LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN
 
 PAULINE DE LA FERRONAYS 
 (MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN).
 
 A MEMOIR 
 
 MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN 
 
 (PAULINE DE LA FERRONNAYS) 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' LE RECIT n'uNE SCEUR ' 
 
 WITH EXTRACTS FROM HER DIARIES 
 AND CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 MARIA CATHERINE BISHOP 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 RICHARD BENT LEY AND SON 
 
 publishers! in rbinarjj to gsjer ^Trtjcst)) the OQutctt 
 1894 
 
 [All rights rescn>ed\
 
 'Stack 
 Annex 
 
 5015778 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I ASK the indulgence of those friends of Mrs. Craven 
 to whom her memory is dear for this imperfect 
 sketch of her life as it was known to English 
 people. 
 
 It is, I have reason to hope, only a prelude to an 
 adequate French memoir, in which her large experi- 
 ence of European society in its various phases will be 
 treated with the fulness it deserves, and with more 
 ample knowledge. 
 
 By the great kindness of Mrs. Craven's niece, the 
 Duchesse d'Ursel, and of the Comtesse Fra^ois de 
 Griinne, I have been allowed to translate parts of 
 those private journals which, with Mrs. Craven's 
 letters, give interest to this book. 
 
 My thanks are largely due to Miss O'Meara for 
 her kind offices in obtaining the loan of these precious 
 records of Mrs. Craven's inmost thoughts. 
 
 To the friends who have lent letters, I offer my 
 grateful thanks, especially to Sir Mountstuart Grant 
 Duff, at whose suggestion the task of editing them 
 was undertaken. The late Lord Emly, by his advice 
 and approval, gave me encouragement, and I feel
 
 VI 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 keen disappointment that he did not live to see the 
 
 book in print. 
 
 To the Duchesse Ravaschieri, from whose Italian 
 memoir of Mrs. Craven I have largely borrowed, 
 my thanks are offered; also to the Princess Sayn 
 Wittgenstein, who so well summarizes Mrs. Craven's 
 character in a letter to me. 
 
 To Lady Herbert, Lady Amabel Kerr, Mr. Aubrey 
 de Vere, Mr. Fullerton, and Mr. Robert Percy 
 ffrench I am much indebted. 
 
 To the three friends through whose hands this 
 memoir has passed while preparing for publication, 
 I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude. 
 
 My task was a happy one. Of the numerous 
 biographies by which the private records of society 
 illustrate the century, few so well prove that it is 
 possible to live in the world and yet be not of it. 
 
 Mrs. Craven's letters to her English friends were, 
 for the most part, written in that language. The 
 reader will see with what ease she managed it, 
 though the style of her English letters may some- 
 times be wanting in the grace and fire of her native 
 prose. 
 
 Her ' Recit d'une Sceur' reflects light on the first 
 half of our century. Mrs. Craven's perseverance in 
 the upward path, her unfailing faith, and hope, and 
 charity through a long and troubled career, will bear 
 witness to the realities of Christian life at all times. 
 
 M. C. BISHOP. 
 
 WHITE HOUSE, TUNBRIDGE WELLS, 
 October 27, 1894.
 
 LIFE OF 
 MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN 
 
 i. 
 
 IN 1852, most of those living in London society and 
 familiar with Lady Granville's and Lady Palmer- 
 ston's world, with Holland House and Broadlands, 
 Bowood and Worsley, had met Mr. and Mrs. 
 Augustus Craven. Some of the people best able to 
 judge, as, for instance, Mr. Charles and Mr. Henry 
 Greville, could appreciate the perfectly accomplished 
 woman of the world, the finished actress in drawing- 
 room comedy, the woman of shrewd political in- 
 stincts, the singularly well-read and cosmopolitan 
 lady, who, as a good judge remarked, was 'the 
 cleverest woman he ever met.' Few could have 
 guessed that in 1852 Mrs. Craven had begun that 
 ' Recit d'une Sceur ' which is, and will remain, her 
 title of honour throughout a wider world than her 
 friends of that date imagined to exist, and for a long 
 future when the gold is slowly sifted from the mixed 
 products of human civilization. No one better than 
 VOL. I. I
 
 2 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1808 
 
 this lady of the great world has by her genius and 
 sympathy renewed faith in the Christian conduct of 
 life, and restored hope that in the glittering dust of 
 European society the forms of saints and confessors 
 are still as present as at any time these eighteen 
 hundred years. 
 
 Mrs. Craven in 1852 began to arrange the 
 materials which supplied her story of family life. 
 The portraits she drew had rare beauty, and the 
 artist added her own distinction to theirs. She 
 brightened their light by her own reflection of 
 heaven. She fitted their examples for the use of 
 pilgrims on the highway of social life. In writing of 
 her family, it was consistent with Mrs. Craven's 
 character and taste that mention of herself should 
 be excluded, except when it was necessary to en- 
 hance the merits of others or to connect and explain 
 their circumstances. But surely it may be well to 
 point out, however imperfectly, her own well-marked 
 footprints in the same track by which they had pre- 
 ceded her. The author of ' Le R6cit d'une Soeur ' 
 lived for forty years beyond the date at which the 
 story concludes. What seal was placed on the 
 truth and consistency of that record by the witness 
 of her own after-life ? The aim of this memoir is to 
 show how its author herself fulfilled the ideals she 
 had set before her readers. 
 
 Pauline Marie Armande Aglae Perron de la 
 Ferronnays was born on April 12, 1808, at 36, 
 Manchester Street, London. Her parents had emi- 
 grated during the French Revolution, and they were 
 attached by special friendship to the Due de Berri,
 
 1808] MRS. CRA VEN'S PARENTS 3 
 
 and by special loyalty to his father, afterwards King 
 Charles X. The child was baptized in the French 
 chapel in King Street, Portman Square, and even 
 twenty-six years later she was described at Rome in 
 her marriage certificate as an Englishwoman. Her 
 father Comte Auguste Marie de la Ferronnays was 
 of that Breton stock which has illustrated France 
 during the last century and a half. An ancestor of 
 his was companion at arms of Bertrand du Guesclin, 
 and the modern noble possessed his full share of 
 Breton susceptibility where honour is concerned. 
 In his ' Memoires d'Outre Tombe,' Chateaubriand 
 says of him : ' Everyone respects my noble colleague 
 and friend, and no one hates him because his 
 character and mind are upright and tolerant.' 
 
 There is a remarkable strain of Celtic nature in 
 some of the personages of ' Le Recit d'une Sceur.' 
 They were of the race of Chateaubriand and of 
 La Mennais, of Rio and of Renan, though with 
 widely different records of achievement. Their gift 
 of music, their enthusiasms, their faith in the unseen, 
 their power of language, were distinctively Celtic, as 
 was that vivacity which in its subtle spirituality 
 differs so essentially from the mobility of the Gascon 
 or the Proven9al. 
 
 Mrs. Craven's mother, Marie Charlotte Albertine 
 de Sourches de Monsoreau, was of a family that 
 counted in its alliances many historic names, but in 
 the pages of ' Le Recit,' as in the report of all who 
 knew her, she had the rarer merit of being a 
 singularly perfect wife and mother. By her were 
 laid the foundations of the family unity and mutual
 
 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA VEN [1815 
 
 affection of her children. Her courage and tact 
 were always ready alike in the trials of the emigra- 
 tion, in the perhaps less manageable difficulties of the 
 return to France with the Due de Berri, and in the 
 ruin of 1830. Her father and her husband's father 
 were attached to the Prince de Conde's army ; and 
 she was married to the young La Ferronnays at 
 Klagenfurth, in Carinthia, just before the break-up of 
 the Royalist camp. 
 
 Auguste de la Ferronnays, had distinguished 
 himself in the eight futile and forgotten campaigns 
 of which we know the miseries as they are described 
 by Chateaubriand, who himself took some part in 
 them. 
 
 Of eleven children born to the La Ferronnays four 
 died in infancy. Charles was the eldest who sur- 
 vived, and Pauline was the first-born of the four sisters 
 who live in the pages of ' Le Recit.' It is to be 
 hoped that some day the journal of her mother 
 during the emigration may be published. It tells of 
 the faithful loyalty and courage with which the 
 family bore poverty and discouragement during exile. 
 It is possible that the personal friendship of the 
 Due de Berri may have hindered M. de la Ferronnays 
 in a more independent career than that of a courtier, 
 for he had more than sufficient ability to secure 
 success in any. But he and the young Prince were 
 at least serious in their study of the somewhat dim 
 chances of their return to France. At last the hour 
 arrived. The Due de Berri and his aide-de-camp 
 M. de la Ferronnays landed together at Cherbourg. 
 On the occasion of the Prince's marriage to Princess
 
 i8is] QUARREL WITH THE DUG DE BERRI 5 
 
 Caroline of Naples, Madame de la Ferronnays was 
 appointed lady - in - waiting to his wife. To her 
 mother, the Marquise de Montsoreau, was given the 
 important office of governess to the expected children 
 of France. Madame de Montsoreau was niece to 
 that Duchesse de Tourzel who nobly filled the same 
 post after the Duchesse de Polignac had resigned, 
 during the flight of Louis XVI. to Varennes and in 
 the prison of the Temple. The Duchesse was god- 
 mother to Pauline, the subject of this memoir. 
 
 To Madame de la Ferronnays was entrusted the 
 ' corbeille,' Louis XVIII. 's gift to the future wife of 
 his nephew, the Due de Berri, and she was one of 
 the ladies commissioned to meet her at Marseilles, 
 where her practical kindness in visiting the Princess 
 at the lazaretto somewhat offended the other ladies 
 of the mission. 
 
 All smiled on the La Ferronnays family when a 
 hasty and insulting word of the Due de Berri 
 touched its honour to the quick. The word was 
 struck from him in the heat of a misunderstanding 
 touching the hesitation of the Marquise de Mont- 
 soreau, who had made a mistake in Court etiquette. 
 She did not know whether the King's orders were to 
 be obeyed without confirmation by the Due de Berri 
 in the disposal of the baby clothes prepared for his 
 first child, who had died at birth. 
 
 The Prince offered to measure swords with his 
 friend, but M. de la Ferronnays rightly refused a 
 duel with the heir-presumptive to the throne. Two 
 hours later, to the bitter annoyance of the Due de 
 Berri and of his father, the La Ferronnays family
 
 6 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1819 
 
 bad left the Tuileries, where they had apartments, 
 never to return there as residents. 
 
 During the Revelation they had lost nearly all 
 their estate, and the indemnity provided for emigres 
 whose property had been confiscated had not yet 
 been adjudged. To abandon his position at Court, 
 and to mar the prospects of his children and con- 
 nections, was a serious sacrifice, but M. de la Ferron- 
 nays did not hesitate, and for months he was adrift 
 without prospect of employment. The Due de Bern 
 meantime privately urged on the King the claims of 
 the friend he had estranged. The Due de Richelieu, 
 then First Minister, gladly backed them, and M. de la 
 Ferronnays was nominated Ambassador at St. Peters- 
 burg. Through every change of Ministry at Paris 
 he retained his post for eight years. He was a 
 personal friend of the Emperor Alexander, and when 
 the conspiracy broke out on the accession of the 
 Emperor's successor Nicholas, it was from M. de la 
 Ferronnays that the new Czar sought sympathy. 
 When the moment came that he could be alone with 
 the French Ambassador, the Emperor, leaning over 
 a table, buried his head in his hands, and tears came 
 to his relief. For a strong man it was a moment of 
 confidence not to be afterwards easily recalled. The 
 readers of 'Fleurange' will remember with what 
 intimate knowledge Mrs. Craven writes of that crisis 
 in her novel She was seventeen at the time, and had 
 already made friendships at the Russian Court which 
 ksted for life. In her Reminiscences ' she describes 
 ter impressions when Lord Francis Leveson Gower* 
 * Afterwards first Earl of EDesmere.
 
 1825] EMBASSY TO RUSSIA 7 
 
 and the Duke of Wellington arrived on a special 
 mission of congratulation to the Emperor Nicholas. 
 
 M. de la Ferronnays belonged to that school of 
 Liberals in France who, though loyal to the Bourbons, 
 did not anticipate, or even wish for, a return to the 
 social state which was shattered in 1789. He desired 
 reform and progress in the system of government, 
 as much to correct Napoleon's absolutism as to 
 satisfy the aspirations of a people at once stunned 
 and excited by the events of the Revolution and of 
 the Empire. He was anti-Turk and phil- Hellenic ; 
 opposed to Metternich, and equally opposed to 
 Canning, he represented France at the Congress 
 of Verona, and many of Mrs. Craven's sentiments 
 in after-life are doubtless traceable to her early habits 
 of feeling on these points. In 1827 M. de la Ferron- 
 nays returned to Paris and became Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs by the special request of Charles X. 
 In vain the ex- Ambassador pleaded his ignorance of 
 France, its parties, and its general policy, which had 
 resulted from his frequent and prolonged absences at 
 his post in Russia. He urged his unfitness to cope 
 with dangers he foresaw. 
 
 ' If there are dangers,' exclaimed the King, ' will 
 you refuse to share them with your friend ?' Further 
 objection became impossible, and a brilliant life at 
 the summit of Parisian society opened to Pauline de 
 la Ferronnays at nineteen. Any parents must have 
 rejoiced in such a daughter ; and there was no haste 
 to exile her, by marriage, from the happy home 
 presided over by her mother. Her intelligence had 
 been developed by the vicissitudes of her life. She
 
 8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1828 
 
 was reared in that piety which is the. inheritance of 
 well-born girls in France, and it had been strengthened 
 by the circumstances of her childhood. In her case 
 the ties which bind a mother and her child together 
 were drawn closer by the unlimited respect and the 
 full sympathy that always existed between Madame 
 de la Ferronnays and one who, dearly as she loved 
 all her children, was ever her favourite daughter. It 
 is not common to find so artistic, so enthusiastic a 
 character as Pauline's anchored by a mother's side 
 as she was. She threw her heart into all she had to 
 do with politics, religion, or social life ; ' grande 
 dame ' in all, too much so to conceal her remarkable 
 spontaneity, yet ever ' true to the kindred points of 
 heaven and home.' 
 
 The La Ferronnays family were at no time 
 enervated by secure wealth. The members of it 
 were trained to hardihood and sacrifice, and to a 
 certain elasticity in change which gave to some 
 among them that sense of pilgrimage on earth, and 
 .that habit of 'detachment,' which almost startles 
 readers of ' Le R6cit.' Their frequent changes of 
 fortune did much to knit their devotion to one 
 another. The identity of feeling and unreserve in 
 its expression, which is so rare and touching a note 
 in Mrs. Craven's narrative, is in some measure trace- 
 able to the pressure of circumstances which, when 
 their story was given to the world, made the group 
 
 ie describes standard-bearers for the Christians of 
 
 class. But a yet larger share in the attractive- 
 
 : home to each member of it, in their several 
 
 poi tions, is owing to the calm excellence, the tact
 
 1828] FRENCH SOCIETY FROM 1825 TO 1830 9 
 
 and sympathy ,,of Madame de la Ferronnays. Breton 
 ardour and spirituality, imagination and genius, were 
 not wasted, but, under her influence, raised the 
 members of her family to their singular beauty of 
 Christian life. 
 
 When Pauline was first launched on the society of 
 the Restoration, it was in its most sparkling effer- 
 vescence. Lamartine was the rising star of poetry, 
 eclipsing all former ones. Talleyrand and Chateau- 
 briand, in their tents, made their influence felt 
 through the rising journalist-statesmen of that 
 seething period. Even in religion the socialist 
 Catholicism of La Mennais seemed to be singing the 
 swan-song of the old order. Long-haired romanticists 
 of the Cenacle, and the yet remaining spectres of 
 the (Eil de Bceuf, were making those strange fusions 
 and confusions described by Stendhal and Balzac. In 
 politics M. de la Ferronnays and his friends, Hyde 
 de Neuville, Laine, and Martignac, thought that the 
 King should keep the pledges of the Charte, and from 
 him, no doubt, his daughter Pauline inherited a desire 
 that whatever was good in the Revolution of 1789 
 should be retained, and the legitimate rights of men 
 be developed in the best way. The air was full 
 of generous impulses and Utopian schemes. Re- 
 constructions were planned of all human institutions 
 from the Papacy to the Maison de Moliere. With 
 her keen sympathies, Mdlle. de la Ferronnays entered 
 into the burning thoughts of the day. Disputes in 
 all questions of art were especially interesting to her, 
 for she was an artist in temperament, but of that art 
 which always served religion as its first and final
 
 io LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1828 
 
 cause. Small and slight, her large dark eyes scanned 
 her wide horizons with a certain dignified reserve 
 until her sense of beauty, moral and material, 
 illumined them. In them was the dominant charm 
 of her countenance. Her smile was sweet, but it 
 showed a hint of satire when her good sense was 
 offended. She had beautiful teeth, perfect to the 
 last, but in her indescribable dignity and distinction 
 special criticism of perhaps too aquiline a nose, 
 and too long a head for her height, disappeared. At 
 Naples her young friends used to call hers ' il profile 
 del Dante ' ; but the charm of her expression removed 
 from it all the severity of the poet's face. The 
 carriage of her head, the grace of her pose and 
 gestures, were characteristic. Her decisive judgment 
 in every moral question, her energy of enthusiasm 
 for all noble thought and action, her instant appre- 
 ciation of social circumstance, were qualities that 
 sparkled on the surface of a faith, and hope, and love, 
 too profound to be stirred by superficial excitements. 
 To those she loved, and who knew her well, her 
 inner and mystic life could sometimes be seen 
 behind the veil of customary talk and every-day 
 pains and pleasures. Never was the epithet, a ' golden 
 voice,' better applied than to hers. Its modulations 
 were accordant with her words indignant, sym- 
 pathetic, or severe with changes that exactly suited 
 her meanings. In the cosmopolitan world she lived 
 in she only heard the best foreign idioms, and her 
 vocabulary was enriched by her acquaintance with 
 many tongues. Not that she confused them; but 
 her gift as a linguist enabled her to converse with
 
 1828] MRS. CRAVEN'S CONVERSATION 11 
 
 friends of such varying nationalities that her sym- 
 pathies were indefinitely widened. When she spoke 
 English or Italian she could not only use the intona- 
 tions, but enter into the habitual thoughts and 
 manners which were embodied in their idioms to 
 an extent that indeed was said to have impaired the 
 purity of her French. Her peculiar accuracy of 
 diction was rare. She spoke rapidly, yet every word 
 was well placed. In short, she possessed distinction 
 of style in speech which is a yet rarer gift than is 
 distinction of style in writing. Without conscious 
 effort her conversation was a fine art. 
 
 Possibly her love for English ways even then 
 inspired her claim to select a husband after her 
 own choice. More than one aspirant presented to 
 her by her parents was put aside with grace, but 
 decision. She had her happy place by her parents' 
 side. Her brothers and sisters thought of her as 
 of a wise oracle on all mundane subjects, until they 
 had tasted the world for themselves, and then she 
 became their tender confidante. 
 
 A slight attack of paralysis towards the end of 
 1828 warned M. de la Ferronnays that he must 
 for a time have rest, and he resigned his ministry 
 without regret. He did not approve the Royalist 
 drift towards the Ordonnances of 1830. At a later 
 period Mrs. Craven threw the main incidents of her 
 family's history, during 1829 and 1830, into a short 
 narrative. Our readers will probably remember 
 fragments of it given in ' Le Recit d'une Sceur.' 
 They are the best authority for her movements 
 during those years, though Mrs. Craven uses them
 
 12 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1828 
 
 merely as an introduction to the love-story of her 
 brother Albert and his wife : 
 
 ' Having left Paris in 1829, I proceeded to Italy 
 with my father, then seriously ill, and after my 
 mother and Eugenie had joined us, we established 
 ourselves at the Villa Civitella, near Lucca, intending 
 to spend the rest of the summer there. In the same 
 place, but in another house, thirteen years later, my 
 father and Eugenie spent the last summer of their 
 lives; but now, in 1829, long years of happiness seemed 
 to be in store for us. As I look back to this one 
 in particular, the first we spent in Italy, it ap- 
 pears to be radiant with enjoyment and delight. 
 Eugenie's governess had remained in Paris, and it 
 seemed to us as if for the first time in our lives 
 we were really together. Eugenie had always loved 
 me, but until the time I am speaking of she had 
 never felt perfectly at her ease with me. Then 
 began our close union begun never to cease. I 
 had been already in society, and amused myself 
 much in it. I was eager that she should accom- 
 pany me, but she shrank from going out, and wished 
 neither to see nor to be seen. Just at the time that 
 the Grand- Duke announced a ball at Marlia she hurt 
 her foot, and she was glad to think that the accident 
 might prevent her going to it. It was not so, 
 however ; she was able to go, and found the ball 
 less formidable than she had imagined. She was 
 amused, and so was I. Henceforward there were 
 no more pleasant parties for us, unless we both 
 went to them. 
 
 'We began to read together, and I read some
 
 1828] JOURNEY TO ROME 13 
 
 English poems aloud to her. She had always de- 
 clared that she was not sufficiently clever to enjoy 
 that kind of literature, and when she discovered how 
 thoroughly she appreciated everything that was 
 beautiful, she expressed her surprise with naivete, 
 pretending that it was I who had made her enjoy what 
 without me she would not have understood or valued 
 or loved. This fancy, which arose from her affection 
 for me and her low opinion of herself, is often re- 
 verted to in her letters in sweet and tender words, 
 which recall with touching vividness that epoch of 
 our lives of which she spoke as one of intense 
 happiness.' 
 
 When travelling in Northern Italy, M. de la Fer- 
 ronnays was nominated as Ambassador to Rome. 
 Mrs. Craven continues : 
 
 ' In January, my father started for Rome, with my 
 brother Charles and our young sister-in-law, his 
 wife ;* and I returned to Paris with our mother 
 and Eugenie, for the winter. It was only in April 
 that we set out to rejoin my father in Rome.' 
 
 A young Breton gentleman, afterwards known to 
 literary and aesthetic Europe as M. Rio, author of 
 'L'Art Chretien,' had attached himself to M. de la 
 Ferronnays with enthusiasm. In a semi-official post 
 as a student of art and antiquities, he was leaving 
 Paris for Rome at the same time as the Ambassador's 
 
 * Charles had married, in the preceding January, Emma de 
 Lagrange, youngest daughter of General Comte de Lagrange 
 and of Franchise de Talhouet, Comtesse de Lagrange. Her 
 two elder sisters were already married, one to the Due de 
 Cadore, the other to the Due d'Istrie.
 
 14 
 
 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1830 
 
 family. He strikes the dominant note of that rare 
 group so well that his first experience of it may be 
 recorded here. M. de la Ferronnays had sent him an 
 invitation to travel with his wife and children, with 
 whom M. Rio had not been before acquainted. He 
 writes : 
 
 ' It was Albert who brought me the good news, 
 and he who introduced me to his mother and sisters. 
 They were not less pleased than I was by the 
 prospect of a journey which was to bring us to 
 the Eternal City. We prepared ourselves as well 
 as we could by studies appropriate to the pleasures 
 before us. We became daily more impatient to see 
 the places and the objects which so worked on our 
 imagination. After we had crossed the Alps, we 
 travelled slowly, and my companions were persuaded 
 to stay at Pisa, that they might see the Campo 
 Santo, and at Florence, to visit the Pitti and Uffizi 
 galleries. We entered Rome by night, through the 
 Piazza del Popolo. The silence was only broken by 
 the dull roll of our wheels and the splashing of 
 fountains ; and when we had come to our journey's 
 end, prayer seemed a greater necessity than food or 
 sleep. Next morning our visit was paid where it was 
 rightfully due to the Basilica of St. Peter. The 
 Ambassador himself took us there, and he was, as 
 a father, glad to see traces of the emotions, for 
 which he looked. Those who know " Le Recit 
 d'une Soeur," ' continues M. Rio, ' may have a 
 feeble conception of what I felt. All the personages 
 of that drama, with the exception of her who is 
 its heroine, were then receiving impressions, the
 
 1830] M. RIO 15 
 
 varying depths of which were not sterile. Nothing 
 can be imagined more unlike ordinary experience 
 than the spontaneous and instinctive preferences of 
 that rare company.' 
 
 M. Rio was the oldest and the most learned of the 
 younger people, but he says that he ' received more 
 than he gave,' and recognised how infinitely more fruit- 
 ful is superiority of soul than excellence of intellect. 
 ' The harmony between gifts of knowledge and gifts 
 of grace was complete in that fortunate family,' he 
 continues. On the occasion of a visit to the Cata- 
 combs, he says : ' We had asked that we should be 
 unaccompanied by any official. Prayer and medita- 
 tion were imperative necessaries to those highly- 
 wrought souls whose levels I sought to reach. 
 Thanks to our solitude, I witnessed a scene which 
 attracted my attention as much as did the tombs 
 and emblems around me. My companions passed 
 slowly from sanctuary to sanctuary, and I tried to 
 guess what were their prayers, that I might join in 
 them. I almost envied the tears upon their cheeks 
 when their bowed heads were raised from the ground. 
 I had not shared their emotion, and as we went up 
 the steps by which we had come down, I was suffi- 
 ciently frivolous to wonder which of us could best 
 interpret the feelings I had witnessed. Literary 
 inexperience was rather desirable than otherwise for 
 the task.' With earnest promises of secrecy outside 
 her own family, M. Rio at last persuaded Mdlle. de la 
 Ferronnays to put some of her impressions on paper. 
 
 And so was written her first fragment of prose. 
 It did not remain as unknown as she had intended ;
 
 ,6 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA VEN [1830 
 
 she wrote in her ' Reminiscences ' (note, p. 173) : 
 ' Having taken up my pen in this way during one 
 hour in 1830, I laid it down not to use it again until 
 thirty-seven years later, when I ventured to publish 
 the memories which belonged to that period of my 
 life.' The Abb6 Gerbet not only published the im- 
 pressions Pauline had received in that visit to the 
 Catacombs in his periodical, L' University Catholique, 
 but in 1837 incorporated it in his ' Esquisses de 
 Rome Chrtienne.' Remarking how suggestive of 
 beautiful thought is a visit to the ancient Christian 
 haunts, he writes : 
 
 ' This characteristic seems to me admirably 
 stamped on the lines I am about to cite. They 
 were written by a young Christian girl of twenty,* 
 and they have their fitting place here. I am glad to 
 conclude this chapter on the ancient cemeteries of 
 the martyrs by a page which so well links modern 
 piety to that of the earlier time.' 
 
 We give but the conclusion of Mdlle. de la 
 Ferronnays' reflections : 
 
 ' We left the Catacombs by the stair that had been 
 used by the Christians. When I was on its steps, 
 the different impressions I had received in succession 
 broke on me in their fulness. The steps were the 
 same as those the martyrs trod on their way to 
 death. I longed to cast myself on the ground and 
 kiss their footprints. I longed to stay and weep 
 without stint. I felt that there I could have given 
 utterance to the feelings with which my heart was 
 full. Then I thought that the young girls who went 
 * Pauline was twenty-two.
 
 1830] VISIT TO THE CATACOMBS 17 
 
 up those slopes to die heroically saw me from their 
 height in heaven, and prayed for me who was so 
 little like them. I liked to think that they might 
 perceive in my heart the thoughts I could not articu- 
 late, and that perhaps they were patrons of my 
 prayer. I felt unworthy to place my feet where 
 theirs had been, and yet it was inexpressibly sweet 
 to me to follow the steps which they had gone up in 
 quietness and joy, such as I did not feel, to the death 
 that awaited them at the summit. 
 
 ' My soul overflowed with thoughts. I could not 
 resist the satisfaction of kissing those sacred stones 
 before I returned to the church. When again in it, 
 I knelt down and longed to remain there. I had felt 
 emotions never before experienced by me. I owed 
 them to the religion in which, happily, I was born. 
 I felt the need of thanksgiving and of prayer to God 
 that all my life should be an expression of my grati- 
 tude and of my love towards Him.' 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 II. 
 
 WHEN Pauline wrote thus, she was at, perhaps, the 
 brightest point of her worldly career. She had fully 
 entered into the excitements that the society of Paris 
 had given her. She had singular capacity for enjoy- 
 ment of all the beauty and pleasure of existence 
 under such favourable circumstances, and she had 
 just then a full cup of pleasure at her lips. She says 
 of the Palazzo Simonetti, then occupied by the 
 French Embassy : ' We did not long inhabit it, but 
 we were very happy there, and our thoughts often 
 reverted to that time, though our short stay in Rome 
 left slighter traces in our memory than those we 
 received there in after-years. But what fixed that 
 epoch in our thoughts were the events then close at 
 hand events which, contrary to our expectation, 
 suddenly terminated our delightful existence, and 
 the enjoyment of that high position of rank and 
 fortune. 
 
 ' In July we left Rome for Naples, for my father 
 was beginning to suffer from the heat, and was 
 ordered change of air. It had been at first settled 
 that he was to go alone, in which case our subse- 
 quent life would probably have turned out a very
 
 1830] REVOLUTION OF 1830 19 
 
 different one ; for if the news of the events of July 
 had reached us at Rome, we should probably have 
 left Italy immediately and never seen Naples at all. 
 As it was, we had all been settled there three weeks, 
 when tidings of the revolution of ' the three days,' 
 July 28, 29, and 30, burst upon us like a thunderbolt. 
 ' My father instantly sent in his resignation, and 
 we were all going back to Rome in order to pack up 
 our things and leave Italy altogether, when suddenly 
 my two little sisters, Olga and Albertine, fell so ill 
 that my mother was not able to leave them. Thus, 
 no plans could be made for the future, and every- 
 thing that had been arranged was unsettled. My 
 sister-in-law Emma and I accompanied my father to 
 Rome. Again after that short interval of three 
 weeks we beheld our home in the Palazzo Simonetti, 
 now half unfurnished and dismantled, and filled with 
 packages lying about in sad confusion. Some fine 
 horses and an open carriage, which had been sent 
 from Vienna for my father, were to be sold on the 
 morrow. We took our first' and last drive in it 
 round the walls of Rome. That evening was melan- 
 choly enough. I regretted Rome exceedingly, and, 
 even more, the pleasant kind of life which I had led 
 since my childhood, and which was then at an end 
 for me. But I was not sad for long. My father had 
 so accustomed us to the idea that the position in 
 which we had lived and its most brilliant accessories 
 depended on circumstances which might change any 
 day, that when the day came I felt as if I had always 
 expected it. I soon recovered my spirits and my 
 resolution to bear this reverse of fortune with firm-
 
 20 
 
 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1830 
 
 ness. I determined not to increase my father's sad- 
 ness by my own. He, indeed, suffered on our 
 account rather than on his own, and for France 
 even more than for himself or for us. 
 
 ' I returned to Naples in the beginning of Sep- 
 tember, delighted to rejoin my mother and Eug6nie, 
 whom we found established at Castellamare in a 
 little villa which I believe had been lent to us for a 
 time. It was not really uglier than many others, 
 but it seemed to us very dilapidated and wretched, 
 and a complete contrast to the home we had left. 
 The little room which I shared with Eugenie and 
 Emma was especially miserable, but it had so beauti- 
 ful an outlook that I could not be unhappy in it. 
 Nor were we unhappy. On the same story was a 
 gallery quite unfurnished, but from its many windows 
 we could see the bay and the mountains of Castella- 
 mare. We all brought our chairs and tables there, 
 Emma, Charles, Albert and I, and we passed our 
 mornings in reading, writing, talking, and much 
 laughter, notwithstanding the serious forecasts for 
 the future of which we often spoke. We could not 
 imagine what would happen to us. We fancied that 
 we might find ourselves in the same extreme poverty 
 which our parents had borne during the emigration, 
 and we made plans accordingly. Eugenie said that 
 she could teach music, and I thought that I might 
 be governess to very young children.' 
 
 Pauline had a special capacity for enjoyment, 
 even in trifles. ' How I am amused !' she often ex- 
 claimed in much later life, and she had the wit, 
 which is too rare, to lay up stores of future amuse-
 
 1830] SPECIAL TASTES 21 
 
 ment from passing incidents. ' How I shall amuse 
 myself by the thought of this !' was her not infre- 
 quent observation. Yet at this juncture of her life 
 she must have been the most tried of her brothers 
 and sisters. She knew best what her parents felt, 
 and, fond of politics as she was, she understood the 
 loyal sacrifice her father had made in leaving a public 
 career which was still open to him, and in which his 
 patriotism would have found abundant opportunities 
 for good, to follow the fortune of the child who was 
 heir to the elder branch of the Bourbons. Though 
 the words written after her visit to the Catacombs 
 reflect her profounder feelings, Pauline de la Ferron- 
 nays was not ascetic by temperament. It was in later 
 life that she learned, not only the bracing value, but 
 the sweetness of self-conquest. What was distin- 
 guished and beautiful delighted her artist nature, in 
 the details of human environment, from the fittings 
 of a dressing-case to the treasures of the Vatican. 
 Few people felt so vividly the charm of magnificence 
 in furniture or gardens or costume. She liked to 
 possess pretty things, but they were equally pleasant 
 to her when they belonged to others. She seemed 
 to move in ideal scenes, yet scenes of intensely 
 human interest. In all her books her stage is 
 spacious and well furnished. Yet her delight in 
 splendour was but such as Catholics love to see in 
 their churches the appropriate dress of a resplen- 
 dent personality. 
 
 The words written after her visit to the Cata- 
 combs represented her profoundest feelings. She 
 linked, as M. Rio had observed, the faith of the
 
 22 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1830 
 
 Catacombs with fullest perception of every noble 
 after-growth from its roots. Her sense of the 
 dignities of human life made her dwell on their 
 manifestation and setting. To the last, the author 
 of ' Le R6cit d'une Sceur ' was careful that her dress 
 should be as perfect, her drawing-room as well 
 arranged, as she could afford. In Italy she found 
 her aesthetic nature most at home. In England her 
 enthusiasm for honesty and truth was gratified ; in 
 Paris her heart beat most quickly. No one who 
 reads ' Le Re~cit ' can forget how strong were family 
 ties for her as for all her relations. In her letters 
 we see how her patriotism suffered from the mis- 
 management of public life by inefficient leaders, and 
 how she rejoiced in every return to what she con- 
 ceived the better path. She was as sensitive to 
 visible environment as she was faithful to the in- 
 visible realities of life. 
 
 The charm of Castellamare soothed her in her 
 keen sense of reverse, and in her own family she 
 found interests that compensated for her temporary 
 social eclipse. Her brother Albert was especially 
 dear to her. He was nineteen, and even in feature 
 he must have been like her. He had her large dark 
 eyes, and they were bright with many of the same 
 enthusiasms. M. Rio writes of him in 1830 : ' In 
 consequence of a long illness and a yet longer con- 
 valescence his education had been necessarily de- 
 layed. Before he went to Rome he seemed as if he 
 were hardly yet ripe for the means of spiritual pro- 
 gress which residence at Rome offers to souls pre- 
 pared for it. In him, however, were buds so ready
 
 1830] ALBERTS CHARACTER 23 
 
 to blossom that it needed but slight help from a 
 friendly hand to develop the spiritual flower of his 
 after-life.' At that time Albert was intended for dip- 
 lomacy, and was an attache in his father's short- 
 lived embassy. M. de la Ferronnays was a vigorous 
 Breton who had known the extreme vicissitudes of 
 life, and he was somewhat impatient of the delicate 
 health which had impeded his son's education. He 
 disliked all that to him seemed sentimental or 
 exaggerated in any of his children ; and not until 
 later did he sympathize with their fervent piety, and 
 their habitual existence in regions higher than those 
 of ordinary life. 
 
 M. Rio throws supplementary light on ' Le Recit ' 
 when he describes Albert after the change in his 
 father's position : 
 
 * A great trial and a great shock were required to 
 reveal the treasures latent in his soul, treasures of 
 affection, of intellect and of pious resignation. 
 Dating from the catastrophe which cast his family 
 down from the highest diplomatic rank, his corre- 
 spondence, which had been superficial and purpose- 
 less, became serious. He profoundly regretted his in- 
 ability to help his family. He was eager to study 
 and to work.' M. Rio proposed that he should for 
 a time act as tutor to the young man. M. de la 
 Ferronnays could not at that moment come to a 
 decision, but meantime he wrote : ' The resignation 
 and the courage with which my children submit to 
 the sacrifices of all kinds which result from the 
 course I pursue are at once a consolation for me and 
 a source of pride. A family such as I have the
 
 2 4 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1830 
 
 honour to possess makes a man strong to meet 
 misfortune. Do not, then, pity me too much.' 
 
 In their difficulties their home never became 
 gloomy. Their own love-light kept shadows at bay, 
 and it was Pauline's task as elder daughter and 
 sister to think of others' happiness rather than her 
 own. A very special devotion to her mother, as 
 specially returned, was a principal trait in both. 
 
 ' My mother, my dear mother,' she wrote, ' loved 
 us all with great tenderness, but Eugenie was right 
 when she declared that if in her mother's heart there 
 was a preference, it was perhaps for me. I returned 
 her love by a more absolute trustfulness and a 
 warmth of affection greater than that of any other of 
 her children.' 
 
 In following the first years of Mrs. Craven's 
 career, it is almost impossible to avoid constant 
 reference to ' Le Re"cit d'une Sceur.' Few readers 
 could follow any delineation of her character who 
 did not know something of its training, and no reve- 
 lation of it could equal her own. 
 
 Even from her narrative, in which she stands so 
 shadowed by her humility in the background, it is 
 clear that Pauline, in her strong vitality, had a wider 
 range of sympathies than had her brother Albert and 
 her sisters. Few persons have employed their 
 powers in so many and such varying directions. 
 Few have the imaginative faculty which she used in 
 habitually rising above her daily pains or pleasures, 
 very real as they were, to wider horizons political or 
 ecclesiastical, literary or social. She did not avoid 
 pleasure or what is called the world ' ; in it she
 
 1831] LA FERRONNAYS SETTLE AT NAPLES 25 
 
 was gayest of the gay, but it remained subservient 
 to her for a hundred good purposes. 
 
 It was not extraordinary that M. de la Ferronnays 
 should find friends and help to tide over his im- 
 mediate necessities, nor that his family should not for 
 long be suffered to exile themselves from society. 
 Instead of the solitude they had looked forward to, it 
 was so arranged that in January, 1831, the La Ferron- 
 nays found themselves settled for the winter in an 
 apartment near the beautiful palace of Sir Richard 
 Acton on the Chiaja, of which his mother then did 
 the honours.* 
 
 Lady Acton was an old friend of Pauline's parents, 
 and as she linked whatever was best of Neapolitan 
 with English society, her circle was extremely 
 brilliant in that brilliant time. There were a great 
 many young people in it who danced and sang 
 and acted on the private stage and in tableaux 
 vivants. 
 
 In a note to the page of her ' Recit ' in which 
 Mrs. Craven speaks of Albert's journey to Rome 
 with M. de Montalembert she reminds us who were 
 those friends they were to meet there, and on how 
 memorable an occasion. It has been said that two 
 fragments of literature will never cease to be read 
 the prophecies of Isaiah and the Avenir. It was 
 a daily paper, the Don Quixote of journals, of which 
 the first number appeared on October 16, 1830, not 
 
 * Sir Richard Acton was son of Sir John Acton, the famous 
 minister of Ferdinand I., King of Naples. He married in 
 1831 a daughter of the Due de Dalberg, and the present Lord 
 Acton is their son.
 
 2 6 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1832 
 
 three months after the rout of Charles X. and his 
 reactionary Ministers. Its programme, published in 
 August, fixed the attention of all devout Catholics. 
 It was the organ of the Abbe de La Mennais (as 
 then he spelt his name), and for assistants he had 
 the Abbe's Lacordaire and Gerbet, and Montalem- 
 bert for his chief lay disciple. Some, but not all of 
 those who may read these pages, will estimate 
 rightly the influence wielded by La Mennais at that 
 time over all enthusiastic and religious minds. The 
 first volume of his ' Essai sur 1' Indifference ' was 
 well said to have been ' an earthquake under a 
 leaden sky ' ; the second was a glittering temple for 
 all mankind to use in worship ; unhappily, its bases 
 were on shifting sands. 
 
 But that drawback was not at first recognised even 
 at Rome. Fed by such books as Chateaubriand's 
 ' Genie du Christianisme,' by De Maistre's ' Con- 
 side' rations sur la France,' prepared by those 
 discussions on the Vicomte de Donald's system of 
 traditional certainty which had paved the way for 
 La Mennais' doctrine of ' general consent ' as a secure 
 basis of faith, of all which she must at least have 
 heard, Pauline de la Ferronnays' enthusiasm can be 
 gauged. It would have been impossible for her 
 ardent intelligence to have remained indifferent in 
 the conflict between Gallican Jansenism and Ultra- 
 montane Unity. French ecclesiastics had been 
 enslaved by Napoleon, and galvanized into a worn- 
 out life by the Bourbons. M. de la Ferronnays had 
 questioned methods of government which made 
 Church and State alike unpopular.
 
 1832] THE 'AVENIR' 27 
 
 Faithful as he was to the monarchy, he was not 
 ignorant of the drift of the times, as the Polignacs of 
 the day seemed to be when they met the revolu- 
 tionary ferment by autocratic decrees. 
 
 When churches were sacked, and crosses trampled 
 under foot, and cassocks insulted by the populace 
 throughout France, it was evident, and perhaps most 
 evident to those who had Christianity most at heart, 
 that there must be a change in the ways its interests 
 were served. We cannot doubt but that the Avenir 
 was read by every member of the family at Castella- 
 mare, and perhaps most eagerly by Pauline. In its 
 first sixteen numbers there were five articles of La 
 Mennais, two by the Abbe Gerbet, perhaps his most 
 intimate and attached disciple, and seven by 
 Lacordaire. Just then Montalembert, a boy of 
 twenty-one, was in Ireland observing the power of 
 O'Connell over the Irish Catholics. He wrote to 
 La Mennais offering his services in the cause of 
 democratic Ultramontanism. It was at that time a 
 correct designation of the party. European nations 
 were to be rebaptized into the pure Roman faith, 
 which was to be infallibly expounded by the Vicar of 
 Christ. European democracies must as a pre- 
 liminary be educated. The old system of uni- 
 versities and State endowment must be overthrown, 
 as had been feudalism and the Court of Versailles in 
 1789. There were prophets in the land, and M. de 
 Montalembert writes of that year : ' Our generation 
 can form no idea of the strong and generous emo- 
 tions which then set hearts on fire.' Twelve months 
 later, and just before the suppression of the Avenir,
 
 28 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA VEN [1832 
 
 Lacordaire wrote to a friend: 'Though the period 
 was short, nothing can take away the joy of the year 
 we have spent. It will remain for ever in my 
 thoughts as a virgin who is just dead.' 
 
 When the three active editors of the paper found 
 their ideas challenged by ecclesiastical authority, they 
 determined to go to Rome and submit themselves to 
 the Supreme Pontiff. It was a unique pilgrimage. 
 Afterwards it was said, and probably with unhappy 
 truth, that the Abbe" La Mennais meant to 'dominate 
 Rome from the height of his obedience ' ; but 
 Lacordaire and Montalembert were sincere in their 
 appeal to the Confirmateur infaillible, as, three 
 centuries before, St. Francis de Sales had described 
 the successor of Peter. 
 
 That Albert de la Ferronnays should be admitted 
 to the friendship of these paladins of Christian liberty 
 was already a proof of his high qualities of intellect 
 and enthusiasm for noble aims. It is difficult to 
 doubt that the companionship of his sister Pauline 
 had encouraged it. 
 
 Meantime she continued at Naples her happy 
 social life. She is mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in 
 his Diary, and she enters into the legend of Neapoli- 
 tan enchantments for all who can recall the impres- 
 sion she and her family left even on the children of 
 their acquaintances. In her ' Recit ' Mrs. Craven 
 at this point devotes herself henceforward to the 
 history of Albert's and Alexandrine's love, and leaves 
 all other subjects in the shade, the better to enhance 
 its marvellous beauty. We get but fragments of her 
 correspondence with her brother ; we hear no more of
 
 1832] ALEXANDRINE D' A LOPE US 29 
 
 her iridescent life. She keeps the attention of her 
 readers fixed on the successive tragedies interwoven 
 in the texture of her narrative, if, indeed, suffering 
 and death are ever really tragic, when, beyond all, 
 is the vista of fuller life. There is, perhaps, a more 
 pathetic interest in her own attitude as she follows 
 her beloved to their graves with such tender care 
 and reverence. As she portrays their beautiful souls 
 we know how she felt herself what beauty is. A 
 common possession of their faith and love gives that 
 truth to her story before which incredulity retires 
 abashed. 
 
 She was the comfort and stay of Albert. She was 
 the first link formed between him and Alexandrine 
 d'Alopeus. That he was Mdlle. de la Ferronnays' 
 brother was a favourable introduction when the 
 lovers first met at Rome. When Alexandrine 
 arrived at Naples, Albert's first care was to fetch 
 Pauline to meet her friend, and Alexandrine wrote 
 that night in her journal : ' I thank Thee, my God, 
 I am at Naples and I have seen Pauline de la 
 Ferronnays.' 
 
 It is to be taken almost for granted that the 
 readers of this memoir know the story of Albert's 
 passion ; and few proofs of Mrs. Craven's art are 
 stronger than the skill with which she lingers on 
 what Sully Prudhomme rightly calls le meilleur 
 moment des amours 
 
 ' Ou les respects sont des aveux.' 
 
 The following November M. de la Ferronnays at 
 last consented to his son's marriage with Mdlle.
 
 30 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1833 
 
 d'Alopeus. He was naturally anxious about the 
 young people's future. Albert seemed disinclined to 
 persevere in a diplomatic career ; and his enthusiasms, 
 his ideals of life, even his close friendship with the 
 leaders of the religious revival in France, seemed 
 unfavourable in his father's eyes to the stability of 
 character and purpose which M. de la Ferronnays 
 wished for him. 
 
 We who know the sequel can see how Albert's few 
 years of life justified and ennobled the effervescence 
 of his boyhood. He had the martyr fever on him, 
 the 'devotion to something afar from the sphere of 
 his ' sorrow ' afar, yet sometimes within touch, with 
 sudden vision that it only is real, and our daily round 
 of toil and moil a dream. Echoing St. Augustine he 
 could exclaim, 'Tout ce qui finit est si court,' and 
 find the world wearisome ' qui n'a de grand a vous 
 offrir que le vide.' 
 
 He had the thirst of Longfellow's Alpine climber 
 for the heights of human life, not always, indeed not 
 often, visible to dwellers on its levels, however esti- 
 mable, and indeed necessary, workers they may be 
 in the general advance of humanity. In balancing 
 her brother's use of the ' horse with wings that would 
 have flown ' with her father's sober step on the high- 
 way of ordinary life, Mrs. Craven's skill is shown. 
 She sympathized with both, and though she says 
 little of her part in harmonizing the relations of 
 father and son, it is clear that her tact and breadth 
 of thought smoothed many of the difficulties in the 
 way of Albert's and Alexandrine's marriage. Mdlle. 
 d'Alopeus was a Lutheran ; but absolute charity
 
 1833] MRS. CRAVEN'S TOLERANCE 31 
 
 towards individuals who differed from her in creed, if 
 only they were sincere, at all times characterized 
 Pauline. She had, indeed, the rarer gift which sees 
 the good in differing tastes, differing assumptions, 
 differing standards of conduct. She never questioned 
 the piety of others though they were agreeable and 
 well dressed, any more than she doubted the sincerity 
 of the more Puritan. She appeared to live above the 
 distinctions of coteries, free to move from one to the 
 other, and to find beauty and good in a very varied 
 experience. 
 
 She loved society ; the world had an attraction 
 for her, but she suffered no deterioration in its 
 eddies. Rather, she shone in them by a certain 
 ready fusion of social elements into gold as she 
 touched them.
 
 [32 1 
 
 III. 
 
 THE winter of 1833-34 was an important one for 
 Pauline; she was frequently in the society of her 
 future husband, Mr. Augustus Craven, and by the 
 growth she so well knew how to describe in the love 
 of Albert and Alexandrine she could measure the 
 progress of her own. For many years Mr. Keppel 
 Craven had lived at Naples. He was the second 
 son of that Margravine of Anspach who had been 
 Lady Craven, and who has left the world an account 
 of her career. The Margrave of Anspach was one 
 of those German princes who conditionally ceded 
 their sovereignties to their greater neighbours after 
 the French Revolution had broken down the old 
 order of Europe. In her widowhood the Margravine 
 lived at Naples in considerable state, and on her 
 death she left Mr. Keppel Craven a palace on the 
 Chiatamone, a villa at Posilippo, and a castle sur- 
 rounded by forest near Salerno. The post held by 
 Mr. Keppel Craven in the household of Queen 
 Caroline is known to all readers of Court annals 
 during George IV. 's reign. He had been the un- 
 happy Princess's most constant and prudent friend 
 as well as servant. He had shielded her on many
 
 1834] MR. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN 33 
 
 occasions from the consequences of her own reckless- 
 ness in the management of her affairs. His son 
 Augustus was born in 1806, and much of his child- 
 hood was passed at Brandenburg House. The boy's 
 birth remained always a mystery, and while he was 
 the pet of his grandmother, the Margravine of 
 Anspach, his mother's name remained unknown. 
 While yet but a boy he was gazetted to a commission 
 in the line, and was sent to Gibraltar to join his 
 regiment. In 1830 he left the army and was 
 appointed attache to the British Legation at Naples, 
 where society welcomed cordially the extremely 
 handsome and accomplished young man, for his own 
 sake not less than for his father's. Mr. Keppel 
 Craven, the intimate friend, as well as colleague in 
 Queen Caroline's service, of Sir William Cell, had 
 the same taste for art and antiquities. He had 
 gathered about him an intellectually as well as 
 socially distinguished circle ; and in it, of course, the 
 La Ferronnays were of the first rank. It may be 
 imagined how well suited Augustus Craven was to 
 please Pauline de la Ferronnays, for he had her 
 artistic sense. He loved Italy and Dante as she 
 did, and he had been so much in very varied but 
 very cosmopolitan society that they had a great deal 
 in common. The circumstance which chiefly at first 
 attracted her was his sympathy for all things Catholic, 
 whether mediaeval or modern. He was ready to 
 respect her Church. He was a student, and he 
 recognised the share that it could claim in the 
 noblest Italian traditions. He was readily converted 
 to the standards of life which he recognised in the 
 VOL. i. 3
 
 3 4 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA VEN [1834 
 
 La Ferronnays family. They were new to him, and 
 no one better than he could appreciate the group 
 which counted in its composition Albert and 
 Alexandrine, Pauline and Eugenie. 
 
 Mdlle. de la Ferronnays was at the time ot 
 courtship much occupied by hopes and fears for the 
 'Alberts,' as she used to call her brother and 
 Alexandrine, and she was slow to be won. Religious 
 differences were then more real than they are now, 
 and Mr. Keppel Craven was violently anti-Catholic, 
 however socially liberal, when there was a question 
 of his son's marriage. The difficulties seemed to 
 deepen the affection of Pauline. It became more 
 serious, and almost without knowing it she found 
 herself in love. Mr. Keppel Craven threatened to 
 disinherit his son, and though the La Ferronnays 
 had assented to Albert's marriage with a Lutheran, 
 they could not easily agree to give their brilliant and 
 beloved daughter to a man with an uncertain future 
 and of a different faith. Augustus Craven, in reply 
 to his father's menaces, respectfully but firmly 
 asserted his English freedom to obey his conscience 
 whatever might be the consequences, and his courage 
 no doubt impressed Pauline's imagination. His father 
 withdrew his opposition, and after some months of 
 constraint and doubt the lovers were engaged. Mr. 
 Keppel Craven settled on them a yearly sum equiva- 
 lent to 532. It represented a capital of 17,066, 
 which was to revert to the settler in case of his sur- 
 viving the young people. Mr. Keppel Craven died in 
 1851, and, with other property, left his son residuary 
 legatee as regarded his interest in this fund.
 
 1834] MR. CRAVEN BECOMES A CATHOLIC 35 
 
 At that time no Newman had led a Tractarian 
 movement, and the political aspects of the recent 
 Catholic emancipation in England had roused much 
 bitterness of feeling, particularly in the class to 
 which Mr. Craven belonged. In the eyes of Bridge- 
 water House, for instance, where he was a friend, 
 the change from Anglicanism to Popery was a loss 
 of caste. To face it was almost to destroy success 
 in any English career. To belong to the old English 
 Catholic families was in itself a singularity ; to be a 
 convert was strange weakness amounting to dis- 
 loyalty. For obvious reasons, though Augustus 
 Craven was already in full accord with the faith of 
 Pauline, it was thought well that his formal recon- 
 ciliation with the Roman Church should follow and 
 not precede his marriage. His change was not 
 because of any discovery of Anglican inadequacy, 
 but rather of admiration for Catholic life and 
 Catholic standards ; not perhaps a result of contro- 
 versy so much as an aspiration for higher levels of 
 life. 
 
 Albert and Alexandrine were married on April, 17, 
 1834. ' A few days later,' writes Pauline, 'we joined 
 them at Castellamare, where they were established 
 in a charming house. It was in the course of that 
 summer that I was married, and the event interested 
 the dear people around me very nearly as much as it 
 did myself. Happy days followed that on which 
 my marriage was finally decided. The joy of Albert 
 and Alexandrine seemed a foretaste and a pledge of 
 our own, while ours completed theirs. The serious 
 thoughts which necessarily preoccupied us during
 
 3 6 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1834 
 
 those days were also brightened by Fernand's gaiety; 
 and Eugenie in her tender devotion and sympathy 
 was as lively as a bird, and as bright as a sunbeam. 
 We generally finished the evenings in Charles and 
 Emma's room, whose cordial goodwill was all we 
 could wish it to be. I think my father and mother 
 had never been so fully satisfied in the love of their 
 children, nor ever had they tasted such calm happi- 
 ness as in seeing us all round them. We had 
 reached the summit of earthly content, and it must 
 be owned never was summit gilded with a brighter 
 light. If ever it could be said of happiness that its 
 brightness could not last, it might have been said of 
 ours. It was during that time that Eugenie ex- 
 claimed, "How lovely is life ! what, then, can heaven 
 be ? Is death better than all this ?" 
 
 Yet Death completes the beauty of human life, for 
 
 ' The dusky strand of death inwoven here 
 With dear Love's tie, makes Love himself more dear.' 
 
 A letter written a few days later by Albert to the 
 Abb6 Martin de Noirlieu,* says : 
 
 1 1 hope you have received a letter from my sister Pauline. 
 If it has not reached you, I will repeat the news it contained. 
 In it she told you of her approaching marriage, with which 
 we are all pleased. It may, perhaps, seem strange that such 
 zealous Catholics as we are should marry Protestants ; but 
 we have reason to thank God if He makes use of us to bring 
 others to love the Church and the true faith. There is 
 no vanity in saying this, for our share in these conversions 
 is but very indirect, and they would have taken place with- 
 
 * Appointed assistant tutor to the Comte de Chambord by 
 Charles X., and later Cure of St. Louis d'Antin in Paris.
 
 1834] MARRIAGE 37 
 
 out our co-operation. My future brother-in-law is a Catho- 
 lic in heart, and he will be received into the Church soon 
 after his marriage. It is only on account of the false inter- 
 pretations which might be given to this act that he delays it 
 for the present,' 
 
 On August 24, 1834, Monsignor Porta united 
 Augustus Craven to Pauline de la Ferronnays, in 
 the chapel of the Acton Palace at Naples. The Pro- 
 testant rite followed, and the same day they started 
 for Rome. Mrs. Craven in 1830 had received the 
 benediction of the reigning Pontiff, Pius VIII.; now, 
 four years later, she was with her husband admitted 
 to the garden of the Quirinal eight days after their 
 marriage, and they were blessed by Gregory XVI. 
 Again she did homage in 1850 to Pius IX. at Portici, 
 near Naples, where he had sought a refuge from the 
 Revolution of 1848. At that moment the Pope was the 
 rising sun of many of her Liberal friends, who had in 
 France at least successfully laboured in the orderly 
 evolution of Christian faith and morals. ' Three dates,' 
 as Mrs. Craven writes, ' mark important crises in my 
 life. In 1830, when for the first time my parents took 
 me with them to the Vatican and we entered the pre- 
 sence of the Pope, I little knew how rare in life are 
 the days when we are conscious of boundless happi- 
 ness. I was too young to foresee the clouds that 
 might overshadow it, but old enough to enjoy the 
 pleasure of the day in its fulness. The effect Rome 
 had on me during my first stay there had been, I may 
 say, extraordinary, though I had not then sufficient 
 experience to measure the very different elements 
 which made up the magic of the scene. I felt it to
 
 38 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1834 
 
 the full as for the first time I went up the stairs of 
 the Vatican. I seemed to walk on sun-gilt clouds. 
 I remember that at the beginning of 1830 the word 
 "revolution" had for me only a historical sense. The 
 thing itself seemed as distant as the Crusades, the 
 medieval " truce of God," or ordeal by combat. I 
 often wondered to myself how people could live in 
 those days. When four years later I knelt at the 
 feet of Gregory XVI., my dreams were over, and 
 when I for the first time received from Pius IX., 
 in his exile, another Papal benediction, I asked 
 myself, as I still ask, if we shall ever see the end of 
 that fatal period [of revolution], which has lasted a 
 century. The hour of illusion which passed across 
 my youth was as quickly over as a gleam of sun in a 
 stormy day.' 
 
 Before they left Rome, Mrs. Craven had the joy 
 of seeing her husband received into the Church ; and 
 in October they rejoined her family at Naples, and 
 settled near them in an apartment of the Palazzo 
 Serra-Capriola on the Chiaja. 
 
 In a letter written at that time Albert said of Mr. 
 Craven's conversion : ' He has changed his religion, 
 but not the least from the motives the world ascribes. 
 Neither my father, my mother, nor Pauline would 
 have approved of this step, if such unworthy motives 
 had prompted it. An act like his would be exceed- 
 ingly impious, if it were not the result of thorough 
 conviction. While I feel that the dictates of con- 
 science are imperative when once we perceive the 
 truth to be on one side and not on the other, so I 
 blame and earnestly deprecate conversions based on
 
 1835] LA FERRONNAYS SETTLE AT BOURY 39 
 
 human considerations, whether of interest or affec- 
 tion.' 
 
 Sir William Temple was at that time British 
 Minister at Naples, and his young attache was petted 
 both by him and by his brother, Lord Palmerston. 
 Mr. Craven's diplomatic duties were chiefly social, 
 but no doubt both Mr. and Mrs. Craven laid then the 
 foundation of their heartfelt sympathy with Neapolitan 
 reformers, and meditated not in vain on their Dante's 
 rebuke of cruelty and corruption in high places. 
 Writers of the best class, poets and philosophers, 
 English Whigs and Frenchmen who were believers 
 in the Revolution of 1789, met in Mrs. Craven's 
 drawing-room, where the air was already charged with 
 the enthusiasms of Lacordaire and Montalembert, and 
 of Gerbet, who had not yet entirely dissociated him- 
 self from the falling star, La Mennais. It was a de- 
 lightful arena for the perpetual Fronde that is kept up 
 between old and new ideas in each generation. 
 
 In 1835 the La Ferronnays circle was broken up. 
 Mme. d'Alopeus, Alexandrine's beautiful mother, 
 was in Russia with her new husband, Prince 
 Lapoukhyn. Montigny, M. de La Ferronnays' pro- 
 perty in Touraine, had been sold, and Boury, in a 
 bleak part of Normandy, near Gisors, replaced it. 
 It was decided that his family home should be there. 
 After his death in 1842, Boury was resold, and to 
 purchasers who cared little for the tastes and relics 
 of the family. Fortunately it came many years later 
 into the possession of its present owners, and it is 
 again in nearly the same condition as in 1842. The 
 mausoleum of the La Ferronnays family is well cared
 
 40 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA YEN [1836 
 
 for, and to the mortal remains of Albert and Alexan- 
 drine are now added those of Mr. and Mrs. Craven. 
 
 From the ' R6cit d'une Soeur ' we get but little infor- 
 mation about its author, Mrs. Craven. Albert and 
 Alexandrine but lifted a corner of the veil in which 
 Pauline enshrouds herself, as they passed through 
 Naples on their way from Pisa to Korsen, in the 
 Crimea, where Alexandrine's mother, Princess 
 Lapoukhyn, lived with her husband in great magnifi- 
 cence. The sea- voyage, it was hoped, would be good 
 for Albert, whose health gave his family uneasiness, 
 though without definite fear of the consumption 
 which was rapidly gaining ground. Alexandrine went 
 with Pauline while at Naples to a party at the 
 Duchessa San Teodoro's. It was her last amuse- 
 ment of that sort in Pauline's company. She 
 mentions some slight impatience she showed to 
 Albert, and how next day she went ' to confess her 
 crime to Pauline, who laughed heartily.' 
 
 In 1836 Mr. Craven brought his wife to England. 
 Albert and Alexandrine had arrived at Venice, 
 whither he had been ordered by doctors. It was 
 hoped that its calming air and influences might at 
 least prolong his life. We can imagine the alter- 
 nating grief and gaiety of Mrs. Craven's life while 
 those letters of hers were written, which she has 
 printed in ' Le Recit.' What intensity of prayer must 
 have been hers as death came closer to her dearest 
 brother, and as Alexandrine crossed the narrowing 
 line which separated her from Albert's faith ! 
 
 In Mrs. Craven's ' Reminiscences,' published some 
 forty years later, we see in extracts from her journal
 
 1836] FIRST VISIT TO ENGLAND 41 
 
 how on her arrival in London she was at once placed 
 in the innermost temple of English society. The 
 Cravens arrived in April, 1836, and their first visit 
 was to Sir Thomas Hardy, then Governor of Green- 
 wich Hospital, where they stayed a short time. 
 
 To the charming society of Bridgewater House, 
 which included both Mr. Charles and Mr. Henry 
 Greville, they were heartily and at once welcomed 
 with an affection that lasted as long as its members 
 lived. We know much of it through the Greville 
 Memoirs. They show us as in a mirror the politics, 
 the interests, the fashions, whether of thought or 
 manners, which, with her readiness to reflect the 
 best and brightest hues of her environment, Mrs. 
 Craven made her own. 
 
 The life of Pauline at this time is a striking 
 instance of the dual existence which was so fre- 
 quently hers. Readers of ' Le Recit ' will remem- 
 ber the letters written to and by her when Albert's 
 life was flickering away. Every member of her 
 family leant on her judgment, even when she was 
 absent, and in their several griefs sought for her 
 sympathy. 
 
 ' Pray for me more than ever, my Pauline, for I 
 pray badly,' was the frequent appeal of Alexandrine. 
 
 Again, Eugenie writes from Venice : 
 
 ' My Pauline, how sad you are ! but, thank God, 
 you know how to pray. There is, after all, no 
 sorrow without comfort ; for we can always pray, 
 and in prayer there is endless solace.' 
 
 The dying man reached Paris with his family, 
 having been travelling by slow stages from April 10
 
 42 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN ^[1836 
 
 to May ii. In those moments of highest tension 
 every member of her family turned to Pauline 
 for comprehension and sympathy. On May 28, 
 Eugenie writes to her : 
 
 ' Pauline, to-morrow Alexandrine will be a Catholic 
 and you are not here ! What can ever make up 
 for this ? If even you could be here on Thursday ! 
 I have some hope you will. Thursday she receives 
 her first communion. In the midst of our sorrows, 
 dearest, there are great joys. How can we complain 
 when we have such causes for thanksgiving ? I shall 
 not write any more, for I look forward to having you 
 before this letter reaches you. Well, good-bye, if 
 you do receive it. I love you even more than in 
 the days of our loving childhood. God bless our 
 Alexandrine to-morrow !' 
 
 Though she did not know him personally, it was 
 to the Abb6 Gerbet that Alexandrine looked for 
 spiritual advice. The La Ferronnays had many 
 friends among the more distinguished French 
 clergy, and particularly of that school formed by 
 La Mennais before his rebellion and fall. The 
 Abb6 Gerbet was the last of his disciples to forsake 
 him, and his influence, as one who had been in 
 happier days La Mennais' second self, largely 
 coloured Mrs. Craven's opinions throughout her 
 life. Gerbet had been, as it were, the master of the 
 semi-religious house of La Chesnaie when La Men- 
 nais was Provost. He has been called the David of 
 that intellectually towering Saul. Maurice de Guerin 
 wrote of him to his sister Eugenie, and Eugenie 
 asked for his advice in encouraging her taste for
 
 1836] LA MENNAIS AND GERBET 43 
 
 poetry. He reassured her with all the more confi- 
 dence that he had himself written poetry and it 
 is as beautiful as it is pious. He had delicate health, 
 and Maurice de Guerin describes him as habitually 
 silent. He was pale, his forehead ample, with dark 
 hair and fine eyes that showed sadness and pain ; 
 ' he was the sweetest and most suffering of men.' 
 
 La Mennais appreciated the art of music, but 
 Gerbet could sing with a beauty and expression 
 that roused all that was best in his listeners, and 
 that could never be forgotten by his hearers. When 
 La Mennais outraged the Catholic Church by his 
 ' Paroles d'un Croyant,' Gerbet, with a heart half 
 broken, wrote eloquently to refute it. ' I fall on my 
 knees when I think of him,' he exclaimed, ' and I 
 offer for him prayers, in which he has no longer any 
 faith, and I only rise from them to condemn in the 
 friend of my life the enemy of all that I love with an 
 eternal devotion.' 
 
 The Abbe Gerbet remained a leader for many of 
 the young men who could no longer follow La 
 Mennais ; but it was as a writer rather than as the 
 head of a party that he was henceforth known, until, 
 in 1854, ne became Bishop of Perpignan. He was 
 the founder, with his friend the Abbe Salinis, after- 
 wards Bishop of Amiens, of a college which might 
 be called a school of reconciliation between religion 
 and science between old and new truths ; though in 
 later life Gerbet had much to do with, if he did not 
 actually arrange, the celebrated syllabus. The first 
 number of his literary organ, called L'Universite 
 Catholique, was published in January, 1836, and
 
 44 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRA VEN [1836 
 
 there is little doubt that it influenced Alexandrine 
 de la Ferronnays in her resolve to become a 
 Catholic. To suggest of what class were the works 
 that appeared in its pages during the first years of 
 its existence, we have but to instance Rio's ' Art 
 Chretien,' Montalembert's ' Introduction a 1'Histoire 
 de Sainte Elizabeth,' as well as several of his studies 
 on the ' Moines d'Occident.' 
 
 The Abbe Gerbet was the intimate and beloved 
 friend of every member of Mrs. Craven's family, as 
 of herself. In her character may be read the reflec- 
 tion of much in his. In the letters to her, of which 
 we have cited fragments, we see the undercurrent of 
 her life, on which floated so much social distinction. 
 The combination is, perhaps, less rare than persons 
 who only look at the surface of life may suppose, and 
 the AbW Gerbet was eminently calculated to prove 
 once again ' how beautiful are the feet of those who 
 preach the gospel of peace.' Sainte-Beuve devotes 
 to him one of his most sympathetic articles, and 
 describes Gerbet's part in what was tenable and 
 good of La Mennais' social theories. Whatever 
 may be said of the doctrine that ' general consent ' 
 is a sufficient and only true basis for theological 
 dogma, common-sense is certainly one of the many 
 foundation-stones of the Christian faith. The Abbe" 
 Gerbet, however, did not confine his labours for 
 religion to seconding the ' new Tertullian.' In 1829 
 he had published a work which purposed to prove 
 the continuity of the Eucharistic sacrifice from 
 remote antiquity. It eloquently supported the con- 
 ception of an ever-present God, with whom com-
 
 1836] GERBETS TEACHING 45 
 
 munion is possible if not obligatory; and in its pages 
 are some noble thoughts quoted by Sainte-Beuve 
 for their beauty, and by Mrs. Craven for their truth, 
 in ' Le Recit.' If Gerbet had not been beforehand 
 with her, she herself might have written : ' The 
 Christian revelation is, when taken altogether, a 
 great alms bestowed on a great poverty.' ' Prayer 
 is the confession of an indigence that has not lost 
 hope.' ' The Gospel has revolutionized the human 
 soul. It has reversed the action of the two emo- 
 tions, between which it is swayed in turn. Love 
 has replaced Fear in governing men's hearts.' Of 
 Gerbet it might be said even more truly than of 
 Lacordaire, ' Fort comme le diamant, plus tendre 
 qu'une mere ' words used by the great Dominican 
 himself to describe what a priest should be. Ger- 
 bet's remedy for the rents of Christian society, and 
 the apparent decline in Christian faith and sentiment 
 after the events of 1789, was not to reverse the ten- 
 dencies of human progress, but to sanctify them by 
 ' procuring the presence of God,' and by evangelizing 
 both rich and poor. Both his and Lacordaire's 
 mission, though they did not follow exactly parallel 
 lines, were, as they believed, to prepare and soften 
 souls for seeds of faith, rather than to scatter broad- 
 cast by authority the conclusions which, after all, 
 are, many of them, unauthorized by the Church. 
 
 La Mennais remains a 'broken monolith,' a 
 * Memnon in the desert ' ; but men of the school 
 which he had trained before his fall, and which for 
 a short time had been called by his name, had 
 singular prescience of the religious wants of this
 
 46 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1836 
 
 century, not less than prudence in preparing the 
 world-wide bulwarks of revealed religion by those 
 methods which have been so often the strength of 
 the Church when beaten by storm. Gerbet's treatise 
 on the Eucharist is a contribution to that Divine 
 unction which calms the troubled sea of egotism. 
 If much has been here said of him, it is because it 
 is his influence which largely coloured Mrs. Craven's 
 opinions, though she has said little of what they 
 were in the story of that time in her life. 
 
 During the night of June 8-9, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Craven arrived at 13, Rue Madame, in Paris, 
 where Albert was dying. She and Alexandrine had 
 not met since the April of the previous year, at 
 Naples. 
 
 ' Never,' writes Mrs. Craven, ' can I forget the 
 suffering of that arrival, and of that waiting in the 
 street while the door was being opened, and while 
 my husband asked the question, for the answer to 
 which I hardly dared to listen. 
 
 'Twelve o'clock struck at the moment, and I 
 mechanically counted the strokes. "Are we in 
 time ?" " Yes, and he is a little better since the 
 morning," was the reply. I ran upstairs, and went 
 immediately into his room, for he was not asleep. 
 Falling on his neck, I heard the sound of his voice 
 changed, but sweet and tender as ever "Oh, my 
 Pauline !" And yet and yet I was not present at 
 his death ! One of those ameliorations which 
 deceive friends to the last in consumption took 
 place just at the time of our arrival, and lasted 
 during the few days we remained in Paris. It
 
 1836] MATERIALS FOR 'RECIT' 47 
 
 did not, of course, lead us to hope for his eventual 
 recovery, but it justified the thought that he might 
 be removed to Boury, where he evidently wished 
 to go. I therefore returned with my husband 
 when the time had elapsed which he could spend 
 in France. 
 
 ' It is only now, as I look over those papers and 
 letters,' continues Mrs. Craven, writing later, when 
 preparing them for publication, ' that I am able to 
 discern the consolation and, if I may so speak, the 
 hidden meaning of that absence, which at the time 
 materially added to my sorrow. In consequence of my 
 absence, my sisters wrote me full accounts of all that 
 followed, as they had written of all that preceded my 
 arrival. Had I been present, those letters would 
 not have been written, nor would their journals 
 have been so scrupulously kept, for it was partly 
 for my sake that everything was so minutely 
 recorded. I should have been obliged to have 
 trusted to my troubled memory for a record of those 
 solemn days. It would have but confusedly retraced 
 the details of that time, though the impression left 
 on me is ineffaceable. The effect of what I saw and 
 heard, the impression I received from the change 
 that love and faith had wrought in Alexandrine, and 
 from the manner in which Eugenie shared that love 
 and faith, were strange and unexpected. It was the 
 first time that I had come in close contact with 
 sorrow and death. Humanly speaking, it was im- 
 possible to witness a more heart-breaking scene, yet 
 it left that strange impression of which I write. It sug- 
 gested a happiness compared with which the pleasures
 
 48 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1836 
 
 of those whom I was about to rejoin in England 
 seemed illusions. Eugenie and Alexandrine were lifted 
 above the world during those sad days, and, as the 
 Abbe" Gerbet said, " it appeared as if the veil which 
 separates the visible from the invisible world had 
 become transparent." ' 
 
 Yet in truth the mortal union of Albert and Alex- 
 andrine was severed with unusual pain. ' Never,' 
 said the veteran founder of homoeopathy, Hahne- 
 mann, who was called in despairing consultation to 
 visit Albert 'never during sixty years of practice 
 have I seen a wife who so loved her husband.' 
 
 Duty brought for Pauline then, as so often in her 
 after-life, some of those spiritual experiences which 
 were to her as draughts of water to a tired wayfarer, 
 To leave her family at that juncture was sharp pain 
 to her. To return to London in June must have 
 taxed even her high courage, for by doing so she 
 lost the marvellous scene described by the Abbe 
 Gerbet and quoted by Sainte-Beuve.* 
 
 Ten days after that divine mingling of earth and 
 heaven, a new life, built on the foundations and 
 fragments of their former one, began for the bereaved 
 family at Boury. For his parents, not less than for 
 his wife and sisters, Albert's death had made a 
 greater gap than six years before could have seemed 
 possible, and yet it was not a gap so much as the 
 disappearance of a star in the light of the sun. 
 
 * It is remarkable that Sainte-Beuve devoted no special 
 review to the yet finer report of that night in ' Le Re'cit.'
 
 [49] 
 
 IV. 
 
 MR. CRAVEN had been appointed paid attache at 
 Lisbon, and Pauline writes : 
 
 ' Three months had passed since Albert's death, 
 and I had not since seen my family. There had 
 been at one time a question of my husband's sudden 
 departure for Portugal, and in that case I must have 
 made up my mind to leave England without first 
 going to Boury. I must have given up seeing my 
 family, even after such a separation as ours had 
 been, and must have prepared for a longer and more 
 complete absence which would last for an indefinite 
 time, and place a great distance between us. 
 
 ' This pain was, however, spared me, and on 
 October 10, 1836, at about eight o'clock in the 
 evening, we arrived at Boury, which we had left the 
 preceding April.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven's stay at Boury was touching its 
 close, when Mr. Craven received orders to sail for 
 Lisbon by the boat which left London on Novem- 
 ber 30, 1836. They were obliged to start the same 
 day. 'I find in my journal,' she writes, ' all the 
 distressing circumstances of those days. The grief 
 of my father, who could not let me go, and who 
 
 VOL. i. 4
 
 50 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1836 
 
 wished to detain me that he might later on take me 
 himself to Lisbon ; the perplexity of my husband ; 
 the courage of my mother, who strengthened my 
 determination to leave with him, and not give way 
 to my father's wish ; the sadness of my sisters ; the 
 consolations and exhortations of the Abbe Gerbet ; 
 our last prayer all together in the chapel at eleven 
 o'clock in the evening ; our departure amidst so 
 many sad and depressing circumstances ; and, finally, 
 the storm which, after we had hurried away from 
 Boury, kept us at Boulogne unable to cross the 
 Channel for eleven days.' 
 
 On the occasion of that journey Lady Strafford* 
 writes : ' I remember very well my first acquaintance 
 with Mrs. Craven. We all crossed together from 
 Boulogne to Dover. Such a crossing ! It had been 
 blowing hard for a fortnight, and the passage took 
 four hours and a half. Lady Mary Paget, afterwards 
 Lady Sandwich, was so frightened that Mrs. Craven 
 advised her to say her prayers.' 
 
 She did not see Boury again for eighteen months, 
 but she received constant letters from her family. 
 The series of them published in the ' Recit d'une 
 Soeur' appears to some, and perhaps justly, the 
 most precious part of the book, in its picture of 
 those Christian figures who knew how to draw life 
 from death in the spiritual order, parallel in this 
 with the laws of natural existence. Every page in 
 those letters testifies to the place retained by Pauline 
 in the circle at Boury. ' Be thanked and blessed, 
 
 * Alice, eldest daughter of Francis, first Earl of Ellesmere 
 mamed to the third Earl of Strafford.
 
 1836] VOYAGE TO LISBON 5* 
 
 dear child,' writes her father in answer to letters he 
 received from her on her way to Lisbon. ' You are 
 the light which cheers and gives me new life ; only 
 on your side do I see clear sky,' Madame de la 
 Ferronnays exclaims, under the sad impression of Sir 
 Richard Acton's early death at Naples. The tie 
 of frequent reunion in the Divine presence was 
 never relaxed, and such letters were interchanged 
 that Pauline in Portugal could feel that ' separation 
 only made union closer.' 
 
 Those were the days of Pedrists and Miguelites. 
 It was not an idle time for Lisbon diplomatists, 
 and, as we have seen, Mr. Craven, with his wife, 
 was summoned to his post in haste ; they were de- 
 layed, however, in their departure from London 
 until November 28, 1836. In a letter to Eugenie, 
 Mrs. Craven relates its circumstances which amus- 
 ingly contrast with present luxuries of travel : 
 
 ' We started from the Tower of London, and the gloomy- 
 place suited our sad feelings well. We left at ten o'clock, 
 on an icy cold night, and no friend was there to bid us fare- 
 well. I love starlight, but no stars were to be seen, for the 
 fog was so thick that we could not see two feet in any 
 direction. Helped by a lantern, we had to feel our way 
 down the dark stairs of the Tower. A boat waited for us 
 below, and before we could sit down in it, the snow had 
 to be swept from the seats. 
 
 ' In this fashion we reached the Manchester, which was to 
 leave at two o'clock in the morning. The fog, however, 
 detained us in the Thames for fourteen hours. Yesterday 
 evening we arrived here (Falmouth), and went on shore at 
 once. The weather has cleared, and I saw with delight the
 
 52 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1837 
 
 bright sky and the stars. We stay on shore all to-day. New 
 Year's Day ! the first I have spent away from all of you. 
 We shall be at Lisbon on the 7th.' 
 
 The income of Mr. and Mrs. Craven was not large 
 at that time, but wherever they were they chose the 
 loveliest environment they could attain. On June I, 
 1837, Mrs. Craven writes to her sisters from Cintra : 
 
 ' We are here since the day before yesterday, and settled 
 in our cottage. The view from it enchants me, and I hope 
 I may be the better for it Everything in the said cottage is 
 rustic in its simplicity. It is impossible to imagine anything 
 more rural, but the view is still more lovely than at Lisbon.' 
 
 In April, 1838, Mrs. Craven was recalled to Boury 
 by the marriage of Eugenie to Count Adrien de Mun. 
 
 Eug6nie's marriage was celebrated on March 20, 
 and on April 28 Mrs. Craven had started again for 
 Lisbon. Again began that beautiful series of letters 
 which seem written from another world than ours. 
 Before Pauline's return with Mr. Craven, who had 
 been appointed attache to the British Legation at 
 Brussels, where our Minister was then Sir G. Hamil- 
 ton Seymour, Eugenie could greet her with the boy 
 in her arms, who grew up to be only less distin- 
 guished in the Catholic ranks of modern France 
 than his younger brother, Count Albert de Mun. 
 Unformulated anxieties about Eugenie's health 
 floated in Mrs. Craven's mind before long, but it 
 was not until after the birth of another boy that 
 they took shape. By her doctor's orders, Mme. de 
 Mun was taken by her husband to Lucca for a 
 change. There she found her parents, and she
 
 53 
 
 seemed for a time better, but Mrs. Craven never saw 
 her again. 
 
 While Mrs. Craven was absorbed in her painful 
 anxiety about Eugenie, came the unexpected news of 
 her father's death at Rome on January 17, 1842. 
 
 It almost seemed as if her father's death had been 
 a tonic to Eugenie. She had been suffering from a 
 trial not unknown to the saintliest souls. Eugenie, 
 who in 1836 had written those pages worthy, 
 Montalembert declared, of Suso, * the mystic of the 
 fourteenth century, felt natural recoil from death. 
 She died bravely, however, at Palermo the day after 
 her arrival. 
 
 It was not strange that, as soon as might be, 
 Mme. de la Ferronnays sought a home with Mr. 
 and Mrs. Craven at Brussels, and soon afterwards 
 ' Madame Albert ' joined them there. On account 
 of their deep mourning and seclusion, the fragments 
 of the stricken family went to Blankenburg, then 
 hardly known, for a summer change. With a sudden 
 and unforeseen shock Mrs. Craven noticed a change 
 in her sister Olga's looks, and perceived that she was 
 soon to follow Eugenie. They hurried to Brussels 
 for advice, but consumption can seldom be arrested, 
 and in five months the tall, fair girl died in as perfect 
 peace and joy as had Albert her brother. The last 
 words on her lips were, ' Je crois, j'aime, j'espere, je 
 me repens ' words that became as a refrain on the 
 mouths of her remaining relations ; words repeated 
 
 * Henry Suso, born in 1300, died in 1365 ; a Dominican. 
 His chief work is a dialogue between Divine Wisdom, or Jesus 
 Christ, and His disciple.
 
 54 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1843 
 
 by her mother at the moment of her death, and 
 often present with Mrs. Craven in her long after- 
 years of memory. 
 
 In December, 1843, Mr. Craven was appointed 
 Secretary of Legation at Stuttgart, under Sir 
 Alexander Malet, accredited to Wurtemburg and 
 Baden as Minister by the British Government, and 
 in 1844 Mr. and Mrs. Craven established themselves 
 in Germany. Some of their time was spent at 
 Carlsruhe, but the greater part at Baden. There, 
 in 1845, Mme. Albert de la Ferronnays spent part of 
 the summer with them, and Pauline records the 
 eagerness of Alexandrine's upward course, and the 
 change in her way of estimating society. In her 
 first widowhood she had naturally shunned it, but 
 now she had become entirely indifferent to the 
 charm of it, which once she had strongly felt. In 
 writing to Pauline, she says : ' I see my Paula as she 
 travels, collecting honey from every flower ;' doubt- 
 less in her clear vision, so rapidly cleared of late 
 years, she had perceived that her old comrade 
 suffered from sensitive anxiety, more severely than 
 was good for her spiritual welfare. ' God is not in 
 the earthquake,' she wrote. * That text was a 
 constant saying of our Eugenie. I have not the 
 calm I preach, but I am resolved to conquer it by 
 the sweat of my brow; for I am convinced, as St. 
 Francis de Sales said he was, that anxiety is the 
 worst of all evils except sin.' 
 
 Again, in 1846, Alexandrine visited Mr. and Mrs. 
 Craven in Germany. In 1847 Mr. Craven was for 
 some months private secretary to Lord Normanby
 
 1846] CONVERSATION IN THE CORNFIELD 55 
 
 in Paris, and in that summer, on July 13, occurred 
 that scene at Boury which Mrs. Craven describes at 
 p. 391, vol. ii., of ' Le Recit d'une Sceur.' It has the 
 light on it of another world, the light which shone at 
 Ostia on St. Augustine and his mother, Monica, and 
 which Ary Scheffer has painted with at least a sug- 
 gestion of its intense and passionate mysticism. As 
 the passage remains, a monument of genius winged 
 to highest flight by faith, it was written down next 
 day in Mrs. Craven's journal. It is subjoined for 
 readers not already acquainted with it : 
 
 ' The eve of my departure from Boury, July 13, 
 1847, we went to the cemetery, as usual, to pray by 
 the side of our two dear graves. Alexandrine knelt 
 on the stone which covers both Albert's tomb and 
 the resting-place which, for the last twelve years, had 
 been marked out for her ; while I knelt near Olga's 
 grave. It was a warm and lovely evening. When 
 we left the cemetery, we chose the longest way home, 
 and walked slowly back. It was natural that on that 
 beautiful evening, after our visit to the churchyard, 
 and alone with me, Alexandrine should dwell on the 
 thoughts always uppermost in her mind. For my 
 part I liked better than anything else to hear her 
 speak of God and her own soul, and lost no oppor- 
 tunity in drawing out her thoughts, for they always 
 did me so much good. 
 
 ' As we left a cornfield, and came upon the road 
 leading to the house, I stood still a moment to look 
 at the sky, where the sun was setting in the midst of 
 so radiant a glory that the whole dreary landscape 
 looked beautiful in its light. I said to Alexandrine,
 
 5 6 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA VEN [184? 
 
 " I love the time of sunset." " I do not," she replied ; 
 " since my troubles " an expression she very seldom 
 used "since my troubles the sunset has had a 
 mournful effect upon me. It ushers in the night, 
 and I do not like the night-time. I like the morning 
 and the time of spring, for these are what most 
 typify to me the realities of eternal life. Night is 
 the symbol of darkness and sin ; evening makes me 
 think that everything draws to an end, and both of 
 these are sad. But the morning and the spring 
 remind me that everything will wake up and be born 
 again. That is what I love." 
 
 ' We walked on, and just as we had passed through 
 the gate, she said, " Try and throw yourself into the 
 thought that everything that gives us such pleasure 
 on earth is absolutely nothing but a shadow, and that 
 the reality of it all is in heaven. After all, is not to 
 love to love the sweetest thing on earth ? Is it not, 
 then, easy to believe that to love Love itself must be 
 the perfection of all sweetness ? And to love Jesus 
 Christ is nothing else when we learn to love Him 
 absolutely as we love on earth. I should never have 
 been comforted if I had not learnt that that kind of 
 love really exists and lasts for ever." 
 
 'We sat down on a bench, still conversing. A 
 little while after Alexandrine got up to gather a spray 
 of jessamine which clothed the wall. She gave me 
 the spray, and then stood before me with a little 
 sprig of it in her hand, continuing the conversation. 
 I had said to her, " It is a great blessing that you can 
 love God in that way." She answered me in words, 
 and with an expression and bearing which must
 
 1 847] A GLIMPSE OF LA MENNAIS 57 
 
 always remain imprinted on my mind : " Oh, 
 Pauline, how can I help loving God ? How can 
 I help being carried away when I think of Him ? 
 How can I even have any merit in it like the merit 
 of faith, when I think of the miracle which He has 
 wrought in my soul ; when I feel that after having 
 so loved and so ardently desired this world's happi- 
 ness, after having possessed it and lost it, and been 
 drowned in the very depths of despair, my soul is 
 now transformed, and so full of happiness that all I 
 have ever known or imagined is nothing absolutely 
 nothing in comparison ?" 
 
 ' Surprised to hear her speak in this way, I said, 
 " But if life with Albert, such as you dreamed, were 
 placed before you, and it were promised you for 
 
 a length of years " She answered without the 
 
 least hesitation, " I would not take it back." 
 
 In after-years, among many traits of the family, 
 Mr. Craven related how once again the fleeting 
 shadow of their old friend, La Mennais, appeared 
 among them. Alexandrine came in one day as Mr. 
 and Mrs. Craven were sitting at breakfast in Paris, 
 and said : ' You know that family which I have been 
 trying to help ? Who do you think it was told the 
 sisters of the Rue du Bac about them ? M. de la 
 Mennais.' 
 
 Struck by this, Mr. Craven added : ' I went to 
 see La Mennais, and told him that the person 
 who had helped the family in which he was in- 
 terested was Albert's widow. The tide of bygone 
 thought swept back upon him, and the old man 
 cried like a child.'
 
 5 8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1848 
 
 Alexandrine reached the goal of her life in the 
 following February. Pauline was reserved for a 
 larger field, and a different kind of activity. In the 
 November of the year in which Alexandrine died, 
 Mme. de la Ferronnays, who was with Mr. and 
 Mrs. Craven at Baden, finished her course with the 
 gentle charity, the steadfast and completed faith, 
 and the calm hope, of a saint such as we may imagine 
 those to be who have lived many years in, yet not of, 
 the world. 
 
 To many Mme. de la Ferronnays endears herself 
 as the most perfect figure in Mrs. Craven's incom- 
 parable group. Loving and patient, she reaped 
 her harvest, for of whom could it more truly have 
 been said than of her and her santi : 
 
 f They that sow in tears shall reap in joy : 
 Going they went and wept, casting their seeds ; 
 But coming they shall come with joyfulness, 
 Carrying their sheaves ' ?
 
 [59] 
 
 V. 
 
 WHAT befell Pauline when her life was thus swept 
 by sorrow, as a garden is swept by repeated storms ? 
 She was not forgetful, nor unfeeling, nor frivolous. 
 What befell her ? 
 
 It has been said before that for a Christian there 
 is no tragedy, for there is no death ; and certainly no 
 death for those she mourned. She suffered most 
 grievously, but however self-contained was the life 
 she led henceforth in the dear company of her saints, 
 she was no egotist. Faithful to God's will as she 
 was, and most practically Christian in her wise 
 estimates of external things, Mrs. Craven turned to 
 the duties of her life, and to its pleasures as they 
 came to her in God's providence. Yet there was 
 henceforward somewhat of firmer and freer purpose 
 in her use of circumstance. She had henceforth ' ce 
 quelque chose d'acheve que donne le malheur.' 
 
 Those who saw most of her in society after her 
 losses, but particularly at that time, remember how 
 seldom she spoke of her private and personal ex- 
 periences. It is only from her journals that any 
 true estimate can be formed of the steady current of 
 her spiritual life through all changes and chances of
 
 60 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1849 
 
 circumstance. She and Mr. Craven were in England 
 in 1849, and England was familiar and dear to her 
 from the time of her marriage. She took naturally 
 eager, though not very hopeful, interest in the 
 Tractarian movement. Few by their cosmopolitan 
 experience could better measure the various values 
 of the English effort to restore Catholic Christianity 
 to the Anglican Establishment. Few welcomed 
 with sincerer appreciation the men who passed their 
 Rubicon and reached Rome. 
 
 English society had always been open to Mrs. 
 Craven, but especially the chief Whig houses. In 
 them, perhaps, little interest was felt about spiritual 
 reactions except as they affected politics, and gave 
 trouble in Oxford elections or in the nomination of 
 bishops. But nothing in English affairs so interested 
 Mrs. Craven, and whatever her predilection for what 
 she called her three fatherlands, France, Italy and 
 England, she was in the first place a most ardent 
 Catholic. Her appreciation of English life and its 
 traditions, her delight in the characteristics of our 
 island, are all the more valuable. Even in those 
 years of ' No Popery ' clamour, Durham letters, and 
 sad turmoil in the brains of the Protestant middle 
 class, her opinion was enthusiastically favourable. 
 When just come from Naples in 1851, she could 
 admire English sunshine. ' It is even magnificently 
 lavished on the green country,' she writes, ' and 
 when the sun is kind, it may be said that he finds it 
 dressed and adorned as a queen to receive his 
 glances. The meadows, the noble trees, the flowers 
 as they climb on the walls and sparkle in the
 
 1851] VISIT TO BROADLANDS 61 
 
 gardens, which are cultivated and cared for by 
 people of every rank, shine with a cheerful bright- 
 ness. In spite of their uniformity, which results 
 from the general taste for order and cleanliness, the 
 buildings are in a certain sense picturesque. The 
 sun's visits, being rarer than in the South, are marred 
 by as little dirt or ugliness or disorder as may be.' 
 She thought English society not only the most 
 cheerful, but the most amusing with which she was 
 acquainted, because of the independence and origin- 
 ality of individual character among its various 
 personages. 
 
 The official, political, and literary element mixed 
 with what is called ' the world ' as in no other 
 country. Only very dull people could, she thought, 
 be bored in English houses of the best class. No 
 doubt she carried light enough of her own to 
 brighten the places she visited, but Broadlands, pre- 
 sided over by Lord and Lady Palmerston ; Worsley, 
 by the first Lord Ellesmere and his wife ; Aldenham, 
 with Lady Granville as hostess, were very favourable 
 samples of English country-houses. 
 
 The volume of extracts from her journal entitled 
 ' Reminiscences,' and published in 1879, has not 
 been translated, and a literary portrait of Lord 
 Palmerston contained in it may fitly act as an 
 example both of Mrs. Craven's good judgment and 
 her facilities of judging. It was written later, but it 
 may well precede a sketch of her English life. After 
 a visit at Broadlands, she writes : ' Lord Palmerston 
 has been extremely kind and cordial to us during 
 this visit. I have talked with him very often, and
 
 62 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1851 
 
 always found him the same that is, quite other than 
 his reputation. I should be almost tempted to say, 
 above it, but he seems unlike it rather than unequal 
 
 to it. 
 
 ' He is not a great party leader, as his friends 
 represent him to be, and as the position he holds 
 would indicate ; neither is he the evil genius which 
 the greater part of Europe will have him to be. In 
 fact, he is in no way a genius, and he is nothing 
 great. His nearest approach to greatness is in his 
 imperturbable good temper, which remains un- 
 shadowed whether he is in or out of office, beaten or 
 triumphant, violently attacked or unduly praised. 
 He is always the same, always ready to do justice 
 to his adversaries, never embittered against them, 
 never even impatient. In 1852 I was at Broadlands 
 at the time when he resigned office under Lord John 
 Russell's Government. I saw no traces of resentment 
 in him ; he did not say a word of recrimination or 
 bitterness, nor djd he assume affected moderation. 
 The only perceptible difference appeared in a greater 
 elasticity of spirits in his conversation. He was 
 less reserved and more playful, and gave more time 
 to society.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven, notwithstanding their friendship, 
 could see in Lord Palmerston how some qualities, 
 popular in his own country, were mischievous 
 abroad ' some, indeed, dangerous in contact with 
 strangers. His indifference to general opinion seems 
 contempt for it ; his taste for liberty gains for him 
 the accusation of being revolutionary. He does not 
 write exactly as he speaks, and it is singular that
 
 i8si] CHARACTER OF LORD PALMERSTON 63 
 
 fewer rash words escape him in the heat of speech 
 than in a despatch written at leisure. In short, he 
 is, in England, generally master of his hearers, be- 
 cause he knows them so well, while his ignorance 
 about foreigners is extreme, and his tolerant spirit 
 towards his fellow-countrymen becomes coloured by 
 the strangest prejudices when he has to do with 
 other people. That explains some of his mistakes 
 and the dislike felt for him outside his own country, 
 and yet this dislike is unjust. Notwithstanding his 
 misconceptions, nothing is less true than that he has 
 the wish attributed to him to revolutionize Europe 
 for the benefit of England. He loves justice as sin- 
 cerely as he hates oppression. He thinks it is for 
 the interest of all nations that they should be 
 governed as well as possible. He has the right to 
 think that the political experiences of his country 
 have been fortunate, but he is wrong not to see that 
 elsewhere the risks of English methods might be 
 greater than their advantages, and that though it is 
 easy to mimic English institutions, it is not easy to 
 imitate them. In short, he is often mistaken, but so 
 are many people about him.' 
 
 From conversations about the recent coup d'etat to 
 the new novel, ' Never too Late to Mend,' from Italian 
 prisons to Irish poverty, there was much to be dis- 
 cussed between Mrs. Craven and her host. Only on 
 one occasion at Broadlands does she note that the 
 subject of religion was seriously touched, and that 
 was in a tete-a-tete with Mr. Charles Greville, who 
 seemed more than her other acquaintances at that 
 time to have perceived the depth of her religious
 
 64 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN ^[1851 
 
 convictions. ' How happy are those who have a 
 true faith !' he exclaimed at the end of their con- 
 versation. ' If it could be bought with gold, what 
 sum would not be given for it ?' 
 
 The subject of ' Never too Late to Mend,' Mr. 
 Reade's popular novel, was then in most English 
 minds, and the injustice possible in an English 
 prison naturally led to Lord Palmerston's criticisms 
 on the prisons of Naples, and the various influences 
 of Bourbon management. Mrs. Craven was too just 
 and true to dispute the faults of the Neapolitan 
 Government. She had shrewd foresight in political 
 matters; for, find fault as we may with passing 
 events, principles founded on the moral law always 
 survive error. Whatever may be our bondage to 
 faits accomplis, if they do not at least tend towards 
 promoting human ideals, the day will come for their 
 reversal. No loyalty to persons could confuse Mrs. 
 Craven's consistent justice and logical conclusions. 
 She was not often nor for long mistaken in her ap- 
 proval or disapproval of the agents and means by 
 which her ideals could be advanced. Whatever and 
 whoever they were, she could not excuse crookedness 
 in their methods. To condone evil because to con- 
 demn it was imprudent was cowardice she could not 
 easily endure. The reader can imagine how often the 
 straightforward vehemence of her political opinions 
 seemed exaggerated. It is always a question if 
 virtue can be exaggerated when it is accompanied 
 by knowledge and good sense, but few felt more 
 passionate enthusiasm for good causes than did Mrs. 
 Craven, yet few had a clearer perception of the ruin
 
 1851] 'PAPAL AGGRESSION' 65 
 
 that might overtake them. If anything affected her 
 toleration, it was violence or bigotry of opinion ; and 
 this liberty of a spirit at anchor often perplexed 
 those who knew her vehemence of emotion if that 
 anchor itself were in question, while personally she 
 could swing with a free soul in the tides and currents 
 of this shifting world. She was a brilliant member 
 of the Broadlands society, meeting there, as on 
 neutral ground, the chief diplomatists and European 
 leaders whom she could not have known in her own 
 Faubourg St. Germain. 
 
 It was, however, in the religious revival of the 
 years between 1845 and 1855 that Mrs. Craven found 
 an interest more profound than any in the most 
 agreeable political or social world. Among her ac- 
 quaintances she heard much of Papal aggression, as 
 it appeared to Lord John Russell and the mass of 
 Britons. She heard nothing of it at Broadlands ; 
 once Catholics had been emancipated, Lord Palmer- 
 ston thought little more about them. For the rest, 
 he was as indifferent to the influences of Catholicism 
 as Mr. Gladstone was earnestly conscious of their 
 power. To Mrs. Craven the creation of the Roman 
 hierarchy and its reception were not matters of such 
 deep concern as might have been expected. A 
 change was involved, no doubt, in the action of 
 Rome, but to her the missive entrusted to Cardinal 
 Wiseman, and dated from the Flaminian Gate, was 
 but a historical incident. 
 
 Possessing among them so many friends, Mrs. 
 Craven could not but be struck by the attitude of 
 Anglicans, as the High Church party began to be 
 
 VOL. i. 5
 
 66 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1851 
 
 called at that time; but it did not inspire her with 
 the hopes and enthusiasms of many Catholics. Her 
 French common-sense refused to see that dogmas 
 could be restored by Gothic architecture and vest- 
 ments, or even by Roman collars and aesthetic 
 ornament. She saw with surprise and doubtful 
 satisfaction a new church built at Worsley by Lord 
 Ellesmere, in accordance with what was the 
 ' Puseyite ' attitude of the period. She felt then, as 
 she ever afterwards did, that in the imitation of 
 Catholic usages, and in the gratification of somewhat 
 eclectic taste, there was no advance made towards 
 the spiritual life and the art which is subservient to 
 the true Church, both founded, as they are, on de- 
 nned dogma. She wrote of the new Gothic church : 
 ' It seems to Catholics that they hear their language 
 spoken by strangers who do not give the true sig- 
 nification to the words they use, so that though 
 the sound be the same the sense is quite different. 
 At a distance the voice is as that of a mother, 
 but when approached the words become an incom- 
 prehensible jargon.' 
 
 The attack made by Mr. Drummond in the House 
 of Commons on the whole system of conventual life 
 as it was being revived in England was one of the 
 events of the anti-Catholic campaign. It is easy to 
 imagine the righteous indignation of Mrs. Craven, as 
 she drove by walls placarded with the vulgarest ex- 
 pressions of Mr. Drummond's speech. She was just 
 then in a circle of friends well able to support her 
 zeal. She notes one day (and there were many 
 such days in 1851), that when breakfasting at Mr.
 
 1851] MR. DRUMMOND'S ATTACK ON CONVENTS 67 
 
 Monsell's,* afterwards Lord Emly, she met Dr. 
 Dollinger, Dr. Manning (who was received into the 
 Catholic Church in April of the same year), Pere de 
 Ravignan, and Mr. Aubrey de Vere. In such company 
 the spark was quickly kindled. The day after Mr. 
 Drummond's speech she wrote her protest, ' comme 
 malgre moi ' ; fifty copies were printed and imme- 
 diately passed through many hands. ' I received 
 from several important members of Parliament,' she 
 writes, ' the assurance of their regret, which was in 
 itself a reparation.' Her pamphlet was prefaced by 
 the motto from Massillon : ' We do not long keep 
 within the limits of truth when we step beyond those 
 of charity.' 
 
 Besides her appeal against the unmanly cowardice 
 of such attacks in the House of Commons, the 
 pamphlet ends with burning words of rebuke to 
 those who repeat Iscariot's words, ' Wherefore this 
 waste ?' when they condemn sacrifice of our best to 
 God ; and to those who deny the possibility of that 
 enthusiasm which finds in the love of God the best 
 and the abiding spur towards the love of men, and 
 which deems intercession the best relief for our 
 inadequacy to meet the destroying forces of evil. 
 The eloquent defence, and the attack involved in 
 
 * William Monsell of Tervoe, county Limerick. He repre- 
 sented the county Limerick in Parliament from 1847 to 1873 ; 
 was Clerk of the Ordnance from 1852 to 1857, and President 
 of the Board of Health 1857-58. In 1866 he was appointed 
 Vice- President of the Board of Trade, from 1868 to 1870 was 
 Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, and held the office of 
 Postmaster General from 1870 to 1873. He was created Lord 
 Emly in 1874, and died on April 20, 1894.
 
 68 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1851 
 
 that defence, must have startled the acquaintances 
 who had chiefly considered Mrs. Craven in the light 
 not of a confessor for the faith, but of a charming 
 and versatile woman of the world. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven were recalled to Naples in 
 1851, by the increasing infirmities of Mr. Keppel 
 Craven, and very different feelings were aroused by 
 Neapolitan misgovernment from any that English 
 mistakes could excite. In April of the same year 
 Mr. Gladstone's letter to Lord Aberdeen on the 
 State prosecutions of the Neapolitan Government 
 struck a note which caused all Europe to vibrate. 
 If there had not been great tension of spirits after 
 the events of 1848, it were hard to understand that a 
 pamphlet, some facts in which were hastily advanced 
 without sufficient evidence, should have acted, to 
 use Mazzini's words, as a ' trumpet-call ' to revolu- 
 tion. Italians are better judges now of the advan- 
 tages gained by the ebullition of 1850 to 1860, and 
 perhaps have yet to learn that English constitutional 
 methods are certainly the best for the rapid logic 
 and subtle intelligences, but very differing tempera- 
 ments, of Lombard and Sicilian, Piedmontese and 
 Tuscan. Meantime an irritating and cruel form of 
 Bourbon government obtained at Naples. None of 
 the parties to the patched-up royalty of 1848 were 
 probably sincere, but whatever secret treachery to 
 the promises and oaths made then might have 
 existed among the revolutionists, the acts of oppres- 
 sion by the Government, and its violation of every 
 pledge, were flagrant. The system has been called 
 'a negation of God,' and, though for very different
 
 1851] CRUELTIES AT NAPLES 69 
 
 reasons, Mrs. Craven felt as strongly the treason to 
 the Catholic faith it professed, as Mr. Gladstone did 
 its treason to those common rights of human law 
 which it did not pretend to respect. Again, for a 
 different series of reasons, it suited Lord Palmerston 
 to follow up his patronage of Louis Napoleon by 
 ' flouts ' to the elder empires and royalties of 
 Europe. Mrs. Craven suffered keen pain because of 
 the truths told of that ancien regime which was 
 by tradition dear to her. Pity for Poerio, who was 
 a friend of her husband, but above all the indignation 
 she felt, as one of those who most dearly cherish 
 an ideal when that ideal is dragged through the 
 mire, were profoundly roused in her ; but at no time 
 was her wrath other than the wrath which drove the 
 money-changers out of the Temple. It is impossible 
 to draw the line too clearly between Mrs. Craven's 
 thirst for justice, and the greater honour of God 
 among men, and the foreign politics of her English 
 friends. For the envious and dangerous class of 
 Liberals, followers of Rousseau's faith that man is 
 born good, and that all his evils come of the form of 
 social contract under which he is governed, she had 
 nothing but orthodox detestation. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven were welcomed back to 
 Naples with all the effusiveness of its society, then 
 specially brilliant, if with a dying light. Naples had 
 been the scene where Pauline had spent her happiest 
 days, or, at least, those years of sanguine hope and 
 young delight in her beautiful world, before death 
 had swept away the best-loved of her family, and 
 before she had learned what it was to ' suffer pain
 
 70 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1851 
 
 with gladness ' in the example of Alexandrine. She 
 found an exceptionally pleasant group of younger 
 women, who listened to her talk and appreciated it 
 responsively. The young Duchesse Ravaschieri 
 Fieschi, to whom we owe the Italian memoir of Mrs. 
 Craven published in the year following her death, 
 was, and deserved to be, the closest of her new 
 friends. She was already a wife, and the mother of 
 that Lina who became as a passionately loved 
 daughter to Mrs. Craven in after-years. Just when 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven, whose reputation for amateur 
 acting was yet fresh in Naples, arrived, the Duchesse 
 Ravaschieri was preparing to appear for the first 
 time in a French comedy. She had heard of the 
 admirable performance of Pauline, Eugenie, Charles 
 and Fernand de la Ferronnays at the Acton Palace 
 some nine years before, and she dreaded the critical 
 judgment of Mrs. Craven, who was among the 
 spectators. 
 
 ' I did not know,' writes the Duchesse, 'as I knew 
 afterwards, what violence that dearest of women did 
 to her feelings that she might keep back her tears 
 and hide the strain on her sad heart that evening. 
 She was, as always, resolved not to give way to pain 
 of memory when there was a question of pleasing 
 her husband by joining the gaieties he enjoyed, and 
 into which she could generally enter buoyantly.' 
 Mr. Keppel Craven also wished that she should be a 
 leader in his society, which included all the more 
 distinguished travellers and men of science and art 
 who visited Naples ; her smile and courtesy con- 
 cealed her emotion as she cordially accepted the
 
 1851] DUCHESSE RAVASCHIERI 71 
 
 greeting of her old friends. Her kindness to the 
 young Duchesse, who relates the scene, at once 
 removed fear of criticism. ' Her voice left a sense 
 of infinite sweetness on my ear,' she records. 
 
 Two days later the Duchesse Ravaschieri found 
 Mrs. Craven in the hotel where she was staying, 
 ' surrounded, as was her English custom, by books 
 and flowers and miniatures, and reading a volume 
 by the fireside. By daylight she looked thinner, 
 her features more defined than when I had last seen 
 her. The lines marked on her face by grief rather 
 than by time did not alter her chief attraction, the 
 charm of high breeding and intellect which is so 
 often preferable to mere youthful beauty. 
 
 ' I asked for news of Albertine, who had been my 
 friend when we were children, and whom I had not 
 seen for so long. Mrs. Craven's voice and the 
 expression of her face changed as she told me that 
 now she had no other sister living. There followed 
 a long silence, which in itself told me that her life 
 for the last ten years had been full of pain. I 
 looked at her with a sense of limitless pity and 
 veneration, and when with an effort she spoke again, 
 there was in her eyes that far-away light which 
 illuminates all eyes that look towards heaven.' 
 
 Her friendship for the Duchesse Ravaschieri, 
 perhaps the tenderest felt by Mrs. Craven outside 
 her own family, was soon formed for life. She 
 returned the visit of the Duchesse at Resina, and 
 the child Lina was put into those arms that after- 
 wards cherished her with a passion rarely equalled 
 even by that of mothers.
 
 72 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1851 
 
 Mr. Keppel Craven had never cordially forgiven 
 his son's abjuration of Protestantism, nor that his wife 
 was Catholic. Both suffered keenly from his refusal 
 that they should stay and nurse him in his serious 
 illness. As he would not have it so, both felt it best 
 to return to England, where, at least, there was a 
 phantom of work, and of advance in his profession, 
 for Mr. Craven. The influences which at first had 
 pushed him on in his career seemed to have deserted 
 him. His scholarship and intelligence, both of a 
 high order ; his knowledge of languages, not then as 
 common as now ; his social talents, had not profited 
 him as they ought to have done, and as he and his 
 wife legitimately expected they would. She wished 
 that he should find exercise for his considerable gifts, 
 among which may well be counted the possession of 
 such a wife. He was often despondent because of 
 his want of success in his profession. 
 
 In June, 1851, Mr. Keppel Craven died at Naples. 
 A considerable part of the fortune he had inherited 
 from the Margravine of Anspach was left to his son, 
 and Mr. and Mrs. Augustus Craven were able to take 
 a house in Berkeley Square, and to indulge hopes that, 
 if not as a diplomatist, Mr. Craven could take an 
 independent part in politics, about which he and 
 his wife felt the keenest interest. In November 
 of that year he resigned his diplomatic post in 
 Germany. 
 
 In the summer of 1852 was the General Election, 
 in which the cry of ' No Popery ' was much heard. 
 His Whig friends were ready to gratify Mr. Craven's 
 wish (even more strongly felt by Mrs. Craven), that
 
 1852] MR. CRAVEN STANDS FOR DUBLIN 73 
 
 he should enter Parliament. There could be no 
 question of a seat for him in any English con- 
 stituency, but there seemed a fair prospect of his 
 return if he stood for the county of Dublin in the 
 Whig interest. Mrs. Craven threw herself into 
 the affair with zeal that yet could not be called 
 ambition. 
 
 ' I should be perfectly happy,' she wrote, ' if I 
 could see Augustus in harness and at work. He 
 does not know how to live in idleness ; he is going 
 into the great electoral struggle, and his triumph will 
 be my repose.' 
 
 She herself went to Dublin and was in the best 
 spirits, for her husband's prospects were, she was 
 assured, excellent, and her pleasant thoughts made 
 her even praise her passage from Holyhead, and 
 describe St. George's Channel as a Neapolitan sea. 
 We have no record of her return. The defeat of 
 Mr. Craven was absolute. The great Whig pro- 
 prietors, who had promised him their support, under- 
 rated the unpopularity of their party, and were 
 swept aside by the national wave which met the 
 1 No Popery ' insults of the previous year. The 
 election cost Mr. Craven many thousand pounds, 
 and his diplomatic career, which he had thrown up 
 in too sanguine hope of a seat. When Mrs. Craven 
 heard of the large majority against her husband, she 
 burst into tears, for his defeat meant more to him 
 and to her than a casual incident or mere Parlia- 
 mentary check. Mr. Monsell, who was there, could 
 not help remarking that Southern nerves were hardly 
 suited for the machinery of constitutional govern-
 
 74 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1852 
 
 ment, but none present imagined how eagerly she 
 had hoped for her husband's success, and the results 
 she had anticipated from it. 
 
 It seemed as if their English ties were loosened 
 by this event, and that as Mr. Craven was not to 
 find employment at home, he and his wife might 
 permanently establish themselves at Naples. He 
 cherished a hope that he might be appointed Sec- 
 retary to the Legation at Naples, which increased 
 their wish to settle there. First they paid a farewell 
 visit to Worsley, and Mrs. Craven wrote to the 
 Duchesse Ravaschieri on September 4, 1852 : 
 
 ' I live between two opposing currents of desire. One 
 leads us towards your sky your Naples ; I feel for it that 
 painful craving, to express which the Germans have invented 
 a special word. On the other side, I feel a new delight in 
 the North, and its healthy and serious life, which at this 
 moment appears more in harmony with my tastes. Before 
 our disastrous defeat it seemed to me that God had wisely 
 decided my life, giving my youth to Italy, and the suc- 
 ceeding years to England. But since this country, which 
 I love so dearly, will not have us, it is well that I should 
 go back to my first love, and return to the shore of Chiata- 
 mone, which smiles to me in all its splendour.' 
 
 On September 28 Mrs. Craven wrote from Amiens 
 to Mr. Monsell : 
 
 ' From Worsley to Amiens ! A greater contrast can hardly 
 be conceived ! I came on here with only the interval of a 
 few days' stay in London, on my way to pay a visit to my 
 dear good Abb Gerbet, whom I had not seen for twelve 
 years ; and on Wednesday I am to meet Augustus at my 
 brother's (in the country near Gisors), where we intend to
 
 1852] MADAME SWETCHINE 75 
 
 spend some days, and then go on to Paris for a month ; 
 and then our present intention is still to return to England 
 about the beginning of November, by which time we are 
 happy to think that we shall find you in London. 
 
 ' I cannot say how delightful it is to me to find myself 
 once more talking and listening to the Abbe Gerbet. The 
 good Bishop* was anxious that I should take up my 
 abode at the Eveche, which I refused ;but I spend the 
 whole day there.' 
 
 A yet more important event to Mrs. Craven's 
 inner life that year than the loss or gain of an 
 election was a closer friendship than before with 
 Mme. Swetchine. Most of our readers will know, at 
 least, the name of the distinguished Russian convert, 
 who so identified herself with France that her salon 
 became the meeting-place of those among its sons 
 who carried highest the standard of religion in the 
 remarkable society that grew out of the desolations 
 of the Revolution and the Empire. Sophie Soy- 
 monoff was born in 1782, and was therefore twenty- 
 six years older than Mrs. Craven. Her knowledge 
 and experience were of value to Pauline, who had for 
 her the same devotion as a child for a mother, or as 
 an apt pupil for an accomplished master. 
 
 In her seventeenth year M. Soymonoff had chosen 
 for his extraordinarily well-read and accomplished 
 daughter a husband in General Swetchine, who was 
 forty-two years old. Almost immediately afterwards 
 her father died exiled to Moscow ; but General 
 
 * Monseigneur Salinis, who was then Bishop of Amiens, had 
 been one of La Mennais's favourite disciples. He was the 
 intimate friend throughout life of the Abbe Gerbet.
 
 76 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1852 
 
 Swetchine was appointed to the important post of 
 Governor of St. Petersburg. 
 
 The accession of Alexander broadened all Russian 
 horizons. The influence of Count Joseph de Maistre, 
 appointed Piedmontese Ambassador at St. Peters- 
 burg in 1803, gained slowly on Mme. Swetchine. She 
 had had little training in any religion, but at that 
 time she inclined to Greek orthodoxy, tempered by 
 German philosophy. At last, but not until 1815, 
 Mme. Swetchine wrote at the head of one of her 
 notebooks, ' Douter c'est toujours ignorer.' In the 
 same year she was received into the Roman Catholic 
 Church. She spent the winters of 1816 and 1817 in 
 Paris, where she was warmly received, particularly by 
 the Duchesse de Duras. In the same year her friend 
 M. de Maistre published in Paris his work ' Du 
 Pape,' and prepared the 'Soirees de St. Petersbourg.' 
 Gradually Mme. Swetchine gathered round her a 
 most distinguished circle. 
 
 In 1825 General and Mme. Swetchine established 
 themselves in the Rue St. Dominique, and in 1826 
 M. de la Ferronnays was recalled from Russia, to be 
 appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs and subse- 
 quently Ambassador at Rome. A stranger, whose 
 ideas were based on vast reading, and had all the 
 tolerance of large experience in troubled times, Mme. 
 Swetchine balanced men and events in a spirit 
 beyond partisanship, as it was beyond the eccen- 
 tricities of a clique. Gradually she recognised a 
 responsibility towards the many men and women 
 attracted to her by her high level of thought and 
 morals, her mental power clothed in affectionate
 
 1852] HER FRIENDSHIP WITH MRS. CRAVEN 77 
 
 courtesy, and by her breadth of sympathy for every 
 class, from the young beauties who came to show her 
 their prettiest dresses, to La Mennais, the fiery cham- 
 pion of Rome, until his own pride took fire and he be- 
 came its incendiary ; from Chateaubriand and Mme. 
 Recamier, to the youths who wrote in UAvenir, and 
 who invoked democracy in the name of religion. 
 
 Mrs. Craven's long absences from Paris for some 
 years hindered her intimacy with the distinguished 
 Russian, but it dated from the letter from Mme. 
 Swetchine which follows, and it grew to a complete 
 sympathy. They were in many ways not alike, but 
 a common consecration of their lives ad majorem Dei 
 gloriam, brought them together as can no lesser tie. 
 Mme. Swetchine had little beauty, little of that artistic 
 power which Mrs. Craven possessed, though it may 
 be that she earned profounder affection. She influ- 
 enced Mrs. Craven from the height of her experience 
 as of her singularly exalted criticism of life. Yet even 
 that could not have so coloured Mrs. Craven's life 
 as did Mme. Swetchine's tender affection for the 
 ' beautiful soul,' which she, perhaps better than any, 
 could rightly estimate. 
 
 Evidences of Mrs. Craven's reliance on her teach- 
 ing are to be found to the last years of Pauline's life. 
 Mme. Swetchine died in 1857, Y e t * ne thought of her 
 was very present in every crisis of Mrs. Craven's 
 existence. In her appeal to Lacordaire, to whom 
 Mme. Swetchine had been as a mother throughout 
 his career, when Italian patriotism seemed at war 
 with the Vatican ; in her early sympathy with what 
 may be called ultramontane and democratic dislike
 
 78 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1852 
 
 of Gallicanism, a sympathy roused first by De Maistre, 
 but developed by the Avenir and by the Abbe 
 Gerbet's creed of reconciliation, Mrs. Craven drank 
 from the same springs as did Mme. Swetchine. 
 When Pauline lent her friend some of the materials 
 that were to be formed into ' Le Recit d'une Soeur,' 
 a fresh bond was woven. The reader will remember 
 that in 1852, four years after Alexandrine's and Mme. 
 de la Ferronnays' deaths, those materials had not yet 
 received their final beauty of arrangement, and no 
 one but Mrs. Craven, and perhaps her husband, had 
 yet realized their value, which was acknowledged by 
 the world fifteen years later. 
 
 Some passages from a translation of Mme. 
 Swetchine's first recorded letter to Mrs. Craven 
 follow :* 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 'August 12, 1852. 
 
 ' I was right, dear Mrs. Craven, to wait for a less occupied 
 time, for I should have found it impossible to lay down these 
 dear little volumes once I had begun them.f You can have 
 them back to-day. I have dwelt long on them with delight, 
 and they have, I hope, become part of myself. Whenever 
 you wish to touch a soul or quicken its advance, entrust to it 
 this treasure. In whatever state it may be, this presentation 
 of all that is attractive, united to all that can stimulate and 
 
 * To Mme. Swetchine had evidently been entrusted those 
 MS. volumes compiled by Alexandrine, which she herself on 
 her deathbed had confided 'de sa main deYaillante ' to Mrs. 
 Craven. 
 
 t Mrs. Craven had also lent to Mme. Swetchine the greater 
 part of the materials which were afterwards used in the ' Re"cit 
 d'une Sceur.'
 
 1852] MADAME SWETCHINE ON ' LE RECIT' 79 
 
 touch the intelligence, will act upon it. Never before did 
 the contrast between the scattered beauties of life and its 
 measureless emptiness appear to me so striking as in these 
 pages. In them are described all necessary conditions for 
 happiness ; and yet how often these lives were darkened ! 
 Early death was in them correlated to the noblest enthu- 
 siasms. The joy and suffering you describe are born of 
 special graces. Even sorrow takes, in your family, the 
 form of singular favour, and in its bitterest trials there are 
 tokens of a Divine respect. As for myself, I now under- 
 stand that you should remain inconsolable, and that you 
 may possess all the happiness the world can give, while yet 
 it may never fill the void you feel. On the other side, 
 what strength is gained in the living memory of such 
 affection ! What an honour it is to have been thus loved ! 
 What is more delightful than your sister's words, which 
 are very original in their caressing tenderness, and in- 
 exhaustible in their flexibility, so that they may closely 
 touch you and enter your very soul you who were at 
 once her guiding star on the road to heaven and her true 
 twin sister. . . . 
 
 ' I cannot thank you enough for what you have allowed 
 me to see and appreciate and love. It is rare good fortune 
 to come across elements which are so well assimilated. 
 And how I seem to have lived among you all ! Dear Mrs. 
 Craven, pray record this great kindness of yours as a date 
 which I have already noted, and which will never be 
 effaced. If I dared, I would say that you yourself are 
 bound by it, for I firmly believe in the duties contracted 
 towards those for whom one has done much.'
 
 [8o] 
 
 VI. 
 
 MRS. CRAVEN had then begun to arrange with 
 tender reverence the family papers which were 
 to take shape as ' Le Recit d'une Sceur.' She had 
 shown some amongst them to Mr. Monsell ; and to 
 him her words, ' my brother's place, near Gisors,' 
 meant much ; for Dangu was near Boury, always 
 the goal of Mrs. Craven's tenderest thoughts. Early 
 in 1853 Mr. Craven had decided, after much hesi- 
 tation, to make his home at Naples. The Palazzino 
 Chiatamone, or, as it came to be known to all their 
 acquaintances, the Casa Craven, was transformed by 
 the improvements Mr. Craven made in its arrange- 
 ments. In front it commanded the Bay of Naples, 
 and to the west was Posilippo. On either side of 
 the entrance-hall were the dining-room and Mrs. 
 Craven's sitting-room, full of books and beautiful 
 things. Mr. Keppel Craven had decorated the chief 
 reception room in what is called the style of the First 
 Empire. Its walls were painted in shades of umber, 
 and massive gilt cornices of classical design framed 
 four large mirrors as well as two life-size pictures by 
 Romney a full-length portrait of the Margravine 
 of Anspach in one, and of Mr. Craven's father and
 
 1853] CHARITY AT NAPLES 81 
 
 uncle, Keppel and Berkeley Craven, in the other. 
 Beyond the dining-room, with its choice pictures 
 and fine porcelain, was the spacious and well-filled 
 library. It was arranged in the shape of a Greek 
 cross, of which the book-shelves, carrying some eight 
 thousand volumes, formed the arms ; while in the 
 centre was a comfortable space for study. 
 
 The room was lighted from a wide balcony looking 
 south upon the sea, and on the east side it opened on 
 the terrace, behind which rose a rugged buttress of 
 the hill Echia. 
 
 Foreigners, among whom were many English, 
 diplomatists of every nation, French friends and 
 relations, were eager to belong to Mrs. Craven's 
 society. Lady Drogheda writes of it : 
 
 ' The Cravens were living at Naples, and also the 
 late Lord and Lady Holland. They almost lived 
 together. I used to hear of Mrs. Craven's acting and 
 her great social talents, and her virtues and admir- 
 able qualities, until I grew to believe that there was 
 no one like her. The following year I learned to know 
 and love her, and to look on her almost as a saint. 
 It is all gone now, that brilliant and beloved society. 
 There was no one like Pauline Craven ; I think of 
 her with tenderness that no words can describe.' 
 
 In Naples, at that time, there was much personal 
 care of the poor ; and almsgiving is always a religious 
 duty for Catholics. The noble efforts of Donna 
 Adelaide Capece Minutolo and her sisters were a 
 splendid example of private charity; but there was 
 little, if any, organized effort to provide hospitals or 
 schools for the swarming population. After careful 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA YEN [1853 
 
 (imitation with her friends, Mrs. Craven determined 
 to use her position and her dramatic gifts in the 
 service of the poor. Hence the remarkable series 
 of amateur theatricals still remembered at Naples as 
 the culminating pleasure of those pleasant years, 
 before the political upheaval which was becoming 
 every day more threatening. Mr. Craven adopted 
 his wife's idea with all the zeal which lay under his 
 somewhat reserved manner. He at once summoned 
 his architect to erect a stage and its accessories. 
 A very good and convenient theatre was arranged 
 by throwing down some partitions of the library. 
 Mr. Craven undertook its management. His wife 
 quickly selected a promising troupe among her 
 friends, who vied with one another in helping her. 
 Her experience and advice kept the lively company 
 under her orders in hand ; her enterprise succeeded 
 beyond her hopes, and helped the poorest quarters 
 of the misgoverned city through several winters. 
 
 Count Charles de la Ferronnays, Mrs. Craven's 
 eldest brother, who was a finished actor and singer, 
 and more than one accomplished amateur from other 
 countries, carried the representations on her stage to 
 such perfection that from vaudeville they went on to 
 serious comedy, plays in verse, and even to opera, 
 with increasing courage. 
 
 An extract from the Journal in which Mrs. Craven 
 wrote at times the principal impressions of her life, 
 will best describe some of her social preoccupations 
 at that time, and the unfailing sad and solemn ground 
 of serious thought on which, to use Bacon's phrase, 
 her gaieties were embroidered. Mrs. Craven had
 
 1852] DEATH OF LORD BELFAST 83 
 
 written of the death of Alonzo, the Due de Santo 
 Teodoro, whom she had known as a child ; and she 
 passes to an incident of her Neapolitan life in 
 which he had had a share. In describing it, she 
 speaks also of the English world in which she had 
 lived : - , I 
 
 ' At the beginning of February, 1853, I dined at 
 Sir William Temple's. Lord Belfast offered me his 
 arm, and placed me beside Alonzo. They only knew 
 each other by sight, and I introduced them. Alas ! 
 who would have said that before a fortnight had 
 passed one of the two would be dead, and that the 
 other should follow him within three months ? They 
 were the youngest, the handsomest, and had the 
 most distinction of all those who were there. They 
 were more or less alike in their taste and talent, one 
 for music and the other for painting, in which they 
 were almost equal to professional artists. . . . Shall 
 I ever forget the painful circumstances of poor Lord 
 Belfast's death ! I knew and saw but little of him 
 during his life, but the remembrance of his death is 
 sad and ineffaceable for me. 
 
 ' I saw him for the first time during the autumn of 
 1851 at Beaudesert, Lord Anglesey's place. He had 
 a talent for music, which was uncommon for an 
 Englishman in society. I liked his piano-playing' 
 very much, and Lord Gifford, who was of the same 
 party, accompanied him extremely well on the violin, 
 which was still more wonderful for an amateur of his 
 rank. 
 
 ' While we were at Beaudesert, we had some 
 private theatricals. I took the part of another lady
 
 84 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1852 
 
 in the Caprice* I played Madame de Lery, and 
 learnt my part in one day. Augustus played 
 Chavigny ; Isabella Anson, Mathilde. We left next 
 day but one. Just as we were starting, Lady Sydney 
 came to tell me that Lord Belfast wanted to know if 
 I would play with him in "II faut qu'une porte soit 
 ouverte ou fermee."f 
 
 ' She begged me to consent, and in that case she 
 proposed to arrange that the piece should be played 
 at her country house (Frognal), where we were to 
 meet in a fortnight's time. And so it was carried 
 out, and contrary to my expectation, for I imagined 
 he would act badly, Lord Belfast played his some- 
 what eccentric role extremely well.' 
 
 Of the party at Frognal, Mr. Grenfell writes : 
 ' Lord Belfast was the hero of the occasion ; he played 
 the piano with all the ladies round him. The proof 
 sheets of rather a moderate novel, his first attempt, 
 had just reached him. He acted with Mrs. Craven 
 in " II faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou ferme." I 
 saw a great deal of her during that week ; we always 
 met afterwards as relations and great friends. When- 
 ever we met, we began again just about where we 
 had left off, both of us taking the most lively in- 
 terest in all public affairs, and she always giving a 
 Shrewd, solid, and well-weighed opinion on them all. 
 She never spoke of herself; she had no egotisms or 
 Gallicisms. It always appeared to me that she was 
 a complete cosmopolitan.' 
 
 * Comedy in one act by Alfred de Musset, first played in 
 1847- 
 t ' Proverbe ' by A. de Musset, first played in 1848.
 
 1853] PRIVATE THEATRICALS AT NAPLES 85 
 
 Mrs. Craven's Journal continues : ' When I re- 
 turned to London he came to see me, and begged 
 me to visit his mother, who never went out, but who 
 wished to know me. I therefore called on her. She 
 only wished to hear me say that he acted well, and 
 she also wanted (as she said in almost direct terms) 
 to see if I were worthy to appear with him in a piece 
 where we two were the only actors. " Now that I 
 see and hear you," she said, " I am quite satisfied, 
 and I only regret not having seen you act with him." 
 
 ' After some time, when we were settled at Naples, 
 he arrived there in high spirits and in good health, 
 and he was delighted to take part in the plays which 
 were being got up at our house. He played equally 
 well in two parts ; all went pleasantly. Our company 
 was made up of a few intimate friends. He liked 
 them, and they liked him, and he said he had seldom 
 found himself in a little circle which suited him so 
 well. We found him pleasant, unaffected, and agree- 
 able, and we were all in good spirits and pleased 
 with each other. I had myself got over the painful 
 feeling with which at first I thought of these 
 theatricals. 
 
 ' Since the sorrows which have changed my life, 
 and of which the inward traces are ineffaceable, I 
 have always felt this repugnance, even though in 
 exterior things I have resumed my former manner of 
 living. But here, at Naples, where the thought of 
 theatricals is connected with memories of the happiest 
 time of my youth, and of those who shared it with 
 me, my distaste is even greater than usual. Many 
 circumstances had combined to make the thing
 
 86 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA VEN [1853 
 
 agreeable to Augustus, and everybody enjoyed it. 
 Once started, I always feel the old taste revive in me 
 sufficiently to give me an interest and enjoyment in 
 all that is going on. But on this occasion I disliked 
 the idea more than usual, and it was only about a 
 week before the performance that I felt in good 
 spirits, which were to be soon troubled. . . . 
 
 'The day on which our play was to come off, 
 I felt out of sorts because of a dreadful thunder- 
 storm which had prevented us all from sleeping. I 
 had never seen such terrible weather at Naples as on 
 that morning, which was to have been a day of 
 enjoyment. At mid-day we heard that Lord Belfast 
 had scarlet fever ; our party was put off, but at first 
 \ve were more disappointed than uneasy. Two days 
 passed, but on the third we were terribly startled to 
 hear that the disease, which the doctors had said was 
 slight up to that time, had suddenly become danger- 
 ous. . . . Augustus went to inquire, and only returned 
 at dinner-time without a shadow of hope. Therese 
 Ravaschieri came, and heard on her arrival what had 
 happened. She thought him so little ill that she 
 had written him a merry note ; she had even signed 
 it with her acting name, Marquise de Senneterre, 
 and had sent him a little coral hand as a charm 
 against the evil-eye. We heard of his death a little 
 later, and nothing can describe the sort of terror I 
 felt as I went over the incidents of the preceding 
 days. Doubtless the sense of contrast increased the 
 violence of my feeling, and yet I said that it was not 
 death but pleasure which was to blame for it. Death 
 has the right to take us by surprise, and pleasure
 
 1853] CAS A CRAVEN 87 
 
 should never make us lose sight of death. In other 
 circumstances, however sad and rapid the events of 
 that night, they would not have struck us in the 
 same degree. Thank God that, though our occupa- 
 tion was frivolous, it was not wrong. May He who 
 probes the heart and only condemns sin have mercy 
 on him, and on all of us ! ... May his soul rest in 
 peace !' 
 
 ' NAPLES AND LONDON, 
 
 'May 31, 1853. 
 
 ' Just now I wrote of pleasure, but it does not follow 
 that I had too large a share of it that winter. No, I 
 can say that all that deserves the name of pleasure, 
 according to worldly estimate plays, receptions, 
 visits, etc. was accompanied by annoying circum- 
 stances, which made what might be called my 
 gayest days the least agreeable of the season. In 
 spite of annoyances, however, I acted again with a 
 success which gave me only too much satisfaction. 
 I think its silly pleasure was balanced and expiated 
 by the thousand petty vexations which accom- 
 panied it. 
 
 ' What I really enjoyed was the delightful house I 
 lived in, the good and pleasant friends whom I saw 
 every day, and the general charm of existence here, 
 though for my taste it was wanting in silence and 
 quiet. Since, however, my star seems to lead me 
 back to Naples, instead of fixing me far from this 
 place, as I expected, I will try to overcome the extra- 
 ordinary dislike with which the most beautiful scene 
 in the world inspires me. After all, it is not the place 
 which gives me this distaste. The sea, the moun-
 
 88 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1853 
 
 tains, the colour, the perfume, all that God has given 
 to the people who dwell here, enchants me. Besides, 
 the sense of comfort and well-being, the finely-pro- 
 portioned and spacious rooms, which I always enjoy, 
 are to be found in this house. The contents of the 
 library are worthy of its frame, and that is much to say. 
 This charming double gallery, in which we have 
 spent our days for a month past, is a sitting-room 
 which has not its like. I am not so absurd as not to 
 love it all, but notwithstanding all this, I would 
 gladly consent to leave it all for ever if at that cost 
 I could obtain what I have most desired, active and 
 useful work for Augustus, calm and retirement for 
 myself. Yet I cannot make a merit of this wish, 
 for I do not deny that the mean miseries of this 
 country are a corrective to its charm, and that, with 
 more reason to enjoy life here than elsewhere, I 
 enjoy it less. However that may be, it seems the 
 will of God that we should return here. We leave 
 in a week, but we shall probably return in four 
 months. We had arranged to sell or let this house, 
 but Augustus has decided to keep it and put it in 
 complete order, and unless new changes unex- 
 pectedly occur in our plans during our stay in 
 England, I see clearly that I shall have to uproot 
 every fragment of my old projects and favourite 
 hopes. 
 
 ' God's will be done. I shall always find much to 
 enjoy here, and once our residence at Naples becomes 
 a habit and not an episode, I hope its charms will no 
 longer frivolize me. I will try to maintain here the 
 strong and serious impressions gained elsewhere.
 
 1853] OXFORD 89 
 
 First and last in all things may God, God alone, 
 guide and fill my life !' 
 
 On August n, 1853, Mrs. Craven wrote in her 
 Journal : 
 
 ' LONDON. 
 
 ' I have been spending some days at Nuneham, 
 during which I visited Oxford for the first time. If 
 the ruins of Pompei interest lovers of antiquity, 
 Oxford should in a far greater degree interest those 
 who care for remains of the Middle Ages, and 
 especially those who hold the same faith as the 
 founders of all those institutions, and under whose 
 inspiration the marvellous buildings were erected. 
 In this country there is an extraordinary mixture of 
 conservative feeling and its reverse. Oxford has 
 faithfully preserved the external stamp imprinted by 
 Catholicism on the whole town. The result is an in- 
 expressible feeling which is at once sweet and painful, 
 as might be that of meeting a stranger, or even an 
 enemy, under the dear and familiar features of a 
 friend, a brother, or a mother. All there speaks the 
 language of Catholics, yet that language expresses 
 what they most dislike. 
 
 ' Before writing the preceding page I should have 
 filled the gap which occurs between Naples and 
 Nuneham. I ought to have said that we passed 
 a week in Paris during June, and since the 2Oth 
 of that month we are in London. Finding myself 
 in this home, which I had so longed for, I suffer the 
 pains of Tantalus. Now that my wishes have been 
 realized it seems even more pleasant and dearer to
 
 90 LIFE OF MRS. A UGUSTUS CRA YEN [1853 
 
 me than I had before expected ; yet I return to it 
 with the certainty that I must give it up for a long 
 time, perhaps without reasonable hope of coming 
 back for permanent residence. It vexes me, but it 
 does not deserve to be called a cross, as I am so ready 
 to think it. Whatever it is, however, this con- 
 trariety to my old favourite plans is a trial. It puts 
 off permanence, which I thought I had attained. . . . 
 'Therefore on September i we leave for Paris, 
 and on the 23rd we sail from Marseilles, and so 
 we conclude a visit which has been marked for us 
 by unfulfilled hopes. It has been a short and sad 
 visit, but it has terribly revived my love for this 
 home in a country which, after all, I prefer to every 
 
 other.' 
 
 ' LONDON, 
 
 ' September II, 1853. 
 
 ' Our departure was put off, and we are now to 
 leave in three days. Everyone has left London, and 
 this month, that I would willingly have spent in the 
 country (which I really love only in England), we 
 are spending in disagreeable packing. The house 
 is nearly let, and all our arrangements are those 
 of persons who do not intend to come back for some 
 time. 
 
 ' I look around me with affection and regret. This 
 house is the ideal home of which I have dreamt. . . . 
 But what am I saying ? How can I regret a place 
 which recalls so few pleasant memories ? I, who 
 love to dwell in thoughts of the past, I know not why ; 
 but the fact is that, in spite of everything, I have had 
 great rest here, and I expect no greater happiness
 
 1853] DISSATISFACTION WITH NAPLES 91 
 
 than rest, and that God can bestow everywhere. 
 Besides that I have felt here a certain fervour and 
 goodwill, which is the one happy impression specially 
 belonging to the remembrance of my room upstairs. 
 I read and pray there, and think of God, and there 
 sometimes I have felt an ardent wish to love Him. 
 So to Naples ! and once more let us remember that 
 " All the earth is the Lord's whom we serve." ' 
 
 ' NAPLES, 
 
 1 September y^ 1853. 
 
 ' Here we are arrived as we had arranged. It is 
 seldom that a plan made some time previously can 
 be carried out in detail. But on this occasion 
 nothing went wrong. Whatever my wishes, I could 
 not but again pursue my Southern route, which is as 
 repugnant to me now as it was delightful in former 
 days. I hope my dislike will pass away, for it is 
 here evidently that God wills me at present to be. 
 
 ' We arrived on September 25, and I had heartfelt 
 joy in again seeing Therese* and Laurette, "f* whom 
 I love like sisters. But immediately afterwards the 
 weight which crushes everything here made itself 
 felt even more than it did last year. The absence of 
 all interest, of all life, and even of hope that anything 
 could prosper here, is oppressive, in spite of the sun 
 and of all the natural beauty of the place. . . . The ugli- 
 ness, the disorder, the dirt of the streets, outweigh in 
 sadness the pleasure afforded by the bay and the 
 mountains. Natural beauty easily pleases me ; but 
 I am hard to satisfy in what has to do with art. 
 
 * The Duchesse Ravaschieri. 
 
 t The Princess Camporeale, now Mme. Minghetti.
 
 92 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1853 
 
 Beauty is a matter of course in what comes from God's 
 hand, but it is otherwise in the work produced by 
 man. Beautiful trees, flowers, greenery, the perfume 
 of cut grass, of heather, of the woods, is common ; 
 it delights and satisfies me. But I want as well 
 order, neatness, and cleanliness, in what I see around 
 me that is of human providing. With those con- 
 ditions I can enjoy life, not perhaps enthusiastically, 
 but peacefully. . . . The ugliness of all the buildings 
 in Naples vexes me. I cannot get used to it, and in 
 that respect this town is the meanest in Italy. There 
 is not another like it ; for this Italian people, endowed 
 with every art, has left its mark, and that of its 
 poetical history, everywhere except at Naples. The 
 past has left no imprint here, and under the influences 
 now dominant the beautiful is perishing not less than 
 the good. I had the same impression as last year's 
 on going into church, the same heart-sickness. I 
 am growing used to it, but when I come back from 
 the life-giving atmosphere of the free North I feel 
 stifled, and however brilliant and charming be my 
 cage, I should prefer to be outside it.' 
 
 The next entry in Mrs. Craven's Journal is : 
 
 ' NAPLES, 
 
 4 April 28, 1854. 
 
 ' Rotne. I have passed a month at Rome, and 
 the days of it were full of impressions that I would 
 not forget. I had not a moment in which to record 
 them, at least in this book. Happily, what I felt is 
 not to be soon forgotten, and it is not too late to 
 recall my sensations.
 
 1854] AT HOME WITH THE RIOS 93 
 
 ' If I were in one word to express the effect which 
 Rome produced on me, I should say it was the exact 
 contrary of what I feel in Naples. As I approach 
 Rome I find my heart warmed and my intelligence 
 enlarged, and the longer I remain, the more the 
 feeling increases. Beauty of nature, beauty of art, 
 beauty of the antique, as of the Christian past, and, to 
 crown all, beauty of religion. That is the general 
 effect. Those are the sources whence come my enjoy- 
 ments in this, the greatest site [lieu] in the world. 
 
 ' I spent the first week in revisiting the best- 
 known spots, and in enjoying the society of friends 
 whom I found here ; in letting myself be filled by the 
 thought that I was in Rome, and listening to all it 
 suggested. I dwelt on the memories which were 
 mingled in my general impressions. I prayed each 
 morning at St. Andrea's ; * I saw again St. Peter's, 
 St. John Lateran, the Capitol, the Vatican. What 
 interests, what activity, what life, is reawakened 
 there in my heart and mind ! All that is seen, all 
 that is recalled by what is seen, is so magnificent 
 that, in spite of ourselves, we shake off the pettiness 
 and frivolity of which we gradually become the prey 
 elsewhere. 
 
 ' With the Rios, whom to my great delight I found 
 here, I went over the part of the Appian Way which 
 has been newly discovered. Rio knows how to 
 explain better than anyone else, and I understood 
 the interest which its ruins possess. The view was 
 very fine from the summit of the last of the circular 
 
 * S. Andrea delle Fratte, well known to readers of ' Le 
 Recit.'
 
 94 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1854 
 
 tombs, which belonged to the Colonnas in the Middle 
 Ages, and of which they made a fortress. The 
 Campagna, the aqueducts, the distant mountains, 
 the transparent atmosphere, and the remains of the 
 great classical past, can only be eclipsed by the yet 
 more interesting birth of Christianity. 
 
 ' I passed the second week of my stay in Rome in 
 spiritual retreat at the Trinita de' Monti, and nearly 
 every hour of that time is accounted for in the notes 
 which had to be made on the four meditations of the 
 day, and which, with some other exercises, occupied 
 me from seven in the morning to nine at night. It 
 is the first time in my life that I have known the 
 tiredness caused by the good use of all my faculties 
 when concentrated and undisturbed. The fatigue is 
 very sweet and salutary, and the exercises, which 
 seemed a little alarming at first, have left behind 
 them a good and cheerful impression. I shall never 
 forget those happy days, those walks under the 
 beautiful sky, while before me was the incomparable 
 view. 
 
 ' Towards evening the good Sister came to look 
 for me, and I followed her to the refectory where 
 supper awaited me. Going there I crossed the beauti- 
 ful cloister lighted by the moon the cloister where 
 twenty years before I walked with Olga on the eve 
 of her first Communion. What memories were those, 
 what holy and dear influences ! I thank God that I 
 was enabled to give myself up to them during some 
 of the days I spent in Rome at that time. 
 
 ' It was Tuesday in Holy Week when I re-entered 
 the world, and though it was represented by a very
 
 1854] STORM AT LEGHORN 95 
 
 quiet circle of friends, I had a strange sensation when 
 I returned to it. 
 
 ' I felt as if I had come from a distance, where 
 people were occupied in more interesting things than 
 those I found on my return. Would that it were 
 possible to retain this impression, and not lose the 
 sense of surprise ! But habit reasserts itself, and we 
 soon cease to be astonished by what we do ourselves.' 
 
 The spread of cholera obliged Mr. and Mrs. Craven 
 to leave Ischia, and on July 31 they went on board 
 the steamer Vesuvius, en route for Leghorn, and 
 thence for the mountains of Lucca, which had 
 hitherto escaped infection. Mrs. Craven wrote of 
 the voyage : 
 
 ' In the passage from our boat to the lazaretto we 
 passed one of those moments, not frequent in life, 
 when we are exposed to very real and imminent 
 danger. We had to row a distance which generally 
 is done in three-quarters of an hour. We were in an 
 open boat towed by another. We took four hours 
 struggling with a furious sea. Our boat was deluged 
 by surf, and more than once the rope seemed giving 
 way. If that had happened, we were at the mercy 
 of the storm and could not have, escaped. I hardly 
 know what I felt.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven's next entry is at Florence, where 
 she and Mr. Craven had been since September n : 
 
 ' Despondency has always been a danger for my 
 soul. It has destroyed many germs of life in me which 
 otherwise might have flourished.' 
 
 Fifteen days of ' intellectual retreat ' among the
 
 96 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1854 
 
 churches and galleries of Florence refreshed her, 
 and there Mrs. Craven read her Dante from 
 beginning to end without interruption, and with a 
 mind invigorated to understand and feel his mean- 
 ings. ' I have been so improved by him,' she writes, 
 ' that, were it because of his poetry alone, I should 
 record this month of September, 1854, as a happy 
 epoch in my life. 
 
 ' All that can be desired by reason is in this book, 
 and all that the soul asks for. Beside it all others, 
 except inspired Scriptures, are weak, and colourless, 
 and incomplete. Of all human productions it alone 
 contains everything. At least that is what I feel. 
 My thoughts are raised in proportion as I study and 
 understand it. Faith is increased by its true and 
 faithful picture of another life, and imagination has 
 room for exercise in the widest and most legitimate 
 of fields. No book so invites me to meditation, to 
 self-examination and prayer. Its solid merits are 
 clothed in an enchanting form, and its great lessons 
 are given in a language of which the charm was 
 never, before or since, bestowed on such poetry. 
 No matter what may be said by the critics of our 
 time, the portrait of Dante is fittingly placed by the 
 Church beside the holiest images. I reverently 
 saluted it in the church which preserves the pleasant 
 name of St. Mary of the Flowers. It is rightly placed 
 also under the arches of the Vatican, where I always 
 love to see him, although the daring of his robust 
 faith scares timid Catholics of our day. I have no 
 doubt that many of them would like to efface his 
 figure if they were masters. But, thank God !
 
 i8ss] LETTER TO MR. MONSELL 97 
 
 they are not. The masters are the Pope, the 
 bishops the Church, in short and under their pro- 
 tection we shall always find his illustrious memory 
 honoured and protected, and the great name of 
 Dante ever among the highest glories of Catholi- 
 cism.' 
 
 In concluding a touching letter of sympathy of 
 January 22, 1855, to Mr. Monsell, who had lately 
 lost his wife,* Mrs. Craven adds : 
 
 ' We hope to be in England early in May ; I there- 
 fore say nothing now about ourselves. We shall 
 find you in London, and hope to make amends by 
 many and many a long talk for our most unsatis- 
 factory correspondence. 
 
 ' Augustus's health is not as good as it used to be, 
 I am sorry to say, and whether this climate is good 
 or bad for him we shall only be able to ascertain 
 after we have tried the effects of another year in 
 the North. I have been well but for a slight indis- 
 position that just prevented me from going to Rome 
 for those admirable solemnities of December 8, a 
 disappointment for which nothing can ever make up, 
 as nothing equal to that will ever be seen again. I 
 was happy to think that Lady Lothian and her 
 daughters were there. For Catholics I believe that 
 it was impossible to witness anything more striking 
 and edifying.' 
 
 * Lady Anna Maria Wyndham Quin, only daughter of the 
 second Earl of Dunraven. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 [98] 
 
 VII. 
 
 PROBABLY Pauline Craven, sister of Eugenie and 
 Olga, and of that Albert who could say, ' There is 
 nothing great in this world but its emptiness,' would 
 not have influenced hearts as she did, or possessed 
 the same power of sympathy and unfailing sweetness 
 but for her continuous intercourse with her beloved 
 dead throughout those shining years of her life. 
 ' Naples might be a siren who could lull to sleep the 
 life my heart lives in its sad memories, if they were 
 not of the very essence of its life.' Each morning of 
 those delightful days she spent some time in sorting 
 the voluminous correspondence of her family accord- 
 ing to the sequence of Alexandrine's journal. In 
 the afternoon she often visited the Sisters of Charity 
 who superintended the only school for poor children 
 then existing at Naples. Under their roof it was 
 that she learned to understand the poverty of the 
 city, and made her plans to relieve it. But after her 
 return to Neapolitan society, she came under the 
 influence of what was probably the keenest and most 
 profound affection of her life. Those who know 
 ' Le R6cit ' will have understood the depth and 
 tenderness of her filial devotion. Her love for her
 
 i8ss] POPULARITY IN SOCIETY 99 
 
 sister Eugenie was intense, and there was some 
 motherliness in it, but even that had hardly the 
 strength of Pauline's devotion to the child of her 
 friend the Duchesse Ravaschieri. Childless herself, 
 all the treasures of motherly feeling were concen- 
 trated on Lina, who felt in return an affection extra- 
 ordinary in one so young, and which was ripened by 
 suffering and early death. It is an episode in 
 Mrs. Craven's life, which, perhaps, more than any 
 other reveals her nature, as pure as it was ardent, 
 and one finding in a child a full outlet for her human 
 devotion. 
 
 In her Journal and Meditations we see the under- 
 current of her thoughts, of which her social gifts were 
 the beautiful eddies, slight vortices that witnessed to 
 its strength and depth, and caught and carried on 
 many a superficial trifle to the illimitable horizons 
 of religious thought and faith. If Mrs. Craven had 
 allowed the dates of her Meditations to be printed, 
 there would have been touching interest in following 
 her from her successes in rendering one of De 
 Musset's or Scribe's personages, to the kneeling 
 figure in her oratory conversing with unseen guests, 
 or to the table where lay in order the records of 1830 
 to 1848, and where she linked together their golden 
 fragments. One passage in Mrs. Craven's Medita- 
 tions records what we imagine must be a rare 
 experience in the life of a woman who had been so 
 much in the very differing societies of Russia and 
 England, France and Italy. ' In a world where so 
 many mutual offences are given, I have the rare 
 good fortune, as I glance at my past and present, to
 
 100 
 
 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1855 
 
 find no instance, that I can remember, of having 
 offended anyone. I appear to have lived in an 
 atmosphere of kindliness, and to have met every- 
 where with those who, instead of being too severe, 
 were too good to me.' Doubtless, the credit of such 
 a fact lies chiefly with herself, yet how much 
 humility, how much charity, how much right judg- 
 ment in estimating others does it not reveal ! 
 In her Journal we find : 
 
 ' 34, BERKELEY SQUARE, LONDON, 
 
 ' Monday, July 30, 1855. 
 
 ' I want to write a line or two in this book, dated 
 for the last time from this house, where I settled 
 myself so joyously to live and die, as I thought. I 
 feel in a dream when I look round. Each piece of 
 furniture, which was put in place, as I believed, for 
 ever, is about to belong to the new occupiers of this 
 house, which is ours no longer.' 
 
 ' NAPLES, 
 
 'October 18, 1855. 
 
 ' London Paris ! That delightful vitality of mind 
 and soul exchanged for Naples Naples of to-day, 
 the only spot on the earth where it is true pain to live ! 
 The miserable tyrannies that have always existed 
 have grown more oppressive, and they are at last felt 
 by everyone without exception. Nothing is to be 
 heard but murmurs, fears, and groans. They never 
 were so general, and this does not add to the pleasure 
 of our return, which is at all times disagreeable after 
 we have breathed a different atmosphere. 
 
 ' Now is the time to conquer egotism by a strong
 
 i8ss] DIFFICULTIES OF WORK AT NAPLES 101 
 
 effort, to resume self-control, and dissociate myself 
 from external influences ; to profit by the comfort of 
 this large house, and by the absence of real interest 
 outside its walls, that I may create an existence of my 
 own which shall be self-contained, strengthening, 
 and independent. It is not easy here, I hardly know 
 why, but God knows that it is not, and He will help 
 me, I hope. 
 
 ' In the first place, because even the slightest 
 effort is tiring and exhausting in this air. It is 
 personally difficult for me, because, when I have 
 been without help, I have never done as well as 
 another might, and the sources of strength on which 
 one can draw elsewhere good words, beautiful 
 churches, and all the rest are wanting here. Not 
 only are they wanting, but, as a fact, the worst 
 temptations abound in the very places where we go 
 to seek strength to overcome them. 
 
 ' It is difficult, because Naples is noisy as well as 
 tiresome. For want of interest the mind grows 
 sleepy, and attention is distracted by the clatter, and 
 calm (recueillemenf) is almost impossible. 
 
 ' It is difficult, no doubt, but not impossible. The 
 end which God has set before me for my attainment, 
 at whatever cost, cannot be reached without a 
 struggle. Perhaps, when I shall have learnt indiffer- 
 ence to the influences which now I love, I may live 
 among them in safety. 
 
 'There are two blessings which God does not 
 bestow on me, and yet the happiness of my life is in 
 question. Another check to the hopes of my hus- 
 band, the last and greatest, will bring on that gloomy
 
 102 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1855 
 
 sadness of which the mere thought terrifies me. It 
 will darken our life, and disappointment and inaction 
 will cause that total eclipse of my sun which is not 
 unknown to me, and during which I live and act as in 
 a painful dream. The prospect is not enlivening, 
 and never did I feel less disposed to submit to the 
 thought of seeing him unhappy.' 
 
 In October, 1855, Mrs. Craven wrote to Mr. Mon- 
 sell of the political atmosphere of Naples, and of the 
 presages which she rightly thought foretold the 
 coming revolution : 
 
 'We left Paris late on the nth, and arrived here early 
 on the i5th. It added a little to the depression which, 
 strange to say, I always feel when I first return to this 
 country (lovely as it is), that the heat was still overpowering, 
 and the change to that from the fresh air and pleasant 
 autumn weather we had left behind was most disagreeable. 
 There was nothing very cheering in other respects either ; 
 when we came to inquire into the proceedings of the 
 summer, and to listen to everyone's account of what they 
 had witnessed and suffered, we found that all the newspaper 
 accounts, far from being exaggerated, fell short of what 
 really happened, and what struck us most (for that had 
 never been the case before) was the universal feeling about 
 it among all those we know ; we have not met with one 
 single individual who did not regard as enemies those very 
 good people who chose to defend the system about which 
 they know nothing, as we must charitably hope. 
 
 1 It is all very sad, very disheartening and alarming, but 
 in fact I only care about it much because of the tone 
 adopted by those same Catholics and Catholic newspapers, 
 which must give the impression that to Catholics there is 
 nothing very revolting in all this.
 
 1 85 5] SYMPATHY WITH REFORM 103 
 
 ' Pray let me hear from you sometimes, and give us some 
 news of dear England. I need not remind you, however, 
 that unless your letter goes in a bag (as this one does) it 
 will not be safe for you (for me, I would say) to allude to 
 all I have now told you. 
 
 ' Pray remember me to Mr. Manning whenever you see 
 him. Augustus sends you his best love ; he has been in a 
 sort of a way attached (temporarily) to this legation. If 
 this could be the beginning of a return to something of a 
 more decided occupation in his old line, I should rejoice at 
 it, but I have quite lost the power of hoping on that point, 
 and success being a thing entirely unknown to me, I cannot 
 believe in the possibility of it, not even when, as in this 
 case, it would be purchased at the cost of much enjoyment, 
 and therefore would not altogether be a thing too good to 
 be expected.' 
 
 To understand Mrs. Craven's sympathies with 
 Italian reform, it is only necessary to remember the 
 consistent tenor of her lifelong enthusiasms. A 
 rapid evolution of life within the Catholic Church 
 had taken place between 1825 and 1850. The Abbe 
 Gerbet had said at the eve of his master La Mennais' 
 ' revolt ' : ' Would it not be well to reconcile religion 
 and the human soul by showing that the dogmas, 
 the precepts, the institutions of Christianity are in 
 harmony with the deeper springs of humanity?' 
 Mrs. Craven adopted the large charity of her friend. 
 The life of conscience, the experience of the soul, 
 which has acquired a certainty of the main Christian 
 dogmas greater than any secured by external evi- 
 dence, was hers, and her passionate desire was that 
 others should also possess it. It followed that she
 
 104 LIFE OF MRS - AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1855 
 
 should be essentially liberal with the liberalism which 
 is born of Christian individuality the dignity of 
 man's personal relations with God, and which, she 
 could not doubt, involved his freedom of conscience. 
 Hence Mrs. Craven's dislike to State interference 
 with the delivery of the Christian message by the 
 Church; hence her enthusiasm for the heroes of 
 conscience, be they Savonarola, Gordon, or Damien. 
 She was indifferent to controversy, to Anglican dis- 
 putes, for instance, except as they concerned higher 
 standards of life. Her sympathy with Newman was 
 chiefly based on his ultimate appeal to conscience, 
 and many of her dislikes grew from the same root. 
 
 Her indignation in presence of the cruelties and 
 tyranny practised at Naples, and the immorality and 
 bad faith which clothed themselves in the garb of 
 order and religion, was ethical rather than political, 
 for, in truth, it was difficult for her to disapprove of 
 a Bourbon. It was the evil strokes dealt at Christian 
 life by the powers which professed to defend it that 
 revolted her spirit. 
 
 In an unpublished memorandum of hers on the 
 state of Naples when she left England to reside 
 there, she says : ' I thank God that my faith has 
 been developed in an atmosphere of freedom ; unless 
 it had been, the fountains of true religion would not 
 have risen in my soul. I feel that the narrow circle 
 set up by the timid friends of truth, who would im- 
 prison intelligence and check the legitimate eagerness 
 to learn and to know, which is great in this genera- 
 tion, would have been fatal to my faith. It is in the 
 freest air that I have best learned to love God and 
 the Church as I love nothing else. I have seen the
 
 1855] MRS. CRAVEN'S 'LIBERALISM' 105 
 
 Church attacked, and in her own strength triumph- 
 ing without help from human support, without tem- 
 poral laws to enforce Divine precepts. I have wit- 
 nessed error robbed of the prestige bestowed by 
 persecution, and of the attraction gained by its re- 
 pression, and observed its inconsequence and weak- 
 ness, and I better learnt to love the sacred beauty of 
 the Church by comparison. Can I believe that what 
 has been so useful to my heart and mind can be a 
 poison ? Can I believe that what to me, insignifi- 
 cant woman as I am, would have been fatal, can be 
 health-giving to young and intelligent men, who 
 either dwindle in the narrow limits allowed to them, 
 or break bounds and make their first step towards 
 liberty one of revolt ?' After drawing an eloquent 
 picture of Neapolitan stagnation, civil and religious, 
 Mrs. Craven, in the name of the Church and of 
 piety, implores a change of system ; she desired 
 ' light to expose the hypocrisies and disorder of the 
 classes which should lead the people in paths of 
 virtue and piety, but which had committed almost 
 the least pardonable of crimes in betraying their 
 trust of educating and enlightening conscience, which 
 is the true basis of Christian faith.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven's ' liberalism ' was, in truth, based on 
 her enthusiastic reverence for the Roman Church. 
 She was ultramontane in her dislike of Gallicanism ; 
 ultramontane in her visions of a united Italy, led by 
 the counsels of the Fisherman, and in her preference 
 for the voice of the people, made known through 
 their mother the Church, to the voice of Metternich 
 and his masters. She desired that the European 
 creed should rest on conscience rather than on
 
 106 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1855 
 
 coercion, and that its dogmas should be based on 
 their suitableness to the deepest needs and aspira- 
 tions of mankind rather than on the assertions of 
 controversialists. She loved the 'Imitation,' and 
 the heights of ascetic and mystic theology to which 
 Catholicism aspires and sometimes attains. In the 
 experience of her life she found a sufficient reason 
 for the ardent faith no historical criticism could 
 touch, much less shake, in her. 
 
 Christian liberalism such as Mrs. Craven's needs 
 no apology, though it offended some excellent friends 
 of hers at the time. If the eloquent and generous 
 party professing it in France and Italy has apparently 
 ceased to exist, it is because the leaven it introduced 
 has done its work. Being but men, there were 
 doubtless faults of judgment, intolerance, excess of 
 zeal among the upholders of that liberalism. But 
 they were wise in desiring that assent to truth which 
 is secured by conspicuous and unfettered righteous- 
 ness. Many now find that a free and enlightened 
 conscience is the only anchor against a storm of 
 criticism which threatens all faith. No doubt her 
 English sympathies, her intimacy and that of her 
 husband with Lord Palmerston, her admiration for 
 Mr. Gladstone, contributed to the reputation for 
 Liberalism that clung to the society which met at 
 the Casa Craven, but she was the last to approve 
 the methods used by the left wing of her party. 
 Mrs. Craven's desire for light and for freedom had 
 its roots solely in her Catholic faith and enthusiasm. 
 Certainly she disliked the petty tyrannies of parties 
 within the Church.
 
 VIII. 
 
 'THE PRIORY, 
 
 ' August 25, 1856. 
 
 ' IT seems strange to keep a journal, and only to 
 write in it once a year. It might seem more natural 
 to have none at all. Yet I fear that in this matter, 
 as in a multitude of others which are more important, 
 I shall do in future very much as I have always done. 
 And, after all, it is not so bad as it seems, for I write 
 the day's events in my note-book. 
 
 ' Again this year I have left Naples by myself, and 
 come through France to spend a short time in 
 England, which has been prolonged contrary to my 
 wishes. Augustus has not yet joined me, because 
 unfortunately his regrets and ambitions have been 
 reawakened by the present political circumstances 
 at Naples. So I am here alone in England, and far 
 away from him. 
 
 ' I left Naples June 2, and stayed in Paris till 
 July 12. During that time I had the happiness of 
 witnessing the abjuration of Eliza,* and I was 
 there when the marriage of Berthey" was arranged. 
 
 * Eliza Thorpe, Mrs. Craven's maid. 
 
 t Mdlle. de la Ferronnays, daughter of Mrs. Craven's eldest 
 brother, married to the Vicomte, now Comte, de Dreux Bre"ze",
 
 io8 LIFE OF .MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 From Paris I came to London, and established my- 
 self under Lady Granville's roof. The 26th I left for 
 Hatchford, and since then I have divided my time 
 between Brocket, Ossington, Littlehampton, and this 
 house from which I write. It belongs to Lord Somers, 
 but is rented just now by Lord Harry Vane. 
 
 ' After all, though my old delight in England still 
 exists, I shall not feel the same regret as usual when 
 I leave it this time. Thank God, my last stay in 
 Naples has been the happiest I have known there, 
 and I have dear friends, the children whom I love 
 almost as if I were their mother, the charm which 
 habit always bestows, and the hope of having some 
 good work to do ; all these act together, and 
 gradually replace my old dreams. Here there is 
 always an immovable barrier beyond which I cannot 
 hope to find sympathy, and I have not one friend 
 here who will or can aid me in the object which I 
 have at heart. All this, notwithstanding the kind- 
 ness which I meet, I might almost say the flattery 
 offered to me, ends by chilling and irritating me. 
 
 ' This Protestantism wearies and disgusts me. 
 The false imputations, the false witness against 
 neighbours, a national crime of which England is 
 guilty towards Catholics, wears out my patience. 
 It weakens ties which I had wished to draw yet 
 closer. No doubt the liberty of Catholics is re- 
 spected in outward matters, and politically they have 
 valuable rights which they freely use. But this is 
 
 that ' Berthe ' mentioned at p. 70, vol. ii., of ' Le Re"cit ' as the 
 baby owner of the toy dog Sifflote.
 
 1856] LORD HARRY VANE 109 
 
 balanced by the atmosphere of calumny which 
 surrounds them, and against which it is always 
 necessary to struggle, and that is wearisome, or to 
 endure, and that is intolerable. Besides which, I 
 can as little sympathize with the anti-national tone 
 adopted by English Catholics, and especially by 
 converts, though what I hear of the other side 
 justifies them to a certain degree. 
 
 ' There is a sort of compensation in all this, 
 which prevents too keen a sense of the exile which 
 I found it so difficult to accept. 
 
 ' In other ways this country is to me more 
 delightful than ever. Its wonderful green and its 
 abundance of flowers, the mingled scents of the 
 mown meadows and the woods, of field and garden, 
 has for me a general effect that is incomparable. 
 For an active, serious and full existence this frame- 
 work seems to me better than all others, as Naples 
 seems to me best suited to youth and happiness, to 
 a certain sort of love and a certain sort of poetry 
 in short, to passing pleasures of which its natural 
 beauty is the type.' 
 
 The next entry in Mrs. Craven's Journal describes 
 a visit to Brocket, and an account of Lord Palmer- 
 ston's conversation, which is largely quoted in her 
 ' Reminiscences.' 
 
 The subject of politics was always of extreme 
 interest to her. Lord Palmerston, when possible, 
 liked her to sit next him at dinner, and of Lord Harry 
 Vane, who was her host at the Priory, she writes: 
 
 ' I like to draw my host here into conversation.
 
 no 
 
 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 This practical life in England is like nothing else 
 to be met elsewhere. No royalty surpasses the 
 power which every man here feels himself to possess 
 if he takes a part in politics. The influence exercised 
 by certain classes is accepted by the others with 
 intelligent independence. Some lead, while others 
 know how to follow, but all mutually respect each 
 other, for here, in truth, the chiefs are the servants 
 of the rank and file. Their interests are in common, 
 and if any are to be sacrificed in the struggle of 
 parties, it will certainly be the men in the highest 
 places. 
 
 ' It is well known that, once the habit of interest 
 in public affairs is acquired, it is never lost, and, 
 humanly speaking, what finer interest can occupy 
 a man's life ? That, or to help in the great work 
 of Christianity, which is best of all. I know 
 nothing else worthy of ambition. For an English- 
 man whose position allows him to anticipate such 
 a career, there is no more justifiable subject for 
 regret than to find himself shut out from it.' 
 
 Visits to Ossington, Clumber, and the woodland 
 country of the Dukeries, a stay in London, prolonged 
 beyond her intention, to further her husband's 
 wishes, are noted in Mrs. Craven's Journal. She 
 describes meeting M. Thiers at Holland House. 'It 
 was a very small dinner-party, and the little, great 
 man talked with brilliancy as he explained the 
 reasons why the English army was so inferior to that 
 of France. The English, he repeated frequently, 
 have no merit but that of courage. The guests who 
 were present did not contradict him until M. de
 
 1856] THIERS ON IMPERIALISM in 
 
 Pontois exclaimed with stentorian energy, "You 
 are right, no doubt, they have not military qualities ; 
 but they are the only soldiers who have beaten us !" 
 "Oh, where?" said M. Thiers, suddenly cut short, 
 and not pleased by the remark. " Where ?" said 
 M. de Pontois. "In Spain at Waterloo." "Ah! 
 bah !" cried M. Thiers. " It's true they beat us, 
 but why ?" " I don't know why," answered M. de 
 Pontois ; " but the fact remains that we never beat 
 them." " Yes, we did," said M. Thiers, " at 
 Fontenoy." It was amusing. From that topic he 
 went on to the Parliamentary system, and vehemently 
 repelled my suggestion that possibly the system did 
 not suit every country, and that France especially 
 did not seem to understand it. I also asked him if, 
 even while we regretted the fact, it was not con- 
 ceivable that the constitution existing in France at 
 that time might not suit her better than more liberal 
 systems. He cried out in great excitement : " Eh, 
 madame ! You only tolerate it because it is illusory. 
 If it were to be put really in action you would see it 
 fall to pieces. It is like an unsafe carriage which 
 seems all right as long as it is in the coach-house, 
 but which would tumble to pieces if it were set 
 rolling." ' 
 
 Mrs. Craven relates in her Journal an amusing 
 incident to which she contributed some social 
 diplomacy. Lord Palmerston, at that time Prime 
 Minister, meeting the Due d'Aumale at a party 
 where were also the Comte and Comtesse de 
 Castiglione, mistook H.R.H., whom, strangely, he 
 did not know by sight, for the husband of the very
 
 U2 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 beautiful lady to whom Lord Palmerston had been 
 just presented. Mrs. Craven was aghast at the un- 
 ceremoniousness of the English Minister's manner. 
 However, she helped to avert what threatened to be 
 an international misunderstanding. She invoked 
 Lord and Lady Holland's help, who at first wished 
 not to be mixed up in the affair. Lord Palmerston 
 asked for an invitation to dine on a day when the 
 Due d'Aumale was to be at Holland House, and 
 repaired his inadvertent want of courtesy in his 
 best manner. 
 
 It is a subject of serious regret that only one or 
 two of Mrs. Craven's letters to Lady Georgiana 
 Fullerton can be recovered for the use of this 
 memoir. 
 
 No one acquainted with the last considerable work 
 of Mrs. Craven, 'The Life of Lady Georgiana 
 Fullerton,' can fail to understand the closeness of 
 the ties which bound them for so many years. 
 Theirs was a friendship founded on their common 
 foretaste of heaven while on earth, and a friendship 
 which few could doubt has found its ultimate per- 
 fection in the place where there is no death. 
 
 Lady Georgiana was a younger daughter of Lord 
 Granville Leveson Gower and of Lady Harriet 
 Cavendish. Her father was created Viscount 
 Granville in 1815, and Earl in 1833. Her brother 
 was the distinguished Foreign Secretary who died 
 March 31, 1891, a few hours before Mrs. Craven. 
 Lady Georgiana Fullerton was received into the 
 Catholic Church in March, 1846, two years after the 
 publication of ' Ellen Middleton,' a novel which had
 
 1856] THE DUCHESS OF NORFOLK 113 
 
 a wide and deserved success, and was followed by 
 many excellent works of fiction. 
 
 Notwithstanding the ill-success in furthering her 
 husband's desire of employment, Mrs. Craven 
 lingered on in England until September 6. A visit 
 to Mr. and Lady Georgiana Fullerton at Little- 
 hampton was a rest to her. 
 
 ' I cannot express,' she writes, ' the sensation of 
 calm well-being which I felt in their little cottage. 
 I found myself by a melancholy shore and a dark 
 and gloomy sea, for the wind had blown hard all the 
 morning. To me, used as I am to the blue sea at 
 Naples and the smiling coast of the Mediterranean, 
 there was not much that could soothe and comfort 
 me in the bare and deserted beach. My dear friends, 
 the Fullertons, were in deep mourning, and their 
 sorrow was not calculated to brighten life. Yet our 
 little family party was marked for me by indescrib- 
 able peace and repose. Next day early I went out 
 to breathe the air, impregnated with strengthening 
 odours which are different and almost opposed in their 
 effects on the nerves to those of the South. Then 
 I came in, talked with my dear Lady Georgiana, 
 argued, and even disputed a little, with her husband, 
 and then left with them to go and visit the Duchess 
 of Norfolk at Arundel, whom I had not seen since the 
 death of her father-in-law had put her in possession 
 of her fine castle and her great title.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven describes with enthusiasm the 
 approach to the embattled heights and feudal 
 dignity of Arundel. Of the daughter of Sir Edmund 
 Lyons, the Duchess of Norfolk, and of the charm 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 she possessed, Mrs. Craven writes : ' Truly I think 
 that the mysterious gift belongs to the beauty of her 
 mind and of her soul, which bestows on the whole 
 person that indescribable reflection which we cannot 
 but love. There is great dignity in such perfect 
 simplicity of manner, and such sincere indifference 
 to the splendours of fortune. Her calm, and the 
 absence of all surprise, prove her in my eyes an 
 essentially " grande dame." It is impossible to be 
 more so in the true meaning of the words.' 
 
 ' DANGU, 
 
 ' September 13. 
 
 ' Who would have said that I should be at Dangu ? 
 There is nothing changed, except that Berthe's 
 husband is with her here. The Walewskis arrived 
 three days after me. I sat beside Comte Walewski 
 at dinner, and asked him what news he had from 
 Naples. He surprised me very much by saying, 
 " Extremely serious news. Yet I hope we may have 
 better, and that we may avoid certain measures 
 which would have been already taken if we had not 
 been asked by telegraph to suspend them." " What 
 measures ?" I asked. " To recall our legations and 
 to send our fleets." " Really ! and what do you 
 think will happen now?" "Confirmation of the 
 news which makes us think that the king will yield." 
 " Good heavens ! And if not, you will go forward ?" 
 " At once. Does that annoy you ?" " Certainly it 
 does. It frightens me." " What are you afraid of ?" 
 " First, what may result from the measure, which 
 I do not quite understand, and then the tolle of all
 
 1856] COMTE WALEWSKI 115 
 
 Europe against France and England." " Do not 
 fear that ; everybody understands and approves of 
 us, and I can tell you that the Emperor Alexander II. 
 has written to the King of Naples advising him to 
 follow blindly the advice of the Emperor Napoleon." 
 " Really ! That would make things easier ; but still 
 I am afraid." " Do not fear for any possible eventu- 
 alities. I am certain the King will yield, and nothing 
 will happen." "You are sure of that?" "Nearly; 
 don't you think so ?" " No ; I fear he will not 
 yield." The conversation, which was longer than 
 what I have reported, gave me much to think about. 
 These public affairs touch me too nearly that I 
 should not be very anxious, and though I did not 
 speak to anyone of what had been said to me, I 
 could not think of anything else.' 
 
 ' Next day, 
 
 ' September 14. 
 
 ' Walking together in the park, Comte Walewski 
 resumed our conversation of the previous day. He 
 spoke to me for some time of Lord Palmerston, and 
 again repeated that it was almost impossible to live 
 on good terms with him. I was extremely sorry to 
 hear him say so. At the bottom of my heart I do 
 feel that Lord Palmerston's tone is detestable, as is 
 that of Lord Clarendon, when they speak of Naples. 
 The way they speak of " King Bomba " is very 
 offensive. 
 
 ' Meantime Comte Walewski told me an incon- 
 ceivable story of the King at the time when the 
 Comte was the French Minister at Naples.
 
 1,6 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN {1*56 
 
 'The King sent for him one day and gave him 
 a letter to read from Mme. la D. de B. It was to 
 introduce a Frenchman who wanted to found a 
 newspaper, or do something else for the cause of 
 legitimacy. 
 
 ' " I refused," said the King, " and in showing you 
 this letter I give you a proof of my loyalty to the 
 French Government. I suppose you would not 
 believe me if I told you that I do not want to see 
 my nephew on the throne of France. I know it is 
 out of the question. I think his party is a party of 
 fools and idiots, and I think the safety of the 
 monarchies depends just now on maintaining the 
 authority of the President. [He was not yet 
 Emperor.] He has put down revolution, and by so 
 doing he proved himself the defender of all thrones. 
 I do not think we can do better than support him." 
 
 ' " After these sensible words," continued Comte 
 Walewski, " how could I think of the King other- 
 wise than as a reasonable and very intelligent person ? 
 I have always spoken of him in that sense to the 
 Emperor. For a long time I tried to serve him and 
 shield him from the attacks made on him ; but at 
 last it became impossible. The reforms he promised 
 seemed further and further from his intentions. 
 England pressed us to act, and the King little knows 
 how much we have protected him from the English 
 Government. But it is impossible to go on, and our 
 patience has come to an end." 
 
 ' After this conversation I was not surprised, when 
 I returned to Paris on the 2Oth, to find that the 
 news of the squadrons putting to sea was almost
 
 1856] PERE GRATRY'S ADVICE n? 
 
 officially announced. Curiously enough this news, 
 which interferes with all my plans, was told me 
 on Sunday, the 2ist, by Alphonse Ratisbonne.* 
 He simply announced it as a bit of ordinary news, 
 in the course of a long conversation we had together 
 that day. However, we talked of other and very 
 different subjects. Merely to see him evoked all 
 the great memories of my life and the chief interests 
 of my heart. 
 
 ' I had tried a dozen times the previous afternoon 
 to see Pere Gratry. I succeeded at last, and for the 
 first time I spoke to him of my past life. . . . No one 
 has ever shown me so clearly the evident duties I 
 owe to God, and the absolute necessity that I should 
 fulfil them. I do not mean merely the duties which 
 I owe in common with all creatures, but my own 
 individual duties which the goodness and the gifts of 
 God have imposed on me. Such an influence might 
 possibly enable me to do great things, but for that it 
 would have to be permanent. Yet is it to be useless 
 to me because it is not so ? May God avert this ! 
 
 ' I mark September 2Oth and 3Oth as the days on 
 which I read a certain manuscript. t I pray God 
 that its effect may be lasting on me. 
 
 ' In the first place, amid a thousand differences of 
 circumstance, there was an extraordinary similarity 
 at least of aspiration to mine, if indeed I may 
 compare desires which have borne no fruit with 
 unconquerable resolve and heroic sacrifice. There, 
 too, was clear to me the only evident means for me 
 
 * See ' Re"cit,' vol. ii., p. 313. 
 
 t Probably the ' Vie Intime ' of Maine de Biran.
 
 ii8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 means which I have fully understood, but which 
 I have never really adopted. 
 
 ' To overcome love by love,* what is perishable 
 by what is eternal, the visible by the invisible, the 
 human by the Divine, and this not by the extinction, 
 but by the full development of our faculties. Never 
 have I read anything that so corresponded to my 
 inner consciousness. My heart tells me that herein 
 is truth. 
 
 ' Is it for nothing that God has given me this 
 narrative to read, and has shown me these manifesta- 
 tions of His perpetual presence, and has made known 
 to me these accepted prayers these petitions and 
 the answers to them ? 
 
 ' Is not ah 1 this truer than what we see with our 
 eyes ? Stranger, sweeter and more limitless than all 
 we could dream ? 
 
 * I know not what will come of all this. Nothing, 
 perhaps. Nothing ! Great God, that is impossible ! 
 I shall have seen and heard and tasted all this, and 
 make no further steps along the path Thy grace has 
 shown me ? It may be so, for so it has been a 
 thousand times with me. Ah ! that indeed is to be 
 feared and grieves me, and there is naught else in 
 the world that need be feared. I should never again 
 feel sorrow or alarm if I could be, and know that I 
 was, faithful. But such as I am, it is no wonder 
 
 * In the words ' Overcome love by love ' Mrs. Craven 
 probably remembered the passage of St. Augustine which she 
 often quoted : ' Scribe Domine vulnera tua in corde meo, ut in 
 eis legam dolorem et amorem. Dolorem ad sustinendum pro 
 te omnem dolorem ; amorem ad contemnendum pro te omnem 
 amorem.'
 
 1856] MADAME SWETCHINE'S ADVICE 119 
 
 that I am trembling and troubled, and that I live 
 uneasily between earth's delights, which no longer 
 please me, or are not for me, and that heavenly 
 peace which I have not known how to attain.' 
 
 ' LUMIGNY, 
 
 ' October 16, 1856. 
 
 ' Friday last, the loth, I spent at Fleury, with my 
 dear Mme. Swetchine. It was a day which was, as 
 always, useful to me, and it was even more beneficial 
 than usual. 
 
 ' I have brought back, I think, a firm resolve, for I 
 am convinced that the progress she would have me 
 make is absolutely necessary to my soul. If I do 
 not make it I may lose the grace of salvation, and if 
 not, certainly the plenitude of those graces which, 
 in God's mercy, I may hope for. If, on the other 
 hand, I make the effort required of me, I may obtain 
 even in this world the peace which is given to hearts 
 united to God. I may know in coming years some 
 of the happiness which I see in her incomparable 
 example a happiness which transforms and beauti- 
 fies old age, and which is the only real and inex- 
 haustible happiness on earth. I have not to learn 
 what happiness is. Joubert has well said : " In 
 heaven we shall be no longer believers ; we shall 
 only be thinkers. Let us, then, cultivate intellect, 
 because it is a Divine and eternal gift." Her dear, 
 great soul has done this, and therefore her' mind is 
 now more vigorous than in her youth ; and though 
 age weakens her body, the powers of her soul and of 
 her mind are more and more developed, notwith-
 
 120 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 standing the cruel physical pain she suffers, notwith- 
 standing sorrows only known to Him who created 
 her tender and large heart. Among all whom I 
 know, she is the most enviable of creatures. 
 
 ' All that she said to me confirmed the impression 
 produced on me by Pere Gratry's manuscript. It is 
 curious, after all, how that impression has vanished. 
 I cannot regain it, but I do not forget the resolutions 
 to which it gave birth. That is the important point, 
 and though God does not again give that joyful 
 feeling which was akin to enthusiasm, which raised 
 me above myself and detached me from the world, 
 it does not matter. I will not alter my course. 
 Pere Gratry also spoke to me in the same sense as 
 did Mme. Swetchine ; and, without knowing what 
 she had said to me, he repeated almost the same 
 things. 
 
 ' I should be unworthy of God's grace in bringing 
 me in close contact with those who desire the good 
 of my soul (a grace which in one form or another 
 has been repeated at every epoch of my life) I 
 should be unworthy if I did not at last, without 
 reserve, and for ever, correspond to it. 
 
 ' Many, so many, others have never even heard of 
 what it is given to me to know. Shall it be in vain ? 
 My God, grant that it may not be ; this time grant 
 for certain that it may not be ! 
 
 'To begin. The idea of thoroughly mastering 
 myself in one matter troubled me. Early rising has 
 always seemed to me the most difficult thing to do, 
 a thing impossible for me, and yet I know better 
 than anyone how inconvenient it is to be late.
 
 1856] VALUE OF TIME 121 
 
 Wherever I live, I find my day constantly inter- 
 rupted before I have been able even to begin it. 
 Everywhere it has happened to me thus to lose 
 absolutely to lose, even in the restricted sense in 
 which I use the word a day, two days, sometimes 
 eight days running. I know how great is the dis- 
 comfort that follows. I know that while leading 
 a life of regular Christian duty, I was often uneasy 
 and felt a sort of remorse, and on examining the 
 cause I found it was my waste of time. I sighed 
 for an impossible solitude, and dreamt of chimerical 
 retirement from the world. Only the other day I 
 felt the same dislike to make the effort. I said then 
 that I would see about it at Naples, but I had 
 already found what came of postponed resolutions. 
 At last I said to myself, "To-morrow, yes, to-morrow 
 without fail," and notwithstanding my present inde- 
 cision and my restless life, which is just now dis- 
 turbed as it has never yet been, I will now, here in 
 Paris, which I shall probably leave the day after 
 to-morrow, begin to order my days, and as a first 
 step break my morning sleep whatever my body may 
 say to it. 
 
 ' Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! la grace de continuer, de 
 poursuivre, d'accomplir. Ainsi-soit-il. 
 
 ' " O gente umana, per volar su nata, 
 Perche a poco vento cosi cadi ?" 
 
 " Purgatorio," xii.'* 
 
 * ' O ye race of men, 
 
 Though born to soar, why suffer ye a wind 
 So slight to baffle ye ? 
 
 Gary's translation.
 
 122 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 Two days after this entry Mrs. Craven began the 
 series of Meditations which fill six small volumes 
 of her small, fine writing. Some of them were 
 published by her twenty years later. They are for 
 the most part more impersonal than is her Journal, 
 but the few words of preface in the first volume so 
 well express the thoughts of her Journal at that date 
 that they may be translated here : 
 
 ' LUMIGNY, 
 
 October 18, 1856. 
 
 ' A great master of the spiritual life having said 
 recently that it was good to meditate pen in hand, 
 I have begun to do so again. At least, I will note 
 day by day in writing the thoughts which have most 
 struck me during my morning meditation. It will 
 help me to make it more attentively. It is not 
 the first time that I have made trial of this exercise, 
 but except during a retreat in Rome when I was 
 required to do so, I have abstained since the day 
 when a good priest told me that it was not a good 
 method of meditation, because involuntarily the fact 
 of writing made us think too much of ourselves. 
 
 ' Pere Petitot not being of this opinion, I resume 
 the custom, but not with the intention of neglecting 
 my morning exercise. 
 
 ' How is it and why is it that we love any creature ? 
 Is it not because of the attraction which draws the 
 heart to the perfection which we think we see, or 
 because of the love which we inspire ? 
 
 ' In that supreme love of which all other is the 
 shadow, in what degree do these motives actuate us ?
 
 1856] RESOLUTION TO RESUME 1 LE RECIT' 123 
 
 ' To feel and realize that they are present, though it 
 would seem natural to do so, requires grace, a grace 
 which is not readily obtained. Perhaps the reason 
 of this is, that the soul really possessed by such love is 
 in this life free of all that can be called sorrow. Not 
 that the conditions of its earthly life are altered, but 
 what suffering exists is suffered for love's sake, sure 
 of love unchangeable and sure of limitless fidelity, 
 and of the eternal consummation of ineffable union.' 
 
 These were the thoughts that underlay all others 
 in Mrs. Craven's mind at this crisis of her life, when 
 she was determining to arrange and edit Mme. Albert 
 de la Ferronnays' journal, and give its final and 
 perfect shape to the history of a human passion that 
 led up to the very gate of heaven, not by its eradica- 
 tion, but by its full development. Of all her contem- 
 poraries, as far as human judgment can perceive, 
 there was no one who could have told the story of 
 ' love overcome by love ' as Mrs. Craven could. She 
 set so high a value on earthly love that already it 
 carried her imagination to heights from whence the 
 highest became accessible. She had such large 
 sympathy with men and women, both in their 
 strength and in their weakness, that in * Le Recit ' 
 not one harsh word of blame or reproach is uttered. 
 The ripened charity, the respect for humanity, which 
 were hers, attend the central figures of her drama. 
 In ' Le Rcit' is the outcome of that good sense, 
 experience and art which she had perfected in her 
 nomad and brilliant career, and which are in that 
 book applied to her dearest and most profound
 
 124 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 emotions, to her spiritual convictions and her zeal to 
 share with others the kingdom of God. 
 
 The third of the small manuscript volumes which 
 contain her Journal from 1852 to 1859 is prefaced by 
 the lines in Dante's ' Purgatorio ' : 
 
 ' Sta come torre ferma, che non crolla 
 Giammai la cima per soffiar de' venti : 
 Ch sempre 1'uomo, in cui pensier rampolla, 
 Sovra pensier, da s6 dilunga il segno, 
 Perche la foga 1' un dell' altro insolla.' 
 
 ' Purgatorio,' v.* 
 
 Neapolitan news caused much anxiety just then 
 to Mrs. Craven. On one occasion when she had 
 passed a specially restless night, she wrote : 
 
 'PARIS, 
 
 ' October 20, 1856. 
 
 ' All the same, I got up at the accustomed new 
 hour, walked to the village (Lumigny) and heard 
 eight o'clock Mass. The fresh morning air did me 
 good. At three o'clock I went back to the church 
 and the cemetery. I prayed sadly but quietly by my 
 Eugenie's grave. "Oh, life! life!" as she used to 
 say ; " it is very short, but it is long enough to be 
 very much disturbed. Sorrow and joy take good 
 care that it shall not be monotonous." 
 
 ' In that place, and remembering that grief which 
 was preceded by so much happiness, my passing 
 * ' Be as a tower that, firmly set, 
 
 Shakes not its top for any blast that blows ; 
 He in whose bosom thought on thought shoots out, 
 Still of his aim is wide, in that the one 
 Sicklies and wastes to nought the other's strength.' 
 
 Gary's translation.
 
 1856] POLITICAL AGITATIONS 125 
 
 troubles seemed insignificant. I came back slowly 
 by the familiar path where I had walked so often 
 with her. The dead leaves added to its melancholy, 
 and my thoughts were far from joyous. . . . 
 
 ' Nothing could have been kinder than the farewells 
 of the circle at Lumigny. My pride and vanity are 
 too much pleased in these meetings. But what a 
 check has come to counterbalance this popularity of 
 mine ! 
 
 ' Sunday morning, the igth, I left Lumigny, and 
 here I am again in a whirlwind of doubts on account 
 of the flying rumours, which do not, however, confirm 
 the newspapers. 
 
 ' Last night, at Princess Lieven's, Mr. Howard 
 told me for certain that Augustus had been ordered 
 by a telegraphic message to leave. So now I am 
 more perplexed than ever. On hearing from 
 Augustus I wrote to him that I should leave on the 
 24th, but now he is certain to come here. Monday 
 I waited for a letter from him all day, and felt tired 
 and lonely. Tuesday a letter from him stopped my 
 departure.' 
 
 ' Thursday, October 23. 
 
 ' It is strange. Since that flash of fervour, that 
 momentary view of an entirely different order of 
 things which suddenly revealed to me this world and 
 its affairs in their absurdity, since that day and in 
 spite of the resolves I have made, and to carry out 
 which I again renew my determined intention, the 
 impression of which I spoke has absolutely disap- 
 peared. I know that what I felt was true, both as
 
 126 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 regards my real desires and my real needs true, in 
 fact, about myself, and the true light in which things 
 of this world should be seen. I do not express my- 
 self clearly, but I understand myself, and I have noted 
 this here, so that if that flash of light never again 
 illumines my life, I shall still remember what it has 
 made clear to me. I shall still train my rebellious 
 will in that direction. Even when this breath of 
 enthusiasm may possibly be quite over, my will will 
 remain fixed, I am sure. I must make it clear to 
 myself that I am resolved to follow the course I have 
 laid out. It is almost laughable to say all this about 
 such little things. 
 
 ' Such little things, that all the women of my ac- 
 quaintance do as much the greater number do more 
 yet it is no use making comparisons. Some things 
 are an effort for children, and a play for their elders. 
 I am still a child about this important point of early 
 rising. Old as I am, I have to begin. I have done 
 nothing yet, and it is no use to attempt much. It is 
 enough to make sure that I have gained something 
 in the conflict with myself. 
 
 ' Formerly I found it hard to get up at nine o'clock. 
 I went to the ten o'clock Mass without having 
 finished dressing ; came back to breakfast, then 
 dressed, and only began my day at twelve o'clock. I 
 often made my meditation when my head was full of 
 the day's disquietudes, and when silence had been 
 broken for hours. My strength lies in silence, and it 
 is some gain to me to be in church at half-past seven. 
 That enables me to hear Mass, to make my medita- 
 tion and say my prayers in peace, and to be home by
 
 1856] RESOLVE TO RISE EARLY 127 
 
 nine o'clock, so as to finish dressing and breakfast 
 before ten. Then from ten to two o'clock, my great 
 aim will be to work every day in solitude. When I 
 breakfast with Augustus at ten, I may gain an hour 
 for my work beforehand. It is not easy to be alone, 
 but I have done well these past ten days. I trust 
 that God will second my desire and smooth all 
 external obstacles. 
 
 * As for Augustus, if I do not look too tired, if 
 nothing in my face makes him think that early rising 
 is bad for me, I am sure that he will find it more 
 convenient than otherwise. I shall really have more 
 time to give him as well as more for myself. My 
 dressing at eleven often bored him, and when I have 
 some hours already well employed to my credit, I 
 shall not grudge him the time he asks from me as I 
 did when I had done nothing all day. When I feel 
 oppressed by the sense of being behindhand, so that 
 every hour increases my uneasiness, all this gives rise 
 to a flurry which is fatal to self-communing and 
 prayer, and perhaps fatal also for me in society. I 
 mean to say by this that I lose the faculty of silence, 
 of checking too great or untimely excitement in 
 conversation, of watching over my words on any 
 subject. I always wish for the gift, and I ask it 
 earnestly from God. I always repeat with attention 
 the words in the Mass : " Set a watch, O Lord, before 
 my mouth, and a door round about my lips." I 
 seldom fail to say them attentively, and I have 
 marked their place in my prayer-book with a picture 
 of St. John of Nepomuk, who seems to me to be the 
 true patron of silence.
 
 128 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 ' It appears to me clear that I honestly wish for 
 this virtue, and I am never wanting in it without 
 being seriously unhappy. 
 
 ' Well, there is no question but that when I have 
 passed a wasted morning, and joined in every sort of 
 worldly conversation, I should not be astonished 
 when I go into society unprepared, and insufficiently 
 mistress of myself, that I am beaten in every discus- 
 sion, as I deserve to be, and as any man would be 
 who went to battle without putting on his armour. 
 When the moment for righting came, he would be 
 busy in buckling it. On such occasions I have 
 exactly the same feeling, and it increases my con- 
 fusion, for notwithstanding my disorderliness in 
 everything, when I prepare myself beforehand I 
 seldom fail. Thus another point will be gained by 
 my early rising. I shall escape from this "detest- 
 able hurry," as Father Faber calls it, which prevents 
 my ideas from lying peacefully in my mind as still 
 water in a vase. On the contrary, they often boil up 
 without cause, only because I am what English people 
 call " flurried," and then I can't say anything, or 
 scarcely think anything, quietly. By the way, this 
 ought to be more trying to my health than early 
 rising, and, in fact, I know by experience the harm 
 it does me. As soon as I speak with sufficient excite- 
 ment to make my heart beat and my cheeks burn, I 
 know that I no longer speak as I ought. If my 
 emotion were justified, if it were a question even of 
 God's truth, such excitement is bad for me, and 
 without some previous excess of feeling, I should 
 not so quickly lose my sang-froid, and my calm
 
 1856] ACCEPT AN UNSETTLED LIFE 129 
 
 would last longer had it not been disturbed before- 
 hand. 
 
 ' So now I see very clearly what is the evil, and 
 also that a remedy, which does not at first sight 
 seem applicable, will reach it, as a diet which is not 
 specially suited for the stomach may benefit the 
 general health.' 
 
 'n, CHESTERFIELD STREET, LONDON, 
 
 ' Tuesday, December 9, 1856. 
 
 ' Certainly when, on October 23, I wrote the 
 preceding pages I had no idea that I should re-open 
 this book in London, less than two months after the 
 day when I thought I was leaving England for ever. 
 I might learn from that to give up making any kind 
 of previsions, and let myself go without resistance 
 down the troubled and whirling current of my life as 
 God shall will. I should confine myself to willing 
 each movement as He imparts it, while on my side I 
 do all that depends on myself; that is to say, I must 
 maintain my soul in peace in the midst of all these 
 fluctuations, my will submissive and my heart ready 
 for all that may happen. If there is a lesson that 
 God wishes to teach me, it is that. If He wills 
 concerning me one thing more than another, it is 
 complete indifference to the place where my life is 
 spent, and the virtue He specially sets before me is 
 that of interior independence, of maintaining the 
 stability and order of my soul whether in favourable 
 or in difficult circumstances. . . . 
 
 ' Augustus arrived in Paris on October 29, and 
 now, thank God, we are together. I have nothing 
 
 VOL. i. 9
 
 130 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 now to do but to obey, and that is much easier than 
 to have to decide for one's self. Yet, though I have 
 no further responsibility, we are still in great per- 
 plexity between the discomfort of passing our winter 
 away from our only home, and on the other hand the 
 fear, if I ask that we may go back to Naples for the 
 present, of seeing the chimera of which we are in 
 pursuit vanish altogether. Augustus has still some 
 hope of reaching it ; I have none. 
 
 ' In the meantime it may be strange, perhaps 
 wrong, and certainly it is vexatious, that I find my- 
 self obliged against my will to leave Naples. After 
 having detested it, longed to leave it, and feared to 
 establish myself there, I had begun really to love it. 
 My return there gave me as much pleasure this year 
 as it did annoyance a year ago. My heart is heavy 
 when I think of my good friends and my dear 
 children ; of the sun, and the way it shines on the 
 gray and gold of my room ; of my pretty pictures, 
 and of the general effect of things which for some 
 time I so little appreciated. . . . 
 
 ' According to my taste, as we are away from 
 Naples, it would have been infinitely delightful to me 
 to have been in Paris, and, under the good influences 
 I had there, to have walked with quicker steps on 
 the road of progress. 
 
 ' How am I as to that ? What have my impres- 
 sions and my strong resolutions produced ? 
 
 'Not all that I expected and thought I should 
 accomplish, yet something; and I hope that in more 
 favourable circumstances that "something" may 
 grow, and I will not let myself be discouraged. Not-
 
 1856] RETURN TO ENGLAND 131 
 
 withstanding the tiring evenings of London, I have 
 continued to get up two hours earlier than I used, 
 and in this matter I have been faithful so far to 
 the resolution I made in Paris. I have gained more 
 self-collectedness [recueillement] , and some hours of 
 time, but solitude is almost impossible for me in 
 our present way of living. The plan that I proposed 
 for my day's occupations has been much interfered 
 with, and many negligences were added to what was 
 involuntary, so that my days were not filled up as 
 they might have been. This is at once the evil and 
 the good of my present existence. It is good for me 
 to put it in writing, and doing so will help me to do 
 better in one way, and less badly in the other. I 
 want also to take my Journal up again as I did last 
 summer, and from time to time narrate what happens 
 to me. 
 
 ' On Thursday, November 4, we left Paris with 
 Lord and Lady Granville, who were returning from 
 their embassy at St. Petersburg; Comte Marescalchi, 
 the Due de Richelieu, and Mr. Henry Corry met us 
 at the station. We had a merry journey altogether, 
 and as we came along I partly lost the feeling of 
 regret I had in leaving, a feeling which showed me 
 that I had wished, more than I myself knew, to 
 settle in Paris for the winter. Sea detestable, but 
 quick passage, and at five o'clock I set foot on the 
 shore to which I had bidden an eternal farewell two 
 months before. The big room at Folkestone, where 
 we all dined, was bright ; a blazing fire warmed it, 
 and the English look of well-being and comfort was 
 so complete that my impressionable temperament
 
 1 32 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1856 
 
 reflected the influence, and during dinner I felt quite 
 gay. I was glad, too, to be there with Augustus, 
 and to have thrown off the painful sense of solitude 
 which I felt when I travelled without him. Marie 
 was very good and affectionate ; our other fellow- 
 travellers were also very kind, and put me in 
 excellent humour. ... 
 
 ' I wrote in this Journal a year ago, " If I were 
 obliged to leave Naples, it would have to be when 
 I had become attached to the place, and when I was 
 settled there for life, or something of that sort." I 
 little thought that both these conditions would be 
 fulfilled within a year. God's will be done. I 
 desired earnestly that Augustus might find some 
 occupation. Now it appears that it will be abso- 
 lutely refused, or given at the cost of new and great 
 changes of residence and neighbourhood, and of all 
 my tastes and ties of affection. My present life is 
 like sitting in a room with an open door. One can- 
 not feel at peace. How can I be, with this open 
 door in my life through which may enter every kind 
 of extraordinary combination ? 
 
 ' After all, nothing can come through that door 
 but by the will of God. In spite of everything, in 
 the middle of everything, that certainty should 
 bestow on me calm and cheerfulness. 
 
 ' Since our return to England we spent a week at 
 Brocket, where in August I passed such troubled days. 
 Who could have told me that I should be again there 
 in November, and nearly in the same society ?' 
 
 The reader will remember the pages of Mrs.
 
 1856] FORBEAR TO CRITICISE 133 
 
 Craven's ' Reminiscences ' which are taken from this 
 part of her Journal. Of one of the guests mentioned, 
 she writes, in an unpublished passage : 
 
 ' Why had she not been brought up by a mother 
 such as mine, and with the completeness of happi- 
 ness and continuous help which I enjoyed in my 
 childhood, and which I still possess ? The thought 
 silences all insolent criticism, and all recurrence to 
 a past which is blotted out by the present.'
 
 [ 134] 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE meditations on the great Christmas feast and 
 its attendant commemorations which Mrs. Craven 
 published with others in 1881 were written for the 
 most part at this date. They are translated into 
 English, and except as they illustrate Mrs. Craven's 
 life, and retain some personal incidents and emotions 
 not yet published, they need not be reproduced here. 
 Her Journal continues under the date : 
 
 ' January 18, 1857. 
 
 ' On our return from Brocket, we came back to 
 this house where, after a fortnight's stay, I believed 
 that we should have seen the end of our indecisions. 
 Days and weeks have passed, and January 15 has 
 come. Mr. Monsell has been to Rome, and returned 
 on November 18, when he left us here established in 
 his house, as we then thought, for a few days. He 
 is in Paris, and says he is returning. We are at last 
 obliged to come to some decision, and we have no 
 more idea than we had on our arrival, November 7, 
 what we shall do. ... 
 
 ' Yet, as I said eighteen months ago, what does 
 this teach me, except that I must practise that kind
 
 1857] STRAIN ON MRS. CRAVEN'S NERVES 135 
 
 of detachment which is specially disagreeable to me ? 
 Why ? Because it costs me so much that I find it 
 difficult, and I am cowardly and weak. ... I have 
 seldom been for so long what I call " lost." "Lost" 
 is the only word which expresses the distressing and 
 weary sensation. 
 
 ' I come and go, I talk, I read, I write, I go to 
 church and stay there. I come home and busy my- 
 self ; I go into society and laugh, and through it all 
 I never anywhere for an instant feel I am myself. 
 This consciousness that I am not what I would be 
 nor even what I seem to be is inexpressible. It tires 
 my head and nerves as if I were not " all there." 
 Sometimes a word, a fragment of conversation, or 
 even an air which I hear sung, restores me to 
 my own self for a moment ; tears come into my 
 eyes and I could easily sob, though the cause of 
 my emotion does not seem at all sufficient for the 
 effect. 
 
 ' In fact, I think that this prolonged uncertainty 
 has strained my nerves. 
 
 4 We only left London once between November 18 
 and January i, and it was to pass forty-eight hours 
 with Lady Mary Labouchere at Stoke, near Windsor 
 Our " merry Christmas " passed in solitude by the 
 side of our borrowed fire. In this country, families 
 meet together and collect their friends round them ; 
 but on this day, devoted to hospitality and friendship, 
 we are alone. . . . 
 
 ' New Year's Day, 1857, passed in much the same 
 way. We might, however, have been in the country, 
 but Augustus was detained in town ; nor did we dine
 
 1 36 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 tete-a-tete, but with the kind Duchess of Inverness at 
 Kensington, and there cordiality was not wanting. . . . 
 
 ' After dinner I felt painfully how much I was out 
 of my element. I hardly knew where I was, and it 
 seemed to me that never again should I be in a 
 genial atmosphere. Young Mendoya sang " Le 
 Chemin du Paradis," and he reminded me by con- 
 trast of Laurette. I thought of last year, where, at 
 the same hour, we were all together in my draw- 
 ing-room, and so gay. Laurette and Therese so 
 pretty ; one all in blue, the other in white and gold ; 
 and Berthe, full of the joy of young life which knows 
 not its future, and my dear children, who recited 
 verses, and sang couplets, and embroidered slippers 
 for me. I see clearly how much I really appreciate 
 all that well-being and affection which I have not 
 always sufficiently recognised. Perhaps God is cor- 
 recting me for that, and this may explain my con- 
 trariety. 
 
 'January 2 we left for Broadlands, where the 
 Palmerstons had asked us to stay a fortnight a long 
 visit at this time of year in England. The Lavradios 
 and the Marquis d'Azeglio travelled with us. We 
 found Lady Jocelyn and some men at Broadlands. 
 Next day arrived Sir John* and Lady Milbank.' 
 
 In short, it was the party that is described in 
 Mrs. Craven's ' Reminiscences.' It was a party the 
 elements of which would, in another mood, have 
 been full of interest for her. Lord Palmerston was 
 at his best, but in her Journal is noted : 
 
 * English Minister at Munich.
 
 i857] FAILS IN ENERGY OF WILL 137 
 
 ' All this ought to have roused me. Being in the 
 country does me good, as a rule, more than anything 
 else, but this time everything was ineffectual. A 
 bad cold added to my moral discomfort, and all the 
 week passed without a moment of spiritual relief. 
 Doubtless I made little effort ; being unwell, I got 
 up late. I left the bridle loose, so that my will 
 might go as it liked, and follow the feeling which has 
 for some time oppressed me. It is not strange that 
 I should have but a confused remembrance of those 
 two weeks.' 
 
 On the 25th, Mrs. Craven left Broadlands to 
 spend two days at Rushmore with Lady Rivers, 
 and thence she went for a visit to Lady Shaftesbury 
 at St. Giles. 
 
 There was no issue to Mr. and Mrs. Craven's 
 indecisions when they found themselves again in 
 London. ' Never before have I been so tossed to 
 and fro,' she exclaims. ' My mind feels the conse- 
 quences, and my soul does even more.' 
 
 ' January 25, 1857. 
 
 ' I have received the Correspond ant, and by the 
 side of Lady G. Fullerton's charming novel I find 
 an article by Montalembert on St. Simon* which 
 amazes me.' 
 
 * Apropos of the same article, Mme. Swetchine wrote to 
 Mrs. Craven : ' L'abus des allusions est en ce moment a son 
 comble.' In the same letter she says : ' Je veux que vous 
 sachiez mon enchantement de la Comtesse de Bonneval lancee 
 par vous dans le monde.' It was the novel of which Mrs. 
 Craven writes as having appeared in the Correspondant, and 
 remains a proof of its author's (Lady G. Fullerton's) command 
 of French, in which language it was written. \
 
 I 3 8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 Mrs. Craven resented the attribution of pre- 
 eminent virtue to that ' great Christian,' who was 
 compared by the writer, her friend and Albert's, to 
 Bossuet, not only in style, but in the beneficial 
 results of his writings. While she admired M. de 
 Montalembert's eloquence, his vigour and splendid 
 language, she asked herself on what it was spent 
 ' On the panegyric of a clever man, and a writer 
 in the highest degree entertaining ; instructive also 
 in the limited sense that is applicable to the lively 
 descriptions of a corrupt society. There is, no doubt, 
 much to be praised in the " Memoirs of St. Simon," 
 and it may be said that his is the best of all similar 
 works. We should have a right to complain if it 
 were withdrawn from us, for, side by side with 
 ignoble anecdotes, uselessly saved from oblivion, are 
 to be found the admirable portraits of the great 
 characters which rightly aroused his enthusiasm. 
 But, after all, there is not enough in all that to carry 
 one away. . . . 
 
 ' Certainly, though some pure and noble reputa- 
 tions have gained in honour and charm by his 
 writings, the general effect of them makes it im- 
 possible to read his memoirs without profound dis- 
 gust for the epoch they describe. Montalembert 
 feels it even more than most people, and truth 
 compels him to say that the 150 years which have 
 elapsed since have not been wasted, and that the 
 flood of evils which still inundates us is, after all, 
 not as great in infamy as the scandals of the past 
 were. They would be impossible nowadays. If so, 
 let us be more lenient to the age in which God willed
 
 1 857] HER OPINION OF ST. SIMON 139 
 
 us to be born. Let us live as St. Francis de Sales 
 advised without being too angry one with the 
 other.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven observes how unjust St. Simon is to 
 Mme. de Maintenon, which, she adds, ' makes him 
 responsible for a century of calumny.' 
 
 ' If there is anything of which I am tired, it is the 
 form under which every attack and invective is 
 carried on at present. There is not a book that is 
 not written to make you understand something 
 different from what it says. Every subject is turned 
 and twisted to that end, and hardly anything is 
 treated with sincerity. 
 
 ' Monday and Tuesday, 
 
 ' February 9 and 10. 
 
 ' Yesterday and to-day are days for me of dear 
 remembrance, of sad and sweet thoughts which lie 
 deep in my life thoughts which are ineffaceable and 
 always present, as on the first day. Time is but a 
 little thing, even on earth ; the past is still so living, 
 and the longest future is so short, that our span of 
 life seems often in reality but the dream to which 
 it is so often compared, in which long series of 
 imaginary events take place during a second. When 
 I return in thought to that time of Albert's and 
 Alexandrine's love, which seems so living and so 
 near to me, to the pain of uncertainty and waiting, 
 and the separations which then appeared so cruel 
 and of such consequence ; when I recall their mar- 
 riage and the flash of happiness followed by the 
 gloomy days of their mortal suffering which altered 
 all, and the new life of Alexandrine after Albert's
 
 I 4 o LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 death, so interwoven in its reminiscence and aspi- 
 ration that her lost joys were less often subjects for 
 our conversation than those she looked for ; all that 
 passed more quickly than human prevision could 
 have foreseen, and all is past finished ; and already 
 they have been re-united in heaven for a longer time 
 than their love on earth lasted. More than that, 
 they have taken possession of the ineffable things 
 hidden even from our imagination, as well as of all 
 the reality of that which to us on earth seems happi- 
 ness. 
 
 ' Beauty, youth, love, union, poetry, divine har- 
 monies, delights of which ours are but shapeless 
 promises all that is theirs for ever in God ; that is 
 to say, realized beyond all that is given to us to 
 understand. 
 
 ' We did not desire this world's splendours, nor 
 anything which is counted earthly prosperity. We 
 wished to love and be loved. We wished for life 
 in which there should be affection, and duties trans- 
 figured by affection. We wished for busy but 
 private lives, spent among our friends, and given 
 to religion and study and love. Albert, Alexan- 
 drine, Eugenie, Olga, were not those our dreams? 
 They are the dreams of many another, and they are 
 righteous dreams ; and if God does not let us realize 
 them on earth, it is that by well-endured privation we 
 may hereafter earn their complete fulfilment. 
 
 ' And yet, when the bolt falls on our youth, which 
 destroys our faith in happiness, it seems for ever 
 dead ; and when I recall the time and the way in 
 which all those dear ties were broken, and all those
 
 1 857] HAPPY THOUGHTS OF HER DEAD 141 
 
 pleasant forecasts proved illusions, I confess that 
 even now I feel deeply the pain of that loss. Yet 
 in all I acknowledge that every one of us has to 
 bless God. During these two last days I have for 
 some moments felt a living sense of that heavenly 
 happiness which is most within our conceptions 
 that of reunion. I must altogether doubt God's 
 mercy, or believe that those dear souls are saved 
 and are together. My father, my mother, Albert, 
 Alexandrine, Eugenie, Olga ! Have they not all 
 believed, suffered, loved, hoped, and worked the 
 works of faith ; some in the strength of their inno- 
 cence, others in that of their repentance, and of 
 their perfect and unmurmuring faithfulness to the 
 law and the will of God ? 
 
 'Dear, dear souls, I cannot fear for you. I hope 
 and I believe in your happiness. What would mean 
 faith and hope, if it be not that you have reached 
 the height of all these joys, by the lapse and loss of 
 which we were once so grieved ? Past sufferings have 
 become but faded dreams, and for you, awaking for 
 eternity will be the realization of all perfection. 
 
 ' Their lives and their deaths allow me, as I 
 believe, to think thus of them without presumption. 
 There is such happiness in the thought, that joy, 
 and not sorrow, is the right word to use on the day 
 of their entrance into their true life. I cannot but 
 feel notwithstanding the thick shadow in which 
 their absence leaves me I often think that God's 
 goodness is very great towards me. So many others 
 love and lose as much as I have done, without 
 having the same reason as I have for hope. Their
 
 I 4 2 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 hearts are pierced by a double sword, of which one 
 is so cruel that were they saved from it, as I am, 
 it would seem to them that they did not suffer. 
 May these thoughts be not in vain, my God !' 
 
 The next entry in her Journal is dated : 
 
 4 ALDENHAM, 
 
 ' February 25, 1857. 
 
 ' I left London last Saturday, to spend a couple of 
 days here with Lady Granville, and I am detained 
 by her sharp attack of illness, which came on the 
 day after she arrived. Here I am for some days to 
 come, away from London, and obliged to stay here 
 which, indeed, I like. I love the situation ; the 
 house is charming, in it there is complete repose ; 
 and John Acton, whose solitude I invaded with his 
 mother, has so many mental resources that time 
 passes very pleasantly alone with him. A great sorrow 
 has shadowed the last days of my stay in London, 
 and I am not the only one to feel it. Even outside 
 the circle in which an irreparable breach has been 
 made, the death of Lord Ellesmere is a misfortune 
 not only felt, but shared universally.' 
 
 ' LONDON, 
 
 ' May I, 1857. 
 
 ' I have done a great many things since I wrote 
 last in this book, and it is two months since I 
 opened it. In the interval I left England again, 
 believing that I should not return, and instead, I 
 find myself almost settled in a new London house. 
 It is surprising. None of the things happen which 
 I expect, and nothing is stranger than to be here
 
 i857] A 'SHIP UNDER SAIL' 143 
 
 in a new home which is actually mine. Here I am, 
 nevertheless, sitting at a charming table and sur- 
 rounded by my books and pictures, and with every 
 right to believe myself really at my work. As a fact, 
 I am, but it is as a ship always under sail. It is only 
 a pause, but it is rest, and I accept it and enjoy it, 
 and thank God for it. 
 
 ' I want to resume the habit of writing something 
 regularly once a week in my Journal. It would 
 make me remember more exactly how time goes, 
 and it goes so fast ! 
 
 ' So fast ! especially now. For the first years of 
 youth we are, as it were, anchored to the shore ; we 
 do not believe that we have to leave it, nor that 
 what we see round us will ever disappear. But 
 towards thirty we push off; the shore grows distant 
 with ever-increasing speed, and weeks seem to pass 
 as days did before.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven had passed her pen through the 
 following paragraph, but later she has written 
 across it : 
 
 ' Why have I struck this out ? It is true, and 
 ought to remain.' 
 
 ' It might have been better if I had begun a 
 journal like this much sooner. Yet, after all, I 
 think that true things take a larger place in our 
 minds as we grow older, and in that respect it is 
 not when we are twenty years old that we are best 
 able to write. The shore to which we sail, as we 
 leave that of youth behind us, is, after all, our father- 
 land. The nearer we approach it, the better we 
 discern its features in their true light.
 
 144 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 ''I left London on Aprils, and arrived in Paris 
 the same evening, with Lady Granville, but I did 
 not know how long I should stay there. A letter 
 from Augustus, three days later, almost decided my 
 summer plans. In any case I shall return and spend 
 some months in this new habitation, until it fulfils its 
 real purpose, which is, to be let. 
 
 ' During this fortnight in Paris, in the midst of 
 much fatigue and hurry which make enjoyment 
 impossible, I have had, all the same, some pleasant 
 moments. Holy Week gave me those special feel- 
 ings which are peculiar to Paris, and which, both in 
 themselves and by the memories they invoke, will 
 always be for me the best and strongest of any. 
 
 ' Ah ! for instance, what a sad and singular im- 
 pression was mine, as on Holy Wednesday I found 
 myself once more dining at Adrien's in that house 
 which I cannot re-enter without such a rush of con- 
 tending memories, that the habit which I have found 
 so necessary, of keeping to myself the innermost 
 depths of my heart where no one can enter, and 
 pursuing my way without a pause or hesitation, 
 stood me in good stead. . . . 
 
 ' After that dinner, another reminiscence. Ah, 
 dear Alex ! I seemed to see and hear you and be 
 with you as we went to Notre Dame with Adrien 
 and Fernand. 
 
 ' Fernand dear fellow ! Adrien let him go with 
 me in his brougham. We talked, but I have too 
 much to say of which I will not write here. Let it 
 pass. May God, in this scattering of our poor 
 family, have mercy on us and help us, separated
 
 NOTRE DAME 145 
 
 as we are from one another, to walk forward each 
 of us in the way of salvation ! 
 
 ' To Notre Dame. Strong and profound emotion 
 was caused by the scene, both as it was then and as 
 memory recalled it to me. 
 
 ' Nothing has ever, in my eyes, surpassed the 
 general effect of what is to be found in that place, 
 and at that hour, during those holy days. The 
 crowd of men was greater than in the days of the 
 finest sermons from Pere de Ravignan and Pere 
 Lacordaire ; yet Pere Felix does not at all equal 
 either of them. That compact mass of listeners is 
 all the more edifying. But what gave me one of 
 those spiritual shocks, rarely felt, but which strike 
 from the soul a living spring of urgent and fervent 
 prayer, was the anthem Parce, Domine, which fol- 
 lowed the sermon. Without having heard it, it is 
 impossible to imagine the effect of the cry, first 
 uttered by one voice and then by the five or six 
 thousand voices of the men who overflowed the vast 
 nave of Notre Dame. "Parce, Domine, parce populo 
 tuo." Never were words and music in such accord. 
 Never did the impression of unanimous prayer the 
 prayer which obtains strike me so strongly. 
 
 ' The men of Paris ! so powerful alike for good as 
 for evil ! When I remembered that it was their 
 voices I heard, I could not help joining them with 
 confidence and hope and faith in the future of our 
 sick and troubled commonwealth, which is yet so 
 full of the vigorous sap by which national prosperity 
 may be always resuscitated. 
 
 ' It is when I remember this that I love France, 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 I 4 6 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 and that I feel I still belong to her. In no other 
 country does one feel so happy, so pure, and so full 
 of energy in the presence of evil. Fighting it at 
 close quarters, not disguising it by specious names, 
 not yielding to it ; keeping our souls at their highest 
 level, using the words self-abnegation and devoted- 
 ness in a sense that is more thorough than the 
 meaning in which they are understood elsewhere 
 a sense that is the highest, and which is forgotten by 
 other nations. Of such Frenchmen I am the fellow- 
 citizen and the sister. They were, no doubt, not the 
 majority in that great building, but they were cer- 
 tainly more, many more, than the ten just men 
 who once sufficed to save a nation. God alone 
 knows their number, and it may be much greater 
 than we believe. As for those who are worldly and 
 frivolous, I think they are inferior to all others of 
 the same class on earth. The contrast is great on 
 arriving in Paris from England the country where 
 respect for woman is proved by the complete absence 
 of that mixed coarseness and ill-nature which is 
 the basis of conversation in Paris. True, one un- 
 fortunately gets used to it ; but the first impression 
 is the right one, and I feel it again, and I am 
 startled and shocked by what is said and what is 
 listened to. Decidedly, in proportion as fervent and 
 intelligent Christians are here superior to those who 
 are to be met in England (for the reason that here 
 they each pursue an ideal, and the Catholic ideal is 
 the nobler of the two), so in proportion those who 
 are not fervent in religion are inferior here, for the 
 reason that the human, political, national, perhaps
 
 1857] ENGLISHMEN AND FRENCHMEN 147 
 
 even domestic ideal in England is higher and npbler, 
 and agrees better with that natural law which links 
 happiness and right order together. There is some- 
 thing disorderly in French society which does not 
 exist in that of England. 
 
 ' I know not if there is truth in these remarks, 
 perhaps not. I do not cling to my generaliza- 
 tions. I know what I feel. However that may 
 be, and whatever its defects, Paris remains a delight- 
 ful place, and I believe that in the long run it is the 
 only place which entirely suits me. How much has 
 been said to persuade me that it is so ! My vanity 
 and pride have had much to feed on, in what I 
 have heard on the subject, during this short stay. 
 Fortunately I do not lack antidotes, as I think of 
 the great contrasts of my life. I appear to have 
 more friends than anyone, to inspire general liking ; 
 and I know it is so, and memory supplies me with 
 a long list of names when I think of all the people 
 worth knowing whom I could easily gather round 
 me. I love, and I am cordially beloved by, a few 
 intimate and dear friends ; and yet, notwithstanding 
 all, few lives are more really solitary than is mine. 
 I do not grieve over it, but I remark the fact. I 
 am convinced my solitude is not bad for me, though 
 it is often extremely painful, owing to my long habit 
 of opening my heart, and my need of doing so. Yet 
 it is, perhaps, in this very pain and all its causes and 
 its results that lies my true chance of salvation. 
 
 * Lord C.'s answer is come, and it is what I 
 expected, since I have lost my illusory hopes. The 
 effect on Augustus has also been just what I antici-
 
 I 4 8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 pated. I cannot be astonished that it is disagreeable 
 and sad for him to live in this country which is so 
 full of life and interest for others. I do not myself 
 care to stay here longer. In the first place, I share 
 with him the bitterness he feels. I am too much 
 vexed by his vexations to feel still the personal liking 
 I had for England and its habits and its habitations. 
 Besides, as I grow older I weigh and measure things 
 better according to their real worth. Affection only 
 can give them value, without it there can be no 
 pleasant intercourse ; and though I am far from say- 
 ing that I have not pleasant friends here, my recol- 
 lections of Naples and of Paris hinder my thinking 
 of London as a place where I am loved, though I 
 may be agreeable to some. What a difference there 
 is between that sensation and what I feel in France 
 and in Italy. Well, well ! everything has gradually 
 combined to destroy my exaggerated liking for the 
 country which had become mine. I shall always 
 think that to live in it and share its political activity, 
 or possess property in it, is the best of human 
 destinies. But those who have neither interests of 
 that kind, nor strong family ties to keep them in 
 England, will do better to go elsewhere.' 
 
 ' June 17. 
 
 ' The last time I wrote here was on May 30, and 
 the time that has since elapsed has been a memorable 
 time for me. During three weeks I was ill. My 
 illness was aggravated by solitude, and during that 
 solitude I was attacked with a violence I never felt 
 before, by every impression, real and imaginary,
 
 I8S7] ILLNESS, APPROACH OF OLD AGE 149 
 
 which could most disturb me and throw me into 
 a state of depression as humiliating as it was 
 miserable. 
 
 ' This has been my condition, I might almost say 
 my trial. It was a trial shamefully badly borne ; at 
 least that was my impression. God only knows if 
 the sincere desires of my heart and the unavailing 
 efforts of my will kept the under-currents of my soul 
 less troubled than was its surface. Perhaps so, but 
 I am far from being sure of it. For a moment I felt 
 disgust for myself. I find myself entirely without the 
 noble and delightful qualities which I see in others, 
 who yet have not as I have the stimulus of piety and 
 of a faith which naturally should supply them. 
 During my illness and solitude I had all of a sudden 
 a clear vision of the final departure of that reflected 
 youth which I had retained, perhaps, longer than 
 others do. It was a sharp pain for an instant, as if 
 I had suddenly passed from youth to age. I thought 
 of my charming Princess, and all her lively and happy 
 feelings, and that atmosphere of kindliness which she 
 carries with her ; her confident aspirations, her 
 courage, whether to enjoy or to wish, to suffer or to 
 hope. And besides all that she has been, and the 
 many interests which have filled her life, she has the 
 sense of youth the sense of triumph which is doubt- 
 less what the Bible calls the " pride of life." I 
 remember how vividly I felt it ; and my self-love, 
 always, alas ! so great, whispered besides that not 
 only was I young, but that I was dowered with some 
 of the gifts which give radiance to youth. 
 
 ' And now all that is over and past, and already
 
 1 5 o LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 far distant ; and instead of having gradually become 
 aware of my decline, it suddenly breaks on me that 
 but yesterday I was young, and to-morrow I shall 
 be old. The use of this strange feeling, and per- 
 haps its true end, is to give me at least the wish to 
 offer my spent youth to God, as if yesterday it had 
 been still mine, and I had been suddenly bereaved 
 of it. 
 
 ' I wished to offer up the past and accept the 
 future in the chill aspect which age assumes when 
 first it meets us. Notwithstanding a thousand hesi- 
 tations, and my great repugnance to the idea, I was, 
 at least, as I believe, sincere in my wish, and I felt a 
 confused but strong conviction, which promised me 
 in return more sunshine than I had looked to find in 
 the shadowed path where henceforth I shall have to 
 walk. However that may be, these impressions and 
 reflections were accompanied by much physical dis- 
 comfort, and resulted in a complete separation from 
 society. In the isolation caused by the absence of 
 Augustus,! nearly resolved in good earnest to let the 
 curtain fall between me and what is called the "great 
 world," as far as it depends on my will. I seriously 
 considered that my place is no longer there by any 
 title, and I resolved to act accordingly. 
 
 ' It is the beginning of a great peace as well as the 
 end of many vexations, and it is not the end of that 
 which at all times has given me the chief joys of my 
 life. There remain the society and kindness of 
 friends; the delights which Nature and Art can 
 bestow ; study and the great interests which occupy 
 and elevate the mind ; and, above all, God, to whom
 
 1857] REGRET FOR CHILDISHNESS 151 
 
 we belong more and more God, who at last can 
 reign alone ; God, whose immortal love takes no 
 account of time, who is always " the God of our 
 youth," because He is the God of the soul, which 
 never grows old ; God, who keeps His best gifts for 
 those years to which, in our foolishness, we look 
 forward with dread. Surely these considerations 
 cast a light on the future, not less than that which 
 shines on our past, and which, indeed, will far sur- 
 pass it if our souls be but faithful. 
 
 ' These consoling and true thoughts have not been 
 always present with me ; on the contrary, I have 
 had dark hours of struggle. I felt myself at times 
 separated from what makes the charm of life, and 
 yet unattracted by those compensations which were 
 offered to me from above. I went over the desires 
 and the miscalculations of my life. Above all, I felt 
 in all its old keenness the poignant regret of being 
 childless, a regret proportionate to the love I bear 
 children. It is the strongest of which my heart is 
 capable, and it is spent, whether I will it or not, on 
 every child who nestles in my arms. I love children, 
 and I weep for those whose place has remained 
 empty. May God's will be obeyed and loved ! It is 
 easy to say so to-day, but in my hours of storm that 
 voice of the past has not been mute. 
 
 ' And in the midst of all this the great Feast of the 
 Blessed Sacrament passed, and I could not even go 
 to church. Father Savign6 preached, and I could 
 not go once to hear him, and Augustus, who was 
 absent, seemed to have deserted me in my sadness 
 and suffering.
 
 I 5 2 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 ' Yet it was not so, and by my ardent wish for his 
 return I knew what security I felt in his affection 
 the support, the help, the comfort, which there is for 
 me in him. Let him say what he will to me on 
 those days when the cloud rests on him which some- 
 times hides from me my sun, he loves me as no one 
 else loves me. I have no dearer friend none more 
 necessary to me or more indispensable, and no one 
 who can be so trusted.' 
 
 'CARLSBAD, 
 
 'July 29, 1857. 
 
 ' I have been at Carlsbad for a fortnight. In con- 
 sequence of the illness I had in London, I was 
 ordered these waters which I am taking. They suit 
 me, and I feel stronger and more comfortable than I 
 have done for some time. Our life is monotonous, 
 and has little or no interest in it, but the country is 
 charming. We have the repose of solitude, much 
 greenery, much of that calm, natural beauty which 
 suits people of all countries, as well as that which 
 pleases less prosaic imaginations. Thanks be to 
 God, as I grow older I appreciate and understand 
 Nature better and better. It might even be possible 
 to love her only. In youth we feel her beauty, but 
 we treat her rather as a confidant than as a real 
 friend. She reflects our youthful dreams, and we 
 love her because we find them thus repeated. But 
 she does not calm us ; on the contrary, she stimu- 
 lates us with intoxicating influences of the present, 
 and excites the curiosity with which we desire to 
 know that future which seems to us to promise even 
 more. When one is young, so many things are
 
 1857] IMPRESSIONS OF AUTUMN 153 
 
 mingled with her charm that we cannot taste, as we 
 do later, her beneficent and serene influence. 
 
 ' I remember the impression autumn made on me 
 long ago. I loved its aspect and its odours. I loved 
 to make long excursions in the woods. I loved the 
 veil of sadness which my surroundings threw over 
 my everyday pleasures. In the clear and fresh air 
 of the year's last days there is something vivifying 
 and exhilarating, and her shadow of melancholy 
 makes an impression not to be forgotten. Together 
 with feelings such as these, to which one side of my 
 nature has always been sensitive, autumn also re- 
 minded me that the season of repose was nearly over 
 and the time of pleasure had nearly come. Beyond 
 the dead leaves were visions of other things very 
 different and very frivolous compared with those of 
 to-day brilliantly - lighted ball-rooms, wreaths of 
 flowers, and besides 
 
 " tous ces bruits 
 Dont partout la solitude est pleine," 
 
 those of the world made themselves very audible. 
 The music of dance and of song, words and impres- 
 sions in harmony with it, and many hopes, some 
 vaguely perceived, others clearly promised for the 
 year to come a repetition of all that made the re- 
 membrance of the last year so delightful. 
 
 ' I do not now dwell on the imperfect and repre- 
 hensible side of all those visions and aspirations. I 
 only say that it is not amid the world's noise that 
 the great voice the voice of God Himself can best 
 be heard. Only as the sounds of earth grow weaker 
 can we hear it. When they have ceased, and only
 
 I 5 4 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 then, do we comprehend its secret sweetness. As I 
 write, I thank God, who suffers me to realize very 
 strongly these happy thoughts. 
 
 ' Since I have been here, I have that joy which is 
 perhaps too sweet the almost painful joy of taking 
 charge of my dear little Lina, while The"rese drinks 
 the waters at Marienbad. For the first time in her 
 life she let Lina leave her that I might enjoy her. 
 I feel this proof of affection as I ought. It is like 
 the tenderness of my Eugenie, and it makes me love 
 Therese even more than I did. She has the same 
 charming unselfishness, the same generosity of heart, 
 the same devotion to those whom she loves. I am 
 sure that Eugenie in heaven blesses her for the love 
 she bears me. So I have now around me the life 
 and light which a child's presence gives. I could 
 not love this one more if she were my own, but then 
 I should love her without feeling the transitoriness 
 of this joy and the absence of its reality for me.'
 
 X. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ' September 6, 1857. 
 
 ' WE have been in Paris for twelve days, and there 
 seemed to me nothing to say of our commonplace 
 life during the first of them. But now, alas ! I have 
 to record most sad and important memories. My 
 dear, beloved, and admirable friend, Mme. Swetchine, 
 is dying. Mother, sister, friend she was all to me. 
 My soul and heart and mind were all satisfied when 
 I was near her ; all were at peace. 
 
 ' " How resigned you are !" I said to her during a 
 long day which I had spent with her at Fleury, 
 earlier in the autumn. " Do not use that word," she 
 said to me. " I do not like the word ' resignation,' 
 which means that we will a thing, and that we sacri- 
 fice it to something which God wills. That involves 
 a double action of the will which I do not under- 
 stand. Is it not simpler and more reasonable to have, 
 one's self, absolutely no will but the will of God ?" : 
 
 During Mme. Swetchine's final illness, Mrs. Craven 
 had been much by her side, and she describes how, at 
 one crisis, 'an iron bed was rolled in from an adjacent
 
 156 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 room, and in half an hour she asked again for Princess 
 Gagarin and for me ; and we found her lying on it in the 
 middle of the drawing-room. It was not unusual for 
 her to do this, for she did not habitually sleep in her 
 bedroom, but on a bed rolled of an evening into one 
 of the sitting-rooms. It was a singular custom, and it 
 helped to give her death-bed a special aspect. There 
 was no trace of illness visible, and she, who was 
 sinking before us under the weight of complicated 
 disease and her great age, retained to the last her 
 familiar and dear appearance. Her dress was, as 
 always, simple, but not neglected. The same ex- 
 quisite cleanliness was maintained ; the perfume of 
 eau-de- Portugal, which she always used, harmonized 
 with her serene countenance. Her features, which 
 could express such sympathy with the troubles of 
 others, but were immovable when she spoke of her 
 own, never failed in their double characteristics until 
 the last moment of her sufferings.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven has recorded every circumstance of 
 her illness with touching minuteness; but as M. de 
 Falloux has already published almost the same nar- 
 rative, we will not follow Mrs. Craven's.
 
 [ <57] 
 
 XL 
 
 MRS. CRAVEN was anxious to return to Naples. 
 She writes : ' After all, it is for me the only place 
 connected with memories of the past, and now for 
 some years it has had the charm of habit. And 
 besides, Threse needs me, and Lina, to leave whom 
 would cost me as great a pang as if I were her 
 mother. I cannot care for London, because Augustus 
 is haunted there by his persistent regret. Paris is 
 indifferent now to me since my dear, adorable friend 
 is gone from it she with whom, and with whom 
 only, I so ardently longed to stay two years ago. 
 In short, if Augustus were at Naples, free of certain 
 annoyances and, as far as might be, happy, nothing 
 would suit me better than to return there now ; and 
 that seems to me our wisest course.' 
 
 It refreshed Mrs. Craven's spirits, and she needed 
 comfort and strengthening in the bitterness of her 
 sorrow for Mme. Swetchine, to go to La Roche en 
 Bre*ny. She writes in her Journal after her visit : 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ' October i, 1857. 
 
 ' I had no time to write during last week, which I 
 spent at La Roche en Breny with the Montalem-
 
 I 5 8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 berts. Those days of rest in the country, though 
 they were but few, have given me a sense of happy 
 well-being. Independently of my friendship for 
 Montalembert, my dearest memories are so inextric- 
 ably bound up with him, that with no one else have 
 I in common so many precious interests of the past, 
 and so much thought on existing subjects about 
 which we are in full sympathy. I also love Anna 
 very tenderly. There are many points of difference 
 between us, and few women are so little like each 
 other. She attracts and pleases, but sometimes 
 astonishes me, and yet I love her better than I do 
 anyone else. 
 
 ' The Castel of La Roche is situated towards the 
 centre of Burgundy, in a district of the Morvan 
 which is wild rather than picturesque, though it has 
 its share of that sort of beauty. It is far from all 
 human beings, and the repose of its solitude is com- 
 plete. It is the solitude felt in great woods ; we walk 
 under their shadow, and feel a restfulness which is a 
 characteristic of the country. Doubtless it is a place 
 to which one might become greatly attached, yet it 
 seems strange to have bought it, though certainly it 
 has a charm which might attract Montalembert, and 
 a character of its own unlike all other landscapes. 
 The castel is flanked by towers, and surrounded by 
 a deep ditch full of water. It is made accessible by 
 two bridges, and by one of them a square court is 
 reached. In it is the entrance to the house, which 
 on that side is entirely covered with ivy. The first 
 view of the building is very picturesque, and the 
 interior is unlike any other. Turning to the left, the
 
 i857] DECORATIONS OF LA ROCHE 159 
 
 visitor enters a large hall, the ceiling of which, as 
 well as of the drawing-room next it, is supported by 
 beams painted in dark colours, and everywhere deco- 
 rated by coats of arms and mottoes. Among them 
 occur frequently the fine legend of the Merodes, 
 " Plus d'honneur que d'honneurs," as well as that of 
 the Montalemberts, " Ni espoir ni peur." There 
 are others besides, such as, " Bien ou rien," and the 
 singular device of the sixteenth century, " J'obeis a 
 qui je dois ; je sers a qui me plait ; je suis a qui me 
 merite." There were many more which I do not 
 remember. As well as by these, the ceiling of the 
 hall was ornamented all round by the answer to 
 Charles the Bold, on an occasion which is set forth 
 in large letters : 
 
 ' " Duke Charles measured all things by the ell-wand of his 
 will and of his private advantage, and he proposed new subsi- 
 dies and strange taxes. But the Sires de Joinville, de Charny, 
 et de Myrebeau, and other true Burgundians, answered for all 
 the corps of the Burgundian States, ' Say to the Duke that we 
 are his very humble and very obedient subjects and servants, 
 but as for what he asks of us now through you, it never has 
 been done, it cannot be done, and it will not be done.' Lesser 
 men \j)etits compagnons\ would not have dared to hold this 
 language." Taken from St. Julien de Baleure, 1531. 
 
 ' It must be allowed that this long quotation used 
 as a decoration is sufficiently curious, but it is cer- 
 tainly not commonplace. And so it is throughout 
 the house. Some elegancies that may be found else- 
 where are perhaps wanting, but, on the other hand, 
 the varied and sustained interests of life at La Roche 
 exist in no other home. Conversation there is 
 always charming and amusing, and the atmosphere
 
 160 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 is so cordial and so intellectual that heart and mind 
 alike expand in it. In short, the only guest who 
 can never gain an entrance into the antique castel 
 is Ennui. 
 
 ' After my anxieties and sorrows, I felt to the full 
 the beneficial change of thought in that repose of 
 country life of which my nerves had much need, as 
 well as in the contact with minds more active than 
 my own, which was not less salutary for me, and I 
 was in such harmony with them that no discussion 
 occurred to weary me. 
 
 ' On some subjects we do not think absolutely 
 alike, but we agree on all that forms the mainspring 
 of my opinions, and on which contradiction is just 
 now a very great and wearisome fatigue and annoy- 
 ance.' 
 
 A hurried visit to England followed. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Craven let their house there. Mrs. Craven 
 wrote from London, in October, to the Duchesse 
 Ravaschieri : 
 
 c I was reading aloud to Augustus the day before yester- 
 day the lists of Bills passed in the House during the last 
 very important session. He said nothing, then he bent his 
 head down, and I saw two big tears roll down his cheeks. 
 I feel still in my heart the pain they caused me.' 
 
 ' LUMIGNY, 
 
 'November 7, 1857. 
 
 ' I could not finish what I had to write about La 
 Roche. A new turn of our uncertainties has occurred 
 since I closed this book. Our house in London is 
 let, and it is decided that we are to return to Naples
 
 1857.1 VISIONS OF THE PAST 161 
 
 for this winter. Meantime I am enjoying physical 
 rest, and the moral well-being I feel in the country, 
 whatever country it be. 
 
 ' How strange is my life ! I look at Claire, and 
 at twenty-eight I see her established in a calm and 
 equable existence which has already acquired the 
 charm of habit, and which is not threatened by any 
 probable change in its peaceful current. At most, 
 its changes would be but those to which the life of 
 every man is subject in what regards their wishes 
 and their will. I compare this life with the broken 
 fragments of mine, and I do not complain of the 
 difference, for I only know the weariness of change, 
 and it is possible that I might also suffer from that 
 of monotony. I see the beloved figures around me 
 in the beautiful past years. My heart often melts 
 and burns within me when I can entirely escape 
 from the present, and summon again their distant 
 voices and recall their lost forms. I was then 
 myself a different person, with other thoughts and 
 other wishes. And then one after another those 
 who had almost filled my life vanished from it. 
 Not only are they all gone, but I am no longer in the 
 places where they were, or if after long years I see 
 those places again, they are so completely changed 
 that no trace of the past can be found, except some 
 remains which are like the ruins of a shattered 
 building. 
 
 ' Nothing, not even the aspect of the country, 
 reminds me of what was. And I have lived in other 
 lands and possessed friends to whom the dear com- 
 panions of my youth were unknown and remain 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 162 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 unknown. Those who are here around me, bound 
 to me by ties which our common country and our 
 relationship draw closer than all others, are but acci- 
 dents in my life, and to friends with whom I have 
 spent most of my past ten years my dead are for the 
 greater part strangers even in name. 
 
 ' I have had a home, I have lived in it with a cer- 
 tain success ; I have received in it many friends as 
 well as a crowd of persons for whom I cared not, but 
 among them all there were hardly any of the friends 
 of my youth ; and my nearest and my dearest were 
 not of the number. I only write this generally ; the 
 details of this lack of unity in my life are yet 
 stranger. I have always had a passionate love of 
 memories, and felt the need of connecting what is 
 past with what is present. I have for long had a 
 profound dislike for all that can end, as well as for 
 all that can begin. 
 
 ' Sunday last, November i, we went after vespers 
 to the cemetery. On that day, according to the 
 custom of the country, we all go to pray by the 
 graves of those we have lost. We go in together, 
 then we separate. Adrien and his sons knelt near 
 me, Claire and her relations a little further away. 
 Oh, my beloved, all is well. You are in heaven. 
 Your children have grown, and are as you would 
 have liked to see them. In choosing another wife, 
 your husband doubtless acted as you would have 
 wished. Claire, who has in her life only loved 
 Adrien, is his, and her mother lives with her in the 
 plenitude of a happiness which is the realization of 
 her early dreams. Everyone is now happy here. Is
 
 1 857] COMTE DE MUN'S AFFECTION 163 
 
 it wrong in me for whom nothing is changed, in me 
 for whom the irreparable void is deeper than ever to- 
 day, for me who have no shadow of compensation 
 for your loss, who am ever conscious that it is the 
 incurable wound of my life is it wrong, I ask, that 
 I should have felt a tinge of bitterness mix itself 
 with impressions which, in spite of their sadness, 
 would have been sweet to me when I remembered 
 that all this environment of happiness has its 
 origin in this very pain and misfortune. How sad 
 and lonely I felt at the moment of our common 
 prayer ! 
 
 ' I was on my knees, my head resting on the stone. 
 Little by little everyone had gone away. Sister 
 Marie Timothee told me to get up, for the ground 
 was damp, and then I perceived that only Adrien, 
 Robert and Albert had remained. I got up, but I 
 know not what feeling (to which I ought not to have 
 yielded) made me take a different path from theirs 
 as I returned to the chateau. I had barely started, 
 when I was sorry I had done so, for at that moment 
 we were truly united in the same thought. I felt it 
 when I found them awaiting me on the doorsteps, as 
 the night fell. Adrien took me in his arms, and 
 kissed me, saying that it was sweet and consolatory 
 that I could be there on that day. His dear children 
 also kissed me so tenderly that my full heart felt 
 somewhat relieved and calmed. Claire also was good 
 and charming to me. Dear Claire ! it would be too 
 bad of me to feel vexed because God has been good 
 to her. We all love His will, who can but will our 
 welfare. The divine will gave her all this happiness,
 
 ,64 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 which He withdrew from us. May it be done and 
 accepted without a murmur ! 
 
 ' LUMIGNY, 
 
 ' Thursday, November \ 2. 
 
 ' The quiet I enjoy here does me great good ; but I 
 am living outside my real life, and it is tinged with 
 melancholy and a certain uneasy feeling as if I were 
 appropriating to my use something that does not 
 belong to me. When I take up my ordinary exist- 
 ence, I shall again feel troubled the trouble of dis- 
 quietude, to which I would so willingly put an end. . . 
 The remembrance and the fear of what are mostly 
 imaginary difficulties pursue me and prevent my in- 
 most soul from enjoying the calm which rests my 
 body that calm I owe, in the first place, to being out 
 of a town and in the presence of Nature, even ugly 
 as is this country, and leafless at this time of year. 
 I owe it also to the regularity of life here, and the 
 absence of those multiplied occupations which more 
 than aught else tire my mind and my nerves. Yes ; 
 the mere view of a horizon clear of any house, visible 
 or invisible ; the mere sight of the yellowing trees 
 and /the fields which are still green ; the broad 
 garden walks ; the few remaining flowers which 
 show here and there ; and, above all, a sky singularly 
 clear and brilliant, considering the season all this 
 gives me a great feeling of healthy comfort. Nor 
 am I unconscious of most cordial affection. Yet, in 
 truth, I need for full enjoyment of a scene like this a 
 certain community of tastes and opinions, of interest 
 in the same things and the same people. In short,
 
 GRACES OF A QUIET LIFE 165 
 
 I need complete sympathy, such as I once knew 
 here and such as I can feel. Meantime, these are 
 among my better days, and I thank God for them. 
 But they are over. I had hardly begun to profit 
 somewhat by this quiet, which I could not at once 
 enjoy (I had had previously too much anxiety). 
 The waves were just calming down, and I could look 
 better into my heart, but now the changes begin 
 again. . . . 
 
 ' Oh ! if this beautiful book of Pere Gratry, which 
 I would not read until I was settled quietly far from 
 the noise of towns if this book* were to do me all 
 the good it might ; if my soul, which certainly wills 
 to accept the light and the life God would bestow on 
 it if only my soul could freely give entrance to it 
 arid be flooded and transformed by it ! 
 
 1 It falls into my hands at an age when it should 
 do me most good at the age when I enter that 
 " last third" of life, the approach of which rouses in 
 me a feeling of terror and regret, which is at once 
 painful and puerile. To read it will show me how 
 best to disperse my confused feelings of discomfort. 
 May I not hope that it will leave some lasting im- 
 pression ? Dare I not hope that among the truths 
 which I have grasped, though clothed in language 
 and metaphors somewhat too lofty for full apprecia- 
 tion in all their power by my ignorance, a few may 
 so take root in me that I may yield some fruits, it 
 may be after long waiting, and some day I may see 
 and taste them ? 
 
 * Probably the work of Pere Gratry entitled ' La Con - 
 naissance de PAme,' published in 1857.
 
 166 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1857 
 
 ' Ne permettez pas, mon Dieu, que mon defaut de 
 science me prive de la moindre parcelle des consola- 
 tions renfermees dans ce livre. Elles tiennent a des 
 realites que vous saurez bien me faire comprendre, si 
 vous le voulez et si je le veux. Faites-moi done 
 d'abord vouloir, puis accordez-moi de saisir avec 
 cette volonte, la votre toute entiere dans son infinie, 
 inepuisable et incomprehensible misericorde ! Ainsi 
 soit-il.' 
 
 A destructive earthquake on December 16, 1857, 
 which ruined villages in the Basilicata, and was 
 felt even at Naples, suddenly strained every nerve 
 of humane persons in its relief. It was impos- 
 sible to prevent the widespread suffering of home- 
 less parents who had lost their children, and of 
 orphans with perhaps no relations or friends left to 
 care for them. By two performances, soon after 
 her return to Naples, Mrs. Craven collected the large 
 sum of 17,000 francs for immediate necessities. 8 
 each was given for many of the tickets, and every 
 place in the little theatre was taken. 
 
 The bereaved infants were her special care ; she 
 wrote an appeal which brought her help from France 
 and England. She established a house at Pizzofal- 
 cone, which could receive thirty children, under the 
 care of French Sisters of Charity. She meant it as 
 a nucleus for further work by those admirable women, 
 and in an appeal for help she wrote : 
 
 ' Who knows if these works of charity will not 
 even in our lifetime have greater results than those 
 we now anticipate! Who knows if these poor
 
 1858] 'LE MOT DE L'ENIGME' 167 
 
 children, driven away from their cottages by a sad 
 catastrophe, may not return when the healing action 
 of time shall have restored their poor homes, and 
 bear with them the germs of educated life, which 
 they may transmit to their children !' 
 
 The children some of whom, when recovered from 
 the ruins of their houses, had been found badly 
 wounded and crippled were reared in peace and 
 well-being until they were twenty, and able to main- 
 tain themselves in easy employments. Many who 
 found themselves by the death of all their relations 
 during the earthquake possessed of sufficient pro- 
 perty, became useful, as Mrs. Craven prophesied, to 
 their more ignorant neighbours by their education. 
 
 No better account of the Neapolitan society in 
 which she lived can be found than in Mrs. Craven's 
 novel, ' Le Mot de 1'enigme.' The brilliancy, the 
 kindly spirit of it, where ill-natured gossip was only 
 to be found on the lips of foreigners, is vividly por- 
 trayed. The book reflects the Italian side of its 
 author's cosmopolitan tastes and distastes. It is, 
 indeed, the key to much in her that few of her 
 friends understood, though its facts were pure 
 creations. Who could read her sketches of the 
 Toledo during the Carnival, of the scenery of the 
 bay between Capri and Ischia, or of a Vesuvian 
 eruption, and not feel a sense of sympathy with the 
 writer ? Before ' Le Mot de 1'enigme ' was written 
 or published, time had given perspective to Mrs. 
 Craven's experiences, and softened the sharp out- 
 lines of some circumstances echoed, if not directly 
 stated, in her story. But even in their more intimate
 
 168 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 spirituality the incidents Mrs. Craven relates bear 
 unmistakable evidence of truth. ' There is more of 
 myself in the book,' she said, long after, 'than in 
 anything else I have written.' 
 
 In the mystical but almost sensible relief which 
 Ginevra, the heroine, experienced during confession, 
 in her conversion sudden as was that of St. Augus- 
 tine, when in the garden he heard the words ' Tolle 
 Lege' we have full witness to the author's keen ears 
 for Divine whispers. In the breadth of her sympathy 
 for tempted souls, and the place she makes for re- 
 covered sinners, in her ideal world, we have that 
 truest liberality which was hers. It would be diffi- 
 cult to mistake the portrait of her dearest friend 
 and the beloved Lina in the Stella and Angiolina 
 of the story. Throughout it, though the incidents 
 are, it is needless to say, purely imaginary, the spirit 
 of Mrs. Craven is present, and animates every page 
 with that ardour, that high conception of life and 
 of the part played by religion in human affairs, 
 which she possessed. Not less is her artist nature, 
 her sense of beauty, and her taste in all its visible 
 manifestations, proved in the novel. As part of 
 Mrs. Craven's own biography, the words she puts 
 in her heroine's mouth express in a manner her own 
 sentiments : 
 
 ' I loved Italy as I saw her, endowed with those 
 gifts of nature, of poetry, religion, and of historical 
 interest with which she is so magnificently endowed. 
 Here and there I had already heard the murmured 
 words, " Rome as capital." They shocked me, and 
 seemed to my intelligence a monstrous national and
 
 1858] STELLA'S POLITICS 169 
 
 religious offence. They roused in me almost repul- 
 sion for what was called the new birth of Italy. 
 Stella, however, did not agree with me. Her nature 
 was quickly excited by all that was energetic, brave 
 and devoted, and patriotism, be it ill or well con- 
 ceived, readily assumes those aspects. No one could 
 declaim as she could Filicaja's address to Italy : 
 
 ' " Deh ! fossi tu men bella o almen piu forte !" 
 or Dante' apostrophe : 
 
 ' " Ahi ! serva Italia ! di dolore ostello !"* 
 
 'As to what related to Rome, Stella did not feel 
 Ginevra's anxiety. The more eminent Italian leaders 
 of the day believed that to diminish the majesty of 
 Rome, to rob her of the only sovereignty that con- 
 firmed to her the antique right to be called Queen 
 of the World in short, to menace the Papacy would 
 be treason to their country, and would discrown 
 Italy itself.' 
 
 1858 was the last year of the charitable theatricals 
 of Chiatamone. Political tension was becoming too 
 great. Some unwise attempts, particularly by 
 English Catholics, to minimize the evils of Nea- 
 politan government, vexed Mrs. Craven to the 
 heart ; and of them she wrote indignantly to Mr. 
 Monsell. There was no entry in her Journal until 
 the winter was nearly over. 
 
 ' ROME, 
 
 ' March 29, 1858. 
 
 ' Not a line written here for six months ! What 
 does that mean ? It means that time has passed at 
 * ' Ah ! slavish Italy, thou inn of grief.' Gary's translation.
 
 170 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 Naples as usual in a way that leaves nothing to 
 record. I do not mean that time has not passed 
 pleasantly. Rather the contrary. This book is 
 more often opened on sad than on happy days, but I 
 also note in it the recollections of pleasant hours, 
 when they are outside the ordinary routine. It is not 
 altogether unprecedented that I should be at Rome 
 for Holy Week, but it is always a new joy for which 
 I am thankful to God, and the impressions I receive 
 here are always good and of lasting profit to me. 
 
 ' I arrived here with Therese, who is entrusted to 
 me on this occasion. It is a great pleasure to me to 
 act as her chaperon and cicerone. We are alone, 
 and free to do as we like, and we are enjoying com- 
 plete peace, which is a primary condition for full 
 enjoyment of this place. Rome both awakens and 
 calms the soul, and rouses interest as does no other 
 place. It is good to abandon one's self to the sensa- 
 tion of magnificent [grandiose] repose, felt here as 
 nowhere else ; it is well to be free of distraction from 
 external circumstance.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven's sensitive nature could, as her Journal 
 reveals, suffer much from her environment; but in 
 proportion her heart could expand (to use her own 
 expression) in scenes which were responsive to her 
 aspirations in the spiritual order, and to her taste for 
 all that tells of exalted humanity and noble art, 
 whether old or new. She revisited gladly her favourite 
 objects with the Duchesse Ravaschieri, always loving 
 what had been hallowed by her past memories more 
 than what was new to her. ' In Rome nothing is
 
 1858] NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN DEVOTION 171 
 
 mediocre,' she exclaims; 'only in Rome can we have 
 a true idea of grandeur. Elsewhere it is partial, but 
 here it is complete.' She notes that the devotion of 
 the 'way of the Cross,' which she followed as it used 
 to be practised at the Coliseum, was disturbed for 
 her in some degree by the very exuberance of pious 
 and overwhelming thought which it produced. ' Yes,' 
 she exclaims, in another page, ' I love to pray in St. 
 Peter's. I am often transported by a sense of joy 
 there, and a sort of pride, such as the son of a noble 
 house might feel when he enters a splendid building 
 that reminds him at every step of the greatness of 
 his ancestors. 
 
 ' Doubtless it is also well to feel sorrow for that 
 condition of exile which is the Christian's on earth. 
 The cathedrals of the North inspire it, and therefore 
 prayers are multiplied and fruitful under their high 
 arches and in the gloom of their stained - glass 
 windows. Each kind of feeling can, in its turn, fill 
 our hearts, without altering, but rather by completing 
 the Catholic idea. It recognises joy and sorrow 
 alike, and divides the year into days of mourning and 
 days of festival.' 
 
 Nowhere does Mrs. Craven's Journal so fully reveal 
 her artist nature as at Rome. She suffered from 
 ugliness as she revelled in all true beauty. Of the 
 Good Friday service in the Sistine Chapel, she writes : 
 
 ' When the last verses were nearly finished, the 
 setting sun threw vivid rays upon Michael Angelo's 
 fresco, and as I saw and heard and recalled in 
 memory the service just concluded, I thought it 
 more beautiful than any poem, and truer than all
 
 172 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 realities of this world. I felt a rare joy of living in 
 the full accord of my soul and mind and senses. All 
 worked together to make me understand what can 
 best heal the pain of earthly life. I let myself be 
 lifted and carried on by the music as by a wave.' 
 
 Much of Mrs. Craven's Journal during this Roman 
 visit was incorporated by her in a chapter of her 
 published ' Reminiscences,' under the heading of 
 ' Une Semaine Sainte a Rome. It is slightly altered 
 for publication, and personal feelings are frequently 
 generalized. Yet here, in this endeavour to portray 
 Mrs. Craven with a greater freedom than she 
 allowed herself in publishing her private, and per- 
 haps most deeply felt, thoughts, a passage of her 
 Journal at Rome which she did not give to the world 
 may be translated. 
 
 Writing of the verse, ' How often would I have 
 gathered thy children together, as the hen doth 
 gather her chickens under her wings, and thou 
 wouldest not!' (Matthew xxiii. 37), she says: 'Are 
 there not many souls who abuse that freedom of their 
 will which God seems to respect with an almost fearful 
 justice ? When we reflect on this, can we have too 
 great a reverence for the mysterious privilege ? 
 
 ' " Di che le creature intelligent!, 
 E tutte e sole furo e son dotate." 
 
 " Paradise," v. 24.* 
 
 ' Dante, who so writes, has just described free- 
 will as 
 
 * ' The boon wherewith 
 All intellectual creatures, and them sole, 
 He hath endowed.' 
 
 Gary's translation.
 
 1858] THOUGHTS IN PAMPHILI GARDENS 173 
 
 ' " Lo maggior don, che Dio per sua larghezza 
 Fesse creando, eo alia sua bontate 
 Piu conformato, e quel ch'ei piu apprezza." 
 
 " Paradise," v. 21.* 
 
 ' If God Himself holds it necessary that our will 
 alone should lead us to Him, how can men have the 
 right to constrain one another by external force to 
 make acts which are without value in the sight of 
 God, except what is given to them by the interior 
 and secret working of their will ? This would carry 
 me far from Jerusalem and the Palatine, whence my 
 reflections arose.' 
 
 Again, in the passage which records her visit to 
 the Pamphili gardens, and the memories of her 
 family evoked there, these touching words, which 
 reveal so much of Mrs. Craven's own feelings, are 
 omitted : 
 
 ' As long as I live, Eugenie's death will be for me 
 a grief unrelieved by any earthly consolation. It is 
 greater now that age has made me value more and 
 more those ties which are drawn closer with every 
 year, and which nothing can replace. I feel now, 
 even more than when in the flower of my youth, the 
 dearest joy of my life was struck as by a thunder- 
 bolt. The years, alas ! bring for me many of those 
 anniversaries which commemorate unquenchable 
 grief. It has become a habit with me to keep them 
 silently and secretly in my heart, and not to im- 
 portune others with them.' 
 
 * ' Supreme of gifts, which God creating gave 
 Of His free bounty, sign most evident 
 Of goodness, and in His account most priz'd.' 
 
 Gary's translation.
 
 174 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 In the last few lines of her Journal, narrating 
 her impressions of Holy Week in 1858, Mrs. Craven 
 says : 
 
 ' There were none that did not help to make me 
 better, and after experiencing them I understood 
 that for me a pilgrimage to Rome was more helpful 
 to my intelligence than any book, and of more 
 service to my soul than any sermon.' 
 
 Readers of ' Le Recit ' will remember the pages 
 which preface the second volume. They have fresh 
 value when placed side by side with these entries. 
 
 That year Mrs. Craven joined in the hospitable 
 services rendered to pilgrims by the members of the 
 association established for that purpose. In 1840 
 she and Alexandrine had been enrolled in the Com- 
 munity, which is an active one ; for its members, 
 among whom are men and women of the highest 
 rank, attend to the personal wants of the hundreds 
 of pilgrims who come, poor and travel-soiled, from 
 the wildest regions of Italy. 
 
 ' We will bring Lina next year,' said her mother. 
 ' I want to see it all again with her.' 
 
 The child could have sympathized with the 
 emotions of that friend who loved her hardly less 
 than did her mother, though she was but nine years 
 old. In the midst of the intellectual society, the 
 frequent journeys to France and England, the many 
 preoccupations of Mrs. Craven's mind, it is a touch- 
 ing surprise to come on the profound traces of her 
 love for Lina from her infancy. At Mrs. Craven's 
 first visit to the Duchesse Ravaschieri, Lina took 
 possession of her heart, and the love of the little
 
 1858] RESUMPTION OF LE RECIT' 175 
 
 child healed much of the pain left by the family 
 losses of the previous years. Some strange spiritual 
 tie drew the woman of forty and the infant together 
 with the pure passion of love love answering love, 
 deep calling unto deep, without explanation of in- 
 stinct or custom. 
 
 * Wednesday, June 30, 1858. 
 
 ' Yesterday was my fete day, and the twenty- 
 second anniversary of Albert's death. 
 
 ' Twenty-two years since the day which is so fresh 
 in my memory. Its pain was living and strong for 
 us as was our youth. With what a weight suffering 
 falls on the young ! What illusions, faiths, and 
 hopes, are shocked and scattered by its sudden and 
 terrible presence ! We think ourselves happy, pro- 
 tected and preserved, and all at once we are 
 struck, and with the vigour of natural impulse which 
 demands happiness, and believes it to be one of our 
 rights, we struggle against the terrible grasp of mis- 
 fortune. 
 
 ' These last days I have wished to resume my 
 former task, and put my voluminous packets of 
 letters in order, so as to go on with the work, of 
 which I have not completed half or even a quarter. 
 Yet if God does not singularly assist me in it, it 
 seems altogether beyond my powers. I do not even 
 feel equal to reading over again those first letters 
 which for a long time made my chief happiness. 
 But at that period life had not begun again for me. 
 I still belonged to that epoch which is now so far 
 away. I had no other memories, and all my life 
 centred in them. I had not lived outside them. I
 
 176 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 did not conceive that I could do so. I cannot 
 describe what I feel to-day when I try to replace 
 myself among those witnesses of the past which are 
 heaped around me without order ; what I feel as the 
 handwriting of my father, of my mother, of Albert, 
 Eugenie, Olga and Alexandrine comes under my eyes 
 and my hand. When I take at random and open 
 and read one of these letters, I find myself carried 
 away into such different scenes, and moving amid 
 such distant thoughts thoughts so dear, so cruelly 
 sweet, so utterly vanished that in a few minutes I 
 can read no more. I feel bewildered and exhausted. 
 I cannot comprehend that it is I, myself, who am 
 the same Pauline of whom they all speak, and to 
 whom they wrote those letters which break my heart. 
 Yes, it is certain that I should feel the torture of it 
 less, and find my task easier, were it less beautiful, 
 less touching, less precious. What can I destroy or 
 omit when all I read seems worthy of preservation ? 
 On the other hand, I think that a long life would not 
 suffice for the work. I feel lost in the memories it 
 recalls, the hopes and joys it awakens in my mind. 
 So many, many changes in a life which is already 
 long ! and it may still last and still change in many 
 ways. 
 
 ' The contrast between what is and what might 
 have been, between the projects I had formed and 
 the events which happened, is strange ; not one of 
 them has been in accordance with my expectations, 
 or with probabilities, or with my wishes. All this 
 makes my head dull ; my heart beats and my hands 
 burn, and this labour does not tend to calm or
 
 1858] LA CAVA DEI TIRRENI 177 
 
 relieve me ; and yet it is necessary that I should 
 occupy myself and that I should write. I know not 
 how to do anything else, and I have some facility in 
 writing. God seems to point out the work for me 
 all the more surely that my imagination turns from 
 every other thought. I have besides leisure, and I 
 have no special interest in the world, the true and 
 chief interest of women having been denied to me. 
 Ought I, then, to force myself to overcome the pain 
 of my feelings, mingled as it is with a keen hunger 
 for admiration and love, and persevere if I ought to 
 do so ? If it be so, may God give me strength and 
 show me how to work ! 
 
 ' Dear, holy friend, last confidant of all my 
 thoughts, spoken or written, how I miss you this 
 day!' 
 
 As Mrs. Craven relates at the opening of the 
 second volume of the ' Recit,' her courage failed her 
 at that time. More sorrow and pain were to be 
 hers. 
 
 In the summer some friends proposed to her 
 to visit the country in which is situated the 
 village of La Cava dei Tirreni. It lies in the valley 
 which cleaves the mountainous range that rises 
 between the gulfs of Naples and Salerno. Mrs. 
 Craven was enchanted with the view of the sea on 
 the side of Psestum and Amalfi, but the fact that 
 Lina and her mother sometimes stayed in summer 
 at the Duca Ravaschieri's country place of Rocca 
 Piemonte had much to do with Mr. and Mrs. Craven's 
 wish to possess a home within reach of them. 
 
 VOL. i. 12
 
 1 7 8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 Nature could produce no more beautiful scene, 
 Mrs. Craven thought, than that she saw from the 
 summit of San Liberatore. She had left Naples in 
 some depression, but the splendour of the view 
 roused her energies and her delight in the sense of 
 worship before such a creation. She lingered behind 
 her companions, and she writes : 
 
 ' Sitting there alone on that great height as the 
 day closed and the moon rose in the sky, I felt a 
 moment of joy and emotion of which I cherish the 
 remembrance as I do that of the splendid prospect. 
 
 ' I had but to remain motionless and gaze before 
 me to feel that fervent adoration which is the natural 
 result of such contemplation, and going slowly down 
 the mountain in the cool evening air, under a sky at 
 first still lighted by the reflection of the day, and 
 later sparkling in the splendour of the night, I felt 
 happy and full of peace, separated from the whole 
 world, and, above all, separated from myself and the 
 thousand nothings which are the common cares of 
 every-day life.' 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven had lived so much in the 
 world that it was at that time a rest to them to 
 spend a summer in one of the farms scattered on the 
 slopes of the mountains, and in a solitude not to be 
 found by the seaside of the Neapolitan bay. They 
 found lodgings in the house of a galanfuomo, or 
 small proprietor, who belonged to a class not unlike 
 that of English yeomen, and who are often of 
 excellent birth, though living by the produce of their 
 vines and patches of maize. ' One day,' the Duchesse 
 Kavaschieri writes, ' Pauline, strolling with the
 
 1858] LINA SUGGESTS A HOME 179 
 
 child Lina on the hill of Castagneto, came on a 
 peasant's cottage close by a ruined castle on the 
 brow of the deep valley of Dragonea. From thence 
 was the finest view of its noble beauty. Climbing 
 up the rough stairs of the cottage, Pauline and Lina 
 went out upon the flat roof, which formed a terrace, 
 and remained for a moment rapt in delight before 
 the scene. In the wooded valley shadowed by the 
 mountain ranges, themselves bathed in sunlight, was 
 an open glade through which flowed a torrent, some- 
 times in rushing flood, sometimes hardly more than a 
 streamlet. It had its rise near the historical Badia 
 della Trinita further up in the hills. Below, where 
 the valley widened, were to be seen the double and 
 triple arches of a picturesque bridge, so graceful and 
 slight that popular legend ascribed them to the art of 
 a magician, to which time and its ravages had lent 
 additional wonder. On one side the soaring and 
 beautiful crests of Finestra, Dragonea, and Raiti 
 closed the valley. On the other the wooded heights 
 were bathed in a glory of light and colour, the light 
 and colour of the Tyrrhenian sea. The marvellous 
 lines of beauty which led the eye to the distant 
 shore of Paestum and its Greek temples, suggestive 
 of the East, were broken by the white houses, the 
 cupola and bell-tower of Vietri. 
 
 ' " Ah, Pauline, it is here, exactly here, that you 
 must make that home which you are always asking 
 Augustus for !" exclaimed Lina. 
 
 ' God's blessing was on the thought, and in due 
 time the ruined walls were changed into an ideally 
 pretty house, the corn-field adjoining was turned into
 
 i&> LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 a garden whence mountains, woods, and distant sea 
 seemed part of the demesne. Una's delight was to 
 be with " her dear Pauline." From her arrival at 
 Naples in 1853, and through the varying incidents 
 of the years, few thoughts were sweeter to Mrs. 
 Craven's heart, few more important and more 
 engrossing to her spirit, than the well-being of her 
 
 beloved Lina.' 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' August 20, 1858. 
 
 ' Since the day on which I scribbled the preceding 
 words I have left Naples. I meant to stay only a 
 month, and now I think it will be to the end of the 
 summer. ... I am settled in the furthest, the most 
 picturesque, and the most entirely solitary part of La 
 Cava. 
 
 ' I bless God for this retreat in such glorious 
 natural scenery. I am both physically and morally 
 strengthened by it. I wish to nurse, to increase and 
 develop in myself the love of solitude. ... I say this 
 even when I anticipate that my exterior life will be 
 as mundane as in the past. What I ought most to 
 desire is that consistency which would make my 
 outer existence conform to what is, and ever should 
 be, my interior life. 
 
 ' Just now it is in harmony, and I thank God I am 
 enjoying it, thank God I know that my ardent desire, 
 which, among a thousand contradictory ones, makes 
 itself oftenest and most distinctly felt, is for peace, 
 silence, and regularity; for "a busy but monotonous 
 life, and, moreover, for the country and fresh air 
 away from towns. I love to be in the presence of
 
 1858] THE USES OF SOLITUDE 181 
 
 Nature, which is almost always beautiful. To delight 
 me it is not necessary that it should be magnificent 
 as it is in this country, and under this sky, though 
 when, as here, all that is most enchanting surrounds 
 me, the pleasure of solitude is doubtless enhanced. . . . 
 It is not only now that I feel it time to let the 
 curtain drop between me and the great world ; not 
 always, that would be impossible, but I will often 
 take, as it were, a bath of solitude a strengthening 
 and purifying bath from whence I shall emerge better 
 and with a better courage. 
 
 ' It is certain, meanwhile, that unbroken silence, 
 retreat, and the reflections which fill it have different 
 aspects at different ages. Silence weighs on the 
 ardent and enterprising activity of youth, yet the 
 dreams it fosters please us by their charm ; in later 
 life the weariness of all that we have succeeded in 
 attaining makes us long for rest, and we must be 
 prepared for serious thought, which is far from 
 resembling the bright dreams of our youth. 
 
 ' We look around us ; we see that, be our remaining 
 years few or many, they are short in comparison with 
 those already spent, and in those remaining years 
 what have we to expect but old age and death ? 
 Doubtless, the uncertainty of life allows and demands 
 serious reflection even for the young, but the vague 
 sadness which in a measure checks the impetus of 
 young souls, and throws on them its shadow, is often 
 only another charm added to all those lavished on 
 them by hope and illusion, by mingled error and 
 reality. It is very difficult to reconstruct the old 
 thoughts, when so many have been effaced, when, in
 
 182 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 truth, all illusions are gone, and when they are no 
 longer needed for beings whose youth, as I study it, 
 grows dearer to me than my own ever was, and for 
 whom I find myself once again longing, hoping, and 
 dreaming as if it were for myself. To trace their 
 footprints is to begin life over again. 
 
 ' The thoughts which arise in me are sometimes 
 sweet, serene, and even great, as they have never yet 
 been. . . . Yet there are also among them thoughts 
 that are awe-inspiring, which must be met face to 
 face. I must grow used to live with them, as I 
 lived in old times companioned by the golden dreams 
 of earth, but with feelings that certainly belonged 
 only to graver thoughts. It is because they fear to 
 encounter these that so many people dread to be 
 alone. 
 
 ' I ask God that I may be preserved even from the 
 wish to avoid them. Je veux au contraire regarder 
 bien en face cette pensee de la mort, et la vaincre au 
 lieu de la fuir et ne la quitter que lorsqu'elle sera 
 vaincue. L'illusion qui la fait oublier est une folie 
 aussi bien qu'une faute. Mais la realite, le bonheur 
 vrai, la paix, c'est de triompher d'elle en 1'embrassant, 
 et j'en dis autant des autres images qui avec celle de 
 la mort entourent le de'clin de la vie. 
 
 'To overcome them, great grace from God is 
 required. He may refuse it even in the solitude 
 which is voluntarily sought for the battle, but he will 
 certainly not give it while we are busied in the 
 world. Therefore, even though we suffer, even if 
 sometimes we believe ourselves overcome by the 
 assaults of our own thoughts, we must remain at
 
 1858] INSTABILITY OF LIFE IS PAINFUL 183 
 
 our post as a soldier endures the fire of the enemy 
 from which his nature would recoil. Like him, we 
 must stand before the foe and face him, and the 
 battle will end in victory. So, at least, I believe, 
 and my belief is an act of hope which God will hear, 
 I am certain. Believing and hoping thus, I desire to 
 make a true act of love, and I pray God to accept it. 
 ' Since I have been here, I have resumed the task 
 which in the noise and bustle of Naples seemed to 
 me as painful as it was impossible ; and now, as a 
 first result of the strength which peace can give, I 
 find my work sweet, easy, and good for me. May 
 God give me perseverance in that and all other 
 things, and may He keep me in the same disposition 
 when I return to the world of society as I am in 
 now when far from it !' 
 
 In many of the difficulties of her spiritual life it is 
 well to read the meditations made by Mrs. Craven in 
 the innermost citadel of her soul, side by side with 
 the journals in which she records her social impres- 
 sions. The tides of her spirit had their ebb and 
 flow, and sometimes they fretted against its walls ; 
 but she had only to enter into that citadel,, and she 
 was safe and at rest, and recovered strength for fresh 
 encounters with the foes she perhaps over-anxiously 
 dreaded. If, indeed, she had not suffered from dis- 
 quiet and instability, and been conscious of her 
 suffering, she would not have left us the record of 
 her courage, and of her faithful perseverance in 
 learning how to meet her natural sensitiveness, 
 by increased resignation and by perception of the
 
 i84 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 Divine will in every trial of her life. In her frequent 
 anxieties she became more and more sure that they 
 were a good discipline and a special test of her faith 
 and hope. ' There are sufferings,' she observes, 
 * which our Lord has named Beatitudes, but there is 
 one suffering forbidden to us. It is one which can 
 so possess my soul that there is hardly an instant of 
 my life in which I do not feel it, and that is anxiety 
 in all its forms.' Quoting the passage in St. 
 Matthew x. 29, Mrs. Craven says : ' Those words 
 ought certainly to cut short those thoughts of mine 
 which have reference to the past, the present, or the 
 future of my life my life is worth more than that of 
 a sparrow . . . how should I imagine that what is, 
 is not the best for me in the true sense of my own 
 wishes, though perhaps I may not know what I wish. 
 Yet I desire a rest and a sense of comfort, etc., and 
 God wills me to have it ; but of the best possible 
 kind, a best beyond what I can understand. Let me, 
 then, give up all regrets for the past, all desires for 
 the present, all anxieties for the future. I will leave 
 all to God, and place my burden in His hands. He 
 can and will relieve us, and we are unreasonably 
 foolish to wish for relief from our load.' 
 
 Thoughts like these may seem too sacred for a 
 memoir to be read by however sympathetic a public, 
 yet they illustrate Mrs. Craven's most real life the 
 life which was the basis of all other life in her, and 
 without an occasional glimpse at which its surface 
 cannot be truly depicted.
 
 XII. 
 
 AT the beginning of another volume of her Journal 
 Mrs. Craven remarks that the three preceding ones 
 begin at the same time of year, 'which shows,' she 
 continues, ' that this is the season in which I am 
 most inclined to thought, and when reflection is most 
 easy to me. If there be any quiet in my restless life, 
 it is chiefly at this time of year rather than at any 
 other. But never in my life, I think, has my peace 
 been so complete as this year, notwithstanding my 
 undecided nature, notwithstanding the vague sensa- 
 tion which in Italian is called smania, and in German 
 sehnsucht. ... I feel deeply the good of these quiet and 
 regular hours, and of steady work, and of time nearly 
 equally divided between God and useful or innocent 
 occupations, which those of society seldom are ; since 
 at the best they injure our minds by distraction, and 
 they dissipate our thoughts. At this moment I 
 believe I have all I need for calm and progress 
 solitude amidst this enchanting scenery, work to do 
 which I love, interesting and improving books, long 
 hours, and even days, of blessed silence which are 
 necessary to my peace. For never, if I talk for long, 
 do I fail to regret something that I have said. I
 
 186 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 have far greater spiritual resources than at Naples, 
 or, indeed, than I can have in the country anywhere 
 else. I have a chapel so close by that it seems to 
 belong to the house Mass every morning, and 
 every evening the Benediction of the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment. I have an unexpected happiness in finding a 
 confessor in one of the Benedictines of the fine 
 monastery of La Trinita. Often in this silence have 
 I heard that dear voice which used to speak to me 
 not a year ago. Often have I visited Fleury in 
 thought, and listened here to what she used to say to 
 me there. Her words made, two years since, such 
 an impression on me that, notwithstanding a thousand 
 failures and through all the occupations of the world, 
 it has never been effaced. A little more than a year 
 ago, during the last day I spent there with her, what 
 tender and good advice she gave me ! With what 
 wise and trenchant sayings did she make me under- 
 stand and accept it ! 
 
 ' She was witness as no one else was of the 
 anxieties my life occasioned me. Often she said that 
 I must make a refuge in my heart to which I could 
 retire in times of uncertainty ; she said that I needed 
 an immovable central point in my soul whatever were 
 its external agitations. . . . "II vous faut 1'assiette 
 dans ce repos interieur." She often repeated and 
 wrote the phrase, and sometimes she hurt me by so 
 doing, because it did not seem applicable to what 
 I was suffering at the moment painful anxiety, 
 anxiety about circumstances independent of my will. 
 Sometimes she said almost harshly to me, if the 
 word could be applied to her sweet and gentle words,
 
 1858] MADAME SWETCHINE'S TENDERNESS 187 
 
 " You suffer because you are wanting in calm." And 
 yet it appeared to me that I was not calm just because 
 I suffered. Sometimes I wept as I listened to her, 
 and looked at her in dumb appeal that she would 
 console me in a different way. How I remember 
 her sweet smile at such moments ! and I see her now 
 especially as she was one evening. It was not at 
 Fleury, but in her Paris drawing-room. I had given 
 my thoughts free course as I never did but with her. 
 Neither my mother, whom I loved so tenderly, nor 
 my sisters, to w r hom my heart was open, had known 
 how to read it as she did. I would not appeal to 
 their affection, which was too ready to sympathize in 
 my troubles and to excuse me. I felt that their 
 tenderness might have enervated me, and I knew 
 that I required strengthening. For this reason my 
 dear friend could help me more than any other, for, 
 however tender might be her love for me, I did not 
 fear weakness in her. For that reason I hid nothing 
 from her. That same evening I was kneeling by her 
 side and crying. She gently shook her head and 
 stroked mine so tenderly, so lovingly, and the 
 expression of her countenance remains so vivid in 
 my memory, that I feel certain that her love for me 
 endures, and that her prayers for me are still offered 
 in heaven. Then she laughed a little, and said to 
 me, " You look at me with your great suppliant eyes 
 as if I had said something very cruel to you. Yet 
 what I said is truth, believe me. Of course, I ardently 
 wish for you all external help from a tranquil life, 
 but whether we have that or not, there is a complete 
 interior stability which you ought to acquire. I should
 
 188 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 feel no anxiety for your soul if you were to die in 
 your present state, but I firmly believe that God 
 asks more of you. It is a step in advance which I 
 ask you to make ; but I am anxious that you should 
 be happier." 
 
 ' It was on that day, or perhaps on another that I 
 went to see her when my heart was heavy with some 
 sorrow I do not remember what that she said to 
 me at the end of our long conversation, which did 
 not appear to have justified them, words which 
 surprised me : 
 
 ' " You are happy. Be very sure of that. You 
 know how I enter into your suffering, and that I can 
 understand the pain of even imaginary trouble, yet, 
 and I tell you so, you are one of the happiest persons 
 I have ever met. You have happiness which you 
 yourself know not of. You ought to feel it, and be 
 thankful instead of lamenting your condition." She 
 often astonished me by repeating this, even though 
 the weakness of fears and regrets, which so warred 
 within me against my tendency to happiness, was 
 then very apparent. 
 
 ' Why is her memory so vivid to me to-day as I 
 record my thoughts of this retreat ? Is it not because 
 I am convinced that she would have approved of it, 
 and among all external means that might be useful 
 to me she would have ranked solitude among the 
 first ? In fact, if ever I fully understood what she 
 implied by the assictte, I do at this moment. 
 Examining my soul, my prayers, and my meditations 
 of each day, I see that there is a dominant idea 
 which gradually takes the place of all the old ones.
 
 1858] 'THE BEST TIME OF LIFE IS AT FIFTY' 189 
 
 . . . The idea is that I should abandon even my most 
 legitimate wishes, even the wish of ceasing to feel 
 anxious and accept as simple pain, that fault in my 
 character which increases anxiety, if it does not 
 create it, and which I cannot or know not how to 
 correct. 
 
 ' This reminds me that on another day my dear 
 and noble friend said to me, " The best time of life, 
 according to my experience, is at fifty." 
 
 ' It is strange that I, who am very sensitive to 
 the flight of time, and who love the charm of youth 
 and regret its departure, can yet understand this 
 so clearly that, now and then, I see how much be- 
 comes evident which before was strange to me, I 
 grasp many thoughts more fully, and I can better 
 feel all the greater pleasures of life. For never 
 have nature and study and art afforded me such 
 delight as now. I ask myself if it is not childish to 
 give a thought to the loss of external advantages 
 which, after all, played a very secondary part in my 
 youth. 
 
 ' Quite independently of its spiritual advantages, I 
 love this uniform and peaceful life. It pleases my 
 taste, and it really would be my ideal of happiness, 
 not only for a few months, but at all times, if now 
 and then the society of two or three good friends 
 could be added to it as well as some possibility of 
 hearing good music. I crave for music sometimes, 
 and feel the need of it and of poetry. 
 
 ' What is strange in the feeling of well-being which 
 this life gives to me is that I have suffered much since 
 I came here. ... I feel at times as if my heart were
 
 190 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 grasped in an iron hand, and so oppressed that it 
 appears to be enduring physical constriction, and 
 that if exposed to view it would be found really suf- 
 fering from material pressure. 
 
 ' I had left a detailed account of one of those 
 attacks in a volume of this Journal. My dear friend 
 made me tear out the pages. I was a little annoyed, 
 but I did not hesitate, and afterwards I was very 
 glad. That very day she said to me, " Ah ! dear, 
 though I advised you as I did, certain that you would 
 do wisely, vous auriez eu bon marche de moi ce 
 matin quand j'achevais ces pages," and her pitying 
 eyes were wet with tears. 
 
 ' I have interrupted to-day my dear work that I 
 might write in this book, but I will resume it. ... I 
 want to write with more method, and, if I can, follow 
 in that also the advice of her whom I shall always love 
 to obey.' 
 
 It is not strange that Mrs. Craven should have 
 found the echo of her own thoughts in Maine de 
 Biran's ' Journal Intime.' Many passages in it 
 might have been written by her, and, indeed, the 
 psychological history of the philosopher enables us 
 to sympathize with the emotions and difficulties felt 
 by Mrs. Craven, perhaps more fully because we 
 approach them from possibly higher levels of human 
 intellect. It is true that while all her life she had 
 been fed by Catholic doctrine, Maine de Biran was 
 led from the philosophy of Condillac towards a full 
 realization of the Christian God by devious ways. 
 Passing by the attraction of ideal stoicism, he could 
 find rest only in the consciousness of a personal
 
 1858] MAINE DE BIRAN 191 
 
 God. The divine thirst known to A Kempis and 
 Fenelon seized him. To use his own words, he 
 ' took refuge in the bosom of God.' Religion 
 ceased to be for him a questionable hope or a 
 mere element in maintaining the stability of society. 
 His ' Journal Intime ' is full, as is Mrs. Craven's, 
 of personal abandonment to the will of God, of 
 constant effort to realize the promised union with 
 the Supreme Ideal. He keenly felt, as she did, 
 the contrarieties of the world and the daily struggle 
 for the rest which both so ardently desired in that 
 union. 
 
 ' Tlmrsday, September 2, 1858. 
 
 ' I do not like to interrupt my work, and yet again 
 to-day I want to write down some thoughts which 
 occurred to me about a book which strikes and 
 interests me, and which is appropriate reading for 
 me here. The book is the " Journal Intime de 
 Maine de Biran." 
 
 ' I perceive that this wise man, this philosopher, 
 whose intelligence rose to such heights and was 
 acquainted with such depths, regretted that he was 
 no longer young, and sorrowed over advance in years 
 and the ugliness that belongs to it. This consoles 
 me somewhat for my foolishness on this subject. I 
 do not feel the mental decline he speaks of, 
 nor the increasing sadness, nor the loss of 
 interest in subjects I formerly felt. I agree with 
 him about worldly and frivolous things (partly, 
 but not yet sufficiently), but not about things that 
 are worthy of attention, and one of the very reasons
 
 i 9 2 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 which sometimes make me sorry to grow old is 
 because never, as now, have I loved methodical study 
 and solid occupation. If I had felt in this way when 
 I was eighteen, what might I not have learned, and 
 how many delights might I not now enjoy of which 
 I am deprived ! But at that time I was vain, inat- 
 tentive, and extremely idle, and I had not perse- 
 verance. Nor did I know anything of art. It was 
 when I was twenty-four or twenty-five that I began 
 to appreciate pictures, and my pleasures of that kind 
 have every year increased, and were never more 
 intense than they are now. I have loved poetry 
 and music from childhood, and I have understood 
 them better and better, and enjoy them more than 
 ever now. When I was eighteen I did not under- 
 stand Shakespeare, and only these last five years 
 have I loved Dante and read him again and again, 
 and I have extreme delight in comprehending 
 him. I do not see that my power of appreciating 
 and admiring beauties such as these has one whit 
 abated. 
 
 ' I say the same about those of Nature. In my 
 youth I never felt fuller or purer admiration than that 
 which sometimes now fills my heart with joy in 
 presence of a fine day, of a beautiful night, or of 
 a beautiful scene. Notwithstanding the frequent 
 strange and sharp suffering which is not unusual for 
 me, I have moments when, even more than in my 
 best days, I can use Romeo's beautiful phrase, " My 
 bosom's lord sits lightly on its throne." It exactly 
 fits my nature. Ah ! if I dared but hope that all 
 this comes because of my more fervent, more
 
 1858] MRS. CRAVEN'S SENSE OF YOUTH 193 
 
 habitual realization of the presence of God within 
 me ! Ah ! if I dared to think so my joy would be 
 really great, for I should see before me a future of 
 ever-increasing delight. 
 
 ' But Maine de Biran's suggestions of the part 
 played by physical influences disturb me. I am so 
 pusillanimous. Perhaps all my sunshine would dis- 
 appear before a severe headache. Up to the present 
 I feel no loss of strength, nor of activity, nor of 
 physical comfort, and if I never looked at my 
 glass I should not the least perceive that I was 
 growing old. 
 
 ' Certainly Mme* Swetchine had none of Maine 
 de Biran's sadness ; yet her mind was not inferior 
 to his, and their thoughts habitually pursued the 
 same track. In her case there can be no doubt 
 that her unshaken calm, her complete freedom from 
 anxiety and fear of any kind, were entirely due to 
 the real and constant presence of God in her heart. 
 She was born to suffer both morally and physically. 
 Was it ever known that a body and soul should 
 struggle so long and so triumphantly against bodily 
 infirmity, and not only against bodily infirmity, but 
 against acute and prolonged pain, as she did, without 
 Divine support ? Since she was twenty-five years 
 old, since the time when she herself told me she had 
 enjoyed existence, it is almost certain that she was 
 never for a day free from pain. From that time she 
 was a prey to sleeplessness, so that she could not 
 secure even some hours' truce to her sufferings. I 
 remember an expression which very much surprised 
 me one day when I was pitying her want of sleep, 
 
 VOL. i. 13
 
 i 94 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 and she said to me, " It does not matter, for my 
 nights are delightful." 
 
 ' Sunday, September 5, 1858. 
 
 ' I must write here again, though I do not like to 
 leave my " Souvenirs," with which I want to get 
 on, and though I have letters to write. I want to 
 say something more of Maine de Biran's extraordi- 
 nary book. I had not finished it when I wrote the 
 preceding pages. Now that I have read to its last 
 line, I feel astonished and pleased to find myself 
 led back by this profound thinker, this philosopher, 
 this lucid, sincere and acute mind, independent in 
 his line of thought, unshackled by the beliefs which 
 are naturally mine from my birth led back to the 
 spot on which I have stood ever since I knew or 
 understood anything and simply followed my Cate- 
 chism. I exclaim to myself in Manzoni's words : 
 
 ' " O bella benefica Fede ai trionfi avezza." 
 
 Truly this is one, and it illustrates the meaning of 
 the completed circle. This great mind has gone by 
 an immense round, in which I cannot follow him. 
 At the end, as the extreme limit of his discovery, I 
 find him attaining the simple truth of my childhood. 
 Even in this country, where there is so much igno- 
 rance in matters of religion, but which is deeply 
 penetrated by the sunlight of absolute truth, how 
 many poor souls are perfectly contented ! The poor 
 creature whom I saw these last days, tortured by pain 
 on her pallet and indescribably wretched, who said 
 to me, " lo vivo di unavita spirituale" words which 
 deeply touched me, in the midst of her many
 
 1858] GRATRY'S ADMIRATION OF DE BIRAN 195 
 
 miseries was in full possession of that third life to 
 which we tend with such eagerness, feeling the 
 necessity of peace and the impossibility of finding 
 it elsewhere. 
 
 ' I quite understood the book, and yet my en- 
 joyment of it was disturbed by a conviction that 
 my mood would change, that I should read it 
 again without emotion, that the frivolities and the 
 preoccupations of life in the world would begin 
 for me again, and that I should again suffer, not- 
 withstanding my faith, all that Maine de Biran suf- 
 fered without it. It is certain that, not having, as 
 he had, to trace my own path in the midst of pain, 
 having nothing to do but what would have seemed 
 to him so easy, to clear a way for accepted and 
 absolute truth, as we make way for light by removing 
 that which prevents its entrance, I should be yet 
 more foolish and stupid than sinful, if I did not 
 strive to enjoy in full the good which I possess by 
 what are, indeed, easy efforts, for my way has been 
 smoothed for me.'* 
 
 * It seems probable that the Life and the ' Pensees ' of 
 Maine de Biran had been given by Pere Gratry to Mrs. 
 Craven. He had sincere admiration for the philosopher who, 
 beginning as a disciple of Condillac, and passing through a 
 phase of Stoic thought, had finally been brought by his splendid 
 faculties to the foot of the Cross. M. Ernest Naville had 
 recently published his 'Vie et Pensdes,' on which Sainte-Beuve 
 wrote a charming and sympathetic article in April, 1857. 
 
 In Ueberweg's 'History of Philosophy' (vol. ii., p. 341, 
 English translation) it is said of Biran : ' From the Stoic attitude 
 of the second period [of his philosophy] he passed in the third to 
 a mystical and Christian standpoint. In his " Anthropologie," 
 his last work, left unfinished, he distinguishes three lives in
 
 196 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 At the conclusion of these interesting observations 
 on Maine de Biran, and on her sympathy with him, 
 is a note added by her in 1878, when she was 
 extracting for publication some passages from her 
 Journals : 
 
 ' MONABRI, 1878. 
 
 ' What a strange sensation I feel as, after twenty 
 years, I read these pages again, and find them truer 
 and more applicable to-day than they were when they 
 were written. A thousand times more true. Twenty 
 years during which all things relating to a certain 
 sort of worldly happiness, which then still remained, 
 
 man : the animal life, or the life of sensation ; the human life, or 
 the life of the will ; and the spiritual life, or the life of love. 
 Personality, which he had previously considered as marking the 
 highest degree in human life, was then regarded by him simply 
 as a passage to a higher stage, where personality is lost and 
 annihilated in God.' There is very much in common between 
 the mental and spiritual characteristics of Maine de Biran and 
 those of Mrs. Craven. 
 
 ' There is no evil in pain,' he, as Stoic, could repeat in later 
 life ; and with much the same sensitive feelings as were those of 
 Mrs. Craven, he could declare with her, ' In pain is my good ' : 
 for, as she also felt, ' it is unrest, not suffering, which hurts us.' 
 Might not Mrs. Craven have said, as he did, ' I am often sorry 
 for myself ; I deplore my failures of intelligence, the weakness 
 and narrow limitations of my powers, be they moral or physical. 
 The feeling of this pity and compassion reflected by self on 
 itself is pleasant enough, for in feeling it we know that we have 
 a nature which is superior to the nature which suffers, though in 
 intimate union with it ' ? By many.Maine de Biran is considered 
 another Descartes, and Sainte-Beuve ranks his ' Pense'es ' with 
 those of Pascal. That Mrs. Craven should find in him a 
 spiritual brother is interesting, and illumines recesses of her 
 mind into which few have ever penetrated.
 
 1858] CASTAGNETO 197 
 
 have one by one slipped as beads through my fingers. 
 Now I am quite old, ruined, poor. My self-esteem 
 is deeply wounded, and in what fashion ! I suffer 
 more from another's pain, which I cannot allay, 
 than from my own. Am I unhappy really un- 
 happy ? No ; for better and better I understand the 
 lessons God has taught me since my youth, and 
 has for the last nine years sternly repeated. In 
 truth, they are summed up in one : absolute detach- 
 ment and complete acquiescence ; peace in utter 
 abandonment to His will.' 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' Thursday ', September 9. 
 
 ' Here we are on the morrow of the great Feast 
 of the Nativity of Our Lady. Yesterday was the 
 day of the procession from Pie di Grotta to Naples, 
 and here the parish fete of La Cava. It is cele- 
 brated in the church, within which is the sanctuary 
 of the Madonna dell' Olmo, much venerated in this 
 neighbourhood. ... I am sufficiently Italian to 
 understand many things which astonish others who 
 are used to different religious customs, and to be 
 touched and edified by what might scandalize them. 
 Therefore I am, perhaps, better able to judge than 
 other people, and to say what I am about to say. 
 
 ' I know there are many Catholics who, in the 
 midst of the solemn ceremonies of the Church, the 
 poetic beauty of her holy offices, the zeal of the 
 clergy and the piety of the faithful, choose to repre- 
 sent the religious state of Southern Italy as enviable 
 and worthy of imitation. ... I confess that I have
 
 I 9 8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 never understood their enthusiasm, though I have 
 heard it eloquently expressed both in English and 
 French. I ask myself why they choose to see 
 things in this light. If, instead, they saw them as 
 they are, would it not be well for those who would 
 all the more appreciate the good things they possess, 
 and also for the Church herself? She would be 
 strengthened to remedy abuses, instead of being 
 weakened by the imprudent friends who give occa- 
 sion to her enemies to point out these abuses as 
 inherent in the Church, instead of being in flagrant 
 contradiction to her teaching. I reverence and love 
 the Church too much to fear anything for her. 
 She is absolute truth, and no truth can injure her, 
 while evil and error are her natural enemies, and, like 
 all enemies, more dangerous within than without her 
 pale.' 
 
 Of those who meet attempts at reform with the 
 hackneyed argument that the Southern Italians have 
 a faith which is not given to other nations, Mrs. 
 Craven sensibly remarks : 
 
 ' It is curious that such an objection should be 
 made, as if it were a question of undermining that 
 faith which remains the one consolation in their 
 misery. It would be strange if it were to disappear 
 with the accessories which disfigure it. If it were so 
 to vanish, the sooner the better, for to believe in its 
 existence would be a delusion. . . . Many Catholics 
 appear to conclude that on no occasion is the word 
 "superstition " applicable. I think otherwise, and that 
 the open-hearted faith of the Catholics of the South, 
 and their lively imagination, expose them to that
 
 1858] RELIC WORSHIP 199 
 
 risk more than to any other. The efforts of their 
 guides should be spent in keeping them within the 
 due limits of truth. It seems to me that it is as easy 
 to overstep them by excess as by defect. 
 
 'At a short distance from Nocera, and therefore 
 near this place, there is a village which is called by 
 the name of its well-known shrine, " Mater Domini." 
 The image venerated there is worthy of a loving 
 respect. Devotion to it dates from the eleventh 
 century and has never slackened, and it is right to 
 feel emotion when kneeling where so many genera- 
 tions have knelt with the fervour and faith to which 
 Jesus Christ has promised miraculous answer a 
 promise of which, be it said, no Church but ours 
 has ventured to claim the realization. Were we a 
 thousand times mistaken about the details of any 
 special miracle, there are many too positively certain 
 to be denied. That is sufficient to confirm our faith, 
 and to help us to understand how, without guilt 
 before the eyes of God or of man, we may attribute 
 effects which possibly have purely natural causes to 
 a special act of the Divine power in which we firmly 
 believe, and for which we, as it were, are in haste to 
 praise God. We are also eager to venerate relics, as 
 were the early Christians, even though we may mis- 
 take the identity of the relic which we think we 
 possess. After all, what does it matter in God's 
 sight what we venerate, if we sincerely believe the 
 authenticity of what is under our eyes ? Be there 
 error in that or not, still our homage is offered to the 
 true object, wherever it may be. I have never under- 
 stood this materialistic objection. God knows that
 
 200 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 at Treves it is the coat which is believed to have 
 clothed His sacred humanity which pilgrims in such 
 crowds kiss tenderly, as they would have prostrated 
 themselves in the dust if they had met the Saviour 
 by the way. 
 
 'If we on earth saw anyone kiss something which 
 he thought belonged to us, and if in that trifle we 
 knew he was mistaken, should we not be equally 
 touched and think that he loved us all the same as 
 if the thing had really belonged to us ? The very 
 promptitude of his action might even seem to witness 
 to his love, better than if he had made long pre- 
 liminary inquiry about the authenticity of what he 
 venerated. The smile that would follow such a 
 mistake would be a kindly and tender one. 
 
 ' I also think, however, that all possible precautions 
 should be used to prevent such mistakes. There are 
 some relics which faith finds it difficult to accept, 
 and in their presence it is necessary to remember 
 that the Church allows us to retain our freedom of 
 opinion and of devotion. 
 
 ' I walked to the church of Mater Domini, accom- 
 panied by that dear and pious child whom I love as 
 if she were my own, and with the escort of the good 
 priest who is chaplain to her parents. Both are 
 simpler in their faith than I am, and probably they 
 by no means shared my painful impressions, par- 
 ticularly the child, who is anxious that I should gain 
 all the indulgences attached to a visit to this antique 
 sanctuary. I also wished to profit by them, and 
 I was glad to have the opportunity of doing so. 
 We reached the village, where we found the road
 
 1858] SHRINE OF MATER DOMINI 201 
 
 obstructed by platforms on which all sorts of shows 
 were going on. We got through with difficulty, and 
 turned into the vast courtyard which is in front of 
 the fine old church. It was crowded with booths. 
 I was tempted by two pretty baskets, but the thought 
 that it was Sunday stopped me. . . . We went in. 
 I defy any Northern imagination to picture the 
 interior decoration of the church, and to describe it 
 is very difficult. 
 
 ' The marble baldacchino, under which is the image 
 of the Virgin, was transformed into a battlemented 
 tower of white, blue and gold-coloured muslin. An 
 immense scaffolding in the centre of the church was 
 covered in the same style, and was devoted to the 
 orchestra. It was a large one, and at the moment 
 of entering the church it was playing a noisy pot- 
 pourri, in which I recognised airs from " La Traviata." 
 With some effort I began to say as devoutly as I 
 could the prescribed prayers, and then prayers for 
 my own pardon if I felt too strongly the bad impres- 
 sion which I had received from what was around me, 
 and pardon for those, whoever they might be, who 
 have allowed the holy solemnities of the Church to 
 fall so low, if it be they who are guilty in the sight of 
 God and not I. 
 
 ' However that may be, English Catholics should 
 bless God that they are English as well as Catholic, 
 and be good enough not to complain that some traces 
 of persecution yet remain, which only affect those who 
 bring it upon themselves. Let them remember that 
 where the clergy are exemplary, where religious com- 
 munities are fervent, the faithful earnest and devout,
 
 202 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 and the Church free, they have no right to complain 
 of the country in which they were born. French 
 Catholics are less inclined to the fault. They know 
 that in these respects they need not envy Italy. And, 
 then, what is there to envy in this dear, beautiful 
 country except that glorious nature which could not 
 be spoiled by man ? Why are there even in France 
 Catholics who think it their duty to aid and abet all 
 those political abuses of which the bad customs 
 that vex me, and that I have just described, are 
 the inevitable result ?' 
 
 In reading these remarks of Mrs. Craven it is 
 well to remember the date at which they were 
 
 written. 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' September .1*1 1858. 
 
 ' It is gloomy weather. Augustus has gone back 
 to Naples. I took Lina back to La Rocca, and 
 returned without her, and, as usual, the profound 
 silence, after two days cheered by her childish voice, 
 seemed sad. This evening my heart beats dis- 
 tressingly. What my soul really needs is, not that 
 my pain of heart should be relieved, but that I 
 should will it not to be. Age has not decreased the 
 impulses which God gave me, and from which I 
 have suffered so much and shall always suffer. 
 That, however, is only common pain. 
 
 ' Oh, Dieu ! que ce serait peu de chose, si on etait 
 reellement detachee de ce qui passe, si on 1'etait 
 seulement un peu. Mais il y a humiliation dans 
 cette souffrance. Humiliation a sentir qu'on ne peut
 
 1858] GLAD OF HUMILIATIONS 203 
 
 la secouer et ce seul mot devrait me faire comprendre 
 sa raison d'etre. Laissons done serrer mon cceur. 
 Laissons done cette main divine comprimer cet elan 
 trop vif, trop facile, qui le ferait encore bondir s'il 
 etait permis a certaines joies d'y penetrer. Apres 
 tout celui qui 1'a cree, qui en compte les battements, 
 sait pourquoi il faut lui imposer ce malaise. Encore 
 une fois, acceptons Paveuglement. Plus j'aimerais a 
 m'y soustraire, plus je dois etre assuree qu'il m'est 
 bon de m'y soumettre. E cosi sia.' 
 
 The article entitled ' Montagnes de La Cava,' in 
 Mrs. Craven's ' Reminiscences,' is taken from her 
 Journal at Castagneto that autumn ; but she has 
 somewhat altered its arrangement, and the reader can 
 be best referred to that if he feels interested in her 
 impressions of that enchanting country. The entry 
 of November 2 in her Journal has the charm of her 
 own personality, which, as a rule, she carefully veiled 
 in all she published. 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 < All Souls' Day, 1858. 
 
 ' I have passed these two great days pleasantly, 
 for which I thank God. It was fine this morning, 
 and after Communion at the morning Mass in our 
 chapel I went to the Trinita to attend the High 
 Mass. It was very well sung, and the organ was 
 divinely played. I felt singularly happy, though I 
 was entirely alone. I had not a moment's sadness, 
 and my mind was full of sweet thoughts and cheerful 
 fancies. . . . 
 
 ' Yesterday was not so bright, and the memories 
 which among the many others of the year were
 
 204 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1858 
 
 revived by those two days had filtered into my 
 heart and caused me one of those attacks of dejec- 
 tion to which I am but too subject. When I opened 
 Dante under its influence, my eyes fell on these lines, 
 which struck me in a new and personal sense : 
 
 " Perche tanta viltk nel cuore allette ? 
 
 Perchfe ardire e franchezza non hai ? 
 Poscia che tai tre Donne benedette 
 Curan di te nella corte del Cielo."* 
 
 " Inferno," ii. 
 
 ' I raised my eyes, and seeing before me the frame 
 in which are the three portraits of my dear and 
 blessed sisters, I felt as if they and my guardian 
 angel had put before me those words, and meant 
 them to be consolatory. The circumstance made a 
 happy impression on me, which lasted all day, and 
 still exists. It is the second time within this week 
 that a passage from Dante, which I had read a 
 thousand times, suddenly seemed to bear a new 
 meaning, and one applicable to my thoughts.' 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' Friday, November 5, 1858. 
 
 ' To-morrow morning I leave Castagneto, carrying 
 with me a happy remembrance of my quiet time 
 here, and a heart grateful to God for His mercies, of 
 which I am conscious in all my troubles. . . . 
 
 ' The fine weather is over. It has been singularly 
 
 * ' Why is such baseness bedded in thy heart ? 
 Daring and hardihood why hast thou not ? 
 Seeing that three such ladies benedight 
 Are caring for thee in the court of Heaven ? 
 
 Longfellow's translation.
 
 1 858] BEAUTY OF WINTER AT CAVA 205 
 
 cold for this climate, and yet I leave unwillingly. 
 I regret my busy days and quiet evenings, and my 
 walks in the country, which seems to me almost 
 more beautiful in the clear winter light, which out- 
 lines the dark mountains on the transparent sky 
 better than when they were bathed in the burning 
 brilliance of summer evenings. The sort of beauty 
 peculiar to them is, if I may say so, too beautiful 
 for me. It touches and moves me, weakens, and 
 always ends by saddening me. Nothing, on the 
 contrary, so enlivens me as to pass through keen 
 air as I walk, and to look around at the landscape, 
 which in such moments possesses not only the un- 
 alterable charm of the South, but that of the North 
 also, with its vivifying influence. If we really 
 establish a sort of summer nest here, I will not 
 give way to any troublesome foreboding ; on the 
 contrary, I will say that it is God who has combined 
 the chances which have caused us to light on this 
 out-of-the-way place. I will enjoy, as being His 
 will, all the charm which this enchanting country 
 has for me, nor let my thoughts return to other 
 dreams.'
 
 [ 206} 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE events of 1859, ushered in by Napoleon's mis- 
 reported but fateful words addressed to the Austrian 
 Ambassador on New Year's Day, were, as may be 
 imagined, of profound interest to the diplomatic 
 circle which nearly every evening met at Chiatamone. 
 We know now that Cavour had had his way, and 
 that Napoleon had agreed to liberate Italy from 
 Austrian interference. But there were certainly no 
 anti-dynastic schemes tolerated within their house by 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven. 
 
 It cannot be too clearly understood, in judging 
 Mrs. Craven's Italian sympathies, that her generosity 
 of heart, her enthusiasm for humanity, were stirred 
 to their depths by the facts of her daily experience at 
 Naples. Yet it was not the cruelty of the prisons, 
 nor the alternate shiftiness and violence of the Govern- 
 ments that had no right to rule, except that bestowed 
 on them by the Holy Alliance and Metternich, still 
 less the dramatic outcries of the revolutionists, 
 which moved her conscience. Her Liberalism was 
 as orthodox and as distinctly Papal as that of the 
 French school, which had dealt mortal wounds to 
 Gallicanism ; it was probably more so than that of
 
 i859] ULTRAMONTANISM OF MRS. CRAVEN 207 
 
 Pius IX. himself before the murder of Rossi. It was 
 founded on passionate faith in the Church as in very 
 truth the mother of our race, a Church ready to recog- 
 nise and admire the growth of humanity during the 
 centuries, and healing its wounds with a tenderness 
 equal to their severity ; a Church claiming men's 
 obedience to her formulated dogmas because they ful- 
 filled, by the mercy of God, the needs of men and 
 their diviner instincts. La Mennais' appeal to a con- 
 sensus of opinion could not, it is true, replace Divine 
 revelation and authority; but his best disciple, Gerbet, 
 clearly understood that the teacher of that revela- 
 tion to man must. use man's language and sympa- 
 thize with man's aspirations towards those ideals 
 which she offers to his dim eyes and groping hands. 
 If we leave La Mennais out of the La Mennaisian 
 school, we understand better its immense influence 
 while Europe was in its transition from old to modern 
 systems of government. His fall was as that of 
 Lucifer ; but some angels, who had been his fellows, 
 sought in humility and obedience to keep alive the 
 fire he had kindled in the hearts of men. It was the 
 fire of widest charity, by which the rights of man can 
 alone be secured the purifying fire in which the 
 errors of '89 might be burned away, while the liberties 
 of a spiritual theocracy should be secured to every 
 man alike. 
 
 It is a dream that may remain a dream as long as 
 our race exists, yet it is one of those dreams which 
 point us forward on the right road of progress. It is 
 only, perhaps, those who can recognise the practical 
 action of Christian mysticism under the veil in which
 
 2o8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1859 
 
 it loves to shroud itself who will perceive how Mrs. 
 Craven, sensible and sociable as she was, loved to 
 ascend the Mount of Transfiguration. Besides 
 her delight in reaching the Divine Presence, and 
 seeing its glory shed on the suffering world, to look 
 for it and live in it had been her training. Catholic 
 mysticism is essentially and in the truest sense liberal. 
 It is probably the only porch by which men can 
 attain and have attained fraternity and equality, both 
 secured by the consciousness of a supreme Ideal 
 towards which every human aspiration ultimately 
 tends. It is, perhaps, the best title to respect of 
 Catholic mysticism that it lifts our ideals towards 
 their origin, and no action is more practically 
 altruistic than contemplation of the Creator ; for 
 from it follows loving contemplation of His creation, 
 immense and active co-operation in helping men 
 and women by every means consistent with the 
 decalogue, and even reverencing their passionate 
 outcries for happier life. Despairing of the old 
 order revived by the restoration of 1815, vexed by 
 Concordats and consequent Gallicanism, French 
 Christians in 1830 placed their hopes in the Church's 
 direct spiritual influence. They feared that too 
 visible support from dynastic and material forces 
 would hinder her from her great mission of recon- 
 ciling the masses of working and poor men, who are 
 the first objects of her care. They hoped for a vast 
 revival of faith, if what seemed to them dross was 
 eliminated from her pure gold. 
 
 There was, therefore, in Mrs. Craven's ' liberalism ' 
 a larger hope, based on wider inductions than were
 
 1859] PROPORTIONATE PUNISHMENTS 209 
 
 commonly accepted in the ranks of partisans on 
 either side in the struggles of 1859-70. Her cosmo- 
 politan experience stood her in good stead when she 
 doubted the honesty of tottering Governments and 
 their methods, and perceived wider horizons than 
 those of some among her family and her friends of 
 the Faubourg St. Germain, or those of English 
 Catholics, who in their reaction from excess of private 
 judgment in religion are often more conservative 
 than the Vatican. 
 
 In her Journal she wrote : 
 
 ' NAPLES, 
 
 ' March 4, 1859. 
 
 ' I have never been able to conquer my dislike to 
 the mixture of what is temporal with what is spiritual 
 in the past history of the Church, in those parts of 
 it which are changing as is time itself. And so I 
 cannot help shuddering as I see John Huss burned, 
 and I also shudder at the excommunication of the 
 Colonnas, because in neither case does their crime 
 seem proportionate to their punishment. I should 
 have preferred to see Huss excommunicated as the 
 heretic he was, and the Colonnas burned or beheaded 
 as traitors ; but to see heresy punished by death, 
 and the crime of high treason punished by spiritual 
 deprivation, disturbs and saddens me. At the same 
 time, whatever be the miseries of the present epoch, 
 and notwithstanding the many evils from which it 
 still surfers, it has certainly gained in justice. Not 
 that, possibly, we love justice better or desire it more, 
 but no doubt it is better understood. 
 
 ' To express briefly the kind of pain I feel in Italy, 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 210 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1859 
 
 I see no remedy for existing evils except through the 
 action of fervent Catholics, and fervent Catholics 
 refuse to see them, or at least to admit them. They 
 leave to others any statement of the truth, and the 
 remedy is abandoned to hands that know not how to 
 apply it, and who will do in anger what ought to be 
 done with respect and love.' 
 Journal : 
 
 ' ROME, Trinita de> Monti, 
 
 ''Holy Tuesday, April 19, 1859. 
 
 ' This book has remained closed the whole winter. 
 I write some words which will leave a trace of this 
 unexpected stay at Rome, of my short retreat in this 
 dear spot in which once more I find myself, and, as 
 always, with the same sense of well-being, silence, 
 peace, solitude, good things always and everywhere, 
 but better now than ever, in these times of dispute 
 and discussion. In them my eagerness lays unper- 
 ceived snares for me, which leave my heart and my 
 soul disturbed and ill at ease. That is one of the 
 chief reasons why I seized the opportunity that 
 offered, of passing four days in the complete shelter 
 of the convent. The time is doubtless short, but it 
 is enough to take a bath of self-collectedness and 
 peace ; were I but to plunge in it for a moment, I 
 should come out refreshed and calm. 
 
 ' Yet I have suffered solely from anxiety of con- 
 science, and anxiety for my dear child,* who is not 
 yet recovered. Nevertheless, I have prayed and I 
 have been silent ; I have read and written in peace ; 
 
 * Lina Ravaschieri was attacked by illness which presaged 
 her early death.
 
 1859] SENSE OF WEAKNESS 211 
 
 I have thrown all my desires into God's hands at 
 least, I hope that I have made some good resolu- 
 tions. I shall re-enter the world to-morrow, if not 
 better I know myself too well to hope for that at 
 least, with fresh and ardent wishes to become so. 
 Amen.' 
 
 During the same retreat Mrs. Craven wrote in her 
 volume of MS. meditations : 
 
 ' ROME (en retraite cL la Trinite du Mont), 
 
 ' April 15, 1859. 
 
 ' Mon intelligence et mon cosur sont egalement 
 convaincus, qu'est-ce done qui resiste en moi ? Je 
 ne sais, mais vous le savez et vous pouvez me guerir. 
 Faites-le, mon Dieu. C'est ma faiblesse, je crois, 
 qui est si grande et si forte contre moi. Oh Jesus ! 
 il vous est bien facile de la vaincre et de la fortifier, 
 et si vous daignez le faire, oh ! je vous en benirai 
 seul. Je sens et je sais trop bien, qu'aucune force, 
 meme humaine, ne se trouve en moi.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven was fired with indignation by the 
 absolutism which dragged religion at its heels through 
 very miry places, but she was still Legitimist after the 
 fashion of the Comte de Falloux. Possibly her 
 ideals of Liberal monarchy were too English for 
 Italian practice, and she did not sufficiently realize 
 what might be substituted for despotism by the 
 anti-Christian societies with which Italy was honey- 
 combed. Enthusiasm is always sanguine, and in- 
 vocations of freedom expressed in noble language 
 roused her Breton soul. Dazzled in the light of 
 dawn, she did not recognise the gulfs of evil that
 
 212 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1859 
 
 were revealed after the French had done their 
 rapid task of relieving Milan. Perhaps the pain 
 Mrs. Craven suffered that spring and summer, while 
 she watched with her friend by the sick-bed of their 
 Lina, lessened all minor anxieties and damped her 
 political hopes from the action of the ' Veltro,' as, 
 recalling Dante, she called the French Emperor. 
 s A letter written during that eventful summer, be- 
 tween the battles of Magenta and Solferino, will give 
 a glimpse of her feelings : 
 
 To Mr. Monsell. 
 
 1 NAPLES, 
 
 'June 14, 1859. 
 
 ' The enclosed is a line to the brother of my Benedictine 
 friend, whom you allowed me to introduce to you, and who, 
 on the reception of this note, will probably leave his card 
 upon you. I am sure you will be kind and charitable 
 enough to see him, and patient also, in case he should (as 
 few Italians would not at this moment) express opinions not 
 exactly as anti-French as (I conclude) yours are, in common 
 with the generality of the world in England. For my part, 
 I suppose that when I have left Italy I shall be able to look 
 at the question in the same light that you all do, which is 
 totally impossible to anyone placed on this side of the 
 Alps, where naturally the only very conspicuous fact in 
 what is passing is the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, 
 a consummation which had been hitherto more devoutly 
 wished for in England than anywhere else, and which I am 
 stupid enough to prefer seeing accomplished by war rather 
 than by an insurrection. 
 
 'Great and favourable changes are taking place here too, 
 but, in fact, I have little time or thoughts to bestow upon
 
 1859] DECLINE OF UNA 213 
 
 any of these stirring subjects, being entirely occupied by 
 the dangerous illness of a dear child, whom I love as if she 
 were my own the little granddaughter . of the Filangieris. 
 Her mother, the Duchesse Ravaschieri, is the dearest friend 
 I have now, and her distress I not only feel on her account, 
 but on my own, that darling child having been almost con- 
 stantly with me for the last five years.' 
 
 It was in the March of that year that Lina had 
 been first seriously menaced by the decline which 
 after eighteen months brought her exquisite child- 
 hood to its close ; she had ' outsoared the shadow of 
 our night,' and though Mrs. Craven was still to know 
 many years of it, there is no doubt that her life was 
 henceforth more than ever detached from mundane 
 interests. Yet the valiant words she wrote as the 
 conclusion of her meditations on the Epiphany show 
 the spirit which at all times governed her : 
 
 ' In any case, when the path in which God has set 
 our feet leads us into society, let us not sigh for another 
 lot than ours. Wherever we are, whatever we do, 
 God wills to be ours and wills us to be His. This is 
 certain, and if in our actual circumstances the Divine 
 union seems harder to realize than in other positions 
 of which we dream, we may dwell on the thought 
 that the difficulty which disturbs and pains us may 
 one day prove to have been among the trials for 
 which we shall thank God when we read in Him the 
 history of His providence towards us.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven paid her usual summer visit to Eng- 
 land. 
 
 No one knew better than she how her bright and 
 gay delight in society continually reasserted itself,
 
 214 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1859 
 
 nor did she wish it otherwise. Her lifelong struggle 
 was not with the human influences around her, but 
 rather with the forces which tainted them. If it be 
 said of her that she was worldly, that she enjoyed 
 her success and popularity, that she, indeed, liked to 
 increase it and to aim at the highest distinction in 
 her world, the reader will understand, if he have 
 read the preceding pages, how ideal were her ultimate 
 aims. Few of her social friends had even a concep- 
 tion of them, though as she passed among them a 
 surprised curiosity was often felt. One of her ac- 
 quaintances who saw much of her in 1859, 1860 and 
 1861, at Naples, writes of her, and with truth as far 
 as it goes : 
 
 ' Mrs. Craven was an excellent artist, and through- 
 out her life I should say the secret of her charm 
 and influence was the " divine spark " of art which 
 was the keynote to everything. In her many-sided- 
 ness she threw her soul into all she had to do, 
 whether politics, religion, or social life; and for 
 that very quality she was often ill-judged by the 
 aggregation of conventionality called "society." In 
 Italy, with the charming naturel of the Italian char- 
 acter, she could be and was herself.' 
 
 It is hardly necessary to add that the friend who 
 saw her in this light was himself an artist by nature, 
 and to him Mrs. Craven's gifts in that direction ap- 
 peared pre-eminent. No doubt she had the artist 
 temperament ; it was one facet in her many-sided- 
 ness. Other and different friends, widely apart as 
 were Mme. Swetchine and the Duchesse Ravaschieri, 
 as were Montalembert and Lord Palmerston, circles
 
 1859] MANY-SIDEDNESS OF MRS. CRAVEN 215 
 
 as unlike as were her own at Chiatamone and in 
 Berkeley Square, equally admired her as a brilliant and 
 sympathetic apparition in an orbit that was beyond 
 their measurement, though they hardly knew why. 
 To one observer she might easily appear to be, as he 
 said of her, a lady ' qui debitait mieux qu'une autre 
 les niaiseries d'un salon.' Her very spontaneity and 
 crystalline sincerity of nature was, to people who 
 had not her multiform sympathy, a frequent surprise. 
 In one report all are agreed. What may be called 
 her social generosity was unbounded ; she always 
 used her influence with the broadest charity. 
 Journal : 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' October 6, 1859. 
 
 ' From April 19 to this day, October 6, what has 
 happened ? So much that this volume and three or 
 four other larger ones would be full if I had written 
 every day, or even every month, a detailed account 
 of my various impressions.' 
 
 The impression and feelings of the year before 
 during Holy Week were repeated. The Duchesse 
 Ravaschieri was not in Rome in 1859, but with 
 M. Rio Mrs. Craven continued to examine critically 
 his favourite objects of art, and compare his theories 
 with what she saw, not always with complete ac- 
 quiescence in them. He specially admired the 
 Amazons of the Vatican and the Minerva which is in 
 the Braccio Nuovo, but Mrs. Craven says, with her 
 broad judgment and liberal taste : 
 
 ' To declare that these are not only types of
 
 216 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1859 
 
 beauty, but the only types of feminine beauty which 
 the art of sculpture has produced, will never be 
 generally acknowledged, and I do not know why 
 they should be nor how they could be. Beauty of 
 expression may suffice in painting, but it is not so in 
 sculpture. We cannot look at statues without ac- 
 knowledging how large a part must be allotted to 
 beauty of outline. A woman's head bereft of hair or 
 entirely hidden by a helmet does not satisfy the eye 
 with the ideal beauty it seeks, and which it has a right 
 to seek when artists claim to offer it. My objections 
 seemed in the highest degree puerile and ridiculous 
 to Rio. He no longer believes in my capacity to 
 judge of art, and he scornfully accuses me of con- 
 founding beauty with grace, and giving grace an 
 importance it should not have, and which is incom- 
 patible with that exalted point of view from which 
 we ought to judge the products of art. I remain 
 doubtful, however, if, in the presentment of beauty, 
 grace be not an indispensable condition. Sometimes 
 it may be otherwise in painting, because painting 
 expresses a number of ideas greater than beauty ; 
 and therefore this art appears to me to surpass 
 sculpture nearly as much as the soul does the body. 
 
 ' All these ideas, however, played a secondary part 
 in my impressions of Rome this year. A great and 
 poignant interest absorbed all others. When I 
 reached Rome, war was threatened, and it broke out 
 while I was there. I heard on the Piazza di St. 
 Pietro that hostilities had begun. It was Easter 
 Sunday, and I had just received the Papal blessing. 
 The effect of the war on my personal plans was that
 
 1859] POLITICAL CLAMOUR OF THE DAY 217 
 
 I returned to Naples, which a month before I had 
 left intending to travel towards Paris. Soon after I 
 had decided to do so, I perceived that I should have 
 done better to continue my journey. ... I came 
 back to bear the pain of seeing my beloved Lina 
 suffer for three months surfer as I hoped it had 
 been impossible for a child to suffer. And now I 
 have not courage to dwell on those dreadful days, as 
 each is entered in my note-book. 
 
 ' The agony of so loving, as with a mother's love, 
 a darling little creature, and yet of being altogether 
 unable to relieve her, as I should have tried to relieve 
 a child of my own, was mine. There are refinements 
 of suffering in this that I will not record. My heart 
 was pierced with sorrow, and yet I was obliged to 
 carry on my usual life, for the world does not tolerate 
 unconventional affections, and what is not under- 
 stood is, for the most part, blamed. With all this 
 was combined great political excitement, and, for 
 Augustus, new hopes and new disappointments. 
 Partly by the advice of my doctor, who feared a 
 summer at Naples for me after so much agitation, I 
 left it again for the second time on June 29, and 
 spent in France and England the months of July and 
 August. In those countries I heard the inexpressible 
 clamour of our day, and only in them can it be fully 
 recognised. What of it have I understood or ac- 
 cepted ? Above all, to what conclusions has it led 
 me ? It would be hard for me to say. The same 
 burning questions (never was the word better applied) 
 were discussed in my presence this year, whether in 
 Rome or Paris or London. I have, therefore, heard
 
 218 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1859 
 
 everything that has to be said by everybody, and I 
 have barely twice heard an opinion which altogether 
 coincided with my own, for I see that mine is only 
 held by very few. That is a reason for questioning 
 it, for I am not of sufficient importance [je ne suis 
 pas de taille a m'adresser le compliment] to pay my- 
 self the compliment. And yet if it be true that 
 Nature, driven out, returns at a gallop, how much 
 more quickly returns a thought, once it has taken 
 possession of your heart and soul and intellect a 
 thought which you believed incontestable, though 
 you had not known how to make it understood ? 
 But when we are in this state of mind, we suffer 
 much from doubt, though we are ourselves certain. 
 The fear of being wanting in submission and humility, 
 and yet the impossibility of constraining reason when 
 it seems necessary to imprison it in too narrow en- 
 trenchments, is painful, for to do so carries disturb- 
 ance into those depths of the soul where alone we 
 can be consoled for all things. 
 
 ' Can I explain to myself the contradiction which 
 meets me everywhere ? I wish I could, that I might 
 extirpate the evil root which, perhaps, is its cause in 
 some region of my soul or my intellect. My diffi- 
 culty lies in clearly denning that shade of colour in 
 my mind which I can no more help than I can help 
 the colour of my hair or my eyes. If I search in the 
 depths of my soul, that I may discover and check 
 the one and dominant desire which is the active 
 principle of all that follows, I perceive that this wish 
 which God sees as it is in me at this minute, truly is 
 that the Church should not be rich, powerful and
 
 1859] MRS. CRAVEN'S WORSHIP OF TRUTH 219 
 
 sovereign of several provinces, but that she should be 
 absolute mistress of all souls. 
 
 ' From this wish naturally follows an infinitely 
 greater regret for the wounds she receives within her 
 own bosom by scandals, not merely those imputed to 
 her, but the real ones, such as the Almighty sees, 
 than for all that can be done by her enemies from 
 without. They are powerless when they attack her 
 immortal part, but they become formidable when 
 sacred truth is, as it were, forced to take their side. 
 This, this is the pain, the great and only pain, which 
 I feel deeply, and in comparison with it every other 
 is easy to bear. Truth ! that mighty power which I 
 worship, which is the substance of the Catholic creed, 
 and which no other religion possesses ; truth in one 
 of her aspects is often put forward by people I detest, 
 and is denied, hidden or altered by those I love and 
 venerate, and in whose opinion alone am I interested. 
 
 ' This is the fact, and the ultimate expression of 
 my thoughts, and this conviction, whether in itself or 
 because I have badly explained it, has been disputed 
 at Rome by admirable ecclesiastics, and by nearly 
 everyone to whom I have expressed it. Everybody 
 seemed to see danger in another direction, and to 
 wish to restore me to another view as if it were a 
 duty. Once, for an instant, I even thought that my 
 conscience was to be enlisted on that side, and that 
 was a real trial. I think afterwards I understood 
 my own self better, and I succeeded in gaining leave 
 to make my one claim. I did not assert that I was 
 mistaken, but only that I claimed the right to think 
 as I did on some points, even if I were mistaken.
 
 220 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1859 
 
 ' In England my peace of mind was even more 
 shaken. I found the opinions I had heard at Rome 
 accentuated. It was a surprise and an anxiety, and 
 for me a particular disappointment, for if there be 
 any remedy for the evils I deplore, other than those 
 terrible punishments which may yet be averted by 
 care, the remedy might be found in an earnest, 
 strong, and devoted support of the cause of Italian 
 reform. Such support might be given by the English 
 clergy, who are so reformed themselves, and who 
 know better than any others what the Church would 
 gain by liberty and publicity. 
 
 ' And now I have returned to Italy, and my feel- 
 ing is stronger than ever. It seems to me, when 
 I remember what I saw among English Catholics 
 in England, that I have left there a newly -born 
 Church, and that I come back here to an ecclesi- 
 astical system that is sinking, because of the laxity 
 and indifference which everywhere sadden heart 
 and eyes. I feel the contrary of what I felt in 
 England. I am alarmed when the enemy's eyes 
 are turned upon us; whereas in England I should 
 have constrained all my acquaintances to come 
 and see the fruits of the Church, and by those 
 fruits convince themselves of its sanctity. I mean, 
 however, to struggle against what is perhaps an 
 exaggerated impression. I will give my attention 
 to the poor and pious folk who surround me here ; 
 especially I will endeavour to procure for myself that 
 blessed silence which I find so hard to practise, 
 and yet which I never break without afterwards 
 bitterly regretting having done so.'
 
 1859] DISLIKE OF FOREIGN INTERVENTION 221 
 
 Journal : 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, CAVA, 
 
 ' December 7, 1859. 
 
 ' No ; my grief is not because the estates of the 
 Holy See are invaded by a foreign Power. My grief 
 is because the subjects of the Pope call to their aid 
 another Sovereign ; and of all my griefs the greatest 
 is the deplorable certainty of the evils which produce 
 such a result. . . . What, then, is to be done, but 
 to retire to a corner and silently pray to God, and 
 try to think no more and speak no more, and let 
 God ensure the triumph of the Church against those 
 who think they are defending it.' 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' December 15, 1859. 
 
 ' December 15, and I am yet among the moun- 
 tains, which are to-day covered with snow ! It 
 is a curious combination of circumstances, but a 
 fortunate one, and I wish to record my impressions, 
 which may have some importance for me. . . . 
 
 ' I have received the two volumes * which contain 
 the life and writings of Mme. Swetchine. . . . 
 
 * I have read, and I am still reading. Her dear 
 voice is yet living to me ; her dear form is before 
 me. In memory I again go over those too few days 
 of my life when I was with her. The thought of her, 
 and these volumes, confirm the impressions and 
 desires evoked by this unexpected abode in the 
 country, and by the trial I am giving to the solitary 
 life which has been mine these past four months. 
 
 * By M. de Falloux.
 
 222 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1859 
 
 ' In every perplexity of my life I go to her in 
 thought. I put myself by the fireplace at Fleury 
 and speak to her, and seem to hear her voice, and 
 I would say what follows to her : 
 
 'At the banquet of life, can we not mortify our- 
 selves by the complete sacrifice of one dish ? Do 
 not spiritual guides sometimes tell us we must at 
 least sacrifice the dernier e bouchee ? Cannot I, who 
 have lived so much in the world, settle at last to 
 give up this derniere bouchee, this remnant of taste 
 for it which lingers, and which has not been long ago 
 given up as it might have been ? About this there 
 can be but one opinion, and my dear friend would 
 have said to me, " Certainly give it up, the sooner 
 and the more completely the better, if you can, with- 
 out failing in any duty." 
 
 ' What does God intend by the situation in which 
 He has placed me ? 
 
 ' There are four motives which justify the presence 
 in society of persons who claim that their life should 
 be considered a Christian life. There may be the 
 necessity of protecting the early career of their 
 children. There may be an official position which 
 connects society with duty, or an exalted station, 
 which has also obligations of the same kind. 
 
 ' In short, and above all, it is a woman's absolute 
 duty to consult, in the first place, the tastes of her 
 husband, and conform to them. Retirement would 
 be but a snare to her who secured it at the expense 
 of her husband's comfort, which, far more than her 
 own, ought to be her first consideration.'
 
 .XIV. 
 
 ON May 7, 1860, we find this touching entry in Mrs. 
 Craven's MS. meditations. The subject of it was 
 our Lord's words to the woman of Samaria. She 
 writes : 
 
 ' I thirst. Ah ! yes, poor creature that I am, I 
 thirst for rest, and peace, and strength, and security, 
 for certitude, for knowledge, for love and happiness 
 and immortality. I cry to God, and God, in His turn, 
 says to us, "I thirst for trust and confidence, for 
 hope and love." : 
 
 The Due and Duchesse Ravaschieri took their 
 child to Florence for further medical advice, and for 
 quiet, no longer possible in Southern Italy. Lina 
 returned again with her parents to Naples, and it 
 was not until August 14 that Mrs. Craven kissed her 
 for the last time, as again she was taken by medical 
 advice to Florence, to die there on September i, 
 when necessary circumstances obliged her ' chere 
 Pauline ' to be in France. Mrs. Craven writes : 
 
 ' Oh, Therese, how my heart is bleeding ! It is 
 but a few days since I left you, and I thirst already 
 for a word from you to tell me how our dear 
 angel bore the journey and the fatigue of such a
 
 224 LIFE OF MRS - AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1860 
 
 departure, when she was in so weak a condition. 
 Yes, I think you acted rightly in resolving to attempt 
 the move. Here, after Garibaldi's daring exploit in 
 entering not only the bay, but even the harbour, to 
 seize on the finest man-of-war in the Neapolitan 
 navy, he seemed endowed with some unaccountable 
 power. His prestige struck terror among the people, 
 as does all that is mysterious or unknown. Imagine 
 that when this feat became public, our bay suddenly 
 swarmed with boats full of persons making for the 
 opposite shore. Whilst I was at church the other 
 day, there was some slight noise, and all the people 
 there who were hearing Mass took to their heels, 
 crying out, "Garibaldi is coming!" What would 
 you have done in such turmoil, when our dear angel 
 is in such need of peace and quiet ? The most 
 strange rumours are afloat, and incredible tales are 
 reported. I listen to all with unheeding ears, and 
 I look on indifferently, for my heart is with you, and 
 its hopes and sorrows are yours. 
 
 ' For reasons which you know, I have arranged to 
 leave for Paris in order to settle some affairs there ; 
 after that, I will rejoin you at Florence in October. 
 Oh, may I find our child in a better state ! 
 ' I am with you and her, heart and soul.' 
 Lina died on September i ;* her illness ended more 
 rapidly than had been expected. On August 30 
 Mrs. Craven writes from Paris to the Duchesse 
 Ravaschieri : 
 
 1 Oh, my beloved Therese ! I shed rivers of tears when 
 I read your letter of the 2 6th. If you had let me know at 
 * Lina was born on November 9, ] 848.
 
 i86o] MOURNING 225 
 
 Civita Vecchia, where I was that day, I would have hurried 
 to your side. But God did not will it. He will, I fervently 
 trust, spare us the bitterest of sorrows. After a crisis of 
 such intensity, and so speedy a return to life, what may not be 
 feared, and what may not also be hoped for our Lina ? But 
 how can we endure such anxiety ? It is true that it kills 
 me to see her suffer, but to-day I am sick of grief because 
 I cannot see her. God grant you some comfort, my 
 Therese, and to me the strength to bear this separation, 
 which at times seems intolerable. Paris looks very sad to 
 me. All my heart is in Italy now. If I dared make plans, 
 mine would be to leave this place at once. May God so 
 will it ! My heart fails me when I read your letter, but 
 there is sweetness in the pang when I think of the Divine 
 consolations you received in Florence, and which you 
 would in vain have looked for at Naples during those days. 
 God help us ! Write write daily, if it were but a line.' 
 
 A telegram brought the news of Lina's death, and 
 Mrs. Craven, still at Dangu, wrote on September 4 : 
 
 ' Therese, is it really true ? Is it possible, and is it I who 
 write I, who am so far from you to-day ? My poor friend, 
 my beloved Therese ! My eyes are blinded by tears, and 
 I cannot see what I am writing. 
 
 1 The telegram is perhaps at this moment in your hands 
 in which I beg you to call me whenever it may please you 
 to have me, that side by side we may weep for our daughter. 
 
 ' Everyone here sympathizes in my sorrow, and Emma 
 with her mother's heart joins in your grief, and has pity on 
 mine. I ought to be at Boury, where those rest whom I 
 have so loved and mourned. It was there that I should 
 have heard of that angel's death, who has gone to join 
 them and for ever. I have no more strength but to press 
 you to my heart and pray for you.' 
 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1860 
 
 A week later Mrs. Craven had better courage to 
 bear the profound desolation caused by Lina's death. 
 On September 12 she wrote again to Lina's mother : 
 
 ' A visit to La Roche Guyon to the good Duchesse de la 
 Rochefoucauld, whom I had not seen since the last 
 moments of our very dear Mme. Swetchine's life, pre- 
 vented me from finishing my letter yesterday. I want to 
 see again those who knew Lina and who know you. I 
 have refused to be at the great hunting party here, and 
 I leave this lively, yet for me melancholy, Dangu to be 
 with Laura* and Marief in Paris to-morrow, and with them 
 weep for our darling. I need besides the consolations of 
 the good Pere Gratry to give strength to my soul and lead 
 it heavenwards. 
 
 ' My old friend Boislecomte, J is shocked by my excessive 
 sorrow, and has written to rebuke me. I send you his 
 letter. To-morrow I will write to you from Paris.' 
 
 In her meditation for that day Mrs. Craven wrote: 
 
 ' My soul is sorrowful even unto death ; my soul 
 
 is adrift on a sea of anguish. I cannot meditate 
 
 to-day; instead, I leave my heart to bleed at Thy 
 
 feet.' 
 
 Among her friends and relations in France during 
 that autumn, so eventful for Italy, Mrs. Craven found 
 small sympathy for her Italian opinions; perhaps the 
 trial of Lina's death, terrible as it was, steadied her 
 soul. Of her grief she could write on September 20, 
 when at Fontenay : 
 
 * At that time Princess of Camporeale, and afterwards 
 Jonna Laura Minghetti. 
 Maria Camporeale, Contessa Bulofi. 
 
 t Comte de Boislecomte, attached to' M. de la Ferronnays' 
 Embassy at Petersburg ; French Minister at Lisbon, 1837.
 
 1860] REJOINS LINA'S MOTHER 227 
 
 ' I must accept to the full, and in all its bitterness, my 
 cruel loss, my perished joy, and sorrow irreparable in this 
 world, just as it has stricken me. Accept, and bear, and 
 offer it up. Struggle against the aggravations of imagina- 
 tion, which are destructive of calm, and which cruelly 
 trouble mine ; regrets, remorse, useless but haunting recol- 
 lection which waste my strength and weaken my will to be 
 resigned. I must struggle against this kind of aberration, 
 which is caused by grief. 
 
 ' Help me to comprehend this mystery of a child's agony. 
 Heal me of this useless torture which depresses and does 
 not lift my heart to Thee, while it continually broods over 
 the incidents of the sad past, rather than on the glorious 
 present which is hers. Only for us is the pain ; take away 
 from us the illusion which still associates the idea of terrible 
 suffering with her dear form instead of endless life and 
 glory.' 
 
 Before October was passed Mrs. Craven rejoined 
 the mother of Lina at Florence. On October 31 she 
 notes that on that day in every year she habitually 
 reflected on the beatitudes of heaven, and concludes 
 with these touching words : 
 
 ' Ah, chere petite ame benie ! reunie en ce moment 
 et pour 1'eternite a ceux qui me furent les plus chers 
 sur terre, de quel ceil dois-tu regarder avec eux les 
 tourments que me causent mon ignorance et ma 
 faiblesse ! Mais, Linette cherie, sois maintenant 
 1'ange protecteur de ta pauvre vieille amie. Prie 
 pour elle, aide-la. Attire son ame et toutes ses 
 facultes vers ce ciel ou tu vis avec les autres qu'elle 
 aimait, que tu aimais aussi avant de les avoir 
 rejoints.'
 
 [ 228] 
 
 XV. 
 
 IN Florence, orderly and reasonable during the re- 
 volutionary epoch which had regained for her 
 autonomy without social dissolution, Mrs. Craven 
 and her friend found greater quiet in their grief than 
 was possible at Naples ; after it was somewhat 
 calmed they remembered again their political 
 interests. Fresh from Catholic discussion in France, 
 Mrs. Craven wrote to her friends, the Comte and 
 Comtesse de Montalembert, with whom she was no 
 longer quite of one mind in Italian affairs, as she 
 had been, and would be again, in the European 
 struggle for religious liberty against State interference. 
 At the time the following letter was written she let 
 her friend, the Duchesse Ravaschieri, copy it, and 
 from her version we translate some passages from this 
 characteristic and eloquent defence of her Italian 
 sympathies : 
 
 ' FLORENCE, 
 
 ' November 13, 1860. 
 
 ' It would not be easy for me to resign myself to the 
 pain of not having seen you while I was in France, if I 
 did not feel that my presence here comforts my poor 
 friend, with whom only can I freely express the sorrow
 
 1860] RETIRED LIFE IN FLORENCE 229 
 
 that has these three months tortured my heart. I should 
 have regretted days spent with you, because I could not 
 have been by her side during three anniversaries, sad for 
 her, which we have lately spent together. We passed them 
 almost entirely at the church of the SS. Apostoli, where 
 lie the remains of our dear Lina. . . . My friends, if you 
 knew what deep roots of affection that child had planted 
 in my heart these past ten years, and what a sad void is 
 left in it by her death, you would forgive me if I write 
 of her at a moment when your thoughts are bent in a 
 quite different direction. I am so used to find consola- 
 tion in both of you, that I do not think it will fail me 
 to-day. 
 
 ' I am anxious that you should really know that child, 
 and I forward you the manuscript of the translation I 
 made of what her mother wrote to me about her from 
 Bologna.* 
 
 ' I am sure that, in reading of her life, you will see the 
 resemblance between Lina's angelic soul and the souls of 
 my dear ones, who were linked to me by ties that when 
 broken, broke my heart with sorrow. You will understand 
 that it was as sweet as it was good for me, to have found 
 in my declining years my own happy youth reflected in that 
 God-chosen creature. 
 
 ' Notwithstanding all the sorrow of the recent time, I 
 must tell you how good our retired life in this beautiful 
 place has been for me. It is one of the cities most dear 
 to me in this world, because, while it is the centre of 
 noble life, whether intellectual or material, it has all the 
 characteristics imprinted by a great past. 
 
 ' Having left the noisy struggles, the violent discussions, 
 the turmoil which politics always excite with us in France, 
 
 * Mrs. Craven's translation of the MS. will be found at 
 p. 257 of her ' Reminiscences.'
 
 230 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1860 
 
 I cannot tell you the well-being and rest I enjoy here, where 
 the past is everywhere and the present is almost absent 
 from our impressions. We think seldom of public affairs ; 
 but when the people we see introduce them, it is in a form 
 so little aggressive or quarrelsome that the difference seems 
 immense between their ways and ours, and I feel, here in 
 the heart of Italy, better content than elsewhere. When I 
 was in France, if I heard the bell ring, I instantly tried to 
 conform my judgment to the French fashion ; but now that 
 I am here, I cannot help seeing the providential eppur si 
 muove which comforts me and calms my fears. 
 
 1 1 could not but be entirely sincere with you, and to be 
 so I feel bound to tell you that I am convinced of the 
 consistency and reality of the national movement which is 
 shaping the new Italy. I think its formation is possible, 
 and I hope to see it, but I feel also that it must receive 
 pardon from the Church, and be baptized, as Father 
 Ventura says. I wish that from that party which first 
 in France, and thence throughout the world, proclaimed 
 the necessity of union between religion and modern 
 liberty, should issue a voice that would defend the Italian 
 cause, and do so with a convinced spirit, capable of em- 
 bracing the greatness of the argument. STich a man, or 
 such men, if they appeared, might perhaps be called revo- 
 lutionary; but were not all of you, who in 1830 did such 
 useful service to the Church, so called ? Were you not like 
 these same men whom you to-day condemn, while you abuse 
 Italy and possibly harden her in her temptation to seek and 
 find justice only among men who, while loving liberty as 
 you do, do not equally love the Church? Oh ! my friends, 
 do not burden me with such a cross. Now that I open so 
 much of my mind to you, let me say all I think to you. It is 
 impossible not to feel, and firmly believe, that the worst 
 danger for this poor Italy would be to draw back. In
 
 i86oj ITALIAN FORECASTS 231 
 
 an outburst of impetuous grief (which would be general) 
 she might fall into excesses, which 1 am bound to tell you 
 have not yet been committed during the eighteen months 
 that this revolution has lasted. It seems to me that its only 
 deplorable side its rebellion against the Papal sovereignty 
 leaves the religious faith uninjured, even of those most 
 to blame, and less impaired than is believed in France. If 
 God were to raise up a man, a saint, who could find the 
 way to re-awaken in Italian hearts the love of the Catholic 
 Church, without sacrifice of his national aspirations, he 
 would be listened to by a people on its knees. 
 
 ' In short, what you said one day of England is a 
 thousand-fold truer for Italy. Yes, she needs the Church, 
 and the Church needs her. May God, then, bless those 
 who endeavour to reconcile both, and increase their number 
 and seek them among those whom I desire to see on their 
 side. 
 
 ' I pause, alarmed at my audacity. You will not at least 
 reproach me with being on the stronger side (a reproach 
 bitter from your lips). It is so much the reverse, that I 
 am perhaps the only one among your friends, men or 
 women, who has the courage so to speak to you. 
 
 ' For those who, unlike you, are influenced by force and 
 numbers, to be with a majority is an important considera- 
 tion ; but what can I do ? Have I not told you that my 
 will is not strong enough to conquer my reason ? Reason, 
 I feel, can for me only give way to questions of religious 
 faith, and, thank God, in this question I am given full and 
 complete liberty.' 
 
 The letter in which these passages occur was 
 written just before Mrs. Craven left Florence for 
 Naples, where Mr. Craven awaited her. Thence 
 Pauline wrote to her friend on December i, 1860 :
 
 232 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1860 
 
 ' DEAR THERESE, 
 
 ' I feel giddy when I look around me, seeing how all 
 is changed, as is. too, the life of my heart First, let me 
 speak of yourself. I am anxious because I have not heard 
 from you since our sorrowful separation. Dear friend, 
 accept as some consolation, however slight, that we pre- 
 serve in our hearts the memory of your angel. She is 
 present in all our thoughts, as in yours. I see her, and 
 find her again everywhere. How sweet was our common life 
 in Florence ! I wish it could have lasted longer. What can 
 I say to you of myself in this changed Naples changed 
 in so many ways, but the same in her beautiful sky and in 
 all material things ? I seem to live in a perplexed dream, 
 and the Neapolitan word stonata* can alone make you 
 understand my condition since my return. 
 
 ' As for the political changes here, from the little that I 
 have seen and all that I have heard, the horizon seems to 
 be clearing in several directions, and as after the tempest, 
 when the clouds break, some spaces of blue are visible, 
 the sinister and grotesque faces which appear after every 
 revolution are fewer from day to day. Red shirts still 
 abound, and they make a little noise, particularly the 
 English Garibaldini ; but Farini will see to it. He has 
 summoned to his help men who can second his excellent 
 projects. Cardinal Riario's return is longed for, and there 
 is hope, if not certainty, of it. All the best of the Nea- 
 politan clergy are to call on him to-day, and entreat him to 
 come back and resume his functions, with a promise that 
 he and the Church shall enjoy full liberty, such as, perhaps, 
 they had not before. 
 
 ' In short, were it not for the fault-finding temper of our 
 Neapolitans, I believe that, steering amid a thousand diffi- 
 culties, we could reach a not distant future of peace and 
 * Out of tune.
 
 i86o] STATE OF NAPLES 233 
 
 progress. They eagerly wish here for the construction of 
 railways. They would give work and develop great life in 
 this part of Italy, which is as yet without them. In their 
 establishment Augustus, my brother Charles, De Marti no, 
 and others, take an active part as representative of several 
 foreign capitalists. . . . Imagine how I enjoy sitting at 
 table every day between my brother, who thinks as all 
 Frenchmen do on these affairs, and Count Arrivabene, a 
 young Garibaldian, d peine defroque et debarbouille from his 
 prison at Gaeta, from which he was set free by an ex- 
 change of prisoners, as was also the correspondent of an 
 English paper who has been with Garibaldi in his cam- 
 paign, and who has been quartered on us ! ... I feel 
 sometimes as if I were on burning coals, and I feel a wild 
 wish to escape, particularly when they bring forward that 
 endless Roman question. Yet I will not conceal from 
 you, as generally I do from others, that, perceiving the moral 
 force of these plebiscites, which one after the other lead all 
 the Italian cities towards junction in one great kingdom, I 
 cannot shut out the hope that from Rome may at last 
 come the gran rifiuto of her lost provinces, which would 
 so greatly increase the spiritual power of the Papacy.' 
 
 That her dear Italians should love their country 
 without losing their faith, and that they should love 
 religion without abandoning their country's cause, 
 was Mrs. Craven's prayer, and probably few, if any, 
 of those who found fault with her enthusiasms for the 
 individual rights of men, more earnestly sought within 
 the Church for spiritual support, and for daily 
 increase of humility and obedience to its dictates. 
 
 She needed support ; she found it in the advice 
 and guidance of Capocelatro, who is now Cardinal 
 Archbishop of Capua.
 
 234 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1860 
 
 ' I never knew a nobler mind,' she writes of him, 
 ' nor a clearer intellect ; his profound reason and 
 tender heart remind me at every turn of the Abbe 
 Gerbet. His advice, however, is more efficacious 
 because it is all-comprehensive, as is the light of his 
 intellect and of his soul. I often see, also, Alfonso 
 Casanova, who is as full of religious faith as of 
 patriotism.' 
 
 With him Mrs. Craven had studied several plans 
 of charitable institutions new to Naples, though well- 
 tested elsewhere. An infant asylum in each quarter 
 of the city, to be managed by Sisters of Charity, was 
 one of their joint schemes. The municipality, 
 dreading the accusation of clericalism, refused to 
 accept the services of the Sisters, and Mrs. Craven, 
 at her own expense, established a creche, and at- 
 tached it to the principal house of the Sisters of St. 
 Vincent de Paul, to serve as a model for other insti- 
 tutions of the same kind. Her courage and zeal 
 succeeded; the prejudices of the municipal councillors 
 were overcome, and other asylums were founded and 
 prospered under the same system. 
 
 Among the clues to the character and taste of an 
 absolutely convinced Christian may be counted the 
 vision of the heaven he looks for. At that date Mrs. 
 Craven writes of it as ' repose, security, the everlasting 
 possession of all that we have confusedly conceived 
 and desired here below; an expanded and satisfied 
 intellect, capable of boundless growth ; a fulfilment 
 without stint of the heart's desire . . . all that beauty 
 of which earth offers us the phantom, recognised once 
 more, and this time in its reality, and in our eternal
 
 1861] REFORMS OF CHARITIES 235 
 
 possession. To love, to bless, to enjoy, while await- 
 ing yet keener delights delights surpassing even 
 those of the sweet revoirs we look for, when we shall 
 see again our beloved whom we have left on earth, 
 and whose absence we shall hardly feel, since the 
 longest separation will appear short to those who 
 measure time by eternity. We do not grieve when 
 fellow-travellers precede us by a few days to a home 
 where we shall meet to live henceforth always 
 together. The momentary separation seems but 
 a means to enhance the joy of our arrival, as sweet 
 for those who wait as for those who follow.' 
 
 Who among those who have made the Christian 
 pilgrimage will not be touched by the thirst of this 
 weary soul, as she cries out while meditating on the 
 words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria ? 
 
 ' Give me, Lord, this living water which can 
 quench my thirst, and strengthen me, for I am ex- 
 hausted and weak. Sorrow, which should strengthen, 
 has this time left me worn out. ... I must cease to 
 turn within the circle of lost earthly joys, and make 
 an effort to conquer my too terrestrial memory of 
 pain.' 
 
 Neapolitan charities owed much, as we have seen, 
 to Mrs. Craven, and perhaps even more to her 
 energy and intelligence than to the liberal alms 
 supplied by her dramatic performances in past 
 years. 
 
 Measures were taken in the course of 1861 which 
 grieved and discouraged her faithful heart, and the 
 suppression of the monasteries was one ; but she 
 exercised all her influence in gaining exemption for
 
 236 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1861 
 
 the Oratorian house at Naples, for the Benedictine 
 abbeys in that part of Italy, and for some other 
 religious houses. In March, 1861, she writes to the 
 Duchesse Ravaschieri : 
 
 ' Every day, for one cause or another, I have reason to 
 feel that my being at Naples during this stormy time is 
 not altogether useless, and that it is the will of God that I 
 should do what little good is required of me. If you knew 
 what cruel letters I receive from my old and dear friends 
 beyond the Alps, and what distress I feel in being so 
 severely judged and so little understood by them because I 
 sympathize with this poor new Italy of yours !' 
 
 Mrs. Craven wrote to Mr. Monsell from the midst 
 of her hopes and anxieties on January 30, 1861 : 
 
 ' NAPLES. 
 
 ' You wish me to write, and expect me to tell you what I 
 have thought and think of all that has passed and is passing 
 in Italy ; but you know very well that one (or twenty) 
 letters would not be enough to do that; and as it is im- 
 possible to tell you all, and would be mischievous, or at 
 least quite useless, to tell you only one half, I will for the 
 present say nothing. This is certainly a time of extraordi- 
 nary trial, and although I feel certain that your children 
 will see brighter days for the Church than any we have 
 ever known, this firm hope is not sufficient to keep up 
 my spirits as it ought in the present gloom. 
 
 ' What, indeed, are the intentions of the Emperor of the 
 French ? For my part, I do not think him bad, as you say 
 he is. I see that he knows very well how to resist and 
 reject the advice of England, whenever it suits him, and 
 only appears to yield when they happen to advise what
 
 i86i] LETTER TO LACORDAIRE 237 
 
 he has determined to do. But all that does not signify ; 
 "I'homme s'agite, et Dieu le mene" ; and if ever these 
 words of Bossuet were true, they are true now, and that 
 conviction is my only comfort.' 
 
 In a letter to Lacordaire Mrs. Craven at last 
 gave relief to her perplexity of mind as a French 
 woman loyal above all to the Church, and also to her 
 family and friends. She reminds the great Domini- 
 can of their last meeting under the roof of Mme. 
 Swetchine, whose memory she evokes before entering 
 on her Italian sympathies. Evidently she believed 
 that they would have been at least understood by 
 the large-minded and accomplished woman who had 
 been her friend, as also a mother to Lacordaire. 
 She pleads for the Italy of that crisis, at once so 
 unfortunate and so faulty, so foolish and so wise, 
 at the same time so much adulated and abused, 
 and beyond her own frontiers so misjudged and ill 
 understood. Mrs. Craven's opinion was that the 
 best government for Catholics would be that in 
 which religion should be free to exercise in the best 
 way its true power over men's souls. She describes 
 with what grief she has seen the break-up of the 
 time-worn ecclesiastical discipline which had obtained 
 under the old system a grief shared by all that was 
 best among the clergy. To that system of absolute 
 government, and not to the reigning sovereigns, she 
 attributes the decay of religious feeling. ' It is 
 impossible for me to think,' she exclaims, ' that 
 Italian liberty, even if it reached Rome itself, could 
 injure the Church as absolutism has done by its long 
 existence in this ancient kingdom. ... I believe
 
 238 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1861 
 
 that, notwithstanding its dangers and the sufferings 
 it inflicts, liberty is the only healing power able to 
 cure the evils of our time.' 
 
 These words may sound strangely on the lips of 
 one brought up in the society of the Restauration, 
 and to the uttermost of her being saturated with 
 theocratic thought and mystical experience. Pos- 
 sibly it was that very intensity of Catholic sentiment 
 and loyalty which caused her to believe in human 
 progress, such as is the goal and the crown of 
 Christian endeavour. Since she wrote that letter, 
 how many facts have justified her enthusiasm for 
 the Church's action on the world, however often it 
 is embarrassed by its temporary agents ! How much 
 that was feared then by adherents to authority is 
 accepted now as the best basis for authority ! It 
 was her passionate devotion to Roman Catholicism 
 and its higher interests that made her desire the 
 liberties of men to be respected. In the hospitals 
 she constantly visited, crowded with Garibaldian and 
 Piedmontese soldiers, she found that the spirit of 
 religion was perhaps more prevalent, and certainly 
 under nobler aspects, than that worst scepticism of 
 men who have lost faith in ideals by losing their own 
 independence. 
 
 It was great pain to Mrs. Craven to witness the 
 contrast. She writes : 
 
 1 God only can measure how I suffered, when the truth 
 forced itself on me, and I found myself irresistibly drawn 
 to the side which was opposed to the traditions of my 
 youth. Yes, the side which was opposed ; for I am bound 
 to say that by what I now see, as by what I have before
 
 i86i] LACORDAIRE'S LETTER 239 
 
 seen, I feel that going back to the past (which could only 
 be done by force of arms) would be the greatest calamity 
 both for these provinces and for the Church.' 
 
 Lacordaire's answer satisfied Mrs. Craven's 
 scruples lest her sympathies with the Italian move- 
 ment had been too freely given. He writes : 
 
 ' I read your letter with that care and attention which it 
 deserved, for your own sake and for that of its contents. 
 My feelings agree entirely with yours, except in one point 
 the unity of Italy ; up to this time I have not thought that 
 it was possible, or even desirable, except by reserving for 
 the Holy Father a part of the Italian territory. What you 
 tell me inclines me to believe the contrary, always, how- 
 ever, keeping for the Pope what is his by right. I cannot 
 now write definitely of this. Events sooner or later will throw 
 light on what is now dark in this great question. Meantime, 
 I think the right of Italy to shake off her foreign yoke is 
 undeniable, and also the right to assert her nationality and 
 insist on government by those civil and political methods 
 which are in harmony with the ideas of modern society to 
 constitute herself, in short, be she united or be she confede- 
 rated, as a nation, mistress of her destinies in the European 
 family. All this appears to me undoubted and clear, with- 
 out hesitations or regrets. Still, it is true that the tem- 
 poral conditions of the Papacy will suffer for the present 
 by the enfranchisement of Italy, and may yet suffer for a 
 long time. That is a misfortune that will find its purpose 
 in the mysterious ways of Providence. To suffer is not to 
 die, and from the expiation which belongs to sorrow a light 
 may arise. The world was saved, Rome may be saved, by 
 the Cross. 
 
 ' I think that the Papacy, though it may not regain its 
 territory, may preserve and recover what is necessary to its
 
 240 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1861 
 
 dignity and independence. That is important. To those 
 who would say I am chimerical, I answer that God's pro- 
 vidence and justice are above human events. A Christian 
 cannot reason as would an atheist. He must make God 
 his starting-point in politics, even in matters that seem 
 unlikely and beyond human hope. 
 
 ' I hang only in doubt between unity and federation. I 
 lean towards the last, but you have given me good reason 
 to wish for unification, because of the very needs of the 
 Church in Southern Italy. God will see to it. In any case 
 your feeling in these affairs does not seem to me such as 
 need trouble your conscience. It is the feeling of a Chris- 
 tian and liberal mind. For thirty-six years of my life the 
 strength and consolation of my whole being has been supplied 
 from the same sources. 
 
 * If our common friend, Montalembert, does not recog- 
 nise in Italian events a sensible progress (always excepting 
 what has been evil) in what has appeared to us for the 
 benefit of the Church, it is because he is influenced by his 
 profound dislike of the French Government, to which I am 
 far from being favourable ; but my aversion does not lead 
 me to ignore the fact that its action may have served Italy, 
 whatever were its motives. God makes use of all, even of 
 egotism and despotism. To effect some ends, hands not 
 absolutely blameless may be made serviceable. 
 
 ' Italy, and Rome still less, cannot remain as the treaties 
 of 1815 required. Both lay in expectation of a hand that 
 should raise them from the bed of pain on which they 
 were bound. That hand has shown itself. I should have 
 better welcomed the hand of Charles X., of Louis Philippe, 
 or of the Republic of a France, in short, that possessed 
 liberal institutions. They declined the task. Another has 
 accomplished it. What help was there ? Am I to declare 
 myself against Italy because ' her chains fell at an untimely
 
 i86i] GERBET JOINS VEUILLOTS PARTY 241 
 
 moment ? Truly, no. I leave to others such intensity of 
 passion ; I prefer to accept good from whatever quarter it 
 comes.' 
 
 ' This gives me liberty to feel as I do, and peace 
 has returned to my mind.' 
 
 So Lacordaire's letter was endorsed by Mrs. 
 Craven, and for a time it restored her conviction 
 that the Italian changes were for good. Whatever 
 her judgment of the means by which they were 
 effected, she believed the impulses were generous, 
 and, indeed, justifiable, which insisted on man's 
 right to stand erect, and most so when he is in the 
 presence of God. There was, however, more of 
 Gerbet than even of Lacordaire in her aspirations 
 for herself and for others. Yet Gerbet was at that 
 time Bishop of Perpignan, where his ultramontanism 
 had associated itself with that of Veuillot and the 
 Univers. But it was not any system of civil govern- 
 ment, nor any care for parties and persons, that 
 roused her eloquent anger, but a burning desire that 
 the Gospel might belong not less to the poor than 
 to the rich, not less to Italianissimi than to Papalini, 
 and, though herself more truly loyal to the Papacy 
 than most of its defenders, she eagerly hoped that 
 from the Vatican might come the impulse of gener- 
 ous reconciliation. 
 
 Few traits are more characteristic of Mrs. Craven 
 than her interest in the politics and objects of the 
 country in which she lived. It may be said of her 
 that she not only visited, but lived the life of, the 
 places where she stayed, were it but for a few 
 months. Her horizons were broad in every direc- 
 
 VOL. i. 16
 
 242 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1861 
 
 tion, and no doubt it was almost necessary for her 
 sensitive and anxious temperament to get at times 
 beyond her immediate personal interests in worldly 
 affairs. Her free spirit loved to survey an expanse 
 and fly far afield. She enthusiastically admired 
 action, though she cultivated spiritual calm for her- 
 self as a remedy for her too ready agitation. It had 
 always been a grief to her, as to her husband, that he 
 had had little sphere for his considerable activity. 
 When Southern Italy was teeming with over-sanguine 
 schemes for national development, Mr. Craven was 
 not unnaturally eager to embark in some of them, 
 which were in themselves admirably suited to the 
 immediate wants of the revived but still sleepy 
 country. Foreign capital seemed ready, and the 
 two improvements on which Mr. Craven spent a 
 considerable part of his fortune were urgent. He 
 carefully studied the possibility of supplying Naples 
 with good water by the river which had been found 
 amply sufficient in Roman times, but the course of 
 which had formed since then a hidden way to the 
 sea under the coast-line of sand and shingle. A 
 scholarly and interesting memorandum on the lost 
 river is all that remained to Mr. Craven of his 
 labours in promoting the health of the city where 
 typhoid fever was so general, nor was he better 
 advised in his promotion of highroads and railways 
 in Sicily. 
 
 'The path we are following with feverish anxiety,' 
 writes Mrs. Craven, 'is not our way, the way we 
 have hitherto followed ; and I sometimes ask myself 
 how it will end. Towards wealth or towards ruin ?
 
 1861] 'MILLIONS FLASHED BEFORE HER' 243 
 
 We were born to go in search of other ideals, and 
 the millions flashed before me do not attract me.' 
 Again, she writes that she ' thirsts for a breath of 
 the air which expands the lungs of the soul, and 
 recalls the early days of full life and youthful fire, 
 and hours of reading in the sanctuary of the library.' 
 Meantime the house at Castagneto was finished, 
 and the world has gained by the days of her solitude 
 there, when, having lost the visits of her child Lina, 
 Mrs. Craven turned more faithfully than ever to the 
 records of her youth and her santi.
 
 1 244 ] 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 1 April 24, 1862. 
 
 ' I AM once more in this nest which I have so longed 
 for, and to secure which I took so much trouble. To 
 what end ? I ask myself. This first day of my return 
 I would recall my intentions, and, first, let me thank 
 God for the realization of my wishes. I complain so 
 often and murmur so readily.' 
 
 A letter written by Mrs. Craven in the course of 
 1862 will show her continued interest in Italian 
 affairs, which was only second to that of the domi- 
 nant work of her life the picture of Albert and 
 Alexandrine's love, painted with the prayer and the 
 purpose of an Angelico. 
 
 To Mr. Monsell. 
 
 ' NAPLES, 
 
 ' April 29, 1862. 
 
 ' I have this instant received your letter, and I sit down 
 to answer it, and to attempt to meet your wishes by 
 writing you a good long letter in return, although you 
 just happen to make that request at a time when I feel 
 no other inclination but that of keeping perfectly silent ;
 
 1 862] RELIGION AND PATRIOTISM 245 
 
 this is such a painful moment for those who are not fortunate 
 enough to agree heart and soul with the majority of the 
 people they love and revere. 
 
 ' It is, however, a great and I own it an unexpected 
 satisfaction to me to find how very much nearer agreed 
 we are than I imagined. The language of almost all the 
 English Catholics I had come across had not prepared me 
 for this, and it is a great relief to me. You hit at once upon 
 the very thing which seems to have been overlooked through- 
 out by them, and that is, the dangerous and impossible posi- 
 tion in which people and clergy are placed when driven to 
 choose between their feelings of nationality, their (most 
 natural) wish for liberty, and their religion. You should be 
 here, and see as much as I do of quite the best priests (I 
 might almost say the only good ones) to understand fully 
 what that difficulty is at this moment at Naples ! You can 
 imagine it, however, very well by fancying what the Irish 
 would feel, or the Poles, or the French, indeed, if they 
 found that a repugnant political opinion, or any political 
 opinion whatever, was in any way imposed upon them as a 
 conscientious duty. 
 
 ' You say, and you are right, indeed, to say so, that the 
 opinions of the "revivers" (which are those of the Civilta 
 Cattolica) give strength to the revolutionary feeling ; and 
 there again, I say, you should be here to judge of it. But 
 first explain to me how it is that the whole of the French 
 Liberal party, who have seen this so clearly in France, have 
 been entirely blind to it in Italy. How is it that Montalem- 
 bert, A. de Broglie, etc., all of them (except P. Lacordaire) 
 have done nothing since the beginning of the war, but give 
 the whole of their support to that party ? How is it that 
 they have never tried to ascertain whether there were no true 
 Catholic Liberals whose most useful influence they were 
 weakening and destroying? I attempted more than once
 
 246 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1862 
 
 to point this out to Montalembert, but in vain. It is, 
 nevertheless, true; and had he or they given some little 
 credit to those who, in Italy, had at all times sympathized 
 with their school in France, and now expected their assist- 
 ance for themselves, much that has taken place would, I feel 
 convinced of it, never have happened ; and a feeling has 
 arisen which might have been conquered by them at first, 
 and would never have acquired the strength it now has. In 
 short, if they had wasted none of their strength in opposing 
 the legitimate tendencies of the Italian movement, and in 
 defending Governments that had fallen under the weight of 
 their own mistakes and misdeeds, they would have been 
 strong to defend Rome, and in that case would have de- 
 fended it with such effect that I feel convinced we never 
 should have heard of " Roma Capitale." 
 
 ' La Marmora is doing well now, and great efforts are 
 really being made to remedy some of the past evils ; but 
 years and years of such an extraordinary state of corruption 
 must leave long traces behind. 
 
 ' In my opinion, this is an immense providential change, 
 the details of which are, many of them, to be reprobated, 
 but which, on the whole, is leading us to a better state of 
 things, and one in which the Church will appear greater and 
 more triumphant than ever.'
 
 L 247 ] 
 
 XVII. 
 
 IN the spring of 1863 the ill-health of her eldest 
 brother Charles determined Mrs. Craven to go at 
 once to Paris. Her veneration for Rome would not 
 allow her to treat her beloved city as a railway- 
 station. She spent Holy Week in limine apostolorum, 
 and paused at Bologna to see the Duchesse Ravas- 
 chieri, who was there. Mrs. Craven's love for Rome 
 was a passion. When she spoke of the uncertainty 
 that gathered about its political destinies, her eyes 
 filled with tears. ' I might say of Rome what Mary 
 Tudor says of Calais,' she exclaimed : ' if my heart 
 were cut open you would see the name engraved 
 there.' She nourished the dream which she herself 
 confessed to be Utopian, of a spiritual capital where 
 the Pope in full exercise of his sovereign power 
 should remain the centre of the universal Church, to 
 whom the representatives of all the Powers should be 
 accredited, and where all questions of the world's 
 rights and social order might be discussed, though 
 never, however good the end might be, should they 
 be pursued by methods of invasion. After some 
 weeks in Paris devoted to her family, Mrs. Craven 
 visited her dear England.
 
 248 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1863 
 
 In her note-book of meditations under the date 
 December 31, 1863, London, Mrs. Craven wrote : 
 
 ' One of us is dead since last year. Twelve months 
 ago he was in the midst of us, and nothing 
 announced his speedy death. He suffered pain, but 
 none of us thought that it was suffering which should 
 end in death. Just, merciful and divine Lord, Thou 
 hast weighed his sufferings, his patience, his great 
 sacrifice ;* Thou hast had pity on him, Thou wilt 
 have reserved a place for him in the midst of those 
 \s r ho went before him.' 
 
 In March Mrs. Craven followed a spiritual retreat 
 at the Sacre Cceur convent in Paris, with the defined 
 object of obtaining the grace which seemed indis- 
 pensable at that time, the grace of complete abandon- 
 ment to the Divine will. The retreat was given by 
 the Pere de Ponlevoy, who well suited her spiritual 
 needs. Mrs. Craven's few words on the incident that 
 Jesus went up into a mountain to pray alone express 
 the ardent upward flight of her soul. She describes 
 it as the first condition of prayer, 'to lift the soul 
 above all passing things, higher than all obstacles 
 and entanglements, above the sounds of this world 
 to rise higher, higher still as far as may be, and 
 then pause take breath and rest in the presence of 
 God alone.' 
 
 Returning to Lumigny, she felt to the full that 
 strange entanglement of past and present, of Eugenie 
 long dead and Eugenie's sons, now young men, full 
 of promise; of familiar scenes tenanted by less 
 
 * Comte Charles de la Ferronnays had left the army in 1833, 
 for reasons of political honour. See ' Re'cit,' vol. i., p. 105.
 
 1864] 'ANNE SEVERIN' 249 
 
 familiar figures, who would give life the semblance 
 of a dream but for its eternal ideals. Once more at 
 Castagneto she found herself idle. The ' Recit ' was 
 completed. Its future was a cause of anxious con- 
 sideration. Should the secret of her santi, the secret 
 of their Lord, be given even to a restricted group of 
 readers ? 
 
 The question could not be finally decided at 
 Castagneto. To occupy herself until her next visit 
 to France, she wrote a comedy, but the Duchesse 
 Ravaschieri, an excellent judge, found the dialogue 
 too diffuse for the stage, and begged her to write a 
 novel, which should be of the English rather than 
 of the French type. ' Anne Severin ' was the result 
 of Mrs. Craven's first attempt at that wholesome 
 romance which she wished to embody. In it there 
 are traces of Lady Georgiana Fullerton's method, 
 and it was dedicated to her. It does not equal the 
 later works of its author, but it has passed through 
 twenty-two editions a success, no doubt, partly 
 owing to the public reception of ' Le Recit,' which 
 preceded it in order of publication. 
 
 But while occupied in bridging over the gulfs that 
 separate healthy and unhealthy fiction, Mrs. Craven's 
 perhaps even more constant companion than the 
 Duchesse Ravaschieri was the little book given to 
 her in 1863 by Pere Ponlevoy, ' L'Abandon a la 
 Providence Divine,' by Pere Caussade. To the year 
 of Mrs. Craven's death it was her favourite manual of 
 spiritual reading. Her copy is lined and interlined 
 in blue and black and red, with every shade of 
 emphasis. It is not difficult to understand what
 
 250 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1865 
 
 comfort its doctrines of peace and adoring rest 
 gave Mrs. Craven's over-eager heart. 
 
 In the spring of 1865 Mrs. Craven went to Paris, 
 that she might herself submit to some members of 
 her family the ripened labour of the last twelve years, 
 during which she had given to documents used in her 
 immortal work that proportion and harmony which 
 proved her so consummate an artist. The Comte, now 
 Marquis, de Mun's consent was required for the pub- 
 lication of his wife Eugenie's journal and letters. As 
 he devoured the pages of the manuscript with inde- 
 scribable emotion, he exclaimed: 'No, I cannot allow 
 these pages of Eugenie's life to be given to the world. 
 In any case the letters written after our marriage 
 must be suppressed.' The blow was great to Mrs. 
 Craven. She told M. de Montalembert what her 
 brother-in-law had said, and he agreed that he also 
 would have felt the same. ' I believe that you will 
 have to await the death of all concerned before you 
 can publish these records,' he added; while more 
 than one person reverenced by her frankly assured 
 her that it were better to put them in the fire than 
 submit them to a doubtful public. Mrs. Craven 
 writes: 'A voice in my heart, however, said, 
 "Courage! The example of these dear souls will 
 do much good in a wider circle than that narrow one 
 of your Paris intimates." This assurance conquered 
 in me my own distrust, and overcame the opposition 
 of others.' In a later letter she writes : 
 
 ' Montalembert has read the "Recit" with true enthusiasm. 
 Adrien, kind brother as he is, holds milder language. It is 
 settled that the first volume shall be printed at once, but in
 
 1 865] 'GLADIATEUR' 251 
 
 a limited number of copies. A more ample publicity is 
 not to be thought of, and the copies will be distributed by 
 us alone. This, you see, greatly impairs my hopes. The 
 publication, instead of being useful by its sale to the poor as 
 I had intended, will cost me a considerable sum. In my final 
 hesitations I consulted Monseigneur Gerbet (our dear Abbe), 
 and with all his heart he gave me his placet. With even 
 greater enthusiasm the celebrated and holy Pere Ponlevoy 
 (author of the "Life of Ravignan," which you admire so 
 much) approved. Montalembert now completely consent- 
 ing, not only approves, but wishes to do me the honour, 
 unhoped for by me, of being the responsible editor of the 
 work.' 
 
 To pass the proofs through the press, Mrs. Craven 
 stayed near Paris. She was still haunted by un- 
 certainty as to her future, and she exclaims : ' My 
 life is like a looking-glass that turns every way while 
 I fix my eyes on it in vain.' She writes from Dangu, 
 the home of Comte de Lagrange : ' Here we are in 
 all the intoxication of " Gladiateur's " success, who, 
 having won the Derby, now returns the hero of 
 Doncaster. All the " sport " of Europe hails him 
 as the finest racer in the world. I understand all 
 the satisfaction felt in this centre of sport, and I am 
 most sensible to the triumph of the high-bred legs 
 [jarrets] of the beautiful creature ; still, there seems 
 something childish in the joy that every Frenchman 
 feels in having beaten the English, even by the help 
 of a horse's legs. There is not the same excite- 
 ment on the other side of the Channel. Frederic de 
 Lagrange, who has returned from his triumphal 
 progress, is lost in admiration of the chivalrous
 
 252 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1865 
 
 pleasure and the good-humour which has greeted his 
 victory.' Shortly after she notes that the printing of 
 the ' Re'cit,' of which the first part filled 500 pages, 
 could not be finished till Christmas. ' May God 
 bless this arduous undertaking ! It is meant to show 
 how in daily life the Divine presence can be recog- 
 nised, desired and loved.' 
 
 Five hundred copies were struck off. Of these 
 one hundred were privately distributed. The book 
 was immediately in such request, and so evidently 
 calculated to do good, that the sale of the remaining 
 400 was allowed by Mrs. Craven's family. In two 
 days every copy was sold, and within a few months 
 the book had run through nine editions ; its complete 
 publicity was almost forced on its author by the 
 eagerness of the demand for it, and by its reception 
 in the French press. 
 
 Mrs. Craven had been right. ' General consent,' 
 the sense of many, which is somewhat minimized in 
 our expression 'common-sense,' is not seldom the best 
 judge, even of spiritual beauty and of the lives that 
 reflect our Christian light. She proved her courage, 
 her faith in her contemporaries, and her sympathy 
 and love for those less illumined than her santi, by 
 her steady determination to publish the ' Recit,' 
 unlike as it is to all other works. She did not err in 
 her estimate of how deeply and how widely felt are 
 the emotions to which ' Le Recit ' responds. To 
 many the book was a revelation of their own un- 
 defined trust and hope. It was to yet more a fresh 
 assurance of the eternal fact that love worthy the 
 name is essentially one in its many manifestations,
 
 1 866] RECEPTION OF ' LE RECIT' 255 
 
 and that human love is but the type and porch- 
 keeper of our love for ideal union. Here were people 
 who had lived in the world according to its actual 
 ways, yet whose inner existence was mystic as that 
 described by A Kempis, or as the white figures of the 
 Christian past, that show still so clearly on the misty 
 tissue of time. The interest evoked by these family 
 portraits, and their life-like simplicity of attitude 
 make us forget the noble originality which dared to 
 trust the sympathy of her contemporaries, even of 
 her French contemporaries. Mrs. Craven believed 
 in a response from consciences, at a time of what 
 M. de Montegut calls 'robust incredulity,' and she 
 got it. Not distinctively romance, memoirs or poetry, 
 sacred or profane, ' Le Recit ' appealed to instincts 
 within us that hardly have form enough to be cata- 
 logued. It was a flower grown in the soil of the 
 Abbe Gerbet's teaching, suggestive of larger hopes 
 and wider horizons, and of a union of hearts that 
 cannot be reached by controversy and formulas. 
 And yet what was it but the story of a love exalted 
 by suffering and sacrifice, the story of six deaths, 
 golden in the light beyond their mystery ; of lovers 
 bound by ties closer than those which merely human 
 passion can forge ; of parents to whom their children 
 are gifts from God; of children to whom their 
 parents seem their guardian angels ? Never was 
 there a more human book, and in it Mrs. Craven's 
 own hope and faith in the right issues of our human 
 toil and struggle give life to the figures on her 
 canvas. 
 
 The book appeared in January, 1866, and in April
 
 254 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1862 
 
 the distinguished critic, M. de Montegut, devoted an 
 article to it, with lengthy extracts, in the Revue des 
 deux Mondes. The writer half apologizes for his 
 admiration ; he minimizes the conversion of Alexan- 
 drine as an act of faith that he may the better 
 emphasize it as an act of human respect to the wishes 
 of Albert ; yet his enthusiasm is seen between the 
 lines, especially when he writes of Eugenie, who of 
 all the family group pleases him the most. ' Her 
 rare soul,' he writes, ' is revealed in the fragments of 
 her journal relegated to the appendix ; they show a 
 nature trebly noble noble according to the world, 
 noble in nature, and noble before God. A " gentle- 
 woman," to use the expression of Mrs. Craven's 
 second fatherland, altogether Christian and alto- 
 gether French. The real grandeur of her sentiments 
 is concealed by the light-heartedness which clothes 
 them. Her radiant piety so illumines her whole soul 
 that in it are no dark corners. Her desire for per- 
 fection is not the result of disgust because we are 
 born imperfect, and it has nothing to do with experi- 
 ence of evil. It springs to God with natural joy, as 
 the lark sings in rising to the sky. She loves death 
 cheerily, death harmonious and luminous, unac- 
 quainted with the gloom of melancholy or the dis- 
 cordance of sighs. She has a love for God so 
 intimately familiar that she can laugh before Him as 
 a daughter before her father ; an energy in religious 
 submission only found in Catholic believers, and 
 there seldom in such force as hers. All this is to be 
 found in the living and eloquent pages of which we 
 cull the flower for the pleasure and edification of our
 
 1 866] A TIME OF 'ROBUST UNBELIEF' 253 
 
 readers.' And these the readers, in 1866, of the 
 Revue des deux Mondes ! ' It seems to us,' con- 
 cludes the critic, alas ! far from the faith of Eugenie, 
 ' that in this hour of robust unbelief the spectacle of 
 souls, distinguished as these, believing in God and 
 trusting in Him as they did, should possess interest, 
 and even originality.' 
 
 That the instant and great success of ' Le Recit ' 
 was almost expected by Mrs. Craven is not strange. 
 Its atmosphere, directly illumined by the Divine 
 presence, was one in which she had lived from her 
 first visit to the Roman Catacombs, probably since 
 she could remember her mother's first instructions, 
 and understood the teaching of the men formed, as 
 the Abbe Gerbet had been, in a school of reconcilia- 
 tion and charity, even towards the votaries of the 
 first Revolution. Charity inducing hope rather than 
 commanding faith, a conduct of life exactly in con- 
 formity to their pater-noster, a mysticism prompted 
 by the Comforter and limitless in its adaptation to 
 the needs of the century, in whatever formulas they 
 may be expressed, was the true secret of the general 
 welcome which the personages of ' Le Recit ' received. 
 
 The Academic crowned it by the hands of M. 
 Villemain, who in reporting on its claims declared : 
 ' It may perhaps not be a work of literary art, but its 
 value will possibly seem all the greater. It is the 
 testament of a past time which will be read in the 
 future. The Academie crowns these true sentiments 
 which are embodied in touching language.' The 
 usual gift of money accompanied the weighty words 
 of the distinguished Secretary. But the true import-
 
 256 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1866 
 
 ance of the book could not be well appraised, except 
 by those who accepted that spiritual theocracy which 
 is the kingdom of God. It was not given to many 
 of its readers to understand its title to their 
 sympathy, but the sympathy was certainly felt. Mrs. 
 Craven was almost bewildered by finding herself 
 among so many new acquaintances, who insisted on 
 talking to her of her dead with strange intimacy. 
 There were, in truth, relationships formed by our 
 common aspirations which took tangible shape in 
 the ' Recit,' where a family known to so many as 
 popular, agreeable and accomplished were suddenly 
 discovered to have lived in a spiritual region where 
 the pain of life was transfigured, and the shadow of 
 death was lifted, and the common events of humanity 
 took new forms, so that their drift was reversed. 
 No wonder so many desired to join the happy and 
 beautiful souls described to them ; for hope is given 
 to all. Yet no doubt there were a few, and those 
 belonging chiefly to the Faubourg St. Germain, who 
 dreaded what was unconventional in its pages. 
 
 Mrs. Craven's pleasure in the success of her 
 ' Recit ' was clouded by the death in the same year 
 of her last remaining brother. She had been able 
 to be with Comte Charles de la Ferronnays during 
 part of his painful illness, and at his death. But her 
 brother Fernand was struck down suddenly by heart 
 disease at Frohsdorf, when in attendance on the 
 Comte de Chambord, of whom he was a devoted and 
 faithful friend.* The news reached Mrs. Craven at 
 
 The Prince and he had been shooting some covers in the 
 neighbourhood. While driving from one to the other, Fernand
 
 1867] THE BATTLE OF MENTANA 257 
 
 Naples, where she was spending her last winter in 
 her pleasant house at Chiatamone. Her husband's 
 losses obliged him to part with it, and their future 
 was in question. Some hope there was of a winter 
 residence in Rome, in a house situated near the 
 Colonna Palace, and Pauline writes that once again 
 she felt intoxicated in mere anticipation of its religious 
 and artistic atmosphere. Again Paris was proposed 
 by Mr. Craven, and a house was taken in the Avenue 
 Montaigne, to which was removed much of their 
 London and Naples furniture. The mixed feelings 
 inspired by so many and such differing reminiscences 
 as were suggested by them, and the dominant note 
 of that Paris where her parents had lived, and where 
 Albert and Alexandrine had died, sorely tried her, 
 but she writes : ' I ought to be very happy. I have 
 henceforward a good house, but, in truth, I do not 
 like novelty ; when I have lived here awhile it will 
 be dear to me.' 
 
 The adventures of Garibaldi, which ended in the 
 battle of Mentana, greatly pained Mrs. Craven. 
 After it she wrote : ' The errors of Italy are now 
 taking the shape of serious crime. Never as now has 
 the ground given way under the feet of those who 
 would take her part. Garibaldi wounds by his arms, 
 and outrages Catholic conscience by his words. . . . 
 After what has happened at Mentana, Victor 
 Emmanuel and the Italian nation should be grateful 
 
 was suddenly attacked by the complaint which had proved fatal 
 to his father in 1842. He was sitting next the Comte de Cham- 
 bord, who was startled by a sudden change in his companion's 
 features. He was dead. 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1867 
 
 to the Pontifical Zouaves and the French soldiers, 
 that they prevented Garibaldi and his volunteers 
 from accomplishing their suicidal and parricidal ex- 
 pedition against Rome.' 
 
 In March the first part of 'Anne Severin' appeared 
 in the Correspondant, and already Lady Georgiana 
 Fullerton had begun a translation of it. In the 
 hearts of some of her dearest relations there was still 
 a chilly antagonism to its publication ; ' but if I had 
 not learnt to row against wind and tide,' wrote Mrs. 
 Craven, ' the dear " Recit " would be still in the 
 deepest drawer of my writing-table. Now as then it 
 is the verdict of my unknown friends, and theirs 
 alone, which I look for.' 
 
 Mr. Aubrey de Vere,* a poet still happily among 
 us, was not an ' unknown,' but even then a valued 
 friend of Mrs. Craven's and had been so for many 
 years before that date. It is hardly the place in these 
 pages to dwell on the finished and stately rhythm, the 
 noble standards of life, the learned and thoughtful 
 patriotism, of his admirable prose as of his yet more 
 admirable poetry. He had written two sonnets on 
 ' Le Recit d'une Sceur,' which were probably the 
 verses for which Mrs. Craven thanked him, and of 
 which we quote one. The second describes the scene 
 in which Alexandrine declared that she ' could weep 
 her Albert gaily.' 
 
 * Aubrey Thomas de Vere, third son of Sir Aubrey de Vere, 
 Bart., of Curragh Chase, co. Limerick. Sir Aubrey was the 
 author of 'Julian the Apostate,' and other dramas, as of 
 sonnets pronounced by Wordsworth among the best in the 
 English language.
 
 1 868] AUBREY DE VERE 259 
 
 SONNET. 
 
 ( Le RJcit d'un Sceur.' 
 
 ' Whence is the music ? minstrel see we none ; 
 Yet soft as waves that, surge succeeding surge, 
 Roll forward, now subside, anon emerge, 
 Upheaved in glory o'er a setting sun, 
 Those beatific harmonies sweep on ! 
 O'er earth they sweep from heaven's remotest verge 
 Triumphant hymeneal, hymn, and dirge 
 Blending in everlasting unison. 
 Whence is the music ? Stranger ! these were they 
 That, great in love, by love unvanquished proved : 
 These were true lovers, for in God they loved : 
 With God these spirits rest in endless day, 
 Yet still for Love's behoof on wings outspread 
 Float on o'er earth, betwixt the Angels and the Dead !' 
 
 To Mr. de Vere. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ' March u, 1868. 
 
 ' Your letter gave me more than pleasure : it touched me 
 deeply. Many friends, and many people whom I never 
 knew before, have written to me about this book, but no 
 one as you have done it. Thanks also for the beautiful 
 lines enclosed in your letter. They revived that feeling of 
 gratitude which, in spite of all the grief I have known, ought, 
 I know, to be uppermost in my heart and soul. You are 
 right indeed to say that I am not the author of this book, 
 and that is why I can also talk simply about it, and tell you 
 that I believe what you say about its being in one sense 
 more useful than controversy, as it may help to show the 
 Protestants, without any dispute, that they are wrong in the 
 opinion they form of our religion and of its action in daily 
 life. I really think that Lord Russell mentioned it in his
 
 260 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1868 
 
 letter, because (with that fairness of the English character 
 which I so much love) he perceived by reading it that it 
 was not true as he had asserted, that " Catholicism narrowed 
 the intellect and enslaved the soul." I believed this' im- 
 pression has been produced on many Protestants, and I am 
 most thankful for it. Have you seen a perfect translation 
 \\hich has just been published by Bentley ? It was done 
 by Miss Bowles, but under the direction of Lady Georgiana 
 Fullerton, whose perfect knowledge of French has visibly 
 assisted her in a marvellous way. I hope that it will now 
 be read in England by the many people who can't read 
 French. I don't see that the book has lost anything in the 
 translation. One thing, however, I regret, and I cannot 
 understand why it was done ; it is that, instead of inserting 
 the short profession of faith (very beautifully worded, I think) 
 which Alexandrine did read and sign, and which was also 
 signed by all the dear ones present at the time, Miss Bowles 
 has inserted the profession of faith of Pius IV., habitually 
 read now by those who are received into the Church, and 
 every point of which was of course implicitly contained in 
 the other one, but still was not the document signed by 
 them and given in the " Recit." In all other respects it is 
 admirable. 
 
 ' Now that we have a house in Paris, I hope to see you 
 again, both here and in England, where I have the greatest 
 wish to go this year, and often again in future if it is the 
 will of God. Mr. Craven unites with me in thanking you 
 for your letter, and the recollection of our rencontre at 
 Naples, which you so kindly mention. Our dear friend 
 Montalembert is better, and hopes, as we do, that you will 
 come over to see us here very soon and very often.' 
 
 During the autumn she wrote to Mr. Monsell as if 
 Italian politics were her sole preoccupation :
 
 1 868] LETTER TO MR. MONSELL 261 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 1 October 4, 1868. 
 
 ' I wish to answer your letter, but I don't know how. It 
 seems to me impossible to make English or French 
 Catholics understand what the real state of feeling in Italy 
 is ; it is unfortunate, I think, that it should be so, and 
 yet I don't see how it can be otherwise. As you say, the 
 soi-disant Italian feeling in England is simply a religious 
 and an anti-Papal one, which makes all Catholics there anti- 
 Italian, whilst here it is precisely the reverse, the anti-Papal 
 feeling in Italy being almost entirely political and anti- 
 Austrian. The confusion between the temporal and the 
 spiritual position of the Pope is not so great here, either, as 
 it appears to be, judging from the language held at this 
 moment of exasperation, but it will be difficult to see this 
 (especially at a distance) until the blessed time comes when 
 the two strong feelings now at war can live at peace together 
 in this country, as they do in our own. But that day, I 
 fear, is far distant, and in the meantime I wish I had not 
 been living in Italy through this time of trial, which is far 
 from being to us here what it is to you there, a time of 
 exciting warfare, rather favourable to religion than the 
 reverse (in France and England), and you are comforted by 
 the delightful persuasion that even in political and temporal 
 matters all is right on one side and all is wrong on the 
 other. This is not the happy state of mind of any Catholic 
 living in this country, except of those who have a thorough 
 conviction that the old forms of government are the only 
 good ones, and that liberty is an evil to be put down and 
 fought against, as one would fight against sin itself. I 
 often wish I could think so. I envy those who do, for they 
 are certainly happier than I am at this moment. . . . 
 
 ' In general conclusion, I cannot doubt the strength of 
 the national feeling, and that the revolutionary element
 
 262 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1868 
 
 mixed up with it, though noisy, is weak ; this was shown by 
 the facility with which Garibaldi was materially and morally 
 defeated the moment it was understood that his insane 
 attempt was opposed by the Government. But what does 
 all this signify ? I care but for one thing, of which I see no 
 hope. I can conceive nothing more dangerous for religion 
 than the continuation of this present state of things, and 
 what I grieve at is not the amount of persecution, which 
 does much more harm to the Government than to the 
 Church, but the alarming increase on all sides of indifference 
 and hostility to Rome as a political enemy, which is awful. 
 On the other hand, no hope of pardon is held out to them, 
 unless they entirely retrace their steps and go back to 
 where they were before the war. Could this be accom- 
 plished, I need not tell you that, little as I admire that 
 former state, I would gladly see it return if I could in that 
 way see peace restored and this scandalous struggle at an 
 end. But is it possible? Were even the Austrians to 
 return and to accomplish these restorations by force, would 
 that heal the real wound ? and if there is little to hope from 
 that remedy, what other remedy have Catholics been 
 allowed to propose, or even to wish for ? Of course I think 
 the Italians ought to give up all idea of Rome. But even 
 if they did so, I don't see that that would give them a much 
 better chance of obtaining la sospirata pace, and this is per- 
 haps one of the reasons that have made the desire to 
 go there become almost universal; they seemed to have 
 nothing to gain by aiming at less, and the tout ou rien of 
 the Catholic party all over the world has given this great 
 and fearful strength to the opposite cry. Oh, how sad it is ! 
 I suffer sometimes what I had never imagined that I could 
 suffer, and it is indeed no wonder that I should love this 
 peaceful and beautiful retreat, where I see no one but the 
 poor people in the village (with whom I hear Mass every
 
 THEATRICALS AT MR. STORY'S 263 
 
 morning in the little church, and receive benediction every 
 night), and where I am comforted by the sight of illuminated 
 churches, and processions coming down the mountain by 
 torchlight, accompanied by all the people and escorted by 
 their national guards, everything looking as peaceful and 
 pious as if there was nothing like revolution in the world ! 
 Augustus sends his love; he is very busy, and, thanks to the 
 occupation he has found for himself, he is less troubled in 
 his mind than I am by passing events.' 
 
 Private anxieties beset Mrs. Craven throughout 
 1868, and years seemed added to her life, though her 
 energy and activity were intact. In Rome, where 
 she spent the winter of 1868-9, ner countenance was 
 often grave, if not sad. She and her husband occu- 
 pied a small apartement in the Piazza di Spagna, and 
 the usual circle of acquaintances were around them, 
 but they lived very quietly, he always ready to speak 
 of Dante, of whose work and life he was an accom- 
 plished student, or to read Shakespeare according to 
 Kemble traditions, yet with special personal gifts of 
 mobile brow and fine and expressive eyes. He still 
 retained his power as an actor, and played Joseph 
 Surface and other parts in some amateur theatricals 
 at Mr. Story's, while Mrs. Craven listened with all 
 the pleasure of a sympathizing critic. In Rome she 
 found friends from all the societies in Europe in 
 which she had been known. It was the last year of 
 that mediaeval and renaissance atmosphere which 
 had hung about the Roman palaces and princes 
 longer than elsewhere. 
 
 The murmurs of the coming Council foretold the 
 serious ecclesiastical struggle of the following winter,
 
 264 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1869 
 
 and though no one could prophesy at what point it 
 would break out, it was felt that war, and perhaps 
 European revolution, was in the air, and would pro- 
 bably be made, in some way, a pretext for that 
 Italian unity which was to be enthroned on the 
 Quirinal in menace of the Vatican ; not, as Mrs. 
 Craven had hoped, in at least spiritual obedience to 
 it. She was always interested in what was actually 
 happening, and she was also keenly sensitive to the 
 drama of the present, and ready to act in it as occa- 
 sion demanded. It had been arranged that the 
 ladies of the foreign colony in Rome should present 
 Pius IX. with a gift on the event of his fiftieth year 
 of priesthood, and differences arose about the choice 
 of an appropriate present that would be twice blessed 
 to both the givers and the receiver. A party of 
 extreme views and bellicose tendencies wished to 
 present the Vicar of Christ with a somewhat gaudy 
 picture of the battle of Mentana, in which painful 
 incidents of a battle-field were not wanting. As 
 was natural, women of softer natures and more 
 liberal politics thought the gift singularly unfitting. 
 Cardinal Antonelli was reported to have said that to 
 offer it on the part of foreigners was une betise, and 
 that it would certainly be given away next day. Mrs. 
 Craven in polite but eloquent words expressed what 
 was a very general wish, to give a well-filled purse to 
 his Holiness, who would certainly use it in good 
 works where they were most needed. The question 
 became a burning one, and it was settled that those 
 who wished might offer the battle-piece, and the rest 
 might give tht ; r unostentatious but useful lire.
 
 1 869] PICTURE AND PURSE 265 
 
 Meantime furious Frank and fiery Hun were to offer 
 their presents together in one audience. One of the 
 contributors to the purse writes : 
 
 ' Mrs. Craven and Mme. de Lamoriciere went in 
 together to await the Holy Father's coming. Nearly 
 all the ladies, in rustling groups, got as far as they 
 could from the picture of Mentana, which flaunted 
 its ugliness at the left of the Pope's chair. No one 
 knelt when he came in, though they grew quieter 
 and more private in their pushing. He blessed us, 
 and then we all knelt. The Duchesse de Laval- 
 Montmorency read an address in a high thin voice, 
 and the Holy Father stood up and spoke at some 
 length in French, which he only uses " comme ca 
 comme ca," as he told us ; but he seemed pleased 
 and much moved, and tears came into his eyes as he 
 spoke of the battle of Mentana as the " signal for the 
 remarkable elan of Catholicism since manifested." 
 Some of the faithful were in a state of visible 
 beatitude, and possibly forgetting good manners, they 
 passed again and again before the good old man, 
 asking blessings for themselves and all near and dear 
 to them, until the Pope good-humouredly remarked, 
 as they filed by, that he had seen them before. One 
 dame from Lyons, on her third visit to the em- 
 broidered cross on the Pope's foot, begged a blessing 
 for a favourite canon of her city. With uncon- 
 cealed but still kindly weariness, his Holiness ex- 
 claimed, " Oh ! anche il canonico." The guardia 
 nobile, of which some dozen men were present, were 
 powerless before the determined attitude of the veiled 
 enthusiasts. Some of them climbed on the chairs
 
 266 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1869 
 
 to get a better view, and a little cheer was raised as 
 the Holy Father got away. Mrs. Craven was not 
 edified by the over-zeal of her compatriots, and 
 her audience was followed by half an hour's self- 
 reproach ; only half an hour, when her sense of 
 buoyant good-humour returned with the vision of 
 feminine absurdities under the double pressure of a 
 crowd, and of enthusiastic emulation combined with 
 mutual disapproval.' 
 
 Soon after Easter Mr. and Mrs. Craven returned 
 to Castagneto, whence she wrote to the writer of 
 these pages, who had been fortunate enough to make 
 her acquaintance in January. 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 'June 12, 1869. 
 
 'It is very strange that your kind letter reached me a 
 few hours after I had read the article on " Anne Severin," 
 which a friend of mine at Naples, who receives the Pall 
 Mall (which I do not), had sent me. Of course I thought 
 of you, and I recognised, as I thought, your influence in 
 that most kind and gratifying review of the book and men- 
 tion of the author. But I did not think you had actually 
 written the article, because I did not think you would ven- 
 ture to give me the piece of good advice it ends with (which 
 I dare say no other convert in England would have given 
 me, excellent and worth following as it is). You are quite 
 right, the fight at this particular moment is not in that 
 portion of the field of truth. Belief or unbelief, that is the 
 question, and whoever fights for faith in these days fights 
 more effectually for truth complete, that is, for Catholicism, 
 than by losing time in disputes with those inconsistent
 
 1869] MRS. CRAVEN ON FRENCH ROMANCE 267 
 
 believers who still hold to the remnant of truth they possess 
 in Protestantism. They will soon find out their weakness 
 now that the time has come for them not to attack us, but 
 to defend themselves, and it is no use wasting time to prove 
 it to them. Indeed, we ought now to stretch out our hands 
 to them, act with them as if they already belonged to us, 
 and hasten in that way the moment of our actual reunion. 
 But, alas ! that does not seem to be the spirit of Catholicism 
 in these days. My heart sinks sometimes at what I hear 
 and read, feeling as I do that the right note hardly ever 
 makes itself heard. However, it is rash of me to say all 
 this, perhaps, and I beg of you to pay little attention to 
 these notions of mine, which to be understood require 
 longer explanations than can be given in a letter, and there- 
 fore had better not be discussed until we can do so viva 
 voce. As to my writing, as you wish it, on general social 
 topics, you are mistaken in thinking that I have the neces- 
 sary talent to do it, or power to do it to any purpose. I 
 must go on my way attempting to purify French fiction, to 
 redeem that word love from the profanation which has made 
 it almost unpronounceable in French, and to revive or pro- 
 duce some little sentiment of poetry in my dear but most 
 prosaique Faubourg St. Germain, where (next to the other 
 one) "poetry" is the most forbidden of all words, and is itself 
 looked upon as a most dangerous ingredient in life, whereas 
 it seems to me so obvious that the present danger of even 
 the best French society lies in exactly the opposite direc- 
 tion. If, on the other hand, I could also induce some of 
 the writers of modern French fiction to believe that strong 
 feelings, and even passion, can exist in that region of purity 
 and goodness outside of which they live and write, the whole 
 of the little good of which I am capable would be accom- 
 plished. I am ashamed of writing so much about myself. 
 I wish you could have come to this place. We never can
 
 268 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1869 
 
 meet again in such perfect solitude, or find anywhere else 
 time to discuss those many subjects about which you know 
 a great deal more than I do. Since I have been here I 
 have written a short biography of a very dear friend of 
 mine. It is now being printed in Paris. If you will tell 
 me where I can send you a copy of it, I shall be glad to 
 let you have it as soon as it appears, though it is rather the 
 description of a noble and original character than at all an 
 interesting story, but I wrote it con amore, and I hope you 
 will read it with interest. 
 
 'I suppose the book you call "Les Memoires de la 
 Comtesse de Beam," is " Les Souvenirs de Quarante Ans," 
 which have been republished ; it is quite authentic, she was 
 my mother's first cousin, and I have often and often in my 
 youth heard her give her most interesting accounts of all 
 she and her mother (Mme. de Tourzel) had gone through. 
 The book is, in my opinion, far superior to " Madame de 
 Montagu " (all except the incomparable scene of the execu- 
 tion of Mme. de Noailles). Good-bye, dear Miss Morris, 
 and be very sure, both of you,* that our meeting at Rome 
 is one of my pleasantest recollections of last winter, and I 
 hope and trust that we shall all three meet again there in a 
 few months. 
 
 ' 1 have read since I came here the little book of Princess 
 Wittgenstein,! "Simplicity des Colombes et Prudence des 
 Serpents," and I am so charmed with it that I am deter- 
 mined to make her acquaintance next winter. How could 
 the same woman fight against us in our battle of Mentana ? 
 I can't understand it now. I wish I had a chance of seeing 
 
 * Mrs. Burrowes was the friend included in Mrs. Craven's 
 observation. 
 
 t Princess Caroline Sayn Wittgenstein, nee Princess Caro- 
 line d'lvanoska, widow of Prince Nicholas of Sayn Wittgen- 
 stein.
 
 1869] PRINCESS WITTGENSTEIN 269 
 
 you in England this year, but with the intention of going 
 back to Rome in November, I am afraid I shall not have 
 the courage to stir from this place. If I change my mind 
 I will let you know. Till then direct here. Let me know 
 where I am to direct my letters to you. Pray send me any 
 paper or pamphlets you consider worth reading. It will be 
 a real act of charity, as I am quite alone here, and am not 
 likely to get my dear husband back here before the month 
 of August.'
 
 [ 2 7 o] 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 DONNA ADELAIDE CAPECE MINUTOLO has been 
 already mentioned as one of Mrs. Craven's most 
 intimate friends during her brilliant Neapolitan life. 
 
 She died in January, 1869, and putting aside other 
 work on which she was engaged, Mrs. Craven wrote, 
 as she says, con amore of Donna Adelaide. It was a 
 year when sincere Catholics were in suspense con- 
 cerning the work to be effected by the coming 
 Council, ardently hoping from it fruitful labours 
 of reconciliation and direction in the newer problems 
 of society ; yet not without anxiety, as the more 
 violent partisans of this or that expected decision 
 raised reflections of their own passions on the misty 
 horizon, and prophesied their embodiment. 
 
 In the autumn of 1869 Mr. Craven's affairs seemed 
 less promising than ever. In his extremity he sought 
 to revive a claim of his grandmother, the Margravine 
 of Anspach, against the Bavarian Government. At 
 the time of the mediatization of the German princes, 
 a compensation of 20,000 florins a year had been 
 assigned to the widow of the last Margrave. Her 
 second husband, Mr. Keppel Craven, had not claimed 
 it after her death, but her title to it was inherited by
 
 1869] LAST VISIT TO MONTALEMBERT 271 
 
 her grandson Augustus. The prosecution of the 
 claim became important to him, though until 1870 
 the last fragment of his personal fortune had not 
 been swallowed up. The Princess Marie of Baden, 
 Duchess of Hamilton, a devoted friend of Mrs. - 
 Craven, rendered what help she could, and in the 
 autumn of 1869 Mrs. Craven and her husband paid 
 a visit to Baden on their way from Comte de 
 Montalembert's place in Burgundy, La Roche en 
 Breny, to Rome. The champion of ecclesiastical 
 liberty was nearing death, and his words had an 
 influence on Pauline that they had never had before, 
 much as she had always loved and respected him. 
 Never likely again to appear before the public, he 
 spoke his whole mind. Mrs. Craven found him less 
 opposed to Italian reform than before. ' I was able 
 to say to him,' she wrote, ' finding myself in entire 
 accord with him, that the union of the Church with 
 liberty, still dreaded and opposed in Europe, would 
 nevertheless be accomplished when the matter is 
 fully understood in Italy. He told me, besides, 
 things about the Council which immensely surprised 
 me.' 
 
 Full of this painful surprise, unduly alarmed by 
 the exaggerations of imprudent advocates of an 
 indefinite and impossible Papal Infallibility, Mrs. 
 Craven came to Rome. Almost without formal 
 invitation, her intimates assumed that she permitted 
 their evening visits, and on Fridays her apartment 
 in the Via dei Maroniti was crowded by notabilities 
 of almost every political and ecclesiastical hue. In 
 January, 1870, she wrote : ' Friday last Monseigneur
 
 272 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 Mermillod and Monseigneur de la Bouillerie, both of 
 the Definitionist party, met here the Bishop of Mar- 
 seilles, the Archbishop of Bagnieux, a Hungarian 
 bishop, Monseigneur Haynald, and the famous Bishop 
 of Bosnia, Monseigneur Strossmayer, the magnificent 
 Latin orator, who has created such a stir in the 
 Council, all of the opposite party. On both sides 
 alike we heard them speak of matters that were 
 exalted to the highest level, because discussed by 
 men whose souls are so enlightened and whose 
 intellects are so powerful.' The sensitive nature of 
 Mrs. Craven, ardent to martyrdom in questions of 
 her faith and conscience, but ready to accept the 
 opinions of her friends in the Liberal Catholic camp, 
 was for awhile unnecessarily alarmed by the Univers, 
 the Dubin Review, and the partisans of unrestricted 
 Papal authority. To discuss the division of the 
 Ultramontane school into two camps after the 
 Education Bill of 1850, when Falloux, Foisset, and 
 the Correspondant were content with a compromise 
 between the new and old relations of Church and 
 State, is outside the scope of this memoir. By 
 association, and by her enthusiasm for ideal freedom 
 of conscience, Mrs. Craven was allied to the party 
 who believed that the Church might best promote 
 human welfare by adopting some modern ideas of 
 social order prevalent since 1789, or, as she under- 
 stood it, by conciliation and wide instruction rather 
 than by uncompromising opposition to reforms of 
 government eagerly demanded by most European 
 nations. She attended the first general congrega- 
 tion in which the public was admitted to hear the
 
 i8?o] ARDENTLY ULTRAMONTANE 273 
 
 Conciliar decrees, and it was characteristic of her 
 that she specially disliked to hear the anathemas 
 necessarily pronounced in due sequence. Friend- 
 ship, and that generosity which was in her so marked 
 a trait, carried her with the leaders of the valiant 
 minority in her private sympathies, though her salon 
 was frequented by all men of mark. The Bishop 
 of Orleans had been associated with her earliest and 
 dearest memories, and every Sunday her slight figure 
 was to be seen with her husband at the Villa Grazioli, 
 where Monseigneur Dupanloup received his friends. 
 Mrs. Craven loved the energy of souls aflame with 
 zeal for a great revival of Catholic and Roman in- 
 fluence. 
 
 Her dread of the Opportunists or Definitionists, 
 her consequent preference for those who did not 
 think the time propitious for a dogmatic decree 
 defining Papal Infallibility, was after all a transitory 
 mood. No one was less Gallican ; indeed, few of her 
 nation were more Ultramontane in the best sense. 
 The influence of Gerbet had taught her almost 
 exaggerated respect for the decisions of Rome. As 
 Dollinger did in 1855, she believed that the moral 
 power of the Papacy never had been greater in 
 European affairs. With the great revivalists of 
 Roman authority who had been her teachers in her 
 youth, she looked at Rome as the rightful champion 
 of the people's liberty against weak yet despotic 
 kings and infidel parliaments. Gerbet had been 
 the spiritual guide of her dear saints, the poet-priest 
 who always laboured for conciliation in his methods, 
 and believed that, as La Mennais and his fore- 
 
 VOL. i. 18
 
 274 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 runner, De Bonald, had taught, the Pope was the 
 mouthpiece of the Church, the 'protector of all 
 people, rich and poor, in their rights and their 
 liberty of conscience, the guardian of those universal 
 traditions which cement the mosaic of human society 
 for the good and progress of our race. 
 
 The great revival of 1830-50, in which Mrs. 
 Craven had taken such delight, had the results we 
 know, and which were proved by the extraordinary 
 change in public opinion towards religion that had 
 been shown in the first revolutionary Parliament 
 after the fall of Louis Philippe. In 1850, M. de 
 Falloux's Education Bill was accepted by the more 
 conciliatory wing of what was still the great Ultra- 
 montane party ; but it was scornfully and insolently 
 rejected by Veuillot, and by those who desired that 
 Catholicism should be in permanent antagonism to 
 modern society. The rift widened between the men of 
 the Correspondant and the men of the Univers. The irre- 
 concilable partisans of the Church, as a citadel whose 
 walls had to be guarded from even a parley with 
 society, made open war on those who thought of her 
 as universal mother, ever giving birth to Divine truth 
 as it was needed for the guidance of the nations in 
 their perplexities. To seek in the human heart all 
 the secret cords which can reconcile it to Christianity, 
 to reawaken in it the love of truth, goodness and 
 beauty, and then to manifest in revealed faith the 
 ideal of those three things after which every soul 
 aspires, had been, in Ozanam's words, the pro- 
 gramme of the Liberal party. Circumstances, per- 
 haps partly her residence in England, certainly her
 
 1870] LIBERALS OF 1850 275 
 
 sympathy with Italian aspirations, strengthened 
 Mrs. Craven's faith in liberty as a tonic rather than 
 as a poison, and as, in truth, more Ultramontane 
 than Gallican in its tendencies. She was possibly 
 more consistent than was Montalembert in her 
 dream of a theocracy of which a main support 
 should be a united Italy. French sentiment was 
 arrayed against her in this, and she found herself, of 
 course, in disfavour with Conservatives of every 
 camp. 
 
 She had, as was natural, followed the leaders of 
 the Liberal Catholic party in 1850. Most of them 
 were personal friends, and of distinguished merit as 
 writers and politicians. She inherited the personal 
 regard of Mme. Swetchine for Lacordaire and for 
 M. de Falloux, while Montalembert never ceased to 
 be the ' Montal ' of ' Le Recit.' Therefore, in 1870, 
 fresh from the dying bed of the chief champion of 
 Constitutionalism, even in the Papacy, and of govern- 
 ment by Parliamentary methods, even within the 
 General Council, she was alarmed when confronted 
 with the extra- Parliamentary exaggerations uttered 
 before and even during its sitting. Perhaps by 
 family tradition she loved minorities and their 
 struggles, and she interested herself in the splendid 
 but uphill work carried to its ultimate, if veiled, 
 success by the comrades of Dupanloup and Haynald, 
 Clifford and Moriarty, Dechamps and Gibbons. 
 
 Few will be found now to deny the practical and 
 all-important use of the minority in the Vatican 
 Council, who helped to fashion the dogma of Infal- 
 libility as it was finally decreed. In the heat and
 
 276 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 struggle of the arena, they themselves hardly recog- 
 nised their providential mission, and that theirs was 
 that victory in defeat which is generally the most 
 conclusive of all victories. 
 
 Meantime, Mrs. Craven was probably more truly 
 Ultramontane, more eager for the influence of 
 
 Mo loco santo, 
 U'siede il successor del maggior Piero^' * 
 
 than many a hot combatant in the majority. No 
 doubt it grieved her that the conduct of her friend 
 Montalembert had been almost censured at the 
 Vatican, on the day the news of his death was 
 telegraphed to Rome. She resented the circum- 
 stance, as did the knot of sincere Ultramontanes 
 who, when Montalembert was young, had joined 
 him in freeing Catholicism from State trammels 
 in France. No man had done more for forty years 
 to invite the great Council where now they . were 
 officially flouted. 
 
 As a patrician of Rome, M. de Montalembert had 
 a right to a funeral service in the church of Ara 
 Coeli, which was the parish church of the Roman 
 municipality. No one imagined that it could have 
 been refused ; and notice of it at an appointed hour 
 was sent to those likely to attend. Intense was the 
 pain of the friends invited, when they found, on 
 arriving at the top of the long stairs leading to the 
 historical fane, M. Veuillot, of the Univers, standing 
 
 ' The holy place, where sits 
 Who to great Peter's sacred chair succeeds.' 
 'Inferno,' ii. 25 (Gary's translation).
 
 1870] MONTALEMBERT'S FUNERAL 277 
 
 outside the church, and authorized to declare that 
 by the highest authority the service was forbidden, 
 lest it should be used as a Gallican demonstration. 
 
 At that moment of friction, it was not perhaps known 
 that M. de Montalembert, who had, before the meet- 
 ing of the Council, been distressed by certain extreme 
 suggestions of what might be its result, as became so 
 faithful a son of the Church, declared his submission 
 to all its decrees, whatever they might be. Almost 
 before the fact was generally known that the service 
 at the Capitol was forbidden, the official blunder 
 was repaired, and a solemn Mass elsewhere, in the 
 Holy Father's presence, was offered for the soul of 
 the great soldier of the Church. The irritation felt 
 meanwhile showed how nerves and temper had been 
 strained on both sides, and it would have been 
 strange if Mrs. Craven had not suffered more than 
 the prosperous lookers-on, to whom the definitions 
 of their faith were not sacro-sanct. 
 
 ' I have found in the religious exercises preached 
 by Mermillod,' she wrote, ' comfort in my particular 
 troubles.' The Bishop of Geneva, afterwards Car- 
 dinal, had given a spiritual retreat for ladies, at the 
 Trinita de' Monti. ' For other anxieties it is in vain 
 to hope for tranquillity, for it is centuries since the 
 Church has endured so formidable a storm as this 
 one. The unexpected tumult has arisen in so strange 
 a way as to beget the hope that out of this struggle 
 a good "al tutto del nostro accorger scisso," as Dante 
 says. It is the sweet season of spring-time fragrance. 
 I enjoy it extremely, and when I am out of doors, 
 among the flowers of the delightful villas, or gazing
 
 278 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 at the wide and poetic horizons of the enchanting 
 Roman Campagna, I feel as if I could throw off the 
 tormenting vexations of life.' 
 
 Except by a look of fatigue, natural to one 
 so attentive to the duties and privileges of the 
 Roman Lent, there was little trace of egotist dis- 
 content in the fine-tempered courage of Mrs. Craven, 
 whose vehement feelings about the action of the 
 extra-Conciliar prophets of their own invented and 
 exaggerated infallibility perhaps prevented her from 
 full enjoyment of the great Council. Had she re- 
 membered having heard Monseigneur Mermillod, 
 fresh from Geneva, speak as he did of Catholicism as 
 'favourable to the most advanced social doctrines,' 
 and declare that * the Church was always suited to 
 the needs of the age, and that she alone could secure 
 the fruition of men's legitimate desires,' Mrs. Craven 
 might have even then perceived how unlikely Galli- 
 canism under Napoleon III. was to advance her 
 favourite ideas. Surely there was an echo of the 
 Avenir in the preacher's words at St. Luigi dei Fran- 
 cesi, when he proclaimed that the Church alone can 
 guide the universal suffrage demanded by modern 
 citizens; that she alone asserts the nobleness of 
 labour, in a day when working men are imperatively 
 claiming their rights ; that she alone can transform 
 that poverty which, without her guidance, threatens 
 society with ruin.' It was almost strange that the 
 exaggerations of the Univers could have dulled the 
 ears of Montalembert's friend, when Monseigneur 
 Mermillod, extreme Infallibilist as he was, could, on 
 hearing the suggestion of a timorous opponent, that
 
 1 870] CARDINAL MERMILLOD'S OPINIONS 279 
 
 Church and State might become separate powers, 
 exclaim, ' Eh bien ! le grand malheur !' Some of the 
 leaders of the party, who desired to render the Papal 
 utterances more available in difficult crises, now, 
 when crises came and went with a rapidity hitherto 
 unknown, were advanced believers in a theocratic 
 republic. Certainly they were not reactionary nor 
 indiscriminatingly conservative of certain forms of 
 authority. Had Mrs. Craven trusted to her own 
 shrewd foresight, she would not have been alarmed 
 by a movement of ecclesiastical centralization ; but 
 those in whom she so trusted, by their useful and 
 necessary stand against the extremists on the other 
 side of the controversy, had touched the holy of 
 holies within her her sense of truth. She believed 
 that they held the truth in their arguments, and she 
 was led by them. 
 
 Ere long, even when their efforts to arrive at a 
 universally admissible dogma seemed ineffectual, 
 Mrs. Craven perceived that the work of her friends 
 had not been lost, that a truth had been beaten out 
 by the Council more likely to assist than to retard 
 the fruition of Montalembert's wishes, and those of 
 the Liberal Catholics. The name by which they 
 were known as a party has almost disappeared, 
 except in history, and it has been since absorbed in 
 other titles that command respect, even from the 
 Univers. 
 
 The reader interested in Mrs. Craven's letters 
 written before the promulgation of the Vatican 
 decrees will more nearly arrive at her real meaning if 
 he reads them by the light of those that follow, and
 
 2 8o LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 still better if he takes to heart the picture of herself 
 given in some of the notes she made during a 
 retreat. 
 
 On March 25 Mrs. Craven retired to the Villa 
 Lanti, a convent of the Sacre Cceur in the Trans- 
 teverine quarter of Rome. She thus secured for her 
 soul eight days of spiritual existence ' beyond these 
 voices' of the agitated Catholic world. As she 
 thought over past years, Mrs. Craven noted : ' This 
 year seems the culminating point of that long trial 
 which God has evidently willed that I should sustain. 
 This year everything fails me at once. Awhile ago 
 I was uncertain about the place where my future was 
 to be spent. I drifted from home to home, and 
 vexed myself because I was obliged to leave each 
 place as soon as I began to like it. To-day no home 
 anywhere on earth is mine.' 
 
 Towards the end of the retreat Mrs. Craven could 
 write : ' I have well considered the things I am 
 about to lose, many of which I have lost already. I 
 sincerely offer to Thee, my God, all material pos- 
 sessions, and I offer also this sense of poverty.' 
 
 Many circumstances combined just then to give 
 Mrs. Craven great pain and perplexity, but seldom, if 
 ever, did she rise higher in her spiritual thoughts, 
 or read with greater fervour her favourite Rus- 
 brock. * 
 
 * Rusbrock, born near Brussels, 1294 ; leader of the con- 
 temporary mystics, priest at St. Gudnle at Brussels. He 
 caused the reform of the Abbey of St. Severin, at Chateau 
 Landon. His simple piety reacted against Scholasticism. At the 
 age of sixty he took the religious habit, and founded at Vauvert 
 (Valtfe Verte) or reformed, a house of Canons Regular. He
 
 1870] RETREAT AT THE VILLA LANTI 281 
 
 She wrote : ' I will wait cheerfully on events as 
 they come, sure that no evil can ever come from 
 God's beloved hand. As for the future which 
 appears to menace us, I hope God will help us, 
 though I cannot guess how ; and if my worst fore- 
 casts be fulfilled, I ask of Him the strength to bear 
 all. I thank Thee, meantime, my God, for this 
 good little halt in the midst of my troubled life.' 
 
 Of her private anxieties, rapidly accumulating, 
 there was little sign, except in the look of suddenly 
 accentuated age. Mrs. Craven went through the 
 round of Easter life in Rome, and perhaps never 
 took part more assiduously than that last year in the 
 charity of the Pellegrini. 
 
 The writer of this memoir was admitted to see 
 the pilgrims housed in that year. The crowd was 
 great, but the pushing and fussy strangers were 
 railed out from the long table on which the simple 
 supper was laid. It was very largely made up of 
 salad and bread. The waiting ladies, wearing the 
 uniform pinafore of the association, bustled about in 
 a very practical fashion, pouring oil and vinegar on 
 the salads, apportioning the figs and finocchi on the 
 plates, and filling the bowls of soup. With genuine 
 pleasure Mrs. Craven flitted here and there. Having 
 done her task of washing a pilgrim's dusty feet, 
 she went from seat to seat, supplying the wants of 
 her half-dozen clients, and no doubt carefully non- 
 died at the age of eighty-eight. Gerson and Bossuet found some 
 inexact expressions in his writings, but Bellarmine altogether 
 approved them. Rusbrock and Tauler both refuted energetically 
 the ' quietists' of their time.
 
 282 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 observant of their furtive appropriation of loaves or 
 salads which they thrust into their wallets with a 
 view to future feeding. The contrast was great 
 between her and the massive mothers, many of 
 whom had infants at the breast ; between her eager 
 rapidity and dexterity of motion, and the stolid and 
 ruminant peasants, dignified and ignorant. The 
 great variety of local costumes interested the mono- 
 tonous upper class who crowded to see the show ; 
 but nothing seemed to disturb the pious gravity of the 
 pilgrims, even though a woman from the mountains 
 of Susa sat by a semi-Greek daughter of Otranto, or 
 a Ligurian by a Venetian. Servers and served all 
 spoke to one another as sorella. For a time there 
 was a real fraternity. Mrs. Craven loved chiefly 
 the moment when, kneeling before the woman whose 
 feet she had to wash, she listened in veritable sister- 
 liness to the prayers appointed to be said. As she 
 served, she felt within herself a sense ' that not love 
 but hatred was supernatural a feeling external to 
 the human heart and strange to it.'
 
 XIX. 
 
 MR. AND MRS. CRAVEN left Rome soon after Easter. 
 On the previous Friday there was hardly standing 
 room in Mrs. Craven's salon. Throughout the 
 winter it had been a pleasant meeting-place for a 
 society of unique distinction. The most eminent 
 leaders of Catholic thought were there at their best, 
 and their thoughts were given to the discussion of 
 questions vital to all human progress. It was the 
 atmosphere Mrs. Craven loved best, and much was 
 stored in her memory for meditation when she re- 
 turned to Castagneto in the last days of April. 
 She had need of all its restorative influences, and 
 she loved her mountain valley all the more pas- 
 sionately that she knew that she must soon leave it, 
 probably for ever. With some sense of their im- 
 pending loss, her friends the villagers in the neigh- 
 bourhood welcomed her back more effusively than 
 ever. The valley was illuminated for ' i cari signori,' 
 as Mr. and Mrs. Craven were called throughout it ; 
 and always beautiful, it was at its best that May. 
 
 It may be imagined that the invitation contained 
 in the following note was eagerly accepted by the 
 author of this memoir.
 
 284 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' Saturday, May -, 1870. 
 
 ' How much I have to say, my dearest M., in reply to 
 your most kind and dear letter ! So much, indeed, that I 
 will not attempt it, but when we meet I will make you 
 understand what the value of such sympathy and friendship 
 as yours are to me ! When will you come ? Why not on 
 Monday?' 
 
 Travellers who follow the itineraries of guide- 
 books lose much by neglect of Italian by-ways in 
 the spring-time, when the living forces of the won- 
 derful country assert themselves over its past records, 
 and in every field vie with the bronzed peasants in 
 friendly brotherhood. It was easy to understand 
 pagan visions of nymph and faun in the intense life 
 everywhere. Life throbbed almost audibly, and 
 animate things mingled strangely with inanimate 
 in the semi-intoxication produced by the vibrating 
 air. Great Pan breathed in it, for he is not yet alto- 
 gether gone from that Tyrrhene region where natural 
 forces are so vehement that man hardly knows if he 
 be their master or their slave. Standing on the 
 garden terrace at Castagneto, when the sun had gone 
 down behind the towering crests of the mountains, 
 Mrs. Craven could drink to the full the beauty of 
 the purple depths below, and beyond, the sunset 
 light on the gleaming sea. In the amplitude of 
 the horizons, the clear height of sky in which the 
 stars moved, they seemed visibly detached. 
 
 That year a broad flower-border of orange mari-
 
 1 870] COMFORT AT CASTAGNETO 285 
 
 golds enhanced the colouring of the distances, and 
 as we sat entranced by circumstance, drifting and 
 darting fire-flies outlined the nearer perspectives 
 and gave hazy light to the forest eaves. Hardly a 
 nook or cavern of the hills but was pointed out as 
 the scene of some legend of ascetic hermits, who 
 had fled from the plain to seek God in the stern 
 and difficult heights above. 
 
 The taste of Mrs. Craven was visible in all the 
 details of her dwelling. The simplicity of well- 
 understood comfort reigned in the airy rooms and 
 the choice of chintz and furniture. Books were 
 everywhere. She and Mr. Craven sat of an evening 
 in the spacious library, the shelves of which carried 
 some seven thousand volumes, among which were 
 most of the notable works of the century, French, 
 Italian, German, and English. Upstairs was her 
 morning-room, where she worked. Her writing-table 
 stood before a window embowered in climbing plants, 
 and from it the view of the valley, seen in its many 
 folds, and crossed here and there by the arches of the 
 road to Vietri, was even finer than below. 
 
 She and Mr. Craven had, while alone, been reading 
 through their correspondence of nearly forty years 
 with M. de Montalembert. His recent death had 
 spurred them to the task, and they were full of 
 renewed memories of him and his friends. Before 
 we separated for the night, the Rosary, the Litany 
 of Our Lady, and other prayers, in which the 
 household joined, were said in the chapel, with 
 which, however, I made better acquaintance next 
 morning at Mass. An excellent copy of the Madonna
 
 286 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 di Foligno was the altarpiece ; a dead Christ, by 
 Ribera, was at one side. Other art treasures were 
 there, but in the serene and devout calm they were 
 but accessories. The air was full of perfume from 
 great bouquets of roses above the altar, and after 
 Mass the incense of Nature to her Master seemed 
 doubly sweet. The light clouds which floated on 
 the shadowy mountains appeared to carry it upward 
 to the sky. 
 
 Then the post brought its cosmopolitan supply of 
 letters and literature. Then came English breakfast, 
 modified by Italian custom, and when we had taken 
 our chairs in the wide veranda, conversation followed, 
 earnest and witty reminiscences of forty years in 
 the great world at its best. Discussion was freshly 
 animated by the vivid and supreme interests of 
 Rome, and every topic was touched by the wand of 
 Mrs. Craven's artist nature, by her perception of 
 beauty and scorn of its reverse, even in the meaner 
 details of politics, of ' low ambitions and the pride 
 of kings.' 
 
 There were few days in which some notable 
 visitor did not pay his respects to the host and 
 hostess ; and the learned Benedictines from their 
 Abbey of the Trinita* often came to discuss the last 
 rumour from Rome. In the afternoon, when her 
 morning's work and her letters were finished, Mrs. 
 
 * From the beginning of the eighth century there had been 
 clustered in the valley of Cava cells, each of which was tenanted 
 by one or two monks, who lived a solitary and austere life. In 
 ion the Abbey of the Most Holy Trinity was founded on the 
 site of one of these cells known as Crypta Arsicia, or the Arid 
 Grotto, by S. Alferino, a Benedictine.
 
 1870] MRS. CRAVEN READ 'FLEURANGE' 287 
 
 Craven read to us ' Fleurange,' her novel then in 
 hand, or letters from Mme. Swetchine or M. de 
 Montalembert. They were texts for conversation 
 on what was highest and noblest in human aims, 
 and they received fresh consecration on Mrs. Craven's 
 lips. 
 
 To certain chords she always vibrated ; new light 
 shone in her eyes, slight colour tinged her cheeks, 
 when generous sacrifice or the achievements of 
 faith were spoken of. In discussing her own work 
 she was absolutely without the egotism either of 
 vanity or of self- depreciation. She deferred to 
 criticism, but not too much. The truth in which 
 she habitually lived allowed no affectations. When, 
 after an evening of rare talk, the household met for 
 family prayer in the chapel, a momentary glance at 
 her face and attitude left an impression that underlay 
 all future intercourse with her. Light was there, 
 
 ' che visibile face 
 Lo Creatore a quella creatura, 
 Che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace.'* 
 
 Faith and hope and love were revealed in her gaze, 
 and never again could one who had seen her in such 
 a moment forget her look, her abiding look, what- 
 ever veil custom and the reserves of society might 
 afterwards draw over its radiance. 
 
 The two following letters sufficiently prove the 
 
 * ' which 
 
 Makes the Creator visible to all 
 Created, that in seeing Him alone 
 Have peace.' 
 
 (Gary's Dante.)
 
 288 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 true Catholic obedience of heart with which Mrs. 
 Craven had prepared herself for whatever decree the 
 Council should impose on the faithful : 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' June 27, 1870. 
 
 ' I have not answered your letter, or thanked you yet 
 for your most welcome envois, for no other reason but that 
 I was particularly anxious to accompany Fleurange in her 
 retreat at S. Maria al Prato, and not to part from her, even 
 for a few days, until I had seen her off to Germany ; that is, 
 in other words, until I had concluded the second part of 
 my story. There have been wonderful oscillations between 
 hope and fear lately, but now that St. Peter's Festival is 
 at hand, the extreme limit is reached beyond which it 
 would be cruel not to allow the Council to be prorogued. 
 Yet no definition has been brought about. How is it 
 possible for those who have firmly believed all along that 
 the minority represents the true spirit of the Church (or 
 else, long before this, with so many human obstacles op- 
 posed to them, they must have been defeated) how is it 
 possible for these not to be very hopeful that even the 
 immediate result will be in accordance with this impression ? 
 It seems already certain that such words as " personal " or 
 " separate " infallibility are sure to be exploded ; and in 
 that case I hardly see how anything can be proposed to 
 the belief of Catholics that any of them can shrink from ; 
 in short, I am once more in spirits on that great point, 
 which I try to forget, so as to make submission easier 
 when the time comes ; but it forces itself on one's thoughts 
 en depit de soi-meme. . . . 
 
 ' I have been reading, in the Pall Mall, a review of a
 
 1870] MRS. CRAVEN'S INSTANT OBEDIENCE 289 
 
 novel called " Higher Law," which makes me foresee that 
 when English authors forego their traditions, and cease to 
 be moral, they will soon become disgusting, and perhaps 
 stupid also, which would at least have the advantage of 
 preventing their being as dangerous as the French.' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' CASTAGNETO, 
 
 'July 26, 1870. 
 
 ' Yes, it was a blow and a trial for which I was not pre- 
 pared, because I had convinced myself that that doctrine 
 was not true. On that point I see that I was mistaken ; 
 and when I examine thoroughly what made me cling so 
 strongly to those who opposed it, I find it was principally 
 because of the manner the odious and unchristian manner 
 in which it was defended by those who upheld it. Veuillot, 
 the Tablet, and their friends, must now thank themselves for 
 having roused in many Catholic souls so strong a repulsion 
 for an article of Catholic truth that they have turned their 
 acceptance of it into a painful instead of a joyful act of sub- 
 mission, and tempted some to reject it altogether from mere 
 repugnance to agree with them. However, that is their 
 look-out ; ours is to conquer that feeling with simplicity 
 and humility, and to agree with the Church. At present 
 the Church has made herself heard, and unless she sanc- 
 tions hereafter the doubts which still exist in some minds 
 as to the validity of these Canons, we are certainly bound to 
 include them in our act of faith in the teaching of the 
 Catholic Church. That is really where we are. Admitting, 
 as I do, that a great deal seems to be required from our 
 faith by this definition of the privilege granted to St. Peter 
 by our Saviour's words, would you find it easier to reconcile 
 your mind to the Protestant notion, and to believe that 
 
 VOL. I. IQ
 
 290 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 those most solemn words addressed to him meant nothing 
 whatever? It is just like when they say that we make too 
 much of the Blessed Virgin ; perhaps we do. But is it 
 more in accordance with the Gospel to do nothing, and to 
 ignore the blessed Mother of our Lord? If, therefore, we 
 do exceed in one direction, let it be in that of faith and 
 love and trust. That the visible Church to which the 
 promise was given is the Church founded on Peter is abso- 
 lutely true ; about that there is no doubt, or there is no 
 visible Church. Let us, then, blindly obey her voice when 
 it speaks to us distinctly. Some, I know, hold this Council 
 (or some portions of it) to be invalid ; but I don't think 
 that we have at present any right to dwell upon that pos- 
 sibility. If it is so, time and the Church itself will tell 
 us. ... In the meantime, my own duty is to submit to it, 
 and to compel my pride and my feelings to admit that 
 those whom I disliked were in the right, and those whom I 
 most loved and revered were in the wrong. 
 
 ' I have heard nothing yet of our dear Bishop since he 
 left Rome. In the meantime, even the definition is for- 
 gotten in the midst of the awful preoccupation which, on 
 the very same day, took hold of men's minds. I don't 
 think that on the whole I ever went through so much 
 mental suffering of every description as I have this year ; 
 and certainly this war makes one feel unutterable things. 
 For the first time in my life I am doubtful of the success 
 of a French army, for the double reason that it is fighting in 
 a bad cause (that is, without a cause), and fighting against 
 a formidable adversary. I therefore cannot honestly feel 
 that they ought to win, and yet their being defeated would 
 go to my heart, so that about this also I am torn to pieces. 
 The best would be, that there should be no crushing vic- 
 tory on either side ; but how are we to expect that, when 
 on both sides they have worked themselves into a fury ?
 
 1870] FRANCO-GERMAN WAR 291 
 
 There is nothing to do but to try and bear patiently this 
 terrible suspense. In the meantime all our plans are upset. 
 Germany is not to be thought of, so that for the present we 
 remain here. As to next winter, who can say what anybody 
 will be able to do then ? At this moment I quite envy you 
 being in England quiet, and yet within the reach of all the 
 people one would like to see, and of all the news. The 
 only thing I don't regret is missing the exultation of our 
 Anglo-Roman infallibilists. 
 
 ' All things considered, I retract what I just now said, 
 and had rather be here, all alone with my work and my 
 chapel, than anywhere else in the world. I am going on 
 with "Fleurange," and hope to have finished in about a 
 month.' 
 
 Four of Mrs. Craven's nephews were engaged in 
 the Franco-German War, and few held family ties 
 more dearly than she did. Her ideal of an inde- 
 pendent and sovereign Papacy at the head of an 
 Italian federation was at least postponed by the 
 seizure of Rome. There seemed little chance of 
 making Mr. Craven's claim to an annuity heard in 
 Germany. They remained at Castagneto, from 
 whence Mrs. Craven wrote the letters that follow : 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' CAVA DEI TIRRENI, 
 
 ' August 26, 1870. 
 
 ' You know why your very dear letter has remained so 
 long unanswered, and you already expect that I shall not 
 be able to answer it to-day, my whole thoughts being taken 
 up by this awful, most awful struggle ! You know what I 
 thought of this war ; you know that I never felt it was
 
 292 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 either just or probable that France should come out of it 
 triumphant. But what anticipation could ever have pre- 
 pared me, and what reflections can comfort me for the 
 immensity of this disaster ? and leaving aside the mortal 
 anxiety which all must feel who have friends or relations 
 in either army, it is to me like a perturbation in the natural 
 order of things, that France, in one short month, should 
 have been brought to this state of humiliation, and I often 
 feel as if it was impossible that all I am reading should be 
 true. 
 
 ' Thank you very much for Mr. de Vere's beautiful letter. 
 ... As usual, all his views and opinions move in a sphere 
 far above that in which my inferior faculties exercise them- 
 selves, and I cannot follow him ; but it is always good to 
 look up, and that is especially the effect produced by his 
 writings and conversation. In reality, I do not agree with 
 him at all, as to the delight of living at a time when a 
 General Council is sitting, because I don't see, as he does, 
 that a General Council is in itself a joyful event. It is a 
 great remedy ; but great remedies are never wanted except 
 at very unpleasant moments, that is, when there are great 
 evils, and may be sometimes very painful indeed ; of this 
 we have had some experience, and may have more. I 
 don't agree with him either as to craving for definitions, 
 but rather with Newman, who so truly said that dogmas 
 (involving as they do a fearful anathema) have never been 
 promulgated as " a sort of luxury granted to the devotion 
 of the faithful," but as the performance of a very stern and 
 terrible duty. The Church (so I think, and I believe I 
 am right) never reveals anything new to us ; but where a 
 cloud has fallen upon some portion of the treasure of 
 truth confided to her by our Lord, she dispels it by a 
 definition; but it is happier still that no cloud should 
 have to be dispelled.'
 
 1870] THUNDERBOLT, EARTHQUAKE 293 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 4 CAVA DEI TIRRENI, 
 
 ' October 16, 1870. 
 
 1 Since I saw you, we have had almost as much of private 
 as of public anxiety and suffering. After the thunderbolt 
 that fell upon my head that evening at Rome, when Aubrey 
 de Vere was sitting with me, something very like an earth- 
 quake (at least it was quite as sudden a surprise) took place 
 after we had been here some time ; and now the war has 
 brought on what seems to be a shipwreck ; at all events, those 
 are all the sensations which I feel as if I had gone through 
 since this trial began. . . . Under these circumstances, how- 
 ever, it suddenly becomes a matter of quite unexpected 
 importance to me to publish what I write ; and the impos- 
 sibility of doing so at present in France is a fresh disaster 
 added to all those that have followed one another in quick 
 succession since the month of May. . . . Can you, then, 
 and will you, make some inquiries as to the possibility of 
 publishing " Fleurange " in England, and could you tell me 
 apeupres,\r\ that case, what sort of terms would be pro- 
 posed ? . . . Your encouragement in the spring was very 
 useful to me ; I trusted to your judgment and sincerity, 
 and it gave me great confidence to go on. It is now all 
 but finished, and my own impression is that the third and 
 fourth parts are better than the two first ones (part of which 
 I had read to you). ... I have not yet composed, how- 
 ever, my very difficult denouement, but as I am quite come to 
 it, it must now be brought about de man mieux, and I must 
 trust to Providence not to spoil everything by my ten last 
 pages. And as it is essential to me not to fail, I hope to 
 have a good inspiration, if nothing happens to interrupt 
 me at the last. . . . Oh, how I wish that I could write 
 in English ! In that case, with a little energy and per-
 
 294 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1870 
 
 severance I could perhaps do great things in this our 
 present emergency. But, alas ! in France all is at an end, 
 for a long time to come ; and no publisher in England, 
 I dare say, can care to publish a French book.' 
 
 On November i Mrs. Craven wrote that they 
 were on the eve of leaving Castagneto, and that 
 her next address would be at the Duchess of Hamil- 
 ton's, Palais Stephanie, Baden. 
 
 It had become a sad necessity that Mrs. Craven 
 should earn money, and the writer of this memoir 
 had suggested to her that possibly the materials at 
 her disposition might enable her to write another 
 family history, dealing with the period anterior to 
 that of ' Le Re'cit,' which might be published in 
 England, pending some return to peace in France. 
 Mrs. Craven wrote : 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 CASTAGNETO, 
 
 ' November 6, 1870. 
 
 1 My departure has been delayed by a few days, which 
 just gave me time to receive last night your kind answer 
 to my last letter but one. I think Bentley would be 
 favourable to the publication of something of mine; at 
 least he said so, very graciously (on one occasion when I 
 called there to remonstrate with him on having advertised 
 the " Re'cit d'une Sceur " among the new novels of that 
 day) ; but, then, he of course meant in English, and what- 
 ever you may say, and whatever my wish may be to do so 
 (for motives not purely literary), I know too well the differ- 
 ence there is between writing a letter and writing a book, 
 to have the least illusion as to my being able to write one 
 in English that would be bearable ; and a book to be worth 
 reading should be a great deal more than that. I could
 
 1 870] LAST LINES FROM CASTAGNETO 295 
 
 not, especially, do that for anything relating to my father's 
 life, or to the recollections of the emigration, because all 
 the letters and memoirs which I do possess, and hope to 
 turn to account, could not and ought not to be translated. 
 But I have a beautiful and true Sicilian story to relate, 
 which, in order to disguise it better (as the heroine is still 
 living), I should like to write in English if I could. But 
 that to my mind is the insurmountable difficulty. . . . The 
 present, and probably the future, state of France is too 
 dreadful, too painful, to think of, and I wish I felt sure 
 that all our miseries and humiliations were to end even 
 with the crowning one of the only sort of peace we have any 
 power or right to expect. But much much has been for 
 a long time very wrong, even au fond of what seemed to 
 be the great and redeeming points of all that was absolutely 
 and glaringly corrupt. I have felt it all long before this. 
 Montalembert was quite of my mind, but as he was, as well 
 as myself, tres cosmopolite, that was supposed to account for 
 our views whenever they were not quite French. I wish 
 they had been mistaken as well as " foreign " !' 
 
 On November 9 Mrs. Craven ended a letter : 
 
 ' These are the last probably the very last lines I shall 
 ever write at Castagneto ! I am writing them now near 
 my window, looking up now and then to watch the beauty 
 of the light on the mountain (just now at sunset), and feel- 
 ing that I shall never see it again. I am glad you have 
 an idea of the place, because I know that you will 
 thoroughly understand what my feelings are at this moment, 
 especially as after I have left this I shan't have any home 
 at all for some time to come. 
 
 ' But although these things might be expected to be harder 
 to bear late than early in life, I am thankful to feel that 
 it is not so, and that, as it should be, I cling less than I 
 did in my youth to what I most care for.'
 
 [ 296 ] 
 
 XX. 
 
 KNOWING Mrs. Craven as the reader should do if 
 he have read the preceding pages, it can be imagined 
 what peculiar pain she suffered at the complete ruin 
 of Mr. Craven's hopes. For him she felt far more 
 than for herself, and only those who have seen those 
 preceding Journals in which she laid her heart bare 
 can read between the lines of her correspondence 
 and measure her daily anxieties. With perhaps 
 unnecessary enthusiasm of honesty she sold her 
 diamonds as soon as the telegram announcing the 
 disappearance of their remaining capital reached 
 her at Rome in the spring. Mr. Aubrey de Vere 
 was in her drawing-room at the moment of its 
 arrival, and he bears witness to her calm self-pos- 
 session. One ignominy she determined to escape, 
 the ignominy of indebtedness while any way of 
 relief remained open. In her haste her diamonds 
 were sacrificed for a third of their value (and that 
 was considerable), but she remained free of debt, as 
 did Mr. Craven, who in his turn made sacrifices 
 that entailed much loss, but left them clear of 
 personal obligation. 
 
 Mrs. Craven made the journey from Naples to
 
 1870] PALAIS STEPHANIE, BADEN 297 
 
 Baden in three days, via Foggia, Bologna, and the 
 Brenner, leaving her husband to complete some 
 necessary business at Florence, though he soon 
 rejoined her. 
 
 ' I feel all the horrors of this prolonged war/ Mrs. 
 Craven wrote, ' more than ever since I am come 
 within reach of them, and a visit to the French 
 wounded at Rastadt has brought it all home to me 
 very differently from what it was in my quiet retreat 
 at Castagneto, keenly as I suffered about it there.' 
 In another way the humiliations of the war were 
 brought home to Mrs. Craven : Boury was occupied 
 by German soldiers. 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 PALAIS STEPHANIE, BADEN, 
 
 'December 14, 1870. 
 
 'I am most thankful, and ashamed of the trouble you 
 have taken about " Fleurange." The answer you sent me 
 was more favourable than I expected. Mrs. Sartoris, who 
 had been asked a question about it, a mon insu, by a friend 
 of mine, had answered that " nothing would induce Smith 
 and Elder to publish anybody's French novel." The war 
 will have most fearful results, for I dare not hope for any 
 final success, and in the meantime each day adds to the 
 ferocity of the conquerors, and, on both sides, to the hatred 
 which puts off peace, and will, alas ! last long after it is 
 concluded. Never before, I believe, in so short a time, 
 has so much harm been done to so many, and seeds of so 
 much anger and danger sown for the future. Up to the 
 surrender of Metz, I had been fortunate not to lose any of 
 my nearest relations and friends, but now that everybody
 
 29 8 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1871 
 
 is everywhere fighting, evil tidings come fast, and I quite 
 dread the sight of a newspaper. . . . 
 
 ' It is a comfort to be in a place where I can get at some 
 of the French wounded and prisoners, and let them at least 
 hear a few words spoken in their own language. They are 
 treated very kindly, and great efforts are made to assist 
 them, but their number, alas ! is such that many of them 
 still suffer very much.' 
 
 To Lady Georgiana Fnllerton. 
 
 ' PALAIS STEPHANIE, BADEN, 
 
 'January 11, 1871. 
 
 'Thank you, dearest Lady G., for your kind letter of 
 the 4th. I had hardly courage to write, even to you, at 
 this saddest beginning of any year since we were born. I 
 wish I could have been with you, and received courage 
 and comfort from you I very much need both but I am 
 afraid my journey to England is indefinitely put off. The 
 cold is so intense here that it is almost impossible to think 
 of moving, especially with the prospect of having to go 
 across from Ostend, which nothing but absolute necessity 
 would induce me to do, and that necessity does not exist. 
 I cannot publish my book there, I don't exactly know 
 where to go, and I rather dread at present the prospect of 
 finding myself in any country house with a party. And 
 besides all this, the Duchess is not well ; she finds it impos- 
 sible to travel with a baby in such weather as this, and in 
 this empty and melancholy place at this time of the year 
 she finds my company useful, I may say pleasant, and 
 wishes me very much to remain with her as long as she 
 is here. She has now an additional motive for staying here 
 some time longer, as Carlo* is fighting with the Baden 
 
 * The Duchess of Hamilton's second son.
 
 1871] LETTER TO LADY G. FULLERTON 299 
 
 army against Garibaldi and Co., and perhaps soon against 
 Bourbaki, very near the frontier, so that if he was wounded, 
 and had to return here, it would be both painful and 
 foolish to have moved out of the way. . . . 
 
 ' I see that a fresh society has organized itself in England 
 for the much-needed purpose of relieving also the 
 unwounded prisoners, and I have written to Lady Lans- 
 downe in hopes of getting her to take an interest in those 
 detained in large numbers at Rastadt 
 
 ' Adieu, bonne et chere amie ; priez pour moi, j'en ai 
 vraiment bien besoin ; surtout pour ne me plaindre de rien, 
 quelque dure que soit la phase actuelle de ma vie. God 
 bless you, dearest Lady G. ! 
 
 ' Ever affectionately yours, 
 
 'P. LA F. CRAVEN.' 
 
 Still at Baden on February 23, 1871, Mrs. Craven 
 wrote to Miss O'Connor Morris : 
 
 ' By the time this letter reaches you peace will, I trust, 
 be an accomplished fact, peace such as we can expect it, 
 and such as it was proposed before the last four bloody 
 months, during which nothing has been retrieved. Never- 
 theless, if this formidable trial has really brought us to our 
 senses, if Aubrey de Vere's beautiful lines* are true as 
 
 * ' Laugh, thou that weep'st ; or with thy weeping blend 
 The glory of that joy which mocks at pain : 
 Vain was thy pride ; the penance is not vain : 
 Lo ! this is the beginning, not the end : 
 Beyond that rain of fire I see descend 
 Armies of God t'ward yon ensanguined plain ; 
 And these the cross, and those the crown sustain : 
 Elect of Penitents, thy forehead bend ; 
 Meet thou that crown in hope that springs from love ! 
 Once more true greatness greets thee from above 
 At last, while far away the tempests rave,
 
 300 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1871 
 
 regards the future, as they are true as regards the past, then 
 I shall be reconciled to even this last amount of useless 
 bloodshed and of appalling misery ! Of course those 
 lines express all my feelings, hopes and wishes ! If only 
 they were realized ! But there are still many alarming 
 symptoms. We (the French) are still deluding ourselves, 
 still asking others to delude us, still shrinking from facing 
 the real cause of our disasters. As long as this is the case, 
 as long as hatred and vengeance alone are thought of for 
 the future, as long as we are only thinking of punishing our 
 conquerors, instead of correcting what made the conquest 
 possible, indeed inevitable, I shall hardly venture to indulge 
 in the blessed hope that 
 
 '"This is the beginning, not the end.'" 
 
 Mrs. Craven's prevision was correct. The revolt 
 of the Paris Commune had yet to come. It shocked 
 her all the more that it was so terrible a criticism of 
 the democratic tendencies of society, from which 
 the school of French Churchmen who had influenced 
 her youth hoped so much. During the experiments 
 of Louis Philippe's reign, though certainly not on 
 account of them, religion had thriven in France, 
 and in 1848 Lacordaire could sit, though not for 
 long, at the extreme left of the first revolutionary 
 chamber. Two years later M. de Falloux, as 
 Minister of Public Instruction, had influence enough 
 to secure the enfranchisement of primary education, 
 to the benefit of the Christian cause. Larger and 
 
 Forth from the ashes of thy pagan boast 
 Leaps thy new life ! Mid yon celestial host 
 Thy Clotilde triumphs, and thy Genevieve.' 
 
 (' St. Peter's Chains,' by Aubrey de Vere, p. 28.)
 
 1871] THE ' UNIVERS' APPROVES C&SARISM 301 
 
 larger doses of civil liberty seemed favourable to re- 
 ligion, and the plebiscite which reinstated Caesarism 
 was greeted by the Univers and by too many of the 
 French clergy as a crowning mercy. While violently 
 Ultramontane in their reception of the Syllabus, and 
 more than Papal in their interpretations of it, they 
 remained pitiably Gallican in their tolerance of 
 Napoleon's ' Divine right ' to carry out the schemes 
 of secret societies in the name of his uncle's ideas. 
 Fortunately the chief friends of Mrs. Craven, 
 the writers of the Correspondant, had steered a 
 straighter course. Their wish to enfranchise the 
 human conscience had not flattered democracy ; 
 Sedan and the Commune were certainly not pre- 
 pared by Montalembert and Lacordaire, though 
 doubtless La Mennais, and even the saintly Gerbet, 
 may have contributed to the plebiscites. Democracy, 
 much reddened since 1830, and as yet unbaptized, 
 had now become the terror of all who loved freedom. 
 In their dismay many turned to the restoration of 
 the Bourbon monarchy, as the readiest anchor by 
 which society in France might ride out the storm. 
 
 Mrs. Craven, moving, as she hoped, towards Paris 
 and her publisher, M. Didier, was detained at 
 Brussels by the usurpation of the Commune. She 
 wrote : 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' 29, CHAUSSEE D'HAECHT, BRUSSELS, 
 ' May 17, 1871. 
 
 ' You ask me if I am of the Court of Henri V. Not 
 actually, for though he is supposed to be in Belgium, I don't
 
 302 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1871 
 
 know where he is ; but in heart and soul I am, not because I 
 belong to those who have never served another cause no, 
 not at all on that account. Indeed, I was always accused of 
 being a lukewarm Legitimist, and although my preference 
 naturally went that way, I never had any of the sort of 
 feeling that others had on that subject. I cared more for 
 other things, and I did believe that if those other things 
 were secured France might get on very well under a 
 monarchy that was not the old one, and I think so still. 
 But now that it is evident that all those experiments have 
 failed, now that we are suffering so terribly from the want 
 of truth, and that we are so evidently punished for our 
 national disregard of religion, there is to me something 
 consoling and refreshing, something that revives hope, in 
 the straightforward and brave statement contained in the 
 Comte de Chambord's letter, which I trust you have read, 
 though the Times has not yet thought proper to publish it. 
 It is the first time in my life that I feel quite irritated with 
 the Times, but I ought to have known before that they can 
 be fair and even lenient on all occasions (even as they now 
 are in relating the acts of the Commune), except lorsqu'il 
 s'agit of any man or any party that may be supposed to 
 care for the protection of the Papacy. ... If they dread so 
 very much the notion of there being once more a King of 
 France daring to call himself ires chretien, they should 
 remember the liberal convictions of the younger branch, 
 and ease their minds of their fears on that account. ... I 
 have seen Pere Gratry here. I will speak of him and of 
 Dollinger some other day ; there is too much to say to begin 
 now. I must only tell you that I am daily happier and 
 calmer in my firm adherence to the Church's decree. Our 
 minds were disturbed by those who defended it, and by 
 the manner in which they did it. But all that vanishes 
 gradually. I am convinced that, if farther explanations are
 
 i S/i] FEARS FOR FRANCE 303 
 
 needed, they will be given when the Council meets again. 
 For my part I require none. Apropos, I have only now 
 read " Lothair." I read very patiently, and even approvingly, 
 the first volume ; the second is disgusting as well as absurd, 
 but I have more to say about it, and I must positively 
 write again soon to do it.' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' CHATEAU DE LA LUCAZIERE, 
 '1871. 
 
 ' A few lines to-day to let you know where I am, and 
 where I am likely to remain for the next few weeks. I 
 left Brussels ten days ago, and I spent a week at Versailles 
 on my way here. . . . During my stay there I paid two 
 visits to Paris, and realized the immensity and atrocity of 
 the deeds of destruction that have been accomplished 
 there. 
 
 ' I should feel more horrified at the sort of apathy and 
 indifference with which these dreadful events are talked 
 of among the people in Paris, than even at those horrors 
 themselves, if I did not hope that it partly arises from their 
 being stunned and exhausted by all they have gone through. 
 Nevertheless, I am not hopeful as I was at first. I fear the 
 evil is too deeply rooted, too universal, too weakly counter- 
 acted, and the fear comes across my mind that it is too 
 late ; that the awful chastisement has not been understood, 
 and that France is not to revive ! . . . 
 
 ' I am staying here at the Vicomtesse de Dreux Breze's, 
 my favourite niece (my eldest brother's daughter), and 
 I shall remain with her till July 4.' 
 
 In the same despondent spirit Mrs. Craven 
 wrote :
 
 3 04 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1871 
 
 To Mr. Monsell. 
 
 'CHATEAU DE CHEREPERRINE, 
 'July 14, 1871. 
 
 ' Our dear Comte de Chambord has now put an end to 
 his own prospects and to those of the monarchical party, 
 by an act which looks noble, and is in reality, I may say, 
 unjust. It is not true that he could not with dignity accept 
 the colours of France, or that the duty of France was to 
 accept his. It is a mistake and an alarming one, as reveal- 
 ing much of the old disposition of his race to say PEtat, 
 <?est mot. He dislikes the flag that was flying by the side 
 of the scaffold of Louis XVI. that is perfectly natural ; 
 but, however, many have fought under it and made it 
 glorious, whose relations had in those days suffered with 
 and for his own indeed, if that same flag was not utterly 
 disgraced during the last campaign, it is thanks to the 
 Legitimists ; he ought not to have forgotten it, and he might 
 have shown himself as generously fran$ais avanl tout as 
 did his most devoted partisans, among whom the faithful 
 old friends are now grieving, whilst the young ones are 
 indignant and disgusted.' 
 
 Meantime the Correspondant had accepted gladly 
 the MS. of ' Fleurange.' That ' Fleurange ' should 
 have any success in the conditions to which French 
 literature found itself restricted was remarkable, but 
 Mrs. Craven wrote, when in some anxiety about its 
 translation into English : ' Here comes a letter from 
 Father Hecker* from New York, announcing his 
 
 * Mrs. Craven had made acquaintance with the Rev. Isaac 
 Hecker, at Rome, in the previous year ; he was there as ' theo- 
 logian' to the Archbishop of Baltimore. Early in life, before 
 he became a Catholic, he had joined the Emersonian com-
 
 1 87 1 ] ' FLE URA NGE' .305 
 
 intention to publish it in the Catholic World, and 
 after that in two volumes ; does not this put an end 
 to the use of any other translation ?' 
 
 Rarer even than good and careful art itself is appre- 
 ciation of it ; but ' Fleurange ' had qualities which 
 ensured success, not only among lovers of refined 
 romance, but in the Academie. Apart from the merits 
 
 munity at Brook Farm. His conversion followed soon after, 
 and he founded the Paulist Congregation in 1852 'a new 
 order,' as he said, 'for a new time.' He desired to reconcile 
 liberty and intelligence, to aim at personal perfection, but in 
 order thereto to cultivate independence of character.' The 
 American note was to be added to the Church's harmony. 
 ' What the age needs,' he said, quoting Ozanam, ' is an in- 
 tellectual crusade, an intellectual propaganda.' We must, he 
 believed, ' open a way by which the Rationalist may be brought 
 to Baptism.' He felt no less grief than amazement on beholding 
 in Catholics indifference and unconcern whenever they were 
 asked to trouble themselves about these questions, as though 
 dead heresies were likely to hurt them more than living Anti- 
 christs. He advocated an ' apostolate of the press.' 
 
 From the Vatican Council he dated 'an expanding era.' He 
 considered that the controversies of Luther, Knox, and Calvin 
 were closed, and that individual freedom under a recognised 
 authority will be the new motive power of a Catholic renais- 
 sance, of which the basis was founded by Pius IX., and the 
 superstructure continued by Leo XIII. 
 
 'Too little,' Father Hecker thought, 'is now left to the indi- 
 vidual, and the formal or the stereotyped reigns almost without 
 control. For the practical aim of all true religion is to bring 
 each individual soul under the immediate guidance of the Holy 
 Spirit.' 
 
 Father Hecker's health broke down, he became subject to 
 attacks of angina pectoris, and his later years were years of 
 suffering nobly borne. He died in 1888. 
 
 Meantime, can we wonder at the friendship and admiration 
 Mrs. Craven felt for him ? 
 
 VOL. I. 20
 
 306 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1871 
 
 of high thought and religious feeling which the reader 
 expected from the author of * Le Recit,' there are 
 sketches of character, fragments of condensed social 
 experience, and admirable good sense in its pages, 
 which are seldom met in fiction. How living a 
 personage is the Italian Marquis who talked well of 
 everything, and could give interest to each subject 
 discussed, whether it were society gossip, political 
 news, social or literary questions, and who had no 
 other fault than that of treating all subjects as of 
 equal importance, and as if for him they were of 
 equal interest. In short, an item of Cosmopolis so 
 rolled and polished by his life that no characteristics 
 remained ! Every- personage in the book is a finished 
 study, probably from life, and of a life which few 
 had so thoroughly observed as the author. The 
 Russian Princess, an undisciplined yet highly- 
 polished great lady, violent almost to blows, yet 
 working towards her ends by intrigue, subject to 
 the vapours of the most advanced civilization, yet 
 enduring as a Cossack, is equally true to her race 
 and her rank in the Sclavonic Court. Her son, 
 amateur republican and conspirator through ennui, 
 is equally well drawn. The excellent middle-class 
 German family supplies Mrs. Craven with more 
 ideal portraits, possessed of the calm will and of the 
 sober judgment informed by religion, which were the 
 virtues perhaps most highly esteemed by her. Even 
 in conventual life it is those virtues that inspire 
 her admirable description of Mere Madeleine, the 
 Superior of the convent in which Fleurange is 
 educated. There is in ' Le Recit ' nothing lovelier
 
 1871] SKETCH OF MERE MADELEINE 307 
 
 than the passage in which the wise nun explains to 
 the heroine, in the moment of her distress, that she 
 must not seek shelter in a convent because life is 
 difficult. 
 
 Mrs. Craven's description of Mere Madeleine was 
 selected by the late Lady Waterford as a subject for 
 her brush. Its beauty evidently struck her fine sense 
 of what could be done by art. 
 
 Mrs. Craven does not fear to make love the motive 
 of the book or to paint its extremes. Nor does she 
 fail to intimate the powers by which love can be 
 restrained, and the suffering it causes healed of its 
 bitterness. There is an echo of the story- of Albert 
 and Alexandrine in Mere Madeleine's words to 
 Fleurange when in her sorest distress : ' There is an 
 earthly love which, though it may lengthen the road 
 that leads to God, yet does not prevent our following 
 it. Often, indeed, by the virtues it requires of us, 
 the sacrifices it imposes, and the sufferings which 
 accompany it, such love seconds the noblest impulses 
 of the soul.' 
 
 The story witnesses throughout to the author's 
 conceptions of life, and to her personal experience 
 when she points out the value of religion and of 
 truth in such varied scenes as the Florentine circle of 
 Princess Lamianoff, the home of the German Pro- 
 fessor and the Court of the Czar in the confusion 
 of 1825, a confusion that Mrs. Craven had herself 
 witnessed.
 
 XXI. 
 
 AFTER some visits in Belgium, among which was a 
 fortnight's stay with the Comte and Comtesse de 
 Flandres, Mr. and Mrs. Craven went to Sigmaringen, 
 cradle of the Hohenzollern family, where they had 
 excellent friends in their princely hosts friends able 
 and willing to second the Grand-Duchess Stephanie 
 of Baden in securing payment of the Margravine of 
 Anspach's claim. In a letter from Mrs. Craven, she 
 says that her hosts at Sigmaringen wished her and her 
 husband to remain with them for the Christkindchen, 
 and it is most likely that Prince Ferdinand, then 
 five years old, was of the homely, happy party cele- 
 brating, in the marvellous old Schloss, the thousandth 
 year of their family existence. The Schloss stands 
 high above the town, which is surrounded on nearly 
 every side by the winding Danube. Situated on the 
 highlands of Suabia, it was a fitting nest for the im- 
 memorial princes of the ancient race ; and so much 
 has been added to the old walls that it is equally 
 ready for modern hospitalities. 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 PARIS, February 13, 1872. 
 
 'Though the fourth edition of "Fleurange" has just 
 come out (of which I send you a copy by this day's post),
 
 1872] M. FOISSET'S APPRECIATION 309 
 
 few papers have had any articles about it yet. ... I therefore 
 send you what I valued far more than any printed praise of 
 the book, two letters about it of M. Foisset's,* who is one 
 of our greatest purists and best critics. Montalembert used 
 to say about him that he never felt sure that he had written 
 anything well until Foisset said so, and Montalembert never 
 published a work of any importance before it had been 
 revised by him. His opinion was, therefore, of the greatest 
 importance to me. A friend, to whom he had written the 
 first letter, sent it to me that I might note the corrections 
 and copy the whole, and though I feel rather foolish at 
 sending you the compliments I have received, I enclose the 
 copy and another letter of Foisset's, written after he had 
 finished " Fleurange." By the way, if you read the whole 
 of that letter dated from La Roche en Breny you will be 
 interested by what he says about Montalembert's papers, 
 which he is looking over in order to prepare a first publica- 
 tion about him. I send you also a letter of M. Leopold de 
 Gaillard, the redadeur en chef of the Correspondant ; and 
 lastly a letter from my brother-in-law, M. de Mun, who is a 
 clever man, and a good and not habitually indulgent judge 
 of literary matters. . . . 
 
 ' We are told to expect great events in the political world, 
 great monarchical efforts to bring about the one combination 
 strong enough to counteract the reviving action of the Im- 
 perialists ; but party spirit is, I fear, stronger than patriotism, 
 and I hardly dare to hope for a result, and all seems to me 
 darker and more doubtful than ever.' 
 
 The writer of this memoir was in Paris in the 
 following February, and saw much of Mrs. Craven, 
 
 * M. Foisset was the friend and comrade of the Comte 
 de Montalembert in his political action ; author of the ' Life 
 of Lacordaire ' and other works ; Honorary Councillor to the 
 Court of Appeal at Dijon.
 
 3 io LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 who, with her husband, was in a charming apart- 
 ment in the Rue de Chaillot, lent to them by M. 
 de Mun. Her features looked older and sadder, but 
 her manner had its constant brightness and sym- 
 pathy with every interest of her friends and of the 
 day. As usual, she deprecated the exaggerated re- 
 action of the ' white-flag ' party, which alone 
 was thought to prevent the fusion of Bourbon 
 and Orleans interests. There were, she believed, 
 four hundred monarchists, including every shade, 
 in the Assembly ; but (and it was an important but) 
 M. Thiers had 'drifted to the Left.' Her nephews, 
 Comte Robert and Comte Albert de Mun, were 
 eagerly carrying forward their labours of conciliation 
 among the working classes. 
 
 With her continuous trust in a good provi- 
 dence, but without any special faith in its visible 
 agents, Mrs. Craven rejoiced in the revival of 
 religious ceremonial. Her name was eagerly sought 
 as patroness to many of the innumerable good works 
 always maintained in Paris, to a degree we English 
 seldom realize in our estimate of the Ville Lumiere. 
 Though she detested, and even feared, crowds, she 
 took the present writer to a meeting of 1'CEuvre du 
 Patronage where were white perspectives of sceurs de 
 charite, portly elders, lady patronesses in black, and 
 girls in blue scarves, listening attentively to a report 
 by the Comte de Melun of the good done by these 
 young women during the siege and the Commune. 
 Monseigneur Guibert, the venerable and aged suc- 
 cessor of Monseigneur Darboy, presided. ' It is 
 fortunate,' said a looker-on, ' that at last the Arch-
 
 1872] A VISIT TO VIROFLAY 311 
 
 bishop of Paris has a chance of dying in his bed.' 
 As we prayed in the Rue de Sevres by the graves of 
 five Jesuits, who had been murdered with unusual 
 cruelty during the Commune, her thoughts of for- 
 giveness and hope, and her personal readiness for 
 any sacrifice, might almost be read on her counten- 
 ance, as, indeed, on the faces of many who knelt 
 there. 
 
 It was the Paris of Sardou's play, ' Rabagas,' a 
 satire on Gambetta, applauded to the echo by every- 
 body who went to see the piece the Paris where 
 the Church of the Madeleine was crowded two hours 
 before the midnight Mass of Christmas, when the 
 files of communicants passed and knelt before the 
 altar for at least another hour the Paris brimming 
 with good intention, noisy with argument in favour 
 of stable government, yet with a still too absolute 
 reliance on the virtue of words, and too little proof 
 of resolute will among the Conservatives, to carry out 
 an expressed purpose. 
 
 A visit with Mrs. Craven to the Bishop of Orleans 
 at Viroflay, and to a sitting of the Chambers, were 
 occasions for her most eloquent conversation. Mon- 
 seigneur Dupanloup had recently been received by 
 the Comte de Chambord with but cold recognition 
 of his efforts to promote the ' fusion ' of monarchical 
 parties. He described his work in his diocese, when 
 it was occupied by the Prussians, with sad recogni- 
 tion of his country's shortcomings. In the Royal 
 Theatre at Versailles, unchanged since the reign of 
 Louis XVI., and where the Bourbon shield presided 
 over the vociferous assembly, well might Mrs. Craven
 
 3 i2 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 wish, as she did, for the continuity of English 
 political life. She could have forgiven some failure 
 of logic in the debates of the English House of 
 Commons in her admiration of the serious attitude 
 of its leaders when important interests of England 
 were at stake. The Bishop of Orleans was as 
 surprised as edified by the public thanksgiving in 
 London for the Prince of Wales's recovery, and it was 
 pleasant to hear Mrs. Craven's explanation to him of 
 the loyalty of the English, a word for which there is 
 no equivalent in French. 
 
 The next letter from Mrs. Craven announced her 
 coming arrival in England. On March 4, 1872, she 
 wrote : 
 
 ' My dear old friend Lady Cowper has been writing to me 
 lately about old times and old friends in a way that has 
 added to my wish of spending at least some few weeks 
 amongst them in the spring ; by that time something more 
 defined will, perhaps, be visible in our troubled atmosphere 
 on this side of the Channel, and it will be possible to de- 
 cide whether prudence allows or forbids one to settle once 
 more for good in Paris. I have often wondered what your 
 general impression was after your short trip, in thinking 
 over the very different impressions of those you saw ; it is 
 certainly difficult to form an opinion upon statements so 
 very much opposed to one another as M. le Play's and our 
 dear Bishop's, though I am inclined to think the views of 
 the latter the more accurate of the two as to facts. Thanks 
 ior \\ieFortnightfy Review. . . . Forgive me for saying that, 
 after reading an article in it on Home Rule, I think the 
 Irish more provoking than ever, but I am more sanguine as 
 to the result, namely, as to the failure of this new attempt 
 at Repeal ; and I do hope, with all my heart, that nothing
 
 1872] M. COCHIN'S DEATH 313 
 
 will goad England into taking another course than the one 
 she has been pursuing for the last few years. . . . You have 
 had two great days of national protest against that sort of 
 political rubbish, but we are, alas ! ou nous etions. The 
 Antwerp pilgrims have come home. M. le Comte de 
 Chambord has gone farther away ; his cousins keep more 
 than ever aloof, and hope has once more vanished out of 
 sight. Notwithstanding which Paris looks brilliant in this 
 sunshine, and much as if nothing had happened or was 
 impending.' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 PARIS, 
 
 1 March 30, 1872. 
 
 ' This last month has been a most melancholy one, 
 and I am sure you thought of us when you heard of the 
 fatal failure of all our hopes of dear M. Cochin's recovery. 
 My misgivings on that day at Versailles soon proved too 
 well founded. His death was that of a saint, and worthy of 
 a life which will be more fully appreciated when it is more 
 completely known. . . . His home was the beau-ideal of 
 Catholic goodness, intelligence, and piety; and now his 
 admirable wife bears this crushing blow with the sort of 
 simple courage and absolute submission which makes one 
 feel, better than words can tell it, under what influence she 
 has lived during these long and happy years, and is living 
 still, for those two souls are not parted. I say "long and 
 happy," for she had been married twenty-three years, and 
 that, for this life, is a long spell of perfect happiness. But 
 when one remembers that he was only forty-eight years of 
 age, it makes one wonder at the inscrutable decree which 
 has cut short such a life at such a time. To us his loss is 
 irreparable. And what is to become of France if, one after 
 another, those are taken away of whom, in her present state 
 she is in the utmost need ?'
 
 3 i4 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 In London Mrs. Craven had been seeing much of 
 Mme. de Montalembert, who was on her way to 
 Windsor to consult Mrs. Oliphant on the life of 
 her husband, first attempted, strangely enough, in 
 English, and by a Scotch and Protestant author. 
 In the selection of letters and materials for it, Mr. 
 Monsell took naturally an intense interest. He 
 had been the close friend of M. de Montalembert, 
 and of the leaders of the party who desired to 
 make faith and liberty friends rather than foes. 
 Mrs. Craven describes her part in the labour of 
 love which writing of their friend was to both of 
 them. 
 
 To Mr. Monsell. 
 
 ' HAMPTON COURT, 
 
 'May 22, 1872. 
 
 ' Having had three quiet days since I came here, I read 
 with attention all these most interesting letters (after having 
 replaced them separately in their right order according to 
 their dates) ; in those addressed to yourself I have marked 
 in pencil, without any scruple, the passages which ought to 
 be omitted if these letters were published, although as 
 a matter of course those passages are the most interesting 
 of all. As to those to Lord Dunraven, I have only marked 
 with a cross in red pencil those which seem to me particu- 
 larly interesting or amusing. . . . Church matters in Germany 
 seem to be assuming a very serious aspect, and all the 
 results of the misunderstanding which were prophesied and 
 apprehended by those who opposed the Definition are being 
 but too completely realized. ... In the end the simplicity 
 and clearness of the doctrine will be felt by all. But not-
 
 1872] 'OLD CATHOLICS' 315 
 
 withstanding this certain hope and this firm faith, for those 
 who dreaded all these evils that are now taking place, and 
 wished to avoid provoking them, it is not pleasant to have 
 to live through them with probably no chance of living 
 long enough to see them end.' 
 
 The foregoing letter will show how consistent 
 had been Mrs. Craven's feelings throughout those 
 years of anxiety, and on what grounds the French 
 members of the minority in the Council, and their 
 lay supporters, had doubted the wisdom of raising 
 a religious quarrel among European Catholics in 
 face of the infidelity, socialistic errors, and angry 
 passions of the day. That they were unduly alarmed 
 seems now certain, but they never swerved from 
 their obedience to the Church. ' In the end,' 
 Mrs. Craven wrote, as the reader will observe, ' the 
 simplicity and the clearness of the doctrine will be 
 felt by all.' It would seem as if the action of the 
 party which arrested exaggeration in 1869-70 had 
 been the most far-seeing loyalty to the Pope. Look- 
 ing back, it becomes evident that Mrs. Craven's 
 friends, unconsciously perhaps, had maintained the 
 finally-sanctioned doctrine in the face of violent 
 reproaches for their apparent caution. It is to their 
 enduring credit that the writers of the Correspondant 
 pursued their labour of reconciliation between eternal 
 truths and modern progress, keeping clear of in- 
 tolerant despotism, civil and religious, and maintain- 
 ing against plausible zealots the liberty of Christian 
 men. Such men as Augustin Cochin, De Falloux, 
 Gratry, and Dupanloup no doubt disliked and 
 opposed the party which, having demanded freedom
 
 316 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 for religion, sought to cripple it within the Church. 
 They were bound to do their best to moderate that 
 party, and they succeeded. A few, though not many, 
 of the elder Ultramontanes lived to see all loyal 
 friends to the Papacy reconciled in their common 
 work of Christian evolution. 
 
 Many friends in London, and particularly Mme. 
 de Montalembert, detained Mrs. Craven there ; but 
 after a visit to Mr. Frederick Leveson Gower's house 
 (Holmbury, near Dorking) she arrived at Tunbridge 
 Wells with her faithful maid and friend, Elisa, and 
 her two little dogs. These were Maltese terriers of 
 such determined courage and resolve to assert their 
 position in the dog peerage, or ' doggage,' a word 
 suggested by a friend of Mrs. Craven, that they in- 
 continently turned out two St. Bernards, the usual 
 occupants of the sitting-rooms. The astonished 
 giants stood afraid with amazement at the drawing- 
 ro.om door while Zinga and Joy barked dismissal 
 from the sofas. 
 
 Mrs. Craven enjoyed English country life even 
 when it was of the simplest. A pony carriage 
 amused her, and the vagaries of the pony did not 
 disturb her ; she took for granted that there could be 
 no accident for a well-ordered English vehicle, and, 
 as is common to imaginative natures, liked speed. 
 The recent Galway election, in which for the first 
 time the Bishop and priests of a Connaught county 
 fought a political battle with its landlords, even 
 though most of them were themselves of the old 
 faith, somewhat disturbed the thoughts of more
 
 1872] HOLLAND HOUSE 
 
 317 
 
 cosmopolitan Roman Catholics. In a letter to Mr. 
 Monsell Mrs. Craven wrote : 
 
 ' I return this letter with a thousand thanks. I hope to 
 talk it over soon with you (as well as other matters), as I 
 am going to prolong my stay in England a little longer, and 
 perhaps Augustus will come over and spend a fortnight with 
 me at Holland House, which, though not quite London, is 
 near enough to enable us to see a little more of our friends. 
 . . . What I principally want to say to-day is that Anna de 
 Montalembert and Madeleine* are coming over directly to 
 meet Mrs. Oliphant. 
 
 ' Have you a word of comfort to give me about the 
 Galway election ? And is it possible not to feel that the 
 whole Catholic Church is injured by so grievous a scandal ? 
 If these are the last results of the sort of faith originally 
 strengthened by persecution, it increases my dislike to the 
 mode of revival you are looking forward to in Germany 
 through the present attitude of Bismarck. J had much 
 rather it had not been provoked, I own, and that German 
 Catholics had simply insisted on extending to other parts of 
 Germany the entire freedom which (since 1849) the Church 
 possessed in Prussia.' 
 
 After leaving her friends of Tunbridge Wells, Mrs. 
 Craven went to Holland House. She and her 
 husband had lived in such constant intercourse at 
 Naples with Lady Holland that there Mrs. Craven 
 found many fragments that remained of her old 
 society at Chiatamone, and most of her foreign 
 friends who came to London. 
 
 * Now Comtesse Franqois de Griinne, daughter of the 
 Comte de Montalembert.
 
 318 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 'HOLLAND HOUSE, 
 
 'June 20, 1872. 
 
 1 You wonder, probably, at not having heard from me yet, 
 but I am always bewildered now when I arrive anywhere 
 and quite unable to do anything. And yet (to do justice to 
 Holland House) I know no place where one could contrive 
 to have more time to one's self (with only a little firmness to 
 take possession of it). 
 
 c I have read with attention and with great delight your 
 young friend's" little book. What a beautiful mind, and 
 what a wonderful train of thought for one of that age ! but 
 how strange Protestant habit is with regard to the Blessed 
 Virgin ! Here is a chapter (and a beautiful one) on the 
 Ministry of Angels, in which every angelic apparition 
 mentioned in the Old and New Testament is recalled all 
 but one ; and what is that one ? Niplus ni moins, s'il vous plait, 
 than the apparition of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin ! And 
 that slight omission takes place in a page in which the ministry 
 of women upon earth is considered and compared to that of 
 angels, and that woman and that angel are not mentioned, 
 nor yet the day on which they met, and what they met for. 
 This makes me feel that, if there is sometimes on our side 
 an excess of love, there is on theirs an excess of indifference, 
 which extends farther and higher than the Blessed Virgin 
 herself, and it makes it very clear to my mind that, even if 
 we are inclined to exaggerate, it is at all events on the right 
 side, and in a direction where no offence can be given. 
 
 ' I have seen Mr. Monsell, and I find that he disapproves 
 of Judge Keogh's charge as much as your good pastor did. 
 Yet he is as indignant as we are at the conduct of the clergy 
 
 * Rose La Touche, second daughter of John La Touche, of 
 Harristown, Ireland.
 
 319 
 
 1872] MISS MARY FOX 
 
 in that election, so at first I did not understand what he 
 meant, and why this outrageous conduct was not to be 
 denounced. He says, because the violence of the charge 
 has enlisted on the other side those who had hitherto kept 
 aloof from these madmen. So everybody is in the wrong, 
 and that is the only comfort I get from him. 
 
 'You remember that you have both promised to come 
 and see me here. ... If Mary Fox* is at home, I will make 
 her take us all over the house, as she is the best cicerone in 
 the world ; but if she is otherwise engaged (a thing not quite 
 unlikely just now), you must be satisfied with my company 
 and my most imperfect explanations and knowledge of the 
 riches literary and artistic of this house. 
 
 ' Young Prince Lichtenstein (the futur) is charming, 
 pleasing, clever, and devoted to Mary ; diamonds, emeralds, 
 and pearls are positively pouring down upon her, and I 
 never saw anything to equal the splendour of all these 
 jewels except on royal occasions. Hers is certainly a 
 singular fate. . . . Nothing seems to go with her the way it 
 goes with others. She has been more admired than anyone, 
 and yet she is not at all pretty (she may, indeed, be thought 
 quite the reverse), but she is most attractive and clever 
 (remarkably so), and altogether a very charming girl, to 
 whom I wish every manner of happiness, and whose prospects 
 seem at present to promise the perfect realization of that 
 wish.' 
 
 * Miss Mary Fox, a child of French parentage, was adopted 
 by Lord and Lady Holland in April, 1851. From the age of 
 two and a half she shared their home and received the con- 
 sideration their own daughter would have enjoyed. She 
 married, in July, 1872, Prince Louis Lichtenstein.
 
 [ 320] 
 
 XXII. 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 NORMAN TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE, 
 'July 7, 1872. 
 
 ' Of Miss Fox's marriage I say nothing, as the newspapers 
 of all kinds have abundantly supplied you with every detail 
 concerning that certainly (all things considered) very extra- 
 ordinary event; and, of course, the most extraordinary 
 things are not told. . . . We had a glimpse of the young 
 couple on their way through town last Tuesday to go to 
 Scotland (after spending three days at St. Anne's Hill), and 
 they are now at Dunrobin Castle, which the Duke of 
 Sutherland has lent to them to finish their honeymoon. 
 On that same Tuesday I came here to Mrs. H. Ponsonby,* 
 a dear, young, old friend of mine ; and I fancy that on 
 Saturday next I start for Paris, but it is hard to say whether 
 we shall or shall not tear ourselves away, even then. . . . We 
 more and more think of taking an abode in England if we 
 can, about October. I certainly feel an increasing interest 
 in all I see and hear, and I fancy that if I were once settled 
 here with my books about me again, I might do some 
 
 * Now the Hon. Lady Ponsonby. While still Miss Bulteel, 
 she had, when she was very young, acted with Mrs. Craven on 
 one occasion, taking a part in ' Don Cesar de Bazan,' of which 
 Mr. Craven played the title-role.
 
 1 872] AGNOSTICISM 
 
 321 
 
 things. I have come across a great deal more of that spirit 
 which you were the first to reveal to me ; indeed, I have 
 been brought in contact with it in a way that has amazed 
 and terrified, and also interested me greatly. Against this, 
 Protestantism is so utterly powerless and disarmed that I 
 believe the raison d'etre of this dreadful form of error to be 
 the manifestation of truth which it must call forth. I have 
 a great deal to say about all this a great deal more than 
 any letter could contain, so I put it all off, to some not 
 very distant time, I hope, when we may have a good long 
 talk together.' 
 
 The spirit of which Mrs. Craven wrote as a 
 ' dreadful form of error ' was apparently unexpected 
 by her in England, however used to its manifesta- 
 tions all Frenchmen have been for a century and a 
 half. It has always existed among the country- 
 men of Hobbes and Lord Herbert of Cherbury. 
 Agnosticism, as it is now called, had not, however, 
 been common in English society as Mrs. Craven 
 had known it some thirty or twenty years before. 
 
 Her next letter is dated from a temporary but 
 charming apartment in which she lived after her 
 return to Paris. 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ''August 15, 1872. 
 
 'Your letter from Baden was sent back to me here, 
 having been sent after me to Lumigny, which I left sooner 
 than I had intended, to come and meet a very dear old 
 Neapolitan friend of mine (Duchesse Ravaschieri, of whom 
 you have heard me speak, certainly). With her I went to 
 the seance at the Academic on the 8th, when " Fleurange " 
 
 VOL. i. 2I
 
 322 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 was "crowned," as they call it (and then they explain the 
 prize is a gold medal). In reality it is a sum of money, 
 which, though not a very considerable one, I was not sorry 
 to get, and certainly glad at what I got it for. And you, the 
 first friend of "Fleurange," will be glad of it too, I am sure. 
 ... I think that when we write anything (I say this for you as 
 well as myself) there ought always to be something within 
 our subject (if I may so speak), which is like the soul of the 
 body we are shaping. I suppose if I had time to explain 
 my meaning that this would be, as I wish it to be, under- 
 stood, the very reverse of realism, but I leave it to your 
 ingenuity to understand me, as I am really to-day in a 
 dreadful hurry.' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 'PARIS. 
 
 ' It is very kind of you to apologize for not writing whilst 
 I felt myself so ungrateful not to have yet thanked you for 
 the Spectator ; where I found many interesting articles besides 
 the one concerning "Fleurange," which surprised me both by 
 what it praised and by what it found fault with, and yet on 
 the whole was a very gratifying notice. Then the Saturday, 
 with the article on Montalembert and before that your 
 own,* in the previous one, which amused me exceedingly, 
 as, unfortunately, it applies no less to our manners than to 
 yours, so I don't see where the remedy is to come from. 
 It is a pity that those charming old French manners are so 
 completely disappearing. It is a pity for France and for 
 all the world, as it is to France that that sort of influence 
 belonged par excellence. However, it is all over, we talk 
 slang, and we have passed without any transition from low 
 curtseys to indiscriminate hand-shaking, about which, by the 
 way, I am afraid I detected in your article a little touch of 
 * A paper entitled ' Drawing-room Slang.'
 
 1872] 'LIFE OF MONTALEMBERT' 323 
 
 Urquhartism, which goes further than my objection. In all 
 other respects, que dire ? except that you are amusingly and 
 painfully in the right throughout. 
 
 ' Indeed, I began my own article* with no intention of 
 protecting Mrs. Oliphant. I had long before that made 
 up my mind that she had written an excellent book, and 
 that I had nothing to do to prove it, but to go through it 
 translating whole pages out of it, as I have done, with one 
 great advantage on my side, that of giving in the original 
 her quotations from Montalembert's speeches. In France 
 there is but one opinion on the merit of this book. Mrs. 
 Oliphant being a Protestant gives great interest to some 
 parts of it, and I never felt that I had on that account to 
 make any allowance wherever she describes the character of 
 her hero, though she does make a few mistakes (not one of 
 which have I omitted to rectify), but on other matters. It 
 is my belief that most Catholic writers in England (if I am 
 to judge of it by the notice I read in the Dublin Review]^ 
 would have far more seriously misrepresented him. In 
 France, M. Foisset has undertaken to write a " Life of 
 Montalembert," whose friend he was, and has already pub- 
 lished several detached parts of it in the Corres fondant. . . . 
 Mrs. Oliphant's pages on the Avenir, and the whole account 
 of that important episode, seem to me quite masterly. I 
 am not giving an opinion of her style (though the pages I 
 have translated have struck many people), but I mean the 
 wonderful manner in which she has described the position 
 and feelings of those three pilgrims at Rome. As far as 
 concerns P. Lacordaire's impressions and demeanour there, 
 it surpasses anything that has been said about it, often s 
 that story has been told. Nothing more striking or more 
 
 * A study of Mrs. Oliphant's ' Life of Montalembert,' which 
 appeared first in the Correspondanf, and was afterwards re- 
 printed.
 
 324 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 true could have been imagined than that magnificent com- 
 parison of Rome to a mother, " who is also a Queen," and 
 all she says of Lacordaire's feelings in that royal presence. 
 Now, one needs to be French, and almost to have lived 
 through those times, to appreciate the value of an opinion 
 totally unbiased on a subject that has excited such violent 
 party spirit, and how it gives an extraordinary originality to 
 the whole statement (familiar as the facts are to everyone). 
 The opponents of La Mennais in France have always grudged 
 Lacordaire the immense credit due to his wonderful clear- 
 sightedness and humility, and they have not yet forgiven 
 Montalembert's more obstinate clinging (at that time) to his 
 chief. On the other hand, their friends have always been 
 inclined to exaggerate and to criticise the discouragement 
 they met with at Rome, so that, in reality, no one in France 
 has made a statement so fair towards them and at the same 
 time so favourable to Rome as this one ; in fact, no one has 
 said the whole truth so completely as this quiet, honest, in- 
 telligent Scotchwoman, looking at it all from the distance 
 of time, place and creed, and without any party spirit in her, 
 or about her, on the subject. 
 
 'I am so glad that you are not angry with me for my 
 little remark on Ireland, or, rather, for my agreeing with 
 Mrs. D. in thinking that it is always what the Irish secure 
 after fighting for it, that they think (or pretend to think) of 
 no value after it is conceded. I was quite afraid of what 
 you would think, and I am relieved to find that you look 
 upon what I added to that remark as sufficiently attenuating 
 it. ... 
 
 ' Mme. de Montalembert and her daughter are at Rome, 
 where the Holy Father most graciously and spontaneously 
 told Monseigneur de Merode to ask them to take up their 
 abode with him, so they are actually lodged at the Vatican.'
 
 1872] MONABRI 
 
 325 
 
 Monabri, the name of Princess Sayn Wittgen^ 
 stein's ample chalet just between Lausanne and 
 Ouchy, will often be mentioned by Mrs. Craven. It 
 was, perhaps, of all residences where she was a 
 guest, that which best suited her. Her intense love 
 of beautiful landscape was always in new delight 
 before the changing aspects of the Savoy mountains 
 beyond the Lake Leman, which at that point is 
 nearly ten miles in breadth and almost as blue as the 
 Mediterranean, while perhaps more lovely on calm 
 days, when the snows and crags of the distant 
 mountains are reflected in its calms in opaline 
 variety of soft colour. The invigorating Swiss air 
 revived her energies, and she experienced at Monabri 
 a pause and freedom from anxiety which nearly every 
 year restored her active spirit. 
 
 Her hostess, Princess Sayn Wittgenstein, wrote of 
 Mrs. Craven to the compiler of this memoir : 
 
 ' It was after the war of 1870 that I saw her more often. 
 Intercourse with her was so easy ; she was so simple and 
 natural, and knew so well how to efface her own superiority, 
 that all constraint disappeared in her presence. It was 
 these qualities which caused me to desire her friendship, 
 and it was soon after 1870 that she often stayed with me at 
 Monabri, and it was during those visits that she frequently 
 met the Empress Augusta of Germany, who, better than 
 anyone else, was able to appreciate her. I was greatly 
 struck by the singular contrasts in her character. Her 
 naivete was almost childlike, yet her spirit was thoughtful 
 and serious. She loved all that was graceful and tended to 
 comfort, yet she had extraordinary appreciation for austere 
 virtue and for renunciation of this world's vanities. At first
 
 326 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 her taste for the refinements of life might have suggested a 
 certain frivolity, but further knowledge of her, and more 
 attentive study of her nature under this deceptive exterior, 
 showed her soul to be firmly anchored to supernatural 
 truth. When we had witnessed her frequent and devout 
 Communions, after which she remained absorbed in prayer 
 and meditation, we saw her as she really was, and were able 
 to arrive at a true idea of the worth of this great Christian. 
 
 ' Better than anybody I can speak of her, having had the 
 happiness of her presence under my roof, often for two or 
 three months at a time, during the summer and autumn. 
 Her extreme modesty continually astonished me, when on 
 the arrival of the post I saw her frankly surprised by the 
 expressions of admiration which came to her from persons 
 altogether unknown to her, but who, thanking her for the 
 good her books had been to them, expressed keen desire to 
 make her personal acquaintance. Her charity to the poor 
 was inexhaustible, and no one could have suspected the 
 loss of fortune which she had suffered, and continued to 
 suffer with a dignity and courage worthy of her noble soul. 
 
 ' Her residence in Russia was still fresh in her memory, 
 notwithstanding the many years that had since elapsed. 
 Her happy youth, when she enjoyed fete after fete in the 
 most brilliant and dazzling Court in the world, had not been 
 forgotten, and everywhere her friends were of the most dis- 
 tinguished society in Europe.' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' MONABRI, 
 
 ' October 2, 1872. 
 
 ' I have not been able to do much here the country 
 about this beautiful lake is too lovely, the weather has been 
 too fine, and when at home in this perfection of a chalet, 
 en tete-a-tete with a very dear friend, the inducement was too
 
 1872] MR. OXENHAM AND THE 'SATURDAY' 327 
 
 great to have resisted the temptation of spending a great 
 deal of time out of doors, and of losing a great deal of it 
 indoors (if pleasant conversation is ever time lost). ... I 
 feel at this moment ready to fight anyone here in behalf of 
 Monseigneur Mermillod, who is being most unfairly used, in 
 fact quite persecuted, by the Government of Geneva. . . . 
 
 ' The last article in the Saturday on the Cologne meeting, 
 if written by Mr. Oxenham, gives me some hopes that he is 
 giving up the untenable position of the Old Catholics. But 
 I fear their number is increasing, as it naturally must, since 
 they admit every description of believers and non-believers, 
 such as Dean Stanley, the Bishop of Lincoln, and Pere 
 Hyacinthe ! What did you feel when you read his nuptial 
 epistle ? 
 
 ' If Aubrey de Vere is anywhere within reach, give him my 
 kindest remembrances. ... Un tenero abbracdno to Donagh 
 and Gletscher.* They are, I trust, as flourishing as my 
 little white inseparables, who would, I have no doubt, send 
 many dutiful messages if they were not at this moment fast 
 asleep at my feet. Can you tell what was properly the 
 object of the Cambridge Camden Society (in 1842), and 
 something about it ?' 
 
 To introduce Mrs. Oliphant's admirable life of 
 Montalembert to the readers of the Correspondant 
 was a labour of love ; and in the pages written at 
 Maiche, one of his old residences, Mrs. Craven is at 
 her best. To praise, to feel enthusiasm, was delightful 
 to her ; her fault-finding was always tentative, and 
 even timid. To judge anew of that chivalrous 
 
 * Donagh and Gletscher were the two St. Bernards who 
 hardly dared approach Mrs. Craven in presence of her Malte 
 pets.
 
 328 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 crusader's early eloquence, she studied the Avenir 
 once more, and rose to its eloquent heights with a 
 fresh joy in noble Christian aspiration. She seems 
 to breathe her native air as she quotes her old 
 friend's article, La Croix, published in February, 
 1831. She reminds her readers that Montalembert 
 did not represent the historical past, however dear 
 its memories were to him. He neither then nor 
 ever desired to ' unite the immortal destinies of the 
 Church with those of any earthly dynasty. Such 
 alliance seemed to him a peril for that Church her- 
 self,' though the article is addressed to 'those who 
 love the things that were.' To their trained devotion 
 and faith, and to their traditions of spiritual life 
 rather than of social forms, he commended the 
 cause of the Cross. We all know that the Avenir 
 was condemned at Rome, but Mrs. Craven's heart 
 beat again as she reminded her readers that, alone 
 of the leaders of new thought, the three chief writers 
 of the A venir laid their aspirations at the feet of St. 
 Peter's successor. Remarking on Mrs. Oliphant's 
 surprise that Montalembert before his death, and at 
 the moment when parties struggled most severely 
 within the Vatican Council, expressed his absolute 
 acceptance of its decrees, ' whatever they might be,' 
 Mrs. Craven says : ' The author appears to think, 
 very mistakenly, that we do not base our faith on 
 conviction. Yet she has too well studied our belief 
 not to know that its very foundation is our immut- 
 able conviction that Divine truth speaks to us by 
 the authority and the voice of the Church.'
 
 1872] LIFE AT MAICHE 329 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 'MAICHE, DOUBS, 
 
 ' October 12, 1872. 
 
 ' I left Lausanne on Tuesday, and came by rail and road 
 to this place through almost the most lovely country I ever 
 saw. From Le Locle, a place at some distance from 
 Neuchatel, where I left the railroad, I had, however, to 
 travel in rather a singular fashion, having performed the last 
 thirty miles of my journey in a one-horse open vehicle, such 
 as is not to be met with anywhere but in France (the most 
 arriere of all countries with regard to country locomotion). 
 This is the strangest place you ever saw, and certainly no 
 description of mine could give you an idea of how exceed- 
 ingly unlike anything that is conveyed to an English mind 
 by the word "country-house" this old mansion is. And yet 
 it is so quaint and full of character, and there is about it a 
 certain stamp given by Montalembert to all the places they 
 lived in, a something combining study and repose, and 
 almost monastic order, which is altogether very delightful, 
 sad as it is to realize the loss of his presence. I feel happy 
 here, and more able to work than has been the case with 
 me anywhere for a very long time. The society of Mme. 
 de Montalembert is to me very interesting : her daughters 
 are the most charming creatures I know anywhere. Mon- 
 talembert's study has been given up for my exclusive use, 
 and it is actually on his table, and surrounded by everything 
 belonging to him, that I am studying this book on his life, 
 and writing myself about it ! 
 
 ' We dine here at twelve o'clock, and the bell is ringing, 
 so good-bye, dearest M.' 
 
 The writer and her friend Mrs. Burrowes deter- 
 mined to spend Christmas, 1872, in Paris, and found 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven established in their new apart-
 
 330 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 ment. Both had a real genius for making an 
 ' interior ' appropriate to themselves, and comfort- 
 able to their two faithful sen-ants, who followed them 
 in every circumstance of their wandering lives. 
 Luigi and Elisa were part of the home which their 
 master and mistress created wherever they were. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Craven's friends were theirs, and no 
 small comfort to Mrs. Craven was Elisa's careful 
 control of the little household. The rooms were 
 still dignified by the fine portraits of the Margravine 
 of Anspach, and of her sons Keppel and Berkeley 
 Craven, by Romney, and some other family pictures 
 and a few Italian ones hung on the walls. Though 
 the library at Castagneto had been sold with the 
 house, Mr. Craven's books were still multitudinous, 
 and his wife surrounded herself with memorials and 
 gifts of her varied life, some of which were precious, 
 and all of them had charm and a cachet of distinc- 
 tion, if not in themselves, in the associations they 
 recalled. In her welcome to her guests among these 
 Lares and Penates, whatever were the dimensions 
 of her sitting-room, she was indescribably courteous, 
 ires grande dame, of a race and generation not yet 
 oblivious of the old order, when society in France 
 was carried to a perfection of careful study and long 
 experience the like of which will not be seen again 
 until centuries of fresh tradition recast it. Mrs. 
 Craven's courtesy was from the heart, and never 
 superficial ; those for whom she felt no attraction 
 were greeted kindly and set at their ease, though 
 occasionally the author of ' Le Recit ' found her 
 sympathy claimed by strangers not exactly of her
 
 1872] CHRISTMAS AT THE MADELEINE 331 
 
 world. She was still much cheered by the religious 
 reaction, which that Christmas had not yet died out. 
 Little more than a year and a half had elapsed since 
 the scare of the Commune. 
 
 At the Christmas Mass of midnight in the 
 Madeleine, there was, before eleven o'clock, scarcely 
 standing room within the immense temple, and 
 Communions were innumerable at the altar whence 
 the cure, the saintly Abbe Deguerry, had been torn 
 in 1871. Again was abundantly proved the Athenian 
 readiness of Parisians for good and for evil, and 
 their sympathetic enthusiasm of faith when faith is 
 prevalent, too often defeated by their equal readiness 
 to follow the sophists of the moment. The writer 
 and her friend dined with Mr. and Mrs. Craven that 
 night, and the happy season revived in her every 
 bright and appropriate thought, and not those more 
 selfish regrets and reminiscences that it well might 
 have excited. 
 
 Some days later, when Miss O'Connor Morris had 
 left Paris, she received in England the following 
 letter. It describes a work which grew out of the 
 disasters of France, and was but one of the many 
 hopeful tokens of that country's reaction towards 
 sounder doctrines of social revival based on religion. 
 Count Albert de Mun, the second son of Mrs. 
 Craven's beloved sister, Eugenie, had served in the 
 war of 1870. He had belonged to one of the 
 indignant corps shut up in Metz by political intrigue, 
 and he was afterwards prisoner in Germany. He 
 and his friend in captivity, Count de la Tour du Pin, 
 had hardly returned to Paris, when, with Count
 
 332 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1872 
 
 Robert de Mun, they resolved to do what in them 
 lay to reconcile the warring interests of labourers and 
 capitalists. 
 
 The three men, young, rich, and independent, 
 with every means of honourable and leisurely life in 
 private, might well have thought that they had 
 sufficiently served their country ; or, at least, might 
 have given themselves to a Parliamentary career, and 
 to personal loyalty towards their friend, the Comte 
 de Chambord. 
 
 But they appreciated their duty differently. They 
 were possessed with the Christian thought of giving 
 their hearts and minds, and in due measure their 
 purses, to ' levelling up ' the working men of Europe. 
 Not less than Montalembert, if not according to his 
 phraseology, they were of those who think that only 
 ' on the good in man can the better be built.' They 
 determined to found clubs where men of goodwill, in 
 whatever class, might be welcomed by the title of 
 common respect and Catholic faith. The idea was 
 formulated two days before Christmas, 1871. It was 
 taken up eagerly and with brilliant success, though 
 later on, when the blouses found that revolution or 
 the desire for unearned cakes and ale was combated 
 by the leaders, and that a return to a wiser past in 
 social affairs was recommended rather than novelties, 
 the popularity of the clubs did not increase as at 
 the first, though they still keep alive in every con- 
 siderable French town the tradition and practice of 
 good work and righteous ' patronage.' 
 
 The 'great event' of which Mrs. Craven wrote refers 
 to the death, at Chislehurst, of the Emperor Napoleon.
 
 1 873] CERCLES CATHOLIQUES 333 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 PARIS, 
 
 ' January 13, 1873. 
 
 ' I wish you had not been so brave, and had remained 
 on here a few days longer at a really very interesting 
 meeting, which took place at Vaugirard for the inauguration 
 of another cercle cTouvriers in that part of the world. The 
 Archbishop presided, and Albert de Mun made a brilliant 
 speech, which I wish you had heard. I had never myself 
 heard him speak in public before, and I was amazed at his 
 eloquence, moved by his deep conviction, and pleased at 
 his wonderfully beautiful and fluent language. It was cer- 
 tainly most singular to look at this good-looking young man 
 in his dragoon's uniform, holding forth, I assure you, ni plus 
 ni mains than if he had been preaching from the pulpit, 
 with the name of our Saviour and that of Catholicism on 
 his lips, without a vestige of respect of persons indeed, per- 
 haps a little too much in the opposite extreme. I belong to 
 another school, and there is, I think, something in his 
 daring which might have the effect of provoking enmity 
 instead of disarming it. I am not quite sure that the kind 
 old Archbishop in his answer did not give a gentle hint to 
 that effect ; nevertheless, it was on the whole most interest- 
 ing, and to me most satisfactory. There was also some- 
 thing peculiar about it which I wish you had seen. They 
 had all been standing on a platform against a dark-red 
 curtain, which, when all the speeches were over, was with- 
 drawn, and there was an altar lighted up, and the Benedic- 
 tion was given, the large tent in which all this was taking 
 place assuming in a moment the look of a church filled 
 with a certainly most edifying congregation, workmen, 
 soldiers, ladies and gentlemen, looking equally devout. 
 
 ' The great event which has happened since your return
 
 334 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1873 
 
 to England has produced, I think, more sensation here 
 than is admitted. We are in such wretched hands at pre- 
 sent, and, in spite of M. le Play's hopefulness, the future is 
 so dark that the immense amount of insult which has been 
 heaped on the Emperor is now remembered with something 
 like compunction.'
 
 [335 ] 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 MRS. CRAVEN writes in January, 1873 : 
 
 'All those whom party spirit has not turned mad here 
 are deeply touched at the behaviour of the English to the 
 dying and dead Emperor. We have gone farther, to fare 
 so very much worse, that we have no reason not to be 
 thankful that some homage should be paid to him ; and on 
 the whole it has been looked upon by all those I saw as a 
 demonstration very creditable to England. From the 
 French account of the Agricultural strike, I felt all on their 
 side. Yet attending the London meeting seems on the 
 part of our Archbishop (Manning) an odd proceeding. 
 What does he mean by it ? and how is it judged ? May 
 one be a Radical though not a Liberal ? . . . Let me thank 
 you for the enclosed letter, which interested me deeply, as 
 Mr. A. de Vere's letters always do. ... They do one the 
 same good, morally and spiritually, as climbing a high 
 mountain, and breathing the air at the top of it, does to 
 one's health.' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 PARIS, 
 
 ' March 13, 1873- 
 
 ' I do wish that I could talk to you instead of writing ; 
 there is so much to talk about, and so little that it is
 
 336 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1873 
 
 possible even to effleurer in a letter. I thank you very 
 much indeed for the number of the fortnightly ; painful, 
 dreadfully painful, as it is to realize the state of mind of 
 those whose principal organ it is. That article " Are we 
 Christians?" is astounding as a revelation of the state of the 
 atmosphere in which such statements can be made without 
 contradiction, and in itself more astounding still. ... Is it 
 not enough that a man should say gravely (as if he were 
 talking sense) that " Comte kept up the practice of prayer, 
 although he denied that there was a God and Creator to 
 whom those prayers could be addressed," and that as a 
 homage to humanity he used to make this prayer of his by 
 the side of a woman's dead body ! If absurdity does not 
 refute itself by simply being so expressed, I see no hope, as 
 certainly something is amiss with the brain of those bold 
 deniers, and as a punishment for having trifled with // ben 
 deir intelletto they have lost it ! . . . 
 
 ' Sit down at once and tell me all you think about the 
 Irish Education Bill, which is throwing you into a crise. 
 From I,ady Georgiana Fullerton I had one view of the case, 
 and that view is yours, probably, as I see that the whole of 
 Catholic and clerical Ireland is banded with rabid " No 
 Popery" Conservatives and infidel Radicals to oppose it, and 
 that the result is the fall of the one Ministry which in our 
 life-time has appeared (to us spectators on this side of the 
 Channel) to have honestly and truly wished well and done 
 good to Ireland ! All this requires to be explained to me. 
 We in France (Catholic though it is) have had to accept 
 gratefully such compromises, to put up with such difficulties, 
 and even to run such risks, in order to secure something 
 like a Catholic education, that we cannot understand the 
 tout ou rien system which prevails in all religious matters 
 (Catholic) both in Ireland and in England. . . . 
 
 ' We had Monseigneur Maret at dinner a few days ago, and
 
 1 873] ELOQUENCE OF COUNT DE MUN 337 
 
 most charming, interesting, and edifying he was. I wished 
 every present or possible " Old Catholic" had heard him ! 
 It would have taught them what is meant by the words faith, 
 submission, and humility. But I also longed that some of 
 our friends had been present to be reminded of what is 
 meant, on the other hand, by charity and liberty in the right 
 and Catholic sense of the word.' 
 
 Writing on April 19, 1873, the shrewd sense and 
 true moderation of Mrs. Craven rebels against the 
 idolatry of ideals which is shown when excellent but 
 fanatic men prefer the logic of their own conclusions, 
 too frequently based on mistaken premises, to the 
 logic of facts. Mrs. Craven could not ' feel at 
 home ' among those who support the ' no com- 
 promise system.' 
 
 ' And now I ask, she says, What have we gained 
 by it ? The close of the Monarchical Assembly is 
 approaching, how have we used our opportunity ? I 
 am looked upon as tres terre a terre, and as relying 
 on human means, and in fact there is no reasoning 
 at present with anyone. Never in all my life, during 
 which, alas ! party spirit has been active enough in 
 France, do I remember anything like what it is at 
 present. 
 
 ' My nephew, Count Albert de Mun, has lately 
 been speaking very well indeed at a reunion d'ouvriers, 
 and it is delightful to me to hear him, and to hear 
 people say around me, " C'est bien la le fils 
 d' Eugenie !" But two days afterwards the poor 
 fellow lost his eldest boy, who died of one of those 
 pernicious sore throats that have been so prevalent 
 in Paris, and have carried off so many children. He 
 
 VOL. I. 22
 
 338 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1873 
 
 had spoken of resignation with great eloquence on 
 that Sunday, and on the following Tuesday he was 
 called upon to realize the full meaning of the word. 
 This sad reason kept me away from the Academic, 
 where the Due d'Aumale had kindly kept for me one 
 of the best places in the " centre." I should have 
 enjoyed greatly that seance, and it was really an 
 effort to give it up. It was most interesting, by all 
 accounts, and I thought the speech an excellent one. 
 So did Mme. de Montalembert, the best judge of all. 
 It was also, they say, charmingly delivered, and 
 even the Legitimists present admitted that it had 
 been " digne d'un Prince, d'un Bourbon, et d'un 
 Chretien." '* 
 
 To print all the letters during these years from 
 Mrs. Craven to her friend in England would be 
 almost to supply a political history of the Republic, 
 but that were beyond the limits of this work. The 
 reader may be referred to M. de Falloux's ' Memoires 
 d'un Royaliste ' for an account of the period. Mrs. 
 Craven's ideas largely sympathized with his. 
 
 In one letter she wrote : * Poor dear Castagneto is 
 sold, and I am bound to refrain from grieving at the 
 thoughts of never seeing it again. It is sold very 
 badly too, but it could not be helped ; the Neapolitans 
 of this period travel in the summer, and villas are 
 no longer in request. I never wrote anything worth 
 reading except in that gray room. I wonder 
 whether I ever shall anywhere else ?' 
 
 There could not but be a certain ground-swell 
 
 * It was the occasion of the Due d'Aumale's reception by the 
 French Academy. He succeeded to the chair of the Comte de 
 Montalembert.
 
 1873] FORGED SPEECH OF MGR. STROSSMAYER 339 
 
 throughout the Catholic world after the storms of 
 1870, and Mrs. Craven was sensitive to the un- 
 generous tone used by parties outside the Church, 
 and, indeed, by some of its own sons who were still 
 sore from blows taken and received in the great dis- 
 putes of the Vatican Council. Monseigneur Stross- 
 mayer, the Bishop of Bosnia, had been her friend ; 
 Montalembert had named him as ' un vrai pasteur 
 des ames,' and he was a prominent figure of the 
 minority. Efforts had been persistently made to 
 minimize his final submission to the decree of the un- 
 concluded Council which defined Papal Infallibility. 
 False views of his action were prevalent, not only 
 among ' Old Catholics,' but among Anglicans, to 
 whom a flaw in the Catholic armour was welcome. 
 A translation in English of what proved to be a 
 gross forgery was circulated in the press, and ap- 
 peared in a Kentish paper. The Rev. Joseph Searle, 
 parish priest at Tunbridge Wells, drew the attention 
 of Mrs. Craven's correspondent to the mischief that 
 it was doing. She mentioned the use made of 
 Monseigneur Strossmayer's name to Mrs. Craven, 
 who wrote, with a tinge of impatience that such 
 forgeries should be possible : 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 'June 8, 1873. 
 
 'The speech is a complete forgery. It has been denied 
 in the German newspapers by Monseigneur Strossmayer 
 himself, and I hope to get for you the German paper in 
 which the denial was published. The Bishop of Kerry,* 
 
 * Dr Moriarty, one of the most distinguished Irish bishops, 
 who supported the arguments of the minority at the Council.
 
 340 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1873 
 
 who was here and dined with us yesterday, had read the 
 supposed speech, and was astonished that anyone could 
 believe it. 
 
 ' I dined at the English Embassy on Tuesday, and met a 
 number of acquaintances of whose presence in Paris I was 
 ignorant Mr. and Mrs. Ellis, Lady M. Beaumont, Lady 
 Louisa Mills, Lady Wharncliffe, Mr. ffrench, and many 
 others, not one of them seemingly having got hold of any 
 other view than that of our ingratitude to M. Thiers ! I 
 hate his being held cheap now, and turned into ridicule, 
 but if what the Assembly has done is ungrateful, then it is 
 ungrateful to jump out of a carriage that is being driven 
 towards a precipice ; it may be dangerous to do so, and 
 very difficult to get another coachman safely on the box, 
 but when the thing is accomplished, when not the smallest 
 illegality has been committed, no harm done to anyone, 
 except to the party of actual destroyers, and when for once 
 French partisans from true patriotism have given up party 
 spirit (that fatal curse of France), it is hard to get no credit 
 for it, and to find it almost impossible to get even a hearing 
 for one's reasons. ... On the other hand, I don't know 
 England either, if people are right in attributing these 
 opinions to her jealousy of us and fear of our reviving, and 
 wishing us to be a second-rate Power like herself. In the 
 first place, I don't believe that she has this humble opinion 
 of herself, and for my part I don't think she ought to have 
 it. I have lived in Palmerstonian days, when " the strong 
 arm and the vigilant eye of England " were everywhere, and 
 I remember that the result for herself was, to be more hated 
 than feared, and to be to other countries very questionably 
 useful by her interference, so that in that respect I like the 
 present system best. I don't think, either, that envy or 
 mean fear of another's advantage are among England's 
 faults.'
 
 [ 34i ] 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 From Mr. Craven to Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 1 PARIS, 
 
 'June 24, 1873. 
 
 ' I enclose the article contained in the number of the 
 Cologne Volkszeitung of February 16 last, with Bishop 
 Strossmayer's peremptory denial of the absurd speech 
 attributed to him by some ignorant but wicked enemy of 
 the Church, and published as having been pronounced by 
 him within the walls of the Vatican Council. In Germany, 
 where it appears to have originated, the invention was of 
 short duration, and had scarcely appeared (six months ago), 
 when Bishop Strossmayer, in reply to the laconic question 
 of a friend whether or no there was any truth in the story, 
 returned by telegraph the equally laconic answer, " Most 
 decidedly not, nor on any other occasion whatever \nein 
 und nie\ The decrees of the Council are published " 
 thereby on the one hand disclaiming the heretical 
 language placed on his lips, and on the other manifesting 
 and proclaiming his submission to the Vatican decrees, by 
 publishing them in his own diocese.' 
 
 The writer of this memoir was honoured by an 
 autograph letter in the same sense from Bishop 
 Strossmayer, and Mrs. Craven writes :
 
 342 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1873 
 
 ' MONABRI, 
 
 'July 14, 1873. 
 
 'You have indeed succeeded at last, and I wish on all 
 occasions we could obtain such a satisfactory result. . . . And 
 now, don't you think it wonderful, after all we saw and 
 heard and feared at Rome, that the whole Church, the 
 Episcopate without any exception, should now be gathered 
 round the Pope, more strongly united than they ever were 
 before ? Don't you feel that this is a case in which there is 
 great pleasure in humbling one's self, and in acknowledging 
 the vanity of one's own little personal opinions ? It is such 
 a comfort, after all, to be leaning on something so much 
 greater and stronger than one's self. 
 
 ' On my way here I stopped a day at Paray-le-Monial, and 
 I don't know when and where I ever spent such another. 
 In old days at Rome, perhaps, on one or two occasions, but 
 nowhere else. . . . My friend here, Princess Leonille Witt- 
 genstein, who is a fervent convert, has an idea of organizing 
 a meeting at Paray-le-Monial of pilgrim-converts of all 
 nations, as a sort of public and general act of thanksgiving 
 and homage of the many who within the last twenty years 
 have joined the Catholic Church. Don't you think it a fine 
 idea? though, of course, it would be misunderstood, as 
 everything is by scoffing on-lookers. Anyhow, it is impos- 
 sible to over-rate the striking character of what has just 
 taken place in France. When 15,000 people at a time 
 arrive from long distances by crowded trains, and all arrive 
 fasting in order to receive Holy Communion on their arrival, 
 there is, to say the least, something very uncommon in this 
 fact. It proves them, at all events, to be very much in 
 earnest, and puts an end to all idea of its being nothing but 
 une partie de plaisir, as some have called these excursions. 
 Indeed, for most of the pilgrims there were hardships and
 
 1 8?3] PARAY LE MONIAL 
 
 343 
 
 difficulties of all sorts to put up with. I thought of you a 
 great deal when I was at Paray, and wished you had been 
 there to describe it all.' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' LA ROCHE-EN-BRENY, 
 
 'August^, 1873. 
 
 'And now in reply to the part of your letter con- 
 cerning Paray. I think the best thing I can do is to send 
 you my article on the pilgrimage. I felt that my day at 
 Paray had been both delightful and useful, and that it had 
 made me enter more deeply into the real meaning of the 
 devotion to the Sacred Heart ; and I believe it is the same 
 with all those great devotions fully sanctioned by the Church 
 (which is not the case with many of those which yet are 
 dear to many Catholics). I believe that we at first take to 
 them like children, simply through obedience and imitation 
 of the example of others, and then, when we get a stronger 
 intellect and more real knowledge, we plunge deeper into 
 the immensity of their meaning. It is so for the devotion 
 to the Blessed Virgin or to the Blessed Sacrament, and it is 
 so also, it appears to me, for this very dear devotion to the 
 Heart which has been so properly called "le foyer de 
 1'amour eternel." ' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris, 
 
 1 LUMIGNY, 
 
 ' November 21, 1873. 
 
 ' You know how patient I am with English absurdities ; 
 but, on the whole, I think the English people have the 
 best notion of what justice and fair play mean (often and 
 often as they fail to act up to that notion). But at this 
 moment they try me beyond all endurance, on all subjects, 
 or, at least, on three principal ones : (i) The Fusion and
 
 344 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1873 
 
 French politics ; (2) the German persecutions of the Church ; 
 (3) the pilgrimages.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven's letters during the following months 
 relate chiefly to the personal affliction suffered by the 
 writer in the death of her dear friend, Mrs. Burrowes, 
 who died on October 9. In one only is there a flash 
 of Mrs. Craven's indignation at the final failure of 
 the Bourbon fusion, and the tone of the English 
 press on it and on other subjects important to her. 
 
 From her visits in Switzerland and Burgundy Mrs. 
 Craven returned to a different apartment in the Rue 
 de Miromesnil. It was somewhat larger than that 
 in the Boulevard Malesherbes, and in the same 
 neighbourhood. After her re-establishment in Paris, 
 she devoted herself to writing a new story, which 
 she had promised to the editor of the Correspondant 
 for March, 1874. Many cares were again thickening 
 around her, and pressed heavily on her for more than 
 five years after this date. The little capital put 
 together by the sale of private effects waned, and no 
 permanent income was secured. 
 
 To Mr. Craven it was especially hard to see his 
 dear and noble wife denying herself in daily trifles, 
 by which her family affections and her ordinary 
 tastes were constantly cramped. Many of us suffer 
 little or nothing when we renounce a visit to a friend 
 or a relation, when we cannot afford to please our- 
 selves by the usual gifts, and where almost necessary 
 hospitality has to be restricted. But to both Mr. 
 and Mrs. Craven such complete abandonment of 
 their social traditions was specially disheartening, 
 nor had he, perhaps, the will and somewhat stern
 
 1 874] 'LE MOT DE L'ENIGME' 
 
 345 
 
 courage that could have established them in a 
 position absolutely suited to their resources. 
 
 In the following May Mrs. Craven so required rest 
 and change (for she had had a return of the aguish 
 attack which was a legacy of her Italian evenings), 
 that she came to England for a few visits. Hampton 
 Court, Wrest Park, the Norman Tower at Windsor, 
 Hampden and Holland House, had the happiness of 
 receiving her. When the writer of this memoir saw 
 her at Holland House she looked harassed and 
 weary. A topic she and her friend had at heart was 
 her very remarkable novel ' Le Mot de 1'enigme.' 
 For a true estimate of Mrs. Craven's character, this 
 should be, perhaps, more studied than any of her 
 literary work. It belongs to that epoch of her life 
 when existence was to her more intense, and its 
 circumstances were more real and more closely 
 enfolding her, than even during her hours at Boury, 
 her English experiences, her intellectual and political, 
 or even her theological, phases. The book recalls 
 the free individuality of her Neapolitan life, where 
 there was less of convention and less regard for the 
 pasteboard effects of the daily comedy of society, 
 than in England or in the Faubourg St. Germain. 
 The social sea at Naples was by no means smooth. 
 Passion and whim, tragic emotion and all the situa- 
 tions of drama, abounded in the last years of Bourbon 
 rule. Mrs. Craven was the guiding star to many 
 adrift on the waves, incomparably pure and yet 
 helpful, ' a spirit yet a woman too,' who could give 
 free rein to all her impulses because they were so 
 right. Her keenly sympathetic and artistic nature
 
 346 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1874 
 
 was in Italy at its fullest stretch. There is a pulse 
 of her beating heart in her letters to the Duchesse 
 Ravaschieri which is hardly felt elsewhere. Lina 
 lived, Lina died, and the rift made in the surface of 
 Mrs. Craven's life by her loss gives us insight into 
 the earnestness of passion which gleams in ' Le Mot 
 de 1'enigme. In the book she had for once slightly 
 lifted the veil always drawn round herself. Many 
 of its strangest circumstances are literal facts. Her 
 other novels are delightful essays in conventional 
 romance founded on wide social experience. ' Le 
 Mot de l'6nigme ' is written without a purpose, 
 other than that of telling the truth in a circum- 
 stance where supernatural influences controlled 
 natural emotions. An altogether higher region 
 is entered with a doubled effect upon the Neapolitan 
 background. It is the region where faith protects 
 morals, rather than where morals patronize faith. 
 It is not perhaps strange that the book missed the 
 crown of the Academic, and puzzled and some- 
 what startled many of Mrs. Craven's habitual 
 readers.
 
 [347] 
 
 XXV. 
 
 DURING the winter of 1873-74 Mrs. Craven had 
 renewed what had been a slight acquaintance with, 
 perhaps, the most sympathetic of those admirers 
 who, while not Catholic, understand the value of 
 ' Le Recit.' 
 
 Few circumstances afforded Mrs. Craven greater 
 pleasure than to find the story of her family appre- 
 ciated as it deserved. She had braved much in 
 publishing it to a world like that of the Faubourg 
 St. Germain, where the word ' love ' had to be used 
 under protest, and always qualified as the love of 
 God, or the love of relations, or the love of humanity. 
 Love considered as the highest of emotions was 
 held in that society to be a highly dangerous explo- 
 sive. Good mothers belonging to it had even been 
 heard to say they should prefer that their girls 
 should read Paul de Kock rather than that mar- 
 vellous history of passion as it can be, the altar-flame 
 of sacrifice. 
 
 Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff has been good enough 
 to write a note of his early acquaintance with Mrs. 
 Craven, which is subjoined :
 
 348 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1874 
 
 Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff to the writer of this 
 Memoir. 
 
 'YORK HOUSE, TWICKENHAM, 
 ' MIDDLESEX, 
 
 'January 19, 1893. 
 
 ' MY DEAR MRS. BISHOP, 
 
 ' My interest in Mrs. Craven was first excited by a 
 friend, whose opinion I respected, telling me, early in the 
 sixties, that she was the cleverest woman he had ever met. 
 Soon after this I met Mr. Craven in London, but his wife 
 was not then, I believe, in England. In 1866 I read at 
 the Athenaeum an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, by 
 Monte"gut, called, I think, " Un Amour Chretien," and found 
 it exceedingly interesting ; but I was overwhelmed at the 
 time with work of a kind to absorb all my thoughts, and the 
 whole subject of Mrs. Craven and her book went quite out 
 of my mind, never returning to it till, on June 12, 1872, 
 I met her at breakfast at our friend Lord Emly's. She 
 seemed to me quite charming, and we had a good deal of 
 talk, but I did not again come into relation with her or her 
 circle of ideas and interests till about a year had gone by. 
 At the Whitsuntide of 1873 my wife and I went abroad for 
 the Parliamentary recess with two of the most agreeable 
 companions Europe could furnish Lubbock and Hooker. 
 We had a delightful little tour among the extinct volcanoes 
 of the Eifel, and some specially pleasant spring botanizing 
 in the Valley of the Aar. It was on my way back from this 
 little interlude to the House of Commons and the India 
 Office that I bought at the railway-station in Brussels the 
 " Recit d'une Sceur." 
 
 'You know the rest. You know that, although I be- 
 longed and belong to a school of opinion widely different 
 from that to which Mrs. Craven and those whose story she
 
 1 874] MRS. CRAVEN'S NEW FRIEND 349 
 
 has told were so devoted, it would be hardly possible for 
 anyone to admire her book more than I do. 
 
 ' It seems to me that if the Catholic Church could say 
 nothing more for itself than, " At least I produced the ' Re'cit 
 d'une Sceur,' " it would have proved its right to be con- 
 sidered one of the greatest benefactors of mankind. 
 
 ' It is close now on twenty years since I first read the 
 " Recit." I have re-read it, in whole and in part, Heaven 
 only knows how often and the charm is no degree less 
 strong than it was at first. 
 
 ' Send me any other questions ; I shall be delighted to 
 reply, and believe me, 
 
 ' Affectionately yours, 
 
 ' M. E. GRANT DUFF.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven's first letter to her new friend follows: 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ' February 10, 1874. 
 
 ' What I feel most touched by and most thankful for, in 
 the letter I have just received from you, is your saying that 
 the " Recit d'une Soeur " is not a book. You know, there- 
 fore, also that you are not receiving at this moment the 
 thanks of an author. But as you feel also (for no one 
 seems to have sympathized with rne so thoroughly) that 
 there must have been on my part a great deal of reluctance 
 and of dread to overcome before I could bring myself to 
 publish a story so dear, so intime, so thoroughly my own, 
 you must understand how deeply thankful I am when I 
 find that I did well to overcome that reluctance, and that I 
 was justified in introducing my dear beloved ones to many 
 who never knew them upon earth, and in hoping that the 
 recollection of their lives might be useful and consoling to 
 others beside myself.
 
 350 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1874 
 
 c I have to thank you from my heart for giving me this 
 assurance. 
 
 ' I hope to see you soon, either here or in England, and 
 then I can say to you what I will not now attempt to write. 
 
 ' Thank you for remembering what yesterday and this 
 day are to me. . . . 
 
 ' Mr. Craven begs to be most kindly remembered to you. 
 He has never forgotten meeting you at Sir John Simeon's } 
 any more than I have our breakfast at Lord Emly's eighteen 
 months ago." 
 
 In the following letter to Mr. Grant Duff, Mrs. 
 Craven lays one of the corner-stones on which their 
 future unchanging friendship was based. She re- 
 solved that he should not misunderstand her in 
 questions of her faith, the ultimate interest to which 
 all others were subordinated. 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 l i$a, GROSVENOR SQUARE, 
 
 ' LONDON, 1874. 
 
 ' I have read, and, moreover, understood, the whole of 
 your speech that is, as much as I ever understand anything 
 that relates to financial matters,, but enough to feel that you 
 are arguing in the sense with which I always sympathize ; 
 and although I could not take in all you say about the 
 means in discussion, I feel that your aim is good and great, 
 and that you are quite right. But you say that on these 
 matters the mot de Venigme has not been spoken yet. I 
 wish you believed, as I do, that on some other and far 
 greater ones, it has. You tell me that those are regions 
 beyond science ; so I say also, only it seems to me that the 
 man of science who ignores these regions deprives his 
 intellect and his soul of their proper food, and is less reason- 
 able than the man who, whilst plunging in the deepest in-
 
 1 874] REGIONS BEYOND SCIENCE 
 
 vestigations of science, still knows that they will not reveal 
 to him anything concerning that great inward world which 
 everyone feels (whatever may be said about it) to be more 
 interesting and important to all of us than the whole of the 
 marvellous outward world. 
 
 ' As to Ginevra, her story is true at least, that part of it 
 that seems the most incredible. I heard it from the lips of 
 one to whom this great grace (as I call it) was granted. I 
 am absolutely certain of her veracity. I witnessed the 
 durable effects of that one moment's illumination, and I 
 don't think it would have been easy to persuade her that all 
 these results were only produced by " some subtle working 
 of her own brain." ' 
 
 The next letter is to Miss O'Connor Morris : 
 
 ' MONABRI, 
 
 ' August 22, 1874. 
 
 ' No, my dearest friend, I don't suppose that in real life 
 Lorenzo ought to die (is this to be called Irish 1scusate) ; 
 he dies, indeed, in my story simply because Ginevra could 
 not otherwise have refused Gilbert. And besides this, as 
 there is no time to develop the character of Lorenzo under 
 its second aspect, it seemed to me in keeping with the im- 
 pression already produced (and perhaps the real truth of 
 such a character), that a long spell of uniformity and happi- 
 ness would be dangerous for him ; and if so, it seems to me 
 a rather original and not an improbable trait that he should 
 feel this himself, and see that the safest thing for him was 
 to die. An English friend of mine writes to me that she 
 thinks Gilbert "rather shadowy, whereas Lorenzo is de- 
 cidedly flesh and blood," which criticism had also, I believe, 
 suggested itself to you ; but, on the whole, I rather take it 
 as a compliment, for Gilbert was not intended to monopolize 
 the interest of the reader. The story is not that of his
 
 352 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1874 
 
 struggle, but of Ginevra's ; and if he only can be felt to be 
 attractive enough to justify her temptation, it makes it not 
 an improbable one. It was enough ; I intended no more. 
 
 ' I am much the better for my stay in this delightful 
 place. The mountains and the blue water recall Neapolitan 
 reminiscences, and I enjoy this spell of repose. . . . The 
 Empress of Germany has been here (in this chalet) on a 
 visit of three days to my friend, and we had some very 
 interesting conversations. I think that no woman in her 
 station ever got less of the credit she really deserves for the 
 noblest qualities of heart and mind. But when en scene she 
 is rather affected looks as if she made " phrases," and is 
 not her real self as I have seen her here. Yesterday we 
 had a visit from M. de Charette, fresh from the Catholic 
 meeting at Geneva.' 
 
 To Miss O'Connor Morris. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ' October 15, 1874. 
 
 ' In general, I have no belief in the close union of 
 Catholicism with any political party whatever ; and when 
 one thinks of what the Bourbons of Spain in particular 
 were, it seems to me the most arrogant mistake to identify 
 their cause with that of the Church. I, for my part, have 
 no idea, and, indeed, no wish, that the Pope should recover 
 his independence and the necessary power to govern the 
 Catholic world through the interference of any foreign army. 
 The day of his liberty will come assuredly, but I cannot 
 imagine that it will be brought about in that manner, and I 
 don't think it possible to do more injury to Catholicism 
 than by making it one with Carlism. Besides all this, if I 
 must tell you all, I should have admired Don Carlos' 
 determination if, in the distracted state of Spain (at his first 
 appearance in the northern provinces), he had been able to 
 march to Madrid in other words, if outside these provinces
 
 1874] THE CARLIST METHODS 
 
 353 
 
 he had succeeded in winning partisans, and when all Govern- 
 ment was upset, established his own. But I confess that, 
 having utterly failed in doing this, this frightful and useless 
 slaughter horrifies and disgusts me, and when I hear of 
 mitrailleuses being ordered to exterminate more of his sub- 
 jects before he can succeed in reaching his (!) throne, I feel 
 that the time is past for that sort of thing, and I don't believe 
 that any French Royalist, for instance, would accept the 
 restoration of Henri V. at such a price ! . . . I am, at last, 
 quite myself again, though I had two or three touches of 
 fever even in the pure delightful air of Switzerland. . . . The 
 " Mot de 1'enigme " makes its way as far as readers go ; it 
 has gone through five editions already. But le monde des 
 journalistes seems to have determined to spare me no longer, 
 and to put an end to me if they can. There have been 
 most spiteful articles, not critical, which I could bear to any 
 amount, but personally abusive, apropos of this book, and 
 one of these writers has really devoted four pages to nothing 
 else but abuse. It is my first trial of that sort. What 
 makes it worse is that those detractors belong to what I 
 must call my own party. It is a symptom of the ill temper 
 everybody is in now. So much hatred pervades the atmo- 
 sphere that there are no harmless topics ; everything gets 
 heated by that cruel fire.' 
 
 In a letter to Miss O'Connor Morris, Mrs. Craven 
 wrote : 
 
 ' LUMIGNY, 
 
 ' September^), 1874. 
 
 ' We have had here in this milieu (the most French in the 
 world) two visitors of an unusual sort (and very different 
 from one another), in the shape of Lady Herbert of Lea, 
 who caused great admiration here by her beauty and her 
 eloquence, and my friend (or, rather, Alexandrine's friend), 
 
 VOL. I. 2 3
 
 354 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 Mr. Grant Duff, who, still continuing to care about the 
 " Re"cit d'une Soeur " in the same strange way, came here 
 for no other purpose but to visit Eugenie's tomb and the 
 place that was her home. He is on his way to India now. 
 He left me the number of the Fortnightly Review of this 
 month, in which there is an article of his, where I find many 
 reminiscences of my books, and some even of my thoughts, 
 that is, of Catholic thought.' 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ' January 15, 1875. 
 
 'Your letter of November 17 from, the Agra Camp 
 reached me yesterday, and if this reply to it reaches you 
 quite as soon as it is now possible, I hope you will feel in- 
 clined to forgive me for not having written sooner. I 
 wished to do so, and I meant it, having a great deal to 
 thank you for, but I am not a good manager of time, which 
 all comes from my not getting up early enough, and so 
 losing those precious early hours of the day, during which, 
 according to Mme. Swetchine, " La qualite du temps est la 
 meilleure." But now let me tell you how grateful I was to 
 you for coming to Lumigny, and for your purpose in coming 
 there. I can't tell you how I feel this, nor can I tell you 
 either how often I am puzzled, and wonder at your sym- 
 pathy for all these dearest remembrances of my life, because 
 I cannot help always seeing and feeling that we are so very 
 wide apart on the very subjects which form to me the real 
 substance and raison d'etre of the " Recit." All this came 
 to my mind very much again when I read your excellent 
 reply to Cassandra.* How much I had to say, and wished 
 
 * An address delivered to the Philosophical Institution at 
 Edinburgh in reply to a work by Mr. W. R. Greg, entitled : 
 ' Rocks Ahead ; or, The Warnings of Cassandra' (1874).
 
 1 875] DEGREES OF HUMILITY 
 
 355 
 
 to write about it ! But now we must put that off till you 
 return in a few months, and I will tell you all I thought 
 about it; how pleased I was at some things, and then 
 grieved at others, especially as I know that no words can 
 express the motive of that grief or remove its cause. That 
 I was immensely flattered at your quotation from the " Mot 
 de I'dnigme," and more than flattered at your allusions to 
 the " Recit," I cannot deny, and this leads me to a little 
 digression. You must know that in a book (a great book 
 on subjects of high spirituality, whose author is Rodriguez,* 
 a compatriot of St. Teresa), it is said that the first degree of 
 humility is to receive abuse without emotion ; the second 
 and highest, to receive praise with indifference. Well, I 
 find that I have only reached No. i, as your praise of that 
 one good thing I have done in my life gives me a great deal 
 more pleasure than I have felt pain at the extraordinary 
 abuse that has been poured upon me since the publication 
 of the " Mot de 1'enigme." on which occasion one critic has 
 really exhausted the French language in his invectives 
 against me, both literary and personal. I cannot say how 
 much the account of your journey as far as Agra interested 
 me. The Taj, to my shame be it said, I had never read a 
 description of, till your mention of it made me look for one, 
 and now I am expecting yours with impatience. It is so 
 pleasant that some people who know how to look at things 
 should travel for the benefit of those who stay at home. 
 You must feel that you are doing good to others as well as 
 to yourself. 
 
 'I should like to fancy the impression produced by 
 Mr. Gladstone's singular onslaught upon us when heard of 
 for the first time under an Indian sky. I cannot help 
 
 * Blessed Alfonsus Rodriguez, S.J., born at Valladolid in 
 1526, died in 1616, the well-known author of the 'Practice of 
 Christian Perfection.'
 
 356 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 fancying and hoping that I am not quite mistaken as to 
 your appreciation of the vagary. 
 
 ' Apropos of that, I am now writing a few pages, which, if 
 they are not torn up long before you return, you will have 
 to read patiently.' 
 
 In January, 1875, the writer of this memoir spent, 
 after her marriage, a fortnight in Paris, during which 
 she frequently saw Mrs. Craven, and one night en- 
 joyed in her and Mr. Craven's company a good 
 representation of ' Les Precieuses Ridicules ' at the 
 Comedie Frangaise. As she watched Mrs. Craven's 
 face, it was not difficult to conceive her past suc- 
 cesses in comedy. Every point was seized ; each 
 detail of the finished acting was appreciated with as 
 hearty approval as if she had never seen it before. 
 
 Yet at that time Mr. and Mrs. Craven were living 
 with no certainty of income. The arrangements 
 which finally secured them an annuity in lieu of the 
 Margravine of Anspach's claim were not concluded. 
 The German Emperor and the English Foreign 
 Office supported their contention, but the Bavarian 
 Government still held back. 
 
 Meantime, Mrs. Craven's pen was busy. The 
 article published by Mr. Gladstone in the Contem- 
 porary Review of October, 1874, entitled ' Ritualism 
 and Ritual,' roused the well-known controversy on the 
 loyalty of Catholics to their Queen and country. The 
 article, which caused many protests from Catholics, 
 was followed on November 7 by a pamphlet, 
 in which Mr. Gladstone analyzed the decrees of 
 the Vatican Council and the Syllabus as having
 
 i8?5] LOYALTY OF ENGLISH CATHOLICS 
 
 357 
 
 imposed a contradictory allegiance on English 
 citizens. It is interesting to find Mrs. Craven 
 eagerly defending the true sense of the Papal action. 
 Always recognising that it was not for her to discuss 
 any abstruse rights of the Church, she contented 
 herself with a sketch of the effects of Mr. Gladstone's 
 revival of English prejudices. In a brief but ad- 
 mirable account of the part played by Catholics 
 since England separated her ecclesiastical system 
 from that of Rome, Mrs. Craven, quoting several 
 historical documents, efficiently asserts Catholic 
 loyalty in every national crisis. 
 
 Her paper appeared in the Correspondent for 
 January 25, 1875, on the same day as did Cardinal 
 Newman's letter to the Duke of Norfolk, to be again 
 followed by Mr. Gladstone's 'Vaticanism.' Mrs. 
 Craven the wish being father to the thought- 
 believed that she saw in Mr. Gladstone's tone some 
 leaning towards Newman's faith, a belief which has, 
 alas ! not since been verified. 
 
 To Mrs. Bishop. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ' February 3, 1875. 
 
 ' This article of mine is liked here by many people and 
 criticised by others. One man said to me that, " though 
 he could only glance at my novels and had not quite got 
 through any of them, he had devoured these pages," and 
 ''that I had better stick to that sort of thing." Another 
 found fault with them as being un-French, which puzzled 
 me very much, until it struck me that I ought to have ex- 
 plained in a note (which I thought useless) that loyalty in 
 English does not mean loyauti. I had said as much, as I 
 thought, in the text, but it appears that I did not sufficiently
 
 358 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 remember Montalembert's advice, which was " to treat one's 
 readers as if they knew nothing, and explain everything to 
 them." (He made me add a note in the " Recit " to say who 
 Mine, la Dauphine, the daughter of Louis XVI., was !) . . . 
 Lord Lyons, with whom we dined yesterday at the Embassy, 
 was rather ungracious about the article, which I had sent 
 him, thinking him fair-minded enough to read it patiently. 
 He said things that really made me imagine those state- 
 ments were quite new to him, and that he thought them 
 exaggerated. It was pleasant to remember that I was sup- 
 ported in the most important ones by Fox, Hume, and 
 Burke.' 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 '^75,1875. 
 
 ' I send you by this day's post the pamphlet I spoke of, 
 and which I very much wish Mr. Gladstone to read. I 
 think he is fair enough to consent to do so, and it is written 
 in such good Italian that he will not, I think, find it a tire- 
 some task. The author of it is an Oratorian, a great friend 
 of mine a man equal to Newman in learning, talent, 
 moderation, and excellence, and also, like him, a great 
 master of his own language. I always dream of a time 
 when such minds as his and Mr Gladstone's, and the many 
 who are at present at war, simply because they do not under- 
 stand each other I dream, I say, of a time when, at all 
 events, misunderstandings will cease. There will always be 
 enough real well-founded animosity and hatred, alas ! in the 
 world, even when there is none of it wasted upon those 
 whom it would be possible to like and to approve of, even if 
 one did not agree with them."
 
 [359] 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 THE illness of the Comtesse Charles de la Ferronnays, 
 Mrs. Craven's widowed sister-in-law, who will be 
 remembered by readers of ' Le Recit ' as Emma, 
 detained Mrs. Craven in Paris in the following spring, 
 when she was to have come to London. In one of 
 her letters Mrs. Craven amusingly describes an old 
 friend who sympathized, as she thought, too de- 
 cidedly with Dr. Dollinger, but who would not allow 
 himself to be drawn into discussion, ' so, as they say 
 truly that " pour se quereller il faut etre deux," and 
 as he was determined not to " come on," I had to 
 pocket my pugnaciousness, which made me feel false 
 and not myself. I wish I could hope that his reluct- 
 ance to speak arose from the feeling that he had 
 nothing to say for himself. The ' Mot de l'6nigme ' 
 has found favour with readers, and more so than any 
 of my books, except " Le Recit." ' 
 
 To Mrs. Bishop. 
 
 ' MONABRI, 
 
 '/(K 14, 1875- 
 
 ' I should have answered your first letter before I received 
 your last, had I .not been exceedingly busy since I got to
 
 360 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 this place, where I have really nothing to do, and all my 
 time to myself. But I had got so incapable of writing, or 
 of doing anything, in Paris, that I quite seriously thought 
 the power of work and thought was gone from me. A few 
 days of perfect silence here, with a lovely view to look at, 
 and the knowledge beforehand that no one would trouble 
 me for three or four hours, have enabled me to resume my 
 attempt to write Natalie Narischkin's life, and I went on 
 with it for a few days without interruption and without 
 allowing myself to do anything else, "pour me refaire la 
 main" ; so now I have got your two letters, and I will 
 answer both at the same time ; the last, however, I have no 
 doubt Augustus has already answered, as he was sure to 
 know where F. Hecker was. My idea is that he is at 
 Ragatz. But I am very curious to know why Lord Emly 
 was so anxious to see him. The fate of his pamphlet has 
 hitherto been rather singular. I have met with people not 
 at all violent Ultramontanes, who thought it savoured of 
 novelty and liberalism of the wrong sort, whilst the extreme 
 ones of that party (I mean the Ultramontanes) praised it 
 and approved of it in all their papers.' 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' MONABRI, 
 
 'August ii, 1875. 
 
 ' I am quite ashamed of myself for not having thanked 
 you yet for the two last numbers of the Contemporary. I 
 go on reading your Indian notes with the utmost interest, 
 and bad as I am at realizing the description of any place I 
 have not seen, you have succeeded in making me feel as if 
 I had been to Jummoo, for instance, and to several other 
 places. As to the Taj, no stretch of imagination was needed to 
 follow your description of that, as I have it always before my 
 eyes on that pretty brooch which I never cease to admire.
 
 1875] THE EMPRESS AUGUSTA 
 
 361 
 
 ' Your recollection of the gravestone at Lumigny touched 
 me very much. I wish the sky over it was as blue as it is 
 over that other strange Indian tomb, which (by contrast) 
 recalled it to your mind.* It grieves me more than you 
 can imagine, that everything at Boury is so desolate. Often 
 and often have I had to comfort myself with the thought 
 that, at least, what I could do to honour those dear 
 memories I have done. However, since I have mentioned 
 Boury, I am sure you will be pleased to hear that I am at 
 last going to have a little my own way about it, and the 
 poor little churchyard is going to be restored to something 
 like what it was when Alexandrine used to go and sit there 
 every day ; it will soon now, I trust, look very different to 
 what it did when you saw it. ... 
 
 ' I am enjoying immensely my quiet stay in this lovely 
 place. We have had few visitors, though one of some im- 
 portance, since the Empress-Queen spent three days here 
 last week. She is the very great friend of my friend here, 
 and she comes to this chalet once a year. This is the 
 second time I have met her in this way, en tete a trois, and I 
 found her again, as I have done before, far above any of 
 the other women in her station in the world that I have 
 ever known anywhere. But, of course, in such times as 
 these, when from one reason or another there is less of 
 justice, perhaps, in these parts of Europe than there ever 
 was before, this opinion would, I suppose, be disputed by 
 many. ... I am going on with the life of another charm- 
 ing and holy friend of mine, but I am afraid Natalie 
 Narischkin will fail to please you.' 
 
 No literary labour could have been more agreeable 
 to Mrs. Craven than her life of the Sister of Charity, 
 Natalie Narischkin. It carried her back to the 
 * ' Notes of an Indian Journey,' by M. E. Grant Duff, p. 141-
 
 362 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 atmosphere of ' Le Recit,' for Natalie had been the 
 friend of Olga de la Ferronnays, and was one of 
 the two sisters whom to the last the dying girl hoped 
 to see, but who arrived at Brussels an hour too late. 
 Both were of the Russian Church, both became 
 Catholic, in spite of those national and political 
 difficulties which are more powerful than any theo- 
 logical reasons for the separation of the two great 
 Christian communities. Natalie had in time per- 
 ceived that, to use Mrs. Craven's words, ' La verite 
 connue oblige.' Soon after she entered the great 
 community founded by St. Vincent de Paul, and 
 immediately after her reception she was sent to visit 
 Mme. Albert de la Ferronnays. Two days later 
 Alexandrine died. Her last words to the novice 
 were, ' Happy girl !' It can be imagined how 
 beautiful is Mrs. Craven's treatment of her theme. 
 Already in ' Fleurange ' she had written nobly of 
 religious vocation, and probably in no work of hers 
 has she equalled the eloquent enthusiasm for the 
 beauty and good of human life displayed in " Natalie 
 Narischkin." One passage in it describes her own 
 work so well that it may be translated here : 
 
 ' The suffering of sacrifice can be loved and 
 become a thousand-fold more precious than pleasure. 
 This is to be learned in the study of holy souls of 
 whatever period ; and truly such study is more 
 important for those interested in the destiny of our 
 race than the contemplation of the obvious and 
 slightly commonplace results of blind and ungoverned 
 passion in hearts abandoned to it. No doubt it is 
 more difficult to study the sanctity of holy souls, as
 
 1 87 5] NATALIE NARISCHKIN 363 
 
 it is more difficult to discover precious stones than to 
 pick up wayside pebbles.' 
 
 Natalie Narischkin, one of that Narischkin family 
 who refused titles because the mother of Peter the 
 Great sufficiently illustrated their race, was in 
 another way a sympathetic subject for one of Mrs. 
 Craven's biographies. She belonged to that Russian 
 society with which Mrs. Craven had so many ties 
 through her father's embassy at St. Petersburg. 
 
 Certainly Mrs. Craven's pen was never more 
 assured in its pleading for the true ends of civiliza- 
 tion than in the thirteenth chapter of ' Natalie 
 Narischkin,' where she describes the part played in 
 human advance by the Sisters of Charity. ' Work 
 like theirs,' she remarks, 'cannot but engage the 
 attention of eminent and zealous men concerned in 
 the amelioration of humanity ; but it must be con- 
 fessed that while they speak, reason, compare, and 
 write in eulogy, they give but little practical effect to 
 their theories.' 
 
 To Mrs. Bishop. 
 
 ' LA R.OCHE-EN-BRENY, 
 
 ' September 12, 1875. 
 
 ' I left Monabri a week ago with much regret. It is 
 a positive mercy that once a year I can have a glimpse at 
 something like beautiful scenery. ... I am now here, 
 however, in what is also a very pleasant and enjoyable part 
 of the world, and I like what I know of Burgundy better 
 than any other part of France ; and it is always delightful to 
 me to be in this place, full as it is of old memories, and 
 with Mme. de Montalembert and her two daughters 
 (Madeleine de Griinne being here at present), whom I love
 
 364 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 as if they were my own children. It is a most original 
 place. ... It bears strongly the stamp of those who have 
 lived in and belonged to it, and the influence of the dear, 
 great friend who made this old house his home is visible 
 everywhere. . . . 
 
 'Augustus is coming here to-day with F. Hecker, the 
 latter only, I fear, for twenty-four hours. Augustus has 
 seen a great deal of him lately, and has been more and 
 more interested in him. He certainly has ideas that are 
 unlike those of many in this generation ; but his faith and 
 submission are such that, though he sometimes surprises 
 one, one never can feel alarmed about him.' 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 1 CHATEAU DE MENOU, 
 ' October 6, 1875. 
 
 ' You must have thought me both remiss and ungrateful 
 never to have answered your letter of August 23, never once 
 to have written to you during the whole of my stay at La 
 Roche-en-Breny, never to have thanked you for the fifth 
 number of the Indian Notes never, in short, to have given 
 you signe d'etre since I left Monabri ; and yet not only have 
 I read those notes with the same interest and pleasure as 
 the preceding ones, but both at La Roche and here I have 
 met with people who duly appreciated them, and who hope 
 some day to have the opportunity of talking them over with 
 you. One of these intelligent readers (whom you must 
 know as soon as you can) is the young Comtesse de 
 Griinne, whom you must remember meeting as Madeleine 
 de Montalembert at that same breakfast at Lord Emly's 
 where I had the pleasure of meeting you for the first time. 
 She is the most charming and remarkable Frenchwoman of 
 her generation, but now she has married a Belgian, so it is 
 to Brussels you must go to become (as I hope you will)
 
 1875] MR. GRANT DUFF ASKED TO MENOU 365 
 
 thoroughly acquainted with her, and with her husband also, 
 who is a charming young man and worthy of his extra- 
 ordinary good fortune. If ever you go that way you must 
 let me introduce you to them. As to this place, it is one 
 where % you already possess (besides myself) a very great 
 friend, in the person of Bertrand de Blacas, to whom I 
 found that I had no information to give concerning the 
 Indian Notes, as he had taken in the Contemporary Review 
 on purpose to read them, and he had been so much 
 interested in them, that his one wish in the world is that 
 you should come here and let him ask you a thousand 
 questions on that and many other subjects. A wish, let me 
 tell you, with which his father and mother so thoroughly 
 sympathize, that I cannot help feeling very sorry that you 
 are not coming over in October instead of November ; and 
 then I should have asked you to come and pay us here your 
 promised visit, as it would have given them as much 
 pleasure as myself. I am afraid your other plans won't 
 allow of your doing this, and yet I must say a few more 
 words about it, in case of there being a possibility of your 
 doing what we should all so much like you to do. 
 
 ' In the first place, I suppose that you know who these 
 relations of mine are ? and that such a kind reader of the 
 " Recit " as yourself has not forgotten that my aunt, the 
 Duchesse de Blacas (my cousin's mother), was my own 
 dear mother's only sister. He is Xavier, the one mentioned 
 by Albert, at Vienna, in 1835, as having then kept " sa jolie 
 mine d'autrefois. . . ." 
 
 ' His wife and son and daughter are entirely devoted to 
 him, and their whole life is spent in making his home as 
 cheerful and pleasant as, under these circumstances, it 
 possibly can be. You know Bertrand ; Beatrix, his sister, is 
 quite as nice and pleasing as himself. Mme. de Blacas was 
 the daughter of the Due de Rauzan, the granddaughter of
 
 366 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 the Duchesse de Duras, who had some literary celebrity forty 
 years ago. There ! now you know all about them, and if 
 you could and would come and see them and myself here 
 before the end of this month, the way is to leave Paris for 
 Gosne at eleven o'clock, and at Cosne (where you arrive at 
 about three o'clock) you would find their carriage to bring 
 you here. I leave all this for you to consider, hoping 
 (probably against hope) that something may come of it. 
 
 ' Have you an idea of who Sir Arthur Hallam Elton is ? 
 He lives at a place called Clevedon Court, near Somerset. 
 He has written me a most charming letter about the "Recit," 
 which he has only just read whilst in deep grief for the loss 
 of his wife. I should like to know a little more about him. 
 His letter touched me very much.' 
 
 To Mrs. Bishop. 
 
 1 CHATEAU DE MENOU, 
 ' October 7, 1875. 
 
 ' I am very sorry that you did not see F. Hecker. . . . 
 I admit that he is eccentric. . . . But, I suppose, what 
 strikes me as strange is simply American. Anyhow, he 
 has plunged very deep and risen very high in spiritual 
 life, and whatever people may think of his political or 
 temporal religious views, there can be but one way of think- 
 ing as to his feelings and language on spiritual matters, or 
 as to his love, devotion, and obedience to the Church. I feel 
 quite as you do about sectarian narrowness. ... I have the 
 strongest possible conviction that though some individuals 
 will be converted by that method, the general feeling of the 
 country I don't mean of the bad and irreligious who always 
 must hate us, but of the good and pious Protestants will be 
 more and more set against us, and yet the good and pious 
 among them ought to (and might) belong to us, and our 
 duty, it seems to me, is to think of them, of what will help
 
 1 87 5] THE B LAC AS FAMILY 367 
 
 them, of what will remove stumbling-blocks out of their 
 way; in short, withdraw the veil that prevents them from 
 seeing the Church as it is, rather than satisfying the devo- 
 tion of those Catholics who are already safe. But, then, I 
 feel sure that all these exaggerations will come to an end, 
 and the next generation will, I trust, preserve the piety of 
 the converts of our time and lose some of their peculiarities, 
 which certainly have nothing to do with the substance and 
 truth of Catholicism. 
 
 ' I am now staying at my dear cousins', the Blacas. . . . 
 I am very happy with them, and altogether, though I have 
 lost so much, and in many ways have been rather sorely 
 tried, I cannot bless God enough for the many dear and 
 kind friends He has left me. ... I am alone here with 
 them, and Beatrix and Bertrand, whom you both know. 
 Augustus left me a few days ago, and is now gone back to 
 Paris. He has written (selon moi] an excellent article on 
 the Bonn Conference. Has he written to you about it ? I 
 hope he has. I am anxious that he should, if possible, get 
 it published as it is, or as it was when he read it to me at 
 La Roche. I am always afraid of his altering and then 
 writing over again, and at last giving up what he has written, 
 as he has too often done, to the detriment of what might 
 have been to him a useful and satisfactory occupation.' 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 1 MENOU, 
 
 'October 14, 1875. 
 
 ' It seems almost unfair to take advantage of your kind 
 acceptance of our proposal, since you have but one whole 
 day to give us, and I need not tell you that to such stay-at- 
 home people as the French almost all of them are (though 
 they have no word for it), the notion of expecting anyone 
 who has an engagement at the Hague on the 23rd, and at
 
 368 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 Berlin on the 28th, to be aufond du Nivernais on the 26th, 
 would never have suggested itself.' 
 
 Mrs. Craven suggests the best trains, and con- 
 tinues : 
 
 ' To propose all this, I must remember that I saw you 
 starting for India with a cold that would have kept anyone 
 else in bed. I therefore make no more apology about it, 
 but simply and truly repeat that if you can manage to come 
 it will give us all the greatest pleasure. The Comte Xavier 
 de Blacas (my dear invalid cousin, who is so anxious that 
 you should be his guest) is the brother of the late Duke, who 
 died a few years ago, and whose collection of antiques 
 was bought by Mr. Newton for the British Museum. Their 
 father was the friend of Louis XVIII., and the rather noted 
 representative of ultra-Royalism. His sons have inherited 
 his fidelity, but not his crotchets : one of them is almost 
 always with the Comte de Chambord, the second is a 
 Jesuit. The third is the one under whose roof I am 
 expecting you. What would some of your friends think of 
 your venturing into such a legitimo-clerical atmosphere? But 
 you are a brave man, and I almost venture to say a revoir? 
 
 Mr. Grant Duff arrived at Menou on October 25. 
 The chateau was twenty-nine kilometres from the 
 station of Cosne. He writes of the place : ' The 
 house dates from 1680, but is built in the style of 
 Louis XIII., which lingered long in this remote 
 province. It lies very high, almost on the water 
 parting between the basin of the Loire and the 
 Yonne. The views are extensive but featureless 
 miles upon miles of scrubby forest with hardly a 
 good tree in it. The population is largely employed 
 in woodcutting, and very rough.'
 
 1875] MR. GRANT DUFF AT BERLIN 
 
 369 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' LUMIGNY, 
 
 ' November 10, 1875. 
 
 ' Not one moment could I spare to thank you for your 
 most interesting letters from Berlin, and for that kind 
 memorial which brought, through you, to the grave of poor 
 Pauline I.,* a recollection of Alexandrine as well as of my- 
 self. It is singular and striking indeed, that this event 
 should have happened so as to make this possible. I shall 
 be most anxious to hear all you have got to say about 
 Berlin and those you saw there. I am afraid I shall miss 
 you on your way to Italy ; but on your return it will be a 
 great pleasure to look forward to seeing Mrs. Grant Duff 
 and yourself, I trust, for some few days comfortably in Paris. 
 
 ' As to my poor deaf and dumb Capriote. If you fall in 
 with Mr. Wreford, the former Times correspondent, who, if 
 he is alive, is to be found at Capri in the winter, he will be 
 able to tell you all about her, and will, I dare say, kindly let 
 her know that she is to come and pay you a visit. She lives 
 at Anacapri ; her name is Giovannina Viva ... I am now 
 anxious to read your article on Russia, about the progress 
 of which people do talk here a great deal of nonsense.' 
 
 The Capriote mentioned thanks to the charity of 
 Mrs. Craven was saved from the gutter, and reared 
 
 * Pauline I., Mdlle. de Splitgerber, afterwards Mme. Wollf, 
 a friend of Alexandrine de la Ferronnays ; so called because 
 Alexandrine had known her before Mrs. Craven (see ' Re"cit,' 
 vol. i., p. 68). 
 
 In November Mr. Grant Duff wrote in his diary : 
 morning of the fifth 1 took to 142 Friedrichstrasse, where Mme. 
 Wollf died, a wreath of myrtle and the most beautiful cross of 
 white flowers that Berlin could produce, explaining in a note 
 that I did so on behalf of Mrs. Craven. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 4
 
 370 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1875 
 
 and educated at her expense. She had taken her 
 into her service at Castagneto, and when that home 
 was lost, Mrs. Craven gave her a small annuity, and 
 left her, out of the savings of her last years, 4,000 
 francs. ' On receiving it,' says the Duchesse Ravas- 
 chieri, ' the poor soul wept wept as though she had 
 lost a mother,' when she understood that her bene- 
 factress was dead. 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' LUMIGNY, 
 
 ' Monday, Nwember 15, 1875. 
 
 ' Here is the letter I promised for my very dear friend the 
 Duchesse Ravaschieri. If (as I hope and trust she will be) 
 she is well again, and able to see you, I know that you will 
 thank me for giving you the opportunity of knowing her. 
 When I think of your being at Naples, that old quasi patria 
 of mine, I envy you very much, and I wish I was there also 
 to show you all those places which are constantly before 
 "my mind's eye." 
 
 ' When you asked me yesterday a question about Jesuit 
 literature, I might have asked you whether you had ever 
 glanced at faesrEttutts Religieuses et Litter aires, a periodical 
 which used to appear in Paris, and was then certainly as 
 remarkable as any of our French reviews, and more so than 
 most of them. I have not seen any number of it myself 
 lately ; it is now published at Lyons, and may be inferior 
 to what it was, but it was certainly worth reading some 
 years ago. Then, as you like biographies, have you read 
 Pere de Ravignan's life, by Pere de Ponlevoy ? A Jesuit's 
 life by a Jesuit ! What would all your friends say if they 
 read this ? and what would they not suspect me of ? How- 
 ever, as I am only answering a question, my mind is at ease,
 
 i8;s] REMINISCENCES OF < LE R&CIT' 371 
 
 and I can safely say that you are the author of this Popish 
 plot. But what I am going to recommend you (de mon 
 chef} to read, if you have never done so, is the " Journal de 
 Maine de Biran" ; that is a curious book, and will interest 
 you, I believe. 
 
 ' Quite enough about books, which you will have no time 
 to read during your Neapolitan excursion. But if ever you 
 carried about with you the "Recit d'une Soeur," pray have it 
 with you when you climb the hill of the Vomero, or that of 
 Castellamare. In the latter place the little villa (then 
 called Villa Dechenhausen) where Albert and Alexandrine 
 went after their marriage, and where we all lived together 
 (for the last time), stands to the left, after the third winding 
 of the hill (going up to Quisisana). . . . The house where 
 Alexandrine lived with her mother, next door to ours at the 
 end of the Riviera di Chiaja, is now the Palazzo Bagnano, 
 and (par parenthese) should you happen to meet with the 
 Marchesa Bagnano, to whom it belongs, she is a charming 
 person whom I have known all her life. Her belle mere was 
 an Englishwoman, a sister of Mr. Higgins (Jacob Omnium).'
 
 [372] 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 IN January, 1876, Mrs. Craven suffered the loss of 
 her friend Louisa Hardy,* who had been one of her 
 earliest acquaintances when she first came to 
 England in 1836 ; and in February the widow of 
 her elder brother died. ' She was so connected with 
 the dear past,' wrote Mrs. Craven, ' that I feel the 
 loss most deeply. She was the only one remaining 
 (except my sister, Mme. de la Panouse, who was 
 too young at the time to remember it so well) who 
 lived with me through those early, happy, brilliant 
 years which seem to me now to belong to another 
 existence.' 
 
 In the following letter, which recommends Miss 
 O'Meara'st ' Life of Frederic Ozanam ' to the kind 
 
 * The daughter of Sir Thomas Hardy, the friend of Nelson and 
 Governor of Greenwich Hospital. He married a daughter of 
 Admiral Sir G. C. Berkeley. Miss Hardy after her father's 
 death lived in Hampton Court Palace, where Mrs. Craven 
 occasionally visited her. 
 
 t In 1875 Mrs. Craven formed an acquaintance, which soon 
 ripened into sincere friendship, with Mrs. O'Meara and her 
 daughters Kathleen and Geraldine. They were nearly related 
 to Dr. Barry O'Meara, the physician of Napoleon at St. Helena. 
 His devotion to the fallen Emperor roused the dislike of Sir
 
 1876] MISS O'MEARA'S < LIFE OF OZANAM' 373 
 
 offices of Mr. Grant Duff with an English publisher, 
 Mrs. Craven omits what was, and perhaps will still be, 
 M. Ozanam's chief title to honour. He was the 
 principal founder in 1833 of the lay society of St. 
 Vincent de Paul, a society by no means to be con- 
 founded with the Sisterhood called by that name. 
 The society is meant to direct the goodwill of the 
 men who are enrolled in it to intelligent and per- 
 fectly unsectarian and unpolitical helping of the 
 poor. It has proved a useful effort towards that lay 
 action within the Church by which its bases may be 
 widened, and ecclesiastics may gain the co-operation 
 of men of all classes, in reconciling the traditions of 
 the past with modern inventions, whether in the 
 material or the intellectual order. 
 
 Hudson Lowe, who procured his recall from the English 
 Government. 
 
 Miss Kathleen O'Meara, who for some years wrote under the 
 pseudonym ' Grace Ramsay,' published much and successfully. 
 Her first story of French life, 'Mabel Stanhope,' at once secured 
 her position as a writer of refined fiction. ' Iza's Story' was an 
 able and touching picture of Polish life. Her life of Dr. Grant, 
 the first Roman Catholic Bishop of Southwark, gained for her 
 a letter from Cardinal Newman, in which he wrote : ' You have 
 a genius for biography.' 
 
 Mrs. O'Meara, left a widow early in life, came to France in 
 the first decade of the Second Empire, for the education of her 
 daughters, and afterwards they made Paris their home. 
 
 There, after a few days' illness, Mrs. O'Meara died in 1887. 
 Though her daughters met her death with the resignation born 
 of earnest faith, grief told on the physical strength of Kathleen, 
 who succumbed to a severe chill within a year. Among the 
 most effective workers in the cause of good literature, Kath- 
 leen O'Meara's loss is severely felt both in England and 
 America.
 
 374 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1876 
 
 The society spread rapidly, and has branches in 
 most European cities. 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 ''February 17, 1876. 
 
 1 1 cannot help thinking that Ozanam's life would interest 
 many people even among Protestants. He belonged to 
 that knot of men who are associated with the best of my re- 
 collections of French religious society. They were unlike 
 any of those that had preceded them, still more unlike 
 those that have come since ; and although at present their 
 memory is under a sort of cloud among people of a 
 particular party, I feel convinced that it will clear away; 
 and I am deeply convinced also that the peace I dream of 
 will never be brought about by any other means than those 
 they used. By peace, of course, I don't mean the vague 
 confusion of doctrinal indifference ; I mean the power and 
 the wish to place the truth which they and I care for in the 
 light that will allow it to be seen as it is, not as it is often 
 made to appear by the violence or awkwardness of some of 
 those who defend it. Ozanam was of the same school as 
 Montalembert. Lacordaire, Abbe Perreyve, Pere Gratry, 
 Augustin Cochin. They all loved true and honourable 
 liberty, not its excesses (who does ?).... Ozanam, as it 
 happens, was a Republican, not of the Gambetta sort, I 
 need not tell you, but yet a Republican. This gives 
 originality to his life, and an interest which passing events 
 seem to revive. " Grace Ramsay " is a charming writer, 
 and she has had opportunities which few English have of 
 knowing French society. In short, she is my friend, and I 
 am most anxious for her success.'
 
 1876] M. LE PLAY ON ENGLAND 375 
 
 To Mrs. Bishop. 
 
 1 PARIS, 
 
 'February 19, 1876. 
 
 ' You know, of course, that since the death of my dear 
 Xavier de Blacas I have lost my sister-in-law, Mme. Charles 
 de la Ferronnays, and just before the first of these sad 
 events, and after Louisa Hardy's death, I had attended 
 the death-bed of another relation of mine here. In short, 
 since January 26 I have three times witnessed that most 
 solemn and awful scene. ... At my age death has quite a 
 different meaning from what it had formerly, and brings 
 with it less of fear, and more of hope and promise. 
 Apropos of this, the Princess Murat (of all people, an 
 American and a Protestant, though I believe about to be a 
 Catholic) lent me the other day a tiny book, a poem called 
 " Near Home at Last," by a clergyman, a ritualist called 
 John Monsell* (a chaplain to the Queen, I think). He 
 is now dead, and wrote this little book for private circu- 
 lation ; it contains most beautiful things on purgatory and 
 death. . . . 
 
 Why is there among Catholics in England an objection 
 to M. le Play's book ? Probably because it is too favour- 
 able to their institutions, which it is the crotchet of some 
 English people to run down. He seems to prove (in a use- 
 ful way for us) that the political side which we foolishly try 
 to imitate is not the real secret of English prosperity, but 
 just that part of their social system which they, though 
 Protestants, have left as it had been handed down to them 
 from Catholic ages, and which we French, though Catholics, 
 destroyed eighty years ago. I dare say you will not approve 
 of an article of mine which will appear in the Correspondant 
 
 * The Rev. John Bewley Monsell, LL.D., a cousin of Lord 
 Emly.
 
 376 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1876 
 
 on the 25th, I believe. It is about Broadlands as it was in 
 Palmerstonian times and as it is now. It looks as if I had 
 rushed into personalities in an unwarrantable way, does it 
 not ? . . . . Yes, dear friend, we do intend to go to England, 
 and I look forward with great joy to the prospect of taking 
 advantage of your kind invitation, and of really spending 
 this year a few quiet days before I go to Holland House, 
 where we are bound to go if we go to England. But at 
 this moment the mere thought of that brilliant and worldly 
 world (even in its quietest moments) is very repugnant to 
 me. I wish I could spend with you a month in complete 
 solitude somewhere ! But these are dreams.' 
 
 To Mrs. Bishop. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 'March 30, 1876. 
 
 ' My only work latterly has been the translation into 
 French of a short pamphlet by F. Hecker. But his name 
 does not appear in the original, nor does mine in the trans- 
 lation. It is to be, and to remain, an anonymous work. 
 You have perhaps read it; it is called "An Exposition of the 
 Church in View of Recent Controversies and Difficulties and 
 the Present Needs of the Age." It has been favourably re- 
 viewed in the Weekly Register. I feel strongly that some 
 change must take place in the method of English Catholics 
 before we can hope to see any real return to truth (I mean 
 not only individual returns).' 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Grant Duff dated April 10, 1876, 
 Mrs. Craven writes of the Kultur-Kampf then raging 
 in Germany with natural indignation, and afterwards 
 expresses her delight at the election of ' Eugenie's 
 son ' to the Chamber.
 
 1876] THE KULTUR-KAMPF 377 
 
 ' Albert has had an extraordinary success ; friends and 
 foes agreed to praise his first speech ; everyone seemed sur- 
 prised to see in that Assembly a gentleman, and his looks 
 added, I dare say, much to the effect of his eloquence. He 
 has real talent, however, and although in some things we 
 disagree, he is not en guerre avec la raison humaine any 
 more than I am. Of course to be at war with human 
 reason is to be bereft of reason.' 
 
 On May 4, 1876, Mrs. Craven wrote to Mrs. 
 Bishop : 
 
 ' I shall bury myself at Lumigny till I get over my task. 
 I say no more at present of what I hope and intend to do 
 next, as I have quite determined now never more to plan, 
 propose, expect or hope for anything (except dans mon for 
 interieur). 
 
 ' I return this most interesting letter. I envy A. de 
 Vere's uplifted state of mind, and I wish I really could 
 think that it is our merits alone which are producing dis- 
 trust and repulsion. I cannot believe, however, that truth 
 is ever hated by those who honestly differ from us, but only 
 the aspect which is given to it, and I can't say that I think 
 the present method an attractive one ; read, for instance, the 
 speeches made here the other day at the Catholic Congress, 
 and remember those made at Malines in 1865 ! The fall- 
 ing off in the way of talent, power, I might even say in 
 point of love and charity, seems to me very great. I 
 cannot wonder that no one is converted, and that those 
 only are edified who were pious and good before, and 
 needed no looking after.' 
 
 Mr. Grant Duff had asked Mrs. Craven to be 
 sponsor to his second daughter.
 
 378 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1876 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' PARIS, 
 
 'June 2, 1876. 
 
 ' You were right in thinking that Protestant baptism, 
 when duly administered, is quite recognised by Catholics, 
 and I need not mention another little religious difficulty 
 that might have come in my way, because that is not the 
 reason that prevents me from acceding to your most kind 
 and gratifying request, but this is it : For many years I 
 have made the resolution never again to be godmother to any 
 child, in consequence of three successive misfortunes which 
 made me feel as if I did not bring good luck to the poor 
 babies to whom I had stood in this relation. From that 
 time to this I have adhered to that rule, and I could not 
 depart from it now without feeling uncomfortable (which 
 you will think superstitious), but also without annoying 
 those (my nephews, for instance) whom I have refused for 
 the same reason, and other friends besides.* 
 
 ' I am quite grieved at having to put off my journey to 
 England ; I long to get away for some little time from this 
 uncomfortable Fatherland of mine. But I really must 
 finish " Natalie," and the notion of doing that in June in 
 London, or even in July at Holland House, was too great 
 a delusion. . . . 
 
 * The Crown Princess of Prussia was godmother to Mr. 
 Grant Duffs baby, who was christened Victoria Adelaide 
 Alexandrine. Though Mrs. Craven had not been actually 
 sponsor, she was commemorated in the third name given to the 
 child. In his unpublished diary of that date, Sir M. Grant Duff 
 wrote of his little girl : ' Truly she could not bear the names 
 of any two persons who would better represent all that is best 
 in the Europe that is coming on, and in the Europe that is pass- 
 ing away.'
 
 1876] NOT EASY TO ' BA LAYER LES TURCS' 379 
 
 ' Albert's election is invalidated by the bon plaisir of our 
 absolute sovereigns, so is Prince de Lucinge's without even 
 a reason given ; there was no clerical pressure there ; in 
 short : ' ' La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure," and 
 there is not much more to be said about it. Yesterday I 
 left off my mourning, and I wore for the first time your 
 beautiful cross at the wedding of young Prince de Ligne 
 (who was married to one of my nieces).' 
 
 To Mr. Grant Duff. 
 
 ' LUMIGNY, 
 
 'July 6, 1876. 
 
 ' Although I have not written to you for a long time, I 
 have been lately (indirectly) in frequent communication 
 with you. Mrs. Bishop has communicated to me your 
 " Hyacinthine " impressions, including those of your friend 
 written in pencil during the meeting, all of which has been 
 soothing to my feelings (though it is a subject about which 
 I am still excited), and this morning she sent me the last 
 number of the Contemporary, in which I have just read 
 your article on " The Pulse of Europe." Its conclusion will 
 not quite satisfy, I am afraid, the impatient politicians I am 
 likely to meet with here, who think (or talk as if they 
 thought) it the easiest thing in the world to balayer les 
 Turcs. As to myself, whether it is that I have good reasons 
 to have a high opinion of your fairness, or that your very 
 peculiar habit of knowing exactly what you are talking 
 about inclines me to think that (except on one subject) 
 you are always in the right, the fact is that I agree with you 
 almost on all occasions, and in this case very readily, as my 
 reflections have led me to see the truth of the question 
 where you see it. Ce qui n'empeche pas, I suppose, that 
 Europe may be in a blaze before the end of the summer !
 
 380 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1876 
 
 But what am I to say to you about those passages at the 
 beginning of this article which (having fortunately received 
 it here) I was able to communicate at once to those, 
 besides myself, most interested in them? My brother-in- 
 law was so pleased and touched at your mention of his son, 
 and so flattered at the passage concerning his own book,* 
 that he means to write to you himself, and to tell you all 
 about it; and I was touched also, I assure you, by what falls 
 to my share in that most kind mention of us all, but on 
 that subject you have accustomed me to such an amount 
 of indulgence que je m 'attends a tout de votre part. 
 
 ' I was amused, however, at your turning old Helvetius 
 to account ! As a fact, there is about Albert a great 
 mixture of the two races he comes from ; he is by no means 
 of a naturally submissive disposition. His mother's faith 
 and the great moral shock of 1870 have made him what he 
 is, but leave him much of the inquiring and caustique spirit 
 of his great-grandfather. If you have time, or can take the 
 trouble, to read the Commission's report on his election, you 
 will not feel so hopeful as you seem to be as to the justice 
 which men of Albert's way of thinking have to expect from 
 their antagonists.' 
 
 In the spring of 1876 Mrs. Craven's ' Reminis- 
 cences ' of her life in England appeared in the 
 Correspondant. There were many misprints in the 
 book, and she wrote to Mrs. Bishop that 'fortunately 
 there are few readers of the review in England.' In 
 the same letter she introduced the Dominican Pere 
 Chocarne, the friend of Lacordaire, and the author 
 of an admirable life of him, with the words, ' I 
 know that you will like him and appreciate his large 
 
 * The Marquis de Mun published a book entitled ' Un 
 Chateau en Seine et Marne en 1870.' He was Maire of his com- 
 mune, and stayed at Lumigny throughout the Prussian invasion.
 
 1876] MONSEIGNEUR DUPANLOUP 381 
 
 mind, his eloquence and holiness,' and adds : ' I 
 expect we are now going to pass through an ordeal 
 which will put an end to all these miserable quarrels 
 and attacks on the Liberal Catholic party, and will 
 bring to the front again all those poor faithful 
 champions who have been so studiously kept in the 
 background for some time past. The real enemy 
 has now got the upper hand, the time for our fight- 
 ing with each other is over, and I hope there is an 
 end of what always seemed to me a most cruel civil 
 war.' 
 
 The welcome given to M. Loyson (Pere Hyacinthe) 
 during that summer by some of her English friends 
 much disturbed Mrs. Craven. Soon after her article 
 on Broadlands appeared he stayed there with 
 Mme. Loyson. ' He ventured to write to me,' in- 
 dignantly remarks its author, ' to complain of the 
 last page, in which he assumed that I had alluded to 
 him. As a fact, the passage did not refer to him, but 
 to Father Achilli, who became a Protestant when 
 Dr. Newman became a Catholic.' 
 
 To Mrs. Bishop. 
 
 1 MONABRI, 
 
 ''August 28, 1876. 
 
 'Your letter finds me here enjoying, as you imagined, 
 " many things physical and spiritual," and among the latter 
 the presence of the Bishop of Orleans, who has passed 
 nearly a week here alone with us (the Princess and myself), 
 and only left us this morning. It was great repose for him 
 after his hard-fought battle in the senate, and the many
 
 382 LIFE OF MRS. AUGUSTUS CRAVEN [1876 
 
 ways in which his bodily, mental and moral strength is 
 tried ; and for us I need not tell you what a real blessing it 
 has been. It is next to impossible to find him alone, and 
 to converse comfortably with him, either in Paris or at 
 Versailles, so it was quite an unlooked-for treat to meet 
 him in this way. He spoke of you with his usual paternal 
 affection and regard, and hopes that whenever you come to 
 France you will go and see him. He had not received 
 your letter nor the book you speak of. Where did you 
 direct them ? If to Orleans, I suppose they got there after 
 he was gone, and although forty letters were sent after him 
 here, I suppose it was only from those who knew where 
 they might overtake him, and those sent to Orleans will 
 only be given to him when he goes back there next 
 week. But what induced Mr. M. Arnold to send him his 
 book ?' 
 
 To Mrs. Bishop. 
 
 1 LUMIGNY, 
 
 ' October 24, 1876. 
 
 ' My book is not out. Didier dawdles to that degree that 
 I am only now correcting the fourteenth chapter (there are 
 twenty), so that I hardly expect to see it really published 
 till the middle of next month. Pray say this to Mr. de 
 Vere, and also thank him for those two little French poems 
 he sent me, one of which I admired extremely. It was the 
 one on Calvary ; I did not like the other one as well, but 
 this vivid meditation on the " Via Crucis " touched me very 
 much. Thanks for this most interesting letter of his. You 
 will find a few words concerning Abbe Gerbet's conversa- 
 tion in " Soeur Natalie " which I could apply just as well to 
 Mr. A. de Vere's letters. I laughed at his fling at the 
 Catholic Liberals, but I don't admit that they are the 
 reverse of bigoted Catholics. I feel, for one, that I am
 
 1876] MRS. CRAVEN 'LIBERAL AND BIGOTED' 383 
 
 both one and the other (within due limits). But when 
 people, because they are not liberal, think it right to be 
 illiberal, uncharitable, narrow-minded and crotchety, I 
 don't think they are that into which we are all to develop 
 when we have been three minutes in heaven. But I will 
 say no more, and I do not and will not relinquish my hope 
 of seeing you. 
 
 ' My nephew Albert de Mun is here, and for the first 
 time for ever so long we have spent a whole month to- 
 gether, in a most satisfactory way. He is a dear and attrac- 
 tive creature.' 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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