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 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO 
 
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 MWp^clmrefiNlRrSAfr 
 
 / LA JOLLA. CALIFORNIA ~~ 
 

 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA.

 
 ERNEST, RENAN. 
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 SZSttf) ipfyotofltaburc Ellustrations 
 
 FROM PAINTINGS BY 
 
 HENRI SCHEFFEK AND ARY RENAN. 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 ABBY L. ALGER. 
 
 fy 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1895.
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 SSmbtrsttg IBrcss: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 y^HIS little work is an exact repro- 
 duction of a pamphlet, one hun- 
 dred copies of which were printed by 
 Ernest Renan, in September, 1862, 
 under the following title: u Henrietta 
 Renan ; a Memory for those ivho knew 
 her." On the first page ive find this 
 phrase : " These pages ivere not in- 
 tended, and ivill not be offered, for 
 publication." 
 
 In 1SS3, in the Preface to his " Mem- 
 ories of Childhood and Youth," Ernest 
 Renan wrote : — 
 
 " The person ivho exerted the strongest 
 influence upon my life, I mean my sister
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 Henrietta, occupies hardly any space in this 
 book. In September, 1862, one year after 
 the death of that precious friend, I wrote, 
 for the few people who knew her, a tiny 
 volume sacred to her memory. Only one 
 hundred copies were printed. My sister 
 was so modest, she had such an aversion to 
 publicity, that I should have felt that she 
 reproached me from her tomb, had I given 
 those pages to the world. I have sometimes 
 thought of adding them to this book. But 
 then I considered that it would be. a sort of 
 profanation. The little pamphlet about my 
 sister was read with sympathy by a few 
 people, moved by a kindly feeling for her 
 and for me. It would be wrong for me to 
 expose a memory which is sacred to me to 
 the arrogant criticism which all who buy a 
 book are at liberty to utter. It seemed to 
 me that to insert these pages about my sister 
 in a volume offered for sale ivould be as 
 base as to expose her portrait in an auction
 
 PREFACE. Vll 
 
 room. The pamphlet therefore will not be 
 reprinted until after my death. Some of 
 my dear one's letters may then be added to 
 it, the selection to be made by me during my 
 lifer 
 
 In a codicil to his will, dated Nov. 
 4, 1888, Ernest Benan authorized the 
 present reprint, saying : " My wife 
 will arrange for the publication of my 
 little volume of reminiscences of my 
 sister Henrietta, as may seem best to 
 her." In fact, the present reprint was 
 prepared by Madame Cornelia Benan. 
 The selection of letters written by Hen- 
 rietta Benan was never made by her 
 brother. The number of these letters 
 prevents their insertion in this publi- 
 cation, and they will form a volume by 
 themselves Inter on.
 
 Hist of ${jotogrnburc Illustrations* 
 
 Henrietta Renan Frontispiece 
 
 From a Photograph. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 House in which Ernest Renan was 
 
 born, at treguier io 
 
 Spire of Treguier Cathedral ... 13 
 
 Cloisters of Treguier Cathedral . . 16 
 
 Ghazir Bay 52 
 
 Ernest Renan 73 
 
 From a Painting by Henri Scheffer (i860). 
 
 House at Amschit . 106
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 / T V HE memory of men is but an im- 
 perceptible trace of the furrow 
 which each of us leaves upon the 
 bosom of infinity. And yet it is no 
 vain thing. The consciousness of hu- 
 manity is the highest reflective image 
 that we know of the total conscious- 
 ness of the universe. The esteem of 
 a single individual is a part of the ab- 
 solute Justice. Therefore, although 
 noble lives need no other memory 
 than that of God, there has in all 
 ages been an effort to make their
 
 10 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 image permanent. I should be the 
 more guilty did I fail to render this 
 duty to my sister Henrietta, since I 
 alone knew the treasures of that elect 
 soul. Her timidity, her reserve, her 
 fixed opinion that a woman should 
 live in retirement, cast over her rare 
 qualities a veil which very few were 
 permitted to lift. But those who be- 
 longed to the select few to whom 
 she showed herself as she really was, 
 would blame me if I did not strive to 
 bring together all which may com- 
 plete their memories. 
 
 I. 
 
 My sister Henrietta was born at 
 Treguier, on July 22, 1811. Her 
 life was early saddened and filled
 
 
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 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 11 
 
 with stern duties. She never knew 
 other joys than those bestowed by 
 virtue and affection. She inherited 
 from our father a melancholy disposi- 
 tion, which left her little taste for 
 commonplace amusements, and even 
 inspired her with a certain disposition 
 to shun the world and its pleasures. 
 She had nothing of the lively, gay, 
 and sprightly nature which my mother 
 retained even in her beautiful and 
 vigorous old age. Her religious sen- 
 timents, at first restricted to the doc- 
 trines of Catholicism, were always 
 very profound. Treguier, the little 
 town where we were born, is an an- 
 cient episcopal city, rich in poetic 
 impressions. It was once one of those 
 grand monastic towns, after the Welsh 
 and Irish fashion, founded by Breton
 
 12 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 emigrants of the sixth century. Its 
 father was an abbot named Tual or 
 Tugdual. When Nomenoe, in the 
 ninth century, wishing to establish 
 a Breton nationality, changed all 
 those great monasteries in the north 
 into bishoprics, Pabu-Tual, or the 
 monastery of Saint Tual, was one of 
 them. In the seventeenth and eigh- 
 teenth centuries, Treguier became 
 an ecclesiastic centre of considerable 
 importance, and the common resort 
 of the local gentry. During the Rev- 
 olution the bishopric was suppressed ; 
 but after the restoration of the Cath- 
 olic faith, the vast edifices owned by 
 the city again made it an ecclesias- 
 tical centre, a city of convents and 
 religious establishments. There was 
 but little private life. The streets.
 
 • >//'/V r J ■ //<'/"'//■ I' rf///rr/r'f /.
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 13 
 
 save one or two, are long solitary 
 passages, made by high convent walls 
 or by ancient canonical houses sur- 
 rounded by gardens. A general air 
 of distinction pervades the place, 
 and gives that poor dead city a 
 charm unknown to the richer, more 
 active towns of tradesmen, that 
 have grown up in other parts of the 
 country. 
 
 The cathedral particularly, a very 
 fine sixteenth century structure, with 
 its lofty naves, its amazing architec- 
 tural liberties, its surprisingly slender 
 spire, and its old Romanesque tower, 
 a relic of an older edifice, seems 
 expressly formed to nourish lofty 
 thoughts. At night, it was open un- 
 til a very late hour for the prayers 
 of pious persons, lighted by a single
 
 14 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 lamp, pervaded by that moist warm 
 atmosphere kept up in antique build- 
 ings, the vast empty interior was full 
 of the infinite and of vague terrors. 
 The suburbs of the city are rich 
 in beautiful or strange legends. 
 Some quarter of a mile away is the 
 chapel built near the birthplace of 
 the good councillor Saint Yves, the 
 Breton saint of latter days, who in 
 popular belief has become the de- 
 fender of the feeble, the great re- 
 dresser of wrongs ; close by, on a 
 very high point, the old church of 
 St. Michael, destroyed by lightning. 
 There we were taken every year 
 on the Thursday before Easter. 
 There is a theory that upon that 
 day all the bells, during the long 
 period of silence to which they are
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 15 
 
 condemned, go to Rome to beg the 
 Pope's blessing. To see them pass 
 by, we climbed a ruin-crowned hill ; 
 we shut our eyes and we saw them 
 traverse the air, bending slightly to- 
 wards the earth, their lace robes float- 
 ing softly behind them, — the same 
 robes which they wore on the day 
 of their christening. A little farther 
 on rises the little chapel of the Five 
 Wounds, in a charming valley ; on 
 the other side of the river, near an 
 ancient holv well, is Notre Dame du 
 Tromeur, a spot greatly venerated 
 by pilgrims. 
 
 My sister's strong liking for domes- 
 tic life was the result of an infancy 
 spent in surroundings thus full of 
 poetry and sweet melancholy. A 
 few old nuns, driven from their con-
 
 16 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 vent by the Revolution and turned 
 school-mistresses, taught her to read 
 and to recite the Psalms in Latin. She 
 learned by heart all the music of 
 the Church ; bringing her mind to 
 bear later upon those antique words, 
 which she compared with French 
 and Italian, she contrived to pick 
 up a good deal of Latin, although 
 she never studied it regularly. Her 
 education, nevertheless, would neces- 
 sarily have remained very incom- 
 plete, had it not been for a happy 
 chance which gave her a teacher su- 
 perior to any thitherto possessed by 
 the country. The noble families of 
 Treguier had returned from exile 
 completely ruined. A young girl be- 
 longing to one of those families, 
 whose education was acquired in
 
 V 
 
 i 
 
 x 
 I 
 
 V
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 17 
 
 England, undertook to give lessons. 
 She was a person distinguished alike 
 for her taste and her manners ; she 
 made a deep impression upon my 
 sister, and left behind a memory 
 which never died. 
 
 The misfortunes by which my sis- 
 ter was early surrounded increased 
 that tendency to concentration which 
 was inborn with her. Our paternal 
 grandfather belonged to a sort of 
 clan of sailors and peasants which 
 peoples the entire province of Goelo. 
 He made a small fortune by his boat, 
 and settled at Treguier. Our father 
 served in the fleet of the Republic. 
 After the naval disasters of that time, 
 he commanded ships on his own ac- 
 count, and was by degrees drawn into 
 
 a considerable business. This was a 
 
 2
 
 18 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 great mistake. Utterly unskilled in 
 such matters, simple and incapable 
 of calculation, continually held back 
 by that timidity which makes the 
 sailor a complete child in practical 
 affairs, he saw the little fortune which 
 lie had inherited gradually disappear 
 in an abyss whose depth he could 
 not fathom. The events of 1815 
 brought about commercial crises 
 which were fatal to him. His weak 
 and sentimental nature could not re- 
 sist these trials ; he gradually lost 
 his interest in life. My sister, hour 
 by hour, beheld the ravages which 
 anxiety and misfortune made in that 
 sweet and gentle soul, lost in an 
 order of occupations for which it was 
 not fitted. Amid these hard experi- 
 ences she gained a precocious ma-
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 19 
 
 turity. From the age of twelve she 
 was a serious personage, burdened 
 with cares, overwhelmed with grave 
 thoughts and sombre forebodings. 
 
 On his return from one of his Ion"" 
 voyages on our cold, sad seas, my 
 father had a final gleam of joy: I 
 was born in February, 1823. The 
 arrival of this little brother was a 
 great comfort to my sister. She 
 clung to me with all the strength of 
 a timid, tender heart, to which love 
 is a necessity. I can still recall the 
 petty tyrannies which I exercised 
 over her, and against which she never 
 rebelled. When she came forth be- 
 decked to go to gatherings of girls 
 of her age, I hung upon her skirts, 
 and implored her to return ; then she 
 would turn back, take off her holiday
 
 20 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 dress and stay with me. One day, 
 in jest, she threatened me that, if I 
 were not good, she would die ; she 
 even feigned to be dead, reclining in 
 an arm-chair. The horror which 
 my dear one's silent motionlessness 
 caused me is possibly the strongest 
 impression which I ever received, 
 fate not having permitted me to re- 
 ceive her last sigh. Beside myself 
 with grief, I rushed at her, and gave 
 her arm a terrible bite. She uttered 
 a cry which still rings in my ears. 
 To the reproaches lavished upon me, 
 I made but one reply: "Then why 
 did you die ? will you die again ? " 
 In July, 1828, our father's misfor- 
 tunes ended in a frightful catastrophe. 
 His ship, returning from Saint Malo, 
 entered Treguier harbor without him.
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 21 
 
 The crew declared that they had not 
 seen him for several days. For an 
 entire month my mother sought for 
 him in unspeakable agony. At last 
 she learned that a body had been 
 found on the coast at Erqui, a vil- 
 lage situated between Saint Brieuc 
 and Cape Frehel. It proved to be 
 that of our father. What was the 
 cause of his death ? Was he surprised 
 by one of those accidents so frequent 
 in the life of a seaman? Did he 
 forget himself in one of those long 
 dreams of the infinite which, among 
 Breton races, border on the endless 
 sleep ? Did he think that he had 
 earned his rest 1 Feeling that he had 
 struggled long enough, did he take 
 his seat upon a rock, with the words, 
 " This shall be the stone of my rest
 
 22 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 for all eternity, here I will take my 
 rest, for I have chosen it " ? We 
 never knew. He was laid beneath 
 the sand, where the waves visit him 
 twice every day. I have never yet 
 been able to erect a stone at his head 
 to tell the passer-by what I owe him. 
 My sister's grief was deep. She in- 
 herited her disposition from our 
 father. She loved him tenderly. 
 Whenever she spoke of him, it was 
 with tears. She was assured that his 
 much tried soul was still just and 
 pure in the sight of God. 
 
 II. 
 
 From this time on, our condition 
 was one of poverty. My brother, 
 who was nineteen years old, went to
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 23 
 
 Paris and at once began that life of 
 toil and steady application which 
 was never to meet with its full re- 
 ward. We left Treguier, where it 
 would have been too painful for us 
 to remain, and took up our abode at 
 Lannion, where my mother's family 
 lived. My sister was seventeen. Her 
 faith was still strong, and the thought 
 of embracing" a religious life had more 
 than once strongly occupied her mind. 
 On winter nights she took me to 
 church under her cloak ; it was a 
 great pleasure for me to tramp over 
 the snow, thus warmly sheltered from 
 head to foot. If it had not been 
 for me, she would undoubtedly have 
 adopted a vocation which, consider- 
 ing her education, her pious tastes, 
 her lack of fortune, and the customs
 
 24 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 of the country, seemed to be exactly 
 suited to her. Her wishes turned 
 especially towards the convent of 
 Saint Anne, at Lannion, where the 
 care of sick people was combined with 
 the education of young girls. Alas ! 
 perhaps, had she followed out this 
 purpose, it would have been better 
 for her own peace of mind. Yet she 
 was too good a daughter and too af- 
 fectionate a sister to prefer her own 
 peace to her duty, even when religious 
 prejudices in which she still shared 
 upheld her. Thenceforth, she re- 
 garded herself as responsible for my 
 future. On one occasion, I being 
 clumsy and awkward in my move- 
 ments, she saw that I was timidly 
 trying to disguise a hole in a worn- 
 out garment. She wept; the sight
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 25 
 
 of that poor child destined to suffer- 
 ing, with other instincts, wrung her 
 heart. She resolved to accept the 
 struggle of life, and single-handed 
 took up the task of filling the yawn- 
 ing gulf which our father's ill fortune 
 had dug at our feet. 
 
 The manual labor of one poor girl 
 was wholly unequal to the work. 
 The career which she embraced was 
 the most cruel of all. It was decided 
 that we should return to Treguier ? 
 and that she should assume the 
 office of a teacher. Of all posi- 
 tions which a well educated person 
 without money can possibly choose, 
 the education of women in a small 
 provincial town is undeniably that 
 which demands most courage. This 
 was the period immediately after
 
 26 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 the Revolution of 1830. In those 
 remote provinces it was a critical 
 and trying" moment. The nobility 
 during the Restoration, seeing that 
 their privileges were not contested, 
 had frankly taken part in the univer- 
 sal change. Now, feeling themselves 
 humiliated, they took their revenge 
 by withdrawing into a narrow circle 
 and impeding the general growth. 
 The Legitimist families refused to trust 
 their children to any but religious 
 communities; middle class families, 
 folio wiiisr the fashion and imitatinff 
 people of quality, soon adopted the 
 same custom. Incapable of stooping 
 to those methods of vulgar clever- 
 ness without which it is almost im- 
 possible for a private educational 
 establishment to succeed, my sister,
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 27 
 
 with her rare distinction, her deep 
 earnestness, her solid instruction, saw 
 her poor little school deserted. Her 
 modesty, her reserve, the exquisite 
 taste she showed in everything-, were 
 so many reasons for failure here. 
 At odds with mean susceptibilities, 
 obliged to contend against the most 
 fool i si 1 pretensions, that great and 
 noble soul wore itself away in an 
 endless struggle with a degenerate 
 society, which the Revolution had 
 deprived of the best elements that 
 it formerly possessed without confer- 
 ring upon it any of its benefits. 
 
 Some few persons superior to pro- 
 vincial pettinesses appreciated her. 
 One very intelligent man, free from 
 the prejudices which reign unop- 
 posed in provincial towns since the
 
 28 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 aristocracy have disappeared or have 
 been debased and stupefied by reac- 
 tion, conceived a very strong feeling 
 for her. My sister, in spite of a birth- 
 mark to which it took some time to 
 
 become accustomed, had at this age 
 much charm. Those who only knew 
 
 her in later years, when worn by a 
 severe climate, cannot imagine how 
 delicate and languorous her features 
 then were. Her eyes were wonder- 
 fully soft, her hand was the most 
 exquisite and graceful conceivable. 
 Propositions were made ; conditions 
 were discreetly hinted. The effect 
 of these conditions would have been 
 to part her, to some extent, from 
 her family, for whom it was thought 
 she had labored long enough. She 
 refused, although the jDrecision and
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 29 
 
 balance of her mind inspired her 
 with a genuine liking for those sim- 
 ilar qualities which she saw in him. 
 She preferred poverty to wealth un- 
 shared with her familv. However, 
 her situation became more and more 
 painful. The money due her was so 
 irregularly paid that at times we re- 
 gretted having left Lannion, where 
 we found greater devotion and sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 She then determined to drain the bit- 
 ter cup to its dregs (1835). A friend of 
 our family, who about this time visited 
 Paris, mentioned to her a position as 
 under teacher in a small school for 
 girls. The poor creature accepted. 
 She set forth at the age of twenty- 
 four, without a protector or an ad- 
 viser, for a world of which she knew
 
 30 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 absolutely nothing', and where a cruel 
 apprenticeship awaited her. 
 
 Her early days in Paris were horri- 
 ble. That world of coldness, rigidity, 
 and charlatanism, that desert where 
 she had not a single friend, drove her 
 to despair. The intense love which 
 we Bretons feel for our native land, 
 our customs, and our family life, 
 awoke in her with the sharpest keen- 
 ness. Lost in an ocean where her 
 modesty caused her to be overlooked, 
 prevented by her extreme reserve 
 from forming those friendly relations 
 which console and sustain when they 
 are of no other aid, she became a prey 
 to a profound homesickness which 
 affected her seriously. The most 
 cruel thing to a Breton when first 
 transplanted is the feeling that he is
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 31 
 
 forsaken by God as well as by men. 
 His sky is overcast. His gentle faith 
 in the universal morality of the 
 world, his calm optimism, are shaken. 
 He believes himself cast out of para- 
 dise into an inferno of icy indiffer- 
 ence ; the voice of beauty and goodness 
 seems to him dead and lifeless ; he 
 is ready to exclaim, " How can I 
 sing praises unto the Lord in a 
 strange land ! '' To fill up the meas- 
 ure of her misery, the first bouses 
 into which her fate led her were 
 not worthy of her. Fancy a tender 
 maiden, who never before left her 
 pious little village, her mother, and 
 her friends, suddenly flung into one 
 of those frivolous boarding schools 
 where her serious ideas are wounded 
 at every turn, where she finds in her
 
 32 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 superiors nothing but worldliness, 
 indifference, and sordid selfishness. 
 This early experience led her to be 
 very severe in her criticism of Paris- 
 ian schools for girls. Twenty times 
 she made up her mind to leave; it 
 took all her indomitable courage to 
 detain her there. 
 
 Little by little, however, she was 
 appreciated. She was put in charge 
 of a school, a very respectable one 
 this time ; but the obstacles which 
 she met in trying to carry out her 
 views amidst the petty miseries in- 
 separable from private institutions, 
 always kept up by their proprietors 
 for the sake of trifling advantages, 
 prevented her from ever finding much 
 pleasure in this form of teaching. 
 She worked sixteen hours a day.
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 33 
 
 She accepted all the open trials de- 
 manded by the regulations. This 
 labor did not have upon her the 
 effect which it would have had upon 
 a commonplace nature. Instead of 
 crushing, it strengthened her, and 
 greatly developed her ideas. Her 
 education, already very broad, be- 
 came exceptional. She studied the 
 works of the modern school of his- 
 tory, and, later on, but a few words 
 from me were required to give her 
 the most acute critical perception. 
 So, too, her religious ideas became 
 modified. Historv showed her the 
 insufficiency of any special dogma ; 
 but the religious basis existing in 
 her by the gift of nature and by the 
 act of early education was too solid 
 to be shaken. All this growth, which 
 
 3
 
 34 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 might have been dangerous in an- 
 other woman, was harmless here ; 
 for she kept it for herself alone. 
 Intellectual culture in her eyes pos- 
 sessed an intrinsic and absolute value ; 
 she never dreamed of deriving from 
 it any satisfaction for vanity. 
 
 In 1838 she summoned me to 
 Paris. Educated at Treguier by 
 worthy priests who there conducted 
 a sort of small seminary, I early 
 showed aptitudes for the ecclesiasti- 
 cal condition. The triumphs which 
 I won at school enchanted my sister, 
 who mentioned them to a good and 
 distinguished man, the doctor of the 
 school where she taught, and a very 
 zealous Catholic, Dr. Descuret, author 
 of the " Medicine of the Passions." 
 Descuret spoke to Monseigneur Du-
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 35 
 
 panloup, who at that time managed 
 the little seminary of Saint Nicho- 
 las du Chardonnet in such brilliant 
 fashion, concerning- the possible ac- 
 quisition of an apt pupil, and came 
 back telling my sister that a scholar- 
 ship in the little seminary was at 
 my disposal. I was then fifteen 
 and a half. My sister, whose Catho- 
 lic beliefs were beginning to waver, 
 viewed with some regret the wholly 
 clerical bent of my education. But 
 she knew the respect which a child's 
 faith deserves. She never said a 
 word to turn me from the course 
 which I followed with perfect spon- 
 taneity. She came to see me every 
 week ; she still wore the simple green 
 woollen shawl which had sheltered 
 her proud poverty in Brittany. She
 
 36 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 was the same loving, gentle maiden, 
 but with an added firmness and good- 
 ness given her by the trials of life 
 and her hard study. 
 
 The teacher's career is so ungrate- 
 ful a one for women, that at the end 
 of five years spent in Paris, after 
 several attacks of illness caused by 
 overwork, my sister was still far 
 from able to provide for the bur- 
 dens which she had assumed. True, 
 she understood them after a fashion 
 which would have discouraged any 
 one but herself. Our father had 
 left liabilities which far exceeded the 
 value of our paternal mansion, the 
 only property left to us. But our 
 mother was so beloved, and all things 
 in that kindly land were still treated 
 after so patriarchal a fashion, that no
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 37 
 
 creditor had ever dreamed of urging 
 a settlement. It was agreed that my 
 mother should keep the house, pay- 
 ing what she could and when she 
 could. My sister would not hear of 
 rest until all this heavy burden of 
 debt was lifted. 
 
 It was thus that she was led to 
 listen to offers made to her in 1840 to 
 become a private governess in Poland. 
 She would have to leave her native 
 land for } r ears, and to accept the 
 closest servitude. But she had made 
 a much greater effort when she left 
 Brittany and launched out upon the 
 vast world. She set forth in Janu- 
 ary, 1841, traversed the Black Forest 
 and all Southern Germany, hidden by 
 snow, joined at Vienna the family to 
 which she had engaged herself, then,
 
 38 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 crossing the Carpathians, reached the 
 castle of Clemensow, on the shores of 
 the Bug, a gloomy abode, where for 
 ten long years she was to know how 
 bitter exile is, even when one has a 
 noble motive for enduring it. 
 
 But now fate had in store for her 
 at least one compensation for many 
 injustices, placing her in a family 
 to which I may well refer, since 
 to its historic lustre it lias lately 
 added a contemporary glory which 
 has brought its name to every mouth ; 
 it was the family of Count Andre 
 Zamoyski. The love with which she 
 performed her tasks, the affection 
 which she soon felt for her three 
 pupils, the joy of seeing her efforts 
 bear fruit, — especially in one who 
 from her youth was destined to follow
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 39 
 
 her teachings longest, Princess Cecile 
 
 Lubormirska, — the rare esteem which 
 she won from all of that noble family, 
 who after her return to France never 
 ceased to appeal to her advice and 
 her judgment, — the affinity of ear- 
 nestness and uprightness which existed 
 between her character and that of the 
 home in which she lived, — caused 
 her to forget both the sadness insep- 
 arable from her position and the 
 rigors of a climate wholly unsuited 
 to her temperament. She became at- 
 tached to Poland, and learned, above 
 all, to hold in high esteem the Polish 
 peasant, whom she regarded as a good 
 creature, full of high religious in- 
 stincts, reminding her of the Breton 
 peasant, but with less energy. 
 
 The journeys which she made in
 
 40 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 Germany and Italy completed the 
 work of maturing her ideas. She 
 lived at various intervals in Warsaw, 
 Vienna, and Dresden. Venice and 
 Florence enchanted her. But it was 
 Rome above all other cities that won 
 her love. This city, full of profound 
 inspiration as it is, led her to view 
 with much serenity the separation 
 which every philosophic mind is 
 forced to make between the basis 
 of religion and its individual forms. 
 She loved, with Lord Byron, to call it 
 " dear city of the soul." Like all 
 strangers who have lived there, she 
 even became indulgent of all the silly 
 and childish details which the mod- 
 ern institution of the Papacy entails.
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 41 
 
 III. 
 
 I left Saint Sulpice seminary in 
 1845. Thanks to the liberal and 
 earnest spirit which ruled over that 
 institution, I had carried my philo- 
 logic studies very far ; my religious 
 opinions were greatly shaken thereby. 
 Here again Henrietta was my sup- 
 port. She had outstripped me in this 
 path ; her Catholic beliefs had wholly 
 disappeared ; but she had always re- 
 frained from exerting any influence 
 over me upon this subject. When I 
 told her of the doubts which tor- 
 mented me, and which made it my 
 duty to abandon a career for which 
 absolute faith was requisite, she was 
 enchanted, and offered to smooth the
 
 42 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 difficult passage. I entered upon life, 
 scarce twenty-three years of age, old 
 in thought, but as great a novice, as 
 ignorant of the world, as any one 
 could possibly be. I knew literally 
 no one ; I lacked the most ordinary 
 advantages of a youth of fifteen. I 
 was not even Bachelor of Arts. It 
 was agreed that I should search the 
 boarding schools of Paris for some 
 position which would square me, as 
 the slang phrase is, — that is, would 
 give me board and lodging without 
 salary, at the same time leaving me 
 abundant time for independent study. 
 Twelve hundred francs, which she 
 gave me, enabled me to wait, and to 
 supplement all the deficiencies which 
 such a position might entail. Those 
 twelve hundred francs were the corner
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 4 
 
 o 
 
 stone of m) r life. I never exhausted 
 them ; but they gave me the requisite 
 tranquillity of mind to think at my 
 ease, and made it unnecessary for 
 me to overburden myself with tasks 
 which would have crushed me. Her 
 exquisite letters were my consolation 
 and my support at this turning point 
 in my life. 
 
 While I struggled with difficulties 
 increased by my entire lack of ex- 
 perience of the world, her health suf- 
 fered serious inroads in consequence 
 of the severity of the winters in 
 Poland. She developed a chronic 
 affection of the larynx, which in 1850 
 became so serious that it was thought 
 necessary for her to return. More- 
 over, her task was accomplished, our 
 father's debts were paid, the small
 
 44 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 properties which he had left to us 
 were now free from encumbrance, 
 in the hands of our mother ; my 
 brother had won by his labor a posi- 
 tion which promised to make him 
 rich. We decided to unite our for- 
 tunes. In September, 1850, I joined 
 her in Berlin. Those ten years of 
 exile had utterly transformed her. 
 The wrinkles of old age were prema- 
 turely printed on her brow ; of the 
 charm which she still possessed when 
 she took leave of me in the parlor of 
 the Saint Nicholas seminary, nothing 
 now remained but the delicious ex- 
 pression of her ineffable goodness. 
 
 Then began for us those delightful 
 years, the mere memory of which 
 brings tears to my eyes. We took 
 a small apartment in a garden near
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 45 
 
 Val-de- Grace. Our solitude was ab- 
 solute. She had no friends and made 
 little effort to acquire any. Our 
 windows looked out upon the garden 
 of the Carmelites in the Rue d'Enfer. 
 The life of those recluses, during the 
 long hours which I spent at the 
 library, in some sort regulated her 
 existence and afforded her only source 
 of amusement. Her respect for my 
 work was extreme. I have seen her 
 in the evening sit for hours beside 
 me, scarcely breathing for fear of 
 interrupting me ; yet she could not 
 bear to have me out of her sight, 
 and the door between our two bed- 
 rooms was always open. Her love 
 was so discreet and so secure that 
 the secret communion of our thoughts 
 was enough for her. She naturally
 
 46 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 so exacting, so jealous in her affec- 
 tions, was content with a few minutes 
 out of the day provided she was sure 
 that she alone was loved. By her 
 rigid economy, she provided for me, 
 with singularly limited resources, a 
 home where nothing was ever lack- 
 ing, na}^, which had its austere charm. 
 Our thoughts were so perfectly in 
 accord that we hardly needed to im- 
 part them each to the other. Our gen- 
 eral opinions as to the world and God 
 were identical. There was no shade 
 of distinction, however delicate, in 
 the theories which I revolved at that 
 period that she did not understand. 
 Upon many points of modern history, 
 which she had studied at the fountain 
 head, she outstripped me. The gen- 
 eral purpose of my career, the plan of
 
 MY SISTEE HENRIETTA. 47 
 
 unwavering- sincerity which I formed, 
 was so thoroughly the combined pro- 
 duct of our two consciences that, had 
 I been tempted to depart from it, she 
 would have stood beside me, like an- 
 other self, to recall me to my duty. 
 
 Her share in the direction of my 
 ideas was thus a very large one. 
 She was a matchless secretary to 
 me ; she copied all my works, and 
 grasped them so fully that I could 
 depend upon her as upon a living 
 index of my own thought. I am in- 
 finitely indebted to her in the matter 
 of literary style. She read the proofs 
 of everything I wrote, and her acute 
 criticism, with infinite keenness, discov- 
 ered errors which I had not observed. 
 She had acquired an excellent mode 
 of writing, wholly taken from antique
 
 48 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 sources, and so pure, so precise, that 
 I think no one since the days of Port 
 Royal ever set up an ideal of diction 
 more perfectly correct. This made 
 her very severe ; she accepted very 
 few modern writers, and when she 
 saw the essays which I wrote before 
 our reunion, and which I had not 
 been able to send to her in Poland, 
 she was only half satisfied with them. 
 She agreed with their tendency, and 
 in any event she thought that in 
 this order of intimate and individual 
 thought, expressed with moderation, 
 every one should give utterance witli 
 entire freedom to that which is in 
 him. But the form struck her as 
 careless and abrupt ; she discovered 
 exaggerated touches, a hard tone, a 
 disrespectful way of treating Ian-
 
 MT SISTER HENRIETTA. 49 
 
 guage. She convinced me that one 
 may say anything and everything 
 in the simple, correct style of good 
 authors, and that new expressions or 
 violent images always proceed either 
 from improper affectation or from 
 ignorance of our genuine riches. 
 Hence, a great change in my mode 
 of writing dates from my reunion 
 with her. I acquired the habit of com- 
 posing with a view to her remarks, 
 risking many touches to see what 
 effect they would produce on her, 
 and determined to sacrifice them if 
 she asked me to do so. This mental 
 process, when she ceased to live, be- 
 came to me like the painful feeling 
 of one who has been amputated, 
 who continually acts with a view to 
 the lost limb. She was an organ of
 
 50 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 my intellectual life, and a portion of 
 my own being 1 truly entered the tomb 
 with her. 
 
 In all moral matters we had come 
 to see with the same eyes, and to 
 feel with the same heart. She was 
 so thoroughly familiar with my order 
 of thought that she almost always 
 knew beforehand what I was about 
 to say, the idea dawning upon her 
 and upon me at the same moment. 
 But, in one sense, she was greatly my 
 superior. In spiritual things I was 
 still seeking material for interesting 
 essays or artistic studies ; with her 
 nothing marred the pnrity of her 
 intimate communion with the good. 
 Her religion of the true could not 
 endure the least discordant note. 
 One thing that wounded her in my
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 51 
 
 writings was a touch of irony which 
 possessed me, and which I mingled 
 with the best tilings. I had never 
 suffered, and I found a certain philos- 
 ophy in the discreet smile provoked 
 by human weakness or vanity. This 
 trick wounded her, and I gradually 
 gave it up for her sake. I now know 
 how right she was. The good should 
 be simply good ; any touch of mock- 
 ery implies a remnant of vanity and 
 of personal challenge which ends by 
 being in bad taste. 
 
 Her religion had attained to the 
 last degree of purification. She ab- 
 solutely rejected the supernatural ; 
 but she retained a strong attachment 
 to Christianity. It was not precisely 
 Protestantism, even that of the broad- 
 est description, which pleased her. She
 
 52 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 preserved a charming- recollection of 
 Catholicism, of its music, its Psalms, 
 of the pious practices with which she 
 had been lulled in childhood. She 
 was a saint, without the rigid faith in 
 symbols and the narrow observances. 
 About a month before her death we 
 had a religious conversation with 
 good Dr. Gaillardot on the terrace 
 before our house at Ghazir. She 
 held me back from the abyss of for- 
 mulas in regard to an unconscious 
 Deity and a purely ideal immortality 
 into which I allowed mvself to be 
 drawn. Without being a Deist in the 
 vulvar sense, she did not wish reli- 
 gion to be reduced to a pure abstrac- 
 tion. In practice, at least, everything 
 was clear to her. "Yes," she said to 
 us, " at my last hour I shall have the
 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 vs 

 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 53 
 
 comfort of thinking that I have done as 
 much good as possible ; if there be any- 
 thing which is not vanity, it is that." 
 An exquisite feeling for nature was 
 the source of her keenest enjo} T ments. 
 A fine day, a sunbeam, a flower, were 
 enough to fill her with rapture. She 
 thoroughly understood the delicate art 
 of the great idealist schools of Italy ; 
 but she could take no pleasure in the 
 brutal or violent art whose object is 
 anything but beauty. Special cir- 
 cumstances gave her a rare knowl- 
 edge of the history of the art of the 
 Middle Ages. She collected for me 
 all the notes for the address on the 
 condition of the fine arts in the four- 
 teenth century, which is to form a 
 part of Volume XXIV. of the " Liter- 
 ary History of France." To do this,
 
 54 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 she examined with admirable patience 
 and exactitude all the great archaeo- 
 logical collections published within 
 half a century, extracting everything 
 which bore upon our subject. Her 
 opinions, which she set down at the 
 same time, were strikingly correct, 
 and I seldom failed to adopt them. 
 To complete our researches, we took 
 a journey together to the land where 
 Gothic art grew up, — to Vexin, Valois, 
 Beauvais, the region of Noyon, Laon, 
 and Rheims. In these researches, 
 which interested her, she displayed an 
 amazing activity. Her ideal was an 
 obscure, industrious life, surrounded 
 by affections. She often repeated the 
 phrase of Thomas a Kempis, In an- 
 gello, cum libello} She spent very 
 
 1 In a little nook, with a little book.
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 55 
 
 happy hours in these quiet occupa- 
 tions. Her mind was then completely 
 at peace, and her heart, usually full 
 of alarm, entered into full rest. 
 
 Her capacity for work was extraor- 
 dinary. I have seen her, for days at 
 a time, devote herself unceasingly 
 to the task which she had taken up. 
 She took part in editing- educational 
 journals, especially the one in charge 
 of her friend, Mile. Ulliac-Tremadeure. 
 She never signed her name, and it was 
 impossible, with her great modesty, 
 that she could ever win, in this line, 
 more than the esteem of a select few. 
 Moreover, the detestable taste which 
 in France presides over the com- 
 position of works meant for the edu- 
 cation of women left her no room to 
 hope either for great satisfaction or
 
 56 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 great success. It was particularly to 
 oblige her friend, who was old and 
 infirm, that she undertook this labor. 
 The writings wherein she may be 
 found entire are her letters. She wrote 
 them to perfection. Her notes of 
 travel were also excellent. I trusted 
 to her to tell the unscientific part of 
 our journey to the East. Alas ! all 
 knowledge of this side of mv enter- 
 prise, which I left to her, perished 
 with her. What I found on this head 
 in her papers is very good. We hope 
 to be able to publish it, completing it 
 by her letters. We shall then publish 
 a story which she wrote of the great 
 maritime expeditions of the fifteenth 
 and sixteenth centuries. She made 
 very extensive researches for this task, 
 and she brought to bear on it a critical
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 57 
 
 judgment very rare in works intended 
 for children. She did nothing by 
 halves; the rectitude of her judgment 
 was shown in everything by an ex- 
 quisite taste for solidity and truth. 
 
 She had not what is called wit, if 
 by that word we understand some- 
 thing airy and sly, as is the French 
 fashion. She never made a mock of 
 anybody. Malice was odious to her ; 
 she regarded it as a species of cru- 
 elty. I remember that at a Pardon 
 (pilgrimage) in Lower Brittany, to 
 which we went in boats, our bark 
 w r as preceded by another containing 
 certain poor ladies, who, wishing to 
 make themselves beautiful for the 
 festival, had hit upon pitiful arrange- 
 ments of their attire, which was in 
 very bad taste. The people in whose
 
 58 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 company we were, laughed at them, 
 and the poor ladies observed this. My 
 sister burst into tears : it seemed to 
 her barbarous to jest at well meaning- 
 persons who had for a time forgotten 
 their misfortunes to be cheerful, and 
 who had perhaps submitted to great 
 privations out of deference to the 
 world. In her eyes, a ridiculous 
 person was to be pitied ; she at once 
 loved him and took his part against 
 those who scoffed at him. 
 
 Hence her aversion to the world and 
 the poor show which she made in ordi- 
 nary conversation, — almost alwaj^s a 
 tissue of malice and frivolity. She was 
 prematurely old, and she generally 
 added still more to her age by her dress 
 and manners. She was a worship- 
 per of misfortune ; she hailed, almost
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 59 
 
 cultivated, every excuse for tears. 
 Sorrow became to her a familiar and 
 agreeable feeling. Ordinary people 
 did not, in general, understand her, 
 and considered her somewhat stiff 
 and embarrassed. Nothing which 
 was not completely good could please 
 her. Everything about her was true 
 and profound ; she could not dishonor 
 herself. The lower classes, peasants, 
 on the contrary, regarded her as ex- 
 quisitely kind, and those who knew 
 how to take her on the right side 
 soon learned to recognize the depth of 
 her nature and her real distinction. 
 
 She sometimes betrayed delightful 
 feminine touches ; she became a 
 young girl again ; she clung to life 
 almost with a smile, and the veil be- 
 tween her and the world seemed to
 
 60 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 fall. These fleeting moments of 
 delicious weakness, transient gleams 
 of a vanished dawn, were full of mel- 
 ancholy sweetness. In this she was 
 superior to persons who profess, in 
 their gloomy abstraction, the detach- 
 ment preached by the mystics. She 
 Joved life ; she found a relish in it ; 
 she could smile at an ornament, at a 
 feminine trifle, as we might smile at a 
 flower. She did not say to Nature 
 that frenzied Abrenuntio (I renounce 
 thee) of Christian ascetism. Virtue 
 to her was no stern rigor, no studied 
 effort ; it was the natural instinct of a 
 beautiful soul aiming at goodness by 
 a spontaneous exertion, serving God 
 without fear or tremor. 
 
 Thus for six years we lived a very 
 lofty and a very pure life. My
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 61 
 
 position was still very modest ; but it 
 was she herself who so willed it. 
 She would not have allowed me, even 
 had I had such a thought, to sacrifice 
 the least part of my independence to 
 my advancement. The misfortunes 
 which unexpectedly overtook my 
 brother, and led to the loss of all our 
 savings, did not disturb her. She 
 would have gone abroad again, had it 
 been necessary for the steady pro- 
 gress of my life. My God ! did I 
 do all that lay in my power to make 
 her happy ? How bitterly I reproach 
 myself now for not being sufficiently 
 open and affectionate with her, for not 
 telling her oftener how much I loved 
 her, for yielding too much to my taste 
 for silent concentration, for not tak- 
 ing the utmost advantage of every
 
 62 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 hour that was left me ! O could I 
 recover but a single one of those 
 moments which I did not spend in 
 making her happy ! But I take her 
 elect soul to witness that she was 
 always at the core of my heart, that 
 she ruled my entire moral life as it 
 was never given " to any one to rule, 
 that she was always the primary cause 
 of my sorrows and my joys. If I 
 sinned against her, it was due to a 
 stiffness of manner which those who 
 know me should not heed, and from 
 an awkward feeling of respect which 
 made me avoid with her every tiling 
 which might seem a profanation of 
 her sanctity. She herself was re- 
 strained by a similar feeling in regard 
 to me. My long clerical education, 
 for four years absolutely solitary, left
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 63 
 
 an impress on my disposition in this 
 regard which her delicate reserve 
 prevented her from combating as 
 much as she might. 
 
 IV. 
 
 My lack of experience of life, and 
 above all my ignorance of the deep 
 differences which exist between the 
 heart of a man and that of a wo- 
 man, led me to require of her a sacri- 
 fice which would have been beyond 
 the strength of any but her. My 
 sense of the duty which I owed to 
 such a friend was too profound to 
 allow me to dream of changing any- 
 thing in our condition without her 
 permission. But it was she herself 
 who, with her accustomed nobility,
 
 64 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 made the first advances. From the 
 earliest days of our reunion, she had 
 urged me to many. She often re- 
 turned to the charge. She even 
 talked, without my knowledge, with 
 one of our friends, of a match which 
 she had planned for me, but which 
 was never carried out. The intro- 
 ductory step which she took in this 
 matter led me to make a great mis- 
 take. I sincerely believed that she 
 would not feel hurt whenever I should 
 tell her that I had found a person of 
 my choice worthy to be associated 
 with her. When I allowed her to 
 talk to me of marriage, I had never 
 understood that she was to leave me. 
 I had always supposed that she would 
 still be to me what she had been thus 
 far, the accomplished and well be-
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 65 
 
 loved sister, incapable of taking or of 
 giving offence, too wholly sure of the 
 love with which she inspired me to be 
 wounded by that which another might 
 win. I now see the error of such a 
 conception. A woman's love is unlike 
 that of a man ; all affection with her 
 is exclusive and jealous ; she does 
 not admit any diversity of nature be- 
 tween the different loves. But I was 
 excusable ; I was deceived by my 
 extreme simplicity of heart, and also 
 to some degree by her. To speak 
 truly, was she not herself mistaken in 
 regard to her courage ? I think so. 
 When the marriage which she had 
 planned for me was set aside, she felt 
 a certain regret, although the scheme 
 in some respects, had ceased to please 
 her. But, mystery of women's
 
 66 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 hearts ! the trial which she hastened 
 to meet became a cruel one when 
 it was offered her. She was ready 
 to accept the bitter cup which her 
 own hands had prepared ; she now 
 shrank from that which I offered her, 
 although I had done my utmost to 
 make it sweet to her. Terrible result 
 of excessive delicacy ! The brother 
 and sister who had loved each other 
 so fondly were at last forced, for lack 
 of speaking with sufficient frankness, 
 to lay traps for each other unwittingly, 
 to seek and not to find each other. 
 Those were very bitter days for us. 
 "We went through all the storms and 
 tempests known to love. When she 
 told me that, when she suggested my 
 marriage, it was only to try if I were 
 sufficient unto her, when she declared
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 67 
 
 that the moment of my union to 
 another must be that of her departure, 
 the arrow entered into my soul. Was 
 the feeling that she felt an undivided 
 one ? did she really wish to oppose 
 the union which I desired ? Certainly 
 not. It was the tempest of a passionate 
 soul, the revolt of a heart violent in 
 its love. So soon as she and Cornelia 
 Scheffer met, each conceived for the 
 other the affection which afterwards 
 became so sweet to them both. Ary 
 Scheffer's grand and lofty ways took 
 possession of her and carried her away. 
 She recognized that there was here 
 no room for vulgar littlenesses and 
 mean susceptibilities. She wished to 
 yield ; but at the decisive moment 
 the woman was rearoused ; she had 
 no more power to yield.
 
 68 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 At last, I was compelled to put an 
 end to this cruel uncertainty. Forced 
 to choose between two affections, I 
 sacrificed all to the one of older date, 
 to the one which seemed most like 
 duty. I informed Miss Scheffer that 
 I could never see her again unless 
 my dear sister's heart ceased to bleed. 
 This was in the evening ; I went home 
 and told my sister what I had done. 
 A violent revolution took place within 
 her ; she felt cruel remorse at having 
 prevented a union desired by me 
 and highly appreciated by her. Next 
 morning, very early, she hastened to 
 Mr. Scheffer's house ; she spent several 
 hours with my betrothed ; they wept 
 together; they parted cheerfully, and 
 friends. In fact, after my marriage, 
 as before, everything was in common
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 69 
 
 between us. It was her economies 
 which made our youthful household 
 possible. Had it not been for her, I 
 could never have met my new respon- 
 sibilities. My confidence in her good- 
 ness was such that the ingenuousness 
 of such conduct did not strike me 
 until much later. 
 
 These alternations were prolonged ; 
 the cruel and charming' demon of lov- 
 ing alarm, of jealousy, of sudden re- 
 volts, of hasty regrets, which dwells 
 in the heart of women, often waked 
 once more to torture her. The idea 
 of breaking away from a life in which, 
 in her hours of bitterness, she affected 
 to find no place, was often suggested 
 by her saddened speech. But these 
 were remnants of evil dreams, which 
 gradually faded away. The delicate
 
 70 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 tact, the exquisite heart of the woman 
 whom I had given her for a sister, 
 gained a complete triumph. In mo- 
 ments of fleeting reproach, Cornelia's 
 enchanting intervention, her gayety, 
 full of good nature and grace, changed 
 our tears to smiles ; we ended by a 
 general embrace. The uprightness of 
 heart and feeling displayed before me 
 by these two women, contending with 
 the most delicate problem of love, 
 won my admiration. I at last blessed 
 the agonies which had obtained for me 
 such beautiful results. My artless 
 hope of seeing another than myself 
 complete her happiness, and introduce 
 into her life a gayety and activity 
 which I was unable to lend it, was at 
 times realized. More happy than 
 skilful, I saw my imprudence turned to
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 71 
 
 wisdom, and I enjoyed the fruit of 
 my temerity. 
 
 The birth of my little Ary dried 
 the last trace of all her tears. Her 
 affection for the child was actual ado- 
 ration. The maternal instinct which 
 overflowed within her found its natu- 
 ral issue here. Her sweetness, her 
 inexhaustible patience, her love for 
 all that is simple and good, inspired 
 her with inexpressible affection for 
 children. It was a sort of religious 
 worship, in which her melancholy 
 nature found an infinite charm. 
 When my second child was born, a 
 daughter whom I lost in a few months, 
 she repeatedly told me that this little 
 girl had come to take her place with 
 me. She loved the thought of death, 
 and took endless pleasure in it : " You
 
 72 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 will see, clear ones," she would say, 
 " that the little flower which we have 
 lost will leave us a very sweet 
 perfume." 
 
 The image of that sweet little dead 
 baby was long- sacred to her. Thus 
 united with our sorrows and our joys 
 with all the strength of her exquisite 
 sensibility, she at last completely ac- 
 cepted the new life in which I had 
 made her a partner. I count it as one 
 of my great moral satisfactions that I 
 could realize in the two women whom 
 fate has attached to my life, this 
 masterpiece of abnegation and pure 
 devotion. They loved each other 
 with a lively affection, and I have 
 now the consolation to feel that there 
 is one beside me whose grief almost 
 equals mine. Each of them had her
 

 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 73 
 
 distinct place with me, and this with- 
 out division or exclusion. Each of 
 them in her own way was all in all to 
 me. A few davs before her death, at 
 a moment when she seemed to have 
 a foreboding of her approaching end, 
 my sister uttered words which showed 
 me that the old wound was completely 
 healed, and that only the memory of 
 past bitterness remained. 
 
 V. 
 
 In May, 1860, when the Emperor 
 offered me a scientific mission to 
 ancient Phoenicia, she was one of the 
 persons who most strongly advised 
 me to accept. Her political opinions 
 were those of very firm liberalism ;
 
 74 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 but she thought that all party feelings 
 should be set aside when there was 
 an opportunity to carry out a plan 
 which seemed good, and from which 
 there was nothing to be gained but 
 clanger. It was from the first cle- 
 cicled that she should go with me. 
 Accustomed to her care and to the 
 excellent aid which she lent me in all 
 my labors, I also needed her to man- 
 age the expenses and keep the ac- 
 counts. This she did with scrupulous 
 care, and, thanks to her, I was en- 
 abled for a whole year to conduct a 
 very complicated enterprise without 
 being for an instant hampered by 
 material cares. Her activity amazed 
 all who saw her. Without her, in- 
 dubitably I could never in so short a 
 space of time have executed the pos-
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 75 
 
 sibly too extensive programme which 
 I had laid out for myself. 
 
 She never for a moment left me. 
 On the loftiest peaks of Lebanon, as 
 well as in the deserts of the Jordan, 
 she followed me step by step, saw all 
 that I saw. Had I died, she could 
 have related my travels almost as 
 well as I could myself. The terrible 
 mountain paths and the privations 
 inseparable from such explorations 
 never deterred her. My heart again 
 and again sunk within me when I 
 saw her tottering on the verge of a 
 precipice. She displayed rare strength 
 on horseback. She would travel eight 
 or ten hours a day. Her health, 
 usually frail enough, was firmly up- 
 held by the power of her will ; but 
 her whole nervous system was strung
 
 76 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 to a pitch which was betrayed by vio- 
 lent attacks of neuralgia. Two or 
 three times, in the midst of the desert, 
 she fell into a condition which alarmed 
 us. Her courage deceived us. She 
 had embraced my scheme of research 
 with such passion that nothing could 
 part her from me until it was fully 
 accomplished. 
 
 Moreover, this journey was the 
 source of very keen enjoyment to 
 her. I may truly say that it was her 
 only year without tears, and almost 
 the sole reward of her life. The 
 freshness of her impressions was unim- 
 paired ; she yielded to the sensations 
 of this new world with the artless joy 
 of a child. Nothing can equal the 
 charm of Syria in spring and autumn. 
 A balmy air pervades all nature, and
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 77 
 
 seems to lend life something of its 
 own lightness. The most beautiful 
 flowers, fine cyclamens particularly, 
 spring abundantly from every crevice 
 of the rocks : in the plains bordering 
 on Amrit and Tortosa, the feet of 
 the horses crush thick carpets of the 
 rarest flowers of our garden beds. 
 The streams flowing from the moun- 
 tain are in delightful contrast with the 
 fierce sun which drinks them up. 
 
 Our first halt was at the village of 
 Amschit, three quarters of an hour 
 away from Jebail (Byblus), founded 
 some twenty five or thirty years ago 
 by the rich Maronite, Mikhael Tobia. 
 Zakhia, Mikhael's heir, made our 
 stay extremely agreeable. He gave 
 us a pretty house from which we 
 overlooked Byblus and the sea. The
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 gentle manners of the natives, their 
 constant attentions, the affection which 
 they conceived for us and especially 
 for her, touched her deeply. She 
 loved to return to this village, and we 
 made it, as it were, our centre of 
 action for the whole region of Byblus. 
 The village of Sarba, near Djouni, 
 the abode of the good, kind Khadra 
 family, well known to all Frenchmen 
 who have travelled in the Orient, also 
 became a favorite spot with her. 
 The delicious harbor of Kastoria, 
 with the villages along its shores, its 
 convents clinging to every peak, its 
 mountains plunging into the sea, and 
 its pure waves, enchanted her ; every 
 time that we reached it, coming from 
 Jebail, by the cliffs to the north, a 
 hymn of joy rose from her heart.
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 70 
 
 She was greatly attached to the 
 Maronites, speaking generally. Her 
 visit to the convent of Bkerke, where 
 the patriarch then lived, in the midst 
 of bishops of rural simplicity, left a 
 very agreeable memory. On the 
 other hand, she felt the utmost aver- 
 sion for the petty European gossip of 
 Beyroot, and the barrenness of cities 
 such as Sidon, where the Mussulman 
 type prevails. The vast spectacles 
 which she witnessed at Tyre en- 
 chanted her; in the lofty pavilion 
 which she occupied, she was literally 
 rocked by the tempest. The wander- 
 ing life, so attractive in the long run, 
 became dear to her. My wife every 
 evening invented a thousand excuses 
 to persuade her not to stay alone in 
 her tent ; she yielded after a slight
 
 80 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 resistance ; she delighted in that close 
 and common atmosphere, together 
 with those who loved her, in the 
 midst of the wild immensity. 
 
 But it was above all her journey to 
 Palestine that enraptured her. Jeru- 
 salem with its matchless memories, 
 Naplouse and its lovely valley, 
 Carmel, flowery in spring, Galilee 
 particularly, an earthly paradise laid 
 waste, but where the Divine breath 
 is still apparent, held us for six weeks 
 captive to a magic spell. From Tyre 
 and Oum-el-Awamid, we had already 
 made several little trips of about a 
 week each, in the direction of the an- 
 tique regions of Asher and Nephtali, 
 which have witnessed such great 
 deeds. When I showed her for the 
 first time, from Kasyoum, beyond
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 81 
 
 Lake Haleh (the waters of Merom), 
 the entire region of the upper Jordan, 
 and in the distance the bed of Lake 
 Gennesareth, the cradle of Christian- 
 ity, she thanked me, and told me 
 that I had repaid her for her whole 
 life by showing her those places. 
 Superior to the narrow sentiment 
 which attaches historic memories to 
 material objects, almost always apoc- 
 ryphal and destitute of any solid 
 title to veneration, she looked for the 
 spirit, the idea, the general impres- 
 sion. Our long expeditions in that 
 beautiful land, Mount Hermon always 
 before us, its ravines alone being dis- 
 tinguishable upon the azure of the 
 sky as lines of snow, are graven on 
 our memory like dreams of another 
 universe. 
 
 6
 
 82 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 In the month of July, my wife, 
 who had been with us since January, 
 was forced to leave us in obedience 
 to other duties. The excavations had 
 been made, the army had evacuated 
 Syria. We were left alone together 
 to superintend the removal of the 
 objects discovered, to complete the 
 exploration of upper Lebanon, and 
 to prepare for a final campaign in 
 Cyprus during the following autumn. 
 I now regret most bitterly my decision 
 thus to prolong our stay in Syria 
 during the months most dangerous 
 to Europeans. Our last journey to 
 Lebanon greatly exhausted her. We 
 remained three days at Maschnaka, 
 beyond the river Adonis, living in 
 a mud hut. The constant transition 
 from the cold valleys to the torrid
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 83 
 
 rocks, the poor food, the necessity of 
 spending the night in ceiled houses, 
 which, if we would not suffocate, 
 must be thrown wide open, sowed in 
 her the seed of nervous pains, which 
 speedily developed. On leaving the 
 deep valleys of Tannourin, after 
 sleeping at the convent of Mar- 
 Jakoub, on one of the steepest peaks 
 in that region, we entered the scorch- 
 ing neighborhood of Toula. The 
 abrupt contrast overcame us. About 
 eleven o'clock, at the village of Helta, 
 she was attacked by intense pain. I 
 made her rest in the priest's poor hut ; 
 farther on, while I was copying some 
 inscriptions, she tried to sleep in a 
 chapel. But the native women would 
 not let her rest ; they crowded about 
 to see her, to touch her. At last we
 
 84 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 reached Toula. There she passed 
 two days in extreme agony. We 
 were destitute of all supplies. The 
 rude simplicity of the natives added 
 to her torments. Never having seen 
 a European, they took the house by 
 storm, and when I went out to make 
 my researches they tormented her in 
 an unendurable style. As soon as 
 she was able to ride a horse, we went 
 to Amschit, where she felt somewhat 
 better. But her left eye was affected ; 
 the vision of that eye was weakened, 
 and at times she suffered from true 
 diplopia. 1 
 
 The intense heat along the coast 
 and our fatigued condition led me to 
 fix our residence at Ghazir, a point 
 
 1 A disease of the eye in which objects appear 
 double, and even triple.
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 85 
 
 situated at a great height above the 
 sea, at the head of Kesrouan bay. 
 We took leave of our good people of 
 Anischit and Jebail. The sun was 
 setting as we reached the mouth of 
 the river Adonis ; there we rested. 
 Although she was by no means free 
 from pain, the voluptuous calm of that 
 beautiful spot took possession of her ; 
 she had a interval of gentle gayety. 
 We climbed Grhazir mountain by 
 moonlight ; she was full of content, 
 and we thought, when we left the 
 burning coast, that we had left behind 
 us the causes of the sufferings which 
 we had found there. 
 
 Ghazir is undoubtedly one of the 
 most beautiful spots in the world ; 
 the neighboring valleys are full of 
 delicious verdure, and the slope of
 
 86 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 Aramun, a little higher up, is the 
 most charming landscape which I saw 
 in Lebanon ; but the native popu- 
 lation, spoiled by contact with the 
 would be aristocratic families of the 
 country, does not possess the usual 
 good qualities of Maronite people. 
 There we found a little house, with a 
 pretty vine arbor. Here we took a 
 few days of very sweet rest. We had 
 snow from the crevices of the high 
 mountain. Our poor travelling com- 
 panions, my sister's Arab mare and 
 my mule Sada, grazed before our eyes. 
 For the first two weeks, Henrietta 
 suffered far less ; then the pains dis- 
 appeared, and God at last granted her 
 a few days of pure happiness before 
 she left this earth. 
 
 Those days have left an ineradicable
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 87 
 
 impress on my memory. The delays 
 inseparable from the difficult trans- 
 actions which we were just then com- 
 pleting, left me ample leisure. I 
 resolved to write out all the ideas in 
 regard to the life of Jesus which had 
 been germinating in my mind since my 
 stay in the land of Tyre and my jour- 
 ney to Palestine. As I read the Gos- 
 pels in Galilee, the personality of that 
 great Founder had vividly appeared to 
 me. In the midst of the profoundest 
 repose imaginable, I wrote, with the 
 aid of the Gospels and Josephus, a 
 " Life of Jesus," which I continued at 
 Ghazir up to the last journey of Jesus 
 to Jerusalem. Delicious and all too 
 fleeting hours, oh may eternity be 
 like you ! From morning till night 
 I was as if intoxicated with the idea
 
 88 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 which was unfolded before me. I 
 slept with it, and the first beams 
 of the sun appearing behind the 
 mountain revealed it to me clearer 
 and more vivid than the night be- 
 fore. Henrietta was day by day 
 familiar with the progress of my 
 task ; as I wrote a page, she copied it. 
 " This book," she said to me, " will 
 be very dear to me ; in the first place, 
 because we have done it together, and 
 then because it pleases me." Her 
 mind was never before so elevated. 
 In the evening we paced up and 
 down our terrace by the light of 
 the stars : she then shared with me 
 her reflections, full of profundity and 
 tact, some of which were genuine 
 revelations to me. Her joy was com- 
 plete, and those were undoubtedly
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 89 
 
 the sweetest moments of her life. 
 Our intellectual and moral com- 
 munion had never before reached 
 such a degree of intimacy. She told 
 me several times that these days were 
 her paradise. A sense of sweet sad- 
 ness was mingled with it. Her pains 
 were only lulled to sleep ; they waked 
 again at intervals, like a fatal warn- 
 ing. She then complained that fate 
 should be so miserly with her, and 
 should snatch away the only hours of 
 perfect joy which it had ever granted 
 her. 
 
 In the early days of September, 
 further stay at Ghazir was rendered 
 very inconvenient for me by the needs 
 of the mission, which required my 
 presence at Beyroot. We bade fare- 
 well, not without tears, to our house
 
 90 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 at Grhazir, and for the last time we 
 traversed the beautiful road along the 
 Chien River, with which for a year 
 we had been so familiar. 
 
 Although the heat was very great, 
 we spent some pleasant moments at 
 Beyroot. The days were oppressive, 
 but the nights were delicious, and 
 every evening the view of Sannin, 
 robed by the setting sun in an 
 Olympian atmosphere, was a feast 
 for the eyes. The arrangements for 
 transportation were almost completed ; 
 nothing remained for me to do but to 
 take the journey to Cyprus. We 
 began to talk of returning ; we al- 
 ready dreamed of soft, pale suns, 
 the cool, damp feeling of Northern 
 autumns, those green meadows on 
 the shores of the Oise which we had
 
 MY SISTER IIENRIETTA. 91 
 
 traversed at the same season two 
 years before. She dwelt with pleas- 
 ure on the joy of embracing little Ary 
 and our old mother. She had certain 
 melancholy moods when all her fam- 
 ily reminiscences recurred to her ; at 
 such moments, she would talk to me 
 of our father, of his kind, humble, 
 tender, and gentle soul. I never saw 
 her more attractive, more sublime. 
 
 On Sunday, September 15, Admiral 
 Le Barbier de Tinan informed me 
 that the Cato would devote a week 
 to fresh attempts to dislodge two 
 great sarcophagi at Jebail, which it 
 had at first been judged impossible 
 to remove. My presence at Jebail 
 during that week was not needful ; 
 it would have been enough had I 
 embarked on the Cato to give certain
 
 92 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 suggestions, returning by land to 
 Beyroot. But I knew that sepa- 
 rations of this sort displeased her. 
 Besides, as she was very fond of stay- 
 ing at Amschit, I hit upon another 
 plan : for both of us to set sail on the 
 Cato, spend the week at Amschit and 
 return with the Cato. We did indeed 
 start on Monday. Ever since the 
 previous evening she had been 
 slightly indisposed ; but the passage 
 did her good. She greatly enjoyed 
 the view of Lebanon in all the splen- 
 dor of summer, and while I went, with 
 the chief officer, to arrange for the 
 removal of the sarcophagi, she rested 
 quietly on board. That evening, 
 when the sun had set, we went up to 
 Amschit. Our good friends, who had 
 not expected to see us again, received
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 93 
 
 us with open arms. She was entirely 
 contented. After dinner, we spent a 
 part of the nig] it on the terrace of 
 Zakhia's house. The sky was won- 
 derful ; I reminded her of that pas- 
 sage in the book of Job where the old 
 patriarch boasts, as a rare merit, that 
 he has never carried his hand to his 
 mouth in token of adoration when he 
 saw the army of the stars in its splendor 
 and the moon advancing with majesty. 
 •All the spirit of the ancient faiths of 
 Syria seemed to spring to life before 
 us. Byblos lay at our feet ; towards 
 the south, in the sacred region of 
 Lebanon, loomed the strange inden- 
 tations of the cliffs and forests of 
 Jebel-Mousa, where legend places 
 the death of Adonis ; the sea, curv- 
 ing to the north towards Botrys,
 
 94 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 seemed to surround us on two sides. 
 That day was the last perfectly happy 
 day of my life ; henceforth, all joy 
 will take me back to the past, and 
 will recall her who is no longer here 
 to share it. 
 
 On Tuesday, she was less well. 
 Still I was not yet alarmed ; this in- 
 disposition seemed to me nothing 
 compared with those which I had 
 seen her endure. I had again en- 
 thusiastically taken up my " Life of 
 Jesus " ; we worked all day, and at 
 night she was as cheerful as ever on 
 the terrace. On Wednesday, the 
 trouble increased. I then determined 
 to ask the surgeon of the Cato to visit 
 her. He expressed no anxiety. On 
 Thursday, she was in the same condi- 
 tion. But the day was made ominous
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 95 
 
 to us by the fact that I was attacked 
 in my turn. I had reached the end 
 of my mission without serious illness. 
 By a fatal chance, the memory of 
 which will haunt me all my life like 
 a nightmare, the only moment when 
 I was forced to surrender was the 
 one when I should have watched 
 by her dying bed. 
 
 On Thursday morning, I had oc- 
 casion to go down to the harbor of 
 Jebail to confer with the comman- 
 dant. As I came back to Amschit, I 
 was conscious that the sun, reflected 
 from the burning 1 rocks of which the 
 hill is composed, had affected me. In 
 the afternoon, I had a violent attack 
 of fever, together with fierce twinges 
 of neuralgia. It was really the same 
 trouble which killed my poor sister.
 
 96 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 The doctor of the Cato, skilful as he 
 was, did not recognize it. These 
 pernicious fevers occur in Syria with 
 symptoms which none but doctors 
 who have lived in the country recog- 
 nize. Sulphate of quinine given in 
 very large doses might even then have 
 saved us both. That evening I felt 
 that I was becoming delirious. I told 
 the doctor, who, completely blinded 
 as to the nature of our disease, attached 
 no importance to it, and left us. I 
 then had in a terrible vision the ap- 
 prehension of that which three days 
 later became a frightful reality. I 
 shudderingly foresaw the clangers 
 which we ran if we fell alone, with- 
 out acquaintance, into the hands of 
 worthy people destitute of judgment 
 or knowledge, guided by the wild-
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 97 
 
 est notions in regard to medicine. I 
 took leave of life with a feeling of 
 anguish. The loss of my papers, and 
 of my Life of Jesus in particular, ap- 
 peared to me certain. Our night was 
 fearful ; but it seems that my poor 
 sister passed it more quietly than I 
 did, for I remember that next morn- 
 ing she was strong enough to say 
 to me, "Your night was one long 
 groan." 
 
 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday hover 
 before me like the scattered fragments 
 of a painful dream. The attack which 
 came near carrying me off on the 
 following Monday had a sort of retro- 
 active effect, and almost entirely 
 effaced the memory of the three pre- 
 ceding days. A fatal chance willed 
 it that the doctor should see us at
 
 98 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 moments of alleviation, and could not 
 foresee the coming crisis. I still 
 worked, but I was sensible that my 
 work was wretched. I had come to 
 the episode of the Last Supper in the 
 story of the Passion. When I reread 
 those lines later on, I found them 
 strangely confused. My thoughts 
 revolved in a sort of endless circle, 
 and throbbed like the side rod of an 
 engine thrown out of gear. I recall 
 various other particular circumstances. 
 I wrote to the Sisters of Charity at 
 Beyroot to beg some wine of quinine, 
 which they were the only people in 
 Syria to make ; but I was conscious 
 of the incoherency of my letter. 
 
 It seems as if neither of us had 
 a very clear sense of the serious na- 
 ture of our disease. I decided that
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 99 
 
 we would start for France on the 
 following- Thursday : " Yes, yes, let 
 us go," said she, with perfect con- 
 fidence. " Oh unhappy woman that 
 I am ! ' she said at another time, 
 " I see that I am destined to suffer 
 much." On one of these two days, 
 about sunset, she was able to move 
 from one room to the other. She 
 was on the sofa in the parlor where 
 I lay working as usual. The shut- 
 ters were open, our eyes turned to 
 Jebel-Mousa. At that instant she 
 had a presentiment of her end, but 
 not of so speedy an end. Her eyes 
 were wet with tears ; her face, drawn 
 by suffering, recovered a slight color, 
 and she cast a sad, sweet look with me 
 at her past life. "I will make my 
 will," she said ; " you shall be my
 
 100 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 heir. I have little to leave, but still 
 it is something ; I wish you to build 
 a family tomb out of my savings ; 
 we must lie together, we must be 
 close together. Little Ernestine 
 must lie with us." Then she made 
 a mental calculation, mapped out 
 the interior arrangement with her 
 finger, and seemed to desire a dozen 
 inches. She spoke with tears in her 
 eyes of little Ary, of our aged 
 mother. She told me what I was to 
 give her niece ; she tried to think of 
 something that would please Cornelia, 
 and she thought of a little Italian 
 book (the "Fioretti" of St. Fran- 
 cis) which M. Berthelot had given 
 her. "I have loved you very much," 
 she said ; " sometimes my affection 
 has made you suffer ; I have been
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 101 
 
 unjust, exclusive ; but it is because 
 I have loved you as no one loves 
 in this generation, as perhaps no 
 one should love." I burst into tears. 
 I talked to her of our return; I 
 brought the conversation back to 
 little Ary, knowing that this would 
 move her pleasantly. She readily 
 accepted the change of theme, and 
 dwelt on points which touched her 
 most. She again recalled the dear 
 memory of our father. This gleam 
 was the last for either of us. We 
 were in the interval of two attacks of 
 pernicious fever ; the final attack was 
 delayed but a few hours. Except 
 at moments when the doctor called, 
 we were alone, in the hands of our 
 Arab servants and the villagers, all 
 the other people belonging to the
 
 102 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 mission having left or being occupied 
 elsewhere. 
 
 I have little distinct recollection of 
 the fatal Sunday, or rather others 
 were forced to revive for me these 
 traces, which at first were wholly 
 obliterated. I continued to act all 
 day but like an automaton retaining 
 the impulse given it. I still distinctly 
 recall the feeling which I experienced 
 when I saw the peasants on their way 
 to mass ; usually, at that time, when 
 it was known that we too would 
 attend, there was a general gathering 
 in our honor. It was decided that 
 next morning, before daylight, sailors 
 should be sent with a cot-bed to fetch 
 my sister, and that the Cato should 
 convey us directly to Beyroot. To- 
 wards noon, I must have been still at
 
 MY SISTER IIENRIETTA. 103 
 
 work in my poor dear's room, for 
 I have been told that ray books and 
 notes were found there scattered over 
 the matting upon which I was ac- 
 customed to sit. In the afternoon, 
 ray sister felt very much worse. I 
 wrote to the doctor to come as quickly 
 as possible, suggesting some injury to 
 the heart. I have no recollection of 
 having written this letter, and when 
 it was shown to me a few days 
 after, it recalled nothing. But I still 
 lived, for Antoun, our servant, told 
 me that I ordered my sister to be car- 
 ried into the parlor which I used as a 
 bedroom, that I helped him to lift her 
 and that I remained with her for some 
 time. Perhaps Ave took a long, last 
 leave of each other then, and she 
 spoke sacred words to me, which the
 
 104 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 terrible sponge that soon passed over 
 my brain has utterly effaced. An- 
 toun assured me that she never for a 
 moment had any consciousness of 
 death ; but he was so far from intelli- 
 gent, and knew so little French, that 
 he may not have grasped what we 
 said to each other. 
 
 The doctor came about six o'clock, 
 accompanied by the commanding offi- 
 cer. Both thought that it was out of 
 the question to think of transporting 
 my sister to Beyroot next day. By a 
 strange coincidence, the fit seized me 
 while they were with us ; I lost con- 
 sciousness in the commandant's arms. 
 The two gentlemen, thoroughly up- 
 right and sensible, but thus far mis- 
 taken as to the serious nature of our 
 condition, held a council together.
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 105 
 
 The doctor, frankly admitting his 
 inability to treat a disease whose 
 progress baffled him, begged the com- 
 mandant to return to Beyroot, and 
 come back again at once with fresh 
 help. The commandant accepted this 
 advice. But yielding too implicitly 
 to the formalities of Turkish naval 
 customs, which other officers, even in 
 the absence of grave reasons, did not 
 heed, he did not start until four o'clock 
 on Monday morning. At six, he was 
 at Beyroot, and spoke with Admiral 
 Paris, who, with his usual rare cour- 
 tesy, ordered him to return imme- 
 diately, after taking on board Dr. 
 Louvel of the Algesiras, the chief sur- 
 geon of the squadron, and Dr. Suquet, 
 the French officer of health at Bey- 
 root, — universally acknowledged to
 
 106 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 be the one of all French physicians 
 who had studied Syrian diseases 
 most thoroughly. 
 
 At half-past ten, all these gentle- 
 men were at Amschit. Almost simul- 
 taneously, Dr. Gaillardot arrived by 
 land. Since the previous evening, 
 we had both lain unconscious, face 
 to face, in Zakhia's large parlor, 
 cared for only by Antoun. The good 
 Zakhia family stood about us, weep- 
 ing and protecting us from the priest, 
 a sort of madman who insisted upon 
 nursing us. I am told that my sister 
 gave absolutely no sign of conscious- 
 ness during the whole of this time. 
 Dr. Suquet, to whom of course our 
 treatment was left, soon saw, alas ! 
 that it was too late for her. Every 
 effort to produce a reaction was in
 
 
 ^Mms 
 
 
 ^-h if-; iM 
 
 ff% ■Tifv.- V * 
 
 J 
 
 ^ 
 
 N
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 107 
 
 vain. Sulphate of quinine, which, 
 administered in large doses, is the 
 sovereign remedy in these terrible 
 attacks, could not be swallowed. Oh, 
 can it be that a few hours earlier 
 these fresh attentions would have 
 saved her ! One cruel thought at 
 least will forever haunt me. Had we 
 stayed at Beyroot, although the attack 
 might not have been warded off, yet 
 Dr. Suquet, called in time, in all prob- 
 ability might have conquered it. 
 
 All day Monday my noble, tender 
 friend lay dying. She expired on 
 Tuesday, September 24, at three 
 o'clock in the morning. The Maro- 
 nite priest, summoned at the last mo- 
 ment, administered extreme unction 
 according to his rite. Sincere tears 
 were not lacking beside her dead
 
 108 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 body ; but, God ! who could have 
 told me that the day would come 
 when my Henrietta should pass away 
 within two feet of me and I not re- 
 ceive her last breath ! Yes, had it 
 not been for the fatal swoon which 
 overtook me on Sunday night, I 
 believe that my kisses, the sound of 
 my voice, would have held back her 
 soul a few hours longer, — long- 
 enough, perhaps, for salvation. I 
 cannot persuade myself that her loss 
 of consciousness was so complete that 
 I could not have broken through the 
 spell. Two or three times, in fever 
 dreams, I have been tormented by 
 a terrible doubt. I have thought I 
 heard her call me from the vault in 
 which her body was laid ! The 
 presence of French physicians at the
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 109 
 
 moment of her death no doubt forbids 
 this horrible supposition. But that 
 she should have been tended by any 
 one but me, that servile hands should 
 have touched her, that I should not 
 have conducted her funeral rites and 
 attested to the earth by my tears 
 that she was my well beloved sister, 
 that she should have failed to see my 
 face if her eye beheld for one instant 
 more the world which she was about 
 to leave, — this, this it is which will 
 forever oppress me and poison all my 
 joys. If she knew that she was dying 
 without me beside her, if she knew 
 that I was at my last breath at her 
 side and that she could not nurse me, 
 oh then that heavenly creature must 
 have died with hell in her heart ! 
 Consciousness is a thing so dissimilar
 
 110 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 both in its aspects and in the memory 
 of it which remains, that I find it hard 
 at times to be wholly at ease on this 
 point. 
 
 Less exhausted than my sister, I 
 bore the large dose of sulphate of qui- 
 nine which was at last administered. I 
 recovered some sensation on Tuesday 
 morning, about an hour before my 
 beloved passed away. What proves 
 that I was far more conscious all 
 through Sunday, and even during my 
 delirium, than my recollections would 
 go to show, is the fact that my first 
 question was to ask after my sister. 
 " She is very ill," was the reply. I 
 continually repeated the same ques- 
 tion in the semi-sleep in which I lay. 
 " She is dead," was the answer atlast. 
 It was useless to try to deceive me, for
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. Ill 
 
 preparations were on foot to remove 
 me to Beyroot. I implored to be 
 allowed to see her ; this was abso- 
 lutely refused. I was put upon the 
 very same cot-bed which had been 
 intended for her conveyance. I was 
 in a state of complete numbness ; the 
 frightful blow just dealt me seemed to 
 me one of my feverish hallucinations. 
 I was devoured by horrible thirst. 
 A scorching 1 dream perpetually bore 
 me back witli her to Apheca, to the 
 sources of the Adonis River, under 
 the giant nut trees which grow below 
 the cascade. She sat beside me on 
 the cool grass ; I held to her dying 
 lips a cup of icy water ; we both 
 bathed in those life giving springs, 
 weeping, and with a sense of all-per- 
 vasive melancholy. It was not till
 
 112 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 two days later that I recovered com- 
 plete consciousness, and that my mis- 
 fortune appeared to me as a fearful 
 reality. 
 
 Dr. Gaillardot remained at Amschit 
 after our departure to superintend my 
 poor dear's funeral. The people of 
 the village, in whom she had inspired 
 great affection, followed her coffin. 
 Means for embalming were wholly 
 wanting ; a temporary resting place 
 had to be provided. Zakhia offered 
 for the purpose Mikhael Tobia's tomb, 
 situated at the farther end of the 
 village, near a pretty chapel, and in 
 the shadow of fine palms. He only 
 asked that, when she was removed, an 
 inscription might show that a French- 
 woman had rested in that place. 
 There she still lies. I hesitate to take
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 113 
 
 her away from those beautiful moun- 
 tains where she passed such sweet 
 moments, from the midst of those 
 good people whom she loved, to lay 
 her in one of our gloomy cemeteries, 
 of which she had a horror. Of course 
 I want her to rest beside me some 
 day ; but who can say in what corner 
 of the world he may fall asleep ? So 
 let her await me beneath the Amschit 
 palms, in the land of antique mysteries, 
 near the sacred Byblos. 
 
 We know not the relations of 
 great souls with the infinite ; but if, 
 as everything leads us to believe, 
 consciousness be but a transitory 
 communion with the universe, a 
 communion which leads us more or 
 less directly into the bosom of God,
 
 114 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 is it not for souls like hers that im- 
 mortality is intended? If man have 
 the power to carve out, after a divine 
 model which he does not select, a 
 great moral personality, made up in 
 equal parts of himself and of the ideal, 
 it is surely this that lives with full 
 reality. It is not matter that exists, 
 since a unit is not that ; it is not the 
 atom which exists, since that is uncon- 
 scious. It is the soul which exists, 
 when it has truly made its mark in the 
 eternal history of the true and the 
 good. Who ever fulfilled this high 
 destiny better than did my dear one ? 
 Removed just as she attained to the 
 full maturity of her nature, she could 
 never have been more perfect. She 
 had reached the pinnacle of virtuous 
 life ; her views in regard to the uni-
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 115 
 
 verse would not have been carried 
 further ; her measure of devotion and 
 tenderness was running over. 
 
 Ah ! but she might have been, — 
 without a doubt she might have been 
 happier. I was dreaming of all sorts 
 of small, sweet rewards for her; I 
 had imagined a thousand foolish fan- 
 cies to please her taste. I saw her 
 old, respected like a mother, proud of 
 me, resting at last in a peace without 
 alloy. I longed to have her good and 
 noble heart, which never ceased to 
 bleed with tenderness, know a sort of 
 calm — I may say a selfish moment 
 — at last. God willed her to know 
 here none but hard and rough roads. 
 She died almost unrewarded. The 
 hour for reaping what she had sown, 
 for sitting down and looking back
 
 116 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 upon past sorrows and fatigues, never 
 struck for her. 
 
 To tell the truth, she never thought 
 of reward. That interested view, 
 which often spoils the sacrifices in- 
 spired by positive religions, leading 
 us to think that virtue is practised 
 only for the usury to be derived from 
 it, never entered into her great soul. 
 When she lost her religious faith, her 
 faith in duty was not lessened, because 
 that faith was the echo of her inner 
 nobilitv. Virtue witli her was not the 
 
 J 
 
 fruit of a theory, but the result of an 
 absolute disposition of nature. She 
 did good for its own sake, and not for 
 her own salvation. She loved the 
 beautiful and the true, without any 
 of that calculation which seems to 
 say to God, "Were it not for Thy
 
 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 117 
 
 hell or Thy paradise, I should not 
 love Thee." 
 
 But God does not let His saints see 
 corruption. heart wherein per- 
 petually burned so sweet a flame of 
 love, — brain, seat of such pure 
 thought, — fair eyes, beaming- with 
 kindness, — slender, delicate hand, 
 which I have so often pressed, — I 
 shudder with horror when I think 
 that you are naught but dust. But 
 all here below is but symbol and 
 image. The truly eternal part of 
 each of us is his relation to the in- 
 finite. It is in the recollection of God 
 that man is immortal. It is there that 
 our Henrietta lives, forever radiant, 
 forever stainless, — lives a thousand 
 times more truly than when she 
 struggled with her frail organs to
 
 118 MY SISTER HENRIETTA. 
 
 create her spiritual person, and when, 
 cast into the midst of a world incapa- 
 ble of understanding her, she obsti- 
 nately sought after perfection. May 
 her memory remain with us as a 
 precious argument for those eternal 
 truths which every virtuous life helps 
 to demonstrate. For myself, I have 
 never doubted the reality of the 
 moral order; but I now see plainly 
 that the entire logic of the system of 
 the universe would be overthrown, 
 if such lives were only trickery and 
 delusion. 
 
 THE END.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 000 193 018