LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
 NEISON-H-CHASE- 
 
I 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 N- H- CHASE, 
 
 ALBANY, N> Y. 
 
JOUBERT 
 
 From a portrait in the possession of the Joubert family 
 
THE STORY 
 
 OF 
 
 TWO SALONS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDITH SICHEL 
 
 AUTHOR OF " WORTHINGTON JUNIOR," A NOVEL 
 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 (pitfitofler fo t$t Jnot'a dfftce 
 LONDON NEW YORK 
 
 37 BEDFORD STREET 70 FIFTH AVENUE 
 
 1895 
 
J7C33 
 
 O 
 
 $? 
 
TO 
 
 E. M. R. 
 
 ; Ayant 1'esprit et le coeur hospitaliers." 
 
 JOUBERT. 
 
 August 2J, 1895 
 
 
 220885 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTION ...... 9 
 
 THE LITTLE HOUSEHOLD OF THE SUARDS . .21 
 
 PAULINE DE BEAUMONT . . . . 157 
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 JOUBERT ..... Frontispiece 
 
 PAULINE DE BEAUMONT . . To face page 162 
 
 CHATEAUBRIAND . ,, 262 
 
BOOKS CONSULTED FOR "THE LITTLE HOUSEHOLD 
 OF THE SUARDS." 
 
 Essai de Memoires sur M. Suard. By Madame Suard. 
 
 Lettres de Ferney. By Madame Suard. 
 
 Encyclopedic Universelle. 
 
 Memoires de Garat. 
 
 Concerning the Quarrel of Mr. Hume and J. J. Rousseau. By 
 
 Horace Walpole. 
 Memoires de Marmontel. 
 
 Le Salon de Madame Necker. By D'Haussonville. 
 Life of Colman, containing Letters from Garrick. By Peeke. 
 
 FOR "PAULINE DE BEAUMONT." 
 
 Pauline de Beaumont. By M. Bardoux. 
 Correspondants de Joubert. By M. Paul Raynal. 
 Lettres de Joubert. Edited by M. Paul Raynal. 
 Pensees de Joubert. 
 
 Memoirs d'Outre-Tombe. By Chateaubriand. 
 Chateaubriand et son siecle. By Sainte Beuve. 
 M. Joubert. By Sainte Beuve. 
 Memoires Secretes. By M. d'Alonville. 
 Correspondance Secrete. 
 Memoires de Bertrand de Moleville. 
 French Revolution. By Thomas Carlyle. 
 L'Esquisse d'un Maitre. By M. Le Normant. 
 Correspondance inedite. By Sismondi. 
 Lucile de Chateaubriand. By Anatole France. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 r I ^HERE are some secrets which the past 
 -L keeps jealously from us. The mystery of 
 Greek beauty is guarded by marble gods and 
 goddesses ; the colour and sunlight of the old 
 Italian masters are buried with them beyond our 
 reach in Venetia and Tuscany ; the devout science 
 which made austerity lovely in Fugue and Prelude 
 seems no less a lost possession ; and, search as 
 we will, the secret of the art of society lies hidden 
 in France, in the Paris of the eighteenth century, 
 in the graves of tender ladies and frilled 
 philosophers, as sparkling as they were profound. 
 A few men and women there were who carried 
 the tradition of last century into this one. It 
 inspired them to preserve the glamour, the grace 
 of the Old World, and to combine them with the 
 new force, the graver purpose born of the 
 Revolution. But the ponderous spirit of the 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Forties, railways and regular education, chased the 
 last dear ghosts away, nor have they returned, 
 even for an hour. It is stirring, however, to 
 summon them before us ; to see them as they 
 painted themselves and each other, from every 
 side, in many memoirs, in countless letters, still 
 warm with life and its yearnings ; and to discover, 
 if that were possible, the secret of the charm they 
 shed about them. 
 
 As we read, as we gaze at their portraits 
 written or painted, a subtle atmosphere steals 
 round us, sweet, penetrating, radiant, indefinable. 
 We can hardly tell what it is made of of many 
 things, without doubt : of the salt of men's wisdom 
 and the flame of their passions ; of the soft 
 brilliance of women's wit ; above all, of the 
 fragrance of women's hearts, single, reckless, and 
 faithful in their devotion, yet so refined and so 
 piercing in their insight that they seemed better 
 than brains for all human knowledge. For they 
 thought with their hearts, these women, swiftly 
 and deeply, thus readjusting sadly enough for 
 them the balance between themselves and their 
 Encyclopaedist lovers, who so often felt with 
 their brains. 
 
 This difference certainly contributed to the 
 excitement of their intercourse and to the in- 
 
INTRODUCTION it 
 
 cessantly fresh emotion that kept it alive. Yet 
 there was more than this. Beneath the turbulence 
 and the foam of sentiment and wit there flowed 
 the current of intense feeling ; and it was this 
 fact that gave society then a vitality which it has 
 never had since. It is common to consider it as an 
 institution in itself shallow and frothy ; but it has 
 only become so because it has no deep truth 
 below the surface ; when it had, it proved that it 
 possessed a soul. The feelings that make society 
 now are but bubbles, and we are for ever mourn- 
 fully longing to substitute close intercourse for 
 our system of crowded drawing-rooms, by which 
 we see everybody and nobody at the same 
 moment. In those days, close intercourse and 
 society were identical ; the salons only held in 
 the evenings a collection, large or small, of the 
 couples, trios or quartets, who met and loved and 
 lived together every day and every group of 
 lovers or friends knew and cared for every 
 other group. 
 
 There was no compromise amongst them. The 
 force of their feelings, whether of love or friend- 
 ship, lay in their concentration. Concentration, 
 though it allows of wit, shuts out humour ; and 
 humour is in many ways inimical to passion. 
 English humour, at any rate, would not permit 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 the exaggerations of behaviour and of thought 
 which form part of salon habits ; or those daily 
 comings and goings which interrupt the ordinary 
 routine. We only allow amusing conversation at 
 stated hours ; and even then, we do not enjoy it 
 till we have become accustomed to the person 
 with whom we converse. This may partially 
 account for the fact that brilliant country houses, 
 from the day of Sir William Temple downwards, 
 have always represented our most successful form 
 of intercourse, as well as hospitality, and have 
 flourished where salons do not. When we have 
 had salons, like Lord Holland's, Lady Blessing- 
 ton's, or Mr. Nassau Senior's, they have too 
 frequently been affected by the practical English 
 character. Bills were passed there, before they 
 were heard of in Parliament ; duties were removed 
 from imports, whilst two Frenchmen would be 
 discussing the theory of Protection. Beneath the 
 wit there was business ; romance and emotion 
 were not prominent features ; and these dinner- 
 tables represented good company, discreet in its 
 relations, rather than vivid intercourse, so close 
 as to be fusion. Our insular reserve, perhaps 
 also our Northern morals, would never admit 
 those essential intimacies into general society. 
 For this reason, possibly, Miss Burney, who had, 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 if not a salon, at least a parlour, could not go 
 beyond it ; whilst Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, 
 who collected a circle, and seem the nearest 
 approach to their contemporaries in Paris, 
 made no lasting effect upon social life. The 
 same may be said of the Miss Berry s, who, 
 although they gathered together all the distin- 
 guished men and women of their long day, from 
 Horace Walpole to Thackeray, were unable to 
 transmit their mantle to younger shoulders. 
 
 As for the poets and wits of Queen Anne's 
 reign, they did not invite women to Wills' and 
 White's ; though the club life which they created 
 was as original and vigorous as the salon life in 
 France, and much more suited to the English 
 ideal of good comradeship and intellectual 
 exchange. 
 
 The disappearance of the salon world in France 
 is a greater mystery caused by subtler reasons. 
 It would be trite to dwell on the complex con- 
 ditions of modern existence which make leisurely 
 intercourse, passionate correspondence perhaps 
 passion itself impossible. Newspapers and 
 reviews choke intellectual discussion, and men 
 instinctively reserve the expression of their ideas 
 till they are paid for them. Sympathies and 
 possibilities have widened everywhere ; there 
 
i 4 INTRODUCTION 
 
 seems more to do and less time to do it in, than 
 ever before. Yet we feel that the French always 
 possess the material the temperament for society 
 - though the conditions which developed it are 
 past. France may, or may not, rank as a political 
 force, but it must for ever be acknowledged that 
 it has the genius for intellectual charm a charm 
 which found complete expression in the society 
 of last century, and owed its sway not only to 
 suave manners and fastidious senses, but still 
 more to a nice discrimination and to true beauty 
 of spirit. 
 
 This is, at any rate, the golden bequest which 
 these Frenchwomen have left us. They spent 
 their lives in loving ; they made love into a 
 finished art. In the lives of those they loved, 
 there was no fact, from an omelette to the Theory 
 of Perfectibility, which their hearts did not master. 
 When they did not meet once or twice a day, 
 they wrote letters as concentrated in feeling as 
 they were keen in discussion of current topics or 
 of human nature. 
 
 It is strange to think how many must have 
 been destroyed. One collection alone, belonging 
 to a certain M. Pondeveylle, contained 16,000 
 epistles from one lady, in a correspondence of 
 only eleven years. His executors wisely crammed 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 them into the oven. " Persons have been known 
 here," writes Horace Walpole from Paris, "who 
 wrote to one another four times a day." It would 
 almost seem as if their days perhaps their nights 
 must have been longer then than now. 
 
 Their letters to their friends differ little from 
 those to their lovers, for their ardour embraced 
 not only one, but every kind of emotion with the 
 same zest ; if friendship was a passion with them, 
 so was hero-worship. Voltaire, Rousseau, Buffon, 
 Fontenelle, and many lesser lights, had their 
 votaries who wrote pages to them on their special 
 subjects and on their personal virtues ; pages crude 
 and often absurd in their adulation, but always 
 sincere. An Englishwoman would scold at such 
 waste of firing upon their altars, and declare that 
 such gush must be incompatible with sincerity ; but 
 warmth and truth of expression can go together, 
 and these women led the life of sentiment, not of 
 sentimentality. 
 
 Society, however, cannot subsist on sentiment 
 alone. It must be amused and absorbed, or it 
 would dissolve ; there must be intercourse of mind 
 between the men and women of whom it is made. 
 Never, indeed, was intellectual excitement so 
 potent or so sustained as in these eighteenth- 
 century circles ; never were women keener and 
 
16 INTRODUCTION 
 
 wiser in thought, or happier in expressing it. 
 Philosophers, men of science, men of letters, con- 
 sulted them upon the weightiest topics, and they 
 replied with the seriousness of men and the grace 
 of women. The secret of their skill defies 
 analysis perhaps it depended on the delicate 
 interweaving of mind and feeling. But whether 
 it lay in the fact that their intellects were so 
 emotional, or that their emotions were so intel- 
 lectual, it is now impossible to say. 
 
 And if (as was, alas, frequent) they carried the 
 love which absorbed them beyond the bounds, is 
 it for us to judge them, these "ladies of old time, 
 noble and charming even in their errors " ? They 
 lived, as M. d'Haussonville has pointed out to 
 us, at a moment when there was no religious 
 reason for morality. Old beliefs had crumbled 
 and new ones were not yet set up, yet women's 
 hearts felt the same need for self-sacrifice and 
 for worship as before. They sought their temple 
 in human affections, and made their gods of 
 frail men, trying "even in their weaknesses to 
 recover and to attain a certain ideal whose con- 
 fused image their eyes had half beheld." Carried 
 away by the adoration for intellect then prevailing, 
 it is not surprising that they should have stepped 
 out of the Narrow Way, which for them led no- 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 whither, and transgressed the limits which they 
 attributed to conventionality. 
 
 And when everything is said, they remain 
 supreme in charm. Too much stress is perhaps 
 laid upon their enchanted setting upon the wax 
 candles, the cupids, the powder and the brocade. 
 Such trappings were indeed less prominent than 
 is supposed, and belonged -especially to the 
 luxurious days of the Regent or of the Pompadour. 
 The salons of which we write were often shabby, 
 though the curtains and hangings were chosen 
 with care to suit their owners' complexions, and 
 their very atmosphere breathed refinement. But 
 furniture and draperies alike were dominated and 
 overwhelmed by personality by the faces that 
 expressed it, many in number, infinitely different. 
 We can see them now some fair, some wise, 
 some mocking, some plain, and a few pensive 
 with the tender light of memory in their eyes, all 
 alike animated by the glow of aspiration and 
 desire. We can hear their words, as they lose 
 themselves in important subjects. They are talk- 
 ing gravely and well, eagerly, yet soberly, to the 
 philosophes, the men of letters, who sit or stand at 
 their feet, their great heads covered by festive 
 periwigs ; or a fencing-match of wit is going on 
 between them, and bons mots fall crisp and bright 
 
1 8 INTRODUCTION 
 
 from their lips, probably leaving the women 
 victorious ; or they are analysing, through and 
 through, the character of some friend, with the 
 finest shades of a fine modern novelist with an 
 ease, a grace, a gift of apt expression all their 
 own. 
 
 There is old Madame du Deffand of the 
 stiletto-tongue, who with every contrivance to 
 possess a heart, never acquired one ; and there is 
 the gracious-hearted Madame d'Houdetot, who 
 made an extra sense of sensibility ; and the 
 naughty Marquise de Bouffiers, who wished to 
 retire to a desert island with her " eighty best 
 friends and twenty-five more who were absolutely 
 necessary to her " ; and Madame Necker, intense, 
 courageous, clinging, hiding her fiery feelings in 
 habits of austerity. Form after form flits in and 
 out of her salon : little Madame Suard, seeking 
 heroes and finding them everywhere ; Madame 
 Geoffrin, benevolent, cold, warm - witted, and 
 unlettered ; Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, too 
 vehement to be constant ; and, last but not least, 
 known and loved by a few, with tiny figure, pale 
 face, and profound eyes, Pauline de Montmorin, 
 daughter of the Minister, in all the sweetness of 
 her eighteen years to be heard of later as 
 Pauline de Beaumont, the friend of Joubert, the 
 
INTRODUCTION 19 
 
 lover of Chateaubriand, the heart of the shabby 
 little salon in the Rue Neuve du Luxembourg. 
 
 We, who know their future, look upon them all 
 with a yearning to warn them with dismay. 
 For towards their magic shore comes rolling 
 slowly but surely the tide of blood which swept 
 so many away. It was these same women, living 
 on sensibility and luxury, wfio most of them 
 endured loss, imprisonment, death, with holy 
 patience and supreme courage. But for the 
 moment, are they not here, gracious and gay, 
 holding out their white hands to us, beckoning ? 
 I look up to greet them and they have vanished, 
 and suddenly I realise that they are dead that 
 they are gone, never to revive. 
 
 We have good things unknown to them, more 
 important than theirs. Our faith is wider and 
 warmer ; our outlook larger. We have sturdier 
 morals and more ardent activities. But the lesser 
 good must go. Iphigenia had to be sacrificed 
 for our victory and charm of life has fled to 
 some hidden temple. It will be urged as con- 
 solation for this loss, that matter is more than 
 manner : yet the way in which we express 
 existence is also of importance. 
 
 It is our sense of this which makes us venture 
 to revive some of the less - known salons of 
 
20 INTRODUCTION 
 
 eighteenth - century Paris. The Suards and 
 Pauline de Beaumont are names unfamiliar to 
 English ears. But the byways are more ad- 
 venturous than the highroad, and provide us 
 with many unexpected points of view. For this 
 reason alone they would be worth pursuing ; still 
 more so if they could but impart some perception 
 of "that sociability which distinguishes France; 
 that charming interchange of intellect, as easy as 
 it is rapid ; that absence of bitterness or prejudice ; 
 that inattention to fortune or to reputation ; that 
 natural levelling of all ranks ; that equality of 
 mind which makes French society incomparable, 
 and redeems its faults." 
 
THE 
 
 LITTLE HOUSEHOLD OF THE SUARDS 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 SOME persons, we should perhaps say per- 
 sonalities, are born to rule a circle ; other 
 people, socially important, if not famous, are, by 
 nature, agreeable pegs on which to hang associa- 
 tions more illustrious than themselves. Their 
 gift is to provide, rather than to talk to serve, 
 and not to dominate. If they do not make history, 
 they compile it, and allow their own names to 
 disappear amidst those of their authorities. 
 
 Such were the Suards, now seldom mentioned, 
 who began humbly, loved culture, and lived simply, 
 gaining reputation by their simplicity, so that they 
 were known amongst the great as " The Little 
 Household." Suard's solid literary judgment and 
 impartial mind his independence, his sympathy, 
 and his reticence, together with his achievements 
 as a journalist, gave him real moral and intel- 
 lectual value. He was a born editor, and as such, 
 
 v 
 
24 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 far more beloved by writers and thinkers than 
 they were by each other. An excellent listener, 
 he had also an express power of making and 
 keeping good friends both amongst men and 
 women a power in nowise lessened by a certain 
 coldness which prevented his taking offence, or 
 seeing people too closely. Rapidly becoming a 
 universal counsellor, he certainly exercised more 
 power in that way than as Permanent Secretary 
 to the Academy, an office filled by him in later 
 years. Marmontel was his affectionate colleague ; 
 Holbach and Helvetius were his admirers ; Grimm, 
 Diderot, and d'Alembert his enthusiastic friends ; 
 Voltaire approved of him ; Buffon was devoted 
 to him ; Condorcet lived for years with him and 
 his wife ; and last, but not least, he kept the peace 
 with Rousseau. As a confidant of stormy-hearted 
 ladies, specially of the witty Mademoiselle de 
 Lespinasse, he had quite a reputation ; whilst his 
 love for English books and constitutional methods 
 attracted to his house all the English and Scotch 
 in Paris. He translated the histories of Robert- 
 son, and corresponded constantly with him ; he 
 was intimate with David Hume, Horace Walpole, 
 and the Edgeworths ; Garrick adopted him as 
 his crony, and did not like parting with him for a 
 single hour during his stay in Paris, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 25 
 
 Little Madame Suard, on her side, had a large 
 heart, and just enough of inspired folly to attain 
 the popularity of the flatterer, by the honest 
 means of the hero-worshipper. It must also be 
 added that she possessed considerable personal 
 beauty. Her adulation of Voltaire, Condorcet, 
 and a host of others, though usually absurd, was 
 at least as sincere as it was acceptable ; and if she 
 was not made for posterity, she was specially 
 created for a warm and living present. Protected 
 by the potent Madame Geoffrin and the conscien- 
 tious Madame Necker, the young couple soon 
 became the fashion throughout the Encyclopaedist 
 world. Their poverty, too, represented a novel 
 amusement to their patrons, and an acceptable 
 vent for the kindness and philanthropy of which 
 there was then so much that could find no 
 outlet. 
 
 She emulated her husband as a reviewer, but 
 loved literature better than she judged it. She 
 could, however, write prettily. There is distinct 
 charm, for instance, in a set of letters to her 
 husband (written for publication), in which she 
 describes a man - friend she has made in his 
 absence, who spends every evening with her by 
 the fireside, counselling her and taking possession 
 of her mind, This Mentor she finally reveals to 
 
26 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 be no other than Seneca, whose works she has 
 been reading". Suard was probably not much 
 alarmed ; he knew that his influence over her was 
 complete and lasting. She was for ever in a 
 flutter, and he was for ever calming her. Had he 
 not been as sensible as he was, his certainty of 
 her would have amounted to fatuity, for her little 
 rages even her flirtations left him serene in 
 the consciousness that they only arose from her 
 wounded love for him. At one time perhaps 
 rather bored by her affection he is said to have 
 neglected her for literary enterprises ; she, who 
 had many admirers before her marriage, knew 
 how to revenge herself. Suard showed no 
 disapproval. One day she told him she had 
 ceased to love him. " That will come back," 
 he coldly replied. " But it is because I love 
 another," she cried. " That will pass," was all 
 his answer. 
 
 But no mention of any disagreement disturbs 
 her Honeymoon Memoirs of their married life, and 
 they were, in truth, a very happy, if somewhat 
 over-anxious couple : as English, strange to say, 
 in their matrimonial as in their political ideals. 
 They were the Edwin and Angelina of the 
 French literary world. If one of them was out 
 five minutes beyond the hour appointed, the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 27 
 
 other was immediately ready to institute a search- 
 party ; he always asked her permission to sup out 
 without her, in the full conviction of her never- 
 failing consent, though she did not permit him 
 to desert her at soirees. He used to beg her to 
 follow his example and dine out with her friends, 
 but she preferred solitude. She has no words 
 for his wisdom in dealing with her faults, especi- 
 ally her besetting sin of greediness. " I only 
 digested well beneath a cloudless sky," she tells 
 us ; and his tones were so sweet when he im- 
 plored her not to eat too much, that she instantly 
 took back the plate she had sent for more of 
 some dainty on the table. 
 
 But as in the details of love (only fit for the 
 hearth which they grace) the best people fre- 
 quently fall below their own mental level ; so in 
 its bigger events they often rise above themselves 
 and, for her husband, Amelie Suard was always 
 courageous, attaining during the Revolution a 
 pitch of heroism remarkable in such a timid soul. 
 Fed on the best literature, the choice of which 
 he never ceased to govern, great ideas found a 
 congenial soil in her heart and bore fruit in due 
 season. But Suard, whilst he valued her eager- 
 ness, was by no means blind to her deficiencies of 
 mind, She had no taste for the analytic spirit 
 
28 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 of the day, preferring romantic or didactic 
 literature. 
 
 " She is no more capable of seizing a humorous 
 point than an abstract idea," he once wrote. "She 
 would not be aware that she was entertaining a 
 fop or a fool, unless she discovered that she was 
 being bored, and then she is capable of dying of 
 him, not of laughing at him. She has no social 
 tact a quality which does not come from the 
 heart, but from the mind, and often from cunning. 
 But put her in the midst of natural beauty, and 
 you will find that scenery, whether it be grand 
 or merely sweet and pleasing, will equally take 
 possession of her imagination. She has the 
 power of describing a thing immediately and of 
 reproducing it vividly months afterwards. A 
 truth pointed out will escape her ; a truth ex- 
 pressed by Bossuet or Montesquieu, in all its 
 breadth and height, remains in her mind for ever. 
 She reads every novel and every history, and 
 never forgets them. Vauvenargues does not feel 
 better than she does what distinguishes Racine 
 from Corneille, and the most eloquent panegyrists 
 of Fe*nelon have not come up to what she feels as 
 she reads him. She is too happy when she reads 
 beautiful verse or prose to have any temptation 
 to write herself," 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 29 
 
 In early life, Suard had gone through adven- 
 tures so striking that they would have been 
 adequate to a bigger reputation. His character 
 was certainly more remarkable than his mind, 
 and wherever his will was exercised, he came off 
 triumphant. Born at Besan^on, about 1734, his 
 life knew no events till his nineteenth year, when 
 a friend of his had a duel with the nephew of the 
 War Minister of the day. The latter was killed ; 
 the other man fled at once ; and Suard, who was 
 witness, and the only person on the spot, was 
 arrested as a murderer. Too noble to betray his 
 friend, he vouchsafed no answer to any question, 
 and was consigned first to a terrible cell in the 
 city prison, where he nearly died of fever ; then, 
 on his continued silence, and through the per- 
 sonal spite of the governor of the town, he was 
 sent away to the fortress of the He Sainte 
 Marguerite, a kind of Bastille, where many men 
 remained buried alive and unheard of for years. 
 His very parents were ignorant of his where- 
 abouts, and writing materials were an impossibility 
 in his deep dungeon, with its one window-slit 
 high up in the massive wall. 
 
 Here he endured the worst misery, with a forti- 
 tude beyond his eighteen years. The rascally 
 governor of the fortress was allowed five hundred 
 
30 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 francs a year for each prisoner, but only used 
 three hundred, so that, in addition to darkness, 
 hardship, and solitude, the boy was almost starved. 
 A nameless horror took possession of him. To 
 keep his health he danced alone in his dungeon, 
 and fenced with no foils but his own arms and no 
 other opponent than the stone wall. One night, 
 when his oppression of spirit had become well-nigh 
 unbearable, he fell asleep, and in his slumbers 
 heard an ineffable melody played on a flute which 
 pierced straight to his heart. When he awoke, 
 his vague horror had vanished, and cheerfulness 
 returned. His dream was indeed a good omen, 
 for soon after this the governor sent him pen 
 and paper, a Spanish Bible, and Bayle's Diction- 
 ary, a combination which implies more good- 
 will than literary habit in their owner. It could 
 not, however, have been luckier. Suard plunged 
 into a close study of the Scriptures, especially of 
 the race of Israel, resulting in a profound and 
 ineradicable faith in the existence of God which 
 influenced him all through life. Then he turned 
 to Bayle, and proceeded to make a revised edition 
 of his work, a compendium of universal history 
 strengthening both to the brain and judgment 
 of the student. His position in prison, between 
 the Bible and Bayle, was significant of his whole 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 31 
 
 mental attitude in later life, and may have had 
 some power in deciding it. 
 
 Diversion from his scholarly labours had also 
 to be invented. He discovered that, by slipping 
 and scrambling, he could reach the porthole in 
 the wall and look out upon the Mediterranean. 
 Here, day after day, he watched the gleaming 
 sails of unattainable ships, and "knew that human 
 beings were near, but that they could neither 
 see nor hear him. Here, too, he daily beheld 
 the bathers ; these, he rather feverishly tells us, 
 generally consisted of beautiful floating ladies, 
 whose distant charms seem slightly to have over- 
 powered his brain. He became a prey to all 
 kinds of visions, which he sensibly recognised as 
 the symptoms of a weakened mind. Trembling 
 (as he describes) with the fear of insanity, he 
 resolved to adopt some severer discipline than his 
 studies, and took to arithmetic and to drawing 
 mathematical problems upon the walls. A great 
 mathematician told him in after days that, out of 
 his own intellect, he had evolved and demonstrated 
 the most abstruse logarithms. But even these 
 matter-of-fact figures " began to appear to him as 
 if they were on fire " ; he was at the end of his 
 tether. 
 
 One day, at this period, his door was pushed 
 
32 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 open, and a handsome young man entered. This 
 was the Chevalier de Luz, a fellow-prisoner for 
 some disgraceful crime, a bold rake and fascinat- 
 ing scoundrel, who had (we are told) " a genius 
 for vice," but who was at any rate good company, 
 and now visited Suard every evening. He knew 
 all the tricks of the prison, and promised that if 
 Suard wrote to his parents, the letter should 
 reach its destination. Suard did write several 
 times, and the Chevalier kept his word, but used 
 the correspondence in order to extort money from 
 Suard's father, on the strength of which, by 
 astounding audacity, he escaped, leaving Suard 
 behind him. But the latter was now in com- 
 munication with those interested in his welfare ; 
 influence was brought to bear, authorities were 
 stirred, with the result that, after eighteen 
 months of imprisonment, the young man was set 
 free. 
 
 He was now about twenty, of height above the 
 average, with " rather small eyes, full of mind, 
 sweetness, and finesse" His graceful address, 
 convincing sincerity, and power of self-possession 
 without coldness, had the effect of charming 
 people at first sight. He was made for Paris 
 and to Paris he shortly went. 
 
 In our days, a young man of parts, who comes 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 33 
 
 to a large town, can hardly prove his claim to 
 talent without severe struggle with many com- 
 petitors. It is strange, in comparing that age 
 with ours, to find how different things were then. 
 Anybody of moderate gifts and ambitions arriv- 
 ing in Paris, could be pretty certain of making 
 a mark, whilst real merit was never left to 
 itself. There was doubtless^ less competition, 
 and therefore more scope for able men. Journal- 
 ism, which now rejects as superfluous so many 
 unfortunates, was then in its first youth and 
 crying for recruits. Mind was at a premium, and 
 patronage, in its most amiable stage, no longer a 
 tyrant, but still a protector. 
 
 But the most important reason seems to have 
 lain in the essential arrangements of eighteenth- 
 century society, at its best when Suard appeared 
 on the scene. It was the moment at which the 
 reign of Louis XV. met that of Louis XVI. ; 
 when the sunset of the old Court shone serenely 
 over the cradle of the sleeping Revolution, and 
 the tragedies both of death and of birth were 
 yet hidden. The power of the Pompadour was 
 fading, and with it went the subordination of 
 weight to epigram and depth to gaiety ; whilst 
 the rising race of philosophers in love with 
 freedom, and of scientists in love with facts, was 
 3 
 
34 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 already deepening the tone of fashionable thought, 
 and leading people to consider matter more than 
 manner. 
 
 The society of that day may be roughly divided 
 into three regions : the world of the Court, which 
 still owned but a single aim to be amused ; choos- 
 ing its men of letters with that view, conducting 
 every kind of intrigue with the severest etiquette, 
 and hedging itself round with a barrier which 
 only opened to allow the Duchesse de Luxem- 
 bourg, the Duchesse de Lauzun, and the Princesse 
 de Poix to pass into the domain of letters and 
 conversation. 
 
 Below these heights, came the world of the 
 Salons, where grace kept company with thought, 
 and which included the intellectual aristocrats, 
 the cultured middle class, the distinguished 
 foreigners, and the famous Abbes. 
 
 Lastly, we enter the more serious domain of 
 the Petits Soupers, those banquets of the 
 Encyclopaedists consisting only of men : of 
 philosophers, Economists, and men of science 
 such as were given by Helve*tius and the Baron 
 d'Holbach. Here it was that many of the new 
 bottles for the new wine were unconsciously 
 fabricated, amidst talk which was usually as grave 
 as it was brilliant. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 35 
 
 With the first of these, the Court-world, Suard 
 had little or nothing to do. With the two last 
 he became connected almost at once. The Salons 
 and the Little Suppers belonged, in fact, to each 
 other, for the philosophers who gathered together 
 at the latter had spent the rest of their time in 
 the former, at the feet of the ladies who ruled 
 them. Both these provinces were needful to the 
 kingdom of the Encyclopaedists, whose choice of 
 creeds, as well as that of their wives, was deter- 
 mined by their usefulness only ; but whose loves 
 were directed according to laws even more 
 natural than those they investigated for the sake 
 of science. Their heat, however, was but that of 
 ice which burns ; with them passions, often as 
 faithful as they were illegal, were accompanied by 
 strange coldness ; and the most generous dreams 
 of the intellect for humanity by complete inaction. 
 Thought and deed lived divorced from one another ; 
 reality was always discussed and seldom encoun- 
 tered ; Deism by no means excluded servile 
 materialism, whilst the feverish increase of know- 
 ledge seemed to cause a corresponding reaction in 
 sentiment. The concentrated life of the head 
 could only find relaxation in a concentrated life of 
 the heart, demanding no justification but its own 
 warmth, consuming the faggots of morality, hiding 
 
36 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 their ashes by flame, and leaving little behind it 
 but smoke and an altar : too often that of a 
 woman's soul. Never, perhaps, was there a time 
 when sincerity was so insincere with the natural 
 result that never since the Middle Ages had body 
 and spirit lived such separate lives ; it was, so to 
 speak, the reverse side of asceticism which the 
 philosophers brought about. 
 
 Nevertheless, there were compensations. If 
 the men of 1750 clung to the flesh-pots, the 
 cultivated women have rarely been more capable 
 of renouncing them. Women are seldom pioneers 
 and these ladies often lived luxuriously because 
 it was the custom of their class to do so, and no 
 standard had been set up for them. Madame de 
 Stael (directly after her marriage), when Marie- 
 Antoinette reproached her for an extravagant 
 table, at once reduced her entries from forty to 
 eighteen, and considered herself economical ; but 
 she would willingly have lived on potted meat 
 and Swiss milk for the sake of those she loved. 
 Plain living and high thinking were never so 
 well combined by Frenchwomen as at the date 
 we speak of. They took interest in ideas for 
 their own sake ; and, either as mistresses or 
 friends, equally understood the conditions of intel- 
 lectual companionship. Talk has consequently 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 37 
 
 seldom been better than then; and if there 
 was never so much passion, there has also per- 
 haps never been such absence of coquetry in 
 society. 
 
 " Their women," says Horace Walpole of the 
 French, "are the first in the world in everything 
 but beauty ; sensible, agreeable, and infinitely 
 informed. The philosophes"- he adds, with a 
 touch of jealousy, " except Buffon, are solemn, 
 arrogant, dictatorial coxcombs I need not say 
 superlatively disagreeable." At a moment when 
 science meant success, the scholarly, dilettante 
 Walpole was hardly at his strongest, though he 
 was popular in all the chief drawing-rooms. 
 
 At the moment of Suard's arrival, three women 
 ruled Paris through their salons; Madame du 
 Deffand, Madame Geoffrin, and Madame 
 Necker. 
 
 Madame du Deffand, aristocratic to the tips of 
 her fingers, a wit to the tip of her tongue, and a 
 pedant to the depths of her brain, was the survivor 
 of the old tradition, with a taste for new ideas, 
 rather than a disciple of them. Once the mistress 
 of the Regent, she possessed all the fascination of 
 intellectual beauty ; she kept up its traditions, and 
 even in her latter years always chose her curtains 
 to suit her complexion. "What a need of other 
 
38 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 people, and yet what contempt of them ! " it was 
 once said of her. She had acute sensibilities, which 
 often appeared like a heart the one gift not in 
 her possession. The want of it, together with her 
 blindness, heightened her senses and her wish for 
 affection without giving her the means of fulfilling 
 it. These means she tried hard to manufacture. 
 To Voltaire she gave an abstract devotion, and 
 enjoyed sharpening her blade upon that master- 
 sword the only match for her weapon, even in 
 that world of flashing steel ; whilst, when she was 
 seventy, or what she called soixante-et-mille ans, 
 she fell in love with Horace Walpole, and, in spite 
 of his frequent retreats, lavished on him the 
 warmest feeling of which she was capable. But 
 her craving for affection appears to us to be not 
 even pathetic, springing as it did from the one 
 idea which regulated her life a horror of being 
 bored. It was impossible to her to endure one 
 moment of dulness, and she could use all her 
 senses even her want of them to prevent this 
 catastrophe. An Economist came to see her one 
 day, and began to talk upon his special topic. 
 " I wonder what the name can be of that tire- 
 some book you are reading ? " she exclaimed. 
 " Pray put it down, and do not trouble yourself 
 further." 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 39 
 
 Yet bored she always was, in spite of her 
 efforts, whether plunged in a hyperbolic friend- 
 ship with her bonne-maman, the young Duchesse 
 de Choiseul, or in the midst of her daily routine. 
 She rose at six in the evening (morning and 
 afternoon never existed for her), and sat up 
 all night : receiving visits first from her friend 
 d'Alembert and from her lover, the President 
 He*nault, who visited or wrote to her every day 
 for twenty years ; then from the rest of the world 
 always excepting the Economists. Of them she 
 made persistent fun, as part of an age which did 
 not regard her as the first of women ; Turgot, to 
 her, was "a fool and a beast," the others she 
 ignored. But it was not only in good company 
 that she found distraction ; sometimes she resorted 
 to minor pleasures. " Her herculean weakness" 
 (writes Horace Walpole), " which could not resist 
 strawberries and cream after supper, has sur- 
 mounted all the ups and downs which followed 
 her excess." As a last resource against tedium, 
 she took to herself a companion, Mademoiselle 
 de Lespinasse, poor, witty, enchanting, the more 
 so for being plain. The tyrant du Deffand made 
 her read aloud so constantly that it gave her an 
 affection of the lungs for the rest of her life. 
 She knew how to revenge herself, however, and 
 
40 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 Madame du Deffand had perhaps counted too 
 much on her plainness. The charming companion, 
 with great presence of mind, rose an hour before 
 her mistress, and contrived between five and six 
 to hold a secret salon of her own, consisting of 
 Madame du Deffand's chief habituts, who had by 
 now become Mademoiselle de Lespinasse's warm 
 admirers. D'Alembert fell deeply in love with 
 her. One evening the elder woman came down a 
 few minutes earlier than her wont, and found him 
 making love to the younger. Her fury knew no 
 bounds, and she chased from her house "the ser- 
 pent she had (somewhat insufficiently) cherished." 
 It was a short-sighted action, for the whole salon 
 rose in indignation, and followed the serpent into 
 the next street. Even the President Renault 
 deserted ; whilst the Duchesse de Luxembourg, 
 Madame du Deffand's greatest friend, went over 
 to the new favourite, and actually furnished her 
 apartment. Here the triumphant Mademoiselle 
 de Lespinasse set up the most successful salon in 
 Paris. She and d'Alembert remained bound 
 together by a strong mutual attraction, due, so 
 they said, to the touching fact that they were 
 both illegitimate children. After a dangerous 
 illness, during which she nursed him, they set up 
 house together, attracting many fresh recruits. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 41 
 
 Amongst others was Suard, whom she gradually 
 came to trust with her most intimate confidences. 
 He early became acquainted with the rivals of 
 Madame du Deffand, Madame Geoffrin and the 
 young Madame Necker, who were united by the 
 closest intimacy. 
 
 Madame Geoffrin was, at this date, an elderly 
 woman, with no beauty save her snow-white hair. 
 Born of bourgeois family, she was as destitute of 
 education as she was full of wits. Though for 
 twenty-five years she had been the centre of the 
 Encyclopaedists, she never opened their books, or 
 indeed any others, and to the end of her days she 
 spelled according to her fancy. A savant once 
 begged that he might dedicate a grammar to her. 
 "What! dedicate a grammar to me J" she cried. 
 " To me, who cannot even spell!" In revenge 
 she read men and women with keen understand- 
 ing, and deserved a diploma in the study of human 
 inconsistency. It was said of her that " savoir 
 faire was her supreme science," a gift specially 
 shown in her choice of a husband. Wisely pre- 
 ferring dulness to the clash of minds, she married 
 the founder of a mirror- manufactory, with no 
 taste except that for the trompette marine, which 
 he played incessantly. His literary powers were 
 not great. On finishing, for the third time, the 
 
42 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 same volume of the same book, "It is very good," 
 he admitted, "only there seems a little repeti- 
 tion." But Madame Geoffrin appears never to 
 have regretted her union, and even to have re- 
 mained faithful to him. She could not idealise, 
 and so was seldom disappointed. Stranger still, 
 she did not like others to idealise her. She 
 constantly reproached Madame Necker, who had 
 an exalted friendship for her, with "perpetual 
 enthusiasm and incapability of coldness." 
 
 " One day " (she writes to her) " you will punish 
 me for your illusions, by refusing to allow me a 
 single good quality. . . . The angels set very little 
 store by me, and I don't care a fig for them. . . . 
 I shan't keep company with them, but what I do 
 sincerely wish is that you should love me truly, 
 and see me just as I am." 
 
 Like all students who have matriculated in the 
 art of living, she made a creed of compromise. 
 " Hers was a strange character, " wrote Marmontel, 
 "difficult to grasp or to paint, because it was 
 in half-tints and delicate shades, though it was 
 very decided. She was kind but not sensitive ; 
 benevolent without any of the charms of bene- 
 volence; impatient to help the unfortunate, so 
 long as she need not see them for fear of being 
 moved." 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 43 
 
 She only possessed two warm qualities irrita- 
 tion with folly, and zeal for her friends' morals. 
 " An affectionate scold, she toiled at perfecting 
 the characters of her acquaintance," insisting, in 
 softest tones, upon their submission to her coun- 
 sels, jealous of their confidence, and tyrannising 
 over their constitutions. In return, she gave 
 them all her wisdom and much" of her kindness. 
 When Madame Necker was ill, Madame Geoffrin 
 sat with her daily, bringing her own arm-chair 
 in her coach. She nursed Marmontel through a 
 fever with the greatest good-humour, and was 
 full of little attentions for him. Yet when his in- 
 discretion brought him to the Bastille, and again, 
 when his tragedy was suppressed for its political 
 allusions, she refused to receive him into her 
 house. Illness was the affair of the Creator (the 
 only rival she owned) ; failure was the folly of 
 men. She was just as cautious intellectually, and 
 only entertained the more advanced Encyclopaedists 
 in secret, especially Holbach and Diderot, though 
 both of them were her friends and had founded 
 her reputation. The rest, together with all the 
 artists and men of letters, she entertained on 
 Wednesdays and Fridays at dinner, keeping her 
 intimates to supper. 
 
 " The good cheer at these latter meals was 
 
44 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 succinct" writes Marmontel- "generally a chicken, 
 some spinach, and an omelette. The company 
 was not numerous, at most five or six of her par- 
 ticular friends, or a ' quadrille ' of men and women 
 from the great world, grouped as it pleased them, 
 and very glad to be with one another. . . . The 
 Venus of these suppers was the alluring and 
 piquant d'Egmont, daughter of the Duke of 
 Richelieu. 
 
 Madame Geoffrin, like most bourgeoises, had a 
 weakness for aristocrats, "whom she knew how 
 to tempt into her salon, flattering them without 
 seeming to do so." It was perhaps her powers 
 of attraction that made the envious du Deffand 
 condemn her as absurdly underbred. This was 
 to all intents a libel, so far as her habits were 
 concerned ; " she was simple in her tastes, in 
 her clothes, in her furniture, but distinguished 
 in her simplicity " ; and, more than this, she knew 
 how to amuse. A great mistress of the art of 
 story-telling, "she had the good sense to speak 
 only of what she knew well, and to allow better 
 informed people to talk about other topics ; always 
 polite and attentive, and never even appearing 
 bored with what she did not understand. But 
 she was all the more skilful in presiding over and 
 keeping in hand these two societies, which were 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 45 
 
 naturally rather free. . . . It must be owned, how- 
 ever, that her company lacked one charm liberty 
 of thought. With her gentle ' Voila qui est bienj 
 she never left off holding our minds as in a leash ; 
 and when she was in the wrong, it was no laugh- 
 ing matter." In discussions on public affairs, she 
 insisted on facts without comments. And as for 
 her " celestial politics," Marmontel assures us that 
 "in order to be on good terms with heaven, 
 without being on bad terms with the world, she 
 had invented for herself a sort of clandestine 
 devotion. She went to mass as to worldly ad- 
 vancement, had an apartment in a convent, and a 
 pew in the Capucin Chapel." 
 
 The good old middle-class and its grasp of 
 decorum had perhaps also something to do 
 with this. Though she braved bodily hardships, 
 travelling one winter to Warsaw to visit her 
 adopted son, Stanislas, King of Poland, she 
 would risk no spiritual adventure. It was safer 
 to be orthodox. One day, when she discovered 
 that Marmontel, the philosophe, was to stand 
 godfather to a friend's child, she insisted on 
 hearing him his beads, his Pater, and his answers 
 as sponsor, and would not let him go till he knew 
 them perfectly. He went straight from her to the 
 font, in the full assurance of his competence ; but 
 
 
46 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the Curb's first question, " What is your parish ? " 
 which had not been in his catechism, found him 
 without an answer. 
 
 Her salon was assiduously attended by the 
 five best-known Abbes : Morellet, the fencer in 
 Economics ; Galiani, the mimic and improvisatore, 
 a tiny, plastic Neapolitan, with eager wit and mer- 
 curial perceptions ; Maury, whose brain was " too 
 vehement and too green," and who was always 
 ready for a fray ; Delille, the familiar of boudoirs, 
 who said that he " loved solitude so long as 
 he had somebody to whom to say it " ; and 
 Raynal, the journalist, who hated nothing except 
 beggars. 
 
 Their presence, however, had nothing to do 
 with the orthodoxy of their hostess. The Abbes 
 played a great and unique part in the society of 
 that time partaking of confidential doctor, con- 
 fidential lawyer, and accommodating director. 
 They were, so to speak, the tactful ambassadors 
 from heaven to Paris, and, like most diplomatists, 
 became naturalised in that metropolis. 
 
 It was the Abb6 Raynal who, making Suard's 
 acquaintance soon after his arrival, first got 
 him work on the Mercure. He had begun by 
 a bank-clerkship, which he had instantaneously 
 thrown up because he thought it a sinecure ; then 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 47 
 
 he had been tutor to the sons of the Duke of 
 Nassau, a task by no means congenial to him. 
 He was only too glad to welcome a literary 
 protector in the Abbe*, and to be introduced by 
 him to Madame Geoffrin, who thenceforward 
 became his patron. As he was never guilty of 
 exaggeration or folly, their intercourse remained 
 almost unruffled, excepting for "her lectures on his 
 haughtiness when he rebuffed the advances of a 
 powerful but insolent person to whom she had 
 presented him. " When one hasn't a shirt to 
 one's back, one must have no pride," she said to 
 him. " On the contrary," he replied, "it is just 
 then that one must have it, because one has got 
 nothing else." Happily her introductions did not 
 stop here. 
 
 It was at her house that, almost directly, he met 
 Fontenelle, then old and rather deaf. The young 
 man's heart thrilled, and the past became alive 
 to him when the philosopher began the con- 
 versation with : "I remember one day hearing 
 Madame Lafayette say at Madame de S6vigne"s " 
 which sent Suard back happy to his solitary 
 apartment. Good luck pursued him. He wrote 
 an article upon Montesquieu which pleased the 
 latter, who expressed a wish to meet the author, 
 and had a long and flattering conversation with 
 
48 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 him. He came into contact with all the best 
 people at Madame Geoffrin's, and again at the 
 Hotel of Madame Necker, with whom he speedily 
 became acquainted. 
 
 It was greatly to Madame Geoffrin's credit 
 that, far from being jealous, she had a warm 
 affection for Madame Necker, who annexed 
 in three years the guests whom it had taken 
 the older woman a quarter of a century to 
 collect. 
 
 Yet it was rather by intellectual sway than by 
 charm that Madame Necker achieved this victory. 
 The Swiss minister's daughter, now wooed by 
 Gibbon, now sending her father's grey nag for 
 the curate-lovers with whom she held theological 
 flirtations ; the president and inventor of the youth- 
 ful Symposium by the Lausanne Fountain ; the 
 brave bread-winner and governess in aristocratic 
 families ; the penniless companion whom the 
 stately Necker courted in the place of her mistress 
 must have had Minerva's helmet as well as 
 her brains. It was not that she despised lighter 
 pleasures ; Marmontel rather spitefully describes 
 first meeting her at a ball " pretty enough, but 
 dancing badly," and rushing up to him to intro- 
 duce herself, and beg him to come and dine with 
 her, because she had heard so much of him, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 49 
 
 But her nature was serious. Geneva will out, 
 and the cassock showed beneath the hoop. This 
 contrast gave distinction both to her character 
 and her salon ; it helped her to hide a fiery heart 
 behind a measured, even rigid exterior ; at the 
 same time it concentrated her mind on the re- 
 ligious questions then under discussion, and made 
 her the Egeria of the EncylopSedists ; a Calvinist 
 Egeria, if not by creed, at least by temperament. 
 Through her own firm belief in God and the 
 soul, accentuated by frequent bodily suffering 
 which deepened her natural tendencies, she had 
 the power of tempering the extremes of the men 
 of science ; whilst her large mind admitted all 
 their ideas, and easily took the intellectual point 
 of view. Her Genevan friends reproached her 
 about her freethinking society. " I have atheists 
 for friends," she replied. "Why not? They 
 are unhappy friends." Her salon at the Hotel 
 Leblanc in the Rue Clery thus bore quite a 
 different stamp to Madame Geoffrin's, though 
 they saw precisely the same people. Here, 
 together with the Abbes already mentioned, came 
 that backbiter in ruffles, Marmontel, the courtly 
 old gossip, half sentimental, half malicious ; the 
 " Little Tempest Naigeon," the naturalist, splut- 
 tering, exclaiming, and prefacing all his con- 
 
50 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 versation with " Chimeras, errors, prejudices ! " 
 Thomas, Madame Necker's knight, who never 
 stirred from her side, and who presents a singular 
 combination of subtlety and triteness ; Marivaux, 
 the master of fine shades in novels and plays ; 
 Saint Lambert, the admirer and translator of 
 Bolingbroke, not gay himself, but easily ani- 
 mated by others, and considered the model of 
 a politeness " which came from the heart and 
 went to the heart " ; d' Alembert, gay and serene, 
 "a mixture of strength and weakness, whose 
 strength came from virtue, whilst his weakness 
 came from kindness " ; with him, his Mademoiselle 
 de Lespinasse, full of "the fire which circulated 
 through her veins and her nerves," the only 
 woman whom Madame Geoffrin admitted to her 
 intimate suppers. 
 
 As an antidote to her warmth, we have Grimm, 
 mincing, cold, and effusive, glittering with meteoric 
 accuracy, one-sided sarcasm, and stilted perora- 
 tions ; now laughing at " Hypatia Necker " for 
 being " d&vote in her own way, wishing to be a 
 sincere Huguenot, Socinian, pr Deist, though in 
 her determination to be something, she ends by 
 having no reason for anything " ; now making 
 the poor lady burst into tears at table, during 
 a religious argument of an advanced nature, in 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 51 
 
 which he refuses to be conquered by her ; then 
 writing a letter of apology, in which his chief 
 concern is the possible effect of her tears upon 
 her digestion ; at one moment scolding her for 
 living at ten minutes' distance from him, at another 
 describing his intellectual frivolities with Catherine 
 of Russia, and his life at the Court of Frederick 
 the Great, where he loved to ^appear dressed as 
 a shepherd with a crook and green ribbons. 
 More sympathetic is the figure of Diderot, the 
 jack-of-all-trades in literature, " better known 
 by intercourse than by his writings"; straight 
 from Bohemia and Mademoiselle Volland ; a 
 comet without a heaven, as perverse as he was 
 luminous ; a creature of intuitions, who was fertile 
 and fruitless, deep and shallow, coarse and 
 delicate, striking and commonplace, all in the 
 same breath. " He would rather," it was written, 
 ''invent the minuet all over again than dance it 
 like other people." But, gipsy as he was, he too 
 found a sanctuary with Madame Necker. " How 
 many things you will see here" so he says when 
 he sends her one of his books "which would 
 never have been either thought or written, if I 
 had had the honour of knowing you sooner. I 
 dare believe " (but here we detect him laughing 
 in his gold-laced sleeve) "that the purity of your 
 
52 THE STORY OF TWO SALON 
 
 soul would have passed into mine, and that I 
 also should have become a kind of angel." 
 Sometimes, as we have seen, came the fast- 
 aging Fontenelle, who had never been known 
 either to laugh or to cry, so that even Madame 
 Geoffrin reproached him with his indifference : 
 Fontenelle with his genius for suspending judg- 
 ment, whom the same lady asked what he should 
 do if she confessed herself guilty of a murder. 
 " I should wait, Madame," he replied. 
 
 And in the wake of all these appeared the 
 ambitious Helvetius, absorbed in the search for 
 a new Idea, and illuminated by his gift of eternal 
 youth; Holbach, the Patron, "calm, polite, never 
 familiar," and the owner of a prodigious memory ; 
 the high-souled Minister Turgot, eager for re- 
 form ; Creutz, the lover of the fine arts, " impas- 
 sioned for the beautiful in ethics full of informa- 
 tion never carried away, but often enchanted " ; 
 the handsome Milord Stormont, ambassador for 
 England, called "The Beautiful Englishman" by 
 the Parisians who saw him and " The Good 
 Englishman " by those who lived with him ; the 
 Baron Gleichen, Danish ambassador, who never 
 opened his lips without salting the conversation, 
 or allowed an irrational interjection to pass un- 
 punished. "That piece was very beautiful and 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 53 
 
 very difficult ! " a musical enthusiast said to him, 
 after an indifferent performance. " I only wish 
 it had been impossible" the Baron warmly replied. 
 He was no more merciful to a gushing lady who 
 beheld the foolish King Christian of Denmark 
 during his stay in Paris. " What a head he has 
 on his shoulders ! " she exclaimed to Gleichen. 
 "A crowned head, Madame," lie answered, with 
 a deep bow. 
 
 Last and, in his own house, least, the stately, 
 periwigged Necker strayed in and out of the 
 company, with distraught countenance, and brain 
 far away in fiscal Utopias. 
 
 Madame Geoffrin, as we know, entertained on 
 Mondays and Wednesdays, whilst Holbach had 
 Thursdays. Madame Necker was therefore com- 
 pelled to adopt Friday for her general day, and 
 Tuesday for her intimates. 
 
 On Fridays she provided diner maigre, which 
 (according to the naughty Madame du Deffand) 
 was usually badly cooked. Dinner that lady 
 declared to be "the fourth end of man," though 
 she could not remember the other three ; whilst 
 the aristocratic Marquise de Crdquy considered 
 Madame Necker's dinner-hour of four in the 
 afternoon so ill-bred and so impossible, that she 
 left the house vowing never to set foot in it again. 
 
54 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 The ladies of Hypatia's salon were indeed few 
 and far between, and it was only on Fridays that 
 they were admitted at all, together with men of 
 letters and artists of all sorts, Clairon, the tragic 
 actress, so much admired by Garrick, being 
 prominent amongst them. Her aristocratic 
 acquaintance came then also, especially the 
 saintly Amelie de Lauzun, pensive and sweet, 
 the snowdrop of that careless world ; and the 
 downright Madame de Fert^ Imbault, Madame 
 Geoffrin's daughter, and, like many daughters of 
 gifted women, a reaction against her mother, 
 though endowed with some of her talents. Tired 
 of intellect, she instituted at her house an " Order 
 of Lampooning Knights and Fooling Ladies," who 
 were bound to utter nothing but "witty stupid- 
 ities." At the same time, she constituted herself 
 Madame Necker's Mentor, warning her severely 
 against the friendships with Madame du Deffand 
 and others who were unconventional in their 
 morals. 
 
 Conversation was often varied by the per- 
 formance on the clavecin of the newest music ; 
 occasionally, also, there were moving recitations 
 by Clairon, supported by Marmontel and La 
 Harpe ; or readings by some rising poet or 
 novelist. It was here that Bernardin de St. Pierre, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 55 
 
 the somewhat servile seeker after fame, read 
 Paul et Virginie for the first time. It is almost 
 a relief to find that even those brilliant salons 
 had their failures, and that "the impression of 
 weariness left by this performance has remained 
 an almost classical memory." 
 
 They did not always meet in Paris. In the 
 summer, the whole party drove out to St. Ouen, 
 the Neckers' country-seat, at a short distance 
 from Paris ; or they had a sparkling pique-nique 
 at St. Cloud, returning late to town by the Bois- 
 de- Boulogne. 
 
 But the conversation which has come down to 
 us is that of the Hotel in the Rue Cle*ry, and it 
 was here that Suard figured as a talker. His 
 wife described him in after years as a thinker 
 and a dreamer, rather silent in society ; it is 
 amusing to discover that amongst his friends 
 he was famous for his powers of contradiction. 
 Early in his Parisian life, we find him at the 
 Neckers', amongst a group described as consisting 
 of " the absent-minded Necker, the argumentative 
 Morellet, the emphatic Thomas, the light-hearted 
 Marmontel, and the gallant poet Bernard," another 
 frequenter of the Hotel Leblanc, whom Voltaire 
 nicknamed " Bernard the Nice." 
 
 M. BERNARD begins the conversation : You 
 
56 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 look wonderfully well, Madame ; your complexion 
 is fresher than these flowers. 
 
 MADAME NECKER : Poets are gallant. 
 
 M. BERNARD : Say susceptible. 
 
 MADAME NECKER : One can unite these two 
 qualities ; but I fear much they are perishing. 
 Really the Abbe* is plunging me into despair ; this 
 mortal hour has he been growling against women, 
 and these gentlemen only excite and applaud 
 him. 
 
 L'ABBE MORELLET : Yes, Madame, I main- 
 tain that women haven't the ghost of good 
 sense, and I should have convinced you, if 
 you had deigned to listen to me ; but it is 
 impossible to argue with you, and you prove 
 our thesis wonderfully. What say you, M. 
 Necker? 
 
 M. NECKER (absent-mindedly) : Many thanks, 
 Monsieur, I don't take any. 
 
 MADAME NECKER : Madame Riccoboni, for 
 instance, excels in her own line. 
 
 M. SUARD : But, first of all, has she a line of 
 her own ? 
 
 MADAME NECKER : Surely she must have one, 
 to write with such grace and such ardour, and to 
 interest her readers as she does. 
 
 M. SUARD : Write ! I don't understand what 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 57 
 
 you mean by writing : she arranges sentences 
 well enough, without any imagination and without 
 any ideas. 
 
 MADAME NECKER : Oh, sir, you exaggerate! 
 
 M. SUARD : I don't understand what you 
 mean by exaggeration. Exaggeration is a word 
 that has no sense. Nobody exaggerates. One 
 expresses one's thought, and there's the end 
 of it. 
 
 MADAME NECKER : I never can agree with M. 
 Suard, even upon the weather ; for if I say that 
 it is raining, he cannot understand what I mean 
 by rain. 
 
 M. SUARD : Ah, charming lady, you are making 
 fun of me ! But, h propos, M. Thomas is keeping 
 neutral ; that's not fair. 
 
 M. THOMAS : I confess, sir, that women are 
 often wanting in the divine fire which animates 
 us, in the noble enthusiasm which prolongs our 
 midnight watches and immortalises them. But 
 if they do not soar with us into Jheaven, they 
 beautify the earth. A good woman is the most 
 beautiful sight to a sensitive soul. 
 
 M. MARMONTEL : Good ! All very well, my 
 dear Thomas ; but kindly carry off the good ones 
 with you to heaven, and leave the others to stroll 
 with us on the earth. 
 
58 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 M. BERNARD : Fie, sir ! You talk blasphemy, 
 and forget you are in the sanctuary. 
 
 The greatest personality amongst the philo- 
 sophes was, however, never seen either at the 
 Hotel Leblanc, or in any other society. Buffon, 
 " the great colourist " of thought, the profoundest 
 and most sympathetic figure in the new scientific 
 world (the more so that he lived apart from it), 
 had long since withdrawn to his house near the 
 Zoological Gardens, of which he was Intendant. 
 Here he spent his days watching the animals and 
 developing his theories, many of which, especially 
 his rudimentary conception of evolution, fore- 
 stalled those of Darwin. For fourteen years he 
 carried on with Madame Necker a friendship 
 touched with pathos the romance of an old man 
 for a young woman. It is affecting to read of 
 his humility about his own mind, as compared 
 to hers, or to hear him tell her that happiness 
 consists in losing nothing that one has enjoyed. 
 From the first moment of their intercourse they 
 began to discuss ultimate topics, and it is not 
 surprising that he should have chosen her ear for 
 the exposition of his faith. For a living faith, 
 though of a vague description, he did possess ; 
 a faith belonging to a deeper nature than that of 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 59 
 
 his contemporaries, though it differed little from 
 theirs in substance. To the outward forms of 
 worship he always clung, and though he is said 
 to have called God and Nature synonymous, he 
 put such a warm personality into Nature ("the 
 worker for ever active who knows how to use 
 everything whose means are time, space, and 
 matter, whose object is the universe, whose aim 
 is movement and life ") that his scepticism is 
 almost religious. His purpose was to unite 
 science and belief, and one of his first presents 
 to Madame Necker was a pamphlet he had 
 written, attempting to reconcile the account of the 
 Creation in Genesis with his own theory of the 
 formation of the globe. Soul he believed in, 
 after an intellectual fashion, at any rate so far as 
 his amie was concerned. 
 
 " The weaker your body grows, the more 
 strength you seem to have in your thoughts," he 
 writes to her. "The two substances are very 
 distinct in you, whilst in me they fuse into one. I 
 feel the faculties of my mind decrease with those 
 of my body, and that is the basis of the difference 
 in our opinions." 
 
 It was probably through Madame Necker that 
 Suard learned to know Buffon, who was afterwards 
 to play an important, if transitory role in his 
 
60 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 affairs. With the rest of the salon he soon 
 became intimately acquainted, the most eminent 
 of them honouring him with special marks of 
 confidence. Grimm made him one of the editors 
 of his Correspondance ; Marmontel, when con- 
 demned to the Bastille, begged him to carry on 
 his newspaper in his place ; and Morellet looked on 
 him as one of his most trusted friends. To Diderot 
 he was a literary conscience, trying to spur him 
 (through newspaper criticisms) to the use of his 
 best powers, and convinced that if he concen- 
 trated these on worthy objects, instead of frittering 
 them, he might attain any rank he chose. His 
 aim of educating the people through tragedy met 
 with Suard's warm approval an approval of 
 greater moral than aesthetic value, since Diderot's 
 immortality could hardly rest upon his tragedy or 
 his ethics! "It would need a Goethe to talk to 
 him " such in after years was Suard's conclusion 
 about the philosopher who " wrote by intuition 
 before he had thought . . . spreading his light 
 into all minds and his heat into all souls." 
 
 Holbach, "the first mattre tf hotel of philosophy," 
 was, as we know, already a friend of Suard's. 
 Through him the younger man was speedily 
 admitted to the Thursday suppers of the En- 
 cyclopaedists and their friends, amongst whom 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 61 
 
 David Hume was prominent. Here, as we have 
 seen, every creed or the absence of it was 
 fully discussed, and " things were said that would 
 have brought thunderbolts down on the house 
 a hundred times, if thunderbolts fell for such 
 matters." Every fine shade of agnosticism was 
 represented by the guests, but few amongst them 
 attained more than "a faint possible theism." 
 The majority, led by Grimm, got no farther than 
 a code of polite manners towards other religions, 
 which they called tolerance, and set up as a belief 
 competent for human needs. Yet Marmontel 
 declares that " God, virtue, and the holy laws of 
 natural morality " were never so much as doubted 
 at their table, and they greatly resented the 
 charge of atheism which was brought against them. 
 There was no real contradiction in all this ; so 
 infatuated were they about the lay-figure they had 
 tricked out in sublime clothes, that they almost be- 
 came, so to speak, the Don Quixotes of scepticism, 
 and took the wooden doll for a living presence. 
 
 At any rate, their faith in politeness bore one 
 good result. During all their discussions, they 
 never quarrelled. Colle" and Crdbillon, the 
 " joyous madcaps" who served them as jesters, 
 kept up an unceasing fire of bel-esprit which never 
 degenerated into personalities. 
 
62 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 He found Suard readier than Hume to take 
 his counsels, and constituted himself the young 
 man's patron, offering him generous help in 
 money, which Suard, however, refused. He stood 
 in no actual need of it, for he was making enough 
 for his modest needs. Early in his career he met 
 the Abbe Arnaud, an eager lover of music and 
 the arts. They united not only their purses and 
 households, taking up their abode together, but 
 also their literary aims. Together they started a 
 newspaper which made a special object of ac- 
 quainting the French with the English authors, 
 for whom Suard felt the strongest affinity. It 
 was in this periodical and in their translation that 
 Young's Night Thoughts first appeared in France, 
 where it was to enjoy such an astonishing 
 vogue. The success and reputation of the editors 
 increased. 
 
 But Suard did not rest content with the pursuit 
 of fame alone. Like all his companions, he was 
 ready to embark on a connection with a literary 
 lady. He fell in love with Madame Krlidner, 
 a woman of fascinating beauty and mystic ten- 
 dencies, famous for " the lightness of her ethereal 
 grace " and her genius for dancing. Her " shawl 
 dance," described by Madame de Stael in 
 Delphine, was a poem in motion, her blue 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 63 
 
 scarf and her golden hair twining in and out 
 of each other in magic curves. To the marriage- 
 tie she naturally paid no attention, having, 
 luckily for herself, made an unhappy union at 
 sixteen, with an affectionate ambassador, who 
 could not see his way to live with her. She 
 found others to take his place, but, anxious for 
 success in society as well as in love, she set 
 her heart upon having a salon in Paris. Emu- 
 lating Madame de Stael, not only did she lose 
 her sleep from jealousy of her social victories, 
 but also wrote a novel, Vattrie, which had a 
 striking success. 
 
 As the charms of first youth waned, the New 
 Jerusalem began to appear an attractive resid- 
 ence to her. Having fallen under the influ- 
 ence of Jung Stilling, the Swedenborgian, who 
 developed the exalted side of her nature, she now 
 received her guests in the flowing robes of a 
 priestess. Her exaltation was quite as sincere 
 as her frivolity. She became subject to trances 
 and raptures, and in 1806 was converted by a 
 shoemaker to a kind of Moravianism. After this, 
 she gave herself up to proselytising and open-air 
 preaching all over Germany and Switzerland, 
 often pursued by the police, and always spurred 
 by great devotion and great egoism. Essentially 
 
64 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the galante of religion, she carried on spiritual 
 flirtations at the same time as she wrestled in 
 earnest prayer, spent herself in spreading her 
 faith, and lavished large sums upon the poor, 
 collected from her converts. So much money 
 did she obtain, that the fathers and husbands of 
 Bale forbade their wives and daughters to give 
 any more to a lady so vague and so potent. 
 
 At last she returned to Paris, where she re- 
 sumed her salon. It acquired a special character 
 as the centre of the fashionable Illumines, who 
 frequented it in evening dress. Prayers were held 
 before conversation began. Madame Krlidner 
 once had, it is said, to beg Madame Re*camier not 
 to come to these soirtes, as her beauty proved 
 too disturbing to the devotions of her guests, 
 who, still on their knees, immediately turned 
 round to stare at her. It was about this 
 time that Madame Krtidner began to prophesy 
 Napoleon figuring as the Black and the Czar 
 Alexander as the White Angel of her visions. 
 It was the crowning stroke of her faith that the 
 latter, perhaps aided by her flattering sayings, 
 became her most submissive convert. It was 
 not difficult for her to obtain complete ascend- 
 ancy over a nature as impressionable as it was 
 ambitious, and as pleasure-loving as it was super- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 65 
 
 stitious. She put her saintly finger into very 
 mundane pies ; and it was in her rooms that the 
 Holy Alliance between him and Prussia was signed, 
 his draft still bearing some words in her hand- 
 writing. Towards the end of her life, she went 
 to St. Petersburg, followed by three thousand 
 poor, but discovered that the Czar had grown 
 cold, and would prefer her departure. Driven by 
 the Spirit, she determined to build for herself a 
 penitentiary (to be called "La Porte du Ciel ") on 
 a peak in the Caucasus ; this she found impractic- 
 able, but, with undaunted courage and resources, 
 resolved upon a mission to Crim-Tartary. Escorted 
 by a train of devotees which was sprinkled with 
 aristocrats, she proceeded thither, mounted upon 
 an ass, in the costume of the Virgin Mary; whilst 
 her daughter and son-in-law followed her, dressed 
 as Mary Magdalen and St. George. When they 
 arrived, she preached to the Crim-Tartars in 
 French a language of which they did not under- 
 stand a word, though this was a fact which did 
 not abate her fervour. Her body, however, over- 
 came even her activity ; her sufferings compelled 
 her to give up work, and she died of cancer in 
 1824. 
 
 " Le ciel c'est moi " (to change the words of the 
 Great Monarch) was her attitude towards herself 
 5 
 
66 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 an assumption bound to lead a frail mortal into 
 dangerous quibbles. She sincerely believed in 
 herself, but she had miraculous powers of self- 
 deception, and dazzled herself by her own crude 
 generosity and convincing fervour. Her ascend- 
 ancy over Suard was not of long duration. In 
 about 1766 he met Ame'lie Panckoucke, the 
 sister and ward of a friend of his, a printer. She 
 was ten years younger than himself, as beautiful 
 as most young ladies of that age, and as impres- 
 sionable and innocent as it is possible to be. 
 They fell in love such true love that it could not 
 have run smooth. Poverty was not the only 
 objection. Panckoucke, the brother, though 
 himself a freethinker, was bound by his own in- 
 terests to support Freron, the leader of the Anti- 
 Encyclopaedists. He refused to have anything to 
 say to a guest of Helve*tius and Holbach. For 
 a long time he was obdurate. But Amelie was 
 growing thin and ill, and he was a devoted 
 brother. More than this, Holbach used influence, 
 and Buffon interceded in person. It was his 
 representations that at length moved Panckoucke 
 to consent and determined Suard's fate. The 
 betrothal was allowed, the lovers were in rapture, 
 and Panckoucke not only gave his blessing, but, 
 what was still more important, an excellent 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 67 
 
 trousseau of well-fitting dresses, much dwelt on 
 by the bride. 
 
 There was now but one more person's consent 
 to gain, more important even than the brother's. 
 Madame Kriidner was a tyrant whose golden 
 chains were not as heavy as they were tight. 
 Suard could not face her, but the amiable Neckers 
 undertook the task of breaking the news and 
 gaining her permission. They performed the 
 latter feat by a cunning appeal to her vanity, per- 
 suading her that this sacrifice would be the only 
 consolation which befitted her for the loss of the 
 man she loved. 
 
 As the lovers despised any consideration of 
 poverty, all obstacles were now removed. In 
 1767 they were married, and lived happily for 
 some time afterwards. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE Suards did not actually begin with love 
 in a cottage, but they started in very 
 small apartments, on the modest income of 
 ^125 a year, with rent and firing free, and 
 no other help excepting the contribution of the 
 Abbe* Arnaud, who continued to live under their 
 roof. 
 
 But there was one household-goddess whom he 
 had omitted to conciliate before marriage, and 
 who now visited her wrath upon him. This was 
 Madame Geoffrin, whom he had never consulted 
 about this important step, and who looked upon 
 an imprudent marriage as a capital offence. She 
 refused to see him for two years, after which time 
 Madame Necker arranged that she should meet 
 the young wife at her house. Little Ame'lie 
 trembled, but was encouraged by Madame 
 Geoffrin's "look of reason mixed with kindness." 
 The formidable lady was conquered in spite of 
 
 68 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 69 
 
 herself, embraced Ame'lie, and told her husband 
 that even without a dowry she was worth more 
 than the most peaceful celibacy or the richest 
 match. This was a great admission from one 
 whose motto for matrimony (a motto which she 
 had enforced upon Suard) was Bacon's : "A wife 
 and children are hostages to fortune." The day 
 after the interview she sent a ^handsome dress to 
 Madame Suard, and ever afterwards remained 
 the constant friend and patroness of the "Little 
 Household," as the Suards' establishment was 
 soon named. 
 
 The Neckers also received the young couple 
 with cordiality, and Madame Suard was the only 
 lady allowed on their intimate Tuesday evenings ; 
 a privilege granted her, we hear, on account of 
 her gratitude and humility. 
 
 Their social life in the best circles of Paris, 
 compelled careful husbandry of their slight re- 
 sources. They had help, however. Their grand 
 friends lent them carriages and horses, and 
 sent them presents of game ; and the little lady 
 contrived to combine economy with fashion by 
 never making her full toilette till eight or nine 
 o'clock, on the nights that she went out. 
 Presently they started their own " evenings" 
 twice a week. They gave their guests supper 
 
70 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 only, whilst their salon was distinguished from 
 others by its artistic prestige. 
 
 But Amelie's life was not altogether social. 
 Tronchet, the ladies' doctor then in vogue (the 
 successor of Madame de Pompadour's Quesnay), 
 was strict in enjoining daily exercise upon her as 
 a means of keeping off " the vapours." Every 
 morning she used to walk in the gardens of the 
 Tuileries or Luxembourg, with Pope, Richardson, 
 or Robertson as a study. She shared her 
 husband's enthusiasm for English literature, and 
 they, together with the Abbe Arnaud, took in 
 English papers, and not only knew more about 
 English affairs than the Cabinet Ministers, but 
 made themselves publicly useful by their know- 
 ledge. Suard and Raynal started a French 
 history of universal travel, to appear simultane- 
 ously with an English volume of the same kind. 
 
 It was his anxiety to return the visits of Hume 
 and Walpole which, shortly after this, drew Suard 
 to England. The day he arrived in London, 
 there was a riot in favour of Wilkes, who had just 
 been expelled from the House of Commons. The 
 mob forced Suard to dismount and shout, " Vive 
 John Wilkes ! Vive la Liberte ! " with the rest, 
 a welcome which slightly alarmed the serene 
 Frenchman, still ignorant of liberty and revolution. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 71 
 
 But next day the ferment had subsided, and the 
 town was calm ; he paid his visits to celebrities, 
 and obtained Robertson's permission to translate 
 his Charles V. The proofs were sent him as 
 they were printed, and his translation was not 
 only admired by Robertson, but also by Gibbon, 
 Hume, and Walpole. 
 
 It was Suard's love of reasoned freedom which 
 found such satisfaction in England. The same 
 quality attracted Condorcet to him Condorcet, 
 the high-minded, gentle geometrician of abnormal 
 energies ; the schemer for the world, born to be 
 Prime Minister of Utopia ; the sanguine orator- 
 philosopher, with no feeling smaller than his love 
 for humanity. He cared for few people, and 
 Turgot, d'Alembert, the Suards, and the Duchesse 
 d'Enville were his only friends. Somewhat 
 later he came to live with the Suards, and greatly 
 influenced Amelie's mind by his ideas. He had 
 a high opinion of her ; " I would give the half of 
 my geometry," he exclaimed, " for the gift Madame 
 Suard possesses without knowing it. She grows 
 eloquent directly she is moved directly anybody 
 wounds either her heart or her taste." 
 
 Many friends were added to their circle. It 
 was now that Suard became intimate with Francois 
 de Pange, supposed to be like him in appearance 
 
72 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 and manner. A constitutional critic of govern- 
 ment, he may fitly be termed the precursor of 
 Alexis de Tocqueville. We shall meet him again 
 later as the cousin of Pauline de Montmorin, whom 
 he brought some years afterwards to the Suards' 
 salon, where she became prominent. " Monsieur 
 Suard and I " (writes Amdlie) " saw Madame 
 de Beaumont at Madame de StaeTs. She told 
 us she would like to accompany our cousin to our 
 soirees ; she enjoyed them greatly, and we thought 
 her as witty as she was amiable." 
 
 The friendship seems to have progressed, for it 
 is at the Suards' that the Minister Montmorin 
 finds his daughter one day when he comes to 
 Paris to seek her ; whilst de Pange sought 
 Suard's companionship more and more, and 
 became a daily guest on their hearth as well as in 
 their salon. 
 
 Another figure there was Chamfort, the corus- 
 cating pessimist and cynical maxim-writer, who 
 ended by committing suicide after the Revolution. 
 He alone, of all Suard's friends, was detested by 
 his idealistic hostess for his sharp eye and sharper 
 tongue, both busy with the vices of others. 
 
 It is a relief to turn from him to Madame Tesse, 
 an actively virtuous lady, of considerable wits. 
 After the smallpox, when her friends were con- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 73 
 
 doling with her on her altered appearance, she 
 exclaimed with spirit, " Has my mind also had 
 the smallpox ? " and changed the conversation. 
 She possessed influence at Court, and procured 
 for Suard and 1'Abbe* Arnaud the editorship of 
 the Gazette de France and a solid salary. 
 
 Then there were their country friends whom 
 they visited in the summer : Watelet, the versa- 
 tile Farmer-general, Acaddmicien, and gardener, and 
 Madame Lecomte, who had left her husband to 
 live with him at Moulin- Joli ; Saint Lambert 
 ("an indefatigable host to those he liked") and 
 Madame d'Houdetot, whose life together at 
 Sanois, in the valley of Montmorency, constituted 
 an idyll almost as innocent as it was improper. 
 They kept to each other faithfully for forty years, 
 Madame Lecomte and Watelet for almost as long. 
 
 "It was the eighteenth century/' Chateaubriand 
 writes of them, . . . "married in its own way. 
 You have only to persist in life, and illegalities 
 become legal. People begin to feel an infinite 
 respect for immorality, because it has gone on 
 and time has adorned it with wrinkles." 
 
 There could have been little difficulty in re- 
 maining constant to Madame d'Houdetot, who 
 had been the friend of Rousseau and the original 
 of his "Julie." The queen of grace and gay sensi- 
 
74 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 bility, she possessed the poet's temperament, and 
 was still able in her old age to use it in praise of love. 
 
 " Et I'amour me console ; 
 Rien ne pourra me consoler de lui," 
 
 she sang at eighty ; whilst twenty years later " I 
 am French ! " she exclaimed. " I am a hundred 
 years old, and I cannot reproach myself with ever 
 having made the smallest pleasure seem absurd." 
 She was misquoting Fontenelle, who spoke these 
 words at the close of his life, but used the word 
 virtue where she substituted pleasiire, and would 
 have probably been delighted with their new ap- 
 plication. Her conversation, which "had more 
 sallies than it had continuity," was so charming 
 as to make her hearers forget the defects of her 
 personal appearance. "She squinted horribly, 
 and her features were strongly marked and un- 
 pleasing. . . . Good heavens ! how well a pretty 
 face would suit that mind!" writes Madame 
 Suard. She goes on to describe how Madame 
 d'Houdetot never changed an opinion or a taste 
 which she had once formed, either as to its sub- 
 stance or its expression. It was perhaps this 
 fixity which regulated the affections of an other- 
 wise volatile nature, and made her as faithful a 
 friend as she was a lover. She never lost her 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 75 
 
 power of enchanting all who approached her, from 
 Jean Jacques Rousseau in the early days of her 
 career, to Madame Remusat in later days, when 
 Napoleon's Court had routed the old traditions. 
 At the close of her life she still kept every 
 tender habit of old days, and never retired to 
 bed without tapping her slipper three times on 
 the floor as a good - nighr greeting to Saint 
 Lambert. 
 
 In order to have her as a neighbour, and en- 
 couraged by his improved circumstances, Suard 
 sold his library and bought a small country-house, 
 Fontenai-sur- Roses, for his wife. It was near 
 Sanois and within easy reach of Paris. To this 
 cosy hermitage she retired during the warm 
 weather, whilst he remained in Paris, " to give his 
 friends dinner off soup and fruit," and visited his 
 Ame"lie once if not twice every day. He re- 
 mained with her all Sunday, when they kept 
 open house for their country neighbours and 
 occasional visitors from town. Talleyrand, still 
 on the verge of fame, was amongst the number ; 
 Lafayette also, full of latent power and loyalty. 
 
 In Paris, too, the Suards seem to have moved 
 to better quarters. They had a house in the Rue 
 Royale which owned at any rate one distinction, 
 that of being next door to the hotel of Madame 
 
76 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 de Coislin. This lady, the cousin of Madame 
 de Chateauroux, was an epitome of the old 
 traditions. What heart she possessed still clung 
 to the Court of Louis XV., whose mistress she 
 is said to have been, though she never confessed 
 as much. She admitted that she had been 
 passionately loved, but said she had treated 
 her royal lover with extreme severity. " I have 
 seen him at my feet," she used to say. "He had 
 charming eyes, and his language was seductive. 
 One day he offered to give me a costume made 
 of china, like Madame de Pompadour's." This 
 strange token of love, which was actually pre- 
 sented to her, afterwards fell into the hands of 
 George IV., who bestowed it upon Lady Cun- 
 ningham. Madame de Coislin indulged in no 
 luxury that was not given her. A fastidious 
 miser, parsimony formed a convenient article 
 of her aristocratic creed. In her time, she 
 said, it was not considered good manners for a 
 lady to pay her doctor's bill ; and as for fine 
 linen, she condemned it as the badge of a par- 
 venue. " We ladies of the Court," she exclaimed 
 in her old age, " never had more than two 
 chemises ; they were renewed when they were 
 worn out; we always wore silk, and did not 
 look like grisettes, as young ladies do now- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 77 
 
 a-days." As might be expected, she did not 
 approve of guests ; on rare occasions she invited 
 somebody to dinner, but inveighed the whole 
 time against coffee, declaring that nobody liked 
 it, and that it only prolonged the repast. Away 
 from home, she was no more generous. When 
 she travelled, her nephew used to precede her 
 and order an excellent meal v at the inn, but on 
 her arrival she countermanded it, and dined off 
 half a pound of cherries. Great was her fury 
 when she found that it was impossible to miti- 
 gate the hotel bill, which never failed to include 
 the price of her uneaten dinner. 
 
 At once believing and unbelieving, her morals 
 were governed by an I lluminisme of her own. 
 Faith, as a quality, she rather despised. 
 Madame Kriidner once said to her, " Do you 
 ever feel a mysterious confessor within your- 
 self?" " Madame," replied Madame de Coislin, 
 " I never felt any mysterious confessor within 
 myself. I only know my own confessor within 
 his own confessional ; " after which repartee the 
 two ladies never met again. She certainly kept 
 a sharper eye upon the fashions than upon her 
 creed, and invented the chignon flottant, a 
 coiffure opposed by Marie Leczinska as a 
 dangerous innovation, Chateaubriand knew her 
 
78 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 at the end of her life, and has left us a picture 
 of her : 
 
 " Madame de Coislin was a woman of the 
 finest manners," he writes; " though she was 
 close upon eighty, her proud, dominating eyes 
 expressed mind and irony. She was quite 
 illiterate, and used to boast of the fact. She 
 had passed through the Voltairean age without 
 suspecting it ; if she had any notion of it at all, 
 it was as a time of bourgeois aridness. It was 
 not that she ever spoke of her birth ; she was too 
 well-bred to fall into such an absurdity ; she 
 knew very well how to meet insignificant people 
 without coming down from her pedestal ; but 
 then she was the daughter of the first Marquis 
 of France." 
 
 She received Chateaubriand in her bedroom, 
 which was adorned by two sea-pieces of Vernet's, 
 given her by Louis le Bien-Aime". She never 
 rose till two from her big bed, with its green 
 damask curtains, where she lay propped up 
 by pillows, long diamond earrings hanging from 
 her ears, and falling upon her ''silk night- 
 gown sown with tobacco," such as was worn in 
 the days of the Fronde; around her were 
 scattered envelopes already written upon by her 
 friends, on which, to save note-paper, she con- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 79 
 
 ducted her correspondence. Her only com- 
 panion was a snarling lap-dog, who occasionally 
 put his head from the sheets and barked angrily. 
 It was the finishing touch to her history that 
 when she died, her sister and brother-in law were 
 found at the table in the room where her body 
 was still lying, counting out her money, which 
 they had found hidden in a hollow panel. 
 
 Such a lady was bound to be an unpleasant 
 neighbour to the humble Suards. Carlyle was 
 not the first person to find out that the possession 
 of poultry makes bad neighbours. Madame Suard 
 had a cock which annoyed Madame de Coislin. 
 " Cut your cock's neck, Madame," she wrote to 
 Madame Suard. " Madame," replied the latter, 
 " I have the honour to tell you that I shall not 
 cut my cock's neck." " Oh, my dear, what times 
 we live in ! " cried the outraged Madame de 
 Coislin to a friend. "It is actually the daughter 
 of Panckoucke who has done this, the wife of that 
 member of the Acactimie, don't you know ? " 
 
 This description of Suard referred to the fact 
 that, in 1772, he was received into the Acadtmie, 
 at the same time as Delille. The King had at 
 first refused to consider either of their claims, 
 because he thought they were Encyclopaedists, 
 but on better information, he revoked this decision, 
 
8o THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 and Suard made his first Oration : a Vindication 
 of Philosophical Methods. He introduced a 
 portrait of Voltaire, who was not slow to acknow- 
 ledge it in the most flattering manner. 
 
 " The day of your reception," he wrote, "is a 
 great epoch. There is so short an interval 
 between the condemnation of Fe*nelon by decree 
 and your oration, that I am still quite stupefied 
 by your courage. True, it is accompanied by 
 great wisdom. You are covered by the shield 
 of Minerva, even whilst you strike out to right 
 and left with the sword of Mars. . . . Farewell, 
 sir. We will have no Gothic formula of 'your 
 very,' etc. etc. I am too much your debtor," 
 etc. etc. 
 
 The Suards' relations with Voltaire by no 
 means stopped here. Ever since early girlhood, 
 the fervent Ame'lie had worshipped him from 
 afar. Three years after the arrival of this letter, 
 she was seized by a longing to take her courage 
 into both hands and visit him at Ferney. Her 
 husband gave his consent, though work prevented 
 him from accompanying her, and in June 1775 
 she set out on her voyage, escorted by her 
 devoted brother. 
 
 She found the great man alone with his 
 house-mates his niece, Madame Denis, and a 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 81 
 
 young girl, " always laughing at everything," 
 whom he called " Fifteen -years -old." He 
 lavished kindness upon them, keeping up the 
 most demonstrative habits with them, as indeed 
 he did with most women. Into this household 
 entered our hero-worshipping little lady, incense 
 in hand. She lost no time in reporting her im- 
 pressions to her husband, and continued to do so 
 daily, in the following letters. We have thought 
 better to give them in sequence and without 
 comment, that they may convey a vivid picture 
 of her experiences even though our eyes may 
 be occasionally irritated by the fumes of incense 
 which she casts about him. We must, however, 
 remember that diffuse adulation was the fashion 
 of that day ; not only Evelina and her lover, but 
 Clarissa and Harriet Byron would have wept 
 tears of mortification over a letter that possessed 
 no hyperbolic invocations. The language in 
 which a moth admires a star, framed upon this 
 scale, must never excite surprise. 
 
 " FERNEY, /#// 1775. 
 
 " I have at last reached the goal of my 
 desires and of my journey : I have seen M. de 
 Voltaire! The transports of St. Theresa could 
 never have surpassed those which the sight of 
 
82 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the great man made me feel. It seemed to me 
 that I was in the presence of a god ; but of 
 a god whom I had long loved and adored, to 
 whom it was at last granted me to show all my 
 gratitude and love. If his genius had not already 
 produced this illusion in me, his face alone would 
 have done so. It is impossible to describe the 
 fire of his eyes and all the other graces of his 
 countenance and what an enchanting smile ! 
 There is not one wrinkle which is not an adorn- 
 ment. Ah, how amazed I was, when, instead of 
 the decrepit face I expected, there appeared this 
 physiognomy full of fire and expression ; when, 
 instead of a stooping old man, I beheld a straight, 
 upright figure of noble but easy manners. And 
 what tone ! What politeness ! A politeness 
 which, like his genius, belongs to him alone. My 
 heart beat violently when I entered the courtyard 
 of his chateau. Having at last attained the long- 
 wished-for moment, I should have liked to put 
 off a happiness which I always included in my 
 most fervent prayers, and I was almost relieved 
 when Madame Denis told us he had gone for a 
 walk. He soon appeared, exclaiming, ' Where 
 is this lady? Where is she? Hers is the soul 
 I come to seek ! ' Then, as I advanced ' They 
 write to me, Madame, that you are all soul.* 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 83 
 
 * That soul, sir,' I replied, 'is brimful of you, 
 and has long sighed for the joy of approaching 
 yours.' ... At this moment there were a dozen 
 persons in the drawing-room: M. Poissonier 
 had just arrived ; he had not yet seen M. de 
 Voltaire ; but at once sat down by him, and 
 set to work to talk about himself. M. de 
 Voltaire told him that he (M. Poissonier) 
 had done a great service to humanity by 
 finding a way to take away the salt from sea- 
 water. ' Oh, sir/ he replied, ' I have conferred 
 a much greater benefit upon it since then ! I was 
 made for discoveries, and I have now found the 
 means of preserving meat for years without salting 
 it!' It seemed as if he had come to Ferney to 
 make himself admired, and not to do homage 
 to M. de Voltaire. How small I thought him ! 
 What a miserable thing is vain mediocrity 
 by the side of modest and indulgent genius ! 
 For M. de Voltaire seemed to listen to him 
 with indulgence. As for me, I was exasperated ! 
 I strained my ears so as to lose no word which 
 fell from the lips of the great man, who said a 
 thousand amiable and witty things with that easy 
 grace which lends such charm to all his writings, 
 though its rapid flash strikes one even more in 
 conversation. Without any eagerness to speak 
 
84 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 himself, he listens to everybody with an attention 
 more flattering, perhaps, than any he has gained 
 for his own talk. 
 
 "His niece said a few words ; his eyes full of 
 indulgence were fixed upon her, and he smiled 
 most amiably. As soon as M. Poissonier had 
 spoken enough of himself, he was quite willing to 
 give up his place. Urged by a lively desire, 
 by a sort of passion which surmounted my shy- 
 ness, I went to take possession of it. I had 
 been rather encouraged by something M. de 
 Voltaire had said of me. I had never before 
 experienced such sensations. Here was a feeling 
 fed for fifteen years, which, for the first time, 
 I could declare to him who was its object. I 
 expressed it with all the disorder which so great 
 a happiness inspires. He seemed to enjoy it. 
 From time to time he stemmed the torrent by 
 kind words. ' You are spoiling me ! ' ' You want 
 to turn my head ! ' And when he could talk to me 
 about all his friends, it was with the greatest 
 interest that he did so. He talked much of you 
 and his gratitude for your kindness. He spoke 
 much too of M. de Turgot. ' He has,' he 
 said, ' three terrible things against him the 
 financiers, the scamps, and the gout.' I said they 
 were counterbalanced by his virtues, his courage, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 85 
 
 and the esteem of the King. ' But, Madame, I 
 hear you are one of his enemies.' 
 
 "'I, sir? what an injustice! that would make 
 me an enemy of the public weal. Cannot I 
 reconcile my respect for M. Turgot with that 
 which I owe to M. Necker?' 
 
 " ' Madame, if you understand his book, that does 
 you great credit. As for me, I should be very 
 glad to have it translated for me. It is,' he added 
 gaily, 'a conundrum of four hundred pages. 
 M. Necker came and asked the public riddles, 
 like the Queen of Sheba who puzzled Solomon, 
 in old days.' 
 
 " I was embarrassed by this mocking tone about 
 one whom I have so much reason to love and 
 respect, and I answered M. de Voltaire that 
 I was sure he would easily find the answer to 
 the riddles. When I left the drawing-room, he 
 begged me to look upon his house as mine, and 
 he w r ent into his room. I think whilst he was 
 there he finished reading the letters from my 
 friends in which I am so well treated ; for shortly 
 afterwards he came back and joined me in his 
 garden. For a long while I walked alone with 
 him. I only talked of what could console him for 
 the injustice of men, the bitterness of which I saw 
 he still felt. ' Ah ! ' I said to him, ' if you could 
 
86 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 only hear the acclamations of public assemblies 
 when your name is mentioned, how pleased you 
 would be at our gratitude and love ! Would that 
 I had the power of a god to transport you for 
 one moment thither ! ' 'I am there ! I am there ! ' 
 he cried ' I am enjoying it all with you ; 
 I no longer regret anything!' Before leaving 
 him, I thanked him for his kindest reception, 
 which repaid me with interest for the two hundred 
 leagues I had just travelled to see him. He 
 would not believe that I had left you and my 
 friends, only to pay him a visit." 
 
 Next morning the whole party goes to kiss him 
 in bed, Madame Suard having retired early the 
 night before, that she might not lose the oppor- 
 tunity of seeing " our amiable patriarch in his best 
 moments of good humour." 
 
 " I sat down," she continues, " by the side of 
 his bed, which was of the greatest simplicity and 
 the most perfect cleanliness. He was sitting up 
 as straight and firm as a young man of twenty ; 
 he had on a beautiful white satin waistcoat and a 
 nightcap tied with a spotless ribbon. The only 
 writing-table he has in his bed, where he always 
 works, is a chessboard. His room struck me by 
 the order which reigned there ; it is not like yours, 
 with the books pell-mell and great heaps of 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 87 
 
 papers ; he knows where everything is, and could 
 at once find the papers relating to M. de 
 G.'s case. Close by his bed is the portrait of 
 Madame de Chatelet, of whom he keeps the 
 tenderest memory. But inside his bed he has 
 two engravings of the Galas family." 
 
 M. Galas, a Protestant, had been broken on 
 the wheel, because, as his st>n had been found 
 dead, some fanatical Catholic chose, without a 
 shadow of evidence, to say that his father had 
 killed him to prevent him from turning Papist : 
 Galas' widow and children were put to the torture, 
 and fled for protection to Voltaire, who nobly 
 provided for them at Ferney. Madame Suard, 
 not recognising the picture of the mother and 
 children embracing the condemned man, re- 
 proached Voltaire with its sadness. 
 
 " * Ah, Madame, for eleven years I have been 
 unceasingly occupied with that unfortunate family 
 and that of the Sirvens ' (another instance of 
 religious persecution), 'and during all that time, 
 Madame, I reproached myself with the slightest 
 smile that escaped me, as if it were a crime.'" 
 Here follows a rhapsody upon his services to 
 humanity. "He told me," she continues, "that 
 the triumph of enlightenment was far from being 
 assured ; he spoke of the arbitrariness of man's 
 
88 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 destiny and of the prejudices which had hitherto 
 surrounded his childhood. 'The nurse,' he said, 
 * leaves a mark like this,' and he showed me the 
 whole length of his arm ; ' and reason, when it 
 follows her, only leaves one no longer than my 
 finger. No, Madame, we ought to fear all things 
 from a man brought up by a fanatic.' This topic 
 led him to dwell on the absurdity of the cause 
 which had produced such long and flagrant evils ; 
 he went over a portion of Jesus Christ's life, made 
 merry over his miracles, and became enraged over 
 his fanaticism. I defended him as one of the 
 philosophers I loved best; I told him that I only 
 acknowledged such of Christ's qualities as har- 
 monised with the rest of his life : his love for 
 he weak and unhappy ; those words which more 
 than once he spoke to women, and which are either 
 of the sublimest philosophy or the most touching- 
 indulgence. * Oh yes,' he replied, with a glance 
 and a smile of the most amiable malice. 'As for 
 you women, he treated you so well that when 
 you take up his defence, it is only what you owe 
 him.'" 
 
 They concluded by talking of d'Alembert ; of 
 La Harpe, in whom Voltaire placed all his hopes 
 for the drama ; of Saint Lambert, " at whose 
 table reason, heart, and appetite were equally 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 89 
 
 satisfied"; and of Condorcet, whom Voltaire 
 regarded as the light of philosophy, comparable 
 to himself in zeal for humanity and in hatred of 
 fanaticism or oppression. He earnestly bids her 
 keep Condorcet's friendship. "Oh, sir," she 
 answers, "the friendship of my good Condorcet 
 is of greater price to me than any treasure, and 
 I would not sacrifice it for" the empire of the 
 
 universe." 
 
 Coming events do not always cast their 
 shadows before them. A time was to arrive 
 when these fervent words were found of no other 
 use than to add themselves to the ironies of 
 life. 
 
 " When tired by long work, he enters his 
 drawing-room," continues the narrative, "he lends 
 himself to the subject in hand, without attempt- 
 ing to direct the conversation, giving himself up 
 either to general topics or to oneself with the 
 greatest simplicity. But if some piece of news 
 comes from Paris, if he hears of an interesting 
 event, his mind instantly fastens on it with 
 undivided attention. The evening of my arrival, 
 he heard that the Abbe" de Lignon had just been 
 put in the Bastille, and that all his papers had 
 been seized. He shed tears over the poor man's 
 misfortune, and spoke with the keenest indignation 
 
90 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 of this act of despotism. It is this lively sensi- 
 bility, so easily moved, which makes him instantly 
 identify himself with any victim he may hear of, 
 so that he may lend him all the support of his 
 genius. And his genius is, in reality, the offspring 
 of his sensibility, for I believe with Vauvenargues, 
 that ' genius comes from agreement and harmony 
 between soul and intellect." 
 
 They soon descend from these high regions 
 of philanthropy to the humbler domain of 
 domestic happiness. She talks about Suard, 
 the choice of her heart, and shows Voltaire his 
 portrait. " There is but one destiny, sir, which 
 could have weighed in my heart against the joy 
 of being M. Suard's wife," cries the combustible 
 little lady. " I mean that of being your niece, 
 and devoting my whole life to you." "Ah, my 
 dear child," retorts the patriarch, " I should have 
 joined your hands ; I should have given you my 
 blessing!" "He was superb to-day," she runs 
 on. "When I appeared, Madame de Luchet 
 said to me, ' M. de Voltaire, who knows, Madame, 
 that you think him very handsome in full dress, 
 has to-day put on his wig and his best dressing- 
 gown.' " They proceeded (presumably not in this 
 costume) to drive in his coach to the woods, she 
 kissing his hand all the way, in spite of the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 91 
 
 presence of a Russian gentleman, who never 
 ceases to congratulate her on her youth and 
 beauty. The highly scented atmosphere of the 
 carosse grows indeed rather stifling. It is a relief 
 when Voltaire and the Russian begin to talk of 
 the Empress Catherine, "who has more mind 
 and energy than any sovereign in Europe." 
 
 The puzzle of the life at Ferney is to find out 
 when they had time for sleep. Conversation 
 flowed, a brilliant and artificially lighted torrent, 
 which never seemed to exhaust any member of 
 the circle. Madame Suard probably never slept 
 a wink the whole time she was there, for she rose 
 at six, so that she might visit him at eight, spend- 
 ing, we may suppose, at least an hour in prayer 
 that she might say the right thing. It is to her 
 honour that she thought more of getting her mind 
 ready than her person. She never knew till the 
 end of her visit that he liked to see women in 
 fine clothes, and did not appear well dressed till 
 her last morning at Ferney. 
 
 His mood was often changed, even during her 
 short stay his mercurial temper, doubtless, lend- 
 ing him much of his magic. One day he was 
 merry and serene ; another, sad and tired. On 
 such occasions, Madame Denis infuriated our 
 breathless acolyte by ignoring his symptoms and 
 
92 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 treating him as if he were a captious child. 
 " Yesterday I was a philosopher, to-day I am a 
 rascal ! " he cries. But whatever his disposition, 
 adds Madame Suard, " there could never be the 
 least vacuum in his life," even had his congregation 
 allowed him the chance of any. 
 
 Her brother, she tells us, next arrived to see 
 him, and had hardly been there an instant when he 
 set off reciting Voltaire's favourite amongst his own 
 works La Pucelle. ' ' H e only interrupted (though 
 to us the interruption seems no light one) by say- 
 ing, ' But that is not the way to recite verse ! ' 
 and proceeded to show the unabashed and enrap- 
 tured Panckoucke how to declaim, his tones giving 
 a new cadence and harmony to the lines." 
 
 " He spoke of Ferney," she writes another 
 day, "which he has populated, which owes its 
 existence to him. He congratulated himself 
 upon it. I remembered these lines, and quoted 
 them to him : ' I have done a little good that is 
 my finest work/ He was told that if ever his 
 works were lost, he would find them again quite 
 whole in my head. 'Then they will be revised,' 
 he said, with inimitable grace and (as he had 
 given me his hand, which I was kissing) 'Just 
 look,' he exclaimed, kissing mine, 'what I allow 
 her to do ! It is becaiise it is so sweet;,' " 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 93 
 
 This effusion over, they returned to literary 
 themes : " As for Condorcet's Praise of Pascal, he 
 told me that he thought it so beautiful that it 
 terrified him. ' What do you mean, sir ? ' I asked. 
 ' Yes, Madame, if Pascal was such a great man, 
 then all of us are great fools for not thinking 
 like him. M. Condorcet will do us a great 
 wrong if he publishes this book just as he sent 
 it to me. That Racine,' he added, 'was a good 
 Christian is not extraordinary. He was a poet, 
 a man of imagination. But Pascal was a reasoner, 
 and it is impossible to use reasoning against our 
 side. After all, he was only a diseased enthusiast, 
 and had perhaps as little good faith as his antagon- 
 ists.' I did not care to try and prove to him 
 that a great man could also be a good Christian. 
 I preferred to go on hearing him. He told us 
 about his brother the Jansenist, who had such 
 a fine zeal for martyrdom that he said one 
 day to a friend (who thought like himself, but 
 would never allow any exposure in the cause of 
 perfection), ' Confound you ! If you don't wish to 
 be hanged yourself, at any rate don't take away 
 the taste for it from other folk.' After having 
 spent a delightful hour, I feared I had abused his 
 kindness. All the happiness I enjoy in seeing 
 and hearing him always vanishes before my fear 
 
94 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 of tiring him. Even if the interest he inspires in 
 me did not force me to watch all his movements 
 and spare him the slightest sense of fatigue, I 
 should still do so from vanity ; for I had been 
 told he had a way of showing his exhaustion 
 which I was always careful to forestall. He led 
 me back to the door of his room, in spite of all 
 my entreaties. When we got there, I said to 
 him, ' Sir, I am soon about to start on a long 
 journey. I entreat you to give me your blessing. 
 I shall look upon it as a surer amulet against all 
 dangers than that of our Holy Father.' He 
 smiled with infinite grace, and, leaning against 
 his study door, he gave me a look at once soft 
 and penetrating, and seemed embarrassed as to 
 what he ought to do. At last he said to me, 
 * But I can't bless you with my three fingers ; I 
 would rather put my two arms round your neck ' 
 and then he embraced me. He no longer appears 
 at table, and he does not dine ; he remains in 
 bed nearly all day ; works there till eight o'clock ; 
 then he asks for supper, and for three months he 
 has supped on nothing but scrambled eggs, though 
 there is always a good fowl ready, in case he 
 should have a fancy for it. All the villagers who 
 pass Ferney also find a dinner ready for them, 
 and twenty-four sols for travelling money. Fare- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 95 
 
 well, dear husband. I can only talk of the great 
 man, for only he interests me here. . . . You may 
 be jealous if you like, but it is a fact that I have 
 a deep passion for him." 
 
 She told Voltaire that she had written to 
 inform her husband that she had fallen in love, 
 an announcement which Suard no doubt bore 
 with as great equanimity as he would have shown 
 at the final parting between his wife and her idol. 
 Voltaire was in bed. She pressed him to her 
 breast. " You found me dying," he said, "but 
 my heart will always be yours." She wept ; no 
 doubt he followed suit. The only consolation 
 for either was the thought of the autumn, when 
 he begged her to return with Suard, Condorcet, 
 and d'Alembert a combination which unfortun- 
 ately never came off. 
 
 The great event was over. She had come, she 
 had seen, she had been conquered. There was 
 nothing for it but to return to her Parisian hearth 
 and fall back into her old habits. We cannot 
 but sympathise with the sense of flatness which 
 must have attacked her on her homeward journey. 
 But enthusiasm happily finds fuel for itself; a 
 great man's words are a possession for life ; and 
 Suard was awaiting her at home, as eager to 
 hear as she was to tell. 
 
96 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 When Voltaire came to Paris, some years 
 later, she saw him again on three separate occa- 
 sions, and her husband had much of his com- 
 panionship. It was for the last time. Not long 
 afterwards he died, leaving, at least in one heart, 
 a perfect memory and an unspotted ideal. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 " A LL Paris," Madame Necker writes to 
 <L\ Grimm in 1773, "is divided between 
 Gretry and Gluck. . . . The Praise of Colbert 
 continues to have the greatest success. . . . 
 Madame Geoffrin continues to scold me, to her 
 great satisfaction and to mine. . . . M. Suard is 
 catching flies with charming dexterity." 
 
 The Parisians were, in fact, torn by two wars, 
 the one of Economists, the other of Artists. 
 Necker's Praise of Colbert, which had not long 
 appeared, raised first enthusiasm and then a 
 hailstorm of pamphlets. It applied to the subject 
 which French statesmen were then debating 
 the question of the Corn Laws. Turgot, with 
 his eyes on the future, descried something ap- 
 proaching Free Trade ; Necker, regarding the 
 past, wished for regulated Protection ; whilst finan- 
 ciers, theoretic and practical, ranged themselves 
 on either side. The battle spread from club to 
 7 
 
98 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 drawing-room, and the fashionable topics of 
 discussion were the respective merits of Sully 
 and Colbert, or of Henry IV. and Louis XIV., 
 not as kings, but as administrators of the 
 Exchequer. 
 
 The appearance of Adam Smith's Wealth of 
 Nations (translated at once into French by 
 Madame Riccoboni) gave a new zest to the dis- 
 pute, which had but little definite result, and was 
 eventually merged in the more important questions 
 which raised the Revolution. 
 
 Suard had once said that his wife would never 
 understand Net-produce ; it was certainly for 
 no want of opportunity. Though he remained 
 judicially neutral, they were both active spectators 
 of a contest in which all their best friends were 
 engaged. 
 
 The dominant figure amongst them was the 
 ambitious and impulsive Madame de Marchais, 
 who had taken up the Suards with warmth, and 
 made much of Amelie, whom she invited to all 
 her grandest suppers. If Madame Necker ruled 
 the Philosophes, Madame de Marchais was cer- 
 tainly queen of the Economists. " Exceedingly 
 small, with a doll's foot and an enormous head 
 adorned by the most beautiful cendrt hair that 
 was ever seen," and stored with every politico- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 99 
 
 economical work that had been written, she 
 appears in the midst of her sparkling company 
 like the elf of statistics, a science for which she 
 had a genuine passion. The daughter of the 
 Pompadour's valet, and distantly connected with 
 that lady, she always remained her favourite, and 
 distinguished herself at her little suppers by her 
 gift for music and a sweet voice. Later she was 
 made " Housekeeper of the Louvre," the one 
 office where her economical tendencies did not 
 manifest themselves, and spent her time between 
 the Pavilion de Flore in the palace, and her house 
 at Versailles. It was both consistent and practical 
 that a State housekeeper should fall in love with a 
 State gardener, as Madame de Marchais proceeded 
 to do, in spite of being already comfortably 
 married. She formed an attachment to M. d' Ange- 
 villiers, Superintendent of the Royal Garden, 
 and called "the Angel Gabriel," on account of 
 his radiant beauty, who expressed his tenderness 
 for her by frequent gifts of the King's pears, 
 enormous in size. Her taste for these (which 
 she learned to cultivate assiduously in her own 
 grounds) grew to rival her zeal for economics, 
 and earned her the name of Pomona from Madame 
 du Deffand, who made unmerciful fun of her 
 small foot, much-displayed teeth, big head, and 
 
too THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 all that was in it. " Madame de Marchais," she 
 wrote, "has a face like a Jew pedlar; her person 
 measures four foot, her head about six, and her 
 coiffure about ten. She talks volumes, and writes 
 folios I mean in billets." 
 
 Whether from fear of her superior intellect, or 
 from eighteenth-century tolerance, M. de Marchais 
 made no objection to his wife's horticultural pre- 
 dilections, in either of the forms which they 
 assumed. He, M. d'Angevilliers, and Madame 
 de Marchais, by tacit agreement, made a sort of 
 queer triangular problem in which the two angles 
 at the base were apparently equal. In the lady's 
 letters, at any rate, the names of both gentlemen 
 appear impartially intertwined ; for in one sentence 
 she describes M. d'Angevilliers helping her with 
 her accounts, and the next, her own hurry to 
 start for Fontainebleau, where M. de Marchais 
 required her services. 
 
 The "Angel Gabriel" had perhaps derived 
 his title as much from his temper as his looks. 
 It is certain that his mistress vented the humours 
 of a tyrant upon him. " The chief power of 
 woman is to make a slave of man," she said to 
 Madame Suard. " I prefer to make a hero of 
 him," the latter characteristically replied. It 
 may have been this retort which induced the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 101 
 
 slave to embrace Ame"lie whenever he met her, 
 whether in public or in private. But even this 
 liberty passed off as agreeably as every other 
 of that strange time. " Look how she loves M. 
 d'AngeVilliers ! " cried the generous Pomona. 
 "M. Suard will be jealous." "Oh no, Madame," 
 rejoins Ame*lie. " But why not?" "Because 
 M. Suard shares all my feelings for this gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " Gabriel " turned the tables upon his lady in 
 after years. When M. de Marchais died, he 
 married her, and, once legally tied, seems to 
 have become an Avenging Angel, and to have 
 exercised much the same despotism over her as 
 she had done over him. Meanwhile, the " Triple 
 Alliance " drew down no social disapproval, but 
 was courted and invited and called upon as if it 
 had been the most respectable old couple. 
 
 Madame de Marchais had vast social am- 
 bitions, and did not stop at the Economists with 
 whom her salon had begun. To her inclination 
 for their theories and for big pears, she added 
 a third one for aristocrats. Unfortunately her 
 advances were not warmly returned, and she 
 could not get them to her house. Madame 
 Necker with whom she had a vehement and 
 $hort - lived friendship was meanwhile very 
 
102 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 popular in high circles without any desire 
 of being so. Pomona grew jealous, but still 
 found Hypatia's presence necessary to the 
 success of her parties. She invited her on a 
 special occasion, when, after some difficulty, the 
 exclusive Duchesse de Luneville had promised to 
 be present, and Rocher, a minor poet, was to read 
 out his last work. The poet arrived ; the 
 Duchess arrived ; but no Madame Necker. 
 Manners did not allow the poet to begin till the 
 guest had appeared ; the Duchess grew impatient, 
 the hostess was in despair. Madame Necker, 
 having heard Rocher's poem on a previous 
 occasion, had innocently accepted another invita- 
 tion to hear La Harpe, intending to go afterwards 
 to Madame de Marchais'. Unfortunately, La 
 Harpe insisted on her waiting for him, and when 
 at last they appeared together an hour too late, 
 Madame de Marchais turned her back upon the 
 criminal. Next day she wrote a letter to Madame 
 Necker, solemnly breaking off their friendship. 
 
 Her salon was perhaps the most universal in 
 Paris. It was thronged by foreigners, writers, 
 ambassadors, artists, and worldlings, whom her 
 tact fused into one. Politicians were also not 
 wanting, amongst them Mirabeau, of whom she 
 made a staunch friend, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 103 
 
 "With the Court set," says Marmontel, "she 
 was a model of the most delicate and noble polite- 
 ness ; young women came to her to study her 
 manner and her tone. With literary people she 
 was on a par with the cleverest and best-informed. 
 Nobody talked with more ease, precision, and 
 method. Her silence was animated by the 
 fire of a glance which showed that her mind 
 was listening ; she divined thought, and her 
 retorts were arrows which never missed their 
 mark." 
 
 But it was amongst the Economists that she 
 was at her best, and they, as we know, formed the 
 nucleus of her society, and visited her daily, no 
 matter to which camp they belonged. She dis- 
 carded party-spirit, read both sides, declared 
 herself for neither, and influenced them much more 
 than if she had been a special pleader. She 
 became, however, if not the partisan, at any rate 
 the exponent, of the Protectionist Quesnay, who, 
 as Madame de Pompadour's quondam physician, 
 was naturally inclined to patch the old order of 
 things rather than venture on fresh enterprises. 
 Though the public despised his science, she 
 recognised solid merit in it, aired his works by 
 raising discussions on them, and did him much the 
 same service as Madame de Chatelet, a genera,- 
 
io 4 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 tion before her, had rendered to Newton and 
 to Leibnitz. 
 
 More prominent, both in this controversy and 
 in her drawing-room, were the two Abbe's the 
 Free-Trader Morellet and his vivacious opponent 
 Galiani, who instituted for themselves a private 
 ramification of the main quarrel, and launched 
 pamphlet after pamphlet on wheat at each other's 
 heads ; a fact which did not prevent the most 
 amicable meetings in society. Galiani, with his 
 "power of startling," excluded the possibility of 
 pedantry in any dispute, however arid, in which 
 he was concerned. 
 
 " He was," to quote Marmontel again, "the 
 prettiest little harlequin produced by Italy ; but 
 on the shoulder of this harlequin was the head of 
 Machiavelli. An Epicurean in his philosophy, 
 with a melancholy soul and an eye for the 
 ridiculous in everything, there was no topic either 
 political or moral about which he had not some 
 good story to tell ; and his stories were always 
 justified by their aptness and the salt of an 
 unforeseen and ingenious allusion. ... I am not 
 exaggerating when I say that one forgot every- 
 thing for hours together, in listening to him. But 
 his part once played, he was no longer anything 
 in society ; sad and dumb, in a corner, he looked 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 105 
 
 as if he were impatiently awaiting his cue to 
 reappear on the stage. . . . I fever one interrupted 
 him ' Let me finish,' said he ; ' you will have 
 plenty of time to answer me/ . . . and when he had 
 done, if one attempted a reply, one saw him slip 
 away into the crowd and gently make his escape." 
 His translation of Horace was enthusiastically 
 reviewed by Suard ; but it was at the Philoso- 
 phers' Suppers, where he waxed warm over Plato 
 and Pythagoras, that he most distinguished himself. 
 His more affectionate side he showed to Madame 
 Necker. He had only one reproach to make to 
 her, that of " observing the cold behaviour of 
 respectability," to which his previous friendship 
 with Madame d'Epinay had doubtless disused 
 him. "It was a pity," he said, "that she had so 
 many principles in her head and so few incon- 
 sequences in her heart." He went so far as to 
 make her a declaration in public, at which, says he, 
 "she was scandalised, Madame Suard astonished, 
 and Madame the Housekeeper of the Louvre indig- 
 nant. The town resounded with it ; the suburbs 
 bewailed it ; the kingdom was in combustion 
 and all the world forgave me." Madame Necker 
 consoled him by working a pair of slippers, an 
 attention which in all times seems to have been 
 considered as a fitting compromise between 
 
jo6 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 effusion and propriety. But she was always 
 indulgent to him. " There is not a single Friday," 
 he writes to her during an absence at Naples, 
 "when I do not go to you in spirit. I arrive ; I 
 find you now putting the finishing touches to 
 your dress, now stretched on your sofa. I sit 
 down at your feet. Thomas suffers silently, 
 Morellet rages aloud, Suard laughs with his 
 whole heart, my dear Comte de Creutz never 
 notices it ; Marmontel finds the example worthy 
 of imitation ; and you, Madame, allow your two 
 sweetest virtues, modesty and politeness, to fight 
 with each other, whilst, in the midst of your 
 discomfort, you think me a little monster, more 
 embarrassing than odious. Dinner is announced. 
 We go out. The others eat their fill ; as for me, 
 I fast, and eat a great deal of that green Scotch 
 cod which I like so much. I give myself 
 indigestion in the midst of my admiration for the 
 Abbe" Morellet's ardour in carving a turkey. 
 We rise from table and sip our coffee ; everybody 
 is talking at once. The Abbe Raynal agrees 
 with me that Boston and English America have 
 for ever separated from England, and at the same 
 moment Creutz and Marmontel agree that Gr&ry 
 is the Pergolese of France. M. Necker thinks 
 this a good remark, bows his head, and departs," 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 107 
 
 Quite as many-sided and somewhat weightier 
 was the intellect of the Abbd Morellet, " whose 
 regular Parisian wit " stood out against a solid 
 background. He began life with no money in 
 his pockets, and was protected by the Neckers. 
 
 " He has knowledge, talents, philosophy, and 
 method," Madame Necker writes of him ; " other- 
 wise he is an ill-groomed cub, who does not dream 
 that worldly wisdom exists, or that the universe 
 consists of great and small, of men and women ; 
 he has candour honesty, a thousand good habits, 
 and enough religion to suspect that there may be 
 a God, and sometimes to confess as much to his 
 friends, when he knows they are discreet and 
 reliable. Still, I love him, and I think God will 
 forgive him his unbelief, which does not come 
 from the heart" 
 
 It remained for Marmontel, who married his 
 niece and afterwards lived with him, to depict 
 his mind " that fountain of ideas, pure, whole- 
 some, and profound, which never dried up and 
 never overflowed ; and his special gift of irony 
 only comparable to that of Swift," and (according 
 to his polite compatriot) under stronger control 
 than the Dean's. There was no French contro- 
 versy in which he did not play a leading part, 
 and he was seldom out of a fray. Grimm once 
 
io8 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 declared that " he always carried a ledger under- 
 neath his philosopher's cloak." His actions were 
 unfortunately not always on a level with his gifts. 
 He made a somewhat ungenerous attack upon a 
 company in which his generous patron, M. Necker, 
 was interested, and created a coldness between 
 them. Necker was obliged to defend himself 
 in a vigorous pamphlet, which did not prevent 
 Morellet (after the fifty kicks administered by the 
 pen of his host) from continuing to dine at his 
 table, as if nothing had happened. 
 
 He was a seeker of society, and himself had a 
 special reputation as a host. He held the chief 
 musical salon of Paris a department in which 
 he had no rivals but the Saurins, the Baucis and 
 Philemon of the artistic circle, who always ended 
 their evenings by a toast to Madame Saurin, 
 drunk by M. Saurin, then past eighty years old. 
 The Parisians called the latter Anacreon, because, 
 glass in hand, he used to sing happiness in 
 graceful verses, and pray to live a little longer. 
 One of his prettiest poems was addressed to 
 "The Little Household," to which he thus first 
 gave its name. The Suards indeed knew him 
 intimately and describe him with affection, but 
 Morellet, whom they also frequented, provided 
 greater excitement, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 109 
 
 He had Sunday breakfasts, and in order to 
 lend charm to the stern morning hour, he used 
 his chapel for musical performances of exquisite 
 beauty. Here many masterpieces of that day, 
 and some that lasted longer, actually saw 
 the light. Gluck, then in Paris, came fre- 
 quently with his niece, who was called "The 
 Little Muse," and with MeKco, the singer, his 
 devoted friend and follower. It was at the 
 Abbe's that the Suards heard " Orfeo," then 
 performed for the first time by a masterly staff 
 of two : Melico was Orfeo, and Gluck with his 
 single voice represented the multitude of demons 
 who resist him as he descends into Hades. 
 So terrible, we hear, were the implacable 
 " Non, Non, Nous" that the whole audience 
 was seized with horror and held its breath in 
 suspense. 
 
 G re try, the writer of operas, was there too, 
 now amongst the audience, now as a conductor 
 of his own works, aided by his favourite singer, 
 Philidor, of whom he said that " he was only a 
 fool, for he possessed nothing but genius." Nor 
 were the minor celebrities debarred from per- 
 forming. Morellet himself used to sing finely 
 whilst in his chapel. Hulmandel, the harmonica- 
 player, introduced that instrument to his applaud- 
 
no THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 ing hearers. Sometimes the musical talk gave 
 way before literary themes ; for these musicians 
 were many-sided, and a standing reproach to the 
 artists who try to do without culture. Gluck 
 himself was imbued with Montaigne ; many of 
 the others were men of letters ; all of them were 
 interested in current questions. 
 
 It was not surprising that so musical a salon, 
 with a controversialist as host, should have 
 become a centre of the second and greater battle 
 that was dividing the town the famous musical 
 contest between Gluck and Piccini. Madame 
 Necker, as we know, spoke of it as between 
 Gluck and Gretry, the old-world Court musician 
 whom Marmontel ranked with Piccini, though 
 he was not essentially Italian in his style. But 
 Piccini, ''the Pergolese of France," was distinctly 
 the leader of his party and a solid composer, to 
 some extent a reformer of the opera, anxious to 
 develop orchestration and dramatic unity. Mar- 
 montel was his librettist. Their forgotten operas 
 of "Roland" and "Atys" created a sensation in 
 their day; whilst poor Louis XVI. pronounced 
 the composer's " Didon " to be the only opera 
 that had ever interested him. 
 
 Gluck had been Marie Antoinette's singing- 
 master in Vienna; he was sent to Paris by the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS in 
 
 Emperor Joseph about 1774, with an Imperial 
 recommendation to her, as strong as if the 
 success of German music had been a matter of 
 State importance. He was prepared for victory 
 by the love of his Fatherland for learned music ; 
 by his triumphs in Rome, Naples, and Parma ; 
 and by the admiration of Padre Martini, the 
 most erudite of the old musicians of Europe ; 
 and was therefore not surprised at the effect 
 produced by his "Orfeo," the revised version of 
 which was performed in Paris in 1776. Suard, 
 himself a lover of music and a fine singer, to- 
 gether with his colleague, 1'Abbe Arnaud, did 
 more than anybody else to establish his popu- 
 larity by their Journal Stranger, in which they 
 discussed the fundamental principles of art : 
 Arnaud's review of "Alceste" was a literary 
 triumph, and both of them, together with the 
 Queen, remained Gluck's devoted champions, and 
 made many proselytes. Jean Jacques, by a sort 
 of left-handed conversion, was actually brought 
 to believe in the possibility of music in France 
 after hearing " Orfeo," and when asked what he 
 thought of it, could only reply by humming, 
 "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice," through his stream- 
 ing tears. 
 
 The cudgels were hotly taken up for Piccini. 
 
ii2 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 Marmontel declared that Gluck was as inferior 
 to the old Italian classics, Pergolese and Leo, as 
 Crebillon was to Racine, and added that he had 
 no melody. La Harpe grumbled that "he put 
 things into melody which could not be sung," 
 d'Alembert that there was too much din in it. 
 Their less important followers gave out that if 
 only Piccini's genius could be brought to bear 
 upon Gluck's methods, the greatest masterpieces 
 as yet heard by the world might now be produced. 
 The quarrel spread from club to drawing-room, 
 from drawing-room to street. The crowd took 
 it up ; many of the Piccinists, we are told (La 
 Harpe amongst them), did not know one note of 
 music from another. The Cafes Foi and Caveau 
 and the Salle de 1'Opera became the citadels of the 
 campaign, the Journal Etranger and the Gazette 
 Litttraire its scouts. Then there appeared a 
 brilliant answer to La Harpe's accusation, dated 
 from Vaugirard, and followed by a series of letters 
 from the same hand, which, according to a contem- 
 porary, might be compared to the eighteen Petites 
 Lettres of Pascal. Many guesses were hazarded 
 about their author, who was only known as the 
 "Recluse of Vaugirard," and remained for some 
 time shrouded in mystery. He turned out at last 
 to be no other than Suard, unconscious of the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 113 
 
 train he had started. Diderot and Rousseau 
 mixed themselves up in it, and the musical dispute 
 turned into a serious literary war. "You will 
 see," wrote Suard, " that friends will grow 
 estranged, society will divide, and hatred be 
 kindled all for a song. The public will perhaps 
 be the gainer, for quarrels amuse it, but the actors 
 in this brawl will lose their cfignity, their peace, 
 and the fruits they could have reaped had they 
 attempted union." 
 
 Suard was talking from experience. He him- 
 self was always ready for peace, and even gave 
 some kindly praise to Piccini ; but Arnaud never 
 abated in bitterness, a fact which Marmontel 
 could not ignore. A coldness arose between the 
 two households, which Madame Suard tried hard 
 to remove. But she did not succeed till the 
 breaking out of the Revolution, when their 
 common devotion to the King formed a reconciling 
 bond. Hardly less stringent were G retry 's friends, 
 Madame d'Houdetot and Saint Lambert, who for 
 several years refused to speak to the Little House- 
 hold. Time, however, brought healing with it, 
 and in after days they resumed their intercourse 
 with the same warmth as before. 
 
 Meanwhile, as tournament methods were 
 obsolete, it was determined that Gluck and Piccini 
 
 8 
 
ii 4 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 should settle their quarrel by harmony. The same 
 subject, Iphigenia in Tauris, was set them both. 
 Gluck's opera appeared first (in 1779), and carried 
 its audience by storm. Piccini's, retarded by a 
 series of misadventures, was only given later, and 
 fell sadly flat, though the Piccinists by no means 
 considered themselves finally beaten. But the 
 approaching political crisis swallowed up the last 
 fragments of the quarrel much to the regret of 
 a writer of the day, who deplores that a national 
 Revolution should have prevented so important a 
 struggle from coming to a definite issue. 
 
 In the midst of these social controversies, 
 Suard's interests had not been neglected. In 
 1774 he was made Censor of the Drama, an office 
 which he fulfilled in a spirit more puritanical 
 than it was Parisian, for he began by suppressing 
 the plays of Beaumarchais as hostile to morality. 
 Perhaps it was the presentiment of this con- 
 demnation which made the latter oppose Suard's 
 appointment ; at any rate, the Censor seemed to 
 have been justified in his verdict, for it was a 
 common saying at the time that "if Beaumarchais 
 chastised morals with a laugh, he chastised them 
 too much, for he wounded them." Suard's 
 honours did not stop here. Soon after his 
 acceptance of this office, the King pressed him to 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 115 
 
 accept the English ambassadorship. His love 
 of Paris made him refuse this, though his three 
 trips to London, the last with M. Necker, increased 
 his admiration for the English. He imitated 
 them in many respects, both morally and socially. 
 
 It is interesting to find that this feeling was 
 not peculiar to him. This period seems to have 
 been distinguished by a special sympathy between 
 the two nations. " The wars between France 
 and England," says a writer of that day, "have 
 been too commonly taken for their hatreds, and 
 it has not been sufficiently recognised that their 
 hatred is a tradition, not a feeling. Their battles 
 are too much like duels, in which there is generally 
 little hatred, but, alas ! too frequent an opportunity 
 for piercing the heart of the person one loves and 
 esteems." Science and literature alike formed a 
 bond between them, and the works of either 
 country acted and reacted upon each other. In 
 science, Descartes was corrected by Newton, 
 Newton developed by d'Alembert and, later, by La 
 Place. Montesquieu had succeeded Hobbes and 
 Locke as an interpreter of social law; La Fontaine, 
 Moliere, and La Bruyere led up to Swift, Addison, 
 and Steele ; and Adam Smith, as we have seen, 
 coincided with the progress of French economics. 
 
 It was, at all events, enough for a man to have 
 
n6 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 been born in the British Islands for Suard to 
 welcome him to his salon, then at its zenith. It 
 rapidly became the centre of the English and 
 Scotch, whether illustrious or obscure, who were 
 living in Paris and there was certainly no lack 
 of them. 
 
 Here in due season came Laurence Sterne, the 
 Briton for whom France has perhaps shown more 
 enthusiasm than for any other, hailing him as the 
 apostle of sensibility, and therefore (in their eyes) 
 of morality. 
 
 It was probably either just before or just after 
 the translation of Tristram Shandy, that he ap- 
 peared in Paris. Voltaire was among the first 
 to hail him. Writing about conscience, he tells 
 us that "the best things which have been said 
 upon these questions are to be found in a humor- 
 ous book called Tristram Skandy, written by a 
 Curd named Sterne. It is just like those little 
 Satires of the Ancients, which enclose precious 
 essences." 
 
 In later days, he called him "the second 
 Rabelais of England," the first being naturally 
 represented by Swift. " In all three," he goes on 
 to say, "the fooling and the philosophy are very 
 near to each other so near that they are often 
 on the point of fusion. But Rabelais and Swift 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS it; 
 
 suggest thought in the middle of a laugh, and 
 never move one to tears, whilst in Sterne thought, 
 laughter, and emotion are blended in one page, 
 or even one sentence." 
 
 Suard early conceived a great admiration for 
 Yorick as the " discoverer of the new and the true 
 in literature." He wrote such successful imita- 
 tions of him, that it was said Ke could easily have 
 deceived a certain impulsive gentleman who 
 offered a large sum of money, through the news- 
 papers, to the person who would bring him one 
 page of Sterne that he did not already know. 
 Anxious for even further initiation into Sterne's 
 magic, Suard once asked him the secret of his 
 genius : " First, my imagination and my sensi- 
 bility ; then my daily reading of the Old and 
 New Testament the books alike of my choice 
 and my profession ; lastly, my study of Locke, 
 from childhood onwards." 
 
 History unfortunately does not relate whether 
 Suard returned to his desk, made Ame"lie get him 
 his Bible and Human Understanding, and sat 
 down to write a humorous novel under her 
 expectant and confiding eyes. 
 
 It was certainly the sensibility which took the 
 fancy of the French, especially of their ladies. 
 Tristram Shandy was hardly read, in comparison 
 
n& THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 with The Sentimental Journey, excepting by such 
 choice spirits as Voltaire, Joubert, and Pauline de 
 Beaumont. In revenge, they made their Senti- 
 mental Journey into a test of good taste. Madame 
 Suard would not speak for some months to a 
 lady who had said that she could not feel Sterne's 
 rapture in pressing the fingers of the lady who 
 wore black silk gloves, and that " it only made 
 her die of laughter." 
 
 Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was one of his 
 most appreciative readers, and went so far as to 
 write A Walk to the Hotel des Invalides and the 
 Military School, in the style of Sterne. Only a 
 certain Mademoiselle de Sommerie (of obscure 
 fame as a maxim-writer) appears to have exer- 
 cised an independent judgment. " He could not 
 depict so many madmen," she announced, " unless 
 he were mad himself ; but it will go hard with him 
 if he ever takes off his mask, or drops it." 
 
 His conduct was as emotional as his writings. 
 Suard and he were once walking on the Pont 
 Neuf, with its bronze statue of Henry IV. Yorick 
 suddenly prostrated himself before it, and knelt 
 as if in prayer. An amazed crowd gathered 
 round him. "Why are you all staring at me?" 
 he cried. " Imitate me, one and all ! " on which 
 the mercurial mob instantly fell upon their knees. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 119 
 
 After this, we need not be surprised at Sterne's 
 success in France. His love affairs gained him still 
 louder plaudits. "This Anglican minister," writes 
 a French contemporary, " singularly amused the 
 gay wits of Paris by his racy originality, and gave 
 new emotions to tender souls by a sensibility 
 the most naive, the most prompt, and touching. 
 He had a wife who was very much his own : he 
 loved Eliza, who was another's. And neither of 
 them, nor both of them, could prevent his falling 
 in love every moment with a momentary passion 
 for every woman whose charm had touched 
 him " a fugitiveness of heart, which was mysteri- 
 ously considered in Paris " to preserve the purity 
 of his cult." 
 
 The only objection made to him was his fre- 
 quent description of common things the engaging 
 of a footman, or the giving of alms to a beggar. 
 Madame Suard, in an article she wrote upon him, 
 confesses that in other hands she would find such 
 events dull; "but I think," she concludes, "that 
 the charm of sensitive people comes from their 
 power of animating and kindling everything. Do 
 not you often feel that it is not so much a want of 
 mind that is tedious, but a want of soul, which 
 brings languor and death with it ? . . . Sterne 
 might almost do without his mind." 
 
120 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 This could not be said of Gibbon, another 
 friend of Suard's. Perhaps it was to pretty little 
 Am^lie that he fled to be soothed, when he was 
 stung by the confidence which Necker showed 
 in retiring to bed, and leaving him alone with his 
 wife at midnight. " He is an insolent madman ! " 
 the humiliated historian exclaimed. Nevertheless, 
 he did not discontinue his attendance on the 
 Neckers, and it was there that the Suards usually 
 came across him a short figure strutting across 
 the room. "The immense trunk of his body, of 
 Silenus proportions, was balanced upon spare, 
 lean legs, whilst his huge turned-in feet em- 
 barrassed one another. The roots of his nose 
 were more deeply sunk in his skull than a 
 Kalmuck's, and his voice was shrill." Even 
 Suard confesses that he felt less drawn to Gibbon 
 than to any other Englishman, and did not hesitate 
 to deal severely with the ornate elegance of his 
 style. 
 
 His relations with David Hume were much 
 warmer. He was one of the first Scotchmen who 
 resided in France. After three years at Rheims, 
 and still longer at La Fleche, where he wrote 
 much, he came to Paris. His minor works were 
 much more appreciated in France than in England; 
 indeed, it was said that his Investigations of the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 121 
 
 Principles of Morality were only read by one 
 Englishman and that was David Hume. Like 
 Sterne, he found his best public amongst the 
 ladies, whose charms he describes with warmth. 
 As for his history, Voltaire pronounced it to be 
 better than Tacitus or Livy. " Never," he 
 writes, " has the public felt more keenly that it 
 only belongs to philosophers to write history. 
 Mr. Hume does not appear to be either a Con- 
 stitutionalist, or a Royalist, or an Anglican, or a 
 Presbyterian. One discovers nothing of himself 
 excepting his superior mind and equable temper. 
 He speaks of weakness, error, and barbarism like 
 a doctor, as if they were epidemics." 
 
 The only time he was known to let a cry 
 escape him was during his relations with Rousseau. 
 Hume, it was said, "Had found the means to be 
 neither deist nor materialist, whilst Jean Jacques 
 surrounded the Eternal Throne by his criticism." 
 Whether or no this contrast arose from difference 
 of disposition, it is difficult to discover ; but 
 certain it is that Hume was dazzled by Rous- 
 seau's company. Under the impression that 
 he alone understood this victim of the world's 
 injuries, and that living with him would be 
 paradise, he insisted on taking him to England, 
 against the warnings of Holbach. "At first all 
 
122 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 went well : the English caressed him, the King 
 protected him, he tolerated them all. His friends 
 in Paris abandoned their fears, and pictured him 
 and Hume in each other's arms." One even- 
 ing, when they were all assembled at Holbach's 
 supper-table, a letter was brought to him from 
 Hume. 
 
 44 My dear Baron," it ran, " Rousseau is a 
 scoundrel ! He has boxed my ears." 
 
 It enclosed a note from Rousseau to Hume, 
 beginning: "You are a traitor! You only 
 brought me here to ruin me after dishonouring 
 me ! " 
 
 "Just as I expected," was Holbach's only 
 comment. 
 
 There seemed to be no better motive for this 
 dissension than the fact that one day Jean 
 Jacques had not had enough visitors to satisfy 
 him, and that he was living in the house of a 
 gentleman who would not admit Rousseau's 
 housekeeper to dine with his wife. The regener- 
 ator of mankind thereupon parted from Hume 
 for ever, got a royal pension, and retired to 
 Derbyshire, where he was entertained for some 
 months by a certain Mr. Davenport. But in the 
 spring he suddenly departed with his housekeeper. 
 He had no other reason than the latter's quarrel 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 123 
 
 with " Mr. Davenport's cook-maid, who had 
 dressed their dinner very ill, and at last had 
 sprinkled ashes on their victuals." Convinced 
 that he should be assassinated on his journey, 
 he demanded a military escort to Dover, and 
 returned to France. He had meanwhile revenged 
 himself on Hume by publishing all the corre- 
 spondence relating to their quarrel. Hume 
 answered by a detailed account of the whole 
 affair, to which Rousseau offered no reply. 
 Suard, who took up Hume's defence, had to 
 investigate all the papers, but never found any 
 adequate cause for the mutual invective. 
 
 Adam Smith, Ferguson, and Robertson were 
 as much talked of in Paris as Hume, and Adam 
 Smith's visit there was described as " the most 
 glorious received by France." His mind had 
 been much affected by the writings of Diderot, 
 Condillac, and Coppineau ; whilst his Wealth of 
 Nations, in its turn, greatly influenced them. It 
 was translated both by Madame Condorcet and 
 by Gamier. Suard had also thought of under- 
 taking the task, but got no further than appreci- 
 ating and criticising it. Smith, he said, was not 
 obscure, but over-abundant in expression. He 
 added to his criticism a warm friendship, not only 
 for Smith, but for his disciple, Douglas Stewart, 
 
124 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 who frequented his salon both in town and 
 country. 
 
 Political guests were by no means wanting. 
 The fame of the popular Lord Bolingbroke, as 
 brilliant a talker as he was a plotter in the Paris 
 of 1735, still survived him. It was kept green 
 by Voltaire's dedication of a book to him ; still 
 more by the memoirs of him written by his 
 personal friend, Saint Lambert, and criticised by 
 his admirer Suard. But even in those days the 
 French men of letters began by looking askance 
 upon him as a Tory, in spite of their discovery 
 that " Tories and Whigs were two sects of the 
 same religion " ; or of Saint Lambert's " What 
 matters it to me if a man be Tory or Whig, 
 Bolingbroke or Walpole ? I only wish to see in 
 the remainder of the former party that which can 
 be useful to mankind at all times." The birth- 
 place of liberty ever preferred a Whig, and was 
 eager to welcome such a one, when some forty 
 years later he actually arrived in the person of the 
 witty dare-devil, John Wilkes. 
 
 His reputation had preceded him, and "the 
 firebrand," as Rousseau called him, soon set 
 the Seine aflame. For " grace and sublimity" he 
 was compared to Voltaire ; the distinction of his 
 English origin betrayed by " LtHywnour " (sic] 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 125 
 
 was envied by all, and the mention of him in 
 the Comte de Grammont's Memoirs was but the 
 expression of universal admiration. 
 
 He early became intimate with Suard, between 
 whom and himself the converse was usually 
 political. " They rarely agreed, and everything 
 that divided them bound them more closely 
 one to another. M. Suard was really a Tory 
 dressed in eighteenth-century philosophy." They 
 had one particular discussion about party Govern- 
 ment. Both, for different reasons, considered it 
 necessary : Wilkes as a check upon Ministers 
 who feared to lose their places through the 
 Opposition ; Suard as an incentive to debate, and 
 a test of public opinion. 
 
 But the most attractive and perhaps the 
 closest of Suard's English friends was David 
 Garrick. He had been known by Madame 
 Suard before her marriage, during his first journey 
 to France ; Suard had become acquainted with 
 him in London. From the first, they found 
 each other congenial company, and during 
 Garrick's later visits to Paris, were, as we have 
 heard, seldom seen apart. The actor's success 
 in France, both as an artist and as a man, was 
 assured from the beginning. It was prepared 
 by the preconceived idea of his genius current 
 
126 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 amongst Parisians, no less than by the fact that 
 he had a Frenchwoman for his mother, and was 
 a finished master of the French tongue. He 
 longed, however, for a finer accent, his great wish 
 being to play with French actors, and to institute 
 a kind of international drama which should send 
 French troiipes to London and English ones to 
 Paris, for the mutual benefit of the two countries. 
 Suard supported him in his desire, and dwelt 
 more especially upon the advantages to be 
 gained from an interchange of repertoires. 
 
 It is curious to find how great a respect for our 
 stage then prevailed in France. Riccoboni, the 
 chief dramatic critic of that day, said that the 
 most perfect dramatic talent, of both kinds, was 
 to be found in London ; Suard, that England 
 especially breathed the tragic spirit, and only 
 used its comedy to relax its spleen. " The genius 
 of Shakespeare," he exclaims, "is the English 
 genius. The genius of Garrick is that of 
 Shakespeare, and because Garrick makes Shake- 
 speare better understood, nearly all England 
 places the actor above the author." 
 
 This was perhaps a little more than the truth ; 
 London hailed Garrick rather as a reviver of 
 Shakespeare than as his superior. It was from 
 a newspaper of that time, at all events, that 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 127 
 
 " Davy " himself quotes the rhyme which invokes 
 heir joint muses 
 
 " Take pity, Garrick, on our erring youth, 
 Restore their minds to Shakespeare and to truth ! 
 Return, return ! our hopes are all in thee ; 
 Save us from tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee ! " 
 
 The first actors in Paris at that time were Pre* ville 
 and Le Kain, who was admired by La Harpe 
 and hated by Marmontel ; their chief actress was 
 the Mademoiselle Clairon, whom we have already 
 met. He had a tempered admiration for her. 
 
 4 'You cannot imagine, my dear Colman," he 
 writes during one of his visits, "what honours I 
 have received from all kinds of people here. 
 The nobles and the literati have made so much 
 of me, that I am quite ashamed of opening my 
 heart, even to you. Marmontel has written me 
 the most flattering letter upon our supping 
 together ; I was in spirits, and so was the Clairon, 
 who supped with us at Mrs. Neville's. She got 
 up to set me a-going, and spoke something in 
 Racine's ' Athalie ' most charmingly ; upon which 
 I gave them the dagger-scene in 'Macbeth,' the 
 curse in * Lear,' and the falling asleep in ' Sir 
 John Brute' ; the consequence of which is that I 
 am now stared at in the playhouse, and talked of 
 by gentle and simple, as the most wonderful 
 
128 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 wonder of wonders. . . . D'Alembert was one of 
 the company, and sings my praises to all the 
 authors of the Encyclopaedia. ... I am this 
 moment going to see a new piece at the Italian 
 Comedy, taken from our ' Tancred and Sigis- 
 munda.' It had a very indifferent success, but 
 Clairon was great ; she has her faults, between 
 you and me ; but I do not say so here, for she 
 idolises me." 
 
 This was not a unique occasion. His good- 
 will was as unfailing as his popularity. " Un- 
 like the singers who cannot perform without 
 an instrument or sometimes even an orchestra," 
 says a French contemporary, " Garrick, with- 
 out waiting for desire to become prayer, alone, 
 and surrounded by faces that almost touched 
 his, played the greatest scenes of the English 
 drama. His everyday coat or cloak, his hat, 
 his boots or shoes, just as he arranged them, 
 became costumes best suited for every part. 
 The only precautions he thought fit to take in 
 the presence of so many spectators (who did not 
 understand English quickly enough for his rapid 
 utterance) were translations made by Suard. The 
 latter declared that they were quite needless : 
 Garrick's pantomime was the noblest, most 
 energetic and pathetic of translations, His 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 129 
 
 gestures gave us ravishment : his accents made 
 us weep." 
 
 The only person Suard thought comparable to 
 him was Talma, but not until he had seen the 
 latter in " Hamlet," "and only at those moments 
 when passion becomes a madness rather than a 
 fury." Hoi bach was as great an admirer as Suard, 
 and doubtless many a performance took place at 
 his house. 
 
 "We had a fine laugh at Baron Holbach's," 
 Garrick writes . . . "about the wicked company 
 I keep ; I am always with that set." 
 
 " With that set " we meet him again, chatting 
 with Mole* (an actor) about the difficulty of being 
 drunk and yet a gentleman upon the stage. 
 Mole* wanted to show him how he managed to 
 act the young marquis his usual part. " Capital! " 
 cried Garrick ; " but make your legs more vinous, 
 and your figure and your head less so. The 
 drunkenness of the People is expressed in its 
 whole body, because it gives itself entirely up to 
 wine : an elegant man, a marquis, never gives 
 up his elegance to it. Look at Michael Angelo's 
 Bacchus : the demi-god is drunk ; he smiles at 
 the liquor, and his cup seems to smile back at him. 
 But he is standing ; he is upright ; you would 
 not suspect that he was drunk excepting by the 
 
 9 
 
130 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 slightest tremble of his legs, the only parts of his 
 body with which the demi-god (who has become 
 a god in his intoxication) touches the earth ! " 
 
 " Perfect ! " cries M. Suard ; " this alone would 
 prove that actors, like Garrick, are thinkers as 
 complete as great poets or great painters." 
 
 Another matter which they discussed was 
 whether imitation was a servile weakness pro- 
 strating man before a few literary altars ; or 
 whether, with its parent admiration, it was not 
 the germ of all progress and the true means of 
 perfecting science and art. The Abb6 Condillac, 
 a theological metaphysician ("who would not 
 have exchanged his share of invention and origin- 
 ality for that of another"), replied that animals 
 hardly possess any powers of imitation, and care 
 to learn nothing beyond eating and drinking ; 
 that there are two sorts of imitation one slavish 
 and impeding all improvement, the other born of 
 genius, and even rising above that which it 
 imitates. " Gentlemen," he concluded, "if the 
 human mind had not been essentially imitative, 
 we should all be dining on acorns at the foot of 
 an oak, and we should none of us be hoping to 
 hear Mr. Garrick by and by. But what does 
 Mr. Garrick himself think about it ? " 
 
 Garrick, who had been listening with an atten- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 131 
 
 tion remarked by all the company, seemed to be 
 interrogating himself and his memories both of 
 his life and his talent ; " but his manner was that 
 of one to whom experience has brought more 
 doubt than solution." Forced, however, to answer 
 so direct a question, " he made some steps as if 
 he were on the stage, placed himself at a little 
 distance from the group of arguers, and quoted, in 
 a voice, half comic, half heroic 
 
 " ' No : let us imitate no one ; but let us all be 
 examples ! ' 
 
 This answer, pronounced to be "perfect in 
 taste and propriety," created "a prodigious effect." 
 M. Suard, at the first moment of silence, observed 
 that the lines Garrick had quoted from a French 
 tragedy became excellent poetry in an English- 
 man's mouth, and might have come straight from 
 Young. The plaudits politely transferred them- 
 selves to Suard. 
 
 Perhaps Garrick especially affected the latter's 
 salon, because he met not only English and 
 French, but every sort of foreigner there. Here 
 came Alfred, Madame d'Albany's husband, who 
 dominated a room by "the glory of his presence" 
 alone. His beautiful looks were seldom disturbed 
 by speech, though he loved travel and knew 
 many languages, " The little gold knob at the top 
 
132 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 of his cane, which he kept passing and repassing 
 over his mouth, seemed to shut his lips, whilst his 
 manner of listening made his silence enigmatic." 
 Sometimes he was thought to be a cautious and 
 skilful ignoramus ; sometimes a man of genius 
 absorbed in great things. His aim was to create 
 a tragic drama in Italy, but Suard and Arnaud 
 were for a long time the only men whom he let 
 into the secret of his powers ; and he sought 
 their advice and judgment and trusted them with 
 his manuscripts. He was one of the evangelists 
 of Liberty, and when the Revolution broke out, 
 made an oration which was "like one of his 
 tragedies put into prose." But events changed 
 his opinions and brought him to the conservatism 
 of his two friends. When asked to account for 
 this, " Ah ! " he replied, " I only knew the great 
 people : I did not know the small ones." 
 
 There was also the distinguished Gatti, an 
 Italian doctor, and a kind of masculine Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montague, who had spread inoculation, 
 and lived much in Constantinople and near the 
 Black Sea. He had read little, observed much, and 
 believed more in good sense than in culture. He 
 carried out his creed in his profession, and classi- 
 fied all illnesses under two heads those one dies 
 of, and those one does not, " Gatti ought to have 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 133 
 
 been Moliere's doctor," Suard said ; "but I don't 
 know whether Gatti would have grown more of a 
 sceptic, or Moliere more of a believer." He was 
 probably better as a friend than as a physician, 
 and had a particular affection for Madame Suard. 
 11 She is the only pretty woman I have never been 
 in love with," he declared, "and one of those 
 whom I have most loved." 
 
 At his side we see the Marquis of Beccaria, a 
 zealous Italian, absorbed in his efforts to abolish 
 capital punishment. His Treatise on Pains 
 and Penalties was once, we hear, " on the 
 mantelshelf of every salon," and nobody dreamed 
 that his name would not live for ever. One 
 day, at the Suards' supper - table, there arose 
 a discussion as to the fitting punishment for a 
 man who had just boiled and eaten a child. 
 " Let us ask M. de Beccaria! " cried the rest of 
 the company. " He should be compelled to be 
 a vegetarian for the rest of his life," this authority 
 replied. 
 
 M. de Beccaria had a high-flown friendship 
 for the Marquis de Very, a politico-Economist 
 of some standing. Three feelings were said to 
 bind them together : their friendship for each 
 other ; their sentiment for women older than 
 themselves ; and their devotion to the rights 
 
134 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 and happiness of man. Suard and Morellet had 
 more correspondence with them than with any- 
 body else, and the Abbe and Very indulged in 
 tete-a-tete talks on economics, " for which eternity 
 would have been too short." 
 
 The last figure in this group (whose transitory 
 renown invests it with a certain pathos) was 
 the Duke of Braganza, a Portuguese Admirable 
 Crichton. His chief claims to fame were his 
 rescue of a negro, whom he carried away from 
 the Lisbon earthquake on his back, without 
 further assistance ; and his marriage at eighty, 
 which resulted in a large family of children. 
 
 It was advisable that Suard should make new 
 friends, for his old ones were fast disappearing 
 from the world. The Abbe" Arnaud died in 
 1785 ; Madame Geoffrin had passed away ; and 
 soon after, in spite of her youth, Mademoiselle de 
 Lespinasse also followed her, worn out both in 
 body and in soul. Suard had long been the 
 confidant of her sorrows, and also her counsellor, 
 though not to much effect, for she was as wilful 
 as she was urbane. Till her death she lived 
 with d'Alembert on the warmest terms : he 
 nursed her ; wrote her letters for her ; and, at 
 the same time, depended on her. But, some 
 time before the end, she had fallen in love with 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 135 
 
 a romantic gentleman, called Moira, with whom 
 she had fervid relations. He was compelled 
 to a temporary absence abroad. It was fatal 
 to him. Whilst her feeling for him was at its 
 height, and at the same moment that she was 
 writing him the extravagant love-letters which 
 have made her reputation, she came across a 
 certain young man, M. Guibert, who inspired 
 her versatile heart with a second passion of 
 equal magnitude. Her letters to both of them 
 form a literature as eloquent as it is sincere. 
 But the new love soon superseded the old, 
 and when Moira fell mortally ill and died in 
 some foreign town, buoyed up by his confidence 
 in her affection, she summoned M. Guibert 
 from Spain, where he then was. He arrived 
 too late to see her again. Exhausted by the 
 equivocal position of her heart between these 
 two conflicting inclinations, she cut the knot 
 by bidding farewell to the world, cheered to the 
 last by the support of Suard. D'Alembert was 
 inconsolable. He received universal sympathy ; 
 notably that of Frederick the Great, who wrote 
 him a letter, " not as a king, but as a friend." 
 Madame Suard was almost the only person he 
 found congenial in his grief. He did not suffer 
 for long ; old and infirm, his sorrow broke him 
 
136 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 down, and he did not survive his friend by more 
 than eight or nine months. 
 
 It was happy that he and his companions in 
 death were spared what was to come. They had 
 scarcely closed their eyes, before the Revolution 
 burst upon France, to deface the image of that 
 radiant Liberty which they had only seen as in a 
 dream. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 THE Suards possess an unquestionable ad- 
 vantage in the eyes of their biographers : 
 they survived the Revolution. This may have 
 been partly due to luck, but it was in great 
 measure the result of Suard's own powers of 
 prudence ; he knew the moment when discretion 
 became valour, and withdrew in time. Though 
 he admired the English Government, he did 
 not desire it for all countries. An unswerving 
 supporter of legitimate authority, he called him- 
 self a Constitutional Royalist, but his monarchical 
 principles were perhaps the strongest in him. 
 Yet his humane sense of justice made him 
 sympathise with the Revolution, before it was 
 recognised as such. In these early days, the 
 wise men of France were still eager to reconcile 
 old and new by efficient measures. They had 
 no doubt that the reform of the Game Laws 
 
 137 
 
138 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 and a new system of taxation would appease the 
 struggling Tiers-Etat. 
 
 The leaders of this noble but inadequate party 
 were Lafayette, Sainte-Croix, and Montmorin, 
 the Minister for Foreign Affairs, to whom Suard 
 was closely bound by affection. To their aid he 
 brought both his pen and his energy, his special 
 organ being his own papers, the Publiciste and 
 L? Indfyendant. In these he used his best efforts 
 to preserve the Academic, which was soon de- 
 nounced as a hotbed of aristocracy. Chamfort 
 was loud in demanding its suppression, Suard 
 firm in its defence ; but, in spite of his eloquence, 
 it perished, soon to be followed by most of the 
 persons who had composed it. 
 
 The storm was gathering in force, and even 
 Suard's cool head took alarm. He enrolled him- 
 self in the Garde Nationale, and awaited events. 
 They were not slow in coming. The two strong- 
 holds of the Royalists were the Quartier des 
 Filles Saint Thomas and the Quartier Vendome ; 
 but the latter, hearing a shout of "They are 
 firing on the people ! " went over at once to 
 the enemy. This was just before the storming 
 of the Bastille. Suard escaped unhurt, his heart 
 full of admiration for the Queen and her royal 
 calm. Horror upon horror followed, one close 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 139 
 
 upon another. "When once we find ourselves 
 alone with the People ! " Talleyrand had said 
 somewhat earlier, with a shudder ; and events 
 were now to finish his sentence for him. Amelie 
 Suard found herself wondering that the sun still 
 shone and the stars ran their course ; and her 
 husband lost all hope for JFrance. After the 
 terrible Massacres of September, when the news 
 of Montmorin's slaughter was brought to him, his 
 spirit failed him. " You will see France turn into 
 one vast tomb ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 The panic became an epidemic. " Life has 
 become an art," one man was heard to observe ; 
 another, who was asked what he thought of the 
 business, replied in a whisper : " What do I think? 
 Why, I hardly dare even hold my tongue ! " The 
 Suards, robbed by their valet and reduced to 
 the direst straits, could only rejoice that their one 
 child had died in infancy. At last they both 
 succumbed, and were successively confined to 
 their beds by a virulent fever. Their doctor, a 
 personal friend, was so paralysed by terror that 
 he was powerless to help them, and subsequently 
 died of fear. 
 
 They had now lost all, save a small sum of 
 money, their books, and Fontenai, to which, at 
 this juncture, they retired. Happily they had 
 
140 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 nobody but themselves to provide for, Condorcet, 
 their former house-mate, having long since left 
 them to work in remoter seclusion. They had a 
 lodge to their house called "The Cottage of 
 Friends," and this they cleverly let to a young 
 couple who kept house in common with them, and 
 thus halved their expenses. In the evenings 
 the neighbours came in, and a lady was told off 
 to read aloud the great tragedies ; the men dis- 
 cussed them, whilst the women worked. The 
 possibility of so peaceful a routine was due to 
 their luck in possessing a District President of 
 rational temper, who wished for nothing better 
 than to let them alone. They were loth to 
 quit the island they had found for themselves 
 in the ocean of death around them, and their 
 days were spent in welcome monotony, despite 
 the domiciliary visits which were devastating 
 their neighbours' homes. Their contact with 
 calamity was yet to come. 
 
 They were at length compelled to spend three 
 days in Paris, and contrived to emerge safely. 
 On their return, they heard that a starved-looking 
 beggar had been inquiring for them. Next morn- 
 ing at nine o'clock, as Ame'lie sat reading, she saw 
 a ragged man with a tangled beard go up to the 
 door. She was seized by a vague alarm, which 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 141 
 
 increased as he did not come out again, and she 
 heard strange sounds of shuffling in her husband's 
 room upstairs. After a long time her anxiety 
 was relieved by Suard's entrance. He was calm 
 in manner, but deadly pale. She asked him what 
 their visitor demanded. " You once promised 
 always to obey me and to trust me implicitly," 
 he answered ; "I now beg you to keep your 
 word and to forgive me if I forbid you to go up- 
 stairs, or to question me about anything that is 
 happening." She submitted. Towards nightfall 
 she saw the stranger steal away and search in 
 his pockets as he went. Suard lost no time in 
 coming to her and assuaging her fears. The 
 man, he told her, was M. de Condorcet, their 
 friend of sixteen years' standing. He had been 
 lodging with a widow in the country, and had 
 been so absorbed in the book that he was writing 
 that he had not stirred from the house for nine 
 months. But there was a price upon his head ; 
 his abode had become known, and he was forced 
 to quit it. His first thought had been the Suards. 
 Weak with his long confinement indoors, and 
 unused to walking, he had somehow made his 
 way to Fontenai, to find them absent in Paris. 
 Foodless and exhausted, he had lain in hiding till 
 the morning. He begged Suard for shelter; the 
 
142 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 tender husband would not endanger his wife's 
 safety without consulting her, though he was sure 
 of her consent. But his fears for her over- 
 came his friendship, and after strengthening 
 Condorcet with wine, he begged him to depart 
 till it became dark, when he was to meet him and 
 bring him back for the night. Meanwhile Suard 
 undertook to get him a passport which would 
 ensure his escape from France. He gave him 
 a sum of money, some tobacco, without which 
 Condorcet could not exist, and a Horace with 
 which to pass the time ; then bade him farewell till 
 evening. Needless to say that Ame'lie was eager 
 to forward her husband's plan. He went to Paris 
 with great difficulty, procured a passport from 
 Cabanis, and returned. He and his wife then sent 
 the servants away, closed all the doors, prepared a 
 sofa and plentiful food and waited. On going 
 upstairs, she was distressed and somewhat amused 
 to find that the absent-minded philosopher had 
 dropped his host's present of tobacco upon the 
 floor, so that he must have passed hours of dis- 
 comfort without it. She consoled herself with 
 the thought that it would soon be restored to him. 
 Still they waited, and still their guest did not 
 appear. Their watch lasted all night, and when 
 the morning broke, they hardly dared look in one 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 143 
 
 another's eyes for the fear that possessed them. 
 It was too well founded. During the day, they 
 heard of Condorcet's arrest. 
 
 Soon after he had left their house, he missed his 
 tobacco, and, impelled by his craving for it, went 
 into a tavern to buy some. Still prostrate from 
 fatigue, he thought he would take advantage of 
 this opportunity to get some dinner, and ordered 
 an omelette. " How many eggs do you wish to 
 be used ? " inquired the landlord, who had been 
 eyeing him suspiciously. The innocent Condorcet, 
 who never knew what he put into his mouth, was 
 at his wits' end ; he reflected on the size of the 
 ordinary omelette. "Twelve," he boldly replied. 
 His fate was sealed; none but an aristocrat 
 could be so ignorant or so extravagant. He 
 was arrested, and his pockets were straightway 
 examined. The Horace that was found there was 
 a final proof, and he was led away to the prison 
 from which he never emerged. Here it was that 
 he was found dead by his gaoler, killed, as is 
 supposed, by his own hand, in order to avoid the 
 ignominy of the guillotine. 
 
 The Suards have been severely blamed for 
 their conduct in this matter, and the fact remains 
 that, had he stayed in their house, he might have 
 escaped. But their part in the transaction has 
 
144 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 been much misrepresented, and if it was not 
 heroic, it must be also remembered that it was 
 natural to put a wife before a friend. His death 
 was a blow from which they took long to rally. 
 They had loved him truly, and he deserved their 
 love. " We become better in the presence of a 
 good man," had been a saying of his which his 
 life had done more than anything to prove. 
 
 This was in 1793. One July morning in 1794, 
 Amdlie observed a throng of people hastening 
 forward along the road. On joining them, she 
 saw another crowd coming in the opposite 
 direction and waving their arms as they ap- 
 proached. " Robespierre is dead!" they cried, 
 and the two multitudes embraced each other in 
 silence. In Paris, the rejoicing was even more 
 intense. One of the prisoners in the Temple got 
 wind of the tyrant's execution. At eleven at 
 night he whispered to the rest that he would tell 
 them a great piece of news at twelve o'clock. He 
 did not dare to do so before, for fear of the gaolers, 
 who were not yet in bed. The assembly sat 
 waiting motionless, without a word. As the 
 great clock struck midnight, he said, "We are 
 saved. Robespierre is no more ! " The good 
 news fell like a thunderbolt. Still speechless, 
 their cheeks wet with tears, they all rose and 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 145 
 
 formed a solemn ring. Then they began to 
 dance, and never stopped till exhaustion over- 
 came them and they could dance no more. 
 
 The end of the Terror seemed almost like the 
 beginning of the Golden Age, yet the fight was 
 by no means finished. Paris was soon convulsed 
 by the dissensions of the Jacobins amongst them- 
 selves ; the Convention and the Extreme Left 
 flew at each other's throats. Suard supported 
 the Convention as the body most resembling a 
 government. He was proscribed by the Extreme 
 Party, and his house in Paris was sealed with 
 the National Seal that badge of confiscation. 
 Fontenai underwent a like fate, owing to the 
 treachery of his portress. He escaped first to 
 a friend at Cernai, where he found Madame 
 d'Houdetot and Saint Lambert; then to Francois 
 de Pange at Passy. His wife meanwhile paid a 
 gallant visit to Paris, and, in spite of seals, con- 
 trived to regain some of their money and to keep 
 his whereabouts a secret. She had the courage 
 to pay him an impromptu visit at de Pange's, but 
 she only dared stay for two hours. 
 
 A short-lived peace ensued and allowed them 
 to meet again. They went together to Coppet, 
 whither Necker had warmly invited them. He 
 had lost his wife, and they found him much 
 
 10 
 
U6 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 changed by the sorrow he had undergone, but 
 with all his energies still unimpaired. " What a 
 beautiful age is seventy for writing!" he exclaimed 
 to them and he certainly bore out his precept in 
 his practice. 
 
 They had settled down peacefully with him, 
 when a fresh struggle began between the rival 
 Councils which had now sprung up : the Directoire 
 and the Council of the Ancients. The former 
 won, and lost no time in issuing a long list of 
 proscriptions. Amongst other names was that of 
 Suard, who was out of France, and therefore safe. 
 Necker pressed him to remain ; indeed, so fond was 
 he of them both that he proposed they should always 
 live with him. But he had generously made Coppet 
 into a refuge for all who choose to flee thither, 
 and the Directoire, getting wind of this, com- 
 plained that he was harbouring suspected persons. 
 At the same time, Madame de Stael wrote from 
 Paris to warn her father of the danger and urge 
 his guests to depart. Suard, too unselfish to 
 expose his host for a moment, made up his mind 
 to go at once. It was at great cost, for his wife 
 could not possibly accompany him. At first 
 his absence promised to be a short one, and, 
 consoling themselves with this thought, they bade 
 each other farewell. Suard bent his steps to 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 147 
 
 other parts of Switzerland, then to Germany. 
 Ame'lie again took her courage in both hands, 
 and resolved to go to Paris for her husband's 
 sake, that she might rescue the remainder of 
 their property. It had been placed under the care 
 of a friend of theirs ; but when she reached her 
 house, not only did she find that it was " under the 
 Seal," but also that the friend had not had the 
 presence of mind to remove their valuables before 
 the arrival of the Directoire officials. She could 
 get at nothing, nor had she any shelter. In this 
 sore distress, she turned to Pauline de Beaumont, 
 whose life, as we shall see, had been maimed and 
 crushed by the Terror. She and her cousin, 
 Louise de Pange (the wife of Frangois), took the 
 brave little Ame'lie into their house and set to 
 work to help her. Happily, Pauline's great friend, 
 the writer Joubert, was President of the " Section " 
 in which the Suards had lived. They applied to 
 him ; the Seal was immediately removed, and the 
 valuables safely found and carried away with the 
 help of Madame de Pange. 
 
 Suard, meanwhile, was making his way to 
 Tubingen ; there many proscribed and con- 
 genial people had fled, and he stayed some 
 time, in the company of M. de Narbonne, 
 Madame Laval, and Camille Jordan. From the 
 
i 4 8 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 first day of his absence, he and Amelie opened a 
 correspondence which, in feeling and expression, 
 might easily have been that of their courting-days. 
 Now he thanks her extravagantly for her 
 miniature, which, to his surprise, he found hidden 
 in his " rabbit-skin glove," just as he was longing 
 for her portrait ; now he uses his best endeavours 
 to cheer and strengthen her mind, which was too 
 often a prey to dark fancies. His injunctions 
 were not wasted, for all through her ordeal she 
 made persevering efforts after calm, and showed 
 a touching resignation at his absence, which 
 threatened to prolong itself indefinitely. She 
 went to see Talleyrand and besought his influence ; 
 he made many fair promises, which bore no fruit. 
 At this juncture, the Directoire offered to all who 
 had been exiled the island of Oleron for the use 
 of themselves and their families. Here seemed 
 a chance of reunion and of pleasant reunion, as 
 they would find most of their friends there. But 
 Suard's noble reluctance to accept favour from a 
 Government which he despised, made him reject 
 this opportunity, and his wife had to submit to 
 his decision. It is impossible not to suspect 
 that the grand renunciation was more on her 
 side than his, and that while he urged her to 
 self-control, he was easily attaining that virtue 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 149 
 
 himself in German towns and the company of 
 agreeable tinigrds. 
 
 Their separation had lasted nearly three years. 
 In 1799, she discovered that by pretending she 
 had a legacy to claim in Frankfort, she could 
 arrange to meet him there. She started in the 
 coach, under the escort of a young officer of Marie 
 Antoinette's bodyguard whose beauty had saved 
 him from death. Her journey passed without 
 adventure, and with unspeakable joy she found 
 herself once more in the arms of the husband she 
 loved so well. Their luck had indeed turned, for 
 Suard was now allowed to re-establish one of his 
 newspapers, and promptly set to work again. 
 Clairon having given them good introductions to 
 her friend, the Minister at Anspach (a popular 
 centre for Amgr&\ they resolved to settle there, 
 and did so for eight months. 
 
 The companions whom they joined here were 
 all as poor as themselves and led their life in 
 common a life as touching in cheerful simplicity 
 as it was in dignified effort. The women lived 
 by embroidery which was sold in Germany. Like 
 the men, they worked from seven in the morning 
 till nine at night. Then they all met for relaxa- 
 tion, either at the house of the Minister's sister, 
 or at the Bishop of Diez', sometimes also at the 
 
ISO THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 Castle. The Suards soon became the ruling 
 spirits of this society, and gave suppers twice a 
 week : a fact not destitute of pathos. As usual, 
 they made many warm friends, and when they 
 eventually departed, they left their furniture to 
 the Emigre's. 
 
 This was in 1800, when Napoleon's Coup 
 d'Etat once more turned the fate of France. The 
 great Consul, who never lost time in detecting 
 ability, at once recognised Suard's worth. No 
 sooner had the latter returned to Paris, than he 
 made him " Perpetual Secretary" to \heAcadffmie, 
 with a high salary. Bonaparte interviewed him, 
 and asked after the Academical Dictionary, then in 
 process of creation. Suard replied that the work 
 flagged, because time and men were wanting. 
 " That is saying a great deal," rejoined Napoleon ; 
 "Men I can imagine, but why time?" He pro- 
 mised to adopt the new Secretary's views, and the 
 cautious Suard, by no means anxious for frequent 
 contact with his chief, persuaded him to allow the 
 institution of a council to be held twice a week, 
 and to consist of five members, amongst whom 
 were Morellet, Boufflers, and Suard himself. 
 
 The murder of the Due d'Enghien, two years 
 later, gave a great shock to his admiration for 
 the Consul, now the Emperor of France, He 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 151 
 
 heard and shuddered at the cry of the mob, when 
 the Bonaparte sisters had their carriage called at 
 the theatre, and used their new titles for this 
 purpose. " Princesses ? " shouted the people. 
 "Yes! princesses of the Enghien blood." In 
 vain did Bonaparte try to convert him to his own 
 view of the matter ; he remained impregnable. 
 Nor was he less firm about the unjust trial of 
 General Moreau, who was unscrupulously accused 
 of joining Cadoudal's plot against the Emperor. 
 The latter again did his best to make Suard ap- 
 prove his course of action, and again produced no 
 effect. It is a matter for wonder that the omni- 
 potent Dictator, who never endured criticism 
 without disgracing the critic, should have long 
 left his Secretary unmolested. He even allowed 
 him to hold his own in conversation, especially 
 on one occasion, when he contradicted Bonaparte 
 about Tacitus, before a vast European audience 
 assembled in the Tuileries. Suard had been 
 boldly defending the republican form of govern- 
 ment. " I too desire a Republic," replied the 
 
 Emperor, "but " The blank was indeed too 
 
 large to fill up. " We shall come nearer and 
 nearer to each other, you and I," Napoleon 
 graciously concluded; and though his prophecy 
 was not fulfilled, ^nd he afterwards suppressed 
 
152 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the Publiciste, Suard never suffered ignominy at 
 his hands. 
 
 The Suards had resumed their salon, and it 
 was at this period that Dr. Edgeworth and Maria 
 visited them. But their company, for the most 
 part, consisted of new guests, whose names lie 
 beyond our present scope. That of Madame 
 de Stael, however, still remains as one of the 
 most prominent. " That contagious woman," as 
 Napoleon called her, " who could not help making 
 enemies," could still less help making friends. 
 Her companionship became very necessary to 
 Suard as he grew older. Of her books he had 
 always been a staunch admirer, especially of her 
 Allemagne, which fell in with his hopes of 
 literary interchange between Germany and his 
 own country. But he disapproved of her writings 
 upon Kant, and regretted her waste of time over 
 such obscure philosophy. "That of Bacon or 
 Locke needs no one to explain it," he wrote ; 
 " it explains everything itself . . . but German 
 philosophy rejects experience, and must therefore 
 be rejected." 
 
 Towards the close of his life, his wish for 
 her presence grew into longing. He recalled a 
 former visit of hers : " Would she were in my 
 study now ! " he cried, at the very moment that; 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 153 
 
 she lay dying at Geneva. Twelve days later, 
 both of them had passed away. 
 
 But this was not till he was more than eighty 
 years old. Meanwhile, he used his best energies 
 to help others, especially young people ; and 
 passed the rest of his time agreeably between 
 friends, books, and chess, of which game Madame 
 Suard solemnly records her jealousy. He sur- 
 vived the Empire, and lived to receive the Order 
 of Saint Michael from the hands of Louis XVIII. 
 
 He went on writing almost to the end. It is 
 as a man and not as an author that we value him 
 most ; but his articles had a reputation in their 
 day, and he published plenty of them, upon various 
 themes ; Addison, Lord Chesterfield, Madame de 
 Sevignd, La Bruyere, La Rochefoucauld, Plato, 
 and many others, were discussed by his pen. He 
 also produced a remarkable volume upon Oliver 
 Cromwell, in which the latter's tyranny was so 
 forcibly denounced, that Napoleon's Censors 
 thought they traced dangerous allusions to him 
 there, and suppressed the book. It appeared 
 later, but not until after the Emperor s fall. 
 
 Suard did not only review other people ; his 
 last energies were devoted to his Notes on his 
 own Life, a collection of disjointed reminiscences 
 jotted down on stray scraps of paper left about 
 
154 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 anywhere, and meant for the use of his wife. As 
 he felt death approaching, his one thought was 
 for her. He feared that grief might derange her 
 reason, already jarred by the horrors of the 
 Revolution ; and to prevent this evil, he charged 
 her to write his Memoirs from such material 
 as he bequeathed to her. When, in 1817, the 
 end came, she found her only consolation in this 
 task, and strung his notes together with very 
 honourable results. She lived for thirteen years 
 longer, and only died in 1830, when she was 
 about eighty-six. 
 
 " I have followed my inclination ; I have en- 
 joyed greatly ; I have sacrificed nothing ; for I 
 could not aspire to the glory of genius the only 
 glory which could have tempted me." So wrote 
 Suard, shortly before his death, to his friend the 
 Abbe* Morellet. His words sum up his position 
 both in life and in literature. Had he been 
 second-rate, he might have achieved more. His 
 career was also impeded by a certain want of 
 creative force, for his character was finer than 
 his brain. Almost the last survivors of the old 
 society, he and his wife had managed to keep 
 their heads and their hearts through all its glamour 
 and confusion, and to welcome the new order 
 with wide and loving spirits, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 155 
 
 " The soul has no secret which conduct does 
 not reveal," he had once himself written. It was 
 undeniably true about him and his Ame'lie. Their 
 pure lives were a faithful mirror of their souls ; 
 their only excesses were their noble enthusiasms, 
 and they were as incapable of harbouring a small 
 thought, as they were of committing a mean 
 action. Their merits were greater than their 
 fate ; they rest forgotten, yet they deserve to be 
 remembered. 
 
PAULINE DE BEAUMONT 
 
 167 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 /^""^HARLES LAMB somewhere confesses 
 v^x that the name of Michael Drayton has a 
 finer relish to his ear than that of Shakespeare, 
 because Drayton was his own discovery, and 
 Shakespeare was not. We might almost say the 
 same of Pauline de Beaumont, when we compare 
 her to Madame Recamier, or any other famous 
 lady of French society. There are so few who 
 know her that to each of them she seems their 
 own discovery, one might almost say their own 
 love ; for all who find her, love her. Hers is 
 an intimate charm, as subtle and as unsuited 
 to a big world as the fragrance of quickly- 
 fading heliotrope ; the charm also of a character 
 of strong contrasts delicately interwoven 
 passion and calm ; ardour and unbelief ; tender- 
 ness and bitterness ; serene playfulness and 
 heart-searching tragedy. There is something 
 appealing to interest in a woman whose favourite 
 
 159 
 
160 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 books were Voltaire's Letters, the History of 
 Port Royal, Tristram Shandy, and Plato's 
 Phczdo. She was, in fact, as complicated as she 
 was simple. A young poet once presented her 
 with a seal on which was engraved " A nothing 
 agitates me, but nothing shakes me." She kept 
 it as her motto, and it was always characteristic 
 of her, whether before or after that terrible 
 Revolution, which deprived her of almost every 
 relation she had, destroyed her health, and for 
 ever saddened her soul. 
 
 But it seems strange that so little should be 
 heard of one who, in her short life of thirty-three 
 years, was the confidante and critic of Andre 
 Chdnier and Madame de Stael ; the adorer and 
 for some time adored of Chateaubriand, whose 
 Gtnie du Christianisme she, so to speak, produced ; 
 the friend, above all, of Joubert, that master 
 craftsman of maxims and thoughts, first introduced 
 to us by Matthew Arnold that " Plato with the 
 heart of La Fontaine," as Chateaubriand describes 
 him to whom she was the ruling feeling, the 
 stimulus and the romance of life. When she 
 died, his joy in existence flagged ; and each 
 October, the month of her illness and death, he 
 kept sacred to her, spending it in retirement and 
 in remembrance. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 161 
 
 No less was this frail woman the centre of the 
 knot of eminent men and charming women who 
 gathered round her between 1798 and 1802 in 
 her little salon of the Rue Neuve du Luxem- 
 bourg, where, for the last two years, Chateau- 
 briand reigned as king. They gave her the name 
 of "The Swallow," and there must have been 
 something swift and intangible about her, for 
 Joubert, attempting to define her, writes of her as 
 "the aerial soul." She is brought more vividly 
 before our eyes, perhaps, by Chateaubriand's 
 description which paints her at this period of 
 her life, when she was about thirty years old. 
 
 " Madame de Beaumont's countenance was 
 rather plain than pretty, and is the most faithfully 
 given us in a portrait by Madame Lebrun. Her 
 face was worn and pale ; her eyes, shaped like 
 almonds, would perhaps have sent forth too much 
 brilliance, had not an extraordinary gentleness 
 half veiled her glances, making them shine 
 languidly, as a ray of light is softened in passing 
 through crystal water. Her character had a kind 
 of rigour and impatience, which arose from the 
 force of her feelings and the internal illness 
 from which she suffered. High of soul, great of 
 courage, she was born for that world from which 
 
 her spirit had withdrawn, both from choice and 
 ii 
 
162 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 from sorrow ; but when the voice of a friend called 
 forth this solitary mind, it came and spoke to 
 you words straight from heaven. The extreme 
 weakness of Madame de Beaumont made her 
 expression slow, and this slowness was touching." 
 
 It was this same "solitary mind" which so 
 impressed itself upon her friends that they could 
 never forget their need of her when death had 
 taken her away. Four years after that event, in 
 1807, at one of Madame de StaeTs parties at 
 Coppet, M. de Sabran, a favourite guest of hers, 
 started the subject of women's friendships for 
 each other, and denied that they could be either 
 deep, lasting, or disinterested. The conversa- 
 tion was cut short by Madame de Stael, who 
 vehemently exclaimed, "Ever since I came into 
 the world, I have admired and loved a most noble 
 character. Never have I met one more generous, 
 more grateful, or more passionately sensitive. It 
 was a woman's. All my roots were bound up in 
 her ; I should have made her my lifelong friend. 
 I mean Pauline de Beaumont, the daughter of 
 the unfortunate Montmorin, my father's faithful 
 colleague." 
 
 It was indeed the position of Pauline's father, 
 the Minister Montmorin, which both made and 
 marred her life. The family of the Montmorins 
 
PAULINE DE BEAUMONT 
 From a portrait in the possession of the Joubert family 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 163 
 
 was an old one, springing from the Saint Harems. 
 Frangois de Montmorin, governor of Auvergne 
 under Charles IX., wrote to that king to tell him 
 that he could not believe the orders for Saint 
 Bartholomew's Eve to be authentic ; and that if 
 they were, he should still refuse to obey them, 
 out of respect to His Majesty. Montmorin the 
 Minister was a worthy descendant of his forebear, 
 in nobility, if not in force of character. He was 
 a fervent Royalist, but also a lover of consti- 
 tutional methods, the great friend of Necker 
 and of Lafayette (with whom he afterwards had 
 differences), and also, for a time, when clouds 
 were gathering but hope was still rife, the eager 
 collaborator of the mighty Mirabeau in his schemes 
 for a better monarchy. In earlier days, Mont- 
 morin was made menin, or tutor to the Dauphin, 
 afterwards Louis XVI. Then followed his ap- 
 pointment as Spanish ambassador, and later as 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs, which office he kept 
 through days already troublous, until the year 
 before the breaking-out of the Revolution. He 
 was a highly-strung man, exceedingly diligent 
 and painstaking, though his powers have been 
 variously criticised. 
 
 M. Bardoux, the chief modern authority upon 
 Madame de Beaumont and her family, judging 
 
164 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 him by the light of history, writes of him with 
 great admiration ; whilst the aristocrat Ber- 
 trand de Moleville, speaking of him as a con- 
 temporary, dwells in his Memoirs upon the 
 " extreme weakness of his character," and upon 
 the fact of his playing into the hands of the 
 Opposition, at the King's instigation. This, 
 however, is perhaps no more than the natural 
 verdict of the old-fashioned Monarchist upon the 
 more parliamentary party in his own camp, for 
 we find him praising the Minister's " justice and 
 faculty for business," and his true devotion to 
 the King ; summing him up as " neither a Demo- 
 crat, nor a Constitutionalist, but a real Royalist." 
 He had, at any rate, that considerable import- 
 ance in his own time which belongs to men who 
 are the able allies of greater men ; beloved by a 
 large circle of friends, he also possessed the gift 
 of social success. This is not so evident till his 
 daughter Pauline grew up. He had married a 
 woman of no culture, but of robust will, who had 
 the post of Attendant upon the aunts of Louis XVI. 
 They had four children two sons, Auguste and 
 Calixte ; and two daughters, Victoire married 
 early to M. de Luzerne, French ambassador in 
 England and Pauline, who was educated by her 
 aunts and sent to two successive convents, the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 165 
 
 last of them a " finishing" institution, whence 
 she emerged in 1786, to be married at sixteen, 
 without choice or affection, to the young Count 
 Francois de Beaumont a man "equally lacking 
 in culture and taste," a singular mixture of 
 coarseness, weakness, and violence. Not only was 
 he incapable of understanding his wife, in whom 
 refinement was a sixth sense, but he bitterly resented 
 the qualities which he could not understand, and 
 which made him feel that she saw through him 
 more especially, doubtless, her power of im- 
 patient irony, which experience had not yet 
 softened. Life grew unbearable to both of 
 them, and after a few months he went away 
 to his parents, but presently returned to his 
 home. It was then Pauline's turn to say she 
 would go that his grossness and density were 
 not to be endured. In vain did her adoring 
 but furious father threaten her with a lettre de 
 cachet. She was too clever not to know that 
 the fury would pass, but the adoration remain. 
 A definite rupture took place between husband 
 and wife in 1787, and they parted, never to live 
 together again. He finally forsook her during 
 the Terror in 1794, saved his own neck by much 
 servility and strategy, without any attempt to 
 rescue hers married again after their divorce 
 
1 66 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 in 1800, and survived her forty-eight years, only 
 dying in 1851. 
 
 She, meanwhile, returned to her parents' roof, 
 and the dread cachet was turned into the less 
 ominous wafer with which she sealed her father's 
 letters, for she became his secretary and also 
 the hostess of his salon ; a function which she 
 was as well fitted as her mother was unfitted 
 to perform. This year, 1787-88, was the 
 happiest the only calm one, perhaps in her 
 life. The Montmorins were rich enough for all 
 the refinements they loved, though they would 
 have been considered only moderately luxurious 
 according to the standard then prevailing. They 
 spent ^"2112 a year upon their table, ^240 a 
 year upon their wash ; whilst Pauline's annual 
 allowance for books and bookbinding amounted 
 to ^280. Perhaps nothing so humanises history 
 as historical accounts, the practical being always 
 the warmest side of life ; and such details, 
 especially the last item, make the whole house- 
 hold alive again with their rose-colour and fine 
 linen, which (to Pauline at least) were incomplete 
 without intellectual distinction and well - bound 
 editions of the books on which she fed. 
 
 As for the distinction, she found it in the 
 friends who made up her circle, Most people 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 167 
 
 have in youth an intellectual and social godfather, 
 who forms their judgment and introduces them 
 to life. Pauline found hers in her cousin 
 Francois de Pange, who influenced her at this 
 time more than anybody, although only five 
 years her senior. In his maturity of thought, 
 his clearness of soul and -depth of knowledge, 
 he recalls Arthur Hallam to our remembrance ; 
 like him, too, he was doomed to die early and 
 whilst he lived, to enjoy a considerable reputation 
 amongst his fellows : for though he had not as 
 yet achieved anything in literature, his career 
 was the hope of many, who looked to his lofty 
 reason and moderate views for the solution of 
 political problems. " He never said anything 
 that did not deserve to be written ; or wrote 
 anything that did not deserve to be perfected," 
 Roederer afterwards said of him. But he 
 firmly refused to write for the public, even 
 when Pauline pressed him to do so. It would 
 be of no use, he replied, for "it is the mass of 
 the people we ought to enlighten ; but then this 
 mass is for ever agitating itself and never reads. 
 We must calm it before enlightening it." 
 
 Madame de Beaumont's character of him, 
 written after his death, analysed his nature for 
 us ; perhaps, also, the reason he is forgotten. 
 
1 68 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 " That man," she says, "who possesses one 
 quality far beyond any other who, for in- 
 stance, is more courageous than the ordinary 
 run of men, or more generous, or more human, 
 but who has nothing else extraordinary-^-that 
 man shines by his dominant quality, which 
 the rest of his character gave one no reason to 
 expect ; but when everything is in harmony, 
 when the qualities both of heart and brain are 
 well ordered, so that their agreement regulates 
 all the movements of mind and soul, one is no 
 longer struck by this agreement, unless it be by 
 its rarity ; its effects do not astound, because 
 they are foreseen." 
 
 Yet, notwithstanding his philosophy, Francois 
 de Pange had a romantic heart. He gave its 
 love to Louise de Shrilly, whom he married after 
 the Revolution, and to whom he was faithful, even 
 in all the glamour of his early intercourse with 
 Pauline de Beaumont. But the latter was his 
 intellectual idol, and became the confidante of his 
 every aim and aspiration. If genius she had, it 
 was a genius for discriminating the best, and for 
 worshipping it when she had found it, both in 
 books and men. Hers was the nature of the 
 true critic, and de Pange gave it a wide scope 
 by introducing her to his brilliant Paris world, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 169 
 
 With his friends, the two Ch^nier brothers, 
 Andre* and Marie Joseph, she rapidly became 
 intimate. She inspired Andre", the poet, with a 
 devotion, half literary, half personal ; he soon 
 made her his counsellor, and confided into 
 her hands all his manuscripts, from which she 
 learned long bits by heart, with all the delight of 
 one who loved poetry even more than poets. 
 Later, she got him a post under her brother-in- 
 law at the French Embassy in London, but at 
 this period he was always in her company. 
 
 We have a glimpse of her appearing between 
 Francois de Pange and Andre Ch^nier, at a party 
 at Madame d'Albany's, where Beaumarchais was 
 reading his " Mere Coupable." They criticised 
 his play, and he was struck by their subtlety, 
 more especially by that of the lady. He even 
 admitted that their judgment was finer and 
 more delicate than his own, though he did 
 not think that they possessed so much taste as 
 himself. 
 
 We find de Pange and Madame de Beaumont 
 again, in another and yet more sparkling salon 
 that of Madame de Stael, the young Swedish 
 ambassadress, still on the threshold of fame, but 
 already longing for whirlwinds and slightly bored 
 by the still sma.ll voice, Benjamin Constant 
 
170 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 whom Madame de Beaumont hated from the first 
 was already at the knees of Corinne ; so was 
 Guibert, who had been the flame of Mademoiselle 
 de Lespinasse; so were a hundred others, amongst 
 them many women ; for the positive qualities of 
 Madame de Stae'l had a masculine fascination 
 and made lovers of her women friends. When 
 Pauline de Beaumont appeared, her hostess felt 
 an instinctive sympathy for her, w r hich was more 
 than reciprocated. Pauline, as impulsive as 
 she was critical, lost her heart to her in eager 
 admiration, which did not, however, blind her 
 literary judgment. We find Madame de Stae'l 
 not only loving her vehemently, but, no less than 
 CWnier, constituting her her critic ; confiding in 
 her, depending on her, and also perhaps too 
 frequently carrying her off in her own private 
 chariot of fire into a vortex of social excitement, 
 not always good for the frailer of the two women. 
 There were lesser lights than the comet-like 
 ambassadress in Madame de Beaumont's circle. 
 There was Suard, with his love of Englishmen, his 
 judicial mind, his reviewer's pen and adoring wife ; 
 with him, too, came his other adorer, the pretty, 
 mystic Madame de Kriidner, as much of a 
 missionary as of an egotist, and as exalted as 
 she was shallow, who " thanked and Adored God 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 171 
 
 for having given her such a lover as Suard." 
 Through her Madame de Beaumont learned to 
 know Charles Edward's widow, Madame d' Albany, 
 and her second husband, Alfieri, the silent Apollo 
 so silent indeed that none could discover if he were 
 so, from wisdom or from stupidity. Here also were 
 the gentle-mannered Condorcet, eloquent, high- 
 souled, cold, Utopian : described by Mademoiselle 
 de Lespinasse as " an enraged sheep and a volcano 
 covered with snow" ; and the fiery little Economist, 
 the Abbe Morellet, equally on the alert for cele- 
 brities, and for disputes about Free Trade and the 
 Corn Laws ; not to speak of the stately Gouverneur 
 Morris, who lived to describe the Revolution ; 
 and the fashionable raconte^l>r, Riouffe, who could 
 boast the same experience, and whose book upon 
 his prison life during the Terror afterwards 
 became the rage amongst literary people. 
 
 A still more dominant, if not so well-known 
 a figure, was that of the Abbe Louis, intro- 
 duced to Montmorin by Talleyrand. Brilliant, 
 intriguing, mysterious, this romantic financier shot 
 across Pauline de Beaumont's life, to be, for a 
 moment, the most important person there to 
 her. They fell in love the scandal-mongering 
 journalist, Lepelletier, even hints at a closer 
 connection between them ; but this, judging by 
 
172 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the rest of her life, we may assume to be untrue. 
 Divided between his passion for her and his 
 passion for his career, we see him now in her 
 salon ; now (as times grew ominous) bearing 
 Marie Antoinette's diamonds secretly to Austria. 
 He played Deacon to Talleyrand's Bishop at the 
 First Federation, and disappeared in the general 
 earthquake of the Revolution. We do not find 
 him again crossing her path till 1802, when he 
 was enjoying a safe neck and a comfortable little 
 post as financier, under Napoleon. His scheming 
 ambition, by no means spotless in the means it 
 employed, had by then prevailed over all other 
 feelings, and he shirked no brutality in gaining 
 his ends. There is, perhaps, a touch of melan- 
 choly as well as sarcasm in Pauline's answer to 
 somebody who asked if she had seen him. " Ah," 
 she said quietly, "he has his fortune to make 
 again ! " 
 
 More solid was her intercourse with Rulhiere, 
 the young poet who made the motto for her 
 which has already been quoted, and with the 
 Trudaines, her old friends, a family important in 
 their day, and as amusing, if not as effectual, as 
 others of wider fame. M. de Trudaine was a 
 keen supporter of Free Trade, a Commissioner of 
 Works, and Montmorin's colleague the friend 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 173 
 
 of Horace Walpole, Voltaire, and Madame du 
 Deffand, and the pampered deity of the charm- 
 ing Duchesse de Choiseul. Madame de Tru- 
 daine like the wives of many popular gentlemen 
 was a slightly fretful invalid, with no higher 
 position than that of Salon Martyr, who com- 
 plained with justice that she, had taken ten years 
 to form a choice circle, and that it only neglected 
 her for her pains. Her presence on the sofa was 
 ignored, and her room was even used when illness 
 prevented her from appearing. She had, notwith- 
 standing, the collector's enthusiasm. After much 
 trouble she persuaded Rousseau to dine with her : 
 her heart beat with triumph ; but hardly had he sat 
 down to table than he spied Morellet, whom he 
 detested, and he vowed he would never set foot 
 in her house again. Happily she had the consola- 
 tion of two charming sons, one of them a poet 
 and musician, both in the Chambre des Enquetes, 
 and both faithful knights of Pauline's. 
 
 We find these two, together with Franois de 
 Pange, Riouffe, Morellet, Alfieri, the Cheniers, 
 Madame de Pourrat, her daughters, Madame 
 Lecoulteux (Andre* Ch^nier's love) and Madame 
 de Hocquart (the flame of Calixte de Mont- 
 morin, Pauline's youngest brother), also Pauline 
 herself, Madame de Stael, and Madame d'Albany 
 
174 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 all met one evening in Suard's drawing-room. 
 It was in the summer of 1789 ; the Tiers-Etat 
 had just triumphed ; all cultured Liberals were 
 rejoicing, sure of a happy future, and the col- 
 lected company, imbued with new ideas, were 
 discussing the state of affairs. To them enters 
 Condorcet, his manner calm, his intellect aglow ; 
 he talks of science and of progress with a golden 
 tongue, with unbounded hope and unbounded faith 
 in their possibilities, till, kindled by his own 
 eloquence, he almost promises undying life upon 
 earth. But Madame de Pourrat, woman-like, 
 objects strongly, on the ground that eternal youth 
 must then also be invented. "What!" asks 
 Condorcet; "would you prefer the Resurrection, 
 when old women must appear by the side of those 
 taken in youth?" "As for me," replies sweet 
 Madame Lecoulteux (not without some malice 
 towards the dry bones of science), " I would 
 rather trust to God's power of renewing our 
 charms if that be needful than to all the ex- 
 periments of chemistry." We have here the 
 whole character of the educated Parisian world 
 before the Revolution : full of high thoughts ; 
 believing all things because there was no central 
 belief; ready to light its torches at any noble 
 ideal, and trying to make science into a fire in- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 175 
 
 stead of a light ; deeply read, but lacking contact 
 with reality, and dreaming philosophical dreams 
 for a populace of whom it knew nothing. 
 
 Yet the change, which to us who look back 
 seems so sudden, was coming to them even then, 
 and they did not recognise it for what it was. A 
 few were more keen-sighted*. Curiously enough, 
 the only saying we know of Pauline's mother, 
 Madame de Montmorin, is her verdict upon the 
 first meeting of the States-General, at which 
 she was present. Checking the enthusiasm of 
 Madame de Stael, who was at her side, she said 
 to her in grave tones, " You are wrong to re- 
 joice, Madame ; great disasters will come from 
 this both to France and to us." Yet there is 
 no wonder that the facts were disguised, more 
 especially from the eyes of youth. Reform was 
 in good and apparently sober hands : even 
 Mirabeau, to whom the word "sober" hardly 
 applies, was concentrated upon popular represen- 
 tation and such ends as every good man must 
 approve ; Lafayette, Montmorin, Necker in the 
 background, all hated violence as much as they 
 loved justice ; whilst even the Rolands, who had 
 risen into prominence, seemed to combine ardour 
 and moderation in no ordinary degree. 
 
 But there was little time left her for such calm 
 
1 76 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 speculations, and even that short period of quiet 
 before eternal parting was to be saddened for the 
 Montmorins. The Minister had resigned in the 
 early days of the still unrecognised Revolution, 
 and had retired to the country to enjoy his family 
 in peace while he awaited the return from the 
 He de France of his eldest son, the sailor Auguste. 
 But instead of the boy, came the news that he 
 had been drowned on the voyage home. All 
 that remained of him was a piece of Indian silk 
 which he had brought to make a ball-dress for 
 his sister Pauline. It reached her safely, with 
 the sad irony of fate, and she resolved to keep it 
 always by her, carefully put away, so that when 
 her time came, she might be buried in it. 
 
 Not long after this, the pressure of affairs and 
 his faithful devotion to the King called Montmorin 
 to Paris, where he lived hidden in remote lodgings. 
 Suspected of Royalist plots with Austria, it was 
 not long before the Revolutionary officials sought 
 him. He might never have been betrayed, had 
 it not been for the affection of his landlady, who 
 pertinaciously supplied him with chickens daily 
 and for the friendship of a certain Madame de 
 Nanteuil, who visited him occasionally, her only 
 notion of prudence being to leave her carriage 
 at the street-corner. He was thus tracked and 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 177 
 
 arrested, though nothing more inculpating was 
 found amongst his papers than a phial of opium, 
 kept by him in case of domiciliary visits. It was 
 not possible to condemn him at his first trial, but 
 unfortunately he had quarrelled both with Brissot 
 (the Girondin journalist) and with Camille 
 Desmoulins. This sealed his fate. From his 
 second trial in the Place de la Revolution, he was 
 sent nominally back to prison in reality to be 
 cut in pieces by the horrible pikes of September 
 2nd, 1792. 
 
 The news reached his family at the Chateau 
 de Passy-sur-Yonne in Burgundy, whither he had 
 exhorted them to flee. They were not long in 
 following him. The same officials who were 
 sent from Paris, that winter, to arrest the ex- 
 Minister, Lome'nie de Brienne (only to find him 
 dead in his bed, killed by his own hand), came on 
 to the house where the Montmorins were staying, 
 and made prisoners of them all, even of Madame 
 de Luzerne, the elder sister, who was guilty of 
 nothing worse than receiving ordinary letters 
 from her husband in London ; when her bureau 
 was searched, it was found to contain a collection 
 of rusty nails, and rings covered with verdigris, 
 the pendant to her father's phial of opium. 
 Pauline was the only person the officials rejected, 
 
 12 
 
178 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 on account of her delicate health, which they 
 feared would give them trouble on the journey 
 to Paris ; but upon her entreaties to accompany 
 her family, they relented and put her with them 
 into a tumbril. Before long, however, she showed 
 symptoms of fainting, and, repenting of their in- 
 dulgence, they set her down without further ado in 
 the snow-covered road and went their way. Some- 
 how, by what means she never knew, she managed 
 to drag herself painfully along, till she reached 
 a peasant's hut near Theil, the next village to 
 Passy-sur-Yonne. Its inhabitants, Dominique 
 Paquereau and his wife, took her in and it was 
 in this straitened refuge that she stayed for 
 months, too ill and exhausted to do more than 
 drag herself from bed to hearth and from hearth 
 to bed, day after day. Her body she nourished 
 upon the money she got from selling a few jewels 
 she had with her, and her mind upon two or 
 three books which she had characteristically con- 
 trived to save, in the emergency of sudden flight. 
 These were her one consolation, and never did 
 she need it more sorely. For it was here, in the 
 squalid hut, that her sorrows broke upon her, one 
 after another. Her sister had arrived in Paris 
 in high fever, and had only escaped butchery by 
 dying in the prison-hospital ; her mother and her 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 179 
 
 brother Calixte had gone to the scaffold with 
 Madame Elisabeth. Nineteen times, as the 
 guillotine fell, did the boy Calixte cry out " Vive le 
 Roi ! " At the twentieth, he looked up : his voice 
 died in his throat it was his mother who stood 
 on the scaffold. He followed her immediately, 
 kissing a piece of blue ribbon the sash of his 
 lady-love, Madame de Hocquart with all the 
 passion of his eighteen years. The Che*niers, the 
 Trudaine brothers, Malesherbes, also Pauline's 
 friend, shared the same fate. The only relations 
 that were left to her, when the tide of blood had 
 swept by, were her brother-in-law and her nieces, 
 the de Luzernes, and Francois de Pange ; the 
 only friends, Louise de Serilly (soon to be 
 Madame de Pange), Madame de Hocquart, and 
 Madame de Stael, who had fled to Coppet. Job- 
 like, Madame de Beaumont sat and waited never 
 in vain for fresh woe. But, unlike Job, she could 
 not still bless God with her lips. The pious 
 faith in which she had been brought up, ac- 
 cepting it hitherto without question, now deserted 
 her. There seemed no good, no comfort any- 
 where : nothing but devilry outside herself and 
 prostration within. It was in this state that 
 Joubert found her at the door of the cottage, one 
 day in the summer of 1 794. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IT may not be out of place to pause for a little 
 and contemplate the character of Joseph 
 Joubert, who was destined to have so great an 
 influence upon Pauline de Beaumont. Some men 
 are best portrayed by an account of their circum- 
 stances and of the things that happen to them 
 some by the picture of their inner selves and 
 their relationships to books and people. Such 
 was Joubert, "in his time," says Sainte-Beuve, 
 "the most delicate and original type of that 
 class of good folk which the old society alone 
 produced : spectators, listeners, without ambition, 
 without envy, curious, unoccupied, attentive, dis- 
 interested about everything, interested by every- 
 thing, the true amateurs of beautiful things." 
 He was also a Benvenuto Cellini of thought: 
 no great sculptor, but a carver of gems, creating 
 his maxims and reflections with infinite care and 
 fancy. 
 
 * 180 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 181 
 
 Nobody, perhaps, who has written so little has 
 been so much written about by the few who 
 make up the inner circle of literary men ; nobody 
 has been better loved by them. Chateaubriand, 
 Fontanes (the classical poet and reviewer), Sainte- 
 Beuve, Matthew Arnold, M. Paul Raynal, and 
 others of less repute, have alh described him and 
 not one has left a word that is not praise. To 
 his contemporaries his work was one with his 
 personality, for his private Journals of Thoughts 
 and Maxims were the flower of his daily philo- 
 sophy. He was essentially the king of friends ; 
 he was as essentially the true critic the inter- 
 preter who has the poet in him, and knows first 
 of all how to appreciate. Joubert was the critic, 
 the interpreter of life, with insight so vivid as to 
 seem almost like creative imagination. It was 
 the same quality which made of him both friend 
 and critic. When he judged a book or an idea, 
 he passed into it, taking it from its own point of 
 view ; and when he came into close relationship 
 with human beings, he passed into them, leading 
 their lives with them and insisting upon a minute 
 knowledge of their daily existence their walks, 
 their diet, their books, their friends, their con- 
 versation. 
 
 Yet his heart was rather ardent than passion- 
 
182 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 ate ; tender as a woman's ; wide as a man's ; gay 
 as a child's. Basking in hospitality and good 
 company, he contrived to combine simplicity 
 with fastidiousness ; glowing indulgence and 
 gracious playfulness with a certain austerity of 
 mind : the result, not of asceticism, but of the 
 pursuit of truth and beauty which dominated his 
 tastes and existence, and made him reject all the 
 furbelows of life and of speech. Superfluous 
 words he detested. " If ever there was a man," 
 he wrote, " tormented by the accursed ambition 
 to put a whole book into one page, a whole page 
 into one sentence, and this sentence into one 
 word, that man is myself." Glibness he dis- 
 liked even more ; want of harmony or irritation 
 of mind perhaps most of all, and confessed that 
 he had a " shivery soul which needed soft, sunny 
 weather." "Wear velvet inside you," he says, 
 "and try to give pleasure at every hour of your 
 life." 
 
 Those who to-day seek sweetness and light 
 are apt either to sink with despondency, or to 
 put up barriers between themselves and their kind ; 
 Joubert, on the contrary, set out early on the 
 quest, and, finding what he sought, though in 
 few places, gave thanks for his happiness, and 
 allowed it to bind him more closely to his fellows. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALOKS i&3 
 
 He never kept his discoveries for himself; the 
 sunlight of his wit played half tenderly, half 
 keenly, on everything it touched, making the 
 rare seem obvious, and the obvious rare. " I 
 should like," he writes, "to make the sense of 
 the exquisite pass into common sense, or else 
 make the sense of the exquisite common. . . . 
 Oh, how difficult it is to be at once ingenious 
 and sensible ! " 
 
 So ethereal a mind was bound to be wrapped 
 in a frail body. A lady once said of him: "A 
 soul accidentally met a body and did its best 
 with it : that made Joubert." Bad health had to 
 be a prominent feature in his life. It gave him 
 an intuitive knowledge perhaps rather over- 
 anxious and over-scientific of the sufferings of 
 others. More than this, he gleaned amuse- 
 ment from it. Even when he could hardly sit 
 up in bed, in his customary "pink silk spencer," 
 or was obliged to lie for hours with his eyes shut, 
 in order to recover his strength, he contrived to 
 make countless little jokes on his regime and his 
 elaborate precautions. So did his friends, who 
 enjoyed the tinge of paradox these manoeuvres 
 gave to his harmonious character. Chateaubriand 
 describes him, half lovingly, half quizzingly, in a 
 sketch written later, but applicable to all times. 
 
1 84 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 He had (we hear) an " extraordinary hold upon 
 the mind and upon the heart, and when once he 
 had captured you, his image was there like a fact, 
 like an obsession which you could not chase away. 
 He laid claim, above all, to calm, and nobody 
 was so agitated as he ; he watched himself to 
 stop these emotions of the soul, which he 
 considered injurious to his health, but his friends 
 were for ever coming and disturbing the pre- 
 cautions he had taken to be well, for he could 
 not help being moved by their sadness or their 
 joy ; he was an egoist who only busied himself 
 about others. ... He changed his diet and his 
 regime at every instant, living one day upon milk, 
 another day upon minced meat now having 
 himself jolted at a quick trot on the roughest 
 roads now dragged at the slowest pace in the 
 smoothest byways." 
 
 Of outward history there is little to relate. 
 Born in 1754, at Montignac in PeVigord, the first 
 part of his life was inspired by his adoration for 
 his mother, a noble-minded woman who saw and 
 evoked the best possibilities in her son. At 
 fourteen years old, he was sent to be educated 
 by the Fathers of the Christian Doctrine, who 
 soon learned to love him and to foster his taste 
 for classics. With them he remained, without 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 185 
 
 taking any vows, half as pupil, half as teacher, till 
 the age of twenty, when he went home for two 
 years to rest from his studies and to revel in 
 family affection. It was there, in 1774, that he 
 began that private Journal of Thoughts which he 
 continued till he died, without any idea of the 
 pleasure it would one day give to a reading public : 
 some of his intimate friends even being ignorant 
 of its existence. From Montignac, in 1776, he 
 went to Paris to pursue learning, to see life, 
 and, like everyone else, to choose that small world 
 in the big one which best suited his nature. It 
 was naturally the world of talk in which he 
 settled. " To converse and to know " was his 
 motto as well as Plato's, and his amiable manners 
 no less than his distinguished intellect soon gained 
 access for him to the society of Marmontel, La 
 Harpe, d'Alembert, and, above all, Diderot, whose 
 " most hospitable of minds " immediately acquired 
 a strong influence over him. He has been called 
 Diderot's " purified pupil " ; and indeed it is strange 
 to find Joubert, who was " finally both a Platonist 
 and a Christian in love with ideal beauty and 
 holiness," at this moment under the Encyclo- 
 paedist's sceptre. Its sway passed before long, 
 but its influence, we are told, may be traced in 
 the sympathy he always had for new ideas ; whilst 
 
1 86 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 in later days, when his judgment was ripe, he 
 still kept his old admiration, and maintained that 
 Diderot had " more follies of style than follies of 
 thought." 
 
 In 1790 he was elected as Juge-de-paix in 
 Montignac, and returned for good to his native 
 country. He had not entirely deserted it all this 
 time : we find him visiting an old Perigord relative 
 in 1788 at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, and there meet- 
 ing a charming traveller, a young lady from Lyons, 
 who was just passing through the town with her 
 mother and her old guardian, the Baron de Juys. 
 Then and there Joubert decided that she was 
 the wife he had dreamed of for his great friend 
 Fontanes, the struggling poet. There was no 
 time to arrange matters at that instant, as she and 
 her companions left Villeneuve at once, all of them 
 enchanted by the conspirator's company. But his 
 " luminous thought " could manage love by corre- 
 spondence : he contrived that Fontanes should 
 go and see the lady on her way through Paris, 
 and, after learning that her impression of him was 
 favourable, he proceeded to write such charming 
 and constant letters to her family (more especially 
 to her guardian), describing the young man in such 
 glowing and attractive colours, and dwelling so 
 strongly upon his brilliant prospects, that all of 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 187 
 
 them, even the crusty old Baron, were taken by 
 storm. They capitulated, and the marriage took 
 place. Fontanes did not know of the corre- 
 spondence till long afterwards, but when he did, 
 he was deeply moved, and declared that " Plato, 
 writing to bring about the marriage of a disciple, 
 could not have found language more beautiful 
 and persuasive." 
 
 Joubert was not long before he followed his 
 friend's example in finding a wife at Villeneuve. 
 His marriage was characteristically rather founded 
 on sympathy than love. He had long known a 
 certain Mademoiselle Moreau-de-Bussy, now no 
 longer in her first youth, who lived with her old 
 mother and educated a niece. She was an excel- 
 lent housekeeper, a good comrade, the queen of 
 a sick-room ; rather brisk in manner, but warm- 
 hearted and full of common sense, though the 
 sense of the exquisite had not transformed it, 
 and she had no literary tastes. Joubert had 
 always identified himself with her matter-of-fact 
 existence both in joy and in sadness, and when 
 her much-loved brother died, he crowned his 
 powers of consolation by marrying her. They 
 settled in Villeneuve, and soon added his younger 
 brother Arnaud (married to her niece) to their 
 household. Then a little son appeared, fervently 
 
1 88 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 desired and loved by his father, who makes this 
 entry in his Journal at the child's birth : " I said 
 to myself, ' Rejoice ! ' I stayed at home, or 
 strolled in the little garden, so that I might 
 withdraw myself into my happiness." But the 
 boy, charming in his childhood and of consider- 
 able gifts, was idle and ineffectual, and proved 
 the one disappointment in Joubert's life. 
 
 Meanwhile, ignorant of the future, he de- 
 lighted in the sweetness of his childhood, and 
 lived quietly and happily amidst an ever-increas- 
 ing circle of friends who came from Paris, one 
 after the other, to stay with him. He was made 
 to be the centre of such a coterie. " One must," 
 he says, " always have an empty and open corner 
 in one's head, so that one may make room for the 
 opinions of one's friends and lodge them there in 
 passing. It becomes really unbearable to con- 
 verse with men whose heads only contain houses 
 where every corner is full, and nothing from the 
 outside can enter. Let us have hospitable hearts 
 and minds." 
 
 His friends were eager enough that his hospit- 
 ality should not stop at themselves ; they were 
 always clamouring that he should write a book. 
 Fontanes especially left him no peace, and en- 
 treated him to write down his thoughts every 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 189 
 
 evening and make them into a connected whole. 
 It was of no use: Joubert was "as little of an 
 author as possible " ; his aims were modest : he 
 wished for " luminous thoughts, not brilliant 
 ones " ; besides, he had his own convictions about 
 himself. " Heaven," he wrote, "has put nothing 
 into my intelligence but rays- of light, and instead 
 of eloquence, he has merely given me beautiful 
 words. I have only strength to lift myself, and 
 my one virtue is a certain incorruptibility." And 
 again : " I can only do good work slowly and with 
 extreme fatigue. Behind many people's strength 
 there is weakness. Behind my weakness there 
 is strength ; the weakness is in the instrument." 
 
 This was the soul, half ancient, half modern, 
 this devout Athenian with the frail "instrument " 
 and overmastering heart who, at the age of forty, 
 found his romance suddenly one summer's day at 
 the door of the peasant Paquereau's cottage. His 
 meeting with Pauline de Beaumont was the epoch 
 of an uneventful life : the burst of sunshine on a 
 soft grey day, such as early spring often brings us. 
 From the moment that he saw her, he conceived 
 for her a passion the passion of friendship, not 
 of love ; whilst she as quickly discovered in him 
 the confidant, the critic, the exciting companion, 
 the restful friend, more necessary to her tempera- 
 
190 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 ment than the emotional experiences which later 
 years were to reveal to her. They were, in fact, 
 made for each other. It is common to affirm 
 that the most successful friendships are formed by 
 opposite characters ; it would often seem truer 
 that those are best suited to one another who 
 have the same qualities in inverted proportions, 
 pursuing their ideals in common. This was the 
 case with Joubert and Pauline de Beaumont. 
 They were, each of them, both critical and ardent 
 to an uncommon degree ; with him the criticism 
 came first ; with her the fervour ran before 
 the keen judgment and satisfied his demand for 
 "enthusiasm but not explosion." Both sought 
 calm but his storms came from without, hers 
 from within : his nature rarely experienced them, 
 shrinking from such exposure ; whereas her 
 tempest-tossed soul knew only occasional breaks 
 of blue sky. Whilst self-empire was equally the 
 standard of both, he spontaneously ruled his spirit 
 in spite of anxieties and disturbance ; she, on the 
 other hand, seemed ever to be struggling with 
 agitation. Her heroism often led to the same 
 conclusions about the endurance of life as his 
 good sense ; and where he gave wisdom, she 
 supplied will. Both cared for distinction of mind, 
 and, above all else, for the search after beauty 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 191 
 
 rather than effectiveness ; both had the power of 
 austerity and a tendency to irony, which in her 
 became sarcasm, in him delicate malice ; both 
 especially Joubert were nevertheless optimists 
 about their friends ; both cared for the same 
 books in the same way, obliging each to read 
 with the other's eyes ; both had the same humour, 
 the same impersonal interest in things outside 
 themselves ; and finally, the same insight, which 
 enabled each to perceive at once what the other 
 was. 
 
 When Joubert had found her, he lost no 
 time in entreating her to be his guest, but she 
 said she must be faithful to her peasants and 
 remained with them. His first visit was fol- 
 lowed by others, more and more frequent, until 
 they became daily. He brought her books and 
 they discussed them ; they learned each other's 
 histories ; they talked of life ; when they could 
 not see one another, they corresponded. The 
 seals which she used for her letters mark the two 
 periods of her life. All the first ones bear the 
 impression of an oak, with her motto, " A nothing 
 agitates me, but nothing shakes me." The later 
 ones, after she knew Chateaubriand, have an 
 Egyptian seal with an Arabian device: "His 
 power can neither diminish nor disappear ; " but 
 
i 9 2 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 whether the power referred to was that of God 
 or love, was never explained. 
 
 She seems at last to have yielded to her new 
 friend's representations of the growing danger of 
 arrest at Passy, and to have gone, for awhile, 
 to stay with the Jouberts at Villeneuve. Her 
 sufferings appealed to the maternal housewife 
 there, and Madame Joubert adopted her with 
 a friendship almost as warm and quite as en- 
 during as her husband's. But Pauline evidently 
 returned after a time to the Paquereaus' cottage, 
 for the first letter we have of hers is dated from 
 there, in December 1 794, when Robespierre's 
 death had determined her to venture to Paris and 
 see if she could recover any of her property. " I 
 go," she writes, k " sad at not saying good-bye to 
 you, my heart heavy at leaving my cottage, and 
 frightened at again seeing that town, now dyed 
 with the blood of those who were dearest in the 
 world to me. Yet I am going to see my friends 
 again also. I wish only to fill myself with this 
 idea, but all the others come and overpower me." 
 
 Her fears were realised. Paris seemed a city 
 of the dead ; nothing remained of her old home 
 but a cypress she had planted at fourteen years 
 old, now a symbol to her of her sorrow. After a 
 little she found her cousin Francois, also his wife 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 193 
 
 Louise, who had only escaped death because 
 she was expecting a child, and a reprieve had 
 been granted to her. The agents of the Public 
 Accuser drew up, in their horrible haste, a mistaken 
 statement of her execution, and she remained safe 
 in her prison, till the death of Robespierre released 
 her. In 1795, when summoned to bear witness 
 against Fouquier-Tinville at his trial, she was 
 able to show the judges the Acte de D&es 
 which had saved her. "She seemed," a con- 
 temporary tells us, "like an apparition from the 
 other world, coming to bear witness, in the name 
 of the victims, against the Public Accuser and the 
 Judge, who now sat, in their turn, on the bench 
 of the Accused." Her property at Passy, not 
 very far from Villeneuve, was now restored to 
 her, and she retired there with Francois de 
 Pange and Madame de Beaumont, to whom she 
 offered shelter till the latter should regain the 
 Montmorins' estate at Theil. 
 
 Louise de Pange was a staunch friend, and 
 Pauline, who called her " Ma chere Grande/' 
 was warmly attached to her. We soon find 
 her introducing the de Panges to Joubert, but 
 Francois was too stern for him. 
 
 " It is very useful to me to see M. de Pange," 
 he writes; "even his laugh is deep. When I 
 13 
 
i 9 4 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 return from a visit to him, I like to think of all 
 that he said to me ; but when I go to see 
 him, I feel much more eager to hear him than to 
 talk to him. . . . With him, my fancy feels slightly 
 constrained . . . with you, it is more at ease. He 
 wishes one to walk, and / like to fly, or, at any 
 rate, to flutter." 
 
 The object of this criticism had not long either 
 to walk or to fly. Soon after this, mortal illness 
 seized upon a constitution already impaired by 
 imprisonment during the Revolution. " I must 
 not die," he said. " I know that I was not born 
 to leave nothing behind me," yet death took 
 him pitilessly in the prime of his life. This 
 fresh sorrow opened Pauline's old wounds. She 
 stayed on with his widow, in a bitter, discon- 
 tented mood, neglecting her health, and suffering 
 both in body and spirit. 
 
 Joubert had the courage of the critic, in morals 
 as well as in literature, nor did he spare even 
 her. "It is not Desprez who has slandered you 
 to me, Madam," he writes ; " it is yourself. I am 
 very glad to tell you that I shall never admire 
 you comfortably, or esteem you as much as I 
 wish, till I have seen in you the finest courage of 
 all the courage to be happy. To gain it, you 
 must first have the courage to take care of your- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 195 
 
 self, the wish to be well, and the will to recover. 
 I shall not believe you capable of it till you have 
 lost your pretty fancy of dying at post-haste in 
 some wayside inn." 
 
 She was, however, slowly returning to life 
 through her Villeneuve friends. Presently another 
 reviving, almost galvanic force came to break 
 her quiet, in the shape of Madame de Stael, 
 whose name reappears in her Annals about this 
 time. It is mentioned in a letter to Joubert, 
 dated May 1796 (soon after the death of Madame 
 Necker, Madame de StaeTs mother), and written 
 from Paris, where Pauline was again staying. 
 
 " How can I have been so long writing to 
 you, I who so much love to receive your letters ? 
 Without explaining this phenomenon, I will only 
 tell you that at post-time I say to myself: ' If I 
 had written, I should hope for a letter,' and. I 
 curse my laziness. I do not send you Madame de 
 StaeTs book by my cousin, because your brother 
 told me you had read it. I swear to you that it 
 is wholly herself; its beauty and its faults both 
 belong to her. Her father is too furious at her 
 getting into print to help her ; he is absorbed in 
 his grief; I saw a letter from him on the death 
 of his wife, which showed a deep sensibility, and 
 expresses never-ending sorrow. Yet his health 
 
196 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 is good. You must never believe the public ; its 
 news are not so good as mine, for I get them 
 from his daughter. I was much touched at 
 seeing her again after more than two years' 
 absence and centuries of misery. Even if she 
 were not as remarkable in mind as she is, one 
 would still have to adore her for her kindness, 
 for her soul so high, so noble, so capable of all 
 that is great and generous. She is what Madame 
 Roland believed herself to be, but she does not 
 dream of getting glory from it ; she believes all 
 the world to be as good and generous as herself. 
 How lovable is this simplicity, and how much 
 it adds to her virtue ! The pride of Madame 
 Roland almost makes me unjust ; I have per- 
 petually to remind myself that she perished by 
 the sword in order to pardon her and, in spite 
 of her death, she will never be anything to me 
 but the Providence of August loth. 1 She has 
 recalled to me intrigues which roused great 
 resentment in me. Yet I hope that I do justice 
 to her character, and I am sure I feel all the 
 beauty of her death." 
 
 It was perhaps natural that the critical, many- 
 sided Madame de Beaumont should not feel 
 
 1 At this date the Girordins desired only the abdication of the 
 King ; later, nearly all of them voted for his death. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 197 
 
 attracted by the ambitious and fanatical nature 
 of Philpon Roland, especially after the tragedies 
 to which the Girondins' zeal had led. She shows 
 her distaste for the effects of the Revolution 
 again at the end of this letter, where she 
 criticises Riouffe, whose Memoirs cfun Dttemt, 
 had just appeared, and were much in vogue. 
 After condemning his comparison of Robespierre 
 to Christ, she grows enthusiastic about his 
 spontaneity and sensibility compared with the 
 dryness of the rest of the world, who hardly 
 inquire about his sufferings during the Terror. 
 It is the same, she says, with her cousin, Louise 
 de Pange, whose friends never ask her for any 
 details about her imprisonment, though they tell 
 her, at great length, the smallest details of some 
 common theft or arrest. 
 
 In the next year (1797), she went to her 
 family's estate at Theil, near Passy, though it 
 seems to have actually belonged to her nieces. 
 Her renewed intercourse with her beloved 
 " Delphine " soon again absorbed her ; it had 
 restored to her the power of excitement in 
 life. " Madame de Stael is starting for Switzer- 
 land, and gives me rendezvous on the road, 
 either at Sens or Villeneuve I think Sens. 
 As soon as I get the works of her mother and 
 
198 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the Memoirs that are promised to me, you shall 
 have them." Joubert replies with an eager 
 entreaty that his "green room" may be the place 
 of meeting instead of Sens. But the Muse, like 
 all Immortals, was made for eternity rather than 
 time, and could not be relied on for punctuality. 
 
 11 If only," Pauline resumes, " Madame de 
 Stael does not keep me waiting for her arrival : 
 she says she shall come in a week or ten days, 
 reckoning from the 24th of Vendemaire . . . still 
 I am not without fears. No, certainly, I shall 
 not allow that Whirlwind to enter your peaceful 
 green room ; you would have to see her, even if 
 you had the courage to resist the temptation. 
 She has already heard me speak of you ; I should 
 be obliged to speak still more of you, and in spite 
 of every wish to ensure your quiet, I could not do 
 this in a way that would extinguish her insatiable 
 curiosity. You would be attracted disturbed 
 and that peaceful green room would no longer be 
 a chamber of retirement. * The Crown,' or * The 
 Red Hat' shall be the place for the interview." 
 
 Joubert was at this time a great admirer of 
 Madame de StaeTs works : "Of all the women 
 who have published," he said, " I like only her 
 and Madame de Sevigne." Corinne altered his 
 opinion ; he accused its author of creating a 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 199 
 
 " deformed novel, where the passions were 
 represented as the most beautiful thing in life." 
 Nor was it only literary disapproval that he 
 learned to feel for her. He thought that she 
 drew Pauline too frequently to Paris, and made 
 her live in a whirl, harmful alike for her mind 
 and body. It had indeed, made solitude un- 
 endurable to her : "I have resumed my solitude 
 in a temper," she writes; " I occupy myself with 
 disgust, I walk without pleasure, I dream without 
 charm, and I cannot find one comforting idea. 
 I know this state cannot last long, but youth 
 passes, resources wear out, and only regrets 
 remain. ... I am sure from this letter you will 
 accuse me of at least reading Young's Night 
 Thoughts. Oh dear, no ! I'm reading Tristram 
 Shandy you see with what fruits." 
 
 To this elegy Joubert replies with a side-hit at 
 Madame de Stael : 
 
 " I recommend you to all the saints of both 
 sexes at Theil," he says, " to its cavern of verdure, 
 to its lakes of air and clearness, and to that river 
 of light which flows from the direction of Sens. 
 I am furious with those whose company has given 
 you a disgust for solitude, and if they compliment 
 themselves upon it, / abuse them for it. But 
 why do you go and live with these restless spirits ? 
 
200 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 Instead of a head they have a whirlwind, which 
 runs after every cloud. They wish to bridle the 
 winds, and end by merely being their sport. Their 
 whirl has spoiled you but you will reform. I think 
 nothing in the world is more hostile to happiness, 
 as well as to wisdom, than the passions of the 
 mind, if one feels them every hour. Those of 
 the blood are more sensible. Is there anything 
 clumsier and more teasing than to harbour and 
 nourish at every moment of the day desires 
 without possibility of possession, and voracity 
 without a prey ? Try to get peace in love, in 
 esteem, in veneration, I implore you ! " 
 
 She evidently tried for awhile to appease him 
 by taking care of her health ; for the day after this 
 scolding, he writes that her "diet gives him in- 
 finite pleasure even to think of"; but Theil was 
 not near enough to Villeneuve for her to see 
 him much, and the dulness of the country soon 
 drove her to seek distraction in Paris. She was 
 there for the short revival of the Revolution 
 and the alarming proscription of the i8th of 
 Fructidor, 1797. All her friends were once more 
 in jeopardy ; her own arrest was probable at any 
 moment. 
 
 Yet it was not her danger that absorbed her, 
 but a very different affair. According to her 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 201 
 
 custom when in town, she had been almost living 
 with Madame de Stael, but this time, her visit had 
 brought her disenchantment. Their intercourse 
 had been marred by the continual presence of 
 Benjamin Constant, who had become " Delphine's " 
 ruling deity. His relations with and influence 
 over her disgusted Pauline, who was perhaps 
 more moved by personal aversion than by severe 
 moral considerations. Nor was the author of 
 Adolphe undeserving of her hatred. At the 
 same time orator, Liberal politician, Don Juan, 
 "historian of religion, pontiff, and scoffer/' 
 adored by the brilliant Paris world, he describes 
 himself at twenty-five as "blast of everything, 
 bored with everything, bitter, egotistical, with a 
 kind of sensibility which only seems to torment 
 me ; so changeable as to pass for a fool, subject 
 to fits of melancholy which interrupt all my plans." 
 Essentially the Byronic hero down-at-heels, he 
 was, so to speak, the decadent of a Romantic 
 school, worse than the decadent of the Material- 
 ists, who have no poetic ideal to defame. Incap- 
 able of action, he analysed to death the last 
 fraction of his heart, and was able to write during 
 the last agony of his best friend, Madame Talma : 
 " I pass the day and night by the bedside of 
 Madame Talma, who is near her end ; I am 
 
202 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 studying death there." Or, again, to Madame de 
 Stael, on the loss of her father : " At this moment I 
 am sad, but if I wished, I could be, not consoled 
 perhaps, but so far distracted from my trouble 
 that it would not exist." 
 
 This was the man who had power to separate 
 the two friends, and obtained complete ascendancy 
 over Madame de Stael, until his second marriage 
 with a second German lady, whom he disliked as 
 soon as he was tied to her. He did not dare tell 
 his old love of the wedding until after the event, 
 when he rushed post-haste to Coppet and intro- 
 duced his wife to her at an inn. This was his first 
 intimation that he had had enough of her. " I 
 am tired of that man-woman whose iron hand 
 has enchained me these ten years," he writes at 
 this time (1807). " I regret her and I hate her." 
 
 Pauline de Beaumont did not spare him. If 
 she had a feeling, it was necessary to her to 
 express it. The day after the i8th of Fructidor, 
 when she was expecting her exile from hour to 
 hour, she had an interview with him, and thus 
 describes it to Joubert : "All the world is in a 
 panic, preparing to pack up, bowed beneath 
 the yoke of banishment, as formerly beneath 
 the yoke of the guillotine. I await my fate 
 with firmness enough, perhaps only because 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 203 
 
 I think myself invulnerable, from having once 
 escaped a fate which seemed inevitable. Yet 
 I have no illusions ; I am pretty well prepared 
 for all journeys, and that from which no man 
 returns is not the one I should make with the 
 least pleasure. I do not know whether it is a 
 way to calm you, if I assure you that Benjamin 
 Constant is as much hated as possible, in spite of 
 his success in the constitutional circle. He cannot 
 succeed even in loving himself. As far as that 
 goes, he is not happy. But that only proves his 
 powerlessness to enjoy. In spite of my ominous 
 circumstances, I had a pleasant scene with him, 
 confessing quite frankly to him my hatred for his 
 person and opinions, and my contempt for his 
 methods." 
 
 Joubert fully shared her dislike: " Whoever 
 abuses Benjamin Constant," he had written some 
 months earlier, " seems to me to undertake a 
 troublesome piece of work, which is my business ; 
 I feel relieved in proportion. . . . That man is to 
 me like 'aflat violin squeaking under the bow.' 
 All that he says wounds my spirit. . . . there is 
 nothing more unbearable and revolting than 
 insincerity in error," (by which he means the 
 mistakes that come from the heart, and not from 
 some blunder of the mind). Perhaps he makes 
 
204 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 his worst accusation when, rather later, he writes : 
 " Benjamin Constant is the only thing in the 
 world that does not amuse me. " He could show 
 no more scathing sign of his distaste. 
 
 Joubert was glad of anything, even disenchant- 
 ment, which would disgust his friend with Paris 
 and bring her back to Theil. At first she was 
 there alone. Shortly before this, her companion 
 Louise de Pange had married, for the third time, 
 a certain Marquis de Montesquiou Fe*zensac, and 
 had set up a separate household. Pauline's 
 solitude seemed to suit her ; she was enjoying an 
 interval of calm, even of health. " To be happy 
 and make others happy," Joubert had written 
 to her, "you have only to let nature act 
 and consent to be yourself." She was at last 
 following this advice. Her breach with Madame 
 de Stael was not preying upon her, perhaps 
 because she was buoyed up by hopes of her 
 own influence on that lady ; the peace, the sweet 
 air, the leisure for reading, soothed and helped 
 her, though a fit of boredom was sometimes in- 
 evitable. Intercourse with Joubert now sufficed 
 her. Occasionally they paid each other visits. 
 Her room has been swept, he writes, three times, 
 and is at last worthy to receive her and her 
 migraine ; or he wants her to come to the vintage ; 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 205 
 
 or dwells upon reminiscences of her last stay ; and 
 describes how his boy will not believe him when 
 he shows him the picture of a fox, because she 
 had told him it was a pole-cat. But their com- 
 panionship was generally carried on by post, and 
 formed the one excitement in her day. " If I 
 had someone to endow," she wrote at New Year 
 1798, "I would give him your mind, your cha- 
 racter, your wife, and your whole household." 
 
 Their common reading, whether together or 
 apart, was a bend between them. Early in the 
 day, Joubert had undertaken to be her literary 
 director, and he was an imperious one. His 
 agitation, when she read what he disapproved, 
 seems almost a whim, but, like other whims, it 
 was founded on his consistent fastidiousness and 
 affection ; he could not bear that those he loved 
 should read the wrong things or like the right 
 things in the wrong way. She was a great 
 reader of Voltaire, for whom Joubert had no 
 liking. "God keep me from ever possessing a 
 complete Voltaire ! " he responds to Pauline's 
 offer of an edition she possessed ; and in his 
 Thoughts he exclaims : "I can well fancy 
 Bossuet, Fenelon, Plato carrying their works 
 before God ; even Pascal and La Bruyere, or 
 Vauvenargues and La Fontaine, for their 
 
206 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 works paint their souls, and can be reckoned to 
 their account in heaven. But it seems to me 
 that Jean Jacques Rousseau and Montesquieu 
 would not have dared to present their books ; 
 they have only put into them their wit, their 
 temper, and their efforts. As for Voltaire, his 
 works also paint him, and will be reckoned 
 to his account, I believe, but at his own ex- 
 pense," 
 
 But his Letters inspired Joubert with unalloyed 
 admiration, and he made an unexpected excep- 
 tion. 
 
 " I do not know," Pauline writes from Theil in 
 April 1798, "if it was you who advised me to 
 read Voltaire's correspondence. I hope it was, 
 because reading it has given me extraordinary 
 pleasure. I own that one must have great 
 leisure to find charm in it ; but then it takes the 
 place of society, and of a sprightly, animated, 
 witty society. Voltaire was a very good man for 
 a long time ; he frequently is one still in his old 
 age. It is he, it is the remembrance of you, it 
 is Tasso, at whom I'm hacking in Italian, who 
 prevent me from becoming a heavy pedant. 
 Best of thanks to you all three." 
 
 He speedily replies to this : " Certainly it was 
 I who advised you to read Voltaire's letters. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 207 
 
 In that, I had the merit of divining your taste. 
 I pique myself upon having this talent, and it 
 torments me, for I am certain that your mind is 
 not yet occupied by the subjects fittest to give 
 it ravishing enjoyment, and I am impatient to 
 see in your possession the works best calculated 
 to produce this effect ; this makes me extremely 
 busy. If God would give me life, and place 
 within my sight the lucky chances that I pray for, 
 I should only need three weeks to collect all the 
 books I think worthy to be placed, not in your 
 library, but in your alcove and if I succeed in 
 getting them, I shall feel as if I had nothing more 
 to do in this world." 
 
 It is easy to understand that Voltaire should 
 have pleased the sceptical side of Madame cle 
 Beaumont's nature : the side of her which had, 
 as we know, dominated her beliefs since the 
 Revolution. It is interesting to discover that, 
 whatever her creed, she was always more 
 deeply attracted to the devout and austere 
 aspects of life. "It seems to me," she said, 
 "that in a Christian I should like the mind 
 to be a Jansenist and the heart a little of a 
 Molinist." Her "Molinist" tastes she attributes 
 to old associations for her aunt had favoured 
 the Jesuits ; but her Jansenism was born in her. 
 
2 o8 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 She seems, even in early days, to have given 
 an impression of piety ; her mother's old maid, 
 writing to her at this time, tearfully begs her 
 to regain belief, because she, of all others, pos- 
 sessed every quality for the saint's vocation. 
 And these pious instincts remained. Even in 
 her most sceptical moments, she seems to have 
 had "a taste for Christianity," and for all that 
 was severe and controlled in religion somewhat 
 to the annoyance of Joubert, who found such food 
 too dry for his radiant Catholic philosophy, and 
 did not perhaps feel the need of so stern a rule 
 for moral guidance. The Jansenists, he averred, 
 seemed to love God without love, and only out 
 of duty. But his distaste did not check her 
 liking for them. In the midst of her enjoyment 
 of Voltaire, she is writing to him that what at 
 that moment interests, occupies, and astonishes 
 her, is a history of Port Royal, whose author 
 seems as angry with Voltaire for being brought 
 up by Jesuits, as for being Voltaire. " Do you 
 know," she says, "that if Port Royal still existed, 
 I should run the risk of rushing off there? 
 Luckily my fervour is calming down. I am 
 going to read Les Provinciates as soon as I have 
 finished my three volumes." 
 
 No Port Royal being at hand for her, she had 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 209 
 
 to satisfy herself with books. Her religious sense 
 made her quick in the detection of its counterfeit. 
 " The devoutness of La Harpe," she says, "was 
 a trick the devil played upon God." Very 
 different was her opinion of the Abbe Condillac, 
 in whom we next find her absorbed. Joubert 
 tries hard to swallow him, for her sake. His 
 mind dries up for ten days in consequence, and 
 he has to "oil it with Massillon." But if there 
 was a difference in the form of the religious spirit 
 within them, it was the love of the ideal which 
 inspired it alike in each. Here they found 
 common ground, and their letters often wander 
 into enchanted depths of philosophy. Under his 
 tutelage, she began to study Plato. " If I were 
 better versed in reading the ancients," she writes, 
 " I could determine with more precision what it 
 is that is so modern in the Phaedo ; when nothing 
 guides me in my decision, I attribute what I dis- 
 like to the Jew, and what I like to Plato. If that 
 is not strictly just, at any rate it is judicious/' 
 
 She grew to admire this dialogue more and 
 more. "It is above everything!" she exclaims 
 a little later, and proceeds to dilate upon its 
 beauty ; then, womanlike, she branches off into 
 her personal reasons for loving it, describing how 
 vividly it recalls her conversations with him, and 
 14 
 
2io THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 a certain walk they took together. The Apology 
 of Socrates makes much less impression on her 
 probably, she thinks, because she had seen 
 so many unjust trials and generous victims that 
 interested her more vitally. 
 
 She did not stop at Plato ; her master soon 
 prescribed a course of Malebranche. " I was 
 longing to read Malebranche," she answers, "but 
 the time is past ; the pedants have taken pos- 
 session of my spirit, and I don't think it worth the 
 trouble to resist them. But I can't help regretting 
 a pleasure that you relish and give me the wish 
 to relish." Her regret, happily, was curable, and 
 Descartes' great pupil was soon numbered 
 amongst her counsellors ; also Kant, whose obscure 
 depths fascinated her. 
 
 She did not spend all her time on the high 
 seas of literature. Slighter books were not 
 wanting in her " alcove." La Bruyere was "one 
 of her great friends," read and re-read ; Don 
 Quixote was another ; and as for Tristram Shandy, 
 he was for ever being called in both by her 
 and by Joubert, to cheer their spirits, or to draw 
 luxurious tears from their eyes. Their letters 
 are strewn with allusions to Uncle Toby, or with 
 jokes drawn from the same source; there can 
 hardly have existed in the whole of France 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 211 
 
 two more eager appreciators of " ce Yorick," 
 who was causing so much enthusiasm there at the 
 end of last century. 
 
 They were of their time in other things than 
 this ; we find them admiring works that we now 
 consider crude, or even absurd. The Bllicher 
 buskins of Werther in his blue coat were 
 breaking the ice of classical formalism and uni- 
 versal science. Romance was welcomed like 
 water in a dry land, and Pauline and Joubert 
 drank thirstily. Nymphs and grottoes were on 
 the wane ; Nature and peasants or, even more, 
 savages in the ascendant. Wonder, and the 
 books that inspired it, were in fashion, and the 
 two friends wondered with their contempor- 
 aries. Ossian delighted them, so did the ad- 
 ventures of Captain Cook, always with certain 
 criticisms which somewhat bridge the gulf be- 
 tween the two generations. Even "ce Young," 
 as Joubert calls him, is quite acceptable ; Lilla 
 Burello "amuses him as well as anything else." 
 We can only heave a sigh of relief that it is 
 Lilla Burello which amuses him ; it might have 
 been worse. Nothing, perhaps, so divides one 
 age from another as the things that amuse it ; 
 for whilst immortal pathos is not so hard to find, 
 immortal fun, if such there be, belongs only to 
 
212 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the giants of the earth. But it must be remem- 
 bered that books were few then, and that their 
 readers started with a wish to make the most of 
 them, not with the modern enthusiasm for finding 
 fault. 
 
CHAPTER. Ill 
 
 BOOKS, however absorbing, could not for 
 very long appease Pauline de Beaumont's 
 hunger for companionship. " I should be happy 
 here," she writes, "if I were nearer to you, if you 
 could take walks with me, or come and open my 
 books and turn their pages, even were it only 
 to scold my dear Abbe* de Condillac. I wish 
 intensely to have you here, because I'm enjoy- 
 ing a sense of well-being which I do not know 
 anywhere else. I am so strong and well, that if I 
 only spent three consecutive months here, you 
 would see upon my face that look of jubilation 
 and content that we sometimes admire upon the 
 countenance of M. Tronc," (a country neighbour, 
 whom she describes as the chief and model of all 
 Bores). " Instead of this, I shall have to throw 
 myself into the vortex again, and allow myself to 
 be torn along by the torrent ; never contented 
 either with those who spoil me or with myself. 
 
 213 
 
214 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 ... I think incessantly of all the friends I have 
 lost. I don't know why the remembrance of 
 them has something sweeter, tenderer, and more 
 lovable here ; I live, so to speak, with them, and 
 all Ossian's dreams seem real to me. My mind 
 is given up to a deep and gentle melancholy ; 
 it feels neither accesses of gaiety, nor accesses 
 of despair. But I fear that I have abused the 
 hermit's right to talk of himself." 
 
 Joubert, seeing her need of human intercourse, 
 and unable to supply it in person, begs her not 
 to be so fastidious, or so scornful of her neigh- 
 bours, even though they are tedious. His counsel 
 produces some effect. " I waited for a ray of 
 sunshine or an instant of well - being before 
 writing to you," she says. " I am in the full 
 enjoyment of the sun and the beautiful light of 
 Theil, but I am still waiting for the well-being. 
 Yet I write to you, though I feel myself much 
 worthier of writing to that Arch- Bore, M. Tronc. 
 I f it is true that ' one must laugh before one is 
 happy, under penalty of dying before one has 
 laughed,' then I am right. ... I have found 
 some old letters of yours recommending me to 
 love repose and solitude. You were right, I knew 
 it ; but I was unworthy of solitude, and incapable 
 of repose at that time. It is not the same with 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 215 
 
 me to-day. The life I lead is the one that suits 
 me best, and I feel all the merits of repose, 
 without excepting that which borders on annihila- 
 tion. I think I vegetate pretty well, though much 
 less agreeably than the plants which surround me. 
 Beauchene (the doctor) tells me that I have grown 
 stouter ; I am not so sure as,. he. I am not very 
 pleased with my health. I have acquired the bad 
 habit of only digesting whilst I walk. Reverie 
 is fatal ; so I have to burden myself with M. 
 Perron in my walks, allow myself to be bored by 
 him, and then pay him back. Every evening I 
 put the same questions to him, and I receive the 
 same answers, though I don't always hear them 
 to the end. For his part, regularly at the same 
 places in the road, he tells me the same stories ; 
 allowing for a few paces, I can prophesy them to 
 myself, without ever being wrong by one minute. 
 I suppose he does the same by my questions ! 
 This little interchange, which rests soul, mind, 
 and imagination, does not always annoy me and 
 sometimes diverts me. Besides, I do it as regime ; 
 but as for him, he has no earthly reason for regime, 
 and I don't at all know how he likes it. I try to 
 calm my remorse, by persuading myself that he 
 is not yet quite certain that he is being bored 
 that he is still in the doubting stage. ... In 
 
216 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 spite of all my pedantry, I shall be charmed to 
 embrace you. Your imagination will revive 
 mine. At any rate, you will no longer reproach 
 me with too much vehemence ; you will see what 
 it is to have been at the school of M. Perron." 
 
 The peace of Theil did not only soothe her ; 
 it became her refuge from the world which had 
 disappointed her feelings and destroyed her 
 interest in itself. In 1798 she went to Ormesson, 
 to stay with Madame de Stael, hoping probably 
 that Constant's power would have waned. But 
 if so, she was soon undeceived, as her letter 
 thence tells us. " I want to write to you," she 
 says, " whilst I still resemble the person to whom 
 you showed so much amiable benevolence. . . . 
 Part of my fears have already been fulfilled. I 
 no longer take pleasure in the world, and yet it 
 has influence over me. I feel a dryness of heart 
 there, which is a painful condition, if one has 
 known a sweeter state. I entirely owe to you 
 my knowledge that the one I regret is the best. 
 That is much, and I congratulate myself on having 
 established you as the judge of my feelings. 
 Your past indulgence encourages me, and pre- 
 vents the deep weariness which overpowers me 
 here from spreading to my solitude. ... I 
 don't suit the society in which I live. My mind 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 217 
 
 wears itself out without fruit for me, or enjoyment 
 for others. She who directs it has taken a road 
 which does not lead to happiness. Her spirit is 
 impelled in a direction unnatural to it. She no 
 longer possesses anything but a noble and 
 generous heart ; that she has in an eminent 
 degree." 
 
 The separation between the two friends was 
 growing hopeless, whilst their respective attitudes 
 towards public events, no less than the events 
 themselves, divided them further. The Direc- 
 toire, which had always been more of a make- 
 shift than a governing body, had long been 
 tottering, and was only waiting to fall, till the 
 voice of some leader should be heard. The 
 nation was weary of extremes : " Neither limigrts 
 nor Jacobins ! " was its cry. When Napoleon 
 at last blew his trumpet, down fell the Directoire 
 and up rose the people, eager to obey, almost to 
 a man, and full of the old enthusiasm, which, 
 according to circumstances, could equally create 
 either revolutions or thrones. The Coup d'Etat of 
 the 1 8th of Brumaire made the General into a 
 Consul into the ruler of France. Pauline de 
 Beaumont was a Liberal in mind ; but she was 
 an aristocratic Liberal, of philosophical ideals, 
 prone to confound the Republic with blood- 
 
218 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 shed ; dreading, above all else, the power of the 
 populace ; and much inclined to welcome the 
 strong sway of a single ruler. Madame de Stael, 
 on the other hand, justified the Revolution, though 
 only in theory and from devotion to abstract 
 liberty. She clung to the idea of a republic, in 
 spite of the abuses she had seen, and Napoleon's 
 dictatorship filled her with agitation. Of personal 
 admiration she was perhaps prepared to give him 
 more than enough ; but he, with his conception of 
 women as witty slaves, docile fellow-plotters, or 
 glittering toys, could not endure her intellect, 
 much less her political opposition to him. She 
 got upon his nerves, if he possessed such things, 
 and he revenged himself by a series of persecu- 
 tions ; they were too much even for her noble 
 powers of unreturned affection, and served to 
 place the extra barrier of distance beween her and 
 Pauline de Beaumont. About a month after the 
 i8th of Brumaire, the latter writes from Paris, 
 where she was in the heart of the plottings and 
 counter-plottings Constant figuring as an active 
 opponent of the Consul's 
 
 " It is difficult to describe the condition in 
 which we live ; it is not terror that feeling does 
 not exist here ... it is only the journalists who 
 are forced to a little prudence ; yet, in point of fact, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 219 
 
 never were we less free. The police has trebled 
 its means of vigilance, and everything is subject 
 to it. The Government has not one agent whom 
 it is not disposed to crush at the least suspicion, 
 and there is not one of these agents who does 
 not know how precarious his existence is ... 
 suspicious and suspected, envious and envied, 
 they experience all the disagreeable feelings they 
 inspire. . . . Your friend Benjamin is doing all 
 he can not to be forgotten ; unfortunately, like 
 venomous animals, he only commands attention 
 when he is stinging, and that is his whole ex- 
 istence. All sweet sensations are nil to him, yet 
 he must have sensations to prevent his being 
 bored, and in order to find pleasure, he labours 
 at upsetting France. It is very wrong of me 
 to speak to you of things you want to ignore ; it 
 is ridiculous to lay so much stress upon incurable 
 evils ; but they touch us so nearly at every point 
 that it is difficult to forget them." 
 
 Napoleon's strong measures and stronger will 
 soon inspired the nation and Pauline as much 
 as the rest with hope and confidence. With her 
 usual impulsiveness, she expected too much, and 
 was disappointed. 
 
 " Your opinion," she writes in February, "has 
 determined or strengthened mine on many points. 
 
220 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 But I want to justify myself for my enthusiasm, 
 which was made partly of hopes ; of hopes that 
 have been deceived. I flattered myself that the 
 Government posts would be filled by wise officials, 
 and not by scholars with systems and by all the 
 old assembly. Napoleon, with his passion for 
 pedants, gives me the idea of a parvenu Louis 
 XIV. I except from my anathema the Council 
 of State, almost wholly composed of men who 
 join theory to practice. Then there are Tribunes 
 whose names I read with delight Riouffe, for 
 instance. The public did not wish to listen to a 
 speech of his, which certainly deserved a better 
 fate. This speech, which was sent to me, has 
 made him quarrel with Benjamin and Madame 
 de Stael. They were nearly paid out by their 
 fright, but she is forced to remain at Saint-Ouen ; 
 her house, they say, was the meeting-place for 
 all the malcontents. This is all they have gained 
 from their childish impatience to play at opposition, 
 without really knowing what opposition means, 
 as Riouffe says. I am miserable at seeing the 
 fate of a woman I love, linked to that of a man who 
 is really detestable." 
 
 Joubert was not so despondent about public 
 affairs as she. His trust in Napoleon as "an 
 admirable in -between -King," was warmer than 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 221 
 
 hers, and it took the fact of the Empire to change 
 his opinion. " He is not at all a parvenu'' he 
 says ; " he has arrived 'at his position ; I love him ! 
 Without him, there would be no possibility of 
 enthusiasm for anything alive and powerful." As 
 to the officials, he agrees with Pauline. " A false 
 science is going to succeed to ignorance, and a 
 false wisdom to folly," he writes. " May Heaven 
 undeceive Bonaparte as to these gentlemen, and, at 
 this price, may it preserve him ! For, in spite of 
 our former views, nature and fortune have made 
 him superior to other men, and destined him to 
 govern them. This man has, in his head, a real 
 greatness, which he applies to anything near 
 him possessing greatness of circumstance. He 
 confounds individuals with essences ; he takes 
 the Institute for the Sciences, writers for scholars, 
 and scholars for great men. His vast mind bears 
 in itself the errors and the truth of a century which 
 he admires too much. ... He will leave, I think, 
 in men's memories a high opinion of himself, but 
 if he only lives a short time, he will leave nothing 
 durable, or worthy to endure." 
 
 There is a strange irony in this dispassionate 
 contemporary criticism of the Lucifer of History, 
 who has long figured either as angel or devil to 
 men's minds. Stranger still is it, that though 
 
222 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 he did not die early, he fulfilled both these 
 prophecies, gaining the high reputation expected 
 by Joubert, but also leaving little of all his 
 mighty work behind him, except roads and 
 bridges and the Code Napoldon. Meanwhile he 
 served, or rather mastered the moment, quieted 
 the turmoil around him, and made Paris safe 
 once more. 
 
 But even the inducement of security did not 
 at first tempt Pauline de Beaumont from her 
 hermitage. She passed nearly the whole winter 
 at Theil, in absolute solitude, " without one 
 moment of disgust or dulness." The world, 
 she repeats, did not suit her, if only she could 
 have the courage to keep away from it. She 
 knew herself; the courage did not support her 
 for very long, and certain events in her private 
 life helped to hasten her removal from the 
 country. 
 
 In the spring of 1799, Louise de Pange, who 
 had so often faced a violent death, passed away 
 calmly and naturally. She had been preceded 
 the year before by her husband, who had 
 died (somewhat ominously perhaps) of maladie 
 noire. The poor " Grande" does not indeed 
 seem to have been wholly successful in her private 
 relations. There is a slight reserve in Joubert's 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 223 
 
 letter of condolence to Pauline, which indicates 
 that she had not been really congenial to either 
 of them. She was probably one of those un- 
 fortunate persons, with noble souls and provoking 
 habits, who allure irritation. 
 
 "It is impossible," he writes, "to be as 
 unhappy as one would wish, and I confess that 
 this thought makes me miserable. The heart 
 and the memory, judgment and feeling, hurl 
 themselves against each other, at the first 
 moment. Time will purify our remembrance. . . . 
 There are griefs which delicate souls should 
 postpone ... so as to experience them more 
 entirely." 
 
 But, at any rate, Louise had lived closely 
 with Pauline, and, excepting for her nieces, was 
 her only living relation. She was bound to feel 
 her loss, and Joubert grew emphatic in pressing 
 her to leave Theil altogether, since it now held 
 nothing for her but sad associations. She was 
 also evidently in money difficulties, for in this 
 same letter he begs her to forgive his indelicacy, 
 and to accept what she needs. Her poverty 
 was, in fact, serious ; money and possessions 
 had been almost entirely swept away by the 
 Revolution, and the estate of Theil had gone to 
 her nieces. 
 
224 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 It was doubtless her straitened circumstances 
 that now induced Joubert to forego all his 
 principles, and urge her to sue for divorce. In 
 his Thoughts he has written : " Divorce is always 
 displeasing ; Buffon has slandered turtle-doves " ; 
 but in her case he advises it with great warmth, 
 and says that he shall know no happiness till 
 she is "safely unmarried." His only doubt 
 is as to the name she should adopt, his own 
 wish being for her old family name of Saint- 
 H6rem, because Madame de SeVigne" speaks of 
 the Saint- He* rems, and he thinks the name 
 peculiarly suited to Pauline. His anxiety was 
 soon allayed, for the divorce actually took place 
 in 1800, removing the sense of bondage from 
 her, and probably did much to revive her desire 
 for a salon of her own. 
 
 The old guests of her father's house, excepting 
 Madame Krudner, Madame Hocquart, and the 
 Suards, had been engulfed in the Terror. To 
 re-create society was like beginning life over 
 again. But there was fresh material to her hand, 
 and at this moment her social existence was 
 acquiring a new importance for her. Since her 
 rupture with Madame de Stael, she had more 
 and more adopted the friends whom Joubert 
 introduced to her, when they came from Paris to 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 225 
 
 stay with him. It was the wish for increased 
 intercourse with them that finally determined 
 her to leave the country for good and settle near 
 them. And if we want to imagine' her as she 
 was in these last three years of her short life, it 
 will be needful that we should become more 
 intimate with the handful of men and women who 
 soothed, amused, and stimulated her during that 
 time, and formed a pleasant background to the 
 drama of her heart, so soon now to begin. 
 
 The name of the poet Fontanes, perhaps the 
 most important amongst them, is already known 
 to us. He had been Joubert's friend since early 
 youth. In 1786 he went to England, with the 
 idea of starting an Anglo - French newspaper 
 which they were to conduct together, and he 
 sends him amusing comments upon the London 
 of that day the plays, the delicious " porter," 
 the comprehensible enthusiasm for Captain Cook, 
 the incomprehensible rage for Fielding's novels 
 rather than Richardson's, the beauty of Romney's 
 painting, the inferiority of Reynolds to West, his 
 own admiration for Gray and Dryden, and his 
 disgust at British materialism, which permitted 
 an Englishman to ask, "Are you rich?" where 
 a Frenchman would say, " Are you cultured ? " 
 All this he pours forth, as well as laments at 
 15 
 
226 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the failure of his journalistic projects. He soon 
 returned to France, to poverty and to letters. 
 His repute gradually spread, especially after the 
 romantic marriage which Joubert planned for 
 him, and he became a light and a wit in literary 
 circles. 
 
 In the particular one which welcomed Madame 
 de Beaumont, he was known as "the Wild Boar 
 of Erymanthus." He was indeed a formidable 
 character to his contemporaries ; a vehement 
 critic, a lover of the ancients, and their fervent 
 disciple as a poet. Himself passionate, eccentric, 
 and spontaneous, he was an obstinate upholder 
 of the calm, the regular, and the restrained in 
 poetry, and "a sworn enemy to modern principles 
 of composition." He had frequent quarrels with 
 his admiring and admired Joubert on these 
 subjects, though this did not prevent the classic 
 from writing charming verses in praise of the 
 philosopher so charming, indeed, that they should 
 have made a convert of the latter. " Hasten 
 slowly" was the motto of "this irascible poet, 
 frank even to fierceness, who could no more hide 
 his opinion than he could take that of others." 
 Vehement in friendship, he was as impetuous in 
 his kindness as in his rages, and as stubborn in 
 discussion as he was vivid. In later days he 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 227 
 
 was known to reascend eighty-four steps to 
 Chateaubriand's garret at midnight, in order to 
 resume an argument that he had not done with. 
 Madame de Beaumont, though she enjoyed his 
 company, was never quite at ease with the " Wild 
 Boar." Perhaps he was too stormy to suit a 
 nature which needed rest, ..and though he gave a 
 flavour to her feast, it was sometimes too biting 
 for her palate. She always wrote of him to 
 Joubert as "your poet," acknowledging no partner- 
 ship in him, and finding endless subjects of 
 dispute with him. Now she rebels against his 
 writing upon Kant, because he is "too much of 
 a whirlwind " to understand him ; now she scolds 
 him for saying she did not love poetry, when 
 she had but said that she cared for none but 
 the best. 
 
 Yet it was to him that she was to owe the chief 
 event of her life. During his second visit to 
 London, after his exile of Fructidor the i8th, 
 he came across a penniless JmigrJwho was trying 
 to get a livelihood in Grub Street, under the 
 wing of the somewhat shady Lepelletier, publisher 
 and journalist. Fontanes quickly detected genius 
 and befriended the young man, for whom he 
 promised great things. His liking was warmly 
 reciprocated, and when at last he returned to 
 
228 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 Paris, it was with a thousand plans for reunion 
 with Franois Marie de Chateaubriand, who was 
 soon to follow him to France. 
 
 The other members of the little circle were as 
 eager to welcome genius as Fontanes. Some of 
 them possessed a touch of it themselves ; nearly 
 all of them had, at least, some striking talent. 
 
 There was Matthieu Mole, the Benjamin of 
 the salon and its political philosopher. Joubert 
 called him his " Cato of twenty," and adopted 
 him not only as the son of his heart, but also 
 as the critic of his work. " His character," he 
 said, " unites two seasons ; one recognises in his 
 whole being as much of maturity as of youth. 
 There are both solidity and fire in all his feelings 
 and ideas." 
 
 It may have been this warmth which called 
 forth Joubert's enthusiasm for him, a little sur- 
 prising when we remember his coolness about 
 de Pange, so like Mole" in thought and cha- 
 racter. The latter attracted many others besides 
 Joubert; "ripe conversation" was his delight, 
 and the friends he chose were always older than 
 himself. If he impresses the uninitiated as some- 
 thing of a prig, he had, at any rate, earned the 
 right to take himself seriously. Son of the 
 President Mold, Matthieu, when a boy of twelve, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 229 
 
 had moved the Revolutionary Tribunal by his 
 touching entreaties, and rescued his father from 
 the Abbaye, and the September Massacres. The 
 President was borne home amidst a rejoicing mob, 
 only to be again arrested two years later, when 
 he perished on the guillotine. A few days after- 
 wards, his widow (herself in the middle of a 
 serious illness, and with three of her children 
 stricken by fever) was hunted out of her home 
 into a squalid lodging, where the lad of fourteen 
 supported them in the utmost poverty. He 
 witnessed the scene in the Convention when 
 Tallien moved Robespierre's accusation ; and 
 survived the Terror to use his experiences in 
 a work on the Ethics of Politics, greatly admired 
 by Joubert. 
 
 At Mole's side, we see Gue"neau de Mussy, 
 handsome, literary, popular, and dilettante ; also 
 Bonald, the brilliant ultramontane, with "the 
 flowing mind, whose ingenuity was taken for 
 genius," and who, says Sainte-Beuve, rivalled 
 Fontanes as the wittiest man of the day. Here, 
 too, is the rich old banker, M. Julien, Mont- 
 morin's friend, who fusses delightfully over 
 Pauline's comforts, and gives her a fatherly 
 affection touched with romance ; also his box at 
 the Franfais. He introduces to her Pasquier 
 
230 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 (afterwards the Emperor's Chancellor), keen, ob- 
 servant, and doubtless possessing a heart, though 
 it was swaddled in red tape ; gallant at least 
 he was, for he yielded to Pauline his apartment 
 in the Rue Neuve du Luxembourg, and thus 
 made himself the sponsor of her salon. 
 
 More than gallant was Adrien de Lezay, 
 introduced to her by Madame de Stael ; a 
 political writer, sparkling, yet moderate, whose 
 books and whose melancholy interested her. 
 " I am afraid the poor young man's presenti- 
 ments will be fulfilled," she says to Joubert ; "he 
 is very unhappy and very ill." He evidently 
 returned her kindness with a more complicated 
 feeling, which brought him every day to her 
 house ; there seems even to have been some sort 
 of confession from him, for, rather later, she 
 writes : " One day I will tell you the cause of 
 his assiduity it is really rather droll." Like 
 many other melancholy and romantic souls, 
 he ended in a snug post, and when last we hear 
 of him, he is well established as Governor of 
 Strasbourg. 
 
 A great contrast to the meteoric de Ldzay was 
 Joseph de Chenedolle*, the kindly, laborious poet, 
 the tender friend, uncompromising in his fidelity ; 
 too steady, indeed, to make a good poet, for 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 231 
 
 though he had a poet's heart, the Muses' gifts 
 were wanting. He had knowledge, Chateau- 
 briand tells us, but his talent was learned and not 
 spontaneous, whilst his temperament lacked joy, 
 and was sad enough to earn him the nickname 
 of "The Raven." It may be said that in every 
 circle there is a familiar figure, dowdily dressed 
 and of no definite position, who is loved by 
 everybody, and by whom nobody is excited. 
 This was the part devotedly filled by Joseph de 
 Chenedolle* in Madame de Beaumont's salon. 
 He was well fitted for it by his talent for 
 serving others, and his keen susceptibilities. 
 An unflagging hero-worshipper, he lavished his 
 adoration upon brilliant people less solid than 
 himself. In early life, his idol was the fascin- 
 ating Rivarol, talker and writer, whose tongue 
 was as ready and eloquent as his thought was 
 glib and fertile ; in later years, he transferred 
 his cult to Chateaubriand. He did not stop 
 at heroes. Like others of his kind, his pathetic 
 life was dignified by a great and unreturned 
 affection. He gave a lifelong love to Chateau- 
 briand's sister, the gentle Lucile, whose early 
 life had also been shaken by a hopeless 
 attachment to a Breton magnate. After the 
 fashion of the day, she had been made an abbess 
 
232 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 when still almost a baby a merely nominal 
 office, which neither debarred her from marriage, 
 nor caused her to leave her home. But it 
 surrounded her with a kind of mystery, and 
 probably coloured her fancy. 
 
 She passed much of her girlhood alone in her 
 chamber, learning all domestic occupations, and 
 venting her feelings by writing down her frag- 
 mentary imaginations, which show a vein of real 
 genius. Dark and pale, she developed a half- 
 ghostly beauty, expressive of her nature. In 
 early youth, she joined Chateaubriand in Paris, 
 and lived there with her sister, Madame de 
 Farcy. The girl's gifts soon attracted attention ; 
 Chamfort took special notice of her ; Malesherbes 
 and Delille made much of her. But the Revolu- 
 tion burst. The horrors around her and her own 
 imprisonment overturned her reason, and she 
 went mad. At the first danger, she had married, 
 for the sake of protection for her family, an old 
 man, a certain Comte de Caud, who died fifteen 
 months later on the scaffold. Fantastic and 
 intense, she lived in her dreams and in her 
 affections, without any power of resisting cala- 
 mity. When it came, her sensitiveness turned 
 to suspicion, her pensive imagination to tragedy, 
 and her lunacy, at first intermittent, brought 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 233 
 
 her at last to a deathbed in lonely lodgings. 
 Occasionally Chenedolle"s heart had moments 
 of hope : " I won't say yes and I won't say 
 no," was her answer to him, and then she 
 would keep him waiting for months, to reject 
 him at last with a coldness that seemed almost 
 dislike. " She pities you, , she pities you, she 
 pities you ! " was all the comfort Madame de 
 Beaumont could give him ; but Lucile wished 
 neither to be bound nor free, and " detested 
 the notion of monotonous matrimony." Her 
 heart kept only two feelings, which prevailed 
 even over her madness her devotion to her 
 brother, and a passionate, if troublous friendship 
 for Madame de Beaumont, whom she survived 
 for a short time. She could only endure tete-a- 
 tete intercourse, and never entered the little 
 salon when others were there. 
 
 There were, however, many ladies who, like 
 the men, frequented it every night, discussing 
 art, literature, and each other, with a frank, 
 unconscious friendship, steady enough to satisfy 
 even the English ideal of relations between the 
 two sexes. Here were the high - souled, hot- 
 headed Duchesse de Duras, a novelist herself, 
 a promoter of elementary education, and later 
 a. literary confidante and political protector of 
 
234 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 Chateaubriand's. Her expression reminded him 
 of her intimate friend, Madame de Stael, he 
 tells us, and "she united in herself the latter's 
 force of thought with the grace of Madame 
 Lafayette." Her chief novel, Ourika, had a great 
 vogue, and was pronounced by Louis XVIII. 
 to be " the Atala of the Salon." She shared 
 with Chateaubriand all his ideas, acted as his 
 ambitious Mentor in State affairs, and was "so 
 stormy and courageous for her friends," that in 
 later days she unearthed the vacant Swedish 
 Embassy for him ; in private she graced her 
 benefits by permitting him to call her his sister. 
 
 Of the same world, and no less in after years 
 a friend of Chateaubriand's, was the soothing 
 Duchesse de LeVis, "as calm as Madame de 
 Duras was agitated," who lived amongst her 
 shady chestnut-trees at Noiseul. " Her memory 
 is to me as a still autumn evening," he writes 
 " she died early . . . and is buried just above M. 
 Fontanes." By her side appeared the charm- 
 ing Madame Pastoret, who shed around her the 
 fine aroma of St. Germain and the bons mots of 
 literature. It was of this " intimate coterie " of 
 well-born women that the Swiss Sismondi wrote 
 twenty years later, with a pang of remembrance : 
 " Here, everything excites interest, , , . whilst; 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 235 
 
 respect, inspired by difference of sex, prevents the 
 shocks of love .... It was above all here that I 
 learned the charm of French amiability, when it 
 is no longer encrusted with the shows of society. 
 . . . Alas, I enjoyed myself too much ! " concludes 
 the impressionable gentleman. 
 
 More prominent than the other ladies in 
 Pauline's daily life was the large-minded Madame 
 de Vintimille, whose "happy humour" always had 
 the power of calming Pauline. She was to morals 
 what Madame de Beaumont was to the mind. 
 So says Joubert, who turned to her for consola- 
 tion after Pauline's death, and never found her 
 wanting. His feeling for her was one of romantic 
 gratitude, and he liked to express it prettily, as 
 he did all pleasing emotions. Every year, on a 
 certain day, he presented her with a bouquet of 
 tuberoses, in remembrance of a particular walk 
 they had taken together in the gardens of the 
 Luxembourg. An intellectual woman she was 
 not : she understood life and books by her heart 
 rather than her brains, throwing it into whatever 
 she touched with much warmth and some eccentric 
 wisdom. When, for instance, she chose a tutor 
 for her son, she rejected all applicants excepting 
 those who had been in love themselves. Even 
 her literary sympathies became a personal matter 
 
236 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 to her, and she always went into mourning on 
 the anniversary of Madame de SeVignd's death. 
 She did not confine her tenderness to the dead, 
 but loved her kind, transforming the most every- 
 day incidents of society by her genial touch, and 
 figuring as the well-bred gossip of a well-bred 
 audience. Perhaps it was her spicy tongue 
 which earned her the name of " Madame Bad- 
 Heart " amongst her acquaintance ; at any rate, 
 they showed no want of appreciation of her 
 gifts. 
 
 " Madame de Vintimille," writes Chateaubriand, 
 "a woman of the old times such as hardly exists 
 nowadays, went a great deal into the world and 
 told us what happened there. . . . The sketch of 
 its petty scandals, which she gave us with her 
 piquant raillery, never offended us, but only made 
 us more fully appreciate the value of our safety. 
 Madame de Vintimille has been sung ... by 
 M. de la Harpe. Her language was circum- 
 spect, her character self-contained, her intellect 
 acquired ; she had lived with Mesdames de 
 Chevreuse, de Longueville, de la Valliere, de 
 Maintenon ; with Madame Geoffrin and Madame 
 du Deffand." 
 
 Besides these new friends, the few survivors of 
 old days came faithfully to the Rqe Neuve du 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 237 
 
 Luxembourg. Madame Hocquart, the link 
 between the past and present, whom Pauline 
 must always have loved for her brother's sake ; 
 Madame Krudner, more mystic, perhaps vainer 
 than before, and more than ever in love with 
 princely proselytes ; also, more rarely, Madame de 
 Stae'l, who rushed in spasmodically between her 
 banishments, with her attractive relative, Madame 
 Necker de Saussure. She was outwardly as 
 affectionate as ever, but the breach was only 
 patched up, not healed, and she was evidently felt 
 to be too great and too stirring for the peaceful 
 little salon ; their name of " Leviathan " for her is, 
 at all events, rather sarcastic, and suggests surging 
 foam and a lashing presence incongruous with its 
 surroundings. 
 
 This was the choice company which from 1 798 
 onwards, gathered round their " Swallow," Pauline 
 de Beaumont ; first in the Rue St. Honore", then, 
 at M. Pasquier's request, in the shabbily furnished 
 little apartment in the Rue Neuve du Luxembourg, 
 destined to be the shrine of so many pilgrimages, 
 grave and gay. It had many grander rivals, for 
 society had revived with fresh force, after its long 
 trance. Madame Recamier's salon was begin- 
 ning ; Madame Joseph Bonaparte's and Madame 
 Tallien's were flourishing ; the Princesse de Poix 
 
238 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 and her brilliant court represented the aristo- 
 cracy of the ancien regime ; Madame Suard and 
 Madame d'Houdetot still kept up the traditions of 
 the old world of letters. " But the little salon of 
 Madame de Beaumont, dimly lighted, by no means 
 celebrated, only haunted by a handful of the 
 faithful who met there every night, offered all the 
 attractions of the time ; it meant youth, liberty, 
 movement, the new spirit, including the past and 
 reconciling it with the future." 
 
 We cannot be surprised that wfren its members 
 were away from Paris, the whole world should have 
 seemed dull to Pauline de Beaumont, and that 
 only Racine could supply her with a fitting address 
 to her empty drawing-room. " Deplorable Zion ! " 
 she exclaims ; "qiiastufait de tagloire?" As 
 for her own absence, when her health compelled 
 her to a short stay at the baths of Mont Dore, she 
 is in despair at her surroundings. " You cannot 
 imagine all these Auvergnat jaws," she writes to 
 Pasquier ; " if Samson had met one, he would have 
 made quite another job of it. Never would the 
 Philistines have been heard of again." And 
 then, with a pang of remembrance, she exclaims, 
 " After the friends I have left, there is nothing 
 good but solitude for it is a means of finding 
 them again." 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 239 
 
 It is little wonder either that, in order to be 
 near such good company, Joubert should have 
 upset his whole manner of living, and migrated 
 every winter with all his family to Paris, where 
 he took apartments in the neighbouring street of 
 St. Honore. "Peaceful society!" he cries with 
 the yearning of after days, " where no discordant 
 pretension was allowed to enter, and good 
 humour was joined to fame where, without 
 knowing it, everyone made it their business to 
 praise all that was praiseworthy ! " And Chateau- 
 briand, so soon to enter this assembly as its king, 
 reiterates Joubert's lament, nearly half a century 
 later. "Never again," he writes, "will there 
 meet beneath the same roof so many distinguished 
 persons of different ranks and different destinies, 
 able to talk about the commonest things as well 
 as about the most elevated ; a simplicity of con- 
 verse which did not come from poverty, but from 
 choice. It was perhaps the last society where 
 the old French spirit appeared. In modern 
 France one no longer finds this urbanity, the 
 fruit of education, transformed by long habit into 
 a moral aptitude." 
 
 There is no fitter epitaph for Madame de 
 Beaumont's salon than the words of the man who 
 was to rule it, lending it the glory of his genius, 
 
240 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 disturbing its quiet, and destroying the peace of 
 the woman who made its centre. 
 
 Nothing was wanting ; the audience was ready ; 
 the curtain was up : when the hero entered, the 
 drama began. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 / THHE little salon of the Rue Neuve du 
 JL Luxembourg was not only prepared for 
 Chateaubriand, but expecting him with excitement. 
 Its members were always on the look-out for 
 genius, and Fontanes' vivid descriptions of his 
 new friend raised the highest hopes in them. In 
 Chateaubriand's case, this was not surprising. 
 He could boast everything that the conventional 
 genius should possess Olympian looks, fascinat- 
 ing manners, a birthplace on the sea-shore, the 
 proper amount of suffering, and a romantic history. 
 Born at Saint Malo in 1768, of an aristocratic 
 Breton family, he has himself given us a picture 
 of his wild and fantastic childhood on the coast 
 of Brittany as enchanted and as melancholy as 
 any of Pierre Loti's, and more poetic than his in 
 spirit. In this stern yet tender home of the 
 ancient Breton regime, where Paris doings were 
 unheard of, he dreamed his dreams and shared 
 
 16 
 
242 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 them with his beloved sister Lucile, as they 
 wandered hand-in-hand over the rocks. Every 
 day the sea seemed different, the world ever- 
 changing to them ; every evening the two old 
 spinsters in mittens, who came to play cards with 
 his father, were the same. Presently he left the 
 old chateau, and went to be educated at a priest's 
 seminary, where he learned to know Virgil ; played 
 somewhat tame tricks with his schoolfellows ; 
 steeped himself in forbidden romances and poetry 
 which inspired in him, at fifteen, haunting 
 and intoxicating visions of abstract woman ; re- 
 fused to adopt the profession either of sailor or 
 priest, as suggested by his father ; and finally, 
 after the latter's death, became a soldier. After 
 some six months' service, he resorted to Paris, 
 where he learned to know both the literary and 
 aristocratic worlds, became the friend of M. de 
 Malesherbes, La Harpe, and Chamfort, was 
 introduced to the King, and was present at 
 a Royal Hunt. The taking of the Bastille 
 changed his fortunes. He had stayed to hear 
 Mirabeau, to see Robespierre, and the heads of 
 the first two victims ; but he left France whilst 
 there was yet time, and, at the instigation of M. 
 de Malesherbes, embarked for America, nominally 
 in search of the North- West Passage and the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 243 
 
 Polar Seas. He made some inquiries about them 
 at Philadelphia, but finding no encouragement 
 there, he speedily abandoned his high geographical 
 aims for the quest after "La Muse" in South 
 America. This journey was an epoch in his life, 
 for its vast prairies and savannahs, its vegetation, 
 and, above all, its savages, .fulfilled an unsatisfied 
 need in his nature, and gave a permanent stamp 
 to his imagination. To us it is perhaps a rather 
 wearisome stamp, for Chateaubriand intensified 
 in himself the taste of his time for what was 
 vague and exaggerated delighting, above all, 
 in "scenery," the simple old-fashioned panorama 
 of precipices, mountains, and cascades, so dif- 
 ferent from the sensationally unsensational flats 
 and turnip-fields dear to the modern lover of 
 nature. 
 
 At the end of two years, in 1 793, he returned 
 home safely, to find his country afire with war, 
 and his King in need of soldiers. Before, how- 
 ever, resolving upon any course of action, he 
 retired to family life at Saint Malo, and during his 
 visit met (if we may so express it) with the critical 
 adventure of his roving and romantic existence. 
 Although public stir and imminent danger seemed 
 to allow no place at this moment for private plans, 
 his sisters, especially the fantastic Lucile, alarmed 
 
244 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 perhaps by his stories of ideal savage ladies of 
 the Atalas and Rene's that he must often have 
 painted for them summarily decided on the 
 necessity of his immediate marriage. Lucile 
 had chosen the lady ; a friend of her own, 
 Mademoiselle de Lavigne, " white, delicate, 
 slender," and rich. His sisters had managed the 
 affair without his knowledge ; he had not seen 
 her more than three or four times, as she walked 
 on the shore, "with her pink pelisse, white gown, 
 and fair hair blown by the wind . . . whilst he 
 gave himself up to the caresses of his old mistress 
 the sea/' " I did not feel," he said, "any of a 
 husband's qualities, all my illusions were alive, 
 nothing was exhausted in me." But, impression- 
 able and anxious to please, he quickly succumbed, 
 married the lady, then did his best to abolish the 
 fact by immediately leaving her for the Prince's 
 army on the Rhine. Here, for a space, he 
 endured all the hardships and dangers of an 
 4migrs soldiership, and was at last shipped off, 
 under great difficulties, to recruit beneath his 
 uncle's roof in Jersey. 
 
 It was now that he determined to cross the 
 Channel and try his fortunes in England, a resolu- 
 tion which, after a few months' waiting, he put 
 into execution, and arrived in London in the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 245 
 
 winter of 1793. Here he hobnobbed in garrets 
 with his fellow-emigrants, starving with them one 
 day in silent pride, the next earning a few shillings 
 by precarious scribbling ; laying in a wealth of 
 quickly shifting experiences privation, friendship, 
 illness, love. The last of these he owed to a 
 temporary tutorship in an English rectory, where 
 he read poetry with Charlotte Ives, the daughter 
 of the house, and in setting fire to her fresh young 
 heart, managed to singe his own wings. The 
 parents had learned to love him ; they longed for 
 their daughter's happiness, and, imagining that his 
 diffidence alone prevented definite proposals, the 
 mother sought to help him by offering him her 
 daughter's affection and her own consent only 
 to discover that she was speaking to a married 
 man. His slightly tardy chivalry compelled him, 
 after completely upsetting the simple rectory, 
 to depart instantly, and to suffer acutely from 
 mortified sensibilities ; and he never met his 
 Charlotte again till twenty-five years afterwards, 
 when she was comfortably married to a steady 
 admiral, and approached him not as a man, but as 
 a French Ambassador, whose influence she sought 
 for her sons. 
 
 Chateaubriand meanwhile returned to London, 
 to poverty, and to the tyranny of Lepelletier, a 
 
246 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 French publisher in England, who now employed 
 him regularly. It was at this time that his 
 friendship with Fontanes began, and soon after 
 that he published his freethinking essay on 
 the Revolution, which opened for him the high- 
 road to fame. Its irreligion, however, brought 
 him severe condemnation from his elder sister, 
 Julie de Farcey. The Terror had almost 
 destroyed his family. His elder brother, the 
 Viscount, and his wife had died on the scaffold ; 
 Lucile, plunged into a dungeon, had only emerged 
 to marry the Comte de Caud, and, as we know, 
 to lose him fifteen months later by the guillotine. 
 We have also heard how, distraught by the 
 horrors of her imprisonment, she lost her senses, 
 and never quite regained their balance, remaining 
 always the wild and wayward dreamer, inces- 
 santly troubled in mind, and occasionally subject 
 to aberrations of a more violent nature. Madame 
 de Farcey had also been thrown into prison with 
 her mother, who, as soon as she was released, 
 died from the effects of her suffering, broken- 
 hearted, moreover, at the religious infidelity of 
 the son whom she adored and would never see 
 again. 
 
 Madame de Farcey spared Chateaubriand no 
 detail of this deathbed, the tragedy of which he 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 247 
 
 had so much deepened. In old days, though 
 always virtuous, she herself had belonged to the 
 gay world. " What shall I answer God at the 
 Last Day ? " she had once said. " I only know 
 verses ! " But the Terror had changed the tenor 
 of her thoughts, and she had become devote. She 
 knew her brother's nature, and produced the 
 desired effect. His opinions had little to do with 
 reflection ; they were emotional impressions, 
 capable of being chased by another such impres- 
 sion, if sufficiently strong. All conversions, to 
 be sure, are emotional ; but a Pascal is converted 
 by the pressure of an impersonal feeling, which 
 seems to come from without, and a Chateaubriand 
 by a personal feeling from within. His sister's 
 letter made him weep ; and his doubts were 
 carried off on the tide of his tears. He believed 
 once more ; warmed himself in a pleasurable 
 glow of reactionary faith ; and, the Terror being 
 past, resolved to return to his country and 
 rejoin his family. Fontanes met him just 
 outside Paris, according to a long - cherished 
 project, and escorted him into the town, with 
 the view of presenting him at once to the 
 expectant congregation of the Rue Neuve du 
 Luxembourg. 
 
 Before describing his relations to it, and its 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 influence upon himself, it may be interesting to 
 review the qualities which coloured the career on 
 which he was now setting forth ; the qualities 
 which made him what he was to the world, both 
 in public and in private, apart from that inexplic- 
 able glamour of personality and genius which he 
 shed upon all who knew him. 
 
 It is always a difficult matter to estimate the 
 character of a sincere actor, of one who " acts his 
 own emotions" to himself, and believes in each 
 of them as if it were the feeling of a lifetime, 
 though he may have only created it for a moment. 
 The histrionic temperament does not necessarily 
 imply any pretence, though it provides a natural 
 facility for self-deception. 
 
 Chateaubriand, as well as Byron, belonged to 
 this genus. They made a melodrama of life, 
 themselves always playing the leading part, 
 though this cheapened their thought and did 
 away with their sense of responsibility. Neither 
 of them could exist apart from an audience, 
 whether of one or more persons ; neither of them 
 cared in the least for the stage when they were 
 off it, preferring to be there at the wrong moment, 
 rather than not at all ; both loved dressing 
 up, spiritually and physically Byron, with his 
 gorgeous costumes, no less than Chateaubriand, 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 249 
 
 who liked to start on an unadventurous journey 
 in a postchaise, in the toilet of a brigand, 
 his pistol - cases hidden beneath the carriage- 
 cushions. 
 
 The absurd side of all this has some counter- 
 balancing compensations. A melodrama needs 
 effects, especially effects of virtue ; and of the 
 heroism, sacrifice, and generosity that come under 
 this category, Chateaubriand, and still more 
 Byron, were pre-eminently capable. The former 
 could abnegate a fortune rather than hold office 
 under the Due d'Enghien's assassin, even though 
 he had to announce the virtuous fact in the next 
 letter he wrote ; the latter could die, without a 
 murmur, for the enfranchisement of a foreign 
 country. They were no less melodramatic in 
 their relation towards women, though they were 
 divided in this respect by a fundamental differ- 
 ence of nature. Chateaubriand was a thorough 
 sentimentalist ; while Byron only knew episodes 
 of sentiment in a life of almost savage British inde- 
 pendence. We have only to look at the Memoires 
 d'Outre-Tombe, and imagine Byron writing it, 
 to measure the gulf between them. Yet here 
 too there are points of analogy. Neither was 
 really passionate ; both had the particular coldness 
 of an emotional temperament, with an infinite 
 
250 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 capacity for being bored, and the poet's suscepti- 
 bilities. Such men, though especially dependent 
 upon Woman, should assuredly not marry women, 
 till some law of the future has established a kind 
 of modified Mohammedanism, allowing a period- 
 ical, if not simultaneous, change of wives. Both 
 the geniuses in question were Don Juans ; but 
 Chateaubriand was more of the intellectual 
 libertine, in search of sympathy and mental ex- 
 citement an expurgated edition of Lord Byron, 
 if we may so express it. 
 
 Both were doubtless affected by their own view 
 of themselves : Byron posed as the bad man, and 
 thought himself worse than he was ; Chateau- 
 briand posed as the good man, and thought him- 
 self better than he was. Byron was gifted with 
 the sense of humour ; Chateaubriand had none 
 a great help perhaps to the virtues he cultivated, 
 and a means of accounting for the fact that he 
 remained in the thick of the world which he 
 scorned, whilst Byron fled from it. Yet in spite 
 of all this, the fact remains that Chateaubriand 
 was, if not the truer, at least the better man of 
 the two. Though he was always " Le Grand 
 Ennuye"," he was never either a cynic or a scoffer ; 
 perhaps he kept too many illusions to be the 
 former, and needed too much spiritual support 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 251 
 
 even personal attention from the Deity to be 
 the latter. But apart from these negative con- 
 siderations, the sense of reverence, the poet's large 
 imagination, were undoubtedly his. They affected 
 all his views, even those on women ; for, what- 
 ever his relations with them, he always treated 
 them with respect, not as Oriental slaves, but as 
 equal companions. 
 
 Still more directly did his sense of reverence 
 influence his attitude towards religion. This 
 makes another great difference between him and 
 Lord Byron, both as to their life and their function 
 in literature. For a long way their roads, as 
 creators, seem almost identical. Childe Harold 
 is the twin-brother of Rene, though educated at 
 a public school, which Rene certainly was not 
 Chateaubriand even accused Byron of borrowing 
 from him. But when we come to creed, the like- 
 ness stops. Where Byron was slashing at a 
 convention and confounding it with the reality, 
 Chateaubriand, however sentimentally, was seek- 
 ing the truth that would give life to the form. 
 Thus, whilst Byron occupies the position of the 
 destroyer of faith, Chateaubriand undertook the 
 mission of reviving religion in France and be- 
 coming the poet -ally of the Pope. His G&nie 
 du Christianisme was the emotional complement 
 
252 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the Concordat. The one sprang from sentiment ; 
 the other from Napoleonic foresight ; neither of 
 them from piety nor the true religious sense. Yet 
 they both succeeded in kindling these qualities in 
 France. And although there is some irony in 
 the fact that, whilst Mrs. Grundy was drawing 
 her skirts away from Byron, Chateaubriand was 
 snugly ensconced in the Vatican and being 
 blessed by the Pope, it is but fair to remember 
 that he was one of the few who contrived to 
 combine the theory of the pessimist with the 
 creed of the optimist, and that he never dis- 
 believed in belief. 
 
 It requires, however, more than this more 
 even than the glamour of his magnetic person- 
 ality to account for the effect he produced 
 upon his friends and all with whom he came 
 in contact. For he created not only sudden 
 attractions, but lifelong attachments, steady and 
 enthusiastic. Their cause was as simple as it is 
 amiable ; for in his blue veins there ran the 
 milk of human kindness, instead of the cham- 
 pagne of inhuman unkindness which flowed in 
 Byron. Chateaubriand warmly loved his kind, 
 even though it was a love for what they gave 
 him of adulation, sympathy, or companionship. 
 He more than loved them he depended upon 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 253 
 
 them ; and dependence, joined to genius, makes 
 an appealing combination. It is no wonder, 
 then, that he enslaved such women as Madame 
 de Custine, the Duchesse de Noailles, Madame 
 de Duras, and many others (not to mention his 
 intercourse with Pauline de Beaumont and 
 Madame Rdcamier), and had friends almost as 
 ardent and quite as faithful amongst men. He 
 had the woman's power of making each one feel 
 that he or she was the one person needed by 
 him at the moment. 
 
 It is not too much to say that when Chateau- 
 briand entered the salon in the Rue Neuve du 
 Luxembourg, an electric thrill ran through every 
 one of its members. Fontanes was already 
 vanquished ; Joubert welcomed the conqueror 
 with a kind of paternal cult ; ChenedolM, always 
 longing to kneel, at once prostrated himself, and, 
 not content with an idol, wished, as we know, 
 to make a brother-in-law of him also. He suc- 
 ceeded at least in constituting him the confidant 
 of his hopeless love affair, which he continued to 
 pour out to him ; and it gives us some notion of 
 the demands of salon friendships, when we find 
 that they saw each other every day for two years. 
 
 It is more of a surprise, and also of a relief, 
 to find the self-contained Mole* losing his 
 
254 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 head ; spending his days in running about the 
 country with Chateaubriand, and insisting on 
 partaking of the same dishes at dinner as he 
 did. As for the ladies of the circle, they, of 
 course, succumbed to his charm. One of them, 
 as we know, did more than that. As soon as 
 Pauline de Beaumont set eyes upon Francois 
 de Chateaubriand, her fate was sealed. They 
 achieved the impossible, rather, perhaps, the 
 impossible after five - and - twenty and fell in 
 love at first sight. It became almost at once 
 the need and excitement of his existence to pay 
 her a daily visit, beside his appearance in her 
 drawing-room in the evening. 
 
 Chateaubriand had no need to adapt himself to 
 the society which now welcomed him. He was 
 born into it ; his mind for the first time discovered 
 its native country, where it breathed more easily 
 and expanded more vigorously. Without further 
 ado, he took up his abode in it, frequenting it 
 every night without fail, and adding the touch 
 of the enchanter's wand to the little salon so 
 spirituel and spiritual in the same breath, and 
 already so much distinguished by that combina- 
 tion from all its contemporaries. 
 
 Chateaubriand was not only received, but 
 baptized into the brotherhood ; his salon names 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 255 
 
 were "The Young Savage" and "The Great 
 Raven." Gue'neau de Mussy was already called 
 the "Little Raven," Chenedolle", "The Raven 
 of Vire," Fontanes, the "Wild Boar of Ery- 
 manthus," whilst, as we know, Madame de Vinti- 
 mille was " Madam Bad-Heart," Madame de 
 Stael, " Leviathan," and Pauline de Beaumont, 
 "The Swallow." 
 
 The only interruption to this Parisian Feast of 
 Reason was a short flight made by "The Great 
 Raven " to Villeneuve, where Joubert had retired 
 for a time. He had discerned at a glance the 
 younger man's special gifts and importance. "It 
 is only needful," he exclaims, "to disentangle him 
 from Rousseau, Ossian, and the vapours of the 
 Thames . . . and you will see what a poet we 
 shall have to purify us from the dregs of the 
 Directoire." 
 
 But genius was not the sole attraction. Cha- 
 teaubriand, like many literary orators, was simpler 
 in intimate intercourse than in print. His more 
 human side comes out in a letter of Joubert's, 
 written at this time : 
 
 " How I wish you were at Villeneuve ! " it 
 runs, "so that you might judge of what incom- 
 parable kindness, of what perfect innocence, of 
 what simplicity of life and manners, and with 
 
256 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 all that of what incomparable gaiety, of what 
 peace and happiness he is capable, when he is 
 only subject to the influences of the seasons, 
 and excited by nobody but himself." 
 
 The country was but a short interlude. He 
 could not long keep away from Madame de 
 Beaumont. His tete-a-tete visits increased from 
 one to two every day, and he speedily made of 
 her both his critic and his audience. We have 
 already seen that she was peculiarly fitted for 
 such offices. Creative genius was the necessary 
 complement of her nature ; it gave her the ex- 
 hilaration she needed and could not find in 
 herself. Chateaubriand's genius suited her wants 
 more fully than any with which she had come in 
 contact, and from the first moment of their 
 meeting, her feeling for him was inseparable 
 from it. She hailed the Romantic School in 
 his person ; his style was a revelation to her. 
 " It gives me, as it were, a thrill of love ; 
 he plays the harpsichord on all my fibres," she 
 writes. 
 
 The emotional and intellectual excitement put 
 into her days by his presence and his works 
 read to her in his own voice acted upon her 
 health. " It seems to me," she writes, " that 
 my health is actually better now." 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 257 
 
 For a year from 1800-1, she hardly left Paris. 
 Her interests multiplied. Soon after his arrival 
 there, Chateaubriand had introduced to her his 
 sister, Lucile de Caud, whom he was anxious to 
 draw out of the dreamy solitude which had been 
 deepened by his sister Madame de Farcey's 
 death. Both Joubert and Madame de Beaumont, 
 he tells us, felt "a passionate attachment and 
 a tender pity for her," and Pauline and she 
 "leaned one towards the other, like two flowers 
 of the same kind, ready to fade." The two 
 women began a correspondence which lasted till 
 Pauline's death, though Lucile often clouded their 
 intercourse by moods of mad suspicion ; giving 
 false addresses, examining the seals of her letters, 
 and, like Rousseau, imagining hidden enemies 
 everywhere, whilst she wandered restlessly about, 
 unable to settle in any place. Her unbroken 
 friendship with Pauline says much for the affec- 
 tion on both sides, for to those she loved less, 
 she easily grew tyrannical. " Later on," writes 
 Chateaubriand, "she became attached to Madame 
 de Chateaubriand, my wife, and gained an 
 ascendancy over her which became painful, for 
 Lucile was violent, impetuous, unreasonable, 
 and Madame de Chateaubriand, subject to her 
 caprices, had to hide herself away, in order 
 17 
 
258 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 to perform those services which a richer friend 
 renders to one who is sensitive and less fortu- 
 
 nate." 
 
 Her brother, "the irresistible enchanter," as 
 Madame de Beaumont calls him, was, at any 
 rate, on the highroad to fame and wealth. 
 Pauline had as stimulating an effect upon his 
 genius, as he upon her health. He was in a 
 white heat of creation, his brain teeming, as he 
 somewhat feverishly tells us, with the burning 
 twins, Atala and Rdne", which were originally 
 to form part of Le Gdnie du Christianisme, a 
 work he had already mapped out. We can fancy 
 him in the little Parisian room, lost in a flow of 
 golden speech, describing, discussing, gesticu- 
 lating, while his critic lay upon the sofa, listening 
 with an occasional remark, trying to supplement 
 the admiration in her eyes by the impartiality 
 of her tongue. 
 
 He had a rougher judge in Fontanes, who 
 had already done him service by introducing 
 him to his intimate friend, Madame Bacciochi, 
 and, through her, to Napoleon's brother, Lucien 
 Bonaparte ; also by procuring him work on his 
 own paper, Le Mercure. Resolving at this time 
 to re-write Le Gdnie du Christianisme, and publish 
 Atala separately, Chateaubriand took the latter 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 259 
 
 work to "The Wild Boar," who, when he came 
 to the priest's speech over Atala's deathbed, 
 exclaimed in an abrupt voice, "That's not the 
 thing do it all again ! " Three hours of pic- 
 turesque dejection followed, then came inspira- 
 tion. The passage was re-written without one 
 correction, and with sonte palpitation taken 
 back to Fontanes, to receive his enthusiastic 
 approval. 
 
 Publicity was, however, to come to him by 
 another channel. Fontanes had published an 
 adverse review on Madame de StaeTs De la 
 Littdrature dans ses Rapports avec les Institutions 
 Sociales. She had replied in a letter published in 
 the second edition of her book. Chateaubriand, 
 kept, as he tells us, one night from sleep by the 
 persistent cooing of two pet turtle-doves, though to 
 secure quiet he had packed them in his portman- 
 teau, was inspired to support Fontanes in a letter 
 for the Mercure. He wrote it at once ; it had an 
 effect ; was talked about and raised him from 
 obscurity. 
 
 It must be added that it also caused a rupture 
 between him and Madame de Stae'l, who came to 
 pour out her wounded feelings into the ear of 
 Madame de Beaumont. Pauline felt deeply 
 the coldness between her two friends ; but 
 
260 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 " Delphine " not only loved the stir of a recon- 
 ciliation as much as the agitation of a quarrel ; 
 she was also the soul of generosity, and liked 
 to pardon. It was not difficult for Pauline to 
 make peace between them, and the truce, 
 furthered doubtless by Chateaubriand's disappro- 
 bation of Napoleon, continued, excepting for 
 occasional skirmishes, during the rest of their 
 lives. They began a sort of playful intimacy, 
 and she always addressed him in English as 
 " My dear Francis." Yet the friendship be- 
 tween them seems never to have grown really 
 close. Madame de Stael was herself too much 
 of a tempest, a talker, a genius, to suit the 
 needs of another genius, who sought a good 
 listener and a calm atmosphere, above all 
 things. 
 
 His letter to the Mercure was followed 
 (in 1801) by the publication of Atala. Like 
 Byron, he awoke one morning to find himself 
 famous. Paris could talk of nothing but the 
 sentimental savage maiden, whose passionate soul 
 he had depicted. Every drawing-room rang 
 with his name ; every street was placarded with 
 it ; whilst all the glittering fringes of reputation, 
 parodies, caricatures, lampoons, and burlesques 
 of his book, were his in abundance. Savages 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 261 
 
 in cocks' feathers raved to one another on the 
 stage about solitude ; country inns were adorned 
 with coloured prints of aborigines ; and the Abbe 
 Morellet cracked famous, if indelicate jokes upon 
 the hearts of Red Indians. 
 
 The psychological intricacies of the savage, 
 perhaps the only being who knows no such 
 complications, cannot fail, in our scientific days, 
 to produce a sense of constraint, even of absurdity. 
 Chateaubriand needed a Jean - Jacques mise- 
 en-scene, on a sublime scale ; he also needed to 
 satisfy the modern spirit of moral analysis. 
 The tropics alone could fulfil his scenic de- 
 mands ; and as the only figures proper to 
 such a frame are aborigines and those that 
 deal with them, he was obliged to invest the 
 natives with qualities they could not possess, 
 and to overcharge a missionary, the only white 
 man available, with sentiment. These facts are 
 apt to make us unjust to the magic of his style, 
 which still remains to us unaltered by time ; and 
 which, in those days of enfeebled and police- 
 inspected classicism, must have seemed little 
 short of a miracle. 
 
 But his private audience in the Street of the 
 Luxembourg, plunged though they were in high 
 topics, were neither heavy nor pedantic. They 
 
262 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 were capable of being diverted by lighter themes 
 than nature on the Ohio. The Theatre Francois 
 was an absorbing pleasure to them, and divided 
 them into camps according to their favourite 
 actress. At one moment they are one and 
 all enamoured of Mademoiselle Duchesnois, 
 the rival of Napoleon's favourite, Mademoiselle 
 Georges. Pauline, foremost in enthusiasm, sees 
 her every night from M. Julien's box, and 
 never rests till she gets the actress to take 
 luncheon with hen " I find it impossible," 
 she writes to Pasquier, "to forgive those 
 who think her stupid "... (an allusion to 
 Geoffroi, the critic and admirer of Mademoiselle 
 Georges) : " She talks little and uses few words. 
 . . . The only thing one can do, is to find her 
 sensitive chord." 
 
 Soon after Chateaubriand's appearance, Duches- 
 nois, though still the support of tragedy, found 
 her glory eclipsed in the salon world by the 
 rising star of Talma's genius. " Himself, his 
 time, and antiquity," was Chateaubriand's sum- 
 mary of him. "He had," he continues, "the 
 fatal inspiration, the disturbed genius of the 
 Revolution through which he passed, and did 
 not know the gentilhomme of the old society. 
 His Othello smacked of Vendome . , but his 
 
\ J\. ou fa CL tc 5-U c^ /YV <) 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 263 
 
 grace, which was not the conventional grace, 
 seized you like grief." 
 
 Meanwhile, Chateaubriand was no less anxious 
 than Pauline to produce his book and under 
 her auspices. For this purpose, she resolved 
 to carry out an ideal plan of hers, and take 
 some little cottage in the ^country, where they 
 might give themselves up to work, uninterrupted 
 save by the occasional visits of friends. They 
 found what they wanted at Savigny, now only 
 half an hour by rail from Paris, then much 
 more inaccessible ; and she began to arrange 
 for their life together in Arcadia. Madame 
 Joubert undertook their pots and pans ; Joubert 
 their library; Pauline all arrangements for "The 
 Savage's" literary labours. She was enchanted : 
 " I shall hear the sound of his voice every 
 morning, and I shall see him at work," she 
 writes to Madame Vintimille, just before they 
 established themselves at Savigny in the May 
 of 1801. 
 
 "We have hardly been here twenty - four 
 hours," she writes to Joubert, " and I am already 
 impatient to send you news of us. I think you 
 really must feel more curious about our hermit 
 than about me. You know too well how much 
 the country charms me, and how I love solitude. 
 
264 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 So it is of the Savage that I shall talk to you. 
 Even before the end of the journey he had 
 forgotten his conversation with Fontanes, his 
 reasons for uneasiness and melancholy. I have 
 never seen him calmer, gayer, more of a child, 
 or more reasonable. Everything gave us 
 pleasure even Monsieur Pigeau. We were 
 dreading his face on the doorstep : he wasn't 
 there. And later, when he came to make me 
 sign his inventory of the house, with the supple- 
 ment of twelve hens and two cocks, and the 
 retrenchment of seven lines consisting of twenty- 
 two words, we were seized with a mad fit of 
 laughter which is still going on. After his 
 departure, we went to the Springs of Jouvisy by 
 a short and charming cut. At ten o'clock, all 
 the household was in bed and sleeping soundly. 
 This morning the Savage read me the first part 
 of the first volume, and showed me the changes 
 he means to make. To say the truth, I should 
 wish him colder and more enlightened critics 
 than myself; for I have not come out of my 
 enchantment, and am much less severe than 
 he which is detestable ! Farewell I embrace 
 Madame Joubert. I must repeat that this 
 country is charming and that we are expecting 
 you with the greatest impatience." 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 265 
 
 These first hours were but the heralds of 
 many golden days. Pauline seems to grow 
 gayer and gayer as the time slips by. Every 
 morning they worked together, he creating his 
 Gtnie du Christianisme, she transcribing and 
 revising what was already written. Every 
 afternoon they set out to " discover new walks 
 amidst the woods and meadows, and talked 
 incessantly as they wandered, about their past 
 lives, from childhood onwards. Chateaubriand, 
 doubtless, had the lion's share of reminiscence, 
 but this only made his companion happier. 
 When they returned, there was reading aloud, 
 with endless quips and intimate understandings; 
 then, when the stars came out, they again 
 sought the open, and sat in the garden till 
 bed-time." 
 
 Chateaubriand has left us a happy picture 
 of their pastoral life, a little later, when the 
 Jouberts came to pay them their promised visit. 
 
 " I shall for ever remember some of these even- 
 ings spent in the shelter of friendship ; when we 
 came back from our walk, we all met near a 
 basin of running water placed in the midst of a 
 lawn in the kitchen - garden. Madame Joubert, 
 Madame de Beaumont, and I sat down on a 
 bench ; Madame Joubert's son rolled at our feet 
 
266 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 on the grass. . . . M. Joubert walked apart in 
 a gravelled alley ; two watch - dogs and a cat 
 played round about us, whilst pigeons cooed on 
 the edge of our roof. ... It was usually on 
 evenings such as these that my friends made me 
 talk of my travels. I have never described the 
 deserts of the New World so well as then. At 
 night, when the windows of our pastoral salon 
 were open, Madame de Beaumont watched the 
 different constellations, and said that I should 
 one day remember she had taught me to know 
 them ; since I lost her, I have often sought those 
 stars, the names of which she told me, in the 
 heavens, from the midst of the Campagna, not far 
 from her tomb in Rome." 
 
 Savigny saw other guests beside the Jouberts. 
 There was Lucile, sadder than ever, her head 
 bent, her whole being stamped "with the fixed 
 expression of her misery Lucile, whom all wel- 
 comed and tried to make happy, but who needed," 
 wrote her brother, "an atmosphere made on pur- 
 pose for her." There was Fontanes also, "who 
 was most amiable, and from whom we were lucky 
 enough to force some verses admirable verses 
 
 o 
 
 they are too ! " There were doubtless likewise all 
 the remaining members of the little circle to make 
 urbs in rure for their hosts. 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 267 
 
 Chateaubriand not only received visits, but 
 paid them. We hear of his going to stay 
 about this period with the genial, clear-headed 
 Madame de la Briche, Mole's mother-in-law, 
 "a woman of whom Happiness could not rid 
 itself." At this house he met Madame d'Hou- 
 detot and Saint Lambert, whose long and 
 faithful liaison custom had canonised. "The 
 Savage " returned, by no means the worse for 
 his unwonted dissipation, for his companion 
 writes that "he has fallen back upon solitude 
 with a great deal of confidence . . . and 
 is working like a nigger. . . . All ' the 
 Marais' (Madame de la Briche's estate) is 
 going to come down upon us for breakfast or 
 dinner." 
 
 Another and still more acceptable guest was 
 Atala, who now arrived translated into Italian. 
 M. Joubert had just lost his well-loved mother, 
 and longed, as he says, " to pour into Pauline's 
 ear the secret things of grief"; nevertheless, he 
 remembers to send them a copy of the trans- 
 lation, with fresh appreciations of Chateaubriand's 
 genius. "The essential thing is to be natural 
 to oneself," he writes, "and one will soon seem 
 natural to others . . . the personal accent always 
 pleases. It is only the accent of imitation which 
 
268 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 displeases, when it is not that of everybody 
 else." 
 
 He adds some literary news. He has dis- 
 covered a masterly article, which he is sure 
 must be Donald's, with an enthusiastic allusion 
 to Chateaubriand, and recommends Pauline to 
 repeat it to the latter, as an antidote to some 
 adverse criticism which had plunged him into 
 dejection. There follows a racy description of a 
 walk with Fontanes, who was preparing an article 
 on Kant, and to whom Joubert " wished to preach 
 love of the heights and a horror of the battle- 
 field." 
 
 " But he is not yet free enough from matters 
 of bile and blood. Yesterday, however, a great 
 deal of phlegm tempered his force, and we had no 
 explosion, only a concentrated fire. I had ex- 
 hausted myself in the morning by revising and 
 annotating the first volume of Kant, so that he 
 might be able to get the heart of it at once, with a 
 full knowledge of the facts. I had re-read, com- 
 pressed, made extracts, compared, with the sweat 
 of all my being. . . . My man arrives, and at the 
 first word I say to him he answers : ' Pooh ! 
 pooh ! I have made my abstract. There's 
 nothing new in it all, and nothing that's 
 worth the trouble of thinking about. Pooh! 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 269 
 
 pooh ! pooh ! pooh ! ' I was well paid for my 
 morning's work. ... As for Kant's doctrine, 
 I remain where I was when I left you, and I add 
 that he is utterly mistaken in his measurement of 
 all things. / think it reaches higher, and I am 
 right. . . . God is as necessary to metaphysics 
 as to morals, and even more so." 
 
 To this the more sceptical Pauline replies : 
 " I had left Fontanes so determined to write 
 his article on Kant from one point of view, 
 that if your investigations had not given you so 
 much pleasure, I should have deeply regretted 
 the care and attention they cost you. But you 
 have gained some ideas which please you, and 
 have found an ill-placed light, for which you will 
 build a lighthouse at your own sweet will. Still, 
 do agree that without the light, the lighthouse 
 would not deserve such a grand name that it 
 would be useless, or rather break-neck. As for 
 the rest, the article on Kant, without being 
 what it would have been had it only been con- 
 ceived after you gave your impressions, will 
 still be very much mitigated. That is one 
 more obligation owed you by Fontanes that 
 second whirlwind! May your breath at last 
 send him to those elevated regions for which 
 he is made ! " 
 
270 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 Joubert soon lets her know that he has been 
 trying to send a special post with the great news 
 that " Kant, this terrible Kant, who is to change 
 the world, this Kant who turns so many heads, 
 who occupied mine so much and who made yours 
 dream Kant in short, the big Kant, ... is 
 translated almost entirely but only in Latin ! 
 . . . Four enormously fat volumes in octavo, 
 which cost me, if you please, thirty-six livres 
 (francs) in French money. . . . Imagine a German- 
 Latin . . . ostrich eggs which you have to break 
 with your head, and in which, generally speaking, 
 you find nothing." 
 
 If Fontanes,the ' 'second whirlwind," was restive, 
 how much more was to be expected from the 
 first ? As usual, Madame de Stael was not found 
 wanting. 
 
 4f Just as we were leading such a sweet exist- 
 ence," Pauline writes, " and making the enchant- 
 ing project of going on and taking root in it, 
 terrible quarrels were being planned for the poor 
 hermit with The Whirlwind of this world I 
 mean Madame de Stael. People accused him of 
 having shown her letters boastingly. It is to me 
 that she carried her complaints, soft of word and 
 bitter of heart. They certainly have no founda- 
 tion, and his justification is easy. . . . But let us 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 271 
 
 leave the worries of this world, which one should 
 only see in perspective and, like tempests, from 
 the shore, so that one may congratulate oneself 
 on being in shelter." 
 
 Their only other disturbance was a short flight 
 of Pauline's to Paris, to fetch some books and see 
 Joubert's son, who was ill there ; and an invitation 
 from Joubert himself to come and share the 
 remains of a tender pigling he was fattening for 
 them, with the enthusiasm of Charles Lamb on a 
 like occasion leading one to imagine that there 
 is some mystic relation between young pork and 
 the literary palate. But even that dainty could 
 not draw the toilers from their work. The 
 Gdnie du Christianisme was making rapid pro- 
 gress under Pauline's supervision, and she sends 
 regular bulletins of it to Joubert. Small wonder 
 that, in after years, Chateaubriand should have 
 written : " Without the peace which she gave 
 me, I should perhaps never have finished a work 
 which I could not manage to write during my 
 misfortunes." Agitated though her nature was, 
 she could be calm for another, and for him, 
 throughout their intercourse, she remained per- 
 fectly serene, saving her cares and questionings 
 for her faithful Joubert. 
 
 She went on now in her work of revi- 
 
272 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 sion, perpetually tormented by a feeling that 
 her criticism was partial and inadequate, and 
 her fears that, even such as it was, it might 
 depress and paralyse his powers. Nobody knew 
 better than she that the cardinal sin of the 
 critic is to destroy the writer's spontaneity and 
 therefore his magic ; nobody could more skilfully 
 perform the delicate task of separating the defects 
 of that spontaneity from its virtues. " The 
 secret of the enchanter is to enchant himself," 
 she writes, and goes on to describe how he cast 
 that spell no less on what he read than what he 
 wrote. "What amazes me," she exclaims, "is 
 the harvest that he has reaped out of those 
 eight volumes of Les Moines that dry and arid 
 heap which wearied me to death. There is 
 really a sort of miracle in this power of his. . . . 
 He seems to have done nothing but collect a few 
 stray facts, and yet with no more than this, he 
 makes you burst into tears and weeps himself, 
 without ever suspecting that his talent has any- 
 thing to do with the effect which he produces 
 and feels. But in the middle of all this glamour, 
 I must confess to you the fear which torments 
 me and which does not leave me one moment's 
 rest. He wants his work to appear in the month 
 of February at latest, and, judging by what he 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 273 
 
 has still to do, and, above all, to re-do, if it 
 appears so early, I am absolutely convinced that 
 this can only be with great imperfections easy 
 to efface if he would only give himself more 
 time ; but the least note in this tone plunges 
 him into a dejection which comes near despair, 
 so that I hardly dare confess all my fears even 
 to myself. My only hope is that when I show 
 him these imperfections, he will feel compelled 
 of his own accord to do away with them ; but 
 will not this impatience to finish his book create 
 illusions for him ? I have never felt more bitterly 
 than now the misfortune of not having a firmer, 
 surer, more experienced taste, and of lacking that 
 force and conviction which carry people away. 
 . . . What alarms me more than anything is the 
 lightness with which he lays down certain judg- 
 ments, which if they are not to scare the public 
 demand to be presented with infinite tact and 
 gentleness. But there is no remedy for that. 
 What makes me timid in my observations is that 
 it is really important for him that his work should 
 appear quickly. Otherwise I should have much 
 more courage and should be frightened at nothing 
 but his extreme docility." 
 
 This precipitate haste and positiveness were 
 the natural defects of his exuberance. So also 
 
 18 
 
274 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 was his lavish profusion of quotations, for which 
 Joubert blames him. 
 
 " Tell him," he writes to Pauline, " . . . that 
 he overdoes ; that the public will care very little 
 for his quotations, but a great deal for his 
 thoughts ; that it is much more curious about his 
 genius than about his knowledge . . . that, in 
 short, it counts upon Chateaubriand to make 
 Christianity lovable, and not upon Christianity to 
 make Chateaubriand lovable. . . . Let the only 
 aim of his book consist in showing the beauty of 
 God in Christianity, and let him prescribe for 
 himself a rule imposed on every writer . . . 
 ' Hide thy knowledge.' . . . Our friend is not a 
 mere water-pipe, like so many others ; he is a 
 living spring, and I wish all he writes to seem 
 as if it spirted out of him. His quotations are, 
 for the most part, blunders ; where they become 
 necessities, he must put them into the notes. . . . 
 Bossuet quoted, but he quoted from the pulpit, 
 equipped with mitre and crozier ; he quoted to 
 those already convinced. But these times are 
 not the same. . . . If poetry and philosophy can 
 once bring men back to religion, it will be 
 soon reinstated, for it has its own allurements 
 and powers, which are great. . . . The difficulty 
 to-day is to give back to men the desire to return 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 275 
 
 to it. He must limit himself to that ; for that is 
 what M. de Chateaubriand can do. . . . But make 
 him renounce those authorities which nobody 
 will now recognise ; let him only use means that 
 are exclusively his own that are of the time and 
 the author." 
 
 Pauline hastens to answer that she read all 
 Joubert's letter aloud to her " Savage " : " He was 
 enchanted with it, but he will not profit by it. 
 He exclaimed twenty times, * He is the best, 
 the most amiable, the most astonishing of men ! 
 Yes! I see what he is at. He is always afraid 
 of my quoting too much.' Then he burst out 
 laughing. He has really cut out several 
 quotations but he has added a great many 
 too." 
 
 We have cited these letters at length, because 
 it is interesting to see how much more justly 
 Joubert appreciated Chateaubriand's special 
 powers than did that writer himself. In his 
 own eyes he was always the creator of a new 
 religion a prophet a redeemer with an artistic 
 temperament. Nothing vexed him more than 
 to be considered merely an apostle of beauty. 
 Like many artists, he valued most in himself that 
 for which others cared least, and enjoyed being a 
 moralist more than all else. And it was as a 
 
276 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 moral seer that the world hailed him, when, in 
 the course of the next year, his book came out. 
 It had been heralded by Fontane's articles in 
 the Mercure, published six months before, whilst 
 Chateaubriand was still working at Savigny, 
 so that the public was on tiptoe with expecta- 
 tion. 
 
 Nor were its hopes disappointed. His work, 
 begun in the glow of his repentance and belief 
 after his mother's death, had two main elements 
 of success : he wrote it in a gush of feeling 
 which carried him away ; and it also bore that 
 final stamp of genius an insight into the needs 
 of his time. After the sorrows of the Revolution 
 and the dry unbelief of the Encyclopaedists, the 
 nation experienced "a craving for faith and a 
 voracity for religious consolation." The fragments 
 of Christianity which had been offered to it for 
 the last fifty years brotherhood, equality, hope 
 of good had been doled out singly, under other 
 names, such as Rousseau's or that of the Revolu- 
 tion. Chateaubriand had but to hold the cross 
 aloft, and as he rather flurriedly announces 
 " the people rushed into the House of God, as they 
 would into the house of a doctor on the day of 
 an epidemic." The task which seemed to him 
 impossible was accomplished ; according to him- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 277 
 
 self, he had " destroyed the influence of Voltaire, 
 which had prevailed for more than half a 
 century." 
 
 There was one other man who knew with a 
 supreme knowledge how to feel the pulse of 
 the nation, and whose approval was not only 
 helpful but indispensable -to Chateaubriand's 
 success. That was Napoleon, who was well 
 pleased to find that the writer had been planning 
 in literature what the dictator was about to 
 execute in politics, and that the book would 
 greatly help not only the effectiveness of the 
 Concordat, as we have already seen, but also the 
 glory of the Peace of Amiens. His apprecia- 
 tion was not lessened by the dedication of the 
 work to himself. " The nations are gazing at 
 you ! " it began ; and, in return, the Consul was 
 bound in politeness to regard at least one repre- 
 sentative of one nation. Be this as it may, 
 Bonaparte gave orders that on the same day 
 that the two public events were celebrated by the 
 solemn Te Deum in Notre Dame, at which he, 
 with all his generals, was present, Fontanes 
 should write in Le Moniteur an official account 
 of Le Gdnie du Christianisme. Later, says its 
 author, Napoleon repented of this favour ; for 
 he found that Royalist principles followed in 
 
278 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 natural sequence upon the religious ideas of the 
 book. 
 
 It raised all the dust of discussion which shows 
 that a big chariot has gone by. It was read 
 everywhere and by people of all nationalities ; 
 the Swiss Sismondi (married to an English 
 Quakeress) compared its tenets to Quakerism ; 
 in Paris, conversation about it was endless ; 
 philosophers and prelates alike surrounded its 
 creator ; the Voltaireans cried aloud and rushed 
 to arms ; the ladies of Paris adored him ; his 
 own circle enjoyed even more rapture about him 
 than usual. At a party given in his honour, he 
 was received by a shower of scented billets. He 
 "blushes to describe" the bowed heads and 
 beating hearts of the eager duchesses who stoop 
 to pick up every scrap of his writing and to hide 
 it in their aristocratic bosoms. One of them con- 
 ceals an envelope of his in her hair. Probably it 
 was the Marquise de Custine, whose long tresses 
 he often sang in later days. Only Madame de 
 Stael soured perhaps by her memories of the 
 summer refused to be enthusiastic or to believe 
 in his religious career. The uncut book was 
 brought to her : "she passed her fingers through 
 its pages ; happened on the chapter called " La 
 Virginite"," and said to M. Adrien de Mont- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 279 
 
 morency, who was with her, ' Good heavens, 
 our poor Chateaubriand! How flat this will 
 fall ! ' " 
 
 The book, we know, did not appear till almost 
 half a year after the life at Savigny which pro- 
 duced it. The little household had been broken 
 up rather suddenly. Its two inmates were just 
 planning a charming tete-a-tte trip to Burgundy, 
 where Pauline was to show him the haunts of 
 her childhood so often described to him. But 
 at this moment, the chance of a diplomatic 
 appointment came to him an appointment 
 which made reunion with his wife advisable. 
 Pauline de Beaumont showed the stuff she 
 was made of; she loved so much that she 
 cared for the welfare of her friend more even 
 than for his presence and her own happiness. 
 She used all her influence to persuade him to 
 return to Madame de Chateaubriand, and at 
 length succeeded. Their holiday journey was 
 given up, and he departed leaving her incon- 
 solable. 
 
 Chateaubriand had received a short visit from 
 his wife in Paris, directly after his return to 
 France ; now he only rejoined her for a short 
 space, not living with her till nearly two years 
 later, in 1804. He returned to Paris, Pauline 
 
2 8o THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 soon following him and reopening her salon in its 
 old quarters. Its inmates at once came back to 
 it, " The Great Raven " amongst them, and their 
 intellectual existence continued as intimately as 
 before. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CHATEAUBRIAND'S promised appoint- 
 ment did not immediately follow his 
 return. He was now the lion of Paris, and 
 was fast widening his social circle. Rather 
 before this, he had become acquainted with 
 Madame Recamier, though he tells us that "the 
 curtain dropped immediately " for the moment, 
 at least. It was at this period that he began to 
 be intimate with Madame de Sabran's daughter, 
 the stately, reckless Madame de Custine ("The 
 Queen of Roses," as Boufflers calls her), so soon 
 to be made alternately happy and wretched by 
 closer intercourse with him. Their friendship 
 was, indeed, too close from its earliest days. We 
 have already seen her saluting the Genius of 
 Christianity ; a short while after, she paid him a 
 visit in his rooms, only a few steps from Madame 
 de Beaumont's house, without either woman's 
 suspecting the other's relations to Chateaubriand. 
 
 281 
 
282 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 In later days, he superintended Madame de 
 Custine's reinstalment in her domain of Fervaques, 
 which had been confiscated by the Jacobins. 
 
 It was a miracle that she survived the Terror. 
 At one moment she was arrested, and only 
 escaped from the hands of the Revolutionary 
 Commissioners by making a caricature of one 
 of them so brilliant that, being Parisians, they 
 could not resist it and released her amid a 
 burst of laughter. 
 
 Another time, she was coming out from the 
 trial of her father-in-law, General Custine, and 
 was mobbed as she stood on the steps of the 
 Palais de Justice. The raging people all but 
 seized her. "Take my baby," said a woman 
 among them, moved by the expression on her 
 face, " and you will be safe ! " Madame de Custine 
 obeyed, and held the child up in her arms. The 
 sentimental crowd at once appreciated the dramatic 
 effect, applauded loudly, and allowed her to go 
 in peace. 
 
 After her retirement to Fervaques, she lived 
 there for a great part of her life, with a stormy 
 heart and peaceful surroundings ; reminding 
 herself of her friends in Paris by calling the 
 trees of her park after them. Her connection 
 with Chateaubriand lasted on and off till her 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 283 
 
 death, with the same variations as at first, of 
 joy and despair. In counteracting the latter 
 feeling she was not very successful, though she 
 tried many means : now returning from a long 
 drive (during which he had sulked) and attempt- 
 ing to shoot herself in her bedroom, in order, 
 perhaps, to give him the opportunity of rescuing 
 her ; now venturing upon a homoeopathic cure in 
 the form of attachments to Canova and others. 
 But, sweet or bitter, she was never indifferent, and 
 Rene remained for eighteen years her ideal if 
 not her only love. 
 
 Amongst his new friends of 1802, there was 
 also Madame de Clermont-Tonnerre, his cousin, 
 a widow, who kept to Pompadour traditions, 
 yet was devote enough to convert M. de la 
 Harpe in prison. We hear of her later, as 
 the wife of the Marquis de Talaru, and the 
 country neighbour of the orator Berryer, under 
 Louis Philippe; her only protest against the 
 growing bourgeoisie being an invincible adher- 
 ence to the dress, the coaches, the manners of 
 Louis XV.'s Court in spite of her increasing 
 years, which made a shepherdess's costume 
 rather a matter of courage than of vanity. So 
 far, indeed, did she carry her Court memories, that 
 she was known to receive a certain gentleman, 
 
284 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 who was calling one morning, in a mysteriously 
 darkened room, where he could perceive nothing 
 but the dim outline of a hat in a corner, whence 
 her voice proceeded, accompanied by strange 
 gurglings. It was only upon his dismissal, after 
 a prolonged conversation, that he discovered the 
 old Marquise was in her bath. 
 
 More serious, if less amusing, was the company 
 of M. de Saint Martin, theosophist and Sweden- 
 borgian a disciple of the celebrated mystic, Jacob 
 Boehm. M. de Saint Martin was as famous for 
 his eloquent talk as for his power of evoking 
 spirits, and Chateaubriand was eager to know 
 him. After many preparations, a dinner was 
 arranged at which they were to meet. Chateau- 
 briand arrived at six. The prophet was already 
 at his post, but, unfortunately, not in the mood 
 for prophecy. At seven, dinner began in dead 
 silence ; after half an hour's soup, another dish 
 followed, the stillness only broken by oracular 
 monosyllables from Saint Martin ; course after 
 course followed, and the spell was slowly broken. 
 " Gradually kindling, he began to talk like an 
 archangel ; the more he talked, the more obscure 
 his language became. Neveu (the third person 
 present) had hinted, whilst pressing my hand, 
 that we should see extraordinary things and hear 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 285 
 
 strange sounds. For six mortal hours I listened, 
 and could discover nothing. At midnight the 
 man of visions suddenly rose. I thought that the 
 Spirit of Darkness or of Light would descend, 
 and that bells would resound through the shadowy 
 corridors ; but M. de Saint Martin declared he 
 was exhausted and that we would resume the 
 conversation another time. He put on his hat 
 and departed." They never met again. 
 
 A wave of spiritualism, magnetism, and the 
 like was passing over Paris at this time ; the 
 natural accompaniment of its reactionary faith in 
 the supernatural. But Chateaubriand's experience 
 of such creeds was as futile as his interview with 
 the Swedenborgian. He often met their apostles 
 at Madame de Custine's. At one moment it is the 
 hypnotising Abbe" Furia, who boasted that he 
 could kill a canary by magnetising it ; but the 
 canary was the stronger of the two, and the Abbe, 
 beside himself, had to retire for fear of being 
 killed by it. On another occasion the phreno- 
 logist Gall sits next to him at dinner without 
 knowing who he is, and gazing at his head assigns 
 to him the attributes of a frog ; but on discover- 
 ing his name, veers round and changes his 
 diagnosis. 
 
 The most important of Chateaubriand's social 
 
, 286 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 experiences was a party at Lucien Bonaparte's 
 at which the Emperor was present, just after 
 the publication of Le Gdnie du Christianisme. 
 Napoleon, at once perceiving its author, moved 
 towards him through the crowd, which opened 
 to let him pass. In vain did Chateaubriand so 
 he tells us attempt to hide himself behind his 
 neighbours. Bonaparte raised his voice and 
 called him by his name ; the throng receded, and 
 he was left face to face with the Emperor, who 
 at once began talking about the religions of the 
 East. Then, suddenly interrupting himself, he 
 exclaimed 
 
 " Christianity ! why, the ' Ideologues ' wish to 
 make it into an astronomical system ! Even if 
 that were so, do they think they could persuade 
 me that Christianity is a small matter ? Christi- 
 anity is only the allegory of the movement of the 
 spheres, the geometry of the planets ; and these 
 strong minds may do their best : in spite of them- 
 selves, they have left greatness to rinfdme" 
 
 When he had thus spoken, he abruptly with- 
 drew, looking back, as he walked amongst the 
 crowd, with deeper glances at Chateaubriand 
 than when he had first spoken to him at least, 
 so that writer tells us, thirty-six years after- 
 wards. Napoleon, like Chateaubriand, was a 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 287 
 
 sentimentalist ; unlike Chateaubriand, he was also 
 a colossal organiser ; an unscrupulous leader of 
 men ; hence, perhaps, much of the complication 
 which has made him such an enigma to posterity. 
 
 But it was his insight and not his sentiment 
 which bore fruit in this case no less than 
 in others. His sister, Madame Bacciochi, and 
 Fontanes told Chateaubriand of the favourable 
 impression produced on the Emperor by his 
 conversation ; though he declares that he never 
 opened his lips ; that it only meant Napoleon 
 was pleased with himself. The Emperor was 
 says Chateaubriand " a great discoverer of 
 men ; but he wished them to possess talent for 
 him alone, on condition that little was said about 
 that talent ; jealous of all renown, he looked upon 
 it as a usurpation of his own rights ; there must 
 only be Napoleon in the universe." 
 
 But this did not shackle his movements. He 
 had discerned at a glance the gifts of his man, 
 and discovery with him was practice. He lost 
 no time in offering Chateaubriand the post of 
 First Secretary to Cardinal Fesch his uncle 
 and his Ambassador at Rome. Pressed by 
 an importunate clergy, Chateaubriand informs 
 us that he accepted, chiefly swayed by his anxiety 
 for Madame de Beaumont's failing health, 
 
288 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 which he hoped the Italian climate might 
 improve, if she fulfilled his plan of joining him 
 in Rome. In case of catastrophes, he seemed 
 anxious to provide himself with sufficient distrac- 
 tion, for at the same moment he warmly (though 
 separately) invited both his wife and Madame de 
 Custine to follow him there. Both refused, the 
 former from wisdom, the latter from " outraged 
 honour." " The thought of leaving you kills me! " 
 he exclaimed, and proceeded to write her ten 
 letters in the course of the few days that elapsed 
 between his appointment and his departure, 
 continuing the correspondence feverishly through- 
 out his stay in Rome and Pauline's last days 
 there. 
 
 Madame de Beaumont's end was indeed not far off ; 
 her short season of strength seemed over. Doubt- 
 less the prospect of parting from him had acted 
 on her nerves. But there is a new note of bitter- 
 ness in her letters at this period, which was not 
 there before, and which we cannot help feeling 
 was due to other causes. She had launched her 
 " Savage," and had been the whole world to him ; 
 but, apart from the connection he had formed 
 unknown to her, life and fame had now opened 
 before him with their possibilities and distractions, 
 and he no longer wished to be stationary in 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 289 
 
 intercourse. Besides, it was his nature to rush 
 through his keener emotions at express speed, if 
 their object showed any signs of returning them. 
 Madame Re'camier kept her spell over him for 
 two-and-forty years because she never did so and 
 remained no more than his calm, sometimes even 
 phlegmatic friend. But Pauline had not the 
 wisdom of indifference. All that she knew was 
 that she was no longer the excitement of his 
 existence ; sentiment was turning into matter of 
 course : a transition trying at all times to one of 
 two people, but doubly so when the other is a 
 genius who must pursue his own needs at all costs, 
 and is endowed with a special gift of taking things 
 for granted. 
 
 44 Be certain," she says to the Jouberts, soon 
 after Chateaubriand's departure, " that your friend- 
 ship is perhaps the strongest tie which binds me 
 to earth." 
 
 She seems very hopeless now. " The poor 
 Swallow," she writes about this time, " is pos- 
 sessed by a sort of numbness, and very sad it 
 is." Chateaubriand says that before he left 
 France, she believed herself to be a doomed 
 woman and often wept, although her friends were 
 ignorant of this. Joubert is full of sympathy, 
 counsel and encouragement. "It is impossible," 
 19 
 
2 9 o THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 he tells her, "that the vivacity which animates 
 you with so constant a force should not belong to 
 a perfectly preserved principle of vitality. Your 
 mind has so worn out your poor machine that it 
 is tired and overwrought." 
 
 Yet there were many breaks even then, in 
 the gathering darkness. Her mind still took 
 pleasure in all its customary interests. There 
 were the letters from Rome, now almost delirious 
 in their rapture over imperial monuments ; 
 now of a deep melancholy ; now " unimaginably 
 mad." He had been warmly received by Pius 
 VII., who had Le Gtnie du Christianisme on 
 his table, and impressed Chateaubriand by his 
 face, "admirable, pale, sad, religious. All the 
 tribulations of the Church are on his brow." 
 Papal benedictions were unfortunately counter- 
 balanced by official blunders. " The Savage " 
 neglected to pay the proper calls at the proper 
 seasons, and his excess of spontaneity in his 
 ministerial life had to be rectified by Pauline's 
 efforts and the intervention of Fontanes, who, 
 alone of the group, possessed steady influence 
 over Napoleon. 
 
 Fontanes and Pauline de Beaumont were not 
 only making common ground over their idol's 
 difficulties ; they had been pursuing relations 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 291 
 
 of a more hostile kind. Delphine had just 
 appeared in print, and Fontanes' dislike for 
 poor Madame de Stael found vent in dwelling on 
 the character of the heroine, supposed to be a 
 portrait of herself. " ' Delphine ' is such a chatter- 
 box," he wrote, "that she is always the first and 
 the last to talk. In old days r these insupportable 
 women who for ever want to be dominating 
 conversation were called gossips ; but since our 
 manners have become perfect, it is thought right 
 that a woman should become an orator in a 
 drawing-room ; and the more she fails in the 
 proprieties and the duties of her sex, the more 
 she is applauded. Such is 'Delphine.' This 
 character exists and Madame de Stael can paint 
 it, but she was wrong in thinking it would inspire 
 interest. She talks of love like a Bacchante, of 
 God like a Quaker, of death like a Grenadier, and 
 of morals like a Sophist." 
 
 Pauline took pains to defend the " Whirlwind" 
 against "The Wild Boar's" attack, and it may 
 have been due to her zeal that Fontanes wrote 
 so gloomily of her health. "It seems," he says, 
 "as if all her energies had turned to irritation." 
 He could give us no sadder picture of her 
 exhaustion. J Gilbert's anxiety was also increasing, 
 and his counsels at last determined her to try the 
 
292 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 baths of Mont Dore. Perhaps he contrived to 
 infuse some hope into her, for just before leaving, 
 she writes more brightly, stirred by a meeting 
 with Bernardin de St. Pierre. 
 
 " I arrive soon after dinner at Madame de 
 Kriidner's ; I find her with the habituts of her 
 house established in her garden at a table. Near 
 her was a woman with a sunburnt complexion, 
 thick lips, and a very coarse, common look ; a 
 little farther there was an old man who had 
 nothing very distinguished about him, if it were 
 not for his floating hair ; the little girl Kriidner, 
 a regular rose, placed between the old man and 
 her mother, was reading the famous novel in 
 enchanting tones. Everybody tried to look vexed 
 at the interruption, but nobody was so. Soon 
 I learned what I had already expected, that the 
 old man was Bernardin, the stout woman his wife, 
 and a baby (also present) his child. I am very 
 glad to have seen him, but I don't want to see 
 him again. He received the honest compli- 
 ments which I willingly made him with great 
 simplicity. I was grateful to him. But I don't 
 quite know up to what point his good -nature 
 is good." 
 
 She has other diversions from illness ; the 
 assiduity of her admirer, Adrien de Le*zay, only to 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 293 
 
 be explained, she says, by his having nothing to 
 do ; but his attentions soon culminated in the 
 explanation before referred to, and he passes out 
 of her life without further comment. 
 
 Her sufferings were great enough to drive all 
 else from her mind. It is miserable to read of 
 her journey to Mont Dore, of the squalid inns, 
 the insects, the coarse food, the jolting carriage ; 
 the lady's maid, Madame Saint Germain, of whom 
 she says : "She is unbearable in travelling 
 quite feckless. Everything useless is ready to 
 her hand ; everything useful is missing ; she is 
 always scared ; she neither knows how to add 
 up a bill nor to give an order ; she wants to do 
 everything and that is impossible. Nothing is 
 ever ready ; / grow impatient inwardly ; she loses 
 her temper, and it all ends in a general calming 
 down without any improvement." Pauline has, 
 however, rather sprightlier travelling companions 
 in the coach : " a sly old merchant, much absorbed 
 in his own affairs, very little in those of others, 
 polite nevertheless and full of sense ; a young 
 man, a liar, a braggart, knowing everything, 
 having been everywhere, having cut whole bat- 
 talions to pieces, but not really understanding how 
 to give an order to a postilion ; otherwise the 
 best fellow in the world, brimming over with kind 
 
294 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 attentions ; there was nothing wanting to my 
 diversion save a dupe from his gallantries ; but 
 my old merchant laughed in his sleeve, and my 
 maid gaped in the air, or fell asleep." 
 
 The journey crushes her body and soul, and 
 she needs all her courage to go on. She is 
 grateful to a shrewish landlady for rousing her 
 anger and " giving her a fillip." The "tedious, 
 eternal Puy de Dome" all the mountains 
 exasperate her, and so does "the whole world" 
 when it hears her cough, and asks that unanswer- 
 able platitude : " Madame est malade ? " Now she 
 is hurt at not getting letters from Joubert, her 
 only reliable comfort ; now she combats her 
 terrible physical irritation by retiring to her room 
 and counting the beams of the ceiling. She even 
 stops several times in the middle of a letter to 
 Joubert, that she may thus soothe herself. She 
 is cheated about her rooms at Mont Dore ; the 
 dirt and the discomfort depress her ; the climate 
 is August one day, and January the next ; her 
 doctor is no worse than another, but she finds 
 no companionship in him or elsewhere ; she is 
 " gloomy and sullen," she tells us, "like the 
 weather, but never cold of heart." " This per- 
 petual care of my health," she exclaims, "seems 
 to me the most cruel of all maladies. M. de 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 295 
 
 Chazal may say what he likes one cannot possibly 
 send away a black thought when it haunts one. 
 Would to God that it were only my imagination 
 that was ill ! " 
 
 She watches herself and recognises every 
 symptom of her disease as it appears especially 
 the illusions to which consumptive patients are 
 prone. " I cough less," she writes, "but I think 
 it is that I may die without noise, so much do I 
 suffer otherwise ; so annihilated do I feel." Her 
 journals at this time are indeed almost too sad 
 to be remembered. One paragraph, however, in 
 which she sums up her own character, has an 
 interest apart from illness, though one recognises 
 its influence in her morbidly acute introspec- 
 tion. 
 
 " Nobody has a better right than I to complain 
 of nature. She has refused everything to me, 
 and has yet given me the sense of all that I lack. 
 There is no moment at which I do not feel the 
 weight of the complete mediocrity to which I am 
 condemned. I know that self-content and happi- 
 ness are often the prize of this mediocrity of which 
 I so bitterly complain ; but as nature has not 
 joined to it the gift of illusion, she has made it a 
 torture to me. I am like a fallen angel who can- 
 not forget what he has lost and has not the force 
 
296 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 to regain it. This absolute want of illusion and 
 of being carried away is my bane in a thousand 
 ways. I judge myself as an indifferent person 
 would judge me, and I see my friends as they are. 
 My only merit is an extreme kindness, that is not 
 active enough to be really useful, and from which 
 all charm is taken away by the impatience of my 
 character ; it rather makes me suffer more from 
 the sufferings of others than gives me the means 
 to remedy them. In spite of that, I owe to it the 
 few real enjoyments that I have had in my life ; 
 above all, my ignorance of envy, that common 
 appendage of conscious mediocrity." 
 
 " Even if I had the strength," she says later, " to 
 put the only possible end to my misery myself, 
 I would not do so ; I should be defeating my own 
 aims, giving the measure of my suffering and 
 leaving too painful a scar on the soul that I have 
 deemed worthy to support me in my ills. I implore 
 myself, with tears, to make this resolution as 
 stern as it is indispensable. Charlotte Corday 
 declares that there is no act of devotion from which 
 one does not get more enjoyment than one has 
 had trouble in making up one's mind to it ; but 
 she was about to die, and I may live a long time. 
 Where shall I hide myself? What tomb shall I 
 choose, and how shall I prevent hope from pene- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 297 
 
 trating there? To withdraw in silence, to let 
 myself be forgotten, to bury myself for ever 
 such is the duty imposed upon me, which I 
 hope to have the courage to accomplish." 
 
 In spite of her convictions, the baths and the 
 quiet began to effect some improvement. This 
 good was unfortunately frustrated by her sudden 
 decision to abandon her cure and go straight 
 to Rome, instead of waiting as she had first 
 intended. What prompted her it is impos- 
 sible to conjecture. Perhaps some intuition 
 warned her that if she waited, she would never 
 see Chateaubriand again ; perhaps some letter 
 from him precipitated her journey. Joubert, 
 as well as Chenedolle, Mole", Madame de Vinti- 
 mille, and others, had given her rendezvous in 
 Rome for some months later. But no former 
 plans weighed with her. Fontanes raged and 
 Joubert implored in vain ; they felt the long 
 journey would kill her, especially as a chill 
 had overtaken her. Lucile alone understood, 
 and tried no persuasion. Pauline's letters, 
 she said, had given her a scorn for her own 
 troubles ; yet she felt convinced that her friend 
 could not die, and touchingly tried to console 
 Chateaubriand by this assurance. " I always see 
 Madame de Beaumont full of life and youth, 
 
298 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 almost without a body," she wrote ; " no fatal 
 suggestion about her can ever enter my heart." 
 As for herself, she tells him that she knows he 
 will find her mad on his return, a prediction too 
 sadly verified. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 PAULINE DE BEAUMONT managed 
 somehow to survive the distress and discom- 
 fort of the journey, though the very servants at the 
 inns were moved by her misery. Chateaubriand, 
 detained by business at Rome, sent his friend 
 Bertin to meet her half-way, and himself joined 
 her at Florence. They arrived safely in Rome, 
 and she established herself in the lodging he had 
 found for her a detached house, near the Piazza 
 de Spagna, below the Pincian Hill ; there was a 
 little garden with espaliers of orange-trees, and a 
 courtyard with a fig-tree in it. Here came all 
 the adherents of the old regime to inquire after 
 Pauline : Pope and cardinals, especially Cardinal 
 Fesch, who was assiduous to the end. 
 
 At first their questions met with satisfactory 
 answers. Chateaubriand had been greatly shocked 
 by the change in her appearance ; but whether 
 from joy at reunion, or only from the soft climate, 
 
300 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 she now had a short period of revival. She and 
 her " Savage" used to take daily drives in the 
 Campagna, now glowing in autumnal brown and 
 gold, each influenced in their own way by its 
 penetrating melancholy : he grandiloquently, as 
 was his way ; she silently and tenderly, as a 
 woman nearing the end. And perhaps there was 
 no fitter place for her to die in than the Eternal 
 City, in which so many worlds have passed away 
 and every stone is a symbol of the dead. But 
 the improvement did not continue, and soon the 
 drives had to cease. "The lamp has burnt out 
 its oil," she declared. Their last long expedi- 
 tion was to Terni, where he tried to persuade 
 her to come and see the waterfall. She sank 
 down exhausted. " We must let the floods 
 fall," she said quietly and the words were a 
 death-knell. 
 
 A few days later, they paid an October visit to 
 the Coliseum. She was sitting on a stone : 
 4 'Come, I am cold," she exclaimed, and rose to 
 return home to the bed from which she was 
 never to rise. She thought she should die on 
 November 2nd, the Jour des Moris ; then she 
 fixed on the 4th, when a relation had died. 
 When Chateaubriand told her she was supersti- 
 tious, she tried to comfort him: "Oh yes, I 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 301 
 
 shall last longer," she replied; and for the moment 
 he probably allowed himself to be cheated. He 
 had not much time. That same day, the doctor 
 asked to speak to him ; he told him she must die 
 within the next few days. When he returned to 
 her, there were tears in his eyes. She smiled 
 and held out her hand to. him. "You are a 
 child," she said; "were you not expecting it?" 
 Weeping, he told her of her immediate doom, and 
 implored her to see a priest. She was silent for 
 a space, then, with a firm voice, she said, " I did 
 not think it would be quite so soon. Well, I 
 must really bid you farewell. Will you fetch the 
 Abbe" de Bonnevie ? " 
 
 It may have been that the Gtnie du Christian- 
 isme had revealed a new faith to her, or that 
 suffering had given her fresh points of view. At 
 any rate, she told the priest when he came, that 
 1 'she had always had in her heart a deep sense 
 of religion, but that the unheard-of sorrows which 
 had smitten her in the Revolution had for some 
 time made her doubt God's justice ; that she was 
 ready to acknowledge her errors and to commend 
 herself to Eternal Mercy ; that she hoped any- 
 how that the ills she had suffered in this world 
 would shorten her expiation in the other." 
 
 After hearing so much, Chateaubriand left the 
 
302 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 room, and the Abb6 stayed alone with her ; 
 presently he came out, wiping his eyes, and 
 saying he had never seen such heroism or heard 
 such beautiful language. He left her at peace ; 
 her only trouble was the thought of her will. 
 " It was all done," she said, yet there was every- 
 thing still to do, and she wished she might only 
 have two hours more to see about it. 
 
 On the 4th she sent for the Curt to administer 
 the sacrament, then looked up at Chateaubriand : 
 "Are you pleased with me?" she asked him. 
 A little later, the Curd arrived, and she took the 
 communion, as was the custom, before a crowd 
 of spectators, most of them curious or indifferent. 
 The service over, they retired. She made 
 Chateaubriand sit on the edge of her bed, and 
 " spoke to him for half an hour of his affairs and 
 intentions, with the greatest elevation of mind 
 and the most touching friendship ; above all, 
 she begged him to live with his wife, and near 
 Joubert." " Her counsels," he wrote directly 
 afterwards, "will never vanish from my memory." 
 Presently she asked him to open the window, 
 and a ray of sunlight that came in seemed to 
 rejoice her. She fell to recalling Savigny and 
 their plans for a country retreat together, and 
 began to cry. Soon after, he was fetched away 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 303 
 
 on business, and Bertin replaced him. Between 
 two and three in the afternoon, he returned to 
 find her worse. The signs of death appeared. 
 " Soon after that," he wrote, "she closed her eyes 
 and sank down on her pillow. I put my hand on 
 her heart ; it beat no more." 
 
 So he tells us in the simple letter written 
 immediately, under the stress of real feeling, to 
 her brother-in-law, M. de Luzerne, and afterwards 
 copied for intimate friends. In his Mdmoires 
 d 1 Outre-Tombe, thirty-five years later, the scene is 
 worked up in a much more elaborate way. The 
 moral is almost pointed and the tale certainly 
 adorned. She wishes to leave him her money 
 he refuses. " She grew tender over what she 
 called my kindness for her. ... A deplorable 
 conviction came and overwhelmed me. I saw 
 that only when Madame de Beaumont was 
 drawing her last breath did she realise the true 
 attachment I had for her. She did not cease to 
 show her surprise, and seemed to die at once in 
 despair and in rapture." 
 
 At this remote date, he could also look upon 
 her actual death by his stage - footlight. The 
 simple cessation of her heart's beating is changed 
 to a description of the way in which she suddenly 
 threw back her coverlet and let her eye wander ; 
 
3 o 4 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 recognising his voice alone, and giving him a 
 faint smile. He tells how he, the nurse, and the 
 doctor held her in their arms ; how her head 
 drooped, and a lock of hair, coming uncurled, fell 
 on her brow. " Eternal night," he concludes, 
 "had descended. The doctor put a mirror and 
 a candle to the lips of the stranger ; the mirror 
 was not in the least dimmed by the breath of 
 life, and the flame of the candle did not flicker. 
 All was over." 
 
 His emotion in 1838 was perhaps as sincere, 
 if not as deep, as in 1803. But ft was stale; he 
 had used it like coin, for his own purposes, and 
 worn the gold thin. It is possible also that the 
 consistent artist cannot also be the consistent 
 lover. 
 
 If Pauline was forgotten in her life, in her 
 death she was certainly remembered. Chateau- 
 briand was determined that her funeral should do 
 honour to the last of the Montmorins. The 
 Princess Borghese lent the funeral chariot of 
 her family, Cardinal Fesch his carriage and 
 livery, and all the French prelates in Rome 
 assembled for the ceremony. Yet the centre of 
 this pomp and ritual was no more than the slender 
 form of a woman whose life had been simple, 
 whose heart had rejected all form, She went to 
 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 305 
 
 her rest shrouded in the stuff that her brother 
 had brought for her ball-dress, years before. 
 Her servants could only find a piece of it, though 
 she always carried it with her ; they fastened it 
 round her with a cornelian locket containing her 
 father's hair. 
 
 The last honour paid her - was by the Pope 
 Leo XII., whom Chateaubriand saw long after 
 kneeling in prayer at her tomb. This the latter 
 erected himself in the Church of San Louis dei 
 Francesi. There is a marble relief of her lying 
 on her bed and pointing to the medallions of her 
 family which hang above her. Over them is 
 written the description of Rachel : " Noluit con- 
 solari, quia non sunt " ; and on the marble is 
 inscribed her favourite verse from Job : " Where- 
 fore is light given to him that is in misery, and 
 life unto the bitter in soul ? " 
 
 Underneath the relief is this legend : 
 
 D.O.M. 
 
 " After having seen all her family perish : her 
 father, her mother, her two brothers, and her 
 sister ; Pauline de Montmorin, devoured by 
 consumption, came to die in this foreign land. 
 F. A. de Chateaubriand erected this monument 
 to her memory." 
 
 20 
 
306 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 Still simpler was her will. Her books she 
 left to Chateaubriand ; her bookcase and writing- 
 desk to Joubert ; her blue shawl to her brother's 
 lady-love, Madame de Hocquart ; her furniture, 
 clothes, and a legacy to the Saint Germains (her 
 maid and valet) ; and the rest of her money to 
 her mother's old maid, who had so earnestly 
 prayed that her faith might be restored. All 
 the books she had borrowed were found duly 
 ticketed on a shelf. 
 
 Chateaubriand was her executor ; he under- 
 took also to be the defender of her good name, 
 no less than the painstaking accountant of his 
 heart's expenses. After declaiming against the 
 public slanders about both of them to Gueneau 
 de Mussy : " The wretches ! " he cries. " Have 
 they not mixed up with their scandal the name 
 of an adorable woman, my benefactress, and I 
 dare now say a saint ? ' Should not the author 
 of Le Gdnie du Christianisme demand divorce ? ' 
 they ask. Good ! Death has come. What 
 will they say now? ... I have only one wish 
 left : the wish for a little retreat where I can hide 
 myself, and write the memoirs of my life before 
 I die. . . . Madame de Beaumont's monument 
 will cost me about nine thousand francs. I have 
 sold all I possessed to pay part of it." 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 307 
 
 Needless to say that Chateaubriand's ever 
 youthful heart was still full of wishes ; that a 
 country retreat was impossible to him unless it 
 was fitted up with every comfort and at least one 
 adoring lady ; and that, in this case, it turned 
 into the estate of Fervaques and the adulating 
 love of its mistress, Madame de Custine. But 
 he was still a hero to his friends. Fontanes 
 writes in despair that Pauline's money has gone 
 to her servants, and begs him to put in a claim 
 for it. The valet, he says, when his legacy was 
 announced to him, did not for one moment occupy 
 himself with it ; whereas it would greatly help 
 Chateaubriand's career. " I hope," he writes, 
 " that at the foot of her grave you will find better 
 lessons and clearer lights than any your remain- 
 ing friends can give you. That amiable woman 
 loved you : she will counsel you wisely. Her 
 memory and your heart will keep you safely ; I 
 don't feel anxious so long as you listen to both of 
 them." 
 
 Prudence and tenderness seem strangely mixed 
 here, and the prudence cannot but jar. But in 
 extenuation, we must remember that this matter- 
 of - factness and adherence to the present is 
 characteristic of the French, and does not prevent 
 depth of grief. The soul may be bereaved, but 
 
308 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 they know that money is still important and false 
 delicacy a useless tradition. And Rend, what- 
 ever parade he made of his nobility, remained 
 truly noble in spirit. He did not touch the 
 money, but acted on Madame de Beaumont's 
 counsels and went straight back to his wife. His 
 first act in Paris was to visit the cypress Pauline 
 had planted in the garden of her old home in the 
 Rue Plumet, and there he took his last farewell of 
 her. Coming out, he characteristically met the 
 proper dramatic effect ; he was greeted by the 
 news of the Due d'Enghien's death, and straight- 
 way as we know renounced his post under 
 Napoleon. 
 
 More sympathetic than Fontanes' is the letter 
 written to him from Coppet by Madame de Stae'l : 
 
 " Heavens ! my dear Francis (sic), by what pain 
 was I seized when I got your letter. . . How can 
 you talk of different opinions on religion and the 
 Church ? Can there be two opinions, when there 
 is but one feeling ? My dear Francis, remember 
 the time when you had a warm friendship for me. 
 I always felt, even in the midst of some differences, 
 that I clung to her by all my fibres. . . . My dear 
 Francis, give me a place in your life ; I admire 
 you, I love you ; I loved her whom you mourn, I 
 am a devoted friend I will be a sister to you." 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 309 
 
 That relationship between them was happily 
 never fulfilled, nor did they draw much nearer 
 to one another. At this point in the letter, she 
 breaks off to make a digression about his work 
 and his fame. " But how can I speak to you of 
 your successes at such a moment ?" she continues. 
 " Yet she loved them, these -successes ; she found 
 her glory in them. Continue to make illustrious 
 him whom she so loved. . . . What heartrending 
 words there are in your account. And your 
 resolution to keep the poor Saint Germain woman. 
 Bring her one day to my house. Farewell 
 tenderly, farewell sorrowfully." 
 
 Chateaubriand had, in fact, taken both Madame 
 Saint Germain and her husband into his service. 
 It was the former who, refusing her legacy, went 
 to live with Lucile in her solitary apartment ; and 
 the latter who, some time afterwards, made the 
 only mourner at her funeral, when, sent by his 
 master, he followed her coffin to the Fosse 
 Commune, whence she was borne from the lodging 
 where she died. 
 
 Chateaubriand gave tender directions that his 
 own body should be borne to an impressive 
 tomb on a Breton island, washed by the waves 
 he loved ; but for eloquent reasons connected 
 with Christianity and equality, and best under- 
 
310 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 stood by himself, he preferred to leave his sister 
 in her humble grave. It mattered little to her, 
 after all. No cheering ray had illumined her 
 end, which had been hastened by Madame de 
 Beaumont's death. She persisted in ascribing it 
 to foul play, and died under this delusion. Long 
 before this, she had refused ever to see Chenedolle, 
 and the tragic news from Rome only came to him 
 as a fresh loss, " deepening the shadow of a life 
 which has long since become nothing but suffering 
 to me." This he says in his letter of sympathy 
 to Chateaubriand, ending in a strain of helpless 
 pathos which is the keynote of his history. 
 
 " Two months ago, Madame de Caud suddenly 
 ceased to write to me," he says ; "it has caused 
 me mortal pain, and yet I think I can reproach 
 myself with no wrong towards her. But what- 
 ever she became, she could not take from me 
 the devoted friendship that I shall dedicate to 
 her all my life long. Fontanes and Joubert have 
 also left off writing to me ; thus those whom I 
 love seem to have joined in forgetting me all at 
 the same time." 
 
 Chateaubriand did not only receive letters 
 from Pauline's intimates. They flowed in from 
 her outside circle. The letter of stately family 
 sympathy from Necker, a,s the friend of the 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 311 
 
 Montmorins, is none the less sincere for its 
 slightly ministerial sorrow. Then there is one 
 from Madame Kriidner, written just before the 
 end, with all the heart she had. 
 
 " That sad sight is for ever before my eyes," 
 she exclaims ; "I know the secret of pain, and 
 my soul always stands still^ in agony before the 
 spirits to whom Nature has given the power 
 of suffering more than others. I had hoped 
 Madame de Beaumont would enjoy the privilege 
 given her of being happier. . . . Ah ! reassure 
 me ! Speak to me ! Tell her that I love her 
 sincerely, that I pray for her ! " 
 
 We have purposely left the name of Joubert to 
 the last. His sorrow was as still as it was deep ; 
 it cannot be sounded by words. Perhaps those 
 from his own pen, in the last letter he wrote to 
 her, will most fitly conclude their relations to each 
 other. It was in answer to one from her so 
 faintly written that it made him weep. 
 
 " I have not written to you it is from grief/' 
 he says. . . . " I think I have never experienced 
 a more sorrowful feeling than that which sad- 
 dened me every morning when I awoke and (ever 
 since your last letter) said to myself, ' Now she 
 is out of France !' ... In my trouble and my 
 ill-humour I have broken off all intercourse with 
 
3 i2 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 the world. I leave the letters written to me to 
 heap themselves up ; I do not even read them 
 through ; I do not write any more. . . . My soul 
 keeps its habits ; but it has lost the delight of 
 them. You ask me to love you always. Alas ! 
 can I do otherwise, whatever you are and what- 
 ever you wish ? . . . Farewell, cause of so much 
 pain, you who have been to me the source of so 
 much good." 
 
 He never recovered the spring of life, though 
 he lived on as beloved and as loving as ever. 
 The month of October, the period of Pauline's 
 last illness, he kept sacred to her, as we have 
 heard, retiring altogether from the world to mourn 
 and to meditate. Years after, he lavished affec- 
 tion upon a girl (the daughter of his friend, 
 Madame de Guitaut) because her name was 
 Pauline. He made a romance of consolation 
 especially of the consoler, Madame de Vintimille. 
 She gave him a miniature of Pauline to add to 
 Madame Lebrun's portrait of her, already in 
 his possession. Their relations were constant 
 and unchanged until the end. He made new 
 friends also : Madame de Guitaut, Mademoiselle 
 de Chastenay, Madame de Chateaubriand ; whilst 
 he kept up as constantly as ever with the circle 
 of the Rue Neuve du Luxembourg. Of Chateau- 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 313 
 
 briand he naturally saw a great deal ; the lives of 
 the two who had known Pauline best were in- 
 dissolubly bound together. Fontanes Grand 
 Master of the University was also frequently with 
 him, and procured him a post on the Council of 
 Education, where his fine judgment did solid 
 service to the nation. To Chenedolle" and de 
 Mussy he was also faithful, no less than to Mole", 
 who, always magisterial, ended as a potent Prefect 
 in the provinces. But no one ever again rilled 
 his heart, or gave flavour to his life. Years 
 after her death, he wrote of her to Mole* : 
 
 " Madame de Beaumont had pre-eminently one 
 quality which neither amounts to a talent nor 
 impresses any special form upon the mind, and 
 yet places the soul on the level of the most 
 brilliant gifts : namely, an admirable intelligence. 
 She understood everything, and her mind 
 nourished itself on thoughts, as her heart on feel- 
 ings. . . . You will meet many women of mind 
 in the world, but few who, like her, have the 
 merit of enjoying it and not showing it off. She 
 had fine judgment, and one could be sure that 
 whatever had charm for her was exquisite, if not 
 for the herd, at any rate for the chosen few." 
 Such was his last summary of her character. 
 
 He went on leading much the same outward 
 
314 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 life, between summer hospitality at Villeneuve 
 and his busy winter in Paris a life with few 
 changes, excepting a sharp illness about 1810, 
 which confined him for many weary weeks to 
 his bed. He called it his "beautiful malady," 
 because it brought him daily visits from his friends, 
 both women and men, especially Madame de 
 Chateaubriand, whose vivid talk passed the time 
 agreeably for him. After this, his strength ebbed 
 by slow degrees till 1824, when, surrounded by 
 the books and friends he had always loved, he 
 calmly passed away. 
 
 But if the Jouberts of the world who give out 
 love, cannot recover from the loss of the loved one, 
 it is different with the Chateaubriands who receive. 
 For them the place must be filled, the sympathy 
 given. Rene did not only rise from honour to 
 honour from the Ambassadorship at Rome to 
 the Ambassadorship at London but also, as 
 we have seen, from love to love. Not long after 
 Pauline's death, he again had fervent passages 
 with Madame Custine. But her intensity soon 
 wearied him of her, and he took a holiday 
 in Spain to meet the Duchesse de Noailles. 
 About 1807 began his real relations with 
 Madame Re*camier, to whom, for forty years, 
 he came as a visitor from the outside, and 
 
THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 315 
 
 of whom he never wearied. With his wife 
 he was always on affectionate though stormy 
 terms. They had scenes impossible to avoid 
 with her sharp tongue and frequent temptations 
 to jealousy ; besides, she did not read his books. 
 She preferred to build and manage a private 
 hospital, giving herself more and more to this 
 work. In some ways in her warm activities, 
 her merry malice, her fits of jealousy she is not 
 unlike Jane Welsh Carlyle. Like her too, she 
 never failed in clever supervision of her husband's 
 health and career, and, in return, it must be 
 remembered that he made her an excellent sick- 
 nurse when she was ill (a fact of which he did not 
 cease to make the most), and was certainly a 
 sincere mourner at her death, which occurred in 
 1847. 
 
 Yet it may be affirmed that none of his later 
 flames really took the place of Pauline de 
 Beaumont, the first true attachment of his heart : 
 his Muse, bound up with the early days which 
 are always the dearest. Perhaps this was vaguely 
 in his mind when, writing of her, long afterwards, 
 he said : " When I think that I have lived in the 
 company of such minds, I am astonished that I 
 am worth so little." 
 
 The egotistical humility of this tribute to thq 
 
316 THE STORY OF TWO SALONS 
 
 dead must be forgiven him. It was much that 
 he did not forget her. It is true that he left her 
 tomb to be repaired by Pasquier ; but in 1827, 
 when he was Ambassador at Rome, he went 
 alone to kneel there. "I visited," he wrote, 
 "the monument of her who was the soul of a 
 vanished society." 
 
 And it is there, with no companion but the 
 memory of Pauline de Beaumont, that we will 
 leave the genius who dominated her fate. 
 
NDEX. 
 
 ALBANY, 168, 171, 173. 
 
 Aiembert (d f ), 24, 39, 40, 88, 112, 
 
 113, 115, 134-136, 185. 
 Alexander (Czar), 64. 
 Alfieri, 131, 171, 173. 
 Angevilliers (d ), 99. 
 Arnaud, 62, 68, 70, 71, 73, in, 
 
 134. 
 Arnold (Matthew), 160, 181. 
 
 BACCIOCHI (Madame), 258, 287. 
 Bardoux, 163. 
 Bayle, 30. [ 
 Beaumarchais, 114. 
 Beaumont (Pauline de), 72, 147. 
 Early Life, 159-179. 
 Meeting with Joubert, 189-192. 
 Correspondence with Joubert, 
 192-224, 263, 269, 270-275, 
 292. 
 Life in Paris from 1798-1800, 
 
 224-240. 
 Relations to Chateaubriand, 253, 
 
 303. 
 
 Death, 303-306. 
 
 Will, 306. 
 
 Beaumont (Francois de), 165, 166. 
 Beccaria (Marquis of), 133. 
 Bernard, 55. 
 
 Bernardin de Saint Pierre, 54, 292. 
 Berry (Miss), 12. 
 Berryer, 283. 
 Blessington (Lady), II. 
 Bolingbroke, 50, 124. 
 Bonald, 229, 268. 
 Bonaparte (Napoleon), 64, 150, 151, 
 
 172, 217-222, 277, 286, 287. 
 Bonaparte (Lucien), 258, 286. 
 Bonaparte (Madame Joseph), 238. 
 
 317 
 
 Bonnevie, 301, 302. 
 
 Borghese (Princesse de), 304. 
 
 Bossuet, 28, 274. 
 
 Boufflers(M. de), 150. 
 
 Boufflers (Marquise de), 18. 
 
 Braganza (Due de), 134. 
 
 Briche (Madame de), 167. 
 
 Brissot, 177. 
 
 Buffon, 15, 24, 37, 58, 59, 66, 224. 
 
 Burney (Miss), II. 
 
 Byron, 248-252. 
 
 CADOUDAL, 151. 
 Calas, 87. 
 Canova, 283. 
 Catherine of Russia, 51. 
 Caud, 232, 246. 
 Chamfort, 72, 138. 
 Charles IX, 163. 
 Charles Edward, 171. 
 Chastenay (Madame de), 312. 
 Chateaubriand, 19, 73, 78, 160, 161, 
 181, 183, 228, 231, 239. 
 
 Early Life, 241-244. 
 
 Character, 248-253. 
 
 Friendships, 253-257. 
 
 Relations to Madame de Beau- 
 mont, 257-311. 
 
 Later Years, 312-316. 
 Chateaubriand (Madame de), 257, 279, 
 
 288, 312-315. 
 
 Chateaubriand (Lucile de), 231-233, 
 242, 244, 446, 257, 266, 297, 
 39, 3io. 
 
 Chateauroux (Madame de), 76. 
 Chatelet (Madame de), 87, 103. 
 Chenedolle, 230, 231, 233, 253, 310, 
 
 3I3. 
 Chenier (Andre), 1 60, 169, 173, 179. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Chenier (Joseph - Marie), 169, 173, 
 
 179- 
 
 Choiseul (Duchesse de), 39, 173. 
 Christian (King of Denmark), 53. 
 Clairon, 54, 127, 128. 
 Clermont-Tonnerre (Madame de),283. 
 Coislin (Madame de), 75-79. 
 Colle, 61. 
 
 Colman (George), 127. 
 Condillac, 123, 130, 209, 213. 
 Condorcet, 24, 25, 71, 89, 93, 140- 
 
 143, 171, 204. 
 Constant (Benjamin), 169, 201-204, 
 
 218-220. 
 
 Cook (Captain), 211, 225. 
 Coppineau, 123. 
 Corneille, 28. 
 Crebillon, 161. 
 Crequi (Marquise de), 53. 
 Creutz, 52, 1 06. 
 Cunningham (Lady), 76. 
 Custine (Marquise de), 253, 278, 
 
 281-283, 285, 288, 307, 314. 
 
 DEFFAND (Madame du), 18, 37, 40, 
 
 44, 53, !73- 
 Dt-Iille, 46, 79. 
 Denis (Madame), 8r, 82, 91. 
 Descartes, 114. 
 Desmoulins, 177. 
 Diderot, 24, 41, 51, 60, 113, 123, 
 
 185. 
 
 Duchesnois (Mademoiselle), 262. 
 Duras, 234, 253. 
 
 EDGEWORTH, 24, 152. 
 Egmont (Duchesse d'), 44. 
 Elizabeth (Madame), 179. 
 Enghien (Due d'), 150, 249, 308. 
 Enville (Duchesse d'), 44, 171. 
 Epinay (Madame d'), 105. 
 
 FARCEY, 232, 246, 257. 
 
 Fenelon, 80. 
 
 Fergusson, 123. 
 
 Ferte-Imbault (Madame de), 54. 
 
 Fesch, 287, 299, 304, 307. 
 
 Fielding, 225. 
 
 Fontanes, 181, 186, 188, 225-228, 
 247, 253, 255, 266, 268-270, 
 276, 287, 290, 291, 313. 
 
 Fontenelle, 15, 47, 52, 74- 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville, 193. 
 Frederick the Great, 51, 135. 
 Freron, 66. 
 Furia, 285. 
 
 GALIANI, 46, 104-106. 
 
 Gall, 85. 
 
 Garrick, 54, 125-130. 
 
 Gatti, 132. 
 
 Geoffrin( Madame), 18, 25, 37,41-46, 
 
 68, 134. 
 Geoffroi, 262. 
 
 Georges (Mademoiselle), 262. 
 Gibbon, 48, 120. 
 Gleichen, 52. 
 Gluck, 109-114. 
 G retry, 106, 109, HO. 
 Grimm, 24, 50, 60, 61, 107. 
 Guibert, 135, 270. 
 Guitaut (Madame de), 312. 
 
 HAUSSONVILLE (Comte de), 16. 
 Helvetius, 24, 34, 52, 66. 
 Renault, 39. 
 Hocquart (Madame), 73, 79, 224, 
 
 237, 306. 
 
 Holbach, 24, 34, 41, 52, 53, 60, 66. 
 Holland (Lord), 11. 
 Houdetot (Madame d'), 18, 73, 104, 
 
 113, 145, 238, 267. 
 Hulmandel, 109. 
 Hume, 24, 60-62, 120, 121-136. 
 
 IVES (Miss), 245. 
 
 JOHNSON (Doctor), 13. 
 Jordan (Camille), 147. 
 Joseph (Emperor), in. 
 Joubert, 18, 147, 160, 161. 
 
 Early Life and Character, 
 
 180-191. 
 Correspondence with Madame 
 
 de Beaumont, 191-224. 
 Later Life, 255, 257, 263, 265 
 266, 267, 275, 306, 311-314- 
 Joubert (Madame), 192, 263, 265, 
 
 266. 
 
 Julien, 229, 262. 
 Jung Stilling, 63. 
 
 KANT, 210, 227, 268. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Kriidner (Madame), 62-67, 77, 170, 
 224, 237, 292, 311. 
 
 LA BRUYERE, 210. 
 
 La Fayette, 163, 175. 
 
 La Harpe, 54, 88, 102, 112, 145, 
 
 185, 209, 242, 283. 
 Lamb (Charles), 159. 
 Lauzun (Duchesse de), 34. 
 Lauzun (Amelie de), 54. 
 Laval (Madame de), 147. 
 Lavigne, (Mademoiselle de), 244. 
 Lebrun (Madame), 161, 312. 
 Lecomte (Madame), 73. 
 Lecoulteux (Madame de), 173. 
 Leibnitz, 104. 
 Le Kain, 127. 
 Leo XII., 305. 
 Lepelletier, 171, 245. 
 Lespinasse( Mademoiselle de), 18, 24, 
 
 39, 40, 5> Il8 > J 34, I3S W 
 171. 
 
 Levis, 234. 
 
 Lezay (de), 230, 292. 
 
 Lignon, 89. 
 
 Lomenie de Brienne, 177. 
 
 Louis (Abbe), 171. 
 
 Louis XVI., no. 
 
 Luneville (Duchesse de), 102. 
 
 Luxembourg (Duchesse de), 33, 40. 
 
 Luz (Chevalier de), 32. 
 
 Luzerne (Victoire de), 164, 177. 
 
 Luzerne (Monsieur de), 303. 
 
 MALEBRANCHE, 210. 
 Malesherbes, 179, 232, 242. 
 Marchais (Madame de), 98, 104. 
 Marie Antoinette, 36, no, 172. 
 Marivaux, 50. 
 Marmontel, 24, 42-45, 48, 49, 54-57, 
 
 60, 61, 103, 107, 1 10, in, 
 
 127, 185. 
 Massillon, 209. 
 Maury, 46. 
 Melico, 109. 
 
 Mirabeau, 102, 163, 175, 242. 
 Moira, 135. 
 Mole (the actor), 129. 
 Mole (Mathieu), 228, 229, 253, 255, 
 
 3!3- 
 
 Moleville (de), 164. 
 Montaigne, no. 
 
 Montesquieu, 28, 47, 115. 
 Montesquieu Fezensac, 204. 
 Montmorin (Monsieur de), 138, 139, 
 
 162-164, 175, 176. 
 Montmorin (Madame de), 175. 
 Montmorin (Pauline de), 18, 72. 
 Montmorin (Calixte de), 164, 173, 
 
 179. 
 
 Montmorin (Auguste de), 164, 176. 
 Montmorin (Francois de), 163. 
 Moreau, 151. 
 
 Moreau-de-Bussy( Mademoiselle), 1 87. 
 Morellet, 46, 55, 56, 104, 106-109, 
 
 154, 171, 173. 261. 
 Morris (Gouverneur), 171. 
 Mussy (Gueneau de), 229, 255, 306, 
 
 NARBONNE (Due de), 147. 
 
 Nassau Senior, 12. 
 
 Necker, 53, 55, 85, 97, 106, 108, 
 
 145, 146, 163, 175, 310. 
 Necker (Madame), 18, 37, 42, 43, 
 
 48-59, 68, 97, 101, 105. 
 Necker de Saussure (Madame), 237. 
 Newton, 104, 115. 
 Noailles (Duchesse de), 253, 314. 
 
 OSSIAN, 211, 214. 
 
 PANCKOUCKE (Monsieur), 66. 
 Pange (de), 71, 72, 145, 167, 169, 
 
 I73> 179, 193, 194- 
 Pange (Madame de), 147, 193, 197, 
 
 204. 222, 223. 
 Paquereau, 178, 192. 
 Pascal, 93. 
 
 Pasquier, 230, 237, 238, 316. 
 Pastoret (Madame), 234. 
 Philidor, 109. 
 Piccini, 110-114. 
 Pius VII., 290. 
 Plato, 209, 210. 
 Poix (Princesse de), 33, 238. 
 Pompadour (Madame de), 17, 33. 
 Pondeveylles, 14. 
 Pourrat (Madame de), 173. 
 Preville, 127. 
 
 QUESNAY, 70, 103. 
 RACINE, 127. 
 
320 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Raynal, 46, 70, 181. 
 
 Recamier (Madame), 164, 238, 253, 
 
 281, 314. 
 
 Remusat (Madame de), 75. 
 Riccoboni, 98, 126. 
 Riccoboni (Madame), 56. 
 Rioufife, 171, 197, 220. 
 Rivarol, 231. 
 Robertson, 24, 71, 123. 
 Robespierre, 144, 192, 193, 229, 242. 
 Roederer, 167. 
 
 Roland (Madame), 175, 196, 197. 
 Rousseau, 15, 24, in, 113, 121-123, 
 
 173- 
 Rulhiere, 172. 
 
 SABRAN (de), 162. 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, 180, 229. 
 
 Sainte-Croix, 138. 
 
 Saint-Herem, 162, 224. 
 
 Saint Lambert, 50, 73, 75, 88, 113, 
 124, 145, 267. 
 
 Saint Martin, 284, 285. 
 
 Saurin, 108. 
 
 Serilly (Louise de), 167, 179. 
 
 Sevigne (Madame de), 47, 198, 224, 
 236. 
 
 Sirvens, 87. 
 
 Sismondi, 235, 278. 
 
 Smith (Adam), 98, 123. 
 
 Sommerie (Mademoiselle de), 118. 
 
 Stael (Madame de), 36, 63, 146, 152, 
 1 60, 162, 169, 170, 173, 175, 
 I79> 197-202, 216-218, 220, 
 237, 255, 259, 260, 270, 278, 
 291, 308. 
 
 Stanislas, 45. 
 
 Sterne, 116-119. 
 
 Stormont, 52. 
 
 Suard, 170, 171, 224. 
 
 Suard (Amelie), 18, 238. 
 
 Suard (Monsieur and Madame, and- 
 
 their friends), 23-155. 
 Swift, 107. 
 
 TALARU, 283. 
 
 Talleyrand, 75, 139, 148, 171, 172. 
 
 Tallien, 229. 
 
 Tallien (Madame), 238. 
 
 Talma, 129, 162. 
 
 Temple (Sir William), 12. 
 
 Tesse (Madame de), 72. 
 
 Thackeray, 13. 
 
 Thomas, 50, 57. 
 
 Thrale(Mrs.), 13. 
 
 Tocqueville, de, 72. 
 
 Tronchet, 70. 
 
 Trudaine, 72, 73, 79. 
 
 Turgot, 52, 71, 84, 97. 
 
 VAUVENARGUES, 28, 90. 
 
 Very, 133. 
 
 Vintimille, 235-237, 255, 312. 
 
 Volland (Mademoiselle), 51.- 
 
 Voltaire, 15, 24, 38, 80-96, 116, 
 
 121, 124, 173, 205, 206, 208, 
 
 277. 
 
 WALPOLE (Horace), 13, 15, 24, 37- 
 
 39, 70, 124, 173. 
 Watelet, 73. 
 Wilkes, 71, 124, 125. 
 
 YOUNG, 62, 211. 
 
 MORRISON AND G!BB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH 
 
Mr. EDWARD ARNOLD'S 
 
 LIST OF 
 
 NEW AND FORTHCOMING WORKS, 
 
 October, 1895. 
 
 NOTICE. Mr. Edward Arnold has now opened an Office at 
 70, Fifth Avenue, New York, from ivhich all his new 
 Books are distributed in America. 
 
 THE LAND OF THE NILE-SPRINGS. 
 
 By COLONEL SIR HENRY COLVILE, K.C.M.G., C.B., 
 recently British Commissioner in Uganda. 
 
 With Photogravure Frontispiece, 16 Full-page Illustrations and 
 2 Maps, demy 8vo., i6s. 
 
 SUMMARY OF CONTENTS. The Road to the Lake Usoga 
 Uganda Kampala Preparations for War Concentration 
 on the Frontier Crossing the Kafu Occupation of the 
 Capital Chasing Kabarega The Investment of the Forest 
 Occupation of Kibiro The Magungu Expedition The 
 Wadelai Expedition The Chain of Forts Return to Uganda 
 Parade and Policy Life at Port Alice Affairs at Unyoro, 
 etc. 
 
 LONDON : 
 EDWARD ARNOLD, 37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. 
 
MY. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 FIRE AND SWORD IN THE SUDAN. 
 
 A personal Narrative of Fighting and Serving the Dervishes, 
 1879-1895. 
 
 By SLATIN PASHA, Colonel in the Egyptian Army, formerly 
 Governor and Commandant of the Troops in Darfur. 
 
 Translated and Edited by Major F. R. WINGATE, R.A., D.S.O., 
 
 Author of 1 Mahdiism and the Egyptian Soudan,' etc. 
 
 Fully Illustrated by R. T.VLBOT KELLY. 
 Demy Svo., One Guinea net. 
 
 Slatin Pasha was by far the most important of the European 
 prisoners in the Soudan. Before the Mahdi's victories he held 
 the post of Governor of Darfur, and was in command of large 
 military forces. He fought no fewer than twenty-seven pitched 
 battles before he was compelled to surrender, and is the only 
 surviving soldier who has given an eye-witness account of the 
 terrible fighting that occurred during the Mahdist struggle for 
 supremacy. He was present as a prisoner during the siege of 
 Khartoum, and it was to his feet that Gordon's head was 
 brought in revengeful triumph within an hour of the city's fall. 
 
 The narrative is brought up to the present year, when Slatin 
 Pasha's marvellous escape took place, and the incidents of his 
 captivity have been so indelibly graven on his memory that his 
 account of them has all the freshness of a romance. 
 
 From a military and historical standpoint the book is of the 
 highest value. Slatin Pasha's various expeditions penetrated 
 into regions as yet almost unknown to Europeans, but destined 
 apparently to be the subject of serious complications in the 
 near future. The map of these regions is believed to be the 
 first authentic one produced. There is also a careful ground- 
 plan of Khartoum and Omdurman, which might be of immense 
 service in case of military operations. 
 
 The work is furnished with numerous spirited illustrations by 
 Mr. R. Talbot Kelly, who is personally familiar with the Nile 
 Valley, and has worked under the direct supervision of Slatin 
 Pasha and Major Wingate. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. 
 
 By the Very Rev. S. REYNOLDS HOLE, Dean of Rochester. 
 
 Aiithor of ' ' A Little Tour in Ireland,' ' The Memories of Dean Hole,' 
 ' A Book about Koses^ etc. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations, demy 8vo., i6s. 
 
 Dean Hole visited the United States in the winter of 
 1894-95, and gave lectures in almost all the principal cities. 
 His personal popularity and great reputation as an author and 
 preacher enabled him to see everything under the most favour- 
 able circumstances, and he was received with the warmest 
 hospitality by all circles. He has embodied in this volume 
 the results of his shrewd and kindly observation of American 
 men and manners in a way that will bring home to the readei 
 a true picture of the Great Republic viewed through the good- 
 humoured but keen eyes of a friendly inquirer. 
 
 None of Dean Hole's works have taken a more lasting hold 
 upon the public than the well-known ' Little Tour in Ireland,' 
 and it is hoped that the present volume may prove equally 
 popular. 
 
 MEMORIES OF MASHONALAND. 
 
 By the Right Rev. BISHOP KNIGHT BRUCE, formerly 
 Bishop of Mashonaland. 
 
 With Photogravure Frontispiece, cloth, Svo., ios. 6d. 
 
 Bishop Knight Bruce occupied the See of Mashonaland 
 during the interesting period of its development from savage 
 independence to a more civilized condition. His intimate 
 association with the natives gave him such opportunities of 
 studying their manners and habits as have rarely fallen to the 
 lot of Europeans. To all who are interested in missionary 
 work the book will be especially valuable ; but in a land where 
 the missionary is the true pioneer of civilization the land of 
 Livingstone and Moffat Bishop Knight Bruce's work was 
 necessarily of an extremely varied character, and the record is 
 full of entertainment for the general reader. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 TWELVE HUNDRED MILES IN AN OX- 
 WAGGON. 
 
 By ALICE BALFOUR. 
 
 With Illustrations by the Author. 
 
 Cloth, 8vo., 1 6s. 
 
 The recollection of Miss Balfour's picturesque account of her 
 tour in Ireland with her brother, the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, 
 M.P., some years ago, will increase the interest with which this 
 volume will be anticipated. Last year the author made the 
 tour in South Africa here recorded ; the party consisted of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Albert Grey (now Lord and Lady Grey), the Hon. H. W. 
 Fitzwilliam and Mr. G. Grey, and the journey was from Cape 
 Town to Salisbury, thence to the coast at Beira, and home by 
 Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. For no less than twelve hundred 
 miles of their journey the party travelled in ox -waggons, and 
 thus experienced a full share of the entertaining vicissitudes of 
 the Trekker's life. This portion of the tour has been described 
 in the National Review, where it attracted much attention. 
 
 An important feature of the book will be a number of 
 illustrations by the Author. 
 
 DIARIES OF GEORGE HOWARD, EARL OF 
 CARLISLE. 
 
 Edited by VISCOUNT MORPETH. 
 
 The author of these Diaries, George William Frederick 
 Howard, K.G., Earl of Carlisle, best known as Lord Morpeth, 
 was born in 1802 and died in 1864. The Diary begins in 1843, 
 and was continued by Lord Carlisle until his death. During 
 this period he held successively the offices of Chief Commis- 
 sioner of Woods and Forests (1846-1850), Chancellor of the 
 Duchy of Lancaster, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1855-58 
 and 1859-64). The Diaries contain frequent allusions to most 
 of the political, literary, and social personages of the time, with 
 whom Lord Carlisle necessarily enjoyed intimate acquaintance. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 THE EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS. 
 
 By DOUGLAS W. FRESHFIELD, F.R.G.S., President of the 
 Alpine Club, 
 
 Author of '' Travels in the Central Caucasus, ' The Italian Alps,' etc. 
 
 In two volumes, imperial 8vo., 455. net. Also a Large-paper 
 Edition of 100 copies, $ 53. net. 
 
 Illustrated by over 70 Full-page Photogravures and several 
 Mountain Panoramas, chiefly from Photographs by Signor 
 VITTORIO SELLA, and executed under his immediate superintend- 
 ence, and by more than 100 Illustrations in the Text, of the 
 Scenery, People, and Buildings of the Mountain Region of the 
 Caucasus, from Photographs by SIGNOR SELLA, M. DE DECHY, 
 Mr. H. WOOLLEY, and the late Mr. W. F. DONKIN. 
 
 These volumes, intended to form a record of the exploration of 
 the Caucasus since 1868 by Members of the Alpine Club, as well as 
 a narrative of the author's recent journeys in that region, will 
 constitute one of the most complete and lavishly illustrated works 
 on mountain travel ever published in this country. 
 
 The letterpress will include a concise account of the physical 
 characteristics of the central portion of the Caucasian chain, and a 
 sketch of the principal travels and adventures of the mountaineers 
 who have penetrated its fastnesses, and conquered summits, eleven 
 of which are higher than Mont Blanc. 
 
 The personal narrative will consist of the story of two summers 
 recently spent among the glaciers and forests of the Caucasus by 
 the author, who was a member of the Search Expedition which 
 went out to ascertain the locality and nature of the catastrophe by 
 which Mr. W. F. Donkin and Mr. H. Fox with their guides lost 
 their lives in 1888, extracts from the diary of Mr. Fox, and accounts 
 of the first ascents of Kostantau and Ushba by Mr. H. Woolley 
 and Mr. Cockin. 
 
 An Appendix will contain a mass of novel and systematically 
 arranged topographical detail, which, it is hoped, may prove of 
 great service to future travellers and mountaineers. 
 
 District Maps on the scale of the old official map (3 miles to the 
 inch), forming together a complete map of the chain from Kasbeck 
 to Elbruz, are beiru; prepared for the book mainly from the unpub- 
 lished sheets of the recent Russian surveys, which have been 
 generously placed at Mr. Freshfield's disposal by General Kulberg. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF PRINCE EUGENE. 
 
 An Idyll under Napoleon the First. 
 By ALBERT PULITZER. 
 
 With numerous Photogravure Illustrations, in two volumes, 
 demy 8vo., 2 is. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE : ' By chance, glancing over the Memoirs 
 and Correspondence of Prince Eugene, published, about forty years ago, by A. 
 du Casse, in ten volumes octavo, I read with real pleasure the letters addressed 
 by the prince to his wife, born Princess-Royal of Bavaria, and considered one 
 of the handsomest women of her time. These letters, written during the stirring 
 transformations of the Napoleonic epoch, reveal, in the exquisite tenderness 
 which they breathe, one of the most charming love stories which history has 
 given us. On the eighth anniversary of their marriage, the Prince thanks 
 Heaven for having given him " the most beautiful, the best, and the most 
 virtuous of wives." This graceful and romantic side of the Prince's character 
 seemed to me worthy of being shown to the world. If, in presenting this 
 charming idyll to my readers, I can touch some sensitive hearts and inspire 
 them with a little of the sincere admiration which I myself felt for this ideal 
 love story, I shall be fully recompensed for my labour.' 
 
 STUDIES IN EARLY VICTORIAN LITERATURE, 
 1837-1870. 
 
 By FREDERIC HARRISON, M.A., 
 
 Antliorof 1 The Choice of 'Books ,' etc. 
 
 Large crown 8vo., cloth, los. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VICTORIAN LITERATURE. ANTHONY TROLLOPE. 
 
 LORD MACAULAV. CHARLES DICKENS. 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE. WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKKRAY. 
 
 BENJAMIN DISRAELI. CHARLES KINGSLEY. 
 
 CHARLOTTE BRONTE. GEORGE ELIOT. 
 
 The essays contained in this volume have already appeared in the Forum, 
 but they were written originally on a definite preconceived plan with a view to 
 subsequent publication, and may be taken as an expression of the author's 
 mature literary estimate of the great Victorian writers. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. 
 
 By WALTER RALEIGH, Professor of English Literature at 
 Liverpool University College. 
 
 Author of ' The English Novel' etc. 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 BENJAMIN JOWETT, MASTER OF BALLIOL. 
 
 A Personal Memoir. 
 
 By the HON. LIONEL TOLLEMACHE, 
 
 A uthor of ' Safe Studies, ' etc. 
 
 Crown 8vo.. cloth, 35. 6d. 
 
 KLEINES HAUSTHEATER. 
 
 Fifteen Little Plays in German for Children. 
 
 By MRS. HUGH BELL. 
 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 
 
 Most of these little plays have been adapted from the author's ' Petit 
 Theatre,' the remainder from a little book of English plays by the same writer 
 entitled ' Nursery Comedies.' 
 
 NEW STORY BY THE AUTHOR OF 'MISS BLAKE OF 
 
 MONKS HAL TON: 
 
 ON THE THRESHOLD. 
 
 By ISABELLA O. FORD, 
 
 Author of 'Miss Blake of Monkshalton.' 
 
 One vol., crown 8vo., 35. 6d. 
 
8 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 NEW STORY BY THE AUTHOR OF ' MERRIE ENGLAND: 
 
 TOMMY ATKINS. 
 A Tale of the Ranks. 
 
 By ROBERT BLATCHFORD, 
 
 Author of* A Son of the Forge,' ' Merrie England,' etc. 
 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 6s. 
 
 WAGNER'S HEROES. 
 
 TANNHAUSER. PARSIFAL. HANS SACHS. LOHENGRIN. 
 
 By CONSTANCE MAUD. 
 
 Illustrated by H. GRANVILLE FELL. 
 
 Crown 8vo., handsomely bound, 55. 
 
 1 These are just simple tales about men and women who once really lived on 
 the earth, and about whom the greatest of poet-musicians wrote in that wonder- 
 ful music-language of his which speaks straight to the heart. And in this 
 language he told us many things about Parsifal, Lohengrin, Tannhauser, and 
 dear old Hans Sachs, which cannot by any human power be put into words ; 
 but in so far as he did make use of words to explain his marvellous music, I 
 have tried to use the same, and above all never to depart from his idea of the 
 heroes he loved." From the Preface. 
 
 LIFE'S PRESCRIPTION. 
 
 In Seven Doses. 
 
 By D. MACLAREN MORRISON. 
 Crown 8vo., parchment, is. 6d. 
 
 CONTENTS. i. The Pride of Life. 2. Education. 3. Man. 4. Woman. 
 5. Marriage. 6. Parents. 7. Home. 
 
 A few pages of advice to men and women on the management of their lives ; 
 the reader can hardly fail to be interested in the shrewd and sensible remarks, 
 knowledge of life, sound advice and pleasant anecdote with which the book is 
 enlivened. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 CYCLING FOR HEALTH AND PLEASURE. 
 
 By L. H. PORTER, 
 
 Author of ' Wheels and Wheeling,' etc. 
 
 Revised and edited by 
 F. W. SHORLAND, Amateur Champion 1892-93-94. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations, small 8vo., 2s. 6d. 
 
 STRENGTH ; 
 
 Or, The Development and Use of Muscle. 
 
 By the Champion, C. A. SAMPSON, 
 'The strongest man on earth.' 
 
 With nearly forty illustrations, 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 TWO NEW COOKERY BOOKS BY COLONEL 
 KENNE Y-HERBERT. 
 
 FIFTY LUNCHES. 
 
 FIFTY DINNERS. 
 
 By COLONEL A. KENNEY HERBERT, 
 
 Author of ' Common-Sense Cookery ,' 'Fifty Breakfasts,' etc. 
 
 Each vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 2s. 6d. 
 
 POULTRY FATTENING. 
 
 By EDWARD BROWN, 
 
 Author of ' Pleasurable Poultry Keeping,' etc. 
 
 With Illustrations, crown 8vo., cloth, is. 6d. 
 
io Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 NEW BOOKS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 PRICE FIVE SHILLINGS EACH. 
 
 ERIC THE ARCHER. 
 
 By MAURICE HERVEY, 
 
 Author of The Reef of Gold,' etc. 
 
 With numerous Full-page Illustrations, handsomely bound, 
 crown bvo., 55. 
 
 DR. GILBERT'S DAUGHTERS. 
 
 By MARGARET HARRIET MATHEWS. 
 
 Illustrated by CHRIS. HAMMOND. 
 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 53. 
 
 THE FUR SEAL'S TOOTH. 
 
 By KIRK MUNROE. 
 Beautifully Illustrated, crown 8vo., cloth, 55. 
 
 HOW DICK AND MOLLY WENT ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
 By M. H. CORNWALL LEGH. 
 With numerous Illustrations, fcap. 4to., cloth, 55. 
 
 PRICE THREE SHILLINGS AND SIXPENCE EACH. 
 
 HUNTERS THREE. 
 
 By THOMAS W. KNOX, 
 
 Author of ' The Boy Travellers,' etc. 
 
 With numerous Illustrations, crown 8vo., cloth, 35. 6d. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. n 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE DESERT. 
 
 By E. D. FAWCETT, 
 
 Author of 'Swallowed by an Earthquake,' etc. 
 
 With Full-page Illustrations, crown 8vo., cloth, 35. 6d. 
 
 JOEL : A BOY OF GALILEE. 
 
 By ANNIE FELLOWS JOHNSTON. 
 With Ten Full-page Illustrations, crown 8vo., cloth, 33. 6d. 
 
 THE MUSHROOM CAVE. 
 
 By EVELYN RAYMOND, 
 
 Author of ' The Little Lady of the Horse.' 
 
 With Illustrations, crown 8vo., cloth, 35. 6d. 
 
 THE CHILDREN'S HOUR SERIES. 
 
 ' A pause in the day's occupations 
 That is known as The Children's Hour.' LONGFELLOW. 
 
 This series will consist of continuous stories for boys and girls from about 
 seven to ten years of age ; great care will be taken by the authors to make the 
 books really interesting to young readers, so that the title of the series may not 
 be misapplied. Large type will be used, and each volume will be illustrated 
 with several full-page pictures specially drawn for it. 
 
 The following volumes are just ready, price Half-a-crown each : 
 
 MASTER MAGNUS. 
 
 By MRS. E. M. FIELD, 
 Author of ' Ethne' ' Little Count Paul, ' ' Mixed Pickles,' etc. 
 
 With Four Full-page Illustrations, small 8vo., 2s. 6d. 
 
12 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 MY DOG PLATO. 
 
 By M. H. CORNWALL LEGH, 
 
 Author of ' Hoiu Dick and Molly went Round the World J etc. 
 
 With Four Full-page Illustrations, small 8vo., 2s. 6d. 
 Further Volumes are in preparation. 
 
 NEW VOLUMES OF 
 
 THE CHILDREN'S FAVOURITE SERIES. 
 
 PRICE Two SHILLINGS EACH ; SPECIALLY BOUND, GILT EDGES, 2s. 6d. 
 
 MY BOOK OF PERILS. 
 
 Exciting stories of adventure and hairbreadth escapes. 
 
 MY BOOK OF WONDERS. 
 
 An account of some of the most marvellous things in the world described in 
 an interesting way for children. 
 
 TRAVELS, SPORT, AND EXPLORATION. 
 Balfour-MY SOUTH AFRICAN JOURNEY. (Seepage 4 .) 
 
 Colvile THE LAND OF THE NILE SPRINGS. (See 
 page i.) 
 
 Freshfield EXPLORATION OF THE CAUCASUS. (See 
 5.) 
 
 Hole A LITTLE TOUR IN AMERICA. (Seepage 3.) 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 13 
 
 Hole A LITTLE TOUR IN IRELAND. By AN OXONIAN 
 
 (the Very Rev. S. R. HOLE, Dean of Rochester). With nearly forty 
 Illustrations by JOHN LEECH, including the famous steel Frontispiece of 
 the ' Claddagh.' Large imperial i6mo., handsomely bound, gilt top, 
 IDS. 6d. 
 
 *\ Only a few copies of this edition now remain. 
 
 Portal THE BRITISH MISSION TO UGANDA. By 
 
 the late Sir GERALD PORTAL, K.C.M.G. Edited by RENNELL RODD, 
 C.M.G. With an Introduction by the Right Honourable Lord CROMER, 
 G. C. M. G. Illustrated from photos taken during the Expedition by Colonel 
 RHODES. Demy 8vo., 2is. 
 
 Portal MY MISSION TO ABYSSINIA. By the late Sir 
 
 GERALD H. PORTAL, C. B. With Map and Illustrations. Demy 8vo. , 155. 
 
 Slatin FIRE AND SWORD IN THE SUDAN. (See 
 
 page 2.) 
 
 AMERICAN SPORT AND TRAVEL. 
 
 These books, selected from the Catalogue 0/MESSRS. RAND McNALLY&Co., the 
 well-known publishers of Chic ago, have been placed in MR. EDWARD ARNOLD'S 
 hands under the impression that many British Travellers and Sportsmen may 
 find them useful before starting on expeditions in the United States. 
 
 Aldrieh-ARCTIC ALASKA AND SIBERIA; or, Eight 
 
 Months with the Arctic Whalemen. By HERBERT L. ALDRICH. Crown 
 8vo. , cloth, 45. 6d. 
 
 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. Their Habits, Habitat, and 
 
 Peculiarities ; How, When, and Where to Angle for them. By various 
 Writers. Cloth, IDS. 6d. 
 
 Biggins NEW GUIDE TO THE PACIFIC COAST. Santa 
 
 F6 Route. By C. A. HIGGINS. Crown 8vo., cloth. 45. 6d. 
 
 Leffingwell THE ART OF WING - SHOOTING. A 
 
 Practical Treatise on the Use of the Shot-gun. By W. B. LEFFINGWELL. 
 With numerous Illustrations. Crown 8vo., cloth, 45. 6d. 
 
 Shields CAMPING AND CAMP OUTFITS. By G. 
 
 O. SHIELDS (' Coquina'). Containing also Chapters on Camp Medicine, 
 Cookery, and How to Load a Packhorse. Crown 8vo., cloth, 55. 
 
14 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 Shields THE AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DOG. By 
 
 various Writers. Edited by G. O. SHIELDS (' Coquina '). Cloth, 155. 
 
 Thomas SWEDEN AND THE SWEDES. By WILLIAM 
 
 WIDGERY THOMAS, Jun., United States Minister to Sweden and Norway. 
 With numerous Illustrations. Cloth, i6s. 
 
 HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY. 
 Benson and Tatham MEN OF MIGHT. Studies of Great 
 
 Characters. By A. C. BENSON, M.A., and H. F. W. TATHAM, M.A., 
 Assistant Masters at Eton College. Second Edition. Crown 8vo., cloth, 
 35. 6d. 
 
 Boyle THE RECOLLECTIONS OF THE DEAN OF 
 
 SALISBURY. By the Very Rev. G. D. BOYLE, Dean of Salisbury. 
 With Photogravure Portrait, i vol., demy 8vo. , cloth, i6s. 
 
 Custance-RIDING RECOLLECTIONS AND TURF 
 
 STORIES. By HENRY CUSTANCE, three times winner of the Derby. 
 One vol., crown 8vo., cloth, 25. 6d. 
 
 'An admirable sketch of turf history during a very interesting period, well and 
 humorously written.' Sporting Life. 
 
 Sherard ALPHONSE DAUDET : a Biography and Critical 
 
 Study. By R. H. SHERARD, Editor of ' The Memoirs of Baron Meneval, 1 
 etc. With Illustrations. Demy 8vo., 153. 
 
 Fowler ECHOES OF OLD COUNTY LIFE. Recollections 
 
 of Sport, Society, Politics, and Farming in the Good Old Times. By J. K. 
 FOWLER, of Aylesbury. Second Edition, with numerous Illustrations, 8vo., 
 IDS. 6d. Also a large-paper edition, of 200 copies only, 2is. net. 
 'A very entertaining volume of reminiscences, full of good stories.' Truth. 
 
 Hare MARIA EDGEWORTH : her Life and Letters. Edited 
 
 By AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE, Author of 'The Story of Two Noble Lives,' 
 etc. Two vols., crown 8vo., with Portraits, i6s. net. 
 
 ' Mr. Hare has written more than one good book in his time, but he has never produced 
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Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 15 
 
 Hole THE MEMORIES OF DEAN HOLE. By the Very 
 
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 twelfth thousand, one vol., crown 8vo. , 6s. 
 
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 Knight-Bruce MEMORIES OF MASHONALAND. (See 
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16 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 Morpeth LORD CARLISLE'S DIARIES. (Seepage 4 .) 
 Oman A HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By CHARLES OMAN, 
 
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 Pulitzer THE ROMANCE OF PRINCE EUGENE. (See 
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 Tollemaehe-BENJAMIN JOWETT. (Seepage 7.) 
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 LITERATURE AND BELLES LETTRES. 
 WORKS BY THE REV. CANON BELL, D.D., 
 
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 DIANA'S LOOKING GLASS, and other Poems. 
 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 55. net. 
 
 POEMS OLD AND NEW. 
 
 Crown 8vo., cloth, 75. 6d. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 17 
 
 THE NAME ABOVE EVERY NAME, and other 
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 Crown 8vo., cloth, 53. 
 
 Butler-SELECT ESSAYS OF SAINTE BEUVE. Chiefly 
 
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 Gosehen-THE CULTIVATION AND USE OF IMAGINA- 
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i 8 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
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 Maud WAGNER'S HEROES. (Seepage 8.) 
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Mr. Edward Arnold's List. ig 
 
 FICTION. 
 
 SIX SHILLING NOVELS. 
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 ORMISDAL. A Novel. By the EARL OF DUNMORE, F.R.G.S., 
 
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2O Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 STEPHEN REMARX. The Story of a Venture in Ethics. 
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 COUNTRY HOUSE PASTIMES. 
 Ellaeombe-IN A GLOUCESTERSHIRE GARDEN. By 
 
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 Bristol. Author of ' Plant Lore and Garden Craft of Shakespeare. ' 
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 The Guardian. 
 
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 Hole A BOOK ABOUT THE GARDEN AND THE 
 
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 Second edition. Crown 8vo., 6s. 
 
 Hole A BOOK ABOUT ROSES. By the Very Rev. S. 
 
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Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 21 
 
 Brown PLEASURABLE POULTRY - KEEPING. By 
 
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 Brown-INDUSTRIAL POULTRY-KEEPING. By EDWARD 
 
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 White PLEASURABLE BEE-KEEPING. By C. N. WHITE, 
 
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 Cunningham-THE DRAUGHTS POCKET MANUAL. By 
 
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 Spectator. 
 
 Kenney-Herbert-COMMON-SENSE COOKERY: based 
 
 on Modern English and Continental Principles, Worked out in Detail. 
 By Colonel A. KENNEY-HERBERT (' Wyvern 1 ). Large crown 8vo., over 
 500 pp., 73. 6d. 
 
 ' A book which is sure to have a large circulation, since the author, the well-known 
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22 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 Kenney-Herbert- FIFTY BREAKFASTS: containing a 
 
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 Colonel KENNEY-HERBERT (' Wyvern '). Small 8vo., as. 6d. 
 
 Kenney-Herbert FIFTY LUNCHES. By Colonel KENNEY- 
 
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 Kenney-Herbert FIFTY DINNERS. By Colonel 
 
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 Shorland CYCLING FOR HEALTH AND PLEASURE. 
 
 (Seepage*).} 
 
 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 
 Faweett THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. Being 
 
 an Attempt to determine the First Principles of Metaphysics considered as 
 an Inquiry into the Conditions and Import of Consciousness. By EDWARD 
 DOUGLAS FAWCETT. One vol. , demy 8vo. , 143. 
 
 THE JOURNAL OF MORPHOLOGY. Edited by C. O. 
 
 WHITMAN, Professor of Biology in Clark University, U.S.A. Three 
 numbers in a volume of 100 to 150 large 410. pages, with numerous plates. 
 Single numbers, 175. 6d. ; subscription to the volume of three numbers, 
 455. Volumes I. to X. can now be obtained, and the first number of 
 Volume XI. is ready. 
 
 ' Everyone who is interested in the kind of work published in it knows it. 
 It is taken by all the chief libraries of colleges, universities, etc. , both in England 
 and the Continent.' PROFESSOR RAY LANKESTER. 
 
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 Morgan-ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE. By 
 
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 Bristol. With 40 Illustrations and a Photo-etched Frontispiece. Second 
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Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 23 
 
 Morgan PSYCHOLOGY FOR TEACHERS. By Professor 
 
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 Crown 8vo. , cloth, 35. 6d. net. 
 
 Morgan THE SPRINGS OF CONDUCT. By Professor 
 
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 ILLUSTRATED GIFT BOOKS, ETC. 
 
 For further particulars of books under this heading see 
 special Catalogue of Gift Books for Presents and Prizes, 
 
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 GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS. ETON HARROW WIN- 
 
 CHESTER RUGBY WESTMINSTER MARLBOROUGH CHELTENHAM 
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 A LITTLE TOUR IN IRELAND. By AN OXONIAN (the 
 
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 WILD FLOWERS IN ART AND NATURE. By J. C. L, 
 
 SPARKES, Principal of the National Art Training School, South Kensing- 
 ton, and F. W. BURBIDGE, Curator of the University Botannical Gardens, 
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Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 PICTURES OF BIRDS. For the Decoration of Home and 
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 List of Coloured Plates : 
 
 Blue Tit. 
 
 Thrush. 
 
 Chaffinch. 
 
 Bullfinch. 
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 WILD FLOWER PICTURES. For the Decoration of Home 
 
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 Poppy. 
 
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 Cornflower. 
 Iris. 
 
 Cowslip. 
 Bluebell. 
 
 Hawthorn. 
 
 Rose. 
 
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 Heather. 
 
 Violet. 
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 Daisy. 
 
 Water-Lily. 
 
 Anemone. 
 
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 TALES FROM HANS ANDERSEN. With nearly 40 Original 
 
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 THE SNOW QUEEN, and other Tales. By HANS 
 
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Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 25 
 
 FIVE SHILLINGS EACH. 
 ERIC THE ARCHER. By MAURICE H. HERVEY. With 
 
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 THE FUR SEAL'S TOOTH. By KIRK MUNROE. Fully 
 
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 HOW DICK AND MOLLY WENT ROUND THE WORLD. 
 
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 DR. GILBERT'S DAUGHTERS. By MARGARET HARRIET 
 
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 THE DOUBLE EMPEROR. By W. LAIRD CLOWES, Author 
 
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26 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 SWALLOWED BY AN EARTHQUAKE. By E. D. 
 
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 HARTMANN THE ANARCHIST ; or, The Doom of the 
 
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 FRIENDS OF THE OLDEN TIME. By ALICE GARDNER, 
 
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 My Book of Wonders. 
 My Book of Travel Stories. 
 My Book of Adventures. 
 My Book of the Sea. 
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 Deeds of Gold. 
 
 My Book of Perils. 
 My Book of Fairy Tales. 
 My Book of Bible Stories. 
 My Book of History Tales. 
 My Story Book of Animals. 
 Rhymes for You and Me. 
 
Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 27 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION SERIES. 
 
 FROEBEL'S PEDAGOGICS OF THE KINDERGARTEN ; or, His Ideas 
 
 concerning the Play and Playthings of the Child. Translated by J. JARVIS. 
 
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 THE EDUCATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE, AND ITS INFLUENCE 
 
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 ENGLISH EDUCATION IN THE ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY 
 
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 EDUCATION FROM A NATIONAL STANDPOINT. Translated from the 
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 THE MORAL INSTRUCTION OF CHILDREN. By FELIX ADLER, 
 
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 THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION. By JOHANN KARL ROSENKRANZ, 
 
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 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTELLECT. Forming Part II. of 'The 
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 A HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES. By RICHARD 
 
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 HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN IN EUROPE. By HELENS LANGE. 
 
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 PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED TO THE ART OF TEACHING. By Dr. J. 
 
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28 
 
 Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 
 
 PERIODICALS. 
 
 THE NATIONAL REVIEW. 
 
 Edited by L. J. MAXSE. 
 Price Haifa-crown monthly. 
 Among recent contributors to the Review have been : 
 
 H. O. Arnold- Forster,M.P. 
 Lord Ashbourne. 
 Alfred Austin. 
 
 Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P. 
 Miss Balfour. 
 
 Sir David Harbour, K. C.S.I. 
 A. C. Benson. 
 
 Hon. St. John Brodrick, M.P. 
 Right Hon. J. Chamberlain, 
 
 M.P. 
 
 Admiral Colomb. 
 E. T. Cook. 
 Rt. Hon. Leonard Courtney, 
 
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Mr. Edward Arnold's List. 29 
 
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to Hutbors. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ADDERLEY. Stephen Remarx . 20 
 ALDRICH. Arctic Alaska . . 13 
 American Game Fishes . . 13 
 
 BALFOUR. Twelve Hundred 
 
 Miles in an Ox- Waggon . . 4 
 
 BELL, MRS. Kleines Haustheater 7 
 
 BELL (REV. CANON). Sermons . 17 
 
 ,, Diana's Looking Glass 16 
 
 ,, Poems Old and New . 16 
 
 BENSON. Men of Might . . 14 
 
 BLATCHFORD. Tommy Atkins . 8 
 
 BOYLE. Recollections of the Dean 
 
 of Salisbury . . . .14 
 BROWN. Works on Poultry 
 
 Keeping . . . . 9, 21 
 BURBIDGE. Wild Flowers in Art 23 
 BUTLER. Select Essays of Sainte 
 
 Beuve 17 
 
 CHERBULIEZ. The Tutor's Secret 19 
 CHILDREN'S FAVOURITE SERIES 
 
 12, 26 
 
 CHILDREN'S HOUR SERIES . n, 26 
 CLIFFORD. Love- Letters . . 20 
 CLOWES. Double Emperor . 25 
 COLLINGWOOD. Thorstein . . 17 
 COLVILE. Land of the Nile 
 
 Springs i 
 
 CUNNINGHAM. Draughts Manual 21 
 CUSTANCE. Riding Recollections 14 
 
 DUNMORE. Ormisdal . . .19 
 
 ELLACOMBE. In a Gloucester- 
 shire Garden . . . .20 
 
 FAWCETT. Hartmann the Anar- 
 chist 26 
 
 FAWCETT. Riddle of the Uni- 
 verse . . . . .22 
 
 FAWCETT. Secret of the Desert . n 
 
 Swallowed by an Earth- 
 quake 26 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FIELD. Master Magnus . .11 
 FORD. On the Threshold . . 7 
 
 FORUM 29 
 
 FOWLER. Echoes of Old County 
 
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 FRESHFIELD. Exploration of the 
 
 Caucasus 5 
 
 GARDNER. Friends of Olden 
 
 Time 26 
 
 GAUNT. Dave's Sweetheart . 19 
 GOSCHEN. Cultivation and Use 
 
 of the Imagination . . .17 
 GOSSIP. Chess Pocket Manual . 21 
 GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS . . 17 
 
 HANS ANDERSEN. Snow Queen . 24 
 ,, Tales from . 24 
 
 HARE. Life and Letters of Maria 
 
 Edgeworth . . . .14 
 HARRISON. Early Victorian Lite- 
 rature . . . . .6 
 HERVEY. Eric the Archer . . 10 
 Reef of Gold . ' . 25 
 HIGGINS. New Guide to the 
 
 Pacific Coast . . . .13 
 HOLE. Addresses to Working 
 
 Men 17 
 
 HOLE. Book about Roses . . 20 
 
 ,, Book about the Garden . 20 
 
 , , Little Tour in America . 3 
 
 ,, Little Tour in Ireland . 13 
 
 ,, Memories . . . 15 
 
 ,, More Memories . .15 
 
 HUTCHINSON. That Fiddler 
 
 Fellow . . . . . 20 
 
 INDIA OFFICE PUBLICATIONS . 29 
 INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION 
 SERIES 27 
 
 JOHNSTONE. Joel ; a Boy of 
 Galilee . n 
 
Index to Authors. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 KAY. Omarah's Yaman . . 15 
 
 KKNNEY-HERBERT. Fifty Break- 
 fasts 22 
 
 KENNEY-HEREERT. Fifty Din- 
 ners - 9 
 
 KENNEY-HERBERT. Fifty 
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 KENNEY-HERBERT. Common- 
 sense Cookery . . . .21 
 
 KNIGHT-BRUCE. Memories of 
 Mashonaland . ... 3 
 
 KNOX. Hunters Three . . 10 
 
 KNUTSFORD. Mystery of the 
 Rue Soly 19 
 
 LANG. Lamb's Adventures of 
 Ulysses 18 
 
 LECKY. Political Value of His- 
 tory 15 
 
 LE FANU. Seventy Years of Irish 
 Life 15 
 
 LEFFINGWELL. Art of Wing- 
 Shooting . . . . .13 
 
 LEGH. How Dick and Molly 
 went round the World . . 10 
 
 LEGH. My Dog Plato . 12 
 
 MATHEWS. Dr. Gilbert's 
 
 Daughters . . . lo 
 
 MAUD. Wagner's Heroes't . . 8 
 
 McNuLTY. Misther O'Ryan J. 19 
 
 MILNER. England in Egypt ' . 15 
 
 MORGAN. Animal Life . . 22 
 
 Animal Sketches . . 26 
 
 Psychology for Teachers 23 
 
 ,, Springs of Conduct . 23 
 
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 MORPHOLOGY, JOURNAL OF . 22 
 MORRISON. Life's Prescription . 8 
 MUNROE. Fur Seal's Tooth . 10 
 
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 NATIONAL REVIEW . . .28 
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 PHILOSOPHICAL REVIEW . . 29 
 PICTURES OF BIRDS . . .24 
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 PORTAL. British Mission to 
 
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 PORTAL. My Mission to Abys- 
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 son 7 
 
 RANSOME. Battles of Frederick 
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 RAYMOND. Mushroom Cave . n 
 
 ROOD. Works by Rennel Rodd .18 
 
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 THOMAS. Sweden and the Swedes 14 
 TOLLEMACHE. Benjamin Jowett 7 
 TWINING. Recollections of Life 
 and Work . . . .16 
 
 WHITE. Pleasurable Bee-Keeping 21 
 WILD FLOWERS IN ART AND 
 
 NATURE 23 
 
 WILD FLOWER PICTURES . . 24 
 WINCHESTER COLLEGE . 18 
 
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