love for her, and my sisterly aifection for 
 you. ■ 
 
 "My dear husband has no place. And they 
 say my little pension is suppressed, but I have no 
 time to think of that. It would disturb the ten- 
 derest rapture a soul was ever allowed to feel. 
 Religion and its divine ministers bepd over the 
 wounded to bless them, — over the dead to envy 
 their martyrdom. 
 
 " Lift your hat, on my behalf, when you pass 
 the church of Notre Dame, and lay upon its 
 threshold the first spring-flowers you find." 
 
 Nevertheless the consequences were not 
 
 -¥■* 
 
I04 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 long in making themselves felt. After the 
 liberty-trees had been blessed, and the 
 honeymoon of the republic was over, came 
 Rabelais' quarter of an hour. Every revo- 
 lution brings a holiday alike to high and 
 low, and every holiday involves a deficit and 
 subsequent penury. 
 
 " To Mme. Derains. 
 
 «' . . . 1848. 
 " The sorry truth is that I have no money at 
 all ; that I have just received my tax-bill, and 
 have not received an order nor any information 
 whatever about my quarterly payment, -which fell 
 due five days ago. What shall I do ? I know- 
 not a door where I can knock. Events seem 
 everywhere to have written — Distress." 
 
 I shall continue to trace the course of this 
 interesting life by means of extracts from 
 letters written subsequently to 1848. Those 
 from which I shall quote hereafter were 
 mostly written by Mme. Valmore to her 
 
*- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 1 05 
 
 relatives at Eouen. A single happy event 
 diversified the uniform sadness of their tone. 
 It vFas the marriage of her daughter Undine, 
 destined to so early and sad an end. 
 
 " December 24, 1849. 
 
 "If your affection, my dear Richard, makes 
 you anxious about us and our silence, it is quite 
 the same with ourselves in all that concerns you ; 
 and, although I know not where to begin, I shall 
 steal an hour from the night to write to you. It 
 is Christmas-eve, dear Richard, when the destinies 
 of this poor world and your own might be changed, 
 if our Saviour could but hear his poor cricket, as 
 she kneels upon her humble hearth, — a hearth 
 where there is not much fire save that of her own 
 loving, anxious heart. 
 
 " I embrace you tenderly, and so does my dear 
 husband. I am sorry to say that he is really ill 
 with anxiety, and Undine has been very seriously 
 so. She is so fragile that my life is one long 
 worry about the dear creature, who is needing 
 entire rest. For myself, I work like a day 
 laborer, and only pause to cry, to love, to pray." 
 
Io6 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " Febkuary 25, 1850. 
 
 " Life certainly is a warfare for all of us. My 
 dear Valmore is sick. He is stronger than I, but 
 less pliant to misfortune ; and, although he is very 
 ingenious about contriving occupations to enliven 
 his solitude, nevertheless this barren solitude preys 
 upon him ; he works himself into a fever. . . . 
 
 ' ' I can do no more to-day than press your hand 
 most lovingly, and delay the departure of the little 
 package, wliich has been ready for three days. 
 
 ' ' I delay it on account of the miserable postage. 
 Dear Lord, has it come to this, that I must check 
 the outpourings of a heart which loves, and always 
 will love its own so dearly?" 
 
 Her sister Eugenie, at Eouen, fell mor- 
 tally ill, and her death was daily expected. 
 Now appeared one of the peculiarities of 
 Mme. Valmore's religion. We have seen 
 her credulous, and even superstitious, cling- 
 ing fondly to the legends of her native 
 place ; but there was one point on which 
 she never wavered. If she was a Catholic 
 
►i^ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 107 
 
 in imagination, hers was, if I may so speak, 
 a strongly individualized Catholicism. She 
 suffered no personal intervention, and in- 
 sisted that the peace of the dying should be 
 respected. She wrote to her niece, Euge- 
 nie's daughter, to be very careful not to 
 alarm her mother at the supreme moment. 
 
 " Sept. 5, 1850. 
 
 ' ' I wait with the utmost anxiety for a letter, 
 and your silence alarms me. My dear Camille, I 
 seem to see you all about my sister, ready with 
 your filial ministrations, as angels might console a 
 saint. I feel a serene certainty that Heaven will 
 bless so sweet a soul, but what I suffer is inexpres- 
 sible. It is a hundred times worse since I came 
 back. It would be far less terrible to see her. 
 
 ' ' I have no fear that you will commit the im- 
 prudence, I might say the impiety, of which cold 
 hearts are sometimes guilty, — I mean that you 
 will attempt to remind your mother of her duties. 
 Her duties are fulfilled toward God and man. 
 Let us spare ourselves the pain of having wounded 
 her pure and holy heart." 
 
 4^ 
 
i*- 
 
 Io8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 And after Eugenie's death : — 
 
 " The will of God is terrible, when it is accom- 
 plished upon beings so weak and fond as we." 
 
 But her dark and lowering sky suddenly 
 brightened in an unhoped-for manner. 
 
 "January 14, 1851. 
 
 ' ' Undine is going to be married ! She will be 
 a madame in a few days. This is a mutual 
 attraction, and every thing about it is honorable, 
 serious, and tender. The bridegroom is an advo- 
 cate in the Court of Appeals, and representative 
 from the Sarthe. This very unexpected event 
 took place on Christmas-eve. 
 
 ' ' I will write you the particulars as soon as I 
 have time to take breath, amid the crowding cares 
 and the terrible pecuniary embarrassments by 
 which I am distracted. Our dear Undine's future 
 is secured, and it is all suitable, but you can 
 judge what a time of trial it is for her family, — 
 so poor, and yet so proud ! " 
 
 It was a kind of gleam of happiness. 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 109 
 
 Mme. Valmore was deceived about her 
 daughter's state of health. Neither she nor 
 Undine herself knew how seriously the 
 latter's chest had been affected for years, 
 and that only the most careful regimen had 
 been able to arrest and ameliorate the rav- 
 ages of disease. Marriage, pregnancy, and 
 the young mother's determination to nurse 
 her own babe, were soon followed by irrep- 
 arable consequences. But there was a 
 season of oblivion, of deep and quiet happi- 
 ness in the country, on M. Langlais' estate 
 at Saint-Denis d'Anjou, where Mme. Val- 
 more passed some time with her daughter. 
 The very spirit of their rich and vegetative 
 out-door life, amid farmers and husbandmen, 
 breathes and laughs without restraint in the 
 following passage from one of Undine's 
 letters to her brother : — 
 
 " 1851 . . . Here we forget every thing. "We 
 complain conventionally, but without bitterness. 
 
no MEMOIRS OF 
 
 We sleep, we eat ; there are no bells. We wake 
 in the morning and ask, ' Is it breakfast-time ? ' 
 We take donkey-rides, and presently return with 
 the inquiry, ' Is it dinner-time? ' There are flow- 
 ers, there is grass, and an odor of growing things 
 which overpowers you, whether you will or no. 
 There is an atmosphere of insouciance which lulls 
 you, and reconciles you even to pain. Why are 
 you not here ? You would enjoy it so much ! 
 You would help us to translate Horace in an ele- 
 gant and philosophic style like this, — 
 
 ' Cueillons le jour. Buvons Theure qui coule, 
 Ne perdons pas le temps k nous laver les mains,^ 
 Hatons-nous d'admirer le pigeon qui roucoule, 
 Car nous le mangerons demain.' 
 
 " No matter if a plural does rhyme with a 
 singular ! It is a license to which we are recon- 
 ciled by the mildness of the temperature. We 
 are becoming real Angevins, — mollified to quote 
 Caesar, or somebody else." 
 
 So jested " our dear learned lady " on the 
 eve of her death. How keenly we feel that 
 
 1 A parody on " Carpe Diem." 
 
 ><- 
 
MME. DE3B0RDES-VALM0RE. Ill 
 
 all this young creature' had ever needed was 
 sunshine and an easy life ! Why did com- 
 fort and happiness come to her so late, — 
 too late % 
 
 In a letter to her son, written the next 
 year, Mme. Valmore describes in her own 
 fashion this rural and provincial life. 
 
 " October, 1852> 
 " Yesterday we made the tour of the town 
 with Langlais (I think they call it a town). Our 
 calls are all returned. In these queer little 
 houses I have seen very pretty little ladies and 
 very pretty children, baskets of fruit and flowers 
 everywhere. Yes, God is in everyplace, — par- 
 ticularly here where the silence is unbroken by the 
 sound of literary or political wrangling. The talk 
 is all of the vintage and the wheat-crop and of 
 hens who lay continually. It is not exactly 
 Spain, — of which by the way you sent me a 
 charming souvenir, in the dove-like strains which 
 you had translated so feelingly,^ — but it is peace 
 
 1 She alludes to an impassioned and mystical poem, by the 
 poetess Carolina Coronada, entitled " El Amor de los Amores," 
 wliich M. Hippolyte Valmore had translated. ' 
 
 >n ^ 
 
112 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 and freedom, with no ringing at the door, no 
 pianos, and no Greek caps in the attic. Here 
 all goes smoothly, — at least on the surface of the 
 meadows where I stray. Here is melancholy, not 
 of the luxurious kind, and not too poignant 
 neither. Poets do not build nests here, and tur- 
 tle-doves eat like ogres." 
 
 But during this second autumn in the 
 country Undine's condition became alarm- 
 ing ; and the mother's eye could not be 
 deceived, although she hoped against 
 hope. 
 
 " For the rest, my dear son, I must needs enter 
 into some sad particulars, and confess that my 
 mother's heart is perpetually wrung, — that twenty 
 times a day my sight is dimmed by terror about 
 her. Her countenance is so changeful ; she has 
 so strange an appetite and such a horror of walk- 
 ing ! She is so shy even in her confidences ! It is 
 as if her heart were the home of thousands of 
 birds, who do not sing in concert, but fear and 
 shun one another. She is always gentle, but so 
 easily agitated." 
 
 -►^ 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 1 13 
 
 These apprehensions were only too soon 
 justified, and, before many months had 
 elapsed, this mingling of joy and anxiety 
 was changed into bitter and inconsolable 
 grief. On the 12th of February, 1853, 
 Mme. Valmore was ministering to her dying 
 daughter at Passy, and for many weeks 
 afterward she was overpowered by a strange, 
 weird sense of unspeakable desolation, an 
 obstinate craving for solitude, a kind of 
 chronic dread which admitted no hope, no 
 ray of alleviation.^ 
 
 1 M. Sainte-Beuve refrained from publishing the following 
 letter, which was addressed to him upon the fatal day : " Among 
 them all, you only, I think, can guess the greatness of my grief 
 I thank you for the tenderness which enables you, to do so. I 
 thank you for the tear of pity you have shed for mo, and for 
 the pang her loss has caused your kindly heart. I feel it. You 
 knew her well; you gave her real sunshine; you loved that 
 innocent smile of hers ; it was on her lips when she passed 
 away ! Yes, I thank you in her name, — sweet dove ! — and 
 in my own, and I thank you because you were her friend. 
 Allow me to sign myself, Yours, 
 
 " Maeceline Desbordes-Valmoee." 
 
 This letter is postmarked Feb. 18. Undine had just died, 
 8 
 
"V 
 
 114 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " To Mme. Derains. 
 
 " October 4, 1852. 
 
 ' ' I cannot in the sincerity of my heart say any 
 thing decisive about the condition of my dear 
 child. I pass in a day from hope to fear, from 
 smiles to tears. As usual, I hide every thing and 
 only obey my affectionate instincts. If I were 
 free to follow my maternal ones, I should change 
 the regimen adopted ; and it seems to me as if I 
 might long ago have restored a healthful equi- 
 librium to that precious frame, which seems a 
 prey to hopeless waste, to a strange and never to 
 be satisfied hunger, despite four abundant meals a 
 day, and sound and frequent sleep. I have an 
 idea that the coating of the stomach and bowels is 
 destroyed ' by the water she has drunk, and the 
 medicines, now allopathic, now homoeopathic (my 
 spelling is just as it happens, and so, alas ! is her 
 health). But since I cannot assume any author- 
 ity over that interesting mind, at once resolute 
 and depressed, I merely gaze at her with torture 
 in my heart, and pray without knowing what I 
 say ; for indeed I am terribly anxious. 
 
 ■ She is popular, also, in her ideas of medicine, and has 
 theories peculiar to herself. 
 
 •**■ 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 1 15 
 
 ' ' Why do I not write you ? Because it is so 
 hard for me to write just now. To write what I 
 think, is to betray myself. To write any thing else 
 is to deceive ; and that must not be between us. 
 
 ' ' All our surroundings are truly pleasant. 
 The air, the sky, the trees, would be enough with- 
 out the comfortable and cheerful house ; but I 
 seem to be in a dream, and I can realize nothing 
 but the pressure of an anxiety which poisons all." 
 
 And again from Passy : — 
 
 " December 30, evening. 
 " I cannot induce her to see you or any one. 
 It might do both her and me good, — but no, — 
 silence and the retirement of the cloister ! " 
 
 These souls that ripen early often experi- 
 ence when life is slipping from them an 
 intense and deep-seated feeling of rebellion, 
 a last struggle with fate, a sense of ineffable 
 regret for that of which they knew too little 
 before it passed away for ever. This late 
 but vehement refusal to enter the impene- 
 trable shadows is not uncommon. 
 
Il6 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 . . . Atque inimica refugit 
 In nemus umbriferum. . . . 
 
 We do well to draw a veil over such 
 things when they are past, lest the living 
 utterly despair. I have only now to add the 
 heart-rending but always humble and sub- 
 missive moan of her whom I do not hesitate 
 to call the Mater Dolorosa of poetry. 
 
 To her niece, — 
 
 " April 1, 1853. 
 
 " I thank you, dear Camllle, for your tender 
 and compassionate friendship. You understand 
 the wound I have received. It is still bleeding;. 
 I dare no more than yourself to dwell upon the 
 terrible suffering which is over at last. To speak 
 of it overcomes me. God will perhaps give me 
 grace to comprehend it. Ah, Camille, I am very 
 unfortunate ! 
 
 ' ' I have no moral power left. I dare not 
 write, especially to those I love ; for I cannot lie, 
 and the tale is too sad to tell." 
 
 " August IS, 1853. 
 "... In short we cannot have what we wish. 
 
 ■>^ 
 
*i*- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 117 
 
 A hidden force compels us to all sorts of sacrifices, 
 and that force is irresistible. 
 
 " Paris, which has devoured our substance and 
 our hopes, becomes more and more uninhabitable 
 to us ; and the only desirable thing would seem to 
 be some quiet provincial nook, where we might 
 hide our ruined lives and rest after our vain 
 labors. But even such a change is encompassed 
 with difficulties. It would be an uprooting, and 
 I am languid with grief." 
 
 " December 3, 1853. 
 " I have very good reasons for knowing that 
 money troubles influence the affections much, and 
 are never considered justifiable." 
 
 " March 26, 1854. 
 
 " We are going to leave our fifth-story rooms, 
 perhaps to climb to a sixth. One cannot have 
 even an attic for less than twelve or fourteen hun- 
 dred francs. This world of ours grows dizzy. 
 
 " What has become of that excellent M. de 
 J — ? Euined in all his hopes, his is another 
 existence swallowed up in the fearful rush of what 
 is called civilization, but is very like chaos." 
 
 ►i*- 
 
Il8 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " Septembek 6, 1854. 
 " The last result of misfortune is to sow seeds 
 of discord in families which happiness would have 
 united. When it becomes necessary for each mem- 
 ber to work hard in order to escape absolute indi- 
 gence, the wings of the soul are folded, and 
 soaring is postponed to a future day." 
 
 In her letters to her friend, Mme Derains, 
 she recurs to the misery of seeking lodg- 
 ings, and vividly illustrates the moral dis- 
 comfort and confusion of thought which 
 result from perpetual removals. < 
 
 "What you say, my dear friend, is the sum 
 and substance of volumes that I feel. They will 
 remain unwritten, like seeds put away in closets, 
 which dry up and are never sown. For instance, 
 your dread of the transition from old to new 
 habits attendant on frequent removals from place 
 to place. Why, that is my life ! The result of 
 it all is a sort of fever which tortures the memory, 
 and causes the days to pass sadly, far from the 
 places which we love because we have loved much 
 
 -+< 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 1 19 
 
 in them. Have I never told you how often I go 
 to look for something in some particular room, 
 and cannot find it? And then my misery begins. 
 'Ah, no, it is in a closet, — how stupid I am! 
 That closet was at Bordeaux. Or perhaps I am 
 thinking of the wardrobe at Lyons.' I am 
 assailed and importuned by or perhapscs. I have 
 actually shed tears over the memories they have 
 awakened." 
 
 She proceeds to express a modest wish 
 destined never to be realized. 
 
 " It actually terrifies me to think that I must 
 go out to-morrow and Saturday, at about one 
 o'clock whether sick or well. If you would only 
 come ! These are the times when my five to 
 twenty stories appear like Pyrenees tninus the 
 flowers. To lodge on the second floor ! High 
 privilege of the moderately ambitious ! Can I 
 never aspire to that ? " 
 
 This pleasing and sensible desire, shared 
 by so many families, was never any thing 
 more than a dream with her. She had 
 
 ■>■< 
 
1 20 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 always to be unmaking and rebuilding her 
 nest. She changed lodgings fourteen times 
 in twenty years. The new Paris then in 
 process of erection, whose first splendors 
 she beheld, was not an auspicious asylum 
 for her. The great forward movements of 
 civilization come like storms. What are 
 swallows' nests to them? 
 
 IV. 
 
 It remains for me to call attention to por- 
 tions of Mme. Valmore's correspondence 
 which contain tones a little more varied, — 
 though still I shall insist upon the funda- 
 mental note, — and also to collect the most 
 important of those personal testimonials 
 which this tender and sympathetic soul did 
 not fail of receiving even in her life. 
 
 On her return from Italy and during the 
 earlier portion of her residence in Paris, 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
■^ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 121 
 
 Mme. Valmore revisited her beloved Flan- 
 ders. She passed through Douai, Avhere 
 she sorrowfully embraced h6r brother and 
 realized her past and present sorrovps vi^ith 
 unwonted keenness, and thence proceeded 
 to Brussels, where M. Valmore had taken 
 a new engagement. Her brief stay in this 
 place, during which she wrote some charm- 
 ing joint letters to her three children in 
 Paris, restored to her a portion of her youth, 
 and served, in spite of all drawbacks, agree- 
 ably to divert her mind and enliven her 
 imagination, while affording her compara- 
 tive leisure. There are brilliant flashes 
 here and there which plainly show that all 
 this exquisite intelligence needed for a full 
 appreciation of art, literatui-e properly so 
 called, and whatever constitutes elegant 
 culture, vras a little space for study and 
 reflection. Thus, to her son who was then 
 studying painting, she wrote : — 
 
 -»■■< 
 
►i* 
 
 122 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " Wednesday, 21st. 
 " Yesterday, October 20, your father received 
 your letter and the enclosed drawing. He thanks 
 you for it and he and I both share your enthu- 
 siasm for Michael Angelo. What a happy place 
 this world is to one who possesses the faculty of 
 admiration, at once the humblest and the proudest 
 of all ! It consoles one for all sorts of miseries, 
 and gives wings to poverty, enabling it to soar 
 above disdainful wealth." 
 
 " Brussels, Oct. 26, 1840, noon. 
 
 " I meant to have done some work here in my 
 solitude, but It is like the solitude of Paris. Hob- 
 goblins come in by the key-hole. 
 
 " . . . I am very glad I brought your ' Ger- 
 many.' Every line of Mme. de StaeFs serves 
 farther to enligliten my ignorance ; and my 
 admiration is always affectionate. What a 
 genius ! But then, what a heart ! How good is 
 the belief in immortality which gives me the hope 
 of seeing even her, just as I once dreamed of her. 
 
 " On the other hand, the more I read, the farther 
 I penetrate into the shadows which have hidden 
 our great lights from me, the less I dare to write : 
 
 4 
 
*i*- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 123 
 
 I am smitten with terror, — I am like a glow- 
 worm in the sun." 
 
 And here is another letter which seems 
 literally to ring with all the merry uproar 
 that pervades the fine Flemish towns on 
 festive days. 
 
 " Brussels, Nov. 1, 1840, 10 o'clock p. m. 
 " I write, my dears, with all the bells of Brus- 
 sels pealing about me, responsively for the Saints 
 and the Dead. Nothing at Paris can give the 
 slightest idea of these festivities, which fill earth 
 and air with commotion. The churches we vis- 
 ited were full of women with long black silk veils 
 on their heads which fell as low as the feet. 
 These churches are so Italian in character that I 
 would give any thing to have you see them. 
 Hippolyte would be enchanted. To-day we saw 
 the black virgin with the child Jesus also black 
 like the mother. These Madonnas wring my 
 heart with a thousand reminiscences. They are 
 nothing in the way of art, but they are so asso- 
 ciated with my earliest and sweetest faiths that I 
 positively adore their stiff, pink-liued veils and 
 
 ► <- 
 
►*«■ 
 
 124 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 wreaths of perennial flowers, made of cambric so 
 stout that all the winds of heaven would never 
 cause a leaf to flutter. I must now tell you about 
 the picture-gallery of the Due d'Aremberg which 
 we visited yesterday. What serene splendor ! 
 What a glorious solitude ! There were hosts of 
 pictures by Rubens, among others his portrait by 
 his own hand, and those of his two wives looking 
 as if they were alive. You could almost see their 
 lips move. This is indeed the home of Painting. 
 You feel that she is worshipped here with a pro- 
 found and inexpressible adoration. And now 
 what will you say when I tell you that we have 
 seen here the real head of the Laocoun, purchased 
 by this same Due d'Aremberg for 160,000 
 francs? If I were to live a thousand years, I 
 could never forget this marvellous thing. It 
 haunts me, — a head bowed with grief, eloquent 
 of bitter reproaclies. It was found by some Vene- 
 tians in a canal, a great while after the discovery 
 of the magnificent group the genuine head of 
 which had never been identified. It is heart-rend- 
 ing, and one almost seems to hear a cry issuing 
 from the lips which are parted in a spasm of mor- 
 tal suiFering. The fact that all the teeth are visi- 
 
 *H ^ 
 
*i>- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 125 
 
 ble, although there is no grimace, adds to the 
 expression of torture. It is not the head of an 
 old man, as in the group, but of one in the prime 
 of life, — say forty to forty-five years old. It 
 weeps, as I never saw marble weep before, as you 
 would think a father ought to weep when unable 
 to rescue his sons. Hippolyte himself had 
 remarked that they looked very young for the 
 children of so old a man. If he could see this, 
 he would be delighted by the correspondence in 
 age. The sons must be about fifteen years old. 
 But why do I attempt to describe it ? ^ My words 
 
 ^ In the doubt awakened in my mind by these rather singular 
 assertions, I applied to a friend of mine, a man of taste and 
 learning, who wrote me as follows : " The head of the Laocoon 
 certainly belongs to the body, and has never been disputed. 
 That of the Due d'Aremberg could not be substituted for it. 
 It has been supposed, however, that it belonged to another 
 similar group. There are several repetitions — repUche, as the 
 Italians say — of most of the famous groups and statues. Nei- 
 ther is the head in D'Aremberg's collection that of a much 
 younger man. I am aware that it is customary to regard it as 
 a work of the Renaissance. Its exceedingly pathetic expres- 
 sion is unUke the manner of the ancients. Por my own part, I 
 think it an antique. Both of the heads appear to me those of 
 men in the prime of manhood. I should be inclined to pro- 
 nounce the D'Aremberg head superior to that of the Vatican 
 in point of expression and execution. There is nothing restored 
 in the latter group, except the right arm of the father, and an 
 
*1 
 
 126 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 are so pale that I had better return to those every- 
 day matters which I thoroughly understand. 
 Your last joint letter was as sweet a trio, God 
 knows, as I ever want to hear : it breathed of har- 
 mony and hope. It completed the happiness I 
 had enjoyed for the past three weeks, although I 
 miss you everywhere. I need not say to Line 
 (Undine) that when I visited the Madonnas I 
 remembered that it was her birthday. I know 
 that you have good courage, my dear child. I 
 have seen it repeatedly. (It is to Undine in par- 
 ticular that she now addresses herself.) Women, 
 who do not need the permanent valor of men, 
 can always have strength from above. I am 
 happy in your happiness. Yoii and Ines have 
 both that kind of virtue which cures all faults and 
 counterbalances the strength of the other sex. It 
 is certainly true that housekeeping cares bring 
 with them a thousand endearing compensations. 
 They are a woman!s peculiar joy, and women are 
 
 arm of each of the sons. The bronze in the Tuileries, cast by 
 Primatrice for Trancis I., represents the group as it was found, 
 without restorations." Such was the judgment of thoughtful 
 and enlightened criticism. The letter is by M. Felix Ravaisson. 
 Mme. Valraore was in the first rapture of enthusiasm. 
 
 ><■ 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 127 
 
 apt to be light-hearted. In times of adversity 
 you will find them an immense support, and I 
 embrace you with all my heart for the manner in 
 which you have just proved them so." 
 
 Mme. Valmore's letters to Mme. Pauline 
 Duchambge have a character peculiar to 
 themselves. Her earliest female friend had 
 been the angelic " Albertine " (Gautier), 
 whom she has celebrated in her verse, and 
 who was snatched away in the flower of her 
 youth. An equally tender and hfe-long 
 attachment bound her to Mme. Duchambge, 
 author of sweet melodies which our mothers 
 knew by heart, and used to sing in the 
 times of the Empress Josephine and the 
 early years of the Restoration. " Words 
 by Mme. Desbordes-Valmore. Music by 
 Mme. Pauline Duchambge,'' might be read 
 in those days upon any piano. But it was 
 not alone this pleasant association in work, 
 but also a profound union or rather unison 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
128 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 of spirit which enabled Mme. Yalmore to 
 say with truth to Mme, Duchambge : " Are 
 we not like the two volumes of one book ? " 
 The two volumes may have been uniform, 
 but most people considered them very 
 unlike. Mme. Duchambge, accustomed in 
 her youth to luxury and all the elegancies 
 and refinements of life, experienced a reac- 
 tion all the more bitter; and her declining 
 years were hard and painful. She had 
 become poor and knew not how to grow 
 old. She died in 1858, only a year before 
 her friend. There are many passages, and 
 those not the least entertaining in Mme. 
 Valm ore's letters to this lady, which cannot 
 yet be given to the world on account of the 
 proper names which they contain and their 
 entire unreserve about individuals. But 
 charming extracts might also be made from 
 the more thoughtful portions of the corre- 
 spondence, and of these I shall give a few 
 
-»:•' 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 129 
 
 only, rather promiscuously, and "without 
 regard to the order of the dates. For 
 example, Mme. Duchambge was always 
 recurring to the dreams of her youth, and 
 could not help thinking of herself as she 
 had formerly been, and Mme. Valmore 
 says : — 
 
 " Jantjaky 5, 1857, evening. 
 " Why is it strange that you should think of 
 yourself as young in the past? Are we not 
 always young? Why should you be troubled by 
 this almost incontestable proof of our immortality? 
 Life may become Wearisome, but it does not end. 
 We shall not die, be sure. Not a night passes 
 but I find my little ones in my arms, upon my 
 knees. It is their very selves. Oh, if you could 
 only feel as confident as I do that they are tlior- 
 ougJily alive, while we are hampered by pain and 
 sorrow and fear ! I maintain, then, that the love 
 of which you so often dream in your saddest and 
 most perplexing hours is a part of yourself: at 
 such times you see only its reflection. In a burn- 
 ing mirror perhaps, but do not complain. It is 
 
130 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the sense of what was then inexplicable. It is 
 your own undying soul following its bent to 
 undying love." 
 
 " December 27, 1855. 
 
 " I love you for having shared all my suiFerings, 
 and for your unfailing tenderness. 
 
 ' ' The Indian lies down in the bottom of his 
 canoe when a storm bursts upon the deep. But I, 
 — I cannot lie still ; I must try to find a ray of 
 light somewhere, that none but I may know how 
 deep the waters are." 
 
 She recalls to her friend the opening 
 words of an old romance : — 
 
 "Apkil 19, 1856. 
 
 "You know the rest which I have forgotten; 
 but the idea was : we shall always weep, we shall 
 always pardon, we shall always tremble. We are 
 like poplars — " 
 
 " Wednesday, Nov. 27, 1850. 
 
 "I sit by his side (her husband's) and sew. I 
 do what I can for the maintenance of our wretched 
 lot, which nobody pities, God and yourself ex- 
 cepted. Oh, I know that, and it is enough to 
 
 ■^* 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 13 1 
 
 make me sew with all my might. But writing is 
 impossible. My thoughts are too serious ; my 
 heart too heavy. I cannot write the story they 
 wanted. I always write from the heart, and now 
 mine bleeds too much for pretty, childish fancies." 
 
 There were other reasons why she could 
 not write. It is not every one who can 
 write for papers and reviews. One must 
 adopt the tone and temper of one's patron. 
 The best periodicals have their exigencies. 
 Thus the " Musee des Families " had seemed 
 to afford an opening to Mme. Valmore, but 
 on condition that she submitted to the cen- 
 sorship, — the Procrustes' bed of the man- 
 ager. 
 
 " Febbuakt 22, 1851. 
 
 "... M. Pitre-Chevalier is turning his wheel 
 furiously just now, for it provides bread and every 
 thing else for his family. And then it is he who 
 judges of his own contributions, before they appear, 
 and wishes to read, weigh, control, extend, or 
 shorten all the rest. He also wishes to inspire 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
132 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 them, — a frightful thing for us poor birds who 
 have been used to sing without an accompaniment. 
 This perpetual supervision would destroy all my 
 pleasure in poetizing. So I put off the copying 
 of my little independent drama, and my days are 
 consumed by other cares, quite as heavy." 
 
 "January 15, 1856, evening. 
 " You say, my dear and true friend, that poetry 
 is my consolation. On the contrary, it torments 
 me, as with a bitter irony. I am like the Indian 
 who sings at the stake." 
 
 " Monday, May 11, 1857. 
 
 "It is all dark. There are times when one 
 cannot lift a blade of grass without finding a ser- 
 pent under it. 
 
 "Let us be ourselves, whatever happens. I 
 say so in the name of Christ, who must find that 
 worthy of himself which is so very hard. Do you 
 remember M. de Lamartine's finest verse, — 
 
 " Rieu ne rests de nous, sinon d'avoir aime." ^ 
 
 She also liked to repeat these two lines-, 
 
 1 " Nothing is left us but the having loved." 
 
 -* 
 
► r 
 
 i 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 133 
 
 which, if not her own, are at least perfectly 
 emblematic of her : — 
 
 " En g^missant d'etre colombe, 
 Je rends graces aux dieux de n'etre pas vautour." ■' 
 
 The name of Mme. Dorval is frequently 
 mentioned between these two. This great 
 actress, who, in the second stage of her 
 career, and comparatively late in life, had 
 discovered her full powers, and attained the 
 unmistakable accent of passion, bore, other- 
 wise, but a slight resemblance to this affec- 
 tionate pair, who, with all their overflowing 
 sensibility, were full of delicacy, scruple, 
 and fear; all discretion and modesty. One 
 day, when Mme. Duchambge had called 
 Mme. Valmore's attention to a recent book, 
 in which certain things were said harshly 
 which had better have been left unsaid, 
 Mme. Valmore replied, — 
 
 1 " While I mourn as a dove, I thank the gods that I am not 
 a vulture." 
 
134 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 "April 22, 1857. 
 "You were afraid Mme. Dorval's story would 
 offend me. Did I not know her well enough to 
 pity and love her, even though there was some- 
 thing in her totally repugnant to my nature ? And 
 do such things prevent our loving a person ? Alas, 
 not always ! Sometimes they have a fatal fascina- 
 tion. However, if I had the book of which you 
 speak, I would not read it. I always thought 
 you had a fatal propensity to cast yourself upon 
 the spears. Good Heavens ! They are only too 
 sure to find our hearts behind bolts and bars." 
 
 Mme. Valmore used her own influeiice 
 over Balzac, and also the influence then 
 possessed by another person, whom she calls 
 Thisbe, to induce the great novelist, now 
 become a theatrical manager, to bring out, 
 at the Odeon, a piece of his own, with Mme. 
 Dorval in one of the parts. It is, doubtless, 
 to the " Ressources de Quinola" that the 
 following letter refers. We recognize the 
 immense confidence of the great optimist. 
 
 4^ 
 
-♦ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 135 
 
 and hear the echo of his tempestuous laugh- 
 ter. All hope of success, and desire to 
 render a service, vanished in smoke. 
 
 " To Mme. Duchambge. 
 
 " December 7, 1841. 
 
 " You know, my other self, that even ants are 
 of some use. And so it was I who suggested, 
 not M. de Balzac's piece, but the notion of writ- 
 ing it, and the distribution of the parts, and then 
 the idea of Mme. Dorval, whom I love for her 
 talent, but especially for her misfortunes, and be- 
 cause she is so dear to you. I have made such a 
 moan, that I have obtained the sympathy and 
 assistance of — whom do you guess ? — poor 
 Thisbe, who spends her life in the service of 
 the littSrateur. She talked and insinuated and 
 insisted, until at last he came to me and said, 
 ' So it shall be ! My mind is made up ! Mme. 
 Dorval shall have a superb part ! ' And how he 
 laughed ! She will be fine in it, and you, — I am 
 sure you will be pleased. It is worth having 
 caught a horrible fever in the country to hear such 
 news as 4his, and receive an instrument binding 
 
136 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 the Od^on to produce the work. Keep this a pro- 
 found secret. Never betray either me or poor 
 Thisbe, particularly our influence on behalf of 
 Mme. Dorval. It would give me infinite pleasure 
 to see her triumphant. I wish Mme. Dorval all 
 possible success, but I do not want her gratitude. 
 That is due to your friendship." 
 
 Borne onward by her destiny, and the 
 necessities of the hour ; by the stormy force 
 of her genius, or her passions, — and they 
 were inseparable, — did Mme. Dorval, amid 
 the shipwreck of her own life, find time to 
 testify to her two discreet and reticent 
 friends the delicate regard and gratitude 
 which they deserved? Toward the end, 
 doubtless, she did exercise some self-re- 
 straint, and refused to see them, feeling that 
 she lived a very different life from theirs. 
 
 I knew Mme. Duchambge only in ad- 
 vanced years, but she must have been very 
 pleasing once ; and even then, the thousand 
 
'MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 137 
 
 tiny wrinkles in her still pretty and delicate 
 face, reminded one of that venerable beauty 
 in the " Anthology," the folds of whose 
 wrinkles were nests for loves. The hero 
 of her youth had been the charming wizard 
 Auber, whose restless, but ever brightening 
 star, she always adored. She also conceived, 
 late in life, a lively, and, it may be, suffi- 
 ciently tender admiration for our friend, the 
 Breton poet, Brizeux, always a shy and 
 wandering spirit. These two names are 
 frequently mentioned in this correspondence, 
 with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The 
 illustrious master, Auber, having been in- 
 formed by Mme. Duchambge of one of 
 Mme. Valmore's last bereavements, had 
 sent her an assurance of his sympathy. 
 
 "To Mme. Duchambge. 
 
 "November 29, 1854. 
 "... Your letter moved me all the more, in 
 that you brought me, almost by force, a consoler 
 
 ><- 
 
►♦■ 
 
 138 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 whose name has great power over me. Tell M. 
 Auber that his famous, and always beloved name, 
 moved me to tears, like the slumber-song in the 
 ' Muette.' I shall certainly keep that card, for I 
 feel touched and honored by it. It is permeated 
 by the goodness of your own heart; and I have 
 pressed it to my sorrowful one. I shall not see 
 M. Auber himself at present. One must not weep 
 in the presence of those harmonious spirits who 
 sing for the consolation of the world. I cannot 
 bear to think of interrupting one of God's great 
 missionaries." 
 
 As for Brizeux, his person, his profile, 
 are perpetually appearing and disappearing 
 in these letters. Mme. Duchambge was 
 fond of reading. She liked to keep up 
 with the times in literary matters, and even 
 to inform herself about the past. Mme. 
 Valmore was very far from being able to 
 satisfy her curiosity, and her demand for 
 books. 
 
 •>A 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VA-LMORE. 139 
 
 (No date.) 
 "... I send you also Turcaret. As for Vir- 
 gil, we have none. If I can find one, I will borrow 
 it for you. I know nothing. about any Virgil save 
 our own, — the Breton one, who is now travel- 
 ling in the South under the name of Brizeux, and 
 whose silence is beginning to make me anxious 
 about his health ; unless indeed, you have received 
 a letter." 
 
 This lesser Virgil — Brizeux, who had 
 not had the good fortune seasonably to 
 encounter either Augustus or Maecenas, 
 greater or less — made only flying visits to 
 Paris. He used quickly to make his escape 
 from the capital and spend months, and 
 even seasons, now in Brittany and now in 
 Florence. He detested writing, and car- 
 ried his horror of prose so far that he used 
 only a pencil, and traced his characters as 
 faintly as possible. His was a strange 
 nature, with a poetic sensibility and a poetic 
 volition far transcending his power of exe- 
 
 -*■■* 
 
140 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 cution and his actual talent. His long 
 intervals of absence, silence, and, as it were, 
 eclipse, were the occasion of much anxiety 
 to his two friends, and Mme. Valmore con- 
 cerned herself the more about them on 
 account of her sympathy with the affection- 
 ate Pauline. One day a mysterious rumor 
 arose that Brizeux, who was buried in Italy, 
 had entered a cloister and become a monk. 
 
 "February 22, 1851. 
 " It is not in the feverish nature of jNI. Lacaus- 
 sade to take such a resolution as our Brizeux is 
 said to have taken ; and yet he is unfortunate 
 enough to understand the sauve qui pent of souls 
 who dare not plunge into the conflict, and think 
 to escape all by voluntary imprisonment. This 
 would be the most fatal of all errors for us, and 
 this it is which makes me tremble for the other, 
 if he has indeed dared. I say if, Pauline, for no 
 one as yet fully believes the rumor, which lacks 
 confirmation, and which is very apt to be started 
 about those whom Italy detains by her charm 
 
 ►I.- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 141 
 
 and renders indolent about writing. Unhappy as 
 we ^re here, we go out of ourselves, if only to 
 call up the memory of the beloved being. But 
 there, the climate is responsible for all. It over- 
 powers you; it silently floods you with memories, 
 which you have not strength to resist. Here, alas ! 
 crushing poverty acts like the Italian climate. It 
 renders one motionless and conventual, wherever 
 one abides." 
 
 The years grew ever harder and more 
 comfortless for Brizeux, and although a 
 pension, granted or augmented under M. 
 Fortoul, came to his assistance, it seemed 
 impossible to ameliorate the lot or raise the 
 morale, of the poet. 
 
 "Fbbruaey 3, 1857. 
 " I share your anxiety about Brizeux. Why 
 does he not write? To think of him there, far 
 from his mother, sick perhaps and certainly penni- 
 less, adds one more to our ever accumulating and 
 almost intolerable anxieties. Irritable and intract- 
 able as he is, why could he not have been content 
 quietly to gather his flowers and reap his bar- 
 
142 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 vests? Ah, Pauline, to be a poet or an artist 
 only amid the devouring needs, — the bears and 
 the wolves let loose in our streets ! I am as sad 
 as you, and I think I need say no more." 
 
 In the three or four last years of his life 
 Brizeux altered very much. After each 
 interval of absence he vpould come back 
 changed, — hardly recognizable, more flighty, 
 hrusque, and negligent than ever. Pro- 
 longed solitude was not good for him. The 
 time was long past when Mme. Valmore 
 had wi-itten of him to her son : — 
 
 " I am thrilled by Brizeux's tearful rhymes. 
 How is it with you? There is a divine echo of 
 the attic in them. It seems as if actual misery 
 were requisite for the production of the notes that 
 so haunt one's memory. But the rigors of fate 
 may be too far prolonged, and in that case they 
 are no less fatal to the mind than too much lux- 
 ury. In the end it becomes corroded and disinte- 
 grated." 
 
 >u. >n 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 143 
 
 The same thought is strongly implied ia 
 the following passage, which depicts the last 
 result in all its bitterness : — 
 
 "To Mme. Duchambge. 
 
 "December 27, 1855. 
 
 " I have seen once more your iron Breton, who 
 came and made a long and very cordial call. He 
 no longer smelled of lavender. But what of that,- 
 when his verses have still the perfume of heaven ? 
 What a poet he is ! And what a hard step- 
 mother is life which can transform so fine a crea- 
 ture into what he now is, and must become. 
 Gustave Planche is infinitely worse. Think of 
 these two divinely-gifted men shivering in the 
 miserable chambers of ruinous inns, consumed by 
 internal fires. I can assure you they live like 
 sleep-walkers. Look at their eyes."^ 
 
 1 Brizeux died at MontpelUer, May 3, 1858. He had arrived 
 at that place a fortnight before in the very last stages of pul- 
 monary consumption, but confident that the warm sunshine of 
 the South would restore him. The only person lie knew at 
 Montpellier was M. Saint-Ren^ Taillandier, wlio surrounded 
 him with the tenderest care, and received him as a poet and a 
 brother. In his last moments, at least, he had all the comfort 
 and consolation possible. 
 
 ► ■<- 
 
^- 
 
 144 MEMOES OF 
 
 Alfred de Musset is absent from the list 
 of Mme. Valmore's acquaintances, but his is 
 the only famous contemporary name which 
 •we miss on her poet's crown. Lamartine, 
 Beranger, Hugo, and Vigny, all, as we shall 
 see, sought out and saluted her at one time 
 or another. She was really intimate with 
 Alexander Dumas, who added in 1838 a 
 captivating preface to her collection enti- 
 tled, " Pleurs et Pauvres Fleurs," and of 
 whom she said in 1833 to her little son, 
 Hippolyte, after the author had been to see 
 him: " M. Dumas liked you very much. 
 He is kind and obliging ; but, like all men 
 of great literary talent, he is not to be culti- 
 vated. He belongs to the world, — to all 
 worlds." 
 
 With Musset alone, there was no oppor- 
 tunity for acquaintanceship and sympathy, 
 not even the airiest tendril of association ; 
 and she, regarding him from a distance, 
 
^ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 145 
 
 considered him far more successful and self- 
 absorbed than he really was. To her he 
 appeared the reckless slave of passion, com- 
 pletely carried away by the rushing torrent 
 of life ; and she cherished a prejudice 
 against hira which an auspicious personal 
 acquaintance would have dispelled. More- 
 over, with Alfred de Musset begins that 
 clear and deep line of demarcation which 
 divides the new generation from the old. 
 The sources and the current of inspiration 
 were changed. The two generations no 
 longer understood one another at the first 
 Avord. 
 
 "To Mme. Duchambgb. 
 
 " Januaey 20, 1857. 
 
 " Could you suggest a simple and straightfor- 
 ward way of reaching M. Alfred de Musset, who 
 is, unhappily, as I hear, very ill. There is a 
 young English musician, in whom M. Jars is 
 much interested, who wants to present him with 
 an air which he has composed, for words of De 
 10 
 
146 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 Musset's. I do not know a single person who is 
 on intimate terms with this charming but haughty- 
 genius, — and it would have to be a man, — C, 
 for example, if he had only remained simply polite 
 to me. If a woman were to undertake it, he and 
 M. de Lamartine, and some others, would be sure 
 to cry, 'Another victim!' Oh, I have heard 
 them ! My savage instincts have always served 
 me remarkably well. The poor exile (Hugo) 
 never said such a word. He, at least, was never 
 considered a coxcomb ; and really he is too great 
 a man for that. There is an atom of idiocy in 
 supposing that a whole sex is to be sacrificed for 
 your glory. It has always kept me as mute as a 
 fish." 
 
 Between Beranger and herself there was 
 a quiet and sincere attachment, although 
 they were never intimate. She visited him 
 in his last days, after he had lost his life- 
 long companion, Judith. 
 
 "To Mme. Duchambge. 
 
 " Apeil, 1857. 
 
 " The afflicted ought to understand one another, 
 
 ^- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 147 
 
 and better on Sundays than on other days, — 
 mon Dien ! 
 
 " I did so want to see you yesterday, after pay- 
 ing a very sad visit to Bdranger. I felt compelled 
 to go, despite my own strange condition. One 
 must make an effort to live. I found M. Stran- 
 ger so ill, and so profoundly conscious of it him- 
 self, that my call was a very painful one. He 
 told me distinctly, and with grave resignation, 
 that he could not survive the loss of his poor 
 friend. One sees that very plainly in every line 
 of his wasted figure. You would hardly know 
 him. I came away less hopeful than I went. 
 His malady infected me." 
 
 Kind and loving, and subject to illusions, 
 though she was, Mme. Valmore was no 
 dupe. She was a better judge of persons 
 and of character than her soft-hearted friend, 
 and often showed her knowledge of hu-man 
 nature, by saying to the latter, with reference 
 to persons altogether polished and aifable 
 externally, " Ah, how many stabs are con- 
 
-^ 
 
 148 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 cealed by the smiles and sweet ' good-morn- 
 ings ' of the world ! " Mme. Duchambge 
 was at one time inclined to ask a substantial 
 favor of one of their most agreeable and 
 fashionable visitors, and Mme. Valmore 
 wrote, — 
 
 " February 10, 1843. 
 " You are cherishing a delusive dream about 
 M. X. He is the last man in the world to whom 
 I would tell all. His icy polish repels the bare 
 idea of a pecuniai-y obligation. He wrote for M. 
 B., content to have his feelings stirred without 
 result. But, Pauline, there is nothing in such 
 hearts for us. In these days the rich will come 
 and tell you their troubles with such utter candor, 
 such bitter bewailings, that you are compelled to 
 pity them more than you do yourself. He once 
 expatiated to me on his terrible trials in connection 
 with a house he was building. It was to have 
 cost, I think, a hundred thousand francs, and the 
 plans were mounting up to twice that, which, 
 together with the cost of his son's education, was 
 enough to drive him wild; and he did actually 
 
 -*< 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 149 
 
 appear ill. What can you say to such a child of 
 fortune? That you have two chemises, and no 
 tablecloths? He would reply, ' Ah, how fortunate 
 you are ! Then you will not think of building ! ' 
 Think no more about it. An attack of hope is the 
 same for us as an attack of fever." 
 
 And again, after the visit of two great 
 ladies, — 
 
 "Yesterday came those two princesses, intend- 
 ing to take me out to dine by main force ! You 
 know the horror I have of a city dinner-party. 
 They found me in bed, and that was my answer. 
 Oh, the irony of our two lots ! I had one franc 
 in my drawer for the first instalment of the fierce 
 Victoire's monthly wages. And those excellent 
 ladies said : ' Mme. Valmore has every thing so 
 pretty about her ! ' The son's wife of one of them 
 has an income of five thousand pounds." ^ 
 
 But I must hasten. After the death of 
 
 ^ I happen to know that one of these noble ladies had that 
 genuine goodness which is not confined to words. In this case 
 the hearts were generous as the words were kind. The irony- 
 was only between the two fates. 
 
 -*■< 
 
^ 
 
 150 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 her sister Eugenie at Eouen, in 1850, and 
 of her brother Felix at Douai, in 1851, 
 Mme. Valmore had but one sister left, Ce- 
 cile, the eldest, also living at Eouen. It 
 was this elder sister who had taught little 
 Marceline to read in infancy, and in more 
 than one passage of the poems we find a 
 memorial sketch of her gentle face. In 
 sensibility and tenderness, and also in a 
 certain primitive simplicity of imagination, 
 she was a true sister of the poet. It was 
 she who once wrote to Mme. Valmore the 
 following affecting letter, which reads like a 
 little legend of by-gone days : — 
 
 " On Sunday I went to say prayers for a lady 
 who sometimes helps me when I know not to whom 
 to apply. She holds out her hand and revives my 
 fainting courage. I went to Bon Secours and 
 prayed our dear Lady for her. I also prayed for 
 all of us. I cast myself on her pity. I asked her 
 to reward you for all the good you have done, 
 
 ->A 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 151 
 
 wliieh is the more meritorious because your position 
 is so difficult. Well, dear sister, on my way home 
 I found myself surrounded and almost buried in 
 Virgm^s threads. I cannot describe the effect it 
 had upon mc. In an instant the memory rushed 
 upon me of the Rue Notre Dame, and the ceme- 
 tery which was our playground. I seemed to see 
 all our childhood as if it had been yesterday. I 
 returned to my little chamber, and wept for my 
 complete isolation, and for all that our unfortunate 
 family has suffered. Why did I not die in that 
 chapel, when I was praying to the Mother of Sor- 
 rows for us all? Yet let us hope." 
 
 Whereupon Mme. Valmore, throwing her- 
 self into her mood, endeavored to arouse her 
 courage, to stimulate her failing faculties, 
 to soften her by the tale of common sorrows, 
 and cheer her by simple pictures of the 
 pleasant days and sports of childhood. 
 
 "November 9, 185i. 
 "... The lady who sometimes lends me 
 money for the month's expenses, on condition of 
 
152 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 being paid at the end of the month, has been 
 unable to come to ray assistance on account of the 
 rain and sundry perplexities of her own. But you 
 have long known that the unfortunate must depend 
 on one another for assistance. It is undoubtedly 
 true. The rich, are no worse than we, but they 
 are utterly unable to understand how one can 
 want for the humblest necessities of life. So we 
 will not speak of the rich, except to rejoice that 
 they do not suffer as we do. 
 
 " Night before last I was so happy as to dream 
 of you, and of embracing you with such intense 
 and rapturous affection that I awoke. We were 
 hastening toward one another with open arms. 
 We were dressed alike, as sisters should be, both 
 wearing palm-leaf shawls of fine wool. Alas ! we 
 had to content ourselves with a look and a pressure 
 of the hand. This pleasant dream reminds me of 
 what I have felt again and again in life, — that 
 there is no love like a sister's. 
 
 " I hear no more about your sons than you do, 
 and I sympathize deeply in your maternal anxiety. 
 This is an iron age. Grief, luxury, poverty, 
 make men wild. For hearts warm as ours, it is 
 cold. 
 
*h >h 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 153 
 
 " Would you like some pocket-handkerchiefs or 
 stockings ? Do not laugh at the offers I make in 
 my poverty. Do you want some ribbons? Oh, 
 my dear sister, if I could only ask you these ques- 
 tions face to face, and have a whole day's talk with 
 you ! My heart is still sore and sorrowful, but it 
 is not arid. My tears keep all alive." 
 
 This last sister also died. The measure 
 of mourning was full, and there were mo- 
 ments when, in the plenitude of its distress, 
 the humble heart which had never mui'- 
 mured until now, could not refrain from 
 questioning Providence, as Job once did, and 
 asking why so much suffering should be 
 concentrated in a single destiny. 
 
 " To HER Niece. 
 
 "January 30, 1855. 
 
 " I knew long since the extent of my impo- 
 tence, but you can understand that it comes home 
 to me with a terrible shock when I realize how 
 many are gone whom I loved, and with whom I 
 suffered. Yes, Camille, it is heart-rending. I 
 
 -* 
 
HE<- 
 
 154 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 have neither brother nor sisters. I am bereaved 
 of all those precious beings, without the consola- 
 tion of feeling that I survive to execute their will, 
 which was always, always to do good. What can 
 we say of these judgments of God ? If we have 
 deserved them it is all the sadder; I am thinking 
 only of myself, my dear. But I often wonder what 
 it was in me which demanded such severity of our 
 dear Creator. He is just, and it cannot be that he 
 would chastise so heavily without cause ; but the 
 thought is often perfectly overwhelming." 
 
 Sooner or later every believing heart must 
 have its hour of temptation and doubt, its 
 agony and bloody sweat, its garden of Geth- 
 semane. The fatal and inexorable aspect 
 of the bare reality recurs irresistibly to 
 those tender souls that fain would hope, 
 overpowering and overwhelming them with 
 woe. It was in one of her hours of dejec- 
 tion that Mme. Valmore wrote as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 ^- 
 
-►i* 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 155 
 
 " To Mme. Derains. 
 
 " May 11, 1856. 
 
 ' ' Are you at work ? Do you find anywhere a 
 support for your weak heart? — a heart like mine, 
 but calmer, more assured. Nevertheless, I see at 
 an immense distance the Christ who shall come 
 again. His breath is moving over the crowd. 
 He opens his arms wide, but there are no more 
 nails, no more for ever ! But the moment I turn 
 my eyes earthward again my agony returns. I 
 feel as if I must fall. I crawl to door or window 
 for support. I do not utter a sound, but it is ter- 
 rible ; my dear friend, it is terrible ; and I cannot 
 always feel that the angels, are sustaining me. 
 Ah, you deserve to have yours always at your 
 side ! 
 
 " These are wild words, but they prove at least 
 how much I love you ; that my life is love. 
 
 " And still it rains, and the clouds are so 
 dark ! " 
 
 We have come to the supreme avovral, 
 the saddest of all, — that of despau*. 
 
 "When we write the lives of certain poets, 
 we seem to be showing the reverse of their 
 
It; 6 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 poetoy. There is a discrepancy in tone. 
 Here, in this long domestic Odyssey, we see 
 only the groundwork, and, as it were, the 
 stuff out of which Mme. Valmore's poetry 
 was made. Her life was that of a bird for 
 ever on the bough ; and the bough was dry 
 and leafless, and her nest the home of 
 mourning. She was like Virgil's Philomela, 
 but no songstress was more sincere. In 
 making extracts from her pathetic corre- 
 spondence, I have often been reminded of 
 another poetess, exquisite volumes of whose 
 writing have been given to the public, — I 
 mean Mile. Eugenie de Guerin. But what 
 a diflference, I have said, between the griefs 
 of these two ! The noble maiden of Cayla, 
 under the sweet skies of the South, in the 
 midst of beloved scenes, with modest means, 
 or rather a rural poverty, which is, never- 
 theless, abundance, and all the elegancies 
 and refinements proper to a maiden's home ; 
 
*■ 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 157 
 
 and the other amid the dust and defilement 
 of the city, on the highway, always in quest 
 of lodgings, climbing to the fifth story, 
 wounded on every angle, her heart lacerated 
 and crying as she thought of the contrast, 
 " Oh, the peaceful sorrows of the country ! " 
 Yet those who knew Mme. Valmore during 
 those long years of trial, who visited her in 
 the humble and narrow lodgings where she 
 found it so difficult to collect the ruin of her 
 goods, who saw her there, — easy, polished, 
 gracious, and even hospitable, investing 
 every thing with a certain attractive and 
 artistic air, hiding her griefs under a natural 
 grace, lighted even by gleams of merri- 
 ment, brave and gallant creature that she 
 was, although sensitive and delicate to 
 the last degree ! — those who saw her so, 
 and now read what I have written, must 
 love and reverence her more even than 
 before. 
 
 ^- 
 
>b ^J. 
 
 158 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 And, indeed, when we examine the details 
 of a life like this, and realize how perpetu- 
 ally and infinitely difficult was mere subsist- 
 ence to that refined and honorable family, 
 that rare group of charming and superior 
 minds, worthy, apparently, of all tenderness 
 and protection, cherished and esteemed by 
 all, — when we think of these things, we 
 are tempted to accuse our boasted civiliza- 
 tion, and blush for society itself. Still more, 
 when we think of Mme. Valmore's natural 
 retinue, — of that immense number of women 
 similarly situated, who knew not where to 
 find a resting-place ; courageous, intelligent, 
 in need of bread, those " dear unfortunates " 
 who instinctively, and as if in obedience to 
 a mysterious behest, flocked around her, 
 whom she knew not how to succor, but with 
 whom she was ever ready to share the little 
 which sufficed not even for herself! Evi- 
 dently there is a remedy to seek. There is 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 159 
 
 something to be done, if only in the educa- 
 tion of women. 
 
 I had thought, by way of offset to all this, 
 to enumerate the names of some to whom 
 she was much indebted ; of certain kindly 
 and helpful souls whom she encountered on 
 her way, and who afforded her consolation, 
 alleviation, and support, in the midst of her 
 trials. Such was M. Jars, whom she knew 
 ever after the days of the comic opera, and 
 the " Pot de Fleurs," but in whom- she never 
 confided fully until late in life, and of whom 
 she said, when he died, in April, 1857 : " I 
 miss the innocent and kindly affection of M. 
 Jars very much. All through my stormy 
 life it has been like a silent chapel, where 
 my thoughts could find repose ; and I had 
 the happiness, too, of knowing that he was 
 happy, and exempt from conflict with those 
 necessities which are so wounding to the 
 honor." Such, also, was M. Dubois, the 
 
 ► ■♦- 
 
l6o MEMOIRS OF 
 
 steward of the general hospital at Douai, 
 who had surrounded, with care and kind- 
 ness, the stormy and morose old age of Felix 
 Desbordes ; who had taken Mme. Valmore's 
 own place at the death-bed of her beloved 
 and unfortunate brother, and who had 
 undertaken the last offices with all a sister's 
 pious solicitude ; and M. Davenne, the su- 
 perintendent of public charities, an officer 
 among a thousand, not always intrenching 
 himself in regulations in order to avoid 
 doing good, and who deserved that she 
 should write of him in a transport of grati- 
 tude. 
 
 " To Mme. Derains. 
 
 " September 29, 1856. 
 
 " I promised you, my dear friend, and I prom- 
 ised myself, that I would announce the first ray of 
 alleviation in our lot. So, if you had not written, 
 you would have known, almost as soon as I, that 
 my poor brother-in-law has positively been admit- 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
>u- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. l6l 
 
 ted into the best asylum in Paris. Providence is 
 relenting toward him and us, and the best of living 
 men has just granted me this great favor, to which 
 I had not the slightest claim, and notwithstanding 
 four good reasons to the contrary. 
 
 " This almost divine superintendent even said 
 to me : ' The thing is impossible, madame, and yet 
 I see that it must be. And since it concerns your 
 peace of mind, we will dispense with unnecessary 
 forms and make him a beneficiary for the sake of 
 conferring a benefit on you.' " ^ 
 
 But I cannot name all whom I would, 
 and. I only indicate here what may be more 
 appropriately developed in the book which 
 I hope will yet be written. 
 
 1 1 can come no nearer an equivalent to the play upon words 
 in the original of M. Darenne's graceful note : " Pour que vous 
 soyez hmreuse, nous en ferons un homme heureux." Un heureux, 
 in French, is sometimes a man on whom a woman has bestowed 
 the sunshine of her especial favor, as in the proverb, " H ne se 
 pent pas qu'une femme qui fait des heureux soit longtemps heu- 
 reuse." (Tr.) 
 
 11 
 
1 62 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 V. 
 
 Some note must, however, be taken of the 
 various tributes of literary homage which 
 Mme. Valmore received, and we will begin 
 with the most royal and magnificent of all, 
 — that of Lamartine. He only took the 
 initiative, assisted in the beginning by a 
 mistake. There lived, in the first years of 
 the Restoration, a vagrant and exceedingly 
 bohemien poet, by birth a Franche-Comtian, 
 or something of the sort, but always a pro- 
 vincial, whose forte was the elegy and the 
 laudatory epistle, — facile of inspiration, and 
 a little trite in his flowing harmony, — by 
 name, Aime De Loy. He had extended his 
 travels as far as Brazil, whence he returned 
 poor, to die in 1834. It was to this poet, 
 whose misfortunes were greater than his 
 talent, that Mme. Valmore addressed a few 
 verses, which were inserted in a keepsake. 
 
 -M 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 163 
 
 and inscribed simply, " To M. A. D. L." 
 But whom could A. D. L. be supposed to 
 mean at that date, if not the reigning poet, 
 Alphonse de Lamartine \ The keepsake 
 having fallen under his notice, Lamartine 
 did really assume that the verses were meant 
 for him, and immediately poiu'ed forth a 
 stream of airy strophes, — an admirable and 
 really noble lyric, in praise of his modest 
 sister in song. Years before he had re- 
 marked and discriminated from others the 
 peculiar accents of Mme. Valmore. One 
 day, somewhere about 1828, he was talking 
 with M. de Latour, and the latter introduced 
 into the conversation the names of several 
 contemporary poetesses, when Lamartine 
 cried out: "Ah ! but there is somebody better 
 than all these, — that poor little comedienne 
 from Lyons, — what is her namel" and he 
 himself presently recalled it. He afterwards 
 composed that fine poem, in the grand 
 
 ► •«- 
 
>h 
 
 164 " MEMOIRS OF 
 
 opening verses of wliich he portrays the 
 gallant craft in the pride of her departure, 
 laughing at the waves, and sporting even 
 with the storms ; and then, by way of con- 
 trast, the poor fishing-boat, such as he had 
 seen in the bay of Naples, — the home and 
 sole asylum, by day and night, of a whole 
 family living on board ; the father and sons 
 laboring for their daily bread, the mother 
 and girls engaged in the most menial offices. 
 We must quote some of these verses, the 
 full force and truth of which were never 
 apparent until now. And observe that 
 Lamartine barely knew Mme. Valmore, and 
 only at a distance ; but the divination of 
 genius is a kind of second sight, and, at the 
 first glance, he had understood her life, and 
 has left us an immortal picture of it in a few 
 vivid images.^ In the innocent and happy 
 
 1 The poem referred to will be found entire, though inade- 
 quately translated, at the close of this volume. It is well for 
 
 ►i. ^ 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 165 
 
 years before politics had supervened, it 
 was given M. de Lamartine to pour the 
 balm of similar strains into many a wounded 
 heart. In that he was a great consoler, 
 much is to be forgiven him. Accompanying 
 the verses in question, Mme. Valmore re- 
 ceived the following letter : — 
 
 "January 25, 1831. 
 "Madame, — I have read in the Keepsake 
 some verses which I would lilce to believe ad- 
 dressed to the author of the ' Harmonies Po^- 
 tiques.' They have given me a pretext, which I 
 will not neglect, for offering a poor assurance of 
 my admiration to the woman, who, through her 
 noble and affecting poetic genius, has moved me 
 more deeply than any other. Accept, madame, 
 these very imperfect verses, in which I have en- 
 deavored to express what I have always felt, and 
 sometimes said, about a situation so unworthy of 
 
 us who remember clearly only the mortifying circumstances of 
 M. de Lamartine's decline, to be reminded of the lofty and 
 almost supreme position which he once held in Prench letters, 
 and the kindness and magnanimity with which he exercised 
 his authority. (Tr.) 
 
 -►X 
 
^- 
 
 l66 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 you and of fate. I beseech you to see in them 
 only a testimonial of my deep sympathy and 
 respect. " A. de Lamaetine." 
 
 Touched to the heart, and ready as an 
 echo, Mme. Valmore instantly replied in 
 the same measure. I will quote only two 
 or three stanzas, in which she repudiates 
 with confusion the word glory, magnifi- 
 cently accorded her by the great poet. 
 
 " But in the minstrelsy sublime 
 
 And sweet, my heart has ne'er forgot, 
 (Sweeter to think than read that rhyme !) 
 Thou saidest ' glory ' many a time ; 
 A word whose meaning I know not. 
 
 " Only a woman with no higher 
 
 Or deeper love than love and tears ; 
 "Whose heart has been her only lyre, — 
 And thou alone dost guess the fire, 
 The dying fire her bosom bears, — 
 
 " Only an humble gleaner, I, 
 
 Who fain would her poor sheaf complete 
 With scattered ears. Then suddenly 
 Shone thy resplendent charity. 
 And heaped a harvest at my feet." 
 
->.< 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 167 
 
 At the request of M. Duthilloeul, at Douai, 
 she sent the latter a copy of M. de Lamar- 
 tine's verses, adding the following lines, 
 which were dictated by the same feeling as 
 her poetical reply : — 
 
 "Emotion has overcome modesty, monsieur; 
 and I have copied these beautiful verses with tears 
 in my eyes, forgetting that they Were addressed to 
 so obscure a person as myself. But no : they 
 vpere composed for the poet's own glory, — to show 
 how full his heart is of sublime and gracious pity. 
 They are at your service." 
 
 As for Lamartine, he thanked Mme. Val- 
 more for her tremulous and touching re- 
 sponse, in a letter which I shall also give, 
 and which will worthily close this harmo- 
 nious interchange, this cartel of lofty and 
 tender poesy. 
 
 "Madame, — I am rewarded fivefold, and I 
 blush to read in your verses the eulogy which you 
 bestow on mine. One of your strophes is worth 
 all mine. I have them by heart. 
 
l68 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 " I hope that fortune, too, will blush for her in- 
 justice, and will grant you an easier lot, and 
 worthier of you. One who was marked in her 
 cradle as the recipient of one of heaven's best 
 gifts, should not despair of Providence, especially 
 when she can plead her case in language so 
 divine. 
 
 ' ' I intend shortly to pass a couple of days at 
 Lyons, and I shall esteem myself highly favored 
 if I may be permitted to add the pleasure of a per- 
 sonal acquaintance to that of admiring and thank- 
 ing you us. "Al.de Lamartine. 
 
 "Macon, March 3, 1851." 
 
 Next to the friendship of M. de Lamar- 
 tine, and not far vbelow^ it, must be set 
 another very close and fond connection, 
 having its roots in the humane, popular, 
 and thoroughly fraternal sympathies of the 
 two friends. I refer to the mutual attach- 
 ment of Mme. Valmore and M. Easpail, — 
 him whom she used to call " dear Socrates," 
 " brave and good prisoner," " charming 
 
->i> 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 1 69 
 
 Stoic," and to whom she dedicated the pit- 
 eous poem, " Les Prisons et Les Prieres," of 
 the last collection. The extracts from letters 
 which I shall give will illustrate better than 
 any words of mine that noble and magnani- 
 mous friendship which grew in absence, and 
 was confirmed by trial. 
 
 After his release from the citadel of Doul- 
 lens, M. Raspail went to pass his years of 
 banishment in Belgium, where he enjoyed 
 the sweets of recovered space, natiu'e, and 
 sunshine. He lived in the country, and 
 amused himself by editing a medical journal, 
 where he said whatever he liked, and of 
 which he was the sole manager. On the 
 9th of September, 1855, he wrote to Mme. 
 Valmore, — 
 
 " In your next letter, tell me in what corner of 
 this green Flanders you were born. You cannot 
 think what a pleasure it has been to hunt out the 
 modest cradles of our different celebrities. And I 
 
 -►■< 
 
lyo MEMOIRS OF 
 
 have often enjoyed telling the tale of these pilgrim- 
 ages, in connection with some trifling artistic cir- 
 cumstance which seemed to suggest them. The 
 Flemings are quite German in the way they vene- 
 rate the relics of their saints in the republic of Art. 
 In France they preserve the slippers of kings. 
 Here a slipper of Rubens or Vesalius is of more 
 account than the crown-diamonds. 'Tis true they 
 only venerate their illustrious dead, and are indif- 
 fei'ent to the undistinguished, even those w^hom 
 they have loved. Their village cemeteries are 
 indescribably odious in my eyes. My own hamlet 
 is going to institute a reform in this regard, because 
 it fears to offend me. I want the virtues of each 
 of our good peasants perpetuated upon a tomb- 
 stone. I want them to find rest from their labors 
 in a delightful spiritual intercourse. The Fleming 
 is slow, but he advances, and when once he has 
 taken his walking-stick, he will go far before he 
 stops. 
 
 "But I am talking of what you know better 
 than I, — you who were a Flemish girl such as I 
 see in the pictures of Van Eyck and Vandyke, 
 long before you became one of the glories of our 
 French Helicon. It is the way with us all. Be- 
 
 -X 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 171 
 
 ginners think they can teach masters ; tourists 
 know more than natives. Forgive me for sharing 
 the common mania. It is- so pleasant." 
 
 M. Raspail had published in his Review 
 some eloquent articles on the personal and 
 moral peculiarities of Rousseau. Mme. Val- 
 more thanked him for them. 
 
 " October, 1855. 
 
 " We were reading your noble pages on Jean 
 Jacques when your letter arrived. That letter, 
 which I read in comjjany with my son with inex- 
 pressible interest, I have put away with the most 
 ardent and loyal things you have written. Never 
 was Rousseau judged more righteously, and at the 
 same time more aiFectionately. Are you his 
 brother, my dear exile ? or are you himself, cured 
 of all his ills of body and mind ? That is a de- 
 lightful idea. 
 
 "I have one request to make, and you must 
 grant it in your dear and truthful daughter's 
 name. Never call me a muse. That I am not ; 
 and, dear friend, I am so sad and so sincere that I 
 
172 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 do not deserve the shadow of mockery, however 
 innocent on your part. You can see that I hardly 
 know how to spell what my mother's heart dic- 
 tates." 
 
 It is aflfecting to find in this correspond- 
 ence, and under an exile's pen, a complete 
 lyrical and patriotic hymn to France, as 
 conceived and saluted by her son and citi- 
 zen. Sweet France we used to say, even 
 in the Middle Age. It was thus that the 
 chevaliers and the brave Eolands hailed 
 their country, dying afar from her. The 
 children of the Revolution renewed and 
 rekindled, with fervor and pride, this filial 
 and impassioned worship. Has it been 
 weakened since, as too many symptoms indi- 
 cate 1 Is it altered, exhausted I The France 
 of our fathers of '89 and '92 ; the France of 
 our youth, — of Manuel, Beranger, Raspail, 
 — is it not, will it not be the France of to- 
 day and to-morrow ? I dare not press the 
 
■*■* 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 173 
 
 future, nor force the omens. I will not 
 search and; see whether there be more or 
 less of resemblance. I will only quote this 
 pious and enthusiastic invocation to the 
 absent fatherland, uttered on the New Year 
 by a faithful, loyal son : — 
 
 "BoiTSFOKT, January 1, 1856. 
 "... What a beautiful country is mine ! A 
 land fertile in miracles, even in her moments of 
 agony and partial aberration. Here, one exists ; 
 there, one is : he lives, he loves, he is appreciated, 
 understood, respected, until death. If France 
 were expunged from the map, the head and heart 
 of the universe were gone. This little nook thinks 
 and acts for the world. All is regenerated the 
 moment she comprehends that her garb must be 
 changed. When this Jupiter frowns, the world 
 trembles. The mere memory of her sunshine 
 would warm one amid the icebergs of the pole. 
 As mother, or step-mother, we adore her. We 
 would die twenty deaths for her, and she might 
 even be ungrateful, provided she were still fair. 
 We have seen, in the past, idiots and wretches in 
 
 ► -«- 
 
[74 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 possession of France, but they have never humili- 
 ated, never enslaved her. Sing, my muse, this 
 ■glorious France, heroic, brilliant, kind and loving, 
 prudent and liberal, coquettish and essentially 
 amorous, a trifle satirical, but always just and 
 impartial ; grand mistress of that indefinite prog- 
 ress which involves in its rush even Cossacks and 
 Hurons. Sing this mother, you, her adopted 
 child, 1 who understand her so well ! And allow 
 me to call you my muse, since my prosaic lot gives 
 me no right to call you my sister, and be sure that 
 I love no less than I admire you." 
 
 No wonder that when Mme. Valmore 
 passed away, M. Kaspail, who had continued 
 to reside in Belgium, should have written, 
 five days after receiving the news of her 
 death, to the son of the dear deceased, the 
 grave and pathetic letter which follows, and 
 which deserves to remain associated with her 
 
 1 M. Raspail thought that Mme. Valmore was a Fleming, 
 bom in Belgium, beyond the frontier. He seems not to have 
 known that she was from Douai. 
 
 ^ ,1^ 
 
^- 
 
 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 ^75 
 
 memory as a supreme tribute, a funeral 
 oration : — 
 
 " Monsieur, — I have read and re-read, with 
 eyes bhnded by tears, your pious letter. It is as 
 if your illustrious mother had herself charged you 
 with bidding me a last farewell, — you to whom 
 now descend, undivided, her affections, her grand 
 qualities, and the memories of her life. Monsieur, 
 your mother was an angel. The realm of letters 
 and poesy rarely produces a soul like hers. In 
 this world of intrigue and dissimulation, of lying 
 loves and mercenary hatreds, where every thing, 
 even genius, has its price, she kept her talent pure 
 from stain, her fame always young, her heart free 
 from occasions of hatred. Rivals adored and 
 readers blessed her. She was more than a muse ; 
 she was always the good fairy of poetry, and, 
 among all my tender memories, the sweetest is 
 that of having taken her sympathy with me behind 
 the bars of my prison. I should have loved her 
 with a filial love that might have aroused your 
 jealousy, if my age had not allowed me to love her 
 as a sister. She has written me in prose and 
 she has written me in verse, but her letters are all 
 
176 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 alike charming. I think that your mother was 
 always and everywhere the poet. Her silence at 
 the last was due to a presentiment which she 
 would communicate to no one for fear of s:ivinff 
 pain. 
 
 " She has left you only a name, but fortunes 
 might well be given in exchange for such a patent 
 of nobility. 
 
 " You were cradled in poetry, trained by her 
 whom I have called the tenth muse, — the muse 
 of virtue. Remain, monsieur, the living embodi- 
 ment of reverence for her memory. Never had 
 literature sorer need, that these noble reminis- 
 cences should be often revived. 
 
 " Accept, monsieur, and bear to your honored 
 father, the assurance, that I feel no less keenly 
 than yourselves, the loss of this dear lady, this 
 loving soul, this genius, all the rarer that its home 
 was in the heart. 
 
 " F. V. Raspail. 
 
 " Stalle-sous-Uccle, 
 July 28, 1859." 
 
 Mme. Valmore died on the night of the 
 22d of July, 1859. Her last residence was 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 177 
 
 73 Eue de Rivoli, corner of Eue Etienne. 
 She was seventy-three years old. 
 
 On the fourth of the following August, 
 the town of Douai discharged a sad duty to 
 its beloved poet. The Douaisian populace 
 flocked to the church of Notre-Dame, 
 close to the early home of the deceased, 
 to attend the solemn mass there celebrated 
 in her memory, with the assistance of the 
 city band, and the choral society of Saint 
 Cecilia. Posterity had begun for the hum- 
 ble singer. 
 
 Contemporary voices have been unani- 
 mous in awarding her the honor she de- 
 served, and in ascribing to her the same 
 traits. Alfred de Vigny said that " hers was 
 the finest female mind of our time." For 
 my own part I should be content to say, 
 "Hers was the most courageous, tender, 
 and compassionate of feminine souls." Be- 
 ranger wrote to herself, "An exquisite 
 
 12 
 
 *- 
 
►i*- 
 
 178 MEMOIRS OF 
 
 sensibility marks your productions, and is 
 revealed in your every word." Brizeux 
 called her " Sweet spirit with the golden 
 voice." Victor Hugo wrote to her, and for 
 once his words were none too strong for his 
 meaning : " You are womanhood itself; 
 you are poetry itself. Yours is a charming 
 talent, — the most moving I know in a 
 woman." 
 
 A word before I close to those, both men 
 and women, who may feel that I have laid 
 too much stress on the sorrows of Mme. 
 Valmore, and are tempted to say, remember- 
 ing their own private griefs: "And have I 
 then lain on roses ? " 
 
 I would reply, — all human sorrows are 
 akin. Each has his own. We need not 
 compare them critically, nor seek for a com- 
 mon measure among them. There is no 
 such thing. Every one understands to the 
 full the pressure and the sting of what he 
 
 ^- 
 
MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 179 
 
 bears. We have no need, alas I to be jeal- 
 ous of one another's woes. But the peculi- 
 arity of Mme. Valmore's trials, that which 
 differentiates them from others, is that they 
 left her mind perfectly free, and never 
 checked the outflow of her heart toward the 
 sorrowing about her. She was never so 
 absorbed in her own griefs as not to lend a 
 ready ear to those of others. " How many 
 alien miseries are blended with our own ! " 
 she once wrote to an intimate friend : 
 " you cannot conceive how many unhappy 
 people I know, and how the thought op- 
 presses me ! I used once to hope that I 
 might be enduring enough for several ; 
 but, ah, I was Avrong ! " "I cannot com- 
 fort myself just now," she wrote again, 
 " with the prosperity of a single friend. 
 The happiness of others would be strength 
 to me." 
 
 A Wallachian proverb had impressed her 
 
 >-^- 
 
^ 
 
 1 80 MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 very much : " Qive until death." This Rou- 
 manian motto became familiar to her, and 
 she, so poor, so bereaved, loved some- 
 times to repeat, and alvrays practised it. 
 
*- 
 
 IDYLS. 
 
 THE ROSES. 
 
 Cleak was the air. The glory of the night 
 
 Seemed laughing love to scorn ; 
 For he loves shadow, but the stars burned bright, 
 
 As ushering in a new mysterious morn. 
 And all was mystery. Birds in the trees 
 
 Mistook the midnight for the matin-time, 
 And brake out singing; while the gentle breeze 
 
 Bore the notes faintly, — startled by the chime. 
 Out in the fields a few young bees were winging 
 
 Around in airy circles, and the Spring, 
 With noiseless foot her fragrant treasures bringing. 
 
 Decked all our orchards with white blossoming. 
 Oh, mother mine ! — so was my fancy stirred 
 
 Methouglit there was a fete that lovely night; 
 Methought my dearest friends afar I heard 
 
 Humming low tunes, my coming to invite ; 
 And, listening so, I marked the streamlet flowing, 
 That bathes the roses for their royal blowing, 
 
■^ 
 
 184 IDYLS. 
 
 Tempering the fierceness of the fervid hours ; 
 
 Wherefore I sought the cool of moss and flowers, 
 And fell asleep. Ah, chide not ! mother, pray ! 
 
 For who within our little close could come ? 
 
 The sheep were folded, all the dogs at home, 
 And I, — I had seen Daphnis pass that day 
 
 Beside his father. So, lulled by the stream, 
 Senses and soul with slumber soft were veiled, 
 And slowly, slowly the one image paled 
 
 I feared to see on waking from my dream. 
 I slept. But ah ! — that image, all undaunted, 
 
 With the stream's murmur stole into my heart. 
 
 The whispering forest in the speU had part 
 Whereby slept even maiden-shame enchanted. 
 
 And now, in vain, my playmates in their singing 
 
 Had set the meadows with my name a-ringing. 
 Beckoning with arms entwined ; I had been fain 
 To say : " Dance on ! I slept and I would sleep again ! " 
 
 Dreams thronged as cloudlets throng the moon at 
 night. 
 
 Tinged by her beams with colors vague and tender ; 
 
 As wings of butterflies receive their splendor 
 From the air that sustains them in their flight. 
 
 Calm, with shut eyes, — I knew I was asleep. 
 
 I stayed the fleeting visions at my will 
 Until they failed — ah, mother, I could weep ! — 
 
 And vanished. Only one dream haunts me still, — 
 
 ^- 
 
; _^ 
 
 PARTING AT NIGHT. 185 
 
 This, — I saw Daphnis darting through the glade; 
 
 My eyes were sealed, and yet I saw him well ; 
 
 Upon my beating heart his shadow fell ; 
 His shadow only, — yet I was afraid. 
 
 Softly, oh softly ! twice he spoke my name. 
 I trembled, could have cried ; 
 
 Then on my lips fell one red rose aflame, 
 But terror voice denied. 
 
 And ever since, — ah ! chide not, mother wise, — 
 Daphnis, who daily passes with his sire. 
 Follows me still with glance of sad desire : 
 
 He reads my dream, my mother, in my eyes ! 
 
 II. 
 PARTING AT NIGHT. 
 
 Can it be late ? How strange a thing ! 
 
 How like a flash the hours are fled ! 
 
 Midnight is ringing overhead. 
 And yet we two are lingei-ing. 
 
 I did not dream of slumber yet ; 
 
 I thought the sun was barely set! 
 
 Sleeps then the bird already in the grove ? 
 
 Ah, but the night is all too fine ! 
 
 Like fire the stars in the brooklet shine, 
 There's never a cloud above. 
 
 Now is it not for loves' sake, pray, 
 
 So sweet a night hath ta'en the place of day ? 
 
 -4. 
 
►J.- 
 
 l86 IDYLS. 
 
 But go, — seek thine own cot, and heedfally, 
 
 And wake our slumbering watch-dog by no noise. 
 
 Lest he mistake thee, lift his voice 
 And tell my mother naughty tales of me. 
 
 Thou answerest not. Thou turnest thy face aside. 
 In vain ! From me thou hidest no distress ! 
 Do I thus faU in tenderness ? 
 
 'Tis so much joy to me denied. 
 Give me the courage then myself to go ! 
 
 Listen to reason ! Let my hand fall, dear ! 
 'Tis twelve. The hamlet's all asleep, and lo, 
 
 To-morrow'll soon be here ! 
 Listen ! for though the night may have its pain 
 
 The morning will be sweet. 
 
 And our joy, when we meet. 
 From joy remembered a new bliss will gain. 
 
 And yet, 'tis ever sad to say good-night. 
 
 I cannot choose but dream of thy return. 
 
 Let us ere long that sorry word unlearn ! 
 The lips of love pronounce it not aright. 
 
 in. 
 
 MOTHER AND MAIDEN. 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Was that bright day aye<e-day, my mother? 
 
 ->* 
 
MOTHER AND MAIDEN. 187 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 What day ? Art thou asleep ? Speak, then, and tell 
 me all! 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 When I recall it something seems my voice to smother ; 
 
 I cannot talk, but straightway dreaming fall. 
 
 Flowers bloomed that day unlike the old and sweeter ; 
 
 Strange perfumes floated up from fields more green. 
 
 And in a new, melodious metre, 
 
 What choirs of birds did praise that beauty unforeseen ! 
 
 The sun gave light too radiant to behold, 
 
 Seemed in one strong embrace the heavens to hold, 
 
 And all my life in wondrous hues to steep. 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 If the day was so fine, why dost thou weep ? 
 Why falls thy work out of thy idle hatod ? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Ah, mother ! could I make thee understand 
 Thou mightest help me, — but I do not dare, — 
 Force me to speak or I shall die of care ! 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 Speak then ! Mayhap thou meanest thy birthday; 
 It was the blessed Mother's _/e<e as well. 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 No, then I wept for those with friends away. 
 For Daphnis was yet absent from our dell. 
 
1 88 IDYLS. 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 In all the landscape geest thou Daphnis only ? 
 He led his father's flocks to town erewhile. 
 He hath forgot, I doubt, his cottage lonely. 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 No ! It is he who makes the sunshine smile ! 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 I thought he would not come for six months yet. 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 I feared so too, — but mother we have met. 
 
 I was alone, — he also, — at our meeting 
 
 He said " Good-morrow.'' Such a pleasant greeting ! 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 And thou ? — 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 I said so too. His sire is good. 
 Thou likest him well I ever understood. 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 And the son ? — 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 'Tis the father o'er again. 
 But one thing gives this good old father pain : 
 He has no daughter. " Flowers o' the home," says he, 
 " Are daughters." And he sighs and often kisses me. 
 
 ^ 
 
MOTHER AND MAIDEN. 189 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 And the son ? — 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Says tliat absence tortureth : 
 Do I not know it ? wearies one to death ; 
 Says that it keeps one sighing all day long, 
 And brings the tears when one essays a song. 
 " I made a garland once when I was sad : 
 Wilt thou accept it withered ? " said the lad. 
 Then, as I felt it on my forehead fall, 
 My eyes grew dim. His voice is very kindly, 
 And one hears best, methinks, when one hears blindly, 
 And I so long had heard that sweet voice not at all. 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 What else ? 
 
 That something whispers in his ear 
 That he should quit vain pomp for rural peace ; 
 Dances at eve, gay songs, and revelries, 
 And for my voice he ever longs to hear. 
 His father also fain would win him home. 
 " But what," he whispers, " will of me become ? 
 My sire knows well the love I bear to thee, 
 But I, — I know hot if thou lovest me.'' 
 Then felt I, I must fly ! Mother, I durst 
 Not own my love till I had told thee first ! 
 
 ► ■<- 
 
190 IDYLS. 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 And thou didst leave him? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Oh, I was afraid : 
 I could not run ; 'twas joy my steps that stayed, 
 So I kept lingering. 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 And thou answeredst, — what? 
 
 MAIDEN. 
 
 Mother, I only listened and said naught. 
 Since then I wait at home, — my secret to confess, — 
 And Daphnis waits for me, and I am vexed to tears : 
 I cannot tell thee it appears, 
 And thou, — thou dost not guess ! 
 Afraid a;lone, or when we are near each other, 
 When will there come an end to all our woe ? 
 I dare not tell thee that I love him, mother. 
 
 MOTHER. 
 
 Ah, well ! But thou mayst tell thy Daphnis so ! 
 
 ^ 1^ 
 
PRESENTIMENT. 191 
 
 ELEGIES. 
 
 I. 
 
 PRESENTIMENT. 
 
 Ah, no ! It is not all delusion, — 
 
 That strange intelligence of soetow. 
 Searching with light the tranquil heart's seclusion, 
 
 Making us quail before the unknown morrow, — 
 'Tis the farewell of happiness departing, 
 
 A sudden tremor in a soul at rest, 
 The wraith of coming time, upstarting 
 
 Within the watchful breast. 
 
 I know thy power, dark presage of event. 
 Who can resist thy nameless, formless woe ? 
 Even as a child thou madest my tears flow. 
 
 And sentest laughter into banishment ! 
 
 Oh, yes ! Thou earnest shadow-veiled one day, — 
 
 It seems the loveliest of all my spring, — 
 
 In sombre mists enveloping 
 My visions of the fair and far away. 
 
 For I was drunk with a most innocent gladness, 
 Life glowed with vivid hues ; I had a throng 
 
 Of mates who shared my mood of merry madness. 
 The dance, the flowers, the laughter, and the song. 
 
192 ELEGIES. 
 
 Thus, with my playmates loving, 
 The pleasant fields a-roving, 
 Filling the air with merriment, 
 What pang through all my being went ? 
 As linnets in spring weather 
 Come flocking o'er the heather, 
 
 So had the bright days and the warm. 
 Gathered again our happy swarm. 
 And so it was, the mirth being very wild, 
 Sudden I felt my gayety decline ; 
 I knew not if the fault were mine. 
 But weep I must, — poor child ! — 
 And home with faltering steps and slow ; 
 The sunset fire was fading in the west ; 
 The Sim seemed sad at going to his rest ; 
 The games went on. I could not join them now. 
 
 One little month, and stUl the flowers were brave, 
 But not for these I sought that spot again. 
 Death had revealed the secret of my pain ; 
 
 I was alone beside my mother's grave ! 
 
 n. 
 
 THE LOST CHILD. 
 
 Young and old were out together, bright hues with 
 sombre blent. 
 For the Virgin of the harvest had received her leafy 
 crown. 
 
-♦ 
 
 THE LOST CHILD. 193 
 
 There were chains of garlands all the way from the 
 hamlet to the town, 
 And o'er a happy vintage laughed the elders well content ; 
 Till a something checked the glee 
 As a wiU-o'-the-wisp will darken while it glows, 
 And a cry went up that froze 
 
 Even the merry maidens' minstrelsy. 
 " Has any seen a little child astray among the crowd ? 
 The mother has been seeking it, and weeping long and 
 loud. 
 
 " Now her fear is grown so great, she can no longer 
 call, 
 And an awful silence follows her outcry of distress, 
 Xor can he tell, the poor liaby, of his own unhappiness. 
 He has but a single word, — says ' mother,' — that is 
 all! . 
 
 Has no one then a tongue ? 
 Did no one see him playing on the brink ? 
 
 A tender chUd and young 
 Beside the deep Rhone playing ? Pause and think ! 
 Oh, has any seen a little child astray amid the crowd ? 
 The mother has been seeking it, and weeping long and 
 loud. 
 
 "His flossy curls are yellow, the hue of ripened wheat. 
 And his gentle eyes are black, and his tiny teeth yet 
 
 growing, 
 And he wavers in his walk, as one unused to going, 
 13 
 
1 94 ELEGIES. 
 
 And they have decked his little gown with bluets all so 
 sweet ; 
 But naked you may find him, 
 
 For the very poor will even rob a child. 
 You would know the cherub mild, 
 Weeping ever as he strays with none to mind him. 
 Oh, has any seen a little child astray amid the crowd ? 
 The mother has been seeking it, and weeping long and 
 loud." 
 
 Long the old crier paused, an answering word to hear, 
 But of all the mournful throng, not one could aid his 
 
 quest ; 
 Every mother folded tighter the babe upon her breast, 
 And the autumn night was haunted by an unspoken fear. 
 A vagrant, some averred. 
 Crept shyly by in frightful tatters clad, 
 
 And an infant's cry was heard 
 Uplifted, in the darkness, weak and sad. 
 " Has any seen a little child astray amid the crowd ? 
 The mother has been seeking it, and weeping long and 
 loud." 
 
 Ever the good old crier told his story 
 
 Of that poor babe astray by the great stream. 
 
 Once even a veteran soldier, mailed in glory. 
 Wept underneath his helmet, hearing him. 
 
 -* 
 
►i.- 
 
 THE LOST CHILD. 195 
 
 Till now no more the days were warm and splendid, 
 
 The vineyards leafy, and the blossoms fair, 
 But Winter, by his long, slow nights attended. 
 
 Had come, and gloom and pallor everywhere. 
 That piteous voice was hushed among the others ; 
 
 It woke no tidings of the little one ; 
 Only his memory wrung the hearts of mothers, 
 
 A portent sad and strange to think upon. 
 
 But she whom Spent with sorrow and as dying. 
 
 They bore at even from the field away ; 
 She lived with memory broken like her crying, 
 
 Taking no thought for that distressful day. 
 The harvest and the shore of the swift river 
 
 Had vanished from her brain confused and wild ; 
 Turbid her thoughts as brooks are ever 
 
 Whose fountains are defiled. 
 
 Unmoved she sought again her lowly dwelling, 
 
 A great crowd following her. 
 Tumult of cries and sobs around her swelling, 
 
 But she had not a tear, 
 feure, her long madness was God's blessing ; 
 
 " My boy's asleep ! " she smiled, 
 And ever made as though caressing ' 
 
 Softly the missing child. 
 
 In the brief nights an empty cradle swinging. 
 
 She murmured, " Oh, how blessed we mothers are ! " 
 
 *- 
 
196 ELEGIES. 
 
 She only, witless of her loss, was bringing 
 
 Calmly to God her simple, thankful prayer. 
 Within the curtain she had drawn so lightly, 
 
 She heard a slumberous breathing, soft and low, 
 And who would undeceive her ? Therefore nightly 
 
 She watched and waited for the waking so. 
 Nay, lift it not, the kindly curtain. 
 
 So like the veil over her memory shed ! 
 Lives the child yet ? Then lost and lorn 'tis certain, 
 
 While prayer and song circle his empty bed. 
 
 Pensive by day, and scarce a look addressing 
 
 To those she once had known ; 
 And ever to her heart the phantom pressing, 
 
 And crooning in low tone ; 
 But peace aye came with nightfall, when she lingered 
 
 Loose-clad the low fire by, 
 Watching intent, while she the cradle fingered, 
 
 The clouds career the sky. 
 
 One moonless night a great wind was abroad 
 
 The air with tumult filling. 
 Till, by the strife the senses overawed, , 
 
 Owned a mute fear unwilling. 
 Lights glimmered faintly in the cottage pane, 
 Baying of dogs was fearsome in the rain, 
 
 The swollen stream swept down the uprooted tree, 
 But on the watcher there was wrought a charm. 
 
 She slept, though the veiled eyes yet seemed to see, 
 The cradle stayed under the wasted arm. 
 
 -ib 
 
*■ 
 
 THE LOST CHILD. 
 
 197 
 
 Hush, now ! 'Tis the first time since the dark hour 
 
 When memory was o'erthrown. 
 And stricken to the earth we saw her cower, 
 
 Speech, tears, and memory gone. 
 But the storm wherewith nature travaileth. 
 
 Wroth at her long dehision, 
 _ Pierces her sleep's delusion 
 And wakes her to the bitterness of death. 
 
 Forcing a cry unheard for many a day, — 
 
 " Has no one seen a little child astray ? " 
 As echo answers quick, a voice of terror. 
 
 Reviving reason took the alarm and cried : 
 " Give me my child ! " Oh, cruel error ! 
 
 She sees the cradle now, and sees it void. 
 
 Pale, voiceless, tearless, for a little space. 
 
 She having met and striven 
 With her great anguish, hid her face. 
 
 " I see the earth. I have lost heaven ! 
 Oh, God of mothers, does he live ? " she cried, 
 " Then take me some whither, my footsteps guide ! 
 
 He is not here, and here I cannot stay ! 
 
 And, since Death has not found me ere to-day^ 
 I will go forth and seek him up and down ! " 
 
 Next morn they traced her footsteps in the snow ; 
 
 Noiseless those feeble steps ; none saw her go ; 
 She was away, alone. 
 
 God only knew the desert way she went. 
 
 At least the storm was well-nigh spent. 
 
 4. 4. 
 
198 ELEGIES. 
 
 She murmured going : " Once more I would see 
 The chapel which at harvest-tide I decked, 
 Where the dear child, — oh, precious hope all 
 wrecked, — 
 
 Tried, when I sang, himself to sing with me. 
 I'll take liis cradle for an offering ; 
 
 It wrings my heart, and now he needs it not ; 
 
 'Tis like his grave, — and, in my mourning thought, 
 His little image to my God I'll bring ! 
 
 Flowers have I none, and short the time, 'tis clear ; 
 How can one live when hope is dead ? 
 
 But should I last until the spring is here. 
 Here I will hide my head." 
 
 And so the pious priest who knew her fate. 
 Willing the little couch to consecrate, 
 
 Eeceived it ; while another woman dressed 
 In vagrant's rags, crept near and whispered wild, 
 " Give it to me ! " and pointed to a child 
 
 Hid in the shapeless tatters on her breast. ^ 
 Said the bereaved one : " Do not be afraid ! 
 
 You have a child there. You are very poor, 
 
 But we will aid your misery, be sure ! 
 I am dying because I have none ! " she said. 
 
 A sweet, shrill cry broke on her bitter wail ; 
 The heap moved, and a little voice said, " Mother ! " 
 Frantic she snatched her burden from the other. 
 
 Who scarce resisted, — guilty one ! — but pale. 
 
 *<■ 
 
>u- 
 
 THE LOST CHILD. 
 
 199 
 
 Fled, plunged adown the hillside at that word, 
 And vanished like some dark and evil bird ; 
 While the true mother tore the rags aside, 
 Her sad eyes flamed like torches, and she cried : 
 " It is my child ! But oh, how pale he is ! " 
 Then sank as overpowered by so much bliss. 
 It seems that we were born for misery. 
 And when we are too happy, can but die. 
 
 But the child fondles her, prattles and weeps. 
 And kisses back the soul upon her lips, 
 And seems to tremble yet for that old fright. 
 So she must screen his form so frail and light, 
 Weeping, " Fear not ! 'Tis mother, little one ! 
 Oh, father, see you not this is my son ! 
 'Tis not the mocking phantom any more ! 
 It is my boy who loves me, whom I bore ! " 
 And when he saw her thus, and heard her speak, 
 The good man felt the tears upon his cheek. 
 
 She told it all again, her tale being broken 
 By choking sobs, in words of fire, — 
 
 Only her vow of vengeance died unspoken, — 
 Having her child what more can she desire ? 
 
 " Doubtless he suffered sorely, but he lives ! " 
 
 The mother weeps, and fondles, and forgives. 
 
 4<- 
 
200 ELEGIES. 
 
 THE FIRST IMPRISONMENT OF Bl&RANGER. 
 
 "What ? Beranger, the steadfast friend of France ; 
 
 The gay Anacreon of our gloomy days ? 
 Whose ringing lyre, brave words, and fiery glance, 
 
 Upbore the very hopes of youth. Who says 
 That he is captive ? Fold thy iris-wing, 
 
 Thou who shouldst bear the poet's coronal ! 
 Thou who art free as air, beautiful Spring ! 
 
 Hark to his cliaius, and let thy blossoms fall ! 
 In vain the nymph and the returning bee 
 
 Visit the silent threshold of their friend. 
 The flowers his kiss hath waked are fair to see. 
 
 Yet mourns the blooming land from end to end ! 
 
 He is a captive. Hide your brows for shame, 
 
 O muses ! for they chained him at your feet. 
 » Weep for his absence, children ! It is meet ! 
 He sings but under guard ! And who will name 
 
 His crime ? Who dreams the noble rage he spent. 
 The ardent vows that none dared breathe but he. 
 That won a smile from very misery 
 
 Were but the veils of treacherous intent ? 
 His merry heart proclaims him innocent ; 
 
 A sweet soul breathes in his melodious rhyme. 
 The burning chords of his fine instrument 
 
 Will echo grandly in all coming time. 
 
 -'^ 
 
FIRST IMPRISONMENT OF BERANGER. 20I 
 
 At the tribunal of posterity 
 
 His free strains, fraught with love, will soar, will 
 sing. 
 " There was a soul," the verdict then shall be, 
 
 " Both wise and soft to human suffering ! " 
 
 For I have seen the wanderers who pine. 
 
 River of exile ! on thy farther shore, — 
 And seen the muse with prophecy divine 
 
 Visit them there and kindle hope once more. 
 They shared the rapture of her buoyant flight ; 
 
 Their homesick hearts were lightened far away, 
 For on her wing, with scattered tear-drops bright, 
 
 She carried them the songs of Beranger ! 
 
 And, as they listened, in their eager eyes 
 
 The light of a lost heaven did reappear. 
 They kissed each other in a glad surprise ; 
 
 A ray of laughter slione in every tear ! 
 Only the aged exile — he whose weak 
 
 And tremulous footsteps neared their final goal — 
 Murmured " Farewell ! " in plaintive tones and weak, 
 
 " I shall not see thee more, compassionate soul ! " 
 
 Such was his crime, O judges of the land ! 
 
 He freely gave out of his poor possessions ; 
 He strove to lighten lonely sorrow, and 
 
 His tears of sympathy ye made transgressions. 
 
202 ELEGIES. 
 
 . If none may ever read his lines unmoved, 
 
 Console yourselves ! His like we shall not see ! 
 But he is poor ; leave him his lyre beloved, 
 And let him sing ! for sad he well may be. 
 
 Not as you deem them are his thoughts profound ; 
 
 The reprobate by his own voice is daunted. 
 But God said " Seek ! " and this man glory found ; 
 
 " Sing ! " and the laws divine he straightway 
 chanted. 
 
 What a dread silence follows on my plaint, 
 So like the vain lamenting of the deep ! 
 
 Methinks Time is himself benumbed to faint, 
 And, poppy-crowned, has fallen quite asleep. 
 
 But hark ! Is that a cry of joy I hear ? 
 
 Is there a God vrill send us help at need ? 
 " Free ! " did you say ? Oh, answer, comrades dear '. 
 
 Free ? Is he free ? Then I may weep indeed ! 
 
 Thanks, noisy rumor ! Not alone of ill. 
 
 But now of sweetest good thy voice hath spoken. 
 
 My charmed ear let the glad tidings fill ; 
 
 Repeat the word, — the poet's chains are broken ! 
 
 Oh, joy to all ! And let all labor cease, 
 
 And everywhere proclaim a holiday ! 
 A happy truce to our long miseries ! 
 
 And we will fling our cypress far away. 
 
 ► ■«- 
 
*- 
 
 FLOWERS AT THE CROSS. 
 
 203 
 
 my companions, life is pleasant yet, 
 
 And dear ! and dear the laughing fields of Spring. 
 On brows unstained rose-garlands are well set. 
 
 Dance, nymphs ! and wide your vernal blossoms 
 fling! 
 
 FLOWERS AT THE CROSS. 
 
 Whence came these flowers forgotten on the stone, 
 
 And wet with evening dew or tears are they ? 
 Fell they from folded hands ? or were they thrown 
 Aside by village childi-en in their play ? 
 
 Mayhap some homesick traveller left them here. 
 Pausing beside the cross for brief repose ; 
 
 A prodigal o'erwhelmed by memories dear, 
 Vowed to their stainless white this pallid rose. 
 
 For still the mother-soul attends the child. 
 
 And still friend yearns for friend in dream or prayer, 
 
 And he who left this token hath beguiled 
 
 His pain by thoughts of God's love everywhere. 
 
 my poor flowers ! how sad is all your grace ! 
 
 How keen with fond regret your perfumes rise ! 
 Some lover's dream hath left this plaintive trace ; 
 
 Oft in a flower love's secret hidden lies. 
 
204 POEMS. 
 
 Have I not too refreshed our Lady's feet 
 With the white lilacs that I love so well ? 
 
 She knew for whom I brought the offering sweet. 
 She ever knows the thought we may not tell. 
 
 "WHAT HAST THOU DONE WITH THESE?" 
 
 I GA.VE my heart to thee ; 
 
 Thou gavest me thine. 
 Heart for heart, — could there be 
 A sweeter guaranty ? 
 
 Now thine is given back, 
 
 And lost is mine. 
 Now thine is given back ; 
 Therefore a heart I lack. 
 
 Green leaf and blossom too ; 
 
 Fruit worth the seeing ; 
 Green leaf and blossom too ; 
 Perfume and lovely hue. 
 
 What hast thou done with these, 
 
 King of my bein^ ? 
 What hast thou done with these, — 
 The treasures of my peace ? 
 
 4< 4* 
 
WHAT HAST THOU DONE WITH TBESE. 205 
 
 Like a poor, hapless child, 
 
 Mother-forsaken ; 
 Like a poor hapless child 
 Unguarded in the wild, — 
 
 Thou leavedst me alone, 
 
 No hand to beckon ! 
 Leavedst me all alone. 
 But for God looking on. 
 
 Yet shall there come an hour, — 
 
 I see it plainly, — 
 A late and lonely hour. 
 Love reasserts his power. 
 
 On me — even on me — 
 Thou shalt call vainly 
 On me — even on me — 
 Sadly and tenderly. 
 
 Dreaming thou wilt return 
 
 To my poor dwelling. 
 Dreaming thou wilt return ; 
 For the old greeting yearn. 
 
 " She ? She is dead lang syne." 
 
 Answer repelling ! 
 Who'U heed that thou dost pine 
 For one who died lang syne ? 
 
 ^- 
 
2o6 POEMS. 
 
 LULLABY. 
 
 Sleep, dear ! and thou wilt see 
 
 The busy, happy bee, 
 Dancing between the earth and sky. 
 After his honey is all put by ! 
 
 Sleep, dear ! For, only think ! 
 
 An angel clad in pink, 
 Who never goes flying in broad daylight, 
 WiU come and murmur a sweet good-night ! 
 
 And be thou a good chUd ! 
 
 Then, o'er thy forehead mild, 
 Our Lady will lean, and to thee alone 
 Tell a long story in undertone ! 
 
 Thy mother mind alway ! 
 
 Then God himself will say : 
 '' I love the child just falling asleep ; 
 Give him a golden dream to keep ! 
 
 " Close, angel, his eyes lightly. 
 And tinge thou his prayers brightly ! 
 
 The hues of my own garden-bed 
 
 Over his orisons be shed ! 
 
 " The little couch bend over. 
 
 And 'broider well the cover. 
 And freely about the pillow fling 
 Snow of down from thine own white wing! 
 
LULLABY. 
 
 207 
 
 " Give him the wings of a dove, 
 That he may soar above, 
 And in the sunshine of heaven play. 
 Till the dawn of another earthly day 
 
 " Or he may ride aloft ^ 
 
 Upon a cloudlet soft. 
 And where with milk my fountains run, 
 Give thou a drink to the little one ! 
 
 " Open for him the chamber 
 
 All bright with pearls and amber, 
 
 And let him taste, before he wakes, 
 
 Our precious little diamond cakes ! 
 
 " Then shalt thou take a boat, 
 
 And set the child afloat 
 Upon my beauteous azure sea. 
 Star-wrought the heavenly sail shall be. 
 
 " The moon will soon be lighting 
 
 The ripple so inviting; 
 And he shall lure from out the wave 
 The finest silver fish I have ! 
 
 " But then it is my will, 
 
 The little one lie still, — 
 Still as the birds are when they dream, 
 In their reed houses by the stream. 
 
 »*< ^ 
 
►J. 
 
 208 POEMS. 
 
 " For if he weep and wail, 
 
 The clock will tell the tale : 
 ' This is the naughty little lad 
 Who cried when the good God forbade ! ' 
 
 " And echo from the street 
 
 The story will repeat, 
 Or ever the pealing tones have died, 
 ' This is the little man who cried ! ' 
 
 " Heavy and sad at heart. 
 
 Mother will sit apart, 
 And all her beautiful songs forget. 
 Because her nursling will storm and fret ! 
 
 " Now what if he were borne 
 
 Away in the angry morn ? 
 "What if the wilful little lamb 
 Never more to his mother came ? 
 
 " Lonely the world would be. 
 
 To such a waif as he, 
 And the child who storms and sighs and cries. 
 Cannot enter my Paradise ! " 
 
 Ah, but he will be mild. 
 
 And o'er the docile child 
 Our Lady will lean, and to him alone, 
 Tell a long tale in an undertone. 
 
 X 
 
THE WAYSIDE MADONNA. 209 
 
 THE "WAYSIDE MADOOTJA. 
 (To MT Daughters.) 
 
 Our steadfast Lady sunders, 
 
 "With her uplifted hand, 
 The heaven's muttered thunders 
 
 From the harvest of the land. 
 Amid the wayside grasses, 
 
 No church, no shrine hath she. 
 But still from him who passes 
 
 Wards all calamity. 
 
 Where high the hawthorn towers, 
 
 For palace answering. 
 Mid lofty, leafy bowers. 
 
 The birds a matia sing. 
 The children of the villagers 
 
 Are her glad angels ever, 
 And breeze that sighs, and leaf that stirs, 
 
 Her Angelus deliver. 
 
 Her kind eye speaks assurance 
 
 To every contrite breast ; 
 The blind, in their dark durance. 
 
 On her sweet stillness rest. 
 Once, by a poor wayfarer. 
 
 In a lone valley found ; 
 Now of God's gift the bearer 
 
 To all the poor around. 
 14 
 
 ^- 
 
i^i 
 
 2IO POEMS. 
 
 Then, in her voiceless charity, 
 
 My darlings aye confide ! 
 For less than true will sometimes be, 
 
 The truest friend beside. 
 Within her pure seclusion 
 
 The tender secret set, 
 High above earth's delusion, 
 
 And safe from all regret. 
 
 When at her feet so queenly, 
 
 I have laid my burning brow. 
 How slowly and serenely 
 
 Rest through my frame would flow ! 
 Go to the heavenly Mother, 
 
 And on her love rely ! 
 So sweetly can none other 
 
 Uplift you, — no, not I ! 
 
 THE SAILOR'S RETURN. 
 
 " Little ones ! your eyes are bright ! 
 Look, for a sail should glimmer white 
 Between the stormy sea and sky. 
 The linen of that sail span I, 
 And, if my dream be not belied, 
 It will return ere winter-tide ! " 
 
 " From yon bare rock, a moment back, 
 We saw amid the flying rack. 
 
 -►^ 
 
THE SAILOR'S RETURN. 21 1 
 
 Below, along the breakers cast, 
 A swaying sail without a mast ! " 
 
 " sailors' children, shout ! " cried she ; 
 
 " Your sires are now upon the sea ; 
 
 Divide the storm with voices shrill ! 
 
 Shout ! little ones, with all your will ! 
 
 And ah ! — when shines the lightning, note, — 
 
 Is the tricolor still afloat ? " 
 
 " AYe climb the rock, we watch, we hark, 
 And now the lightning rends the dark ! 
 And now we see a floating deck. 
 And one who kneels upon the wreck ! " 
 
 " Is it my Jamie brave ? " she wept ; 
 
 " Last night he sought me when I slept ! 
 
 "Wild was the dream ! Oh, come with speed, 
 
 And seek and aid a soul at need ! 
 
 I have wept so much my eyes are dim ; 
 
 Only in heaven shall I see liim ! " 
 
 " Oh, horrible ! The thunder-shock 
 Has flung him on the naked rock. 
 If lingers yet his tortured breath. 
 Now must we help him to his death ! " 
 
 They came, — the sailors' children brave ; 
 They drew poor Jamie from the wave, 
 
212 POEMS. 
 
 And to the stricken bride they bare, 
 Who touched his hand as he lay there, 
 And found upon the finger cold 
 Her own love-gift, — a ring of gold. 
 
 Now are they wed for evermore. 
 They sleep together on the shore ; 
 The flying rack alarms them not ; 
 Their evil days are long forgot. 
 
 A WOMAN'S DREAM. 
 
 " Wilt thou begin thy life again, 
 
 O woman of the whitening hair ! 
 Become a child, with shining train 
 
 Of angel children ia the air ? 
 Wilt feel thy mother's kisses press ; 
 
 Thou cradled warmly at her feet ? " 
 " What ? — find my vanished Eden ? Yes, 
 
 Ah, yes, my God ! It was so sweet ! " 
 
 " Wilt thou in blissful faith resume 
 
 Thy sire's fond shelter as of old, 
 While, breathing innocent perfume, 
 
 The white flowers of thy heart unfold ? 
 Back to thy vernal happiness 
 
 Fly like a bird on pinions fleet ? " 
 " Might but that joy continue, — yes. 
 
 Ah yes, my God ! It was so sweet ! " 
 
 -* 
 
TRISTESSE. 213 
 
 " Wilt thou unlearn thy sorry lore, 
 
 And shyly peep life's leaves between, 
 And, feeding youngest hopes once more. 
 
 Forget the winters thou hast seen ? 
 The daisied banks, the dove of peace, 
 
 The morning freshness round thy track ; 
 Shall these return ? " " My God, ah yes ! 
 
 All but the wayside graves give back L" 
 
 " Have then thy wish ! Thy steps retrace ! 
 
 Flowers, perfume, song, be thine once more ! 
 Yet shall time lead thee to the place 
 
 Of tears as surely as before. 
 Rekindle passion's fires and view 
 
 Their ever baleful radiance ! " 
 " What, hght those earth-born flames anew ? 
 
 Ah no, my Saviour ! Take me hence ! " 
 
 TRISTESSE. 
 
 Shall I never play again in my mother's garden-close ? 
 Nor fling me down to rest on the graves with blos- 
 soms gay ? 
 Shall the thought be aye so bitter of the happy time ? 
 
 Who knows? 
 And when I murmur fondly of idle times like those, 
 Why does my voice in weeping die away ? 
 
 -* 
 
214 POEMS. 
 
 Methinks I know in part. Oh dear, oh fair the sight 
 
 Of the early, downy fruits that above the cradle grow ! 
 To these the soul will turn, — bathe in the fountain 
 
 bright 
 Of the stream that strayed so far, and the virginal de- 
 light 
 But pauses, for she fears to foul it so. 
 
 For she fears to stir the deeps of memory at rest. 
 To search the heart's old wounds until they bleed 
 afresh ; 
 To wake the sense of wrong that slumbered in the 
 
 breast ; 
 Forgot and put away by time's and heaven's behest, 
 Though the stinging barb, lay buried in the flesh ! 
 
 For hast thou never gazed upon the mocking flame 
 Of a memory very sore till thy cheeks were burning 
 red? 
 Or marked how to thy ear from time to time there came 
 The clear and cruel echo of some abhorr'd name, 
 Till the hunted heart toward the future fled ? 
 
 Thou, too, my early home ! Hovers my heart in vain 
 
 About thy Gothic towers, for altered is the spot. 
 Retracing, in a dream, the story of her pain. 
 She sees them where they rise, but the charm lives not 
 again. 
 That clad with careless grace my mother's cot. 
 
 ■^ 
 
*- 
 
 TRISTESSE. 215 
 
 Ttere is riot of gay flowers in the churchyard's narrow 
 space, 
 Where I used to kneel and pray till the moonbeams 
 touched the wall ; 
 And the lusty vines have spread, where, on the tomb- 
 stone's face, 
 Heir of the lowly dead, the legend I would trace 
 Of the great, — the last reunion of us all. 
 
 Sad, sad ! — to come again when all the years are 
 flown. 
 
 And heartsick tell my tale, and reunite the link 
 That bound me to these graves. Nor dare to call my own, 
 Even some heart at rest beneath yon cross, o'erthrown 
 
 And bruised ! — this is woe, dost thou not think ? 
 
 But the little maid who sports and sleeps and knows no 
 fret; 
 Who pranks herself with flowers, and has a heart so 
 high; 
 The poor, light-hearted maid whom no one envies yet ; 
 Who trusts the unknown life, though born for all re- 
 gret,— 
 O'er her I needs must yearn, for it was I. 
 
 When I fain would find a smile in this grim life-book 
 of mine, 
 I turn the white first page, and the token I discover. 
 
 *-i- 
 
2l6 POEMS. 
 
 Unfinished are the words, but their meaning I divine. 
 Guileless are they and sweet, and oh, how bright they 
 shine 
 Amid leaves with sorrow darkly written over ! 
 
 A cherry 6n the bough, or an apple barely grown, 
 Were glorious dainties then. Ah, when the soul is 
 young. 
 It is lightly filled with joy, and the taste is yet unknown 
 Of the morsel steeped in tears, with honey overstrown, 
 That leaves a bitter savor on the tongue. 
 
 Amid the lost delights for which I vainly sigh. 
 
 How did they call the flower, — the azure flower and 
 brave 
 That used to ope at dawn, then droop and close its eye, 
 And ere another morning had vanished utterly ; 
 Will it not bloom again upon my grave ? 
 
 Dear church ! no priest was thine, no service and no 
 state ! 
 
 My childish treble rang adown thy empty aisle ! 
 Around thy every window the bramble waved elate. 
 And the mutilated Christ looked down compassionate. 
 
 Shall I ever dream of heaven as there, erewhile ? 
 
 Is it uprooted now, the wayward, wealthy vine, 
 
 The ancient wall that curtained with lace-work green 
 and gay; 
 
 -r^ 
 
TRISTESSE. 2 1 7 
 
 Its humble arms enfolded the desecrated shrine ; 
 Like wings of pitying angels the boughs did wave and 
 shine, 
 And a single bird swung on a golden spray. 
 
 And the bird sang ; and he tasted the ripe clusters, and 
 his wing 
 
 Upon the sombre ogive a gentle measure beat, 
 Till the low descending sun his fiery darts would fling. 
 Kindling all the shattered panes with a red illumining 
 
 That long my dazzled eyeballs did repeat. 
 
 Thou, also, Notre Dame. Thy pomp is long restored ; 
 
 But silent wast thou then, as thou wouldst a secret 
 
 keep ; [soared 
 
 None woke thy organ-keys, — but my voice arose and 
 
 And through the echoing nave its utmost rapture poured. 
 
 Didst thou hear the slender Ave in thy sleep ? 
 
 Never to see again my Lord depicted there 
 
 So clear to virgin faith on the sun-lighted wall ? 
 Lay my morsel at his feet, and offer up my prayer. 
 Then track my forecast shadow along the river fair 
 To the ivied cot my home I used to call ! 
 
 Nor the deep, mysterious well, — an urn set in the wild, 
 That held, methought, the ashes of the departed sun ? 
 
 Its wave became a mirror to every passing child. 
 
 It is turbid now, alas ! — and all things are defiled : 
 In this, that water and my life are one. 
 
>i*- 
 
 2l8 POEMS. 
 
 Nor pass the rustic school, and hark the humming noise, 
 Where grew my caged soul, and my spirits worked 
 like wine ; 
 Where, captive at my desk, I heard a ringing voice 
 That called me forth from prison and bade my heart 
 rejoice. 
 Dear voice ! Art thou yet calling, father mine ? 
 
 So suddenly set free, I was pale with rapture sweet ; 
 Methought that heaven had opened and earth had 
 grown more wide. 
 Did my father know afar how I pined in my retreat ? 
 Oh, proud I held his hand as we passed adown the 
 street ! 
 He was like God, and I was satisfied. 
 
 On to the flower-grown cross ! And still the sun was 
 high; 
 And Albertine was there, and her curls were flowing 
 free. 
 " Oh, is it then a, fete ? " was my ecstatic cry ; 
 " Is it to-morrow then the good God passes by ? " 
 And she answered, " Thou wilt see ! thou wilt see ! " 
 
 It was a, fete indeed ! Oh, merrily we strove ; 
 
 We flung our flowers aloft, our darling laughing so 
 To feel the odorous rain fall on her from above : 
 For she was living then, and all my life was love ; 
 
 But the rose waits not the winter, as we know. 
 
 >-i- 
 
 -►il 
 
^- 
 
 TO M. ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. 219 
 
 Oh, but to stray again in my mother's garden-close ! 
 To rest a little while on the graves with blossoms 
 gay! 
 Why are our joys remembered more bitter than our 
 
 woes ? 
 And when I murmur fondly of idle times like those, 
 Why does my voice in weeping die away ? 
 
 TO ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. 
 
 ' Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that 
 weep." 
 
 Hopeless and heartless on the shore, 
 
 Beside the melancholy main ; 
 I envied birds that freely soar. 
 And cries along the tempest pour. 
 
 While I my anguish must contain. 
 
 How many hours and months of woe 
 Went seaward with the falling tide ! 
 
 I drew a sombre veil, as though 
 
 I best might bear my burden so, 
 And my lost love securely hide. 
 
 And, in the depth of my despair, 
 
 I knelt and murmured dreamily. 
 Because I had not breath for prayer : 
 " My God, my Father, art thou there ? 
 
 Or hast thou quite forgotten me ? 
 
 -* 
 
220 POEMS. 
 
 '' For our tost bark, nor truce from war, 
 Nor tranquil sea, nor loosened strain. 
 Now stranded on the dreary bar, — 
 Now lifted high and swept afar, 
 
 Foundered in storm or captive ta'en. 
 
 " Mothers with loss infuriate, — 
 
 To such, death is an awful thing ! 
 To me, it was a barbarous Fate, — 
 Fantastic, faithless, — could create 
 My darlings but for suffering ! 
 
 " I wonder who will take the oar 
 
 When my poor bark at last is found 
 Untenanted upon the shore, 
 Laden with my light weight no more, 
 On ever darker voyages bound ! 
 
 " Unhelped of priest, they'll bear me yet 
 
 Unto the churchyard piously. 
 And some sweet soul a prayer repeat, 
 And ivy plant and box-wood set 
 For a memorial over me." 
 
 But nothing lasts. The storm passed on. 
 The wild birds with it, — and at night 
 
 I sat beside m}' casement lone 
 
 And watched the rising moon, that shone 
 With a soft radiance and white. 
 
TO M. ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. 221 
 
 I stretched my arms without a word, 
 
 As to the sweetest friend I had, 
 "Whose gracious footfall long deferred 
 The quick heart suddenly had heard 
 
 Upon its threshold, and was glad. 
 
 And heard a voice I had not known, — 
 
 My breath came fast, my speech was broken, — 
 
 A lofty voice, yet sweet of tone. 
 
 That thrilled my spirit overthrown 
 
 As though my God himself had spoken. 
 
 But all too weak for hope was I, 
 
 Therefore I hid my weeping eyes 
 And only murmured piteously. 
 " When all forget and pass me by. 
 
 What angel seeks me from the skies ? " 
 
 'Twas thou ! I heard thy wings of might 
 Beat midway of the brightening air. 
 
 Thou camest dazzling to the sight 
 
 Adown a path built all of light, 
 Angel of mine ! to seek me there ! 
 
 From his high station, Lamartine 
 
 Pronounced my name. Ah, even thus 
 To save a bark the shoals between. 
 The good God. from his throne unseen. 
 Flings out a sun-ray beauteous ! 
 
>h 
 
 222 POEMS. 
 
 Sweet as forgiveness whispered low, 
 E'er since thy breath, with healing rife, 
 
 Has touched my pale and crownless brow, 
 
 A sacred pity seems to flow 
 Around my desolated life. 
 
 The Peri, on her eager quest, 
 
 Bore never to the gates Elysian 
 A tear more humble at the best 
 Than that, — my warmest, happiest, 
 
 With which thy songs have dimmed my vision. 
 
 But in the minstrelsy sublime 
 
 And sweet, my heart has ne'er forgot 
 (Sweeter to think than read that rhyme) 
 Thou saidest " glory " many a time, 
 A word whose meaning I know not. 
 
 Only a woman, with no higher 
 
 Or deeper lore than love and tears ! 
 Whose heart has been her only lyre, ' 
 And thou alone dost guess the fire. 
 The dying fire her bosom bears ! 
 
 Before those lofty hymns of thine, 
 
 Angelic, ah ! and human both, 
 This rude, imperfect harp of mine. 
 And long unstrung and mute, doth pine ; 
 
 To try a single measure loth. 
 
 ► +■ 
 
 ■^ 
 
►:<- 
 
 TO MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 223 
 
 Only a hungry gleaner, I, 
 
 Who fain would her poor sheaf complete 
 With scattered ears. Then suddenly 
 Shone thy resplendent charity, 
 
 And poured a harvest at my feet. 
 
 My name had died before me. Spake 
 Thy voice alone : " Is not she living ? " 
 
 So one day may a swallow break 
 
 The silence, and the echoes wake 
 
 Above my grave with tuneful grieving. 
 
 Thy shield with fairest flowers is gay. 
 
 Yet own the truth, I fain would know it, — 
 Has thy unclouded glory's ray 
 Had sovereign power the tears to stay 
 
 That gathered in thy eyes, my poet ? 
 
 TO MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 
 
 ET ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.^ 
 
 Oft have I seen upon the deep, 
 
 Where swoops the storm on wings of flame. 
 Some gallant craft before me sweep, — 
 The strong masts bend, the billows leap, — 
 
 For her their fury is but game. 
 
 1 The reader should remember that in order of time this poem 
 preceded the last. ( Tr. ) 
 
 ► <- 
 
224 POEMS. 
 
 She courts their buffeting alway. 
 
 Filled are the sails that wide expand ; 
 Like feelers fine the saU-yards play, 
 And balance on the desert gray ; 
 
 The decks by lusty seamen manned. 
 
 Low at the port the surges grind, 
 
 But vainly strive to enter it ; 
 The good ship flings their spray behind. 
 As a fleet courser sows the wind 
 
 With the white foam from off his bit. 
 
 " Long may she ride the waves ! " I cry, 
 And while I speak she springs afar ! 
 
 Let but the clouds forsake the sky, 
 
 And vast as all immensity 
 The limits of her empire are ! 
 
 But sometimes, too, I've seen unfurled 
 One timid sail the seas to roam. 
 
 Each billow o'er the skiff was hurled. 
 
 The fisher had in all the world 
 Only this humble, floating home. 
 
 "Watching till eve obscured the deep, 
 
 This poor bark's fate, I made it mine. 
 And, haply, from the shoals to keep. 
 For her I prayed the winds to sleep. 
 And prayed for her the moon to shine. 
 
^ ^ 
 
 TO MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 225 
 
 The storm had sadly marred her sail, 
 
 Shredding in tatters every fold. 
 The mast, the rigging, ah, how frail ! 
 Yet had my bark withstood the gale, 
 
 Nor parted where she wildly rolled. 
 
 Alert the father stood to guide 
 
 The furrowing keel along the water ; 
 
 The son wrought bravely at his side. 
 
 At rents in sail or net there plied 
 Her needle fast, the willing daughter. 
 
 Before the hearth knelt children twain, 
 And strove to wake the morning's ashes 
 
 For supper service, nor in vain. 
 
 Gayly they saw the redness gain, 
 Till sprang aloft the pale, blue flashes. 
 
 While, clasping fast the swaying mast. 
 Behold the mother toward them leaning. 
 
 Nursing the babe, whose arms are cast 
 
 About her neck, and from the blast 
 The duliious flame securely screening. 
 
 " And this ! " I sighed, " is then their all ! 
 
 This cabin-home ! These little lives ! 
 Their country sure they cannot call 
 Shores where their feet wUl never fall, 
 
 A land from her embrace that drives ! " 
 15 
 
^ 
 
 226 POEMS. 
 
 What though there lie a shining crown 
 
 Of towers and gardens round the bay ? 
 Far from the beach their anchor's thrown, 
 Linked to the storm-worn ring alone 
 Of mole abandoned to decay. 
 
 Their wealth how poor ! their joys how pale ! 
 
 The burden of the songs they sing, 
 The breath of God to fill their sail. 
 Its friendly shelter from the gale, 
 
 And what their nets are gathering. 
 
 And this frail bark, my poor Valmore, 
 Becomes the image of thy fate ! 
 
 From morn to morn still driven o'er 
 
 A dreary ocean without shore, 
 And treacherous, and insatiate. 
 
 Thou bringest clay for thy poor nest 
 To tavern-eaves, and losest all. 
 
 And then, bird forbidden rest ! 
 
 From town to town thou gatherest 
 The crumbs by stranger hands let fall. 
 
 Thy young thou teachest festal airs, 
 But oh, the sorrow in thy tone ! 
 
 The pitying fowler hears and spares ; 
 
 He will not lay his cruel snares, 
 Alas ! until the wings are grown. 
 
 -* 
 
TO MME. DESBORDES-VALMORE. 227 
 
 But thou hast made the bird-notes thine, 
 
 Aiid still melodious is thy plaint. 
 And when the wintry winds combine 
 To thrust from sheltering bough and vine, 
 
 Thou singest on, — though sad, though faint. 
 
 Behold, I show a mystery ! 
 
 He who a perfect lyre has wrought, 
 In sudden passion flings it by. 
 Like shivered glass the fragments lie ; 
 
 To him his tuneful work is naught. 
 
 Yet comes the artist hand ere long 
 
 The ravaged fragments to restore ; 
 Awakes the interrupted song. 
 And finds a tone more pure, more strong. 
 
 In the rent harp-strings than before. 
 
 Some notes the soul can ne'er attain, 
 Till crushed the feet of Fate below ; 
 
 Then shall she lift, amid her pain, 
 
 For every wound a sweeter strain, 
 A nobler chord for every blow. 
 
 Then touch thy harp, and let it hide 
 
 Thy weeping eyes, and wait the morrow. 
 A poet well his hour may bide. 
 And tears that Glory's hands have dried 
 Soften the memory of sorrow ! 
 
Si^'W^Wi 
 
 Mm 
 
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